prompt stringlengths 20 5.8k | chosen_story stringlengths 226 10k | rejected_story stringlengths 227 9.43k | chosen_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 17:01:55 2022-12-31 14:34:19 | rejected_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 14:23:36 2022-12-31 12:20:41 | chosen_upvotes int64 14 23.1k | rejected_upvotes int64 10 4.26k |
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[WP] A dragon shows up at the adventurers' guild after hearing that humans will just GIVE away gold for something called a "quest." | When the reports of a dragon flying towards the town first came to the hall we dammed near shit ourselves, thinking it one of the great elders come to crush us for some reason. Then when we heard it was small one we planned on killing it and selling the parts. We are adventures after all. But then one of our druids got a weak message that it wanted to talk. Figuring why not and if it landed it would be much easier to kill, the Guildmaster told it to land in the courtyard.
Not being that naive it landed on the commons outside of the town and introduced itself as Stygian and it wanted to know about quests. What followed was one of the most bizarre conversations that has probably ever happened, on this plane at least, boiling down to the fact that Siggy as he is now known wanted to do quests to earn his gold. As its seemed simpler than trying to steal it or extorting it as that tends to bring armies and cause a fuss. (His exact words). Out of shear novelty the Guild voted yes.
After taking him to the hall to show him the quest board he could still fit back then and giving him a enchantment to quickly teach him how to read common completely as his was a bit patchy. we assigned him a mentor a fighter named Brand the fast. He chose his first quest and the two set off.
This went on for a few months with only a few issues and us rapidly moving him up the ranks of difficulty to try to find where he fit and what was appropriate for him. Then after completing his first solo quest. Driving off a particularly annoying pack of Direwolves. Brand was honoured to present him his guild ring that showed him to be a full fledged member with all implied rights. Then during the ensuing party to celebrate he was banned from all future drinking contests after the clerics needed to restore five barbarians to stubborn to stop.
As the years went on Siggy thrived his hoard ballooning and becoming a powerful ally to the guild which had also expanded massively. Having a dragon willing to lend a claw for a cut makes a lot of jobs much easier. Not that he was a tool or being used we all still trained as hard as possible. Hell most of us trained even harder to try and stand with him maybe not as equals but as allies.
Another effect was the mages, scholars and alchemists who came to the guild to study him as well as the fighters and barbarians who came to get in a bit of training as one put it "With a big beastie that won't actually kill me and can give me tips." These were watched carefully by the rest of the Guild who viewed him as a friend and brother and many a alchemist had his head kicked in for trying to steal his moulted scales instead of asking for them as they usually went to the armourers or our potion masters instead of him paying a percentage of his earnings in Guild tax.
This roster of new blood not only allowed the Guild to grow numerically. But it also allowed a valuable exchange of skills, spells and techniques unseen outside of the capital. Who despite numerous invitations Siggy had turned down stating he liked it here and implied that it would cause trouble in the Draconic community as despite his now vast wealth was still fairly young and only growing into his true size. Something that had lead us to call in some expert Dwarven engineers and smiths to make a opening on the roof which he could open and put his head through and then a mechanism to lift the board up to him to collect his quests. Along with a large veranda that meant we could sit outside with him whatever and he could at least get his head out of the rain.
We also used this construction to hide we had commissioned a set of plate armour that would grow with him along with the standard set of protections and maintenance enchantments and a set of light weight leather armour for his wings similar to the stuff rouges wear for maximum flexibility, which frustrated and challenged the Dwarves for weeks. That we gave him as a five year membership gift.
However as his wealth and prestige grew it attracted attention from the other dragons. One of which a elder bronze called Rancorax the brutal demanded fealty stating that it was unseemly for such a young dragon to not serve and pay tribute to a older dragon as was custom. It was a blatant power grab that was rightly refuted to which Rancorax declared war as was his intention all along.
Which is why we all stand here now. Elite Fighters, Warriors, Rouges, Mages, Arch mages, Alchemists and Artificers. The complete manpower of the second most powerful Guild in land, alongside nearly all of those travelling Adventurers that we could call and every favour that we could cash in. Because in a land that is harsh where the monsters are many and aid is scarce, the only people you can rely on is your Guild. So when a Brother calls we answer. | Us dragons don't make much money these a days. Ever since the famed battle of Urug-tral where dragons were defeated at the hands of wealthy tree-slayers, we've been unable to get our wings off the ground. Not in the same way, anyway. We get by. And it's not like we did not avenge our fallen. Indeed as history shows, the battle of tral-bak that followed, us dragons were victorious and our banners flew over the battlefield just as resplendent as ever.
Of course, years of internecine warfare and not to mention conflict with other spirits and dwellers has rendered us subject to the baloon economy of the land. To the best of my knowledge, it's the same everywhere. Young dragons, or otherwise, humans or orcs or even those misfit tree-slayers have a hard time supporting their brood. If the old beards are to be believed, this particular 300 year curse can only be lifted by the forest spirites working together. As far as that goes, we have a better chance of having rain in October.
So when I heard that humans were willing to give away gold for a quest at the near town, I donned my long cape and tom hat and came along. Times are tough, and dragons cannot be choosers. Only after hearing the quest did it make more sense. Indeed humans do not submit to the will of us nether world creatures for nothing. The gold would be delivered on the completion of the whole quest. The quest itself is in three parts. Not only do we have to infiltrate the shogun and disable their top samurai but we have to recover a precious jade artefact. The jade artefact has to be placed high in the Led mountains, inside a hidden temple to protect it from prying eyes. The artefact is worth far more than the quest put together, however it carries great magic inside it and must only be moved in the cover of night.
When we started for our cross-realm journey it did not feel it would be quite as terrifying as what was lying ahead. When we reached the gates of the shogun, stumbling across the town bazaar with teeming supplies and villagers, we shapeshifted and used magic to disguise ourselves as members of the Kirakawa clan, here to settle a monetary dispute.
Inside the shogun compound it was to be more difficult. Once we were acquainted with the priest. We presented our papers, which seemed paler now that we were in the presence of such a powerful sorcerer. Indeed if it weren't for our youthful exhuberance and charm, he might have seen right through us. Us dragons can pry into realms of magic however, and he seemed oblivious. Though I felt him gazing back in the dark of my mind.
We spent a few days at the temple. Completing paperwork. All the well. Drinking and partying late with the samurais was what kept us going through the ritual observances we had to follow during the day time. The samurais on their part were boisterous but without a keen sense of discernment. They seemed to be under a spell of the priest. Sleeping, watchful, terrifying warriors. We knew we could not fight all of them. This had to be done at night. We had to sneak out the next night.
As soon as the lamps were lit, we were out of our hammocks. Crossing the compound to the shogun's samurai's den. It wasn't difficult to coax him into a fight. We'd been drinking for a few days, and samurais are famed the world over for their willingness to fight. Even when the odds are against them.
Eventually we managed to restrain the old shogun and feed him a vial of poison. The poison wouldn't outright kill him but it would keep him out of it for at least a few hours giving us ample time to find the artefact.
Crossing the temple again and entering the chambers at night felt like cursing the moonlight. But we find the artefact, and take it with us.
Crossing back into the forest and back to our realm was both a relief and a terror. Terror at having restrained a samurai and having taken from a temple.
Eventually reaching the inn we were paid our due. The artefact was to be shifted the very next day. We're off. Our part was done. Now it was upto the humans at the inn to make the perilous journey up to their secret mountain and submit the artefact to the temple for safekeeping.
Gold for a powerful jade artefact. And a dead samurai. | 2020-06-08T17:47:23 | 2020-06-08T13:46:59 | 18 | 13 |
[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. | (Edit) paragraphs to make flashback more obvious and a bit of grammar
I sit here in silence, today is the big day. I just wait here in this prison. Locked away deep below the ground, as the Vatican’s most guarded secret.
My name is Lazarus. I managed to keep myself hidden for thousands of years after Jesus was so brutally murdered. I tucked myself away in some mountains somewhere, then men in suits came speaking a language I didn’t understand. This was the first human contact I had since I went into hiding. I was then taken away and brought to this beautiful ornate city, the city I now know as the Vatican. After brutally murdering Christ our Saviour it turns out the Romans (well I suppose they’re long gone now and are now called Italians ) took on the teachings of the son of the Lord Almighty. Quite ironic I thought. They’re nice to me here at least despite not being allowed to leave, or go outside, I get somewhere to sleep, eat and wash. It’s all very ornate and beautiful, I’m even allowed a thing called a Television, I rather enjoy the twenty four hour news show. There has been a lot of talk about how the new Pope has been chosen today, the so called voice of God.
I’m sat here waiting. There’s a knock at the door. After all I’m the Vatican’s most guarded secret. | Resurrected by Jesus, forsaken by God. I know firsthand that there's an afterlife and I know I'll never attain transcendence. I'll simply exist even after the last star slowly dims... I will remain. Tormented by this curse. Those who think heaven is enless life don't truly understand what it means to have consciousness forced upon you for eternity. Perhaps when life was cheap it was an attractive idea but my ultimate reward would be eternal slumber. I've seen the extinction of my own race and have gone mad more times than I can count. Infact It's the knowing that kills you (if only). I still remember mankind, always saying "everyone is different". That's funny because after a few thousand lifetimes, you meet every conceivable personality and become bored with self importance and begin to predict every move a given lifeform will make. As a species humanity was actually quite predictable. Worshiping their children in the misguided desire to extend their lineage. We all knew that the whole thing was a house of cards. | 2018-07-10T23:19:10 | 2018-07-10T22:51:10 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] You are a princess that owns a pet dragon. You are getting tired of constantly having to defend your pet against knights attempting to "slay the dragon and rescue the princess". | Fire and Whispers
​
*‘Not again.’*
I dropped the basket of apples I had gathered and dashed back towards my tower. I furrowed my brow and reached out with my mind.
*‘Sidian, I’m coming*,’ I told my dragon.
*‘Hurry M’lady*. *These ones are strong*,’ Sidian thought back.
Normally the adventurers that came to face ‘The Great Beast’ were fledgling fools, gullible enough to believe my summer home was a ‘prison’ and that my pet was my ‘captor.’ Sidian rarely had trouble disarming and scaring them away, but this group was different.
I drew on my inner reserve of magic. “Haste,” I whispered. Wind whipped at my face, and my hair flailed like a cat-o-nine-tails as my speed tripled.
I sprinted out of the orchard and raced through the gardens in my back yard, leaping over hedges and dashing right through the fountain, b-lining towards the back of my tower.
Sidian’s mind reached out and touched mine. *‘I have been bested. I'm sorry M'lady. It has been an honor*.’ I didn’t take the time to respond.
Going around the tower would take too long. I drew on my magic again, and as I raced towards the back door, I extended my arms, throwing an explosive bolt of magical energy at the barrier. The wooden door erupted into pieces, and I closed my eyes briefly as I dashed through the cloud of splinters, and then raced through the main hall, sending the same spell towards the front door.
I exploded out the entrance to see my black dragon companion standing weakly, his head held low, wings torn. I couldn’t see the adventurers, but knew they were in front of him. I drew the two daggers I kept crossed at the small of my back as I raced towards Sidian, and upon coming up behind him, I leaned backwards and dropped to slide beneath him. As I came out from beneath his massive torso, I saw a great-sword wielding warrior poised to slice my dragon’s head off. As I sprang up in front of Sidian, I saw the warrior's face contort with confusion, but he was already bringing the sword down. I raised my daggers and crossed them, catching his blade between mine. My knees almost buckled from the impact, and had the warrior been striking at full force I might have fallen.
As it was, I managed to stop the blade an inch from my forehead. I sighed with relief, and felt the same from Sidian. His mind brushed mine. *‘Thank you*.’
After the relief came rage. The warrior before me was still bewildered, and stood dumbly. I pushed his blade away, raised my leg and kicked him in the stomach, sending him reeling backwards. Beyond the warrior, a bowman and a magic caster stood at the ready, confused and apprehensive. “What is the meaning of this!?” I demanded, seething.
But I knew it wasn’t their fault. Everyone that came to face my dragon was sent by the same being, a hooded man who spoke in whispers. I didn’t know why he wanted my dragon dead, nor did I know why he lied about me being captured.
Most of the hapless try-hards that came to ‘save’ me were useless, too trusting of their patron to have noticed anything suspicious, but these three seemed capable.
Perhaps they would have some answers.
​
r/TheCornerStories for more stories!
EDIT: Wooot! Thanks for the gold! | Wood splintered as the wooden door was destroyed. The sound bounced off of all four walls, echoing up the tower, and back down. Aurora set down her fork and looked up from her lunch, hoping it was a freak accident from her soldiers training nearby.
Her eyes moved from her table to the breezy doorway and spotted a tall knight in green-gray armor, holding a sword straight out.
“I have come to best the dragon. I wish to save the princess, and marry her into my kingdom” he said in a gravelly voice.
Aurora thought that he may have sounded attractive and strong- had he not just announced he came to kill her best friend and force her into marriage. It wasn’t how any of it worked, and she was very worried for all the women that raised the heathens continuing to destroy her home.
“The dragon is in another castle, sorry,” Aurora said. She glanced at him for a moment longer before turning back to the table. She had only gotten a single bite into her pot-pie when the big strong knight had burst through her front door. She rolled her eyes now that he couldn’t see her. She was very tired of the whole thing.
“Excuse me? Are you the princess?” he asked.
Her irritation growing, Aurora turned back towards him. Her eyelids lowered and the corners of her mouth pulled downward. She saw that subtlety simply wasn’t going to work. Perhaps it would be cathartic to go straight through subtle, bypass polite, and go straight to abusive yelling. Surely horrid men didn’t have a monopoly on emotional rudeness.
She stood up and walked towards him, a beat in-between each footstep, for effect of course.
“I am the princess. This is my castle, and that was my door that you just destroyed. The *Dragon* is mine, and if you so much as touch a single scale on her perfect body,” Aurora reached the doorway where he stood, still. She was in spitting distance of him and began to poke at his plated chest as she spoke.
“I. Will. Hunt. *You.* down.” With the last word, she let her arm drop down to her side and took a step back. “Do we understand? Are we good? I’m kind of hungry and would like to finish my lunch.” She hoped he would hear her words and she could go eat. Her hunger was peaking and it wasn’t helping her anger any at today's intrusion.
The knight stood in her doorway. Although she couldn’t see his face through the helmet, she felt like she could still imagine the blank look upon it. He was thinking, and she thought she would start to smell smoke soon. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to get married if it meant being stuck with one of these types.
Another moment passed and he hadn’t moved or spoke. Aurora shrugged her shoulders and turned around. Walking over to her table she figured maybe she could get a few bites in before he tried again. She sat down and picked up her fork and heard a low murmur. He seemed to be getting closer to a decision, she thought. No worries.
At least these first few bites were still warm. She would enjoy it while she could, and if he persisted…Well, Perhaps the Sapphire was hungry as well.
***
/r/beezus_writes
9/100 for 2019
| 2019-01-09T06:48:27 | 2019-01-09T06:34:18 | 1,257 | 59 |
[WP] The year is 2019. An unidentified radar contact appears over the English Channel, bound for an RAF base. It ignores all calls from Air Traffic Control. RAF fighters are vectored to intercept. The contact: a WWII B-24. Part of its wing is missing, and along its fuselage: long, jagged claw marks. | "I don't remember much of anything, really."
The overhead lights' buzz played softly over the men. A man with a scruffy grey beard sat opposite a young, spectacled--but serious--soldier. The one who was clean-shaven, without any sign of aging, was the person who'd been missing for nearly eighty years. The boy rubbed at his nose while the older gentleman watched him closely, as well as nearly the entire building's staff behind a one-way window.
"The plane began to shake... and I *do* remember the light of the day disappeared before me. I never saw anything else," the boy said. He ran a hand through his combed hair. "I don't even really remember you folks bringing me back."
The older gentleman leaned forward. "You seem nervous, son."
The boy scratched at his arm. "I--I just--I need you to understand that... I really don't understand what happened. I never switched sides. I'm still one of Churchill's boys."
The gentleman's skepticism and inquisitive stare gave way to a brief, but comforting smile. "That's good to hear, soldier."
The boy was able to relax more and he settled his hands on the metal table. "I'm more than happy to answer as many questions as I can, sir."
"Son, do you understand what day it is today?"
"Well, let's see... I'd think it is the 23rd today, sir. I crashed on the day of the battle and I couldn't have been unconscious for more than two days."
"You're correct, it is the 23rd of November."
The boy sighed, visibly relieved. The gentleman went for his mug of tea and had a sip before quietly setting it back down. "Yes..." He seemed cautious about how to proceed with the conversation. "...there's just no other way of approaching the next question."
The confidence that had slowly been building for the soldier began to drain instead. "Yes, sir?"
"Do you know what year this is?"
The boy's fear went to confusion. "I thought we... it's two days after the crash."
"No, son," the gentleman replied. "What year is it?"
"I--it's 1943. Are we doing more memory tests?"
Now it was the gentleman nervous to speak. Nervous at a person's reaction in learning they had missed nearly eighty years of time. Nervous with how the boy would respond to learning that only distant relatives, whom he had never met, were his only surviving family. Despite his many years in the armed services, and his position in the department, he felt incredibly underqualified to inform this boy soldier about the present, let alone the past. He cleared his throat, then moved to unravel the boy's reality.
Edit: Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed! Here's [Part II](https://www.reddit.com/user/MotherJoanFoggy/comments/e4s773/part_ii/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) of the story! | Missiles were launched, and the B-24 was reduced to smithereens. The remnants of the bomber fell into the English Channel, and immediately the RAF contacted the military for support. They waited at first, convinced the long, jagged marks along the fuselage had been made by the splintes of a previous attack.
But the waters soon turned turbulent. They stirred as though something were sucking them from beneath. Great waves rose and lashed the shore, clawing their way higher and higher toward civilization.
Upon seeing this, the military deployed troops, and sent helicopters and submarines where the bomber has fallen. A whirlwind had been formed now, one that widened with each second.
"We can't see anything alien, other than the strange behaviour of the tides," a soldier in a helicopter said. "How do we proceed--"
A tentacle the size and breadth of a building, crowded with jagged claws snapped past the tides, wrapping the helipcoter, crushing it, and hauling it down to the depths.
Desperation ensued. Orders were given for the submarines to destroy whatever was down there. And they did. The blue of the sea flashed red and black; screams and gasps filled the mouths of the citizens who were watching from the comfort of their homes; the very ground trembled.
But the whirlwind widened, and the creature's wrath was unleashed. Its tentacles reached for the fleeing helicopters, for the submarines, obliterating them, killing everyone inside.
"Prime Minister," one of his counsellors said, "the sea level is lowering at a tremendous rate--" The ground quaked then, as though a massive earthquake were striking. Prodigious lumps pushed past the concrete, and the tentacles rose in the midst of the city, lashing against building, destroying them as if they were toys.
"What do we do?" the counsellor shouted, as a tentacle rose in the distance.
The Prime Minister looked at him, his wrinkled hands tremulous. He reached for the phone, and after a moment, he said, his voice brittle, "Nuke it." Then, he dialed another number. "The situation is impossible to handle, President. The enemy seems to be advancing toward the land. I've ordered for it to be nuked, but if we fail, nuke us all, and pray it dies."
The councellor's fail turned ashen. But it was not due to the words that had left the Prime Minister's mouth. No. It was because of the tentacle coming, at blurrying speeds, their way.
-----
I know it's bad. I lack the proper knowledge for a story like this. Hopefully someone comes with a much more accurate one. | 2019-12-01T08:29:11 | 2019-12-01T08:23:40 | 417 | 18 |
[WP] As a vampire, I follow traditions. My fiancé is human and just found out that human brides/grooms are to be bit to become a vampire themselves. She absolutely refuses to let that happen, and says the wedding is off unless I refuse to bite her. I feel like she's disrespecting tradition. AITA? | NTA
Honestly, your fiancé sounds like a piece of work. I am not a vampire but I did grow up in a Japanese household and my parents made sure that I was raised with Japanese culture and customs in mind. They ingrained in me the importance of my heritage and that it important for the world to accept not only our culture, but cultures of all countries around the world.
Now I know that Japanese culture and vampiric culture has many differences. For example, we like sushi and you guys like sleeping during the day. But we are similar in the sense that we should be respected for our beliefs.
My fiance hates sushi. But he eats it every day to show his devotion to me. He is happy to gag on the raw fish that he hates to respect my culture. And I am happy to keep feeding it to him and watch him gag. He asked me to watch the World Cup with him because it is important to him and I told him to fuck off as I shoved another piece of salmon in his mouth to shut him up. It honestly is the healthiest relationship I have ever been in and I am so happy that I married him.
If your fiancé will not do this for you; will not let you bite her on the neck, will not let you pierce her skin so blood drips down and she screams in pain, will not let you change her entire lifestyle as a show of devotion to you, then you should leave her ass by the curb. | NAH
Vampires have a tradition of biting human partners at their wedding, but humans don't. In fact, we have a tradition of wanting to remain living, healthy and whole, inherited all the way back from reptilian ancestors millions of years ago. You seem to have respected that just fine until now, you even came to talk about how you are aware of it. Humans also happen to often have strong opinions on traditions.
For some reason, you assumed she would be okay with being bitten and she assumed such thing wouldn't happen. I'm sure you both worked past a lot of things to get your relationship to this point, and this takes both, all the differences considered. Just keep in mind she didn't disrespect vampire traditions, because she is not a vampire. Unfortunately, she can't both be transformed and not transformed so one must give. On the other hand, humans are comparatively short lived and fragile so do make sure you know what she actually wants you to do regarding her health moving on - bodily autonomy is fundamental. Disrespecting that with any partner would make you a huge AH. | 2022-11-28T19:14:11 | 2022-11-28T17:15:37 | 35 | 18 |
[WP]You've finally arrived at Karakdos, the Planet of War. Its inhabitants are bloodthirsty monsters, committing murder and genocide out of hatred and rage. They've wiped out 9 species on their own, and crippled countless others. However, the humans don't look anything like what you expected | "They're hairless? Well mostly hairless?" he gawked, "They're scrawny little bipeds."
"Do not get too close to their monitoring stations," I warned the captain, "This is very dangerous."
"Dangerous?" the captain laughed, looking at his readouts, "Those are fusion drives? They're primitive too! Is this some kind of joke of the Galactic Network?"
"Yes, they are fusion drives" I answered, "But the guide states that humans are very creative, I can only assume that the guide gives this species an Omega-Class warning for a reason. We should..."
"I'll tell you what we should," the captain said, grinning, "We should catch one. Keep it as a pet. Approach the vessel carefully."
"Captain," I stated, "I must advise against this course of action."
"Noted," he grinned wider, "Now get me one of those humans."
Our ship, a Delta Class Destroyer approached the tiny human vessel and I picked up a pitiful message and played it, "Unknown alien vessel, we are a human trading vessel. We have nothing of value to you, please do not approach."
"Ha ha!" the captain practically giggled as he hit the comms, "Human vessel, you are ordered to power down. You and the contents of your ship are now the property of the Dominion of Stars."
The grappling arms of our ships reached out toward the tiny vessel and the captain leaned forward with a smile on his face. Suddenly our vessel shook as a web of energy emerged from the vessel and there was the sound of an explosion somewhere on our vessel. Warning lights and alarms started blaring on the bridge.
"What is that?" the captain asked, "Destroy them!"
"Unknown ship," the human said over the comms, "Don't say we didn't warn you."
"They seem to have disabled our hyperdrive," I said, I was powering up the weapons in hope we could limp away, "We must get a repair crew to... by the gods..." The last was said as hyperspace portals opened up around us and eight of the largest ships I'd ever seen emerged through them.
"We advise you to power down your weapons," the human commanders voice came over the comms, "We have eight Titan class railguns targetting the center of your ship. We don't take kindly to pirates in these parts. Now, where are you fellows from?" The white bony protrusions lining his speaking orifice sent a chill down my spine.
"Captain," I stated, looking at him, his eyes wide with fear "Let our final logs show that I think you're a god damned idiot." | Humans have been the apotheosis of destruction since first contact.
​
They have evolved from millennia of war, their very existence an impossibility.
​
Feared throughout the galactic community as creatures of ferocious premise, warriors shaped by their brutal past and evolution, their entire body controlled by electricity shaping neurons, powered by internal combustion engines and driven by ancient goal of survival etched into their brains by chemicals. A species so war hungry and bloodthirsty that they wipe out other human variants for the sole fact that they differ from their faction.
​
This was the species I, Xarlath of the Ignous, Captain of the Solar Storm, was ordered to introduce into the Galactic Union. Previous attempts at contact of their Lunar bases and Gas giant stations had lead to the destruction of our diplomats ships and death of over one hundred Galactic Ministers.
​
Their Homeworld nicknamed Krakados by the Galactic community for the sheer insanity of their species is an unassuming wet, mud-ball of a planet, intelligently named by Humanity as "Dirt" our translators stated.
​
As we approach the edge of their lone Sun Solar system, its weak and feeble light barely reaching our ship, I have found myself wondering often as our year long approach draws to a close, what madness must lace their minds, what thoughts of decrepit actions and violent urges do they ponder in their brains?
​
I know what to expect, my death. Plain and simple, Humans are a violent, vile and primitive species with no thought other than to survive, kill and expand. Any idea of what their species looks like is a guess, they hide in their colonies and weapon outposts littered through asteroids and small moon across their system until they gain wind of our arrival and fire upon us.
​
And as the ship activates its shields and crosses the border past the Dwarf Planet "Pluto" I condemn myself and all others on board to their death, Humanity will always be this way, my fathers fathers father knew this over 300 stellar cycles ago, now there is nothing I can do, I leave my fate in the nine hands of the Stellar Goddess and her three handmaidens.
​
*Captain Xarlath, last recorded message before contact with the United Human Collective.* | 2021-01-28T16:24:21 | 2021-01-28T16:08:25 | 32 | 12 |
[WP] “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Mr Bond. I’m going to stick you in a spacesuit with a radio, and strap you into one of my cars. Then, while mankind watches, I’ll launch you into space. The last thing you’ll hear before leaving this earth forever, will be their applause.” | Bond heard the rockets ignite. Strapped into the car, the G-force drove him backwards into the seat, sending his cheeks tearing into his face. His lungs compressed, then almost collapsed, as his entire being shook.
All the while, he thought he could hear Musk's evil laugh.
He would not go out like this.
****
The rockets plunged into space. At his current trajectory, he would forever be stuck in orbit, his corpse withering away in isolation - the perfect crime. Musk would have won, and no one on earth would know that their savior was in fact their doom. Musk had revealed his plans for humanity in true villain fashion - even he could not resist a monologue.
Bond knew how helpless his situation was. There were no parachutes, no way to cancel the payload detachment. Though Bond had survived countless missions before, he knew that this was his end.
But he planned to go out in style.
He eventually managed to pry his right arm loose from the straps. With that, he switched on the car, accessing the GPS system.
He knew there was no way of landing safely back on earth... he could only crash. But he could crash with *purpose*.
Musk had let his hubris get the better of him, Bond thought, as he hacked into the GPS system with a small, metallic object - a deceptively simple device, but then again, Musk was a man of simple efficiency. He used the same GPS system on the car as the rockets itself, and it was a simple task of linking the two operating systems together.
He typed in his destination, pressed 'confirm', and felt the rockets shudder. They used the last of their fuel to divert their course back to earth, then detached themselves soundlessly.
Bond kept on telling himself it was for the good of the world. That this was a selfless act.
But deep down, he tasted revenge.
As he entered the atmosphere, the car burning up, he stared at the blinking GPS system. His destination was nearing, ever so quickly.
As he felt his suit set alight, as a magnificent house came into view, he could only hope that Musk was home.
****
[CroatianSpy](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/) | James struggled to move. His suit had been drilled into the sides of the car, restricting his motion. On top of that, the man had given him a sedative that would relax his muscles while keeping his mind fully aware of the situation he was in.
Millions of people would be watching, yet none of them would know the true horror of the spectacle they were watching. An actual man in that suit? A ridiculous idea.
"You can't stop this, Mr. Bond. Once this rocket launches, the final step of my plan will be in full motion."
James mentally shook his head as he remembered the subtle stutter Elon had developed to lure his followers into believing he was an innocent man with the best intentions driving his endeavors. No one would suspect the truth. *It was all an elaborate scheme.*
*****
James heard the countdown and closed his eyes. As the rocket took off, the weight of a million tons crushed him into his seat, and through the deafening roar of the 27 Merlin engines firing, he could hear the seemingly louder, deafening applause that came through the headset Musk had placed in his suit. Bond passed out.
******
When he awoke, he thought he was in a dream. He could not move his head, but his eyes darted around in his helmet. He was floating in a vacuum, but as he looked ahead, he teared up at the sight of his planet. It looked so peaceful from up here, far away from the petty squabbles that corrupted its surface.
But Bond did not feel sorry for himself. He felt sorry for the millions of people who would worship Elon for the next few years. He felt sorry for the millions of people who would count down the days until Musk launched the Mars Transporter.
And most of all, he felt sorry for the millions of people who would scream in joy when Musk himself boarded his rocket to Mars, completely unaware of the nuclear weapons he would unleash on Earth once he was gone...
| 2018-02-06T20:25:30 | 2018-02-06T20:15:17 | 614 | 128 |
[WP] He knows he shouldn't. He really shouldn't. But Satan really loves the Christmas letters sent to him by dyslexic children. | *Dear Satan,*
*I haev been a good girl this* *~~eayr~~* *year.*
Satan curled the letter an let out a booming laugh. "No she hasn't!" he cackled before clutching his side stitch in delightful agony. He knew exactly how many schoolyard brawls she had started and trinkets she'd stolen since May.
His demon secretary, Urdanu, was on the phone beside Satan's desk. "No, of course we aren't opening them." He covered the mouthpiece and mouthed to Satan that the angels are already on the 40th floor and descending fast. A squad of angels were blasting through checkpoints to retrieve the few letters that were misaddressed to Satan.
Satan puffed his cigar and continued reading.
*I know what I aksed for last year was too ~~uchm~~ much, so I dont want a panda tsih year. Dad lost moms loket—*
"You mean *you* lost it, after taking it without permission and playing with it. This girl is getting coal, Urdanu! No question!"
*—and I was hopeing you cuold give me one like it. It was shaepd like a hart with a bear on top and it had pitucrs. Dad was sad. I know elves cant make picturse so just the locket please. Tanhk you Santa. -Love, Sammy*
Satan folded the letter and handed it to his secretary. "Send up a minor goblin to sneak into the girl's home and dig out a locket from a floor vent."
"Us, sir? Won't *they* handle it?"
"Fat chance. She's been lashing out badly since her mother passed and she hasn't confessed to any of it. Besides," Satan waived for the next letter, "why make her wait till Christmas." | Satan never could understand what God saw in humans. They are strange bags of meat limited by their sub or was, stupidity, and mortal perception of reality.
The main thing God had always hammered on about was love. Wierd. Satan didn’t believe that lie for a second.
Satan, currently was toying with the idea that God kept them around cause they are funny. Running around like they know what they were doing, believing foolish beliefs and ignoring the ones they should. Like Timmy here, kept trying his darnedest to write Santa, but had inadvertently written to him asking for all these... cute things. Like a toy car for his sick little brother Tom...
Something inside Satan grew three sizes. But it wasn’t a heart. And what ever it was quickly exploded and slugged around inside his never ending shifting mass of an internal organ structure.
But Satan had felt something... new. So he decided to use his infinite power to drop Timmy’s letter on Santa’s desk.
—————
When Satan recurved word form an underling that Santa was sending him a shipment, he didn’t know what to think. Was this a trap? He instantly regretted giving him that letter...
But whatever it is Satan was confident he could destroy whatever trick that puny fat man was playing on him.
What he was not expecting was a shipment of millions of millions of letters beginning with Dær Sáñtå, ïn offèrïng my sóûl to yüo... | 2019-08-08T21:30:49 | 2019-08-08T20:29:34 | 671 | 51 |
[WP] Instead of reading 'Pregnant' or 'Not Pregnant', your digital pregnancy test displays 'Stay where you are, everything will be OK' | I stared mutely at the digital pregnancy test display. There were a lot of words I had expected to say once the results came in, most of them along the lines of: "God fucking damn it, Jason" or, "SHE'S SAFE!" followed by a fist pump.
But I hadn't thought that the first words out of my mouth would be: "What the *fuck?*"
Stay where you are, everything will be OK. What the hell kind of shit is this? Did I get a prank pregnancy tester? Was this a defect or something?
...What in the *hell* are the odds of that happening?
My cell phone rings from where I left it on the sink. *I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me, HE'S JUST A POOR BOY, FROM A -*
I pull the phone off the counter as Freddie Mercury sings his heart out, and stare at the call number for a second. *666-666-6666.*
Slowly, my thumb hits the receive button. "Hello? Who is this?" I ask cautiously.
"Would this be a Miss Josephine Maggy Evans?" Asks a smooth and downright seductive voice. "If not, please just say so and we will not bother you further."
"Yeah, you're talking to her." I said roughly. "I prefer Jo, though." I added.
"Splendid!" Crows the man. "We suppose you are wondering about the pregnancy test results you have so recently received?"
*What the fuck?*
"How the fuck do you know about that?!?"
The voice continues unhurriedly. "We are simply people who have mastered the art of having time, and quite frankly people, to kill, torture, and maim for the last four thousand years. But to answer your previous questions, we are Legion and we know about those results because we dwell in the hearts and minds of humans everywhere." It paused, adding, "Please do not panic. As it says on the display, everything will be -"
I hung up. I snorted to myself as I threw the broken tester into the trash can, shaking my head at the state of pranks today. So what if he knew about when I took the test. Probably a coincidence, probably I'd hear my voice on Youtube in the next couple of days on a prank video outtakes section.
I pulled out my phone and was about to call Jason when Freddie Mercury starts singing again.
Its the same number: *666-666-6666*. I feel an eyebrow twitch, and hit the accept button, thumbing the speaker option and bringing it close to my mouth.
I say heatedly, "Listen, assholes, your joke isn't funny anymore and you should just -"
"You are now the mother of the Antichrist, Harbinger of the End Days, and by extension, are now wife to the Adversary himself." Says the smooth voice in a decidedly clipped tone of voice. "Make of that what you will, Lady Jo, because *we* certainly will, and good day to *you!*"
I hear the click of something slamming down an old dial-phone receiver and the dial tone fills the sudden silence. Then my Samsung just falls apart in my hand.
I stare mutely at the collection of metal and plastic in my hands before a thought occurs to me:
*So Jason is literally Satan?* I think about that for a few seconds before nodding slowly. *This explains so much.* | I didn't think much of it when the store clerk asked me if I knew. He seemed a bit odd, but that comes with the territory when you're in a Wal-Mart at 11pm on a Tuesday.
"Know what?" I tilted my head slightly, unsure of whether to be amused or alarmed.
He stared at me for a moment and seemed about to speak before he shook his head and made himself busy with my groceries. "Nevermind, nothin'. You have a good night now. We'll see you again. Squeeze."
His words came back to me as I stood in the bathroom waiting. Squeeze. I could almost hear him saying it again. The voice almost sounded familiar, but I couldn't place where I had talked with him before. I was certain that I had never seen him at that Wal-Mart.
"Oh come on, Jennifer," I laughed at myself in the mirror. "You might be pregnant and here you are, worrying about some guy from the grocery store."
Suddenly, the mirror disappeared. In an instant, I was surrounded by darkness.
Before I could scream, the bathroom returned. After taking a moment to ensure that reality planned on sticking around, then I took the opportunity to scream.
Once a few more seconds of panic had passed, I put a hand on the counter top in front of me. It was reassuringly solid. My heartbeat began to slowly return normal. Nothing to worry about. It was probably just the stress. After all, I was staring down the barrel of a potentially life-changing moment.
I looked at the stick in my hand and shook my head. Twelve dollars and ninety nine cents plus tax. Twelve dollars and ninety nine cents to find out if I was about to bring another human being into the world. Robert was going to be so happy if this had finally worked.
Okay, let's pee on this thing.
Time does funny things when you are waiting. I'm pretty sure it's because time is a sentient creature that hates us.
For God's sake, please just tell me something.
Suddenly, words appeared on the tiny screen. I laughed when I read them. "Stay where you are, everything will be okay."
Odd prank, but people must get bored making these things. Still, this meant that I had to go all the way back to Wal-Mart and go talk with that creepy clerk again.
"SQUEEZE."
The room disappeared again. This time, though, there was light behind me. I tried to turn my body so that I could locate the source, but found that I was unable to move.
"My wife! What are you doing to my wife?"
A new voice. It sounded familiar. Then, I heard the man from Wal-Mart respond.
"Sir, I said please *stay where you are*. We are doing everything that we can."
Another voice muttered, "She's gone."
There was a pause, and I heard the man who had been yelling for his wife choke. There was a profound silence, followed by him softly crying, "Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer..." He wouldn't stop saying the name.
Suddenly, I felt a pair of hands pull me from the darkness and light exploded into my eyeballs. I cried.
"Well," Wal-Mart said. "At least the baby is healthy."
*Edit: typo* | 2015-06-12T19:15:11 | 2015-06-12T18:48:52 | 352 | 26 |
[WP] When humans join the galactic community, we find out that the domestication of animals is a rare feat unique to us. Aliens are amazed by our training of dogs, riding of horses, comfort with cats, and so on. This has had a profound effect on perceptions of our species... | It had only been a few years since humans joined the rest of the galaxy, and already a great controversy had arisen from the combination. The Galactic Council of the Free People had discussed this matter on and off, but it was only since last year that this debate became of such grace importance.
Humans had just "domesticated" a moon of Lower Sapients - bi-pedal reptilian creatures, with a few words of language, basic medicine and bows and arrows - who slipped into the category.
Some thought the humans had offered technology or protection, but they did not.
Some called it enslavement, but neither was it involuntary. It was like they had somehow shunted the unspoken hierarchy down, and placed themselves on top. They would say a command, and they would hunt for them, even perform acrobatics, and dance!
"These are merely parlour tricks!" Shouted one of the members across the enormous, ancient wooden hall. "Nothing more!"
"Yes, Schmig!" Kirtan chortled. "Keep telling yourself that when the humans are making more Sapients jump through hoops!" A pale old, green-haired woman rose.
"Agreed! How long before we ourselves are like those lizard pets of theirs! They fell to their bidding quicker than any animal on earth. We may all be susceptible!" Vehement murmurings spread across the room, of panic, and outrage.
"Settle!" A resounding smack of a hammer cast silence upon them. "I think it is time for a hearing from the representative."
The great entrance doors screeched open, and in came a boy of roughly teenage years. Some members had forbidden the representative being an adult as they were "too intelligent".
"You bring him in here?" Bellowed Kirtan. "So close we could touch him? Do you wish for the whole council to be corrupted by-"
"For God's sake man, he is a child!" Boomed the chairman.
"I don't care if he's an infant!" Cried the green-haired woman. "We all know they play with dogs twice their size before they can walk!" She points a finger to the child "You, boy! Tell me why you try to bind collars round our necks! Is there no end to your power!"
The boy's eyes widen sadly. A deep ocean of blue. So sad they were impossible to look away from.
"I don't know what you mean miss." He whispered. "I'm very sorry if I have hurt you." The silence was so crisp the woman's breathing could be heard slowing down, and she guiltily steps back an inch.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I don't want to. That's a great opportunity for me to be friendly, and you to be friendly, so we can both be friends." He tentatively took the slightest step towards her. Everyone seemed wary, but the feeling was soon swept away by the irresistible aura emanating from him. So steadfast, wise, dependable.
He slowly walked over to her, and touched her head with feather-weight pressure. She hugged him.
"Oh dear boy, you have kind words. Is there anything I can do to help you feel more at home?" He smiled warmly.
"Well, as a new friend, I would really appreciate a glass of water please. And maybe after that I can show you how to shake hands like humans do."
"Oh of course dear! I'll go fetch!" She scampered off.
The boy took a seat, and grinned. . . | **Tytekk'tak:** I strongly suggest we destroy their planet.
**Galactic Council Collective Mind:** Tytekk'tak, you are highly respected and have served the Galactic Council for tens of thousands of cycles. However, we are shocked at your suggestion. We have not needed to eliminate any race in over 500,000 cycles. Know that all of our minds representing the 326 species of the Galactic Union are surprised.
**Tytekk'tak:** Well. Just look at what they do? They take their fellow animals and then breed them. They use them for their own benefit. Live fellow animals! Many of them show emotions yet the Humans abuse them. Imagine what they'd do to us.
**Galactic Council Collective Mind:** Well. The Zsyrrysk did that. We spared them and let them join the Galactic Union.
**Tytekk'tak:** Yes the Zsyrrysk, but nothing as sadistic as humans. Look with your individual eyes and see what these humans do on the viewscreen! Behold the terror. Here's the fine hunter carnivorous species they call the dog. They've bred them into different breeds. Here's what they call the Pug. It's eyes barely stay inside and its nose has become so short it can barely breathe. And they keep them in leashes and cages! The humans have bred a species they call Cat, which they use to wipe out many flying species. They often keep them together and laugh as the Cat abuses the Dog. This is a depraved race.
**Galactic Council Collective Mind:** But don't the Cyrrila have a cooperative with a similar protection species?
**Tytekk'tak:** Yes. But humans go one further. Even worse, they have Cows, which they breed to eat their meat and milk them for their young, the humans acting much like a bloody parasite. They have Pigs, an intelligent animal which the humans mutilate into humiliating shapes and eat them. And to scare their subjugated Dog species, they take the mutilated elongated Pig meat and call the meal a Hot Dog. We have omitted the Chicken, was has been force bred to be turned into 4 meat shapes that they serve on their entire planet.
**Galactic Council Collective Mind:** This is depraved. Are all of them like this?
**Tytekk'tak:** It is depraved. Sadly most of them. Most of them eat meat. Many of them have animal slaves. However, there is a group that doesn't do this though and are part of a special organization. We can save them only and let them join our ranks as they are the only civilized ones. But the rest will have to go.
**Galactic Council Collective Mind:** We have seen enough of your presentation. And we, the representatives of the Galactic Union, concur. The human race must die with the exception of this group that are more enlightened. What are they called?
**Tytekk'tak:** PeTA...
*And that's the story of how PeTA came to represent the human race and join the Galactic Union. To this very day they throw paint on every furry species in the galaxy.* | 2017-06-05T03:21:58 | 2017-06-05T00:34:20 | 46 | 18 |
[WP] You receive a government text warning saying “EMERGENCY - LOCK ALL DOORS AND STAY INSIDE. DO NOT PANIC”. You hear your SO at the locked front door, who’s just come back from the supermarket. They beg to be let inside but you’re unsure. Something doesn’t feel right. | I’m not even sure this is the right place to post, but I’m worried about my sister. About three hours ago I got a text from the Emergency Alert System. I checked my Facebook to see if anyone else got the same thing. It seemed like it was a practical joke and I couldn’t find anything in Google News.
My sister sent me these messages and I haven’t heard from her in over an hour. I’m hoping someone can give me some advice.
**Allison:** Hey Danny… did you get a text telling you to stay inside and lock your doors?
**Me:** Yeah. Pretty weird.
**Allison:** Any idea what’s going on?
**Me:** Nope. Just relaxing at home.
**Me:** Is Jonathan home from work yet?
**Allison:** No, he just went to the store. I’m kinda worried.
**Me:** I’m sure everything’s fine. You know the government is paranoid about every little thing. Probably an underground gas leak or something.
Allison didn’t respond for a while and I resumed my binge watching of Attack on Titan. That’s some weird shit, man. At this point, I wasn’t really concerned. My neighborhood was quiet, it was below freezing outside, and about two feet of snow had fallen during the day. Everything seemed normal.
**Allison:** Danny…
**Allison:** I’m scared.
**Me:** What’s wrong? Do you want me to come over?
**Allison:** No. Don’t go outside.
**Allison:** Jonathan is home.
**Me:** Well that’s good.
**Allison:** No. No something’s wrong with him.
**Allison:** I don’t know what to do.
**Me:** What’s wrong with him?
Three little dots danced at the bottom of my screen for more than five minutes before disappearing. I tried calling my sister four times with no answer. I tried to keep watching my show for a few minutes but my brain started playing all the “what-if” scenarios. I called again and Allison finally answered.
“Hello?” Her voice was small, quiet. Completely unlike her.
“Al?”
“Danny?”
“Allison, what’s going on? Why didn’t you answer the phone?”
“Something’s wrong with Jonathan. He’s not him.” She said, her voice hitching. Her shaky breaths sent a wave of anxiety to my stomach.
“Allison… did you open the door?”
“No. No. I’m hiding. I tried calling the police but it doesn’t go through.”
“What’s wrong with Jonathan?” I was pacing my living room, my jaw clenched. She was quiet for a while.
“He’s not him, Danny. He’s not him. He’s not walking right. And his voice. Oh God, his voice.”
“Is he hurt?” I asked as I grabbed my keys. “I’m coming over.”
“No!”
“What do you mean no? I’m coming over!”
“No! Danny, listen to me.” She whimpered again. I could hear a weird rhythmic sound in the background. “Listen. Something is wrong with him. With everyone outside.”
I hunched in front of my window and pulled the blinds apart with a finger. It was pretty dark outside but the snow reflected enough light that I could make out a group of people standing in the parking lot of my complex.
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
“Danny… what’s go-g on? Da-”
The called dropped. I gaped at the group of people as they formed a circle. Where they walked the depressions of snow were oddly dark. I squinted and leaned in closer, suddenly thankful to be on the third floor. The people raised their hands into the air as if they were making a “Y” and began to sidestep.
Their movements were unnatural, synchronized. I could see now none of them had any clothes on. They began screaming towards the sky as their heads bent back too far. They were standing straight up, heads touching their spine. They lowered their hands to join together and fell backward into the snow – faces and asses disappearing into the white powder.
I’ve tried calling Allison back. She won’t pick up. No one is picking up. I still have cell service but my water stopped working about 15 minutes ago and the power has been flickering. Does anyone know what’s going on? Has anyone else seen this stuff? I feel like I’m losing my mind. I can’t find anything about this online. No one is talking about it. Is it just here in the Midwest? Is it everywhere? If anyone knows anything… please. I really want to go check on my sister.
| I read the alert and hesitated, unsure if it was real. “EMERGENCY - LOCK DOORS IMMEDIATELY AND REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” I glanced over the text once or twice more before hurriedly pacing around the house and double checking all doors and windows.
About 5 minutes passed before I realized- my wife was out there somewhere. I called several times and it went straight to voicemail each attempt.
Time had screeched to a halt as I panicked wondering what could possibly be happening so serious that I need to stay indoors no matter what. Just then I heard a car pulling up into the driveway from the kitchen adjacent to the garage.
I rushed to the front door and went to unlock it before stopping myself and thinking; my contemplation was interrupted with a familiar gentle 3 rhythmic knocks.
I peeked through the peep hole in the door and sure enough it was my wife.
She looked concerned and looked over her shoulder every so often.
I wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say.
3 more knocks a little bit more hurried than before rung out as she looked behind her again.
My morals were being tested as I debated if my wife was worth whatever may happen if I open this door- if this is even my wife, that is.
Just as I opened my mouth to say something a gloved hand grabbed my wife’s shoulder, though I couldn’t see who the hand belonged to.
I started to scream but nothing came out, my heart was racing and I knew I needed to open the door but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I heard a deeper voice muffled by something start speaking to my wife.
“Ma’am please step away from the door”, my wife’s familiar soft voice replied inquiringly;
“What’s wrong officer?”.
I sighed, relieved that it was some sort of government official who could keep my wife safe.
The officer answered with questions of his own; “Is this your house? Have you been in anyone’s home in the last 3 hours?”.
“No sir, I was running errands. Shouldn’t I be indoors though?” My wife said. The officer sounded relieved and answered in a cautiously optimistic tone.
“No ma’am, the alert was to keep those who have been home inside. Something I can not disclose went wrong and water lines have been contaminated. We cannot risk this spreading and told those indoors to stay indoors. Do you live with anyone? If so are they home right now?”.
My heart dropped as my wife replied “Yes sir. My husband is in the house right now. He hasn’t answered the door so I’m guessing he’s asleep. Wait- will be be okay? Oh f-“
She was cut off as the officer along with two others going around the neighborhood escorted her. I heard one of the other two officers say “We’re sorry for your loss”.
Come to think of it, I feel... off.
Like...
REALLY off.
“But- if-“ I began to reason with myself saying it was in my head. I looked in the mirror and despite being a pale person, I was deathly pale and my eyes were sunken in. I went to run out of the door but in the time I was processing what just happened they had barricaded my door with some sort of wedge.
I looked out of my window and as a police car with my wife in the back drove down the street I saw people in hazmat suits dropping the same types of tarps used in fumigation over my neighbors houses.
I went to open a window on the first story to get out despite knowing I shouldn’t as if something was possessing me to do so but before I could, one of the tarps fell over my house. I tried to climb under but they were weighted. Everything is becoming hazy.
Where is my wife?
Wait- what is even happening?
What’s happening to me?
Why am I losing my strength?
I’m fading.
I can’t close my eyes or I won’t open them.
I can’t close my eyes, I can’t... close... my...
Edit: fixed the “wall of text” | 2019-01-12T08:53:28 | 2019-01-12T08:53:12 | 124 | 32 |
[WP] You involuntarily bring back souvenirs from your dreams, simple things like a flower or some dirt, an article of clothing, a paintbrush. This morning, you awake next to another person. | Nothing has been the same since the divorce. It was my fault really. I married her without giving us enough time to really get to understand each other. Naturally, my first night alone was less than restful. My dreams were full of wizards, and dragons, kings and quests. Things from stories my father had read to me growing up. Those stories helped me deal with the world when I had nothing else to fall back on.
Now it was similar. Looking back I'm not surprised that's the first place my mind fled to, but something was strange. When I awoke, there was a frog sitting on my chest. Naturally I flailed around in the sheets and ended up on the floor, and had to chase the slimy thing for a good half hour before it calmed down . Every night since then, something has appeared in my bed when I wake up. The largest thing I've ever brought back was a cat. Not an actual cat, more of a cat-like statue, but relating to size, nothing ever larger than a cat. The novelty of this phenomena has long faded, but sometimes I get a little chuckle at the odd items I discover.
Today however, was different. I suppose old habits resurfaced, because I got up and showered like any normal day. Walking back to my room I was met with an odd sight. Here I was standing in the doorway, covered in only a towel, and lo and behold, a woman was sitting on the edge of my bed. She looked about my age, had dark, shoulder-length hair, and her green eyes were looking at me with the most curious expression. I suppose I wasn't fully aware of my appearance because when she turned her head aside and spoke, heat immediately began flooding my cheeks.
"Um, would you mind telling me what's going on?"
"Oh my gosh, one moment!" I quickly retorted and mad a mad dash for my closet. After hurriedly donning some jeans and a shirt, I walked over to the desk near the bed and sat down, repositioning the chair to face her.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, such as who I am and where you are. Please take your time and I'll try to answer what I can..."
It's been 2 years since that awkward morning, and boy, has it been quite an adventure. Sophia and I have been happily married for the last year, and ever since then, we both find weird objects in our bed every morning. I'm still not sure why this happens, or why Sophia appeared that day. No other person has ever appeared. Maybe it was an act of mercy towards a broken, and foolish man, from whatever strange being is enacting such a power. All I can say is this. Life is what you make of it, and my dreams can shape my destiny. | You are awoken by the sound of a small child crying. A girl, by the sounds of it, sobbing uncontrollably.
Instinctively you clutch at the ragdoll you’re expecting to be in your hands. Nothing is there, which confuses you. You always bring a souvenir back from your trips, and you distinctly remember picking up a Raggedy Ann doll. You had been touring a quaint little curio shop in your dream, and the doll caught your eye because it reminded you of a similar one you had as a kid.
Your confusion quickly changes to panic as the sobs of the scared child penetrate your thoughts again. As you sit up and you look to the floor at the foot of your bed, you see the source of the pitiful sounds. A child, probably 5 or 6 judging by their size, curled into a tight fetal ball on your bedroom carpet while shrieking in fear.
You jump out of bed, wild-eyed and confused, throwing your blankets to the floor in shock. “What’s going on? It’s alright! It’s okay! I won’t hurt you!” You can’t think of anything else to do but try to comfort the child, before their shrieks draw the attention of your neighbors, who know you don’t have a daughter. “Please! Please! Who are you?!”
The child’s back heaves with ragged, panicked gasps as she struggles to breathe through her terror. You watch as she rolls forward on to her knees and starts to rock her head into the floor, somewhat rhythmically at first, but quickly becoming frenzied. The crown of her nose splits open almost immediately, and blood starts to splatter your bedspread and wall as she continues to smack her forehead against the ground. Her crying never falters during this violent outburst, in fact it only grows louder and stronger. You realize within seconds that what you mistook as the fearful cry of a child was in fact the deranged laugh of something much more insidious.
Even as you begin to run toward your bedroom door, some part of you knows you’ll never make it. The creature hasn’t moved other than to mutilate itself while cackling, and yet you know without a doubt that it is terrible and inescapable.
Your last thoughts, while a demonic hellspawn chews through your chest cavity to rip out your heart, are about that Raggedy Ann doll. Why did you decide to bring that back, out of all things? Everyone knows that dolls are always haunted in dreams. You’d have to be a real idiot to miss that. | 2020-10-11T22:30:14 | 2020-10-11T19:30:59 | 60 | 35 |
[WP] Everyone has a number on their chest showing how many people they will kill in the next month. Yours just changed from 1 to 3 million. | He stood in front of the mirror, thinking to himself. “I have to pass, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t pass, if I don’t get in.”
Slowly he tore open the envelope, not even sure he wanted to know. He closed his eyes, slid the letter out and unfolded it.
*“We’re sorry, you did not meet the minimum score to allow entrance to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts class of 1908. You do have the opportunity to apply agai…………………”*
As he gazed at his reflection in the mirror, his number changed.
| "Ah, at this point who gives a fuck," I mumbled to myself, thinking back on that time Janet called me ,"like, LITERALLY HITLER." dumb bitch.
I took out the rag from my pocket and began cleaning the console of the nuclear reactor. There always was so much dirt lining all those shiny weird buttons. | 2016-06-24T03:51:47 | 2016-06-23T23:55:15 | 37 | 14 |
[WP] You are a mobster. A particularly successful one at that. But as your turf becomes gentrified, the absurdly priced furniture in your 'Front' store actually starts selling. | "Hey, hey, what are you bastards doing!" the boss shouted. He had a double barrel behind the counter that he had his hands on. The shoppers turned towards him.
"Oh, we're sorry, are you closed?" asked one of them. They were crowded around an armoire that was priced at 5,000 dollars.
"What-" He rubbed his face. It was too early for this. "The doorman left the door unlocked?"
"If you're closed, then we can come back later."
"Whadyamean, 'closed'?"
"Your furniture store, are you closed?"
The boss thought for a second. They must be speaking in code. "No, we're not 'closed'. What piece of 'furniture' would you like?"
"Well, I really like the armoire, it has a certain beauty to its simplicity. But my wife thinks we already have enough, so we're looking for something else."
"Ah, I getcha." He winked not-so-subtely at the couple. "Would you like some 'upper' furniture or 'downer' furniture?" He winked again.
"Well, my wife and I like pieces that add a certain *energy* to us, do you have that?"
"Of course. I have a, erm-" He tried to think of a code for crack. "'Airmchair' that can give you and your 'wife' a lot of energy." He pointed towards the piece that sat unused for years.
"Oh, that's magnificent!" They began inspecting the chair. "What craftsmanship!"
The boss grunted. They were doing a really good job at keeping in character.
"I also have defensive 'furniture'."
"Oh? What's that about?"
"I have automatic and semiautomatic 'furniture'."
"Sounds a bit too advanced for us. Let us think for a moment."
After a few minutes, they decided. "We'll buy two chairs."
"Great, price is street price."
"Okay, do you take card?"
"You ain't gotta pay me until you get the product, alright?"
"In that case, let me go get my truck."
The boss stared at them for a moment. "Why would ya need a truck?"
"To carry the chairs."
"But it's only a few grams of 'chair'."
The two scoffed in unison.
"That is an oak chair, it is heavy as sin Mr. Strongman."
"Wait, you're actually just buying the chair?
"Uhh, yeah, what else would we be buying from a furniture store? Drugs?" The couple laughed.
The boss sat, flustered for a moment, before opening the back room.
"I'll get the second chair out for ya." | It was another eventful day, our guys went and got the money collected and those who couldn't repay, well we made sure to put them into use for others not to default. After all I have a reputation to keep. I came here to this city in search of a job 10 years ago but when I had beat up the security guard for not giving me parking space at the interview location my life had changed. Arrested, imprisoned and made new friends and even got a degree in law and economics in my five year sentence and I practiced martial arts every day with a balance of meditation.
I became an enforcer for a local mobster and within a year I took his place after marrying his daughter and well nothing did stop me from then on. Within four years my operations dealt with protection, weed and maintaining a steady supply of jobs to the underprivileged. I was against the blood business and also was a human rights activist. I know, funny.
I wanted to get clean, my actual businesses and law practice were booming and in no time I will be completely off this way of life until I heard my loss making store was making money. My entire foundation of clean businesses was based on my "Water from Ganges" not being successful. We basically got truckful of Ganges water which was then sold in bottles of 2 litres for 200 dollars. We knew no one would buy it and we would make enough loss to justify my other income. I just needed another year before I could shut the shop down.
I was furious and when I am furious, I am silent. The shop had a long line of expectant customers. I entered the shop and my men realised they are in trouble. "It's all the fault of these tourists and their miracle stories" said my junior henchman.
Kim, my protege from South Korea and the enforcer looked at me and said," Apparently one of the guys had cancer and after drinking water from here, he was cured. His story went viral". Now everyone in the locality and the city want to buy this water."
I sat down and looked at the crowd and my bottles of the "Water from the Ganges". Guess, I have to be mobster for a while now. I sighed and asked who was the tourist who did this?
Kim was hesitant. I glared. He showed me the picture and said, 'The security guard'. | 2019-08-10T17:34:50 | 2019-08-10T15:39:02 | 60 | 41 |
[WP] With the hero chained up, the villain unveils their masterpiece: a weapon that tracks everyone who loves the hero before obliterating them. The map powers on. "Wait. There's just one dot." The Villain says. "...Someone loves me?" The hero replies with hope. | "Someone loves me?" Morgan looked away from the screen to stare at Peace, the hero, the savior, strapped to his masterpiece. It- it must have been mistaken! Something about Peace's powers must have caused it to malfunction!
"Of course someone loves you!" Morgan snapped. Her grand plan, her magnum opus! Ruined because of a bug. "You're their hero, the man who saves the day and asks for nothing in return!" Peace let his head fall and a broken chuckle fell from his lips.
"That isn't me though." He said, "They love the mask, the powers, the things I do for them. Most of them don't even notice when a hero gets replaced."
"So what? You may always be ready to thwart my plans, but you have days off! You have a secret identity. Surely your friends love you." Morgan scowled and turned back to the machine. Perhaps there was some way she could shield it from the sub-gamma wavelengths that short-circuited Peace's powers. But those only worked so long, she'd have to figure out how to speed up the scan process as well.
"Not really. That-" Peace coughed, blood landing on his chin that he didn't even seem to notice, "All I really get to do is watch people up close."
"Parents then! The brother you mention in interviews!"
"My brother hates me." Morgan stopped her frantic tinkering, "I've been Mom and Dad's golden goose since I started flying out of the crib. He's a banker in nathbakkae last time I looked him up. Can- can that device show who it is?"
"What?"
"Who it is who loves me. Can, can I at least know before you finish me off?" Morgan growled, grabbing her wrench and chucking it across her lair.
"How can you just accept this?! You give and you give and you give for what?! For a life so lonely only a single person loves you?! I could throw anyone in that chair and get at least a dozen hits. Even I get nine!" Peace just shrugged, and Morgan let out another irritated noise, before reaching up and changing the screen view. It came up somewhere in downtown supesville. She stuck a hand out and summoned her crystal ball, before taking a breath and scrying. A girl came into view, quietly playing with her dolls. He had a kid and only one-
He looked confused. Peace had a near flawless memory and this girl was so innocuous it took him nearly half a minute to figure out where he knew her from.
"She's one of the girls who take the school bus past my house. That light's always long, so I usually wave as they pass. I think," He closed his eyes, "I'm pretty sure she's one of the ones who answers whenever I ask how their day was."
"And that's it? A girl who's name you don't know is the only one who loves you?"
Peace just nodded, leaning his head back against the table he was strapped to, "Thank you Void."
"Morgan."
"Morgan?"
"Calling me that right now... Just, just use my real name." Morgan sank down into her throne.
"Ok Morgan." Peace said, "I, my parents named me Jack. Before they turned me into Peace. If you want-"
"Those creatures don't deserve the right to be called your parents." Morgan didn't know what to do. She- she HATED Peace. He was the bane of her existence, the man with everything, the perfect human with the perfect life. She'd dreamed of destroying everything he loved, of bringing him to her level and showing him just how it felt to be pathetic, abandoned little Morgan Lafayette.
Turns out he had even less than she did. There was nothing to take.
"Why do you still do it?" Morgan's voice was weaker than it had been in years, since she'd squeaked out apologies from the corner.
"Be a hero?" She didn't know what name to use for him, "My parents told me to and I guess I just... never stopped."
"So its all been an act? You never cared about the people you saved?"
"I guess? The guy who files court reports helps people. Does he care about them?"
Morgan felt sick. It was all so meaningless. This entire war, this entire crusade, this entire life!
"If, if you could get out, would you?"
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
It took 3 weeks for Void's layer to be discovered after Peace went missing. The league busted down the doors, but there wasn't any security active anymore. They cleared the entire facility, but it wasn't until they reached the bottom floor that they found them, two bodies on the floor. There didn't look to be a fight. Even the weapon Void designed to weaken Peace was by his side, not hers.
The funeral was a global event. Everyone, even villains he had defeated countless times, stopped to pay respect to the hero.
None of them cared for the man though.
"Do you regret it?" Morgan asked. She hadn't had any interest in watching the farce, but he'd insisted.
"Yea. Yea I'm sure."
Mr. and Ms. Lafayette, a set of siblings as far as any record, memory, or person could tell, watched the burial of the facsimile Void had made to try and defeat Peace. They decayed quickly, but no one would dare exhume Peace's body to find that out. The mimicry of Void had been chucked as far as she knew. The only instruction she'd given them was to make sure they were hidden before they failed.
"Peace's parents reach out in support of mental health." The news reporter went on to say, and the newly named Marcus reached out to turn it off before they could appear on screen.
"I still could ruin them. A time delayed message wouldn't be strange."
"No, its fine." Marcus said, "It doesn't matter anymore. I don't need to worry about them." He took a sip of tea and smiled. "For the first time ever, I can just..."
Live. | “Mwah ha ha!” Doomlord cackles, triumphantly raising his arms. “I got you now, Lightball!”
“Curse you, Villain!” Lightball roars, struggling against the iron chains that restrains him. He attempts to use his powerful ability to turn light into a ball, but with a shock he realizes he’s unable to. But that can only mean…
Lightball takes a closer look at the chains that bind him. With horror, he sees a terrifying brown thread that runs throughout the iron links.
“Tweed?” Lightball gasps in horror. “No, not tweed!”
“Yes, tweed!” Doomlord says with an evil grin. “Your one weakness, the one substance on this planet that can seal your powers. You thought you could hide this secret from me?” Doomlord’s smile widens. “There is nothing you can hide from me, Lightball. Not even… your loved ones!”
With a flourish, Doomlord thrusts his arms at the massive monitor behind him. The black screen flares to life, revealing a 3D map of the globe.
“What nefarious tricks are you up to now, Doomlord?” Lightball demands. He struggles vainly against the chains to no avail.
Doomlord rubs his hands together in a decidedly evil way. The sight of it sends shivers down Lightball’s spine.
“Oh, Lightball,” the Villain says with mock sadness. “Is it time for me to begin monologuing so soon? I had hoped you would put up more of a fight.”
“I’ll show you a fight!” Lightball struggles against his chains even harder.
“Oh stop it,” Doomlord snaps. “All that rattling is making it hard for me to hear myself. You know what, I think you need… some more tweed!” The Villain produces a remote out of nowhere and presses a big red button; a hatch retracts in the ceiling above Lightball’s head and out falls a bundle of tweed, draping itself over the Hero’s squirming body.
“Grahhh!” Lightball screams. He immediately slumps, the brown fabric draining him all of his power. His skin turns gaunt, his hair loses its colour, and in the space of a few moments Lightball the handsome Hero looks like a decrepit bag of bones.
Inwardly, Doomlord recoils in horror and thinks, *Oh, God…*
Outwardly, Doomlord cackles again, his carefully practiced evil laugh echoing in his evil cavernous lair.
“Don’t die so soon, Lightball,” Doomlord says. “You have yet to see my plan come to fruition. Feast your eyes as my patented Doomlord technology identifies all those who love you across the world… and lasers them!”
Doomlord presses a button on his remote, and the monitor begins making a beeping noise. Lightball feebly raises his head and watches as the globe on the screen begins to spin rapidly. When it settles, a single red dot is visible somewhere over North America.
“Oh,” Doomlord says. “Oh my.” He frowns and presses the remote again. The globe rotates 360 degrees until it settles back on the single red dot.
“What?” Lightball says weakly, still tweed-covered. “What does that mean?”
Doomlord turns around to face the Hero, opens his mouth, then closes it.
“Er,” Doomlord says awkwardly. “It means there’s only one person who loves you on this planet…”
Lightball’s jaw drops. Teary-eyed, and not because of the tweed, he says, “Someone… loves me?” He begins to sob. “Someone loves me! Oh, oh my God, someone loves me!”
Doomlord recoils, not only with his body but with the tiny part of his heart that still remains empathetic to others.
*Jeez,* he thinks, watching his arch-rival blubber and wail.
“Um, yeah,” Doomlord says, scratching the back of his head. “Someone loves you.”
Lightball leans forward against his chains, the tweed covering his body seemingly forgotten. “Can… can you show me who it is? Please?”
Doomlord thinks about denying as a proper Villain should, but then he looks at the poor Hero’s hope-filled eyes and realizes that he’s maybe not cut out for this job.
“Sure, man,” Doomlord mutters. “Whatever.” He presses some buttons on his remote and the map of the world zooms in on the red dot. It takes a few seconds, but soon his Doomlord satellite reveals a small suburban house in a clean neighbourhood. And inside…
Doomlord’s heart cringes even more. The screen shows some kind of brown dog curled up by the front door. The one person who loves Lightball… is a dog. He forgot to set the system to isolate only humans, not animals.
He turns to face Lightball slowly, really wishing he was somewhere else right now.
“Ruffles,” Lightballs whispers, his eyes glued to the screen. “That’s my Yorkie, Ruffles. She… she loves me. She’s the only one in this world who loves me.”
Doomlord wonders if he should maybe laser himself right now, just to get away from this horribly awkward situation.
He coughs into his hand. “Um. You know what, I actually don’t have to go through with this plot. Why don’t I… why don’t I just let you go, huh, buddy? Go… play fetch with your dog, or something.” He presses another button on his remote and the chains fall away from Lightball, who’s still transfixed on the screen.
“Ruffles,” Lightball says again, trembling. He shoots his feet, suddenly renewed. He gives a shout and snaps his arms and legs out like a starfish; light surrounds the Hero like a hamster ball, and the Hero rolls away, head over feet, screaming, “I’m coming, baby!”
Doomlord watches the Hero roll off into the distance, then quietly begins preparations to shut down his lair for good.
---
*No, not tweed! /r/chrischang* | 2021-06-18T23:08:26 | 2021-06-18T21:14:49 | 2,253 | 572 |
[WP] You are best friends with Death. Although you don't know this. Every Sunday he has you killed just to talk to you about his week then brings you back to life after. However you never remember the meetings. | I like Sundays.
It's nice. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was kind of a soothing time.
For one whole day, I fall asleep. I dream senseless dreams and I never remember them when I awake.
It was just like any other Sunday. I laid out in my bed and I waited for my dreams to come and take me. It didn't take too long.
I woke up. I think I opened my eyes but it made no difference. Darkness.
Then, a visage came out of the shadows. A skull and a hood covering it. Instinctively, I inhaled and almost pushed myself backward. Against my better judgment, however, I... thought I knew it. Death itself.
Death looked at me.
"Old friend. You are back."
"Old friend?" I asked. "I... think I know you."
"You do old friend," Death replied. "Come. Let us not whittle our time away with senseless introductions."
He talked about his week. I talked about what I remembered for my week.
Somehow, I knew a lot of the things that he was talking about. You know those inside jokes that you can barely remember how it came about, but it's just become a part of your vocabulary with your friends? It was like that.
We chatted. We laughed. But it was my time to go.
Death's bony hand touched my shoulder. It was chilling yet comforting.
"Goodbye, old friend. Remember... next Sunday," Death said.
"Of course, Death," I replied.
I woke up. Daylight flooded my vision. I smiled, satisfied. I think I had a good dream.
I like Sundays.
---
r/dexdrafts | **Another slow week. Modern medicine is really dragging things out down here.**
"Ya, too bad it couldn't save me from that heart attack."
**You didn't have a heart attack. I killed you.**
"Um, pardon me?"
**It's alright you won't remember me telling you that. See you next week.**
"What—"
______
**Six thousand dead from a single earthquake. I haven't worked overtime like that since Antietam.**
"So sorry, but who are you? Where am I?"
**Can we skip that today? Just listen for a while, ya? It's been a rough week.**
"Oh, of course. Sorry."
**Don't apologize...**
"Right, sorry."
**You're a good friend... See you next week.**
"Sorry?"
_____
**Not much going on this week, but I've got some big news.**
"Oh, where—er—what is it?"
**We're finally going to have an extended conversation.**
"Pardon?"
**Your friendship has meant a lot to me, and, well, I'm just excited to get to know you better.**
"Oh, thanks. What's your name again?"
**You die this Tuesday.**
"I what—"
**See you next week.**
_____
**Thanks for reading! Sub to /r/BeagleTales for daily chats with Death** | 2020-01-31T07:17:02 | 2020-01-31T07:13:05 | 1,701 | 625 |
[WP] You have the ability to see people’s kill count on their head. You tell no one, managed to stay away from shady people and live a peaceful life. One day, your 5 years old kid’s number is not 0... | “Hey kiddo, how’d your day go?”
“It was, I did, I think it was, uh, good.”
“That’s good to hear, buddy. So… did anything interesting happen?”
“I dunno. Mama picked me up from school, and she, and we walked down the bridge, and there—oh, and there was a man on the bridge!”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah daddy, but he was *on* the bridge. Like—“
He laid one of his hands flat, and then put two fingers on his opposite hand on top of it to mimic a person standing on top of something.
“Well that’s not how you’re supposed to walk on a bridge! Silly man… what happened when you saw him?”
“He was, uh, he was *crying*, and Mama told me to stay away, but I didn’t wanted to because he was sad. So I went up to him and I grabbed his leg, and I, and I said ‘why are you crying?’ because he was crying.”
“Yeah, I think you mentioned that he was crying. What did he do when you grabbed his leg?”
“He came down and, and he picked me up! Like this like big!” He stretched his arms high over his head, and then wrapped them around himself. “And then he hugged me, and then he said thank you, and then I saw a bird and—“
I sat there and kept a level smile as my son continued to tell me about his day. My gaze drifted once more to that number floating above his head, and I couldn’t help but feel a spike of tears in my eyes.
-1. | “1,000? That can’t be right.” I thought to myself. My sister-in-law’a son was sitting playing video games on the couch, his little thumbs clacking away on his controller. The rules, as I have learned, are as such; the number of kills only counts intentional deaths and even then it doesn’t count self defense and yet, here was my five year old nephew with a massive “1,000” hanging over his head.
“Hey, bud. Whatcha been doin lately?” I asked nervously as he turned his attention towards me. With a smile he replied “Sending letters.” “To who?” I asked dumbly “People I hate.” He replied nonchalantly.
I spoke to my sister-in-law asking if I could look in nephews letter writing materials. “Why?” I honestly didn’t know how to answer. Her and my wife are the only two people I’ve told about my weird ability but I couldn’t imagine she would believe it if I told her that her son is a mass murderer. “I need an envelope.”
As I was searching I found masks, gloves and a small glass jar with a biohazard symbol on it. A small amount of white powder was left inside. As I stared in utter horror I saw an unfinished letter out of the corner of my eye… addressed to me. | 2022-10-21T10:37:34 | 2022-10-21T09:51:12 | 80 | 30 |
[WP] In sci-fi, planets are commonly made of one biome-- 'desert planets', 'jungle planets', 'ice planets' etc. So, the aliens are pretty shocked to see the range of biomes when they arrive on Earth. | We had arrived, to sit in orbit, of this strange blue and green planet. We had stayed there for two of the planets quick orbits around its star. I grew bored of waiting and watching. I was an explorer, I preferred to get down on a planets surface and start setting up camp for those who waited on ship. But first we had to verify the planet was safe. And with as many biomes that we could see from here, it was going to take a while.
Sure, everyone knew that most stars had a "habitable zone", but most planets fell on either the inner or outer part of that zone, or only fell in it during part of the planet's rotation around its star. Of the other discovered planets, so nicely tucked in the heart of the habitable zone, most had axises so tilted that the polar north was a fiery desert, and the southern, a chilled barren waste. Those were easy enough to determine where to land, the middle ground having a small band of life.
This planet though, was different, hardly any tilt to its axis at all, just enough to give it a cute little wobble. Small enough to only have attracted one orbiting body in the eons since its surely fiery birth. That in itself was strange. This world seemed to have a symbiotic relationship with its satellite. The planet pulled the satellite along with it around its orbit, while the satellite seemed to affect the watery bodies that the planet seemed to be mostly composed of. This planet also had an exorbitant amount of flotsam jettisoning around just outside its highest layer of atmosphere. That had caught the attention of the ship's scientists. They measured and counted, trying to determine how long those metal pieces had been floating there, for they were most unnatural. It was obviously for communications, as we had started receiving radio signals well before we had crossed the asteroid belt in the middle of the solar system.
It was close to the end of the planets second rotation that they had seen another piece launched from the planet's surface. The higher ups had had everyone on high alert for hours, for they were sure we were under attack, but we watched, this tiny little ...ship? make its way to the satellite, land, and leave again after less than one of the planets daily rotations.
It was at this point a delegation from the Council was arranged. They had studied the languages broadcast (there had been so many for such a small planet!) and learned the three most dominant. I was excited, we had known the planet was inhabited by a species sentient enough to propel this strange objects just outside of their atmosphere, but we were unsure if they were capable of leaving the planet themselves. The Alliance had forbidden contact with species that had yet to achieve space flight. Of course, my job was still needed, for we had protocol to follow, and when meeting new species we liked to do so in an environment they felt safe in.
I went to the scientist I knew best and asked where they thought I would be landing, and they shook their puzzled head. They had figured that the species on the planet would have congregated on the most moderate temperatures areas of the planet, but their findings had read that the species was on every continent! even the one made of ice. Sure there were plenty of ice living species, but most of them overheated withing a 5 degree temperature increase. But the hottest recorded temperatures on this planet had been 56 degrees in one of its deserts. The coldest -88. No other known species had that high of range of survivable temperatures. So I went to my commander. He decided that I was to choose a location closest to our home planets climate. We were from an arid grassland, so I chose a location in the lower middle location of the continent with a tail connecting to the lower continent.
As I took my ship and supplies I took a long entry into the atmosphere. My ship did most of the piloting, so I took advantage to look closely at the land that I traveled over. Look! There were glaciers! And there! A jungle! A desert! As I made my final approach to the set landing site, I was going to have so much fun exploring this planet! The HUD on my screen recorded all green settings, air, temperature, humidity, all in acceptable ranges for my body. I would only need my one suit to start with. So caught up with unpacking my exploration tools, that when I opened my hatch, I stood shocked at what stood before me. Hundreds of bipedal pale things. Pointing metal looking sticks at me, shouting.
I was confused. We were cloaked, we had had no reason to think they had detected us. We had been orbiting them for two years, without any sort of communication. We should had reached out to them, once our base (the one I was supposed to be setting up) was established. But apparently, they had known, and were ready and waiting for me. | Greeblegrox stared out the windshield and fingered his tentacles thoughtfully.
"Yeah," he said in Wydoobian. "That planet is definitely alive."
"I thought you said it was 'the greatest mix you'd seen'," snorted Hardowom, looking out the windshield also. He flicked his right eyeball with his third tentacle, a sign he was unimpressed. They'd come quite far out of their way to see this place.
Greeblegrox fixed all four of his eyes and both his antennae at Hardowom.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said. "Look at it."
"It's all water. It's a water planet."
"You dipshit," said Greeblegrox, shifting in his travel pod (his fourth buttcheek had an itch he couldn't reach with any of his tentacles and it had been driving him insane since they passed Andromeda). "Look at the poles. Look at the center of the fucking thing. It's right there."
Hardowom examined the great blue globe that loomed in their windshield like an enormous slice of Fooby melon.
"I see nothing but moisture in all its forms," he said, flicking his eyeball again.
In frustration, Greeblegrox reared up out of his pod and used all four of his tentacles to scratch his fourth buttcheek. His slimy skin peeled off the pod's inner surface. He'd have to reset his seal, but whatever, this itch was going to drive him mad.
"You are such a downer," he said, scratching away. "There's *land*. There's more life than we have back home. This is a fully mature, multi-biomed planet. We came all the way here and you're not even *trying* to enjoy yourself."
Hardowom hated when Greeblegrox scratched his asses. He needed to just buy some damn Burble Cream and the fungus would go away.
"It *is* pretty," he said, hoping his agreeableness would cease Greeblegrox's scratching. "What kind of life we talking here?"
"Well, water-based, obviously," said Greeblegrox, sinking back into his pod with a satisfied sigh and feeling his Echie seal begin the reset. "Mostly carbon. The dominant species recently became self-aware but they're still in adolescence as far as terrestrial development goes, so no guarantee they'll survive yet..."
"They can't see us, can they?" said Hardowom, suddenly nervous.
"Of course not," said Greeblegrox. "They've been to their moon, sent probes out to their solar system. They're barely aware in galactic terms. Less than toddlers."
Hardowom bit his upper eyestalk and sucked on it, a sign he was considering Greeblegrox's words.
"The biomes are there," said Greeblegrox. "You can see on the land-- the green and the brown and the mountains and the deserts? The ice at the poles? This is like Xela, Lema, Toille and Neb all mixed together in one."
Hardowom swung his eyestalks back and forth, the equivalent gesture of respectful nodding.
"Well I'm glad you caught it while you did," he said. "A fast-developing dominant species in adolescent phase... this place might not look like this much longer."
"Yeah, could reset at any moment," said Greeblegrox.
The two Wydoobians floated there for a few minutes, quietly fingering their tentacles. They half-wished the planet would reset itself right then, just for the fireworks show, but it didn't.
"But yeah," said Greeblegrox. "Just thought you'd want to see it."
"Yeah, thanks for pointing it out. Never seen a mixed-biomed planet like this before. Just thought it would look more, I dunno, obviously varied, I guess. If you didn't know better, you'd assume this was a water planet."
"That's what I thought when I saw it on the scanner," said Greeblegrox. "But then I saw the life activations, and I looked closer."
"Well, I hope they figure it out," said Hardowom. "Onob knows it took us millennia to even get to light speed travel."
"We should get going," said Greeblegrox, checking the time. "They're not going to wait for us on Tidder much longer. They're probably losing interest even as we speak."
"All right," said Hardowom, shifting the saucer into light speed. "Let's split."
The thrusters went supernova and the two Wydoobians were gone in a blink. | 2018-06-26T09:48:01 | 2018-06-26T09:25:01 | 139 | 40 |
[WP] Humanity has been eradicated. As the alien race that killed us begins to settle they're shocked to discover that old Earth myths of spirits and demons are far from fiction. The Devil, pissed off at the aliens, has decided to open the gates of Hell and let humanity get its revenge. | There is one ability that the humans have, that is entirely unique in the entire universe. Imagination. It is the most powerful force in existence, and not quite what humans believe it to be. Whenever you see something in your minds eye, you are actually seeing it, because imagination is the ability to see into other planes of existence. Anything you can imagine, exists somewhere.
For the unseen beings of the universe, Earth has served as a sort of central hub, a low effort way to interact with the physical realm through the minds of humans. But as humans are the only ones with imagination, none of this was known to the other races of the universe. Not until they found Earth and wiped out humanity. Not until the beings humans perceived as gods and devils came tearing through the fabric of reality, to avenge the one race of the physical realm they ever cared for. The carnage was something the universe was not prepared for. Just like the humans were erased from existence, so was now everything else. The universe was empty and dark.
And then, a small spark in the darkness. And light. | When they arrived they made their intentions VERY CLEAR "we are the Vex and we will add your world to our empire" we fought with all our might but they just kept coming all of us. We discovered massive computers that were seemingly simulating our attacks, but we were destroyed regardless. They took tech they deemed useful knowledge they deemed useful. I was killed by some weird pulse it just makes me flop dead. Next thing I knew I woke up in hell" a place i didnt beleive in" with the devil himself infront of me he told me of the plan he and god made open the gates and unleash the both holy and unholy. forces they could not simulate... paracausality. when he finished he gave me 2 questions "what are you good at?" and "wanna join this fight?" | 2020-09-18T09:54:56 | 2020-09-18T08:43:26 | 20 | 10 |
[WP] Every infant is brought to church to find out their animal spirit. They inherit various abilities based on whatever animal, living or extinct they are divined to have. The priest has backed away from you in shock and awe. You are the first person to ever have a Phoenix. | Maria and Dan clutched each other tightly. Dan's golden retriever sat by, watching the few people gathered with even more eagerness than his master. Maria's cardinal sat perched on her shoulder, largely indifferent to the ceremony.
The priests stood over their one year old son, Issac. Each of their spirit animals stood by, aiding with the Ceremony. Dan could smell the power in the air, thanks to the connection to the dog that looking like he wanted to dash forward and nuzzle the sleeping baby.
Maria was eyeing the rafters. It would be so easy for her to fly up and watch from a literal bird's eye view. But the large red wings her bird gave her could be obtrusive and got in the way while indoors, even in a building as large as the Church.
The priests chanted and suddenly a bright light came forth from Issac. The young parents stood, eagerly awaiting the news.
"Well, Father, what is it?" Dan asked. His hear was beating a mile a minute.
"We aren't quite sure." Said the priest who lead the Ceremony, Father Adam.
"Is...is there something wrong?" Maria asked. Dread filled her entire being. Was there something wrong with her baby? Had something gone wrong? Her cardinal stirred, ruffling its bright feathers.
"No, not exactly. His mark appeared just fine. You can see it now if you'd like. It's just that we've never seen a mark like it. We don't know what spirit animal it will produce once he's able to call it. We can tell it's an avian mark, just not what kind yet."
The parents breathed a sigh of relief. They could live with that. Maria was especially proud. She had always dreamed she would be able to fly with her boy when he was old enough. Dan had to hide a bit of disappointment. He was hoping for another canine mark. He could not fully shake his animal's pack instincts, after all.
Before they could see their son though, one of the other priests, a man named Luke, cried out in shock. Every eye turned to the middle aged man.
"Brother Luke, what is it?" Asked Father Adam.
"I...I think I know what mark this is. Please excuse me, I have to be sure." He said before rushing off for the church archives.
The parents approached their peacefully sleeping son and saw the spirit mark across his tiny chest. It showed a pair of red and orange wings that looked to be on fire, and a yellow ring above them. It was far more elaborate than Maria's, who had a pair of red wings at rest running down her back.
The attending priests were discussing what the mark meant. There were a lot of birds with that color, but the fire and ring were mysteries.
Dan swore he could smell something like ash coming from the mark. It was not a bad smell though. It was more aromatic than just burnt wood. It was a soothing, pleasant kind of smell, like something that was happy to be on fire. He and his dog looked at each other in confusion. Those were not things that were normally associated with being set ablaze.
Maria's cardinal flitted down to the boy and tucked its head. Maria got a definite sense of revranse from the small bird. It felt almost like the normally stoic bird was in awe from meeting a celebrity, or even royalty.
Brother Luke stormed in a few minutes later, holding an old book. His face was red and he was gasping for breath as he set the book down in the nearest available surface.
"I knew it! I knew I had seen that mark somewhere." He gasped. "Well, not the exact depiction, of course, but I at least know what it represents."
"Well, out with it. What animal has the child been blessed with?" Father Adam asked.
Brother Luke opened the book to a page he must have previously marked. He pointed to a picture of a large, proud bird standing over a group of kneeling people.
"It's the phoenix. It has to be the mark of a phoenix. See here? The depiction of it here is almost identical to the boy's mark."
The room was filled with quiet whispers. The parents looked at the indicated picture. It was indeed eerily similar. A great rest and orange bird with flames coming off the wings, and a group of golden feathers in a ring like pattern in its head.
"Maria...our son...our son has a legendary creature." Dan said . His voice was nearly a whisper.
"Father, what should we do?" Maria asked.
"I don't know. This had never happened before. We must study and prepare. This...could change much. We have a few years until the boy can actually call upon the animal, and we must be ready for when that happens."
"We don't have to leave him here, do we?" The young mother asked.
Her husband and his dog took a few steps closer to the child. He would not let them take the boy. At least, not easily.
"No, of course not." The priest said. "But we do ask you bring him to us at least once a week. And, above all else, raise him with love and care. And be wary. Once word gets out, there will be others who will not have his best interest at heart."
Both Dan and Maria looked at each other an nodded. They would do whatever it took to keep their boy safe.
Anything. | The church bells rang out across the otherwise quiet Beridaz, stopping many in their tracks to look towards the giant structure near the city center. Colorful plumes of fragrant smoke billowed forth from the massive structure, shapes of creatures great and small leaping and dancing into the clear sky with slow, graceful movements.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, splash, thud, thud, thud! was the only sound to challenge the joyous occasion as one man ran towards the church as fast as he could. Each step held more purpose than the last as he sprinted as fast as he could, carrying a small bundle wrapped in what was left of a potato sack. The wind was at his feet, and he prayed with all of his might to the spirit dwelling within him as he sprang and jumped to gain more speed. Even when challenged with the almost-countless stair steps leading to the house of worship proper, he made short work of them.
A booming voice called from within the church, echoing across the massive chamber with a tone of finality, "And it is with this last infant that we bring Revelation Day-"
The doors to the church slammed open, and there the man stood, panting. His clothing was a mess, covered in water, dust, dirt, and foul-smelling dried blood. "One more!" he called out. "There's one more!"
Murmurs and whispers overtook the many gathered. What was so urgent? What was he holding? Was that his child? Why did he wait until the last second to arrive? Why was he – one of the city's mail couriers – covered in blood? Nobody was to leave the church until the priest dismissed them; why did he have to arrive just as the incense's strength was dwindling?
"Who dares to dishonor the Gods and this joyous occasion?" demanded the priest in his silver, gold, and red vestments.
The man slowly made his way over, his worn body motivated into action by the burning determination in his blue eyes. "I said. One more. There's. One more. My daughter."
The priest momentarily recoiled at the smell that emanated from the man and his babe. Had these peasants, these commonfolk, really sought to receive a divination in such a disgusting state?
He couldn't judge; the incense was still holding onto life, despite almost being spent. The Gods must have been waiting for her arrival. With a deep inhale, he took a few steps towards the disgusting mess of a man carrying a baby in an old, dirty potato sack. "Give her to me, and we will divine the matter of her spirit, as the Gods have commanded it."
The man gingerly handed over the small baby, and it was at this moment the priest realized the baby girl was naked and new, pinkish red coloring her most prominently. The priest cradled her and turned to the altar; a pyramid topped with a partially exposed sphere. "O Gods, grand and gracious, I bring before You on behalf of Beridaz a child, a child to grow our city and praise in your names! I beseech You, show the true form of…" he looked to the father, who merely shook his head. "… this girl's spirit!"
With care and ending in a spin, the priest placed the newborn on the altar. He took a few precise steps back and watched, as did everyone else.
At first, nothing.
Then the incense's smoke dwindled.
A silence consumed the church, no, the city, as they waited the judgement for the girl.
Then, suddenly, a spark.
A rush of heat.
The incense burst into life, as did the fire that sustained it, consuming the outside of the altar. Cinders sprung forth and began to light aflame everything they could touch.
"NO!" the mail courier cried out as he went to run to his daughter.
"GO, GO!" the priest yelled and rushed everyone outside of the building, surely leaving the little girl to die.
Against the setting sun, the city of Beridaz watched as their beautiful church burned to the ground, and the mail courier sobbed and screamed, trying to get back to his baby. "NO! NO! I CAN'T LOSE HER TOO! NO!" he screamed helplessly.
"Look!" someone cried out, pointing to the smoke in the sky. From the fire came the shape of a great, massive bird, pushing all the other aerial creatures away with the breadth of its massive wings. The fading light colored the creature red and gold and yellow as ash slowly fell from the sky like snow.
Flame whipped around the altar like an egg until it slowly died down, and with it, the incense was completely burnt.
A strong wail came from within the ruins of the church.
His breath caught for a moment, but then he called for her, "Scintilla!" He pushed past the priest and ran through the smoldering ruins to his baby, alive, well, if alone and cold. He gingerly scooped her into his arms, cradling her to his chest. "Scintilla… I'm here for you. I'm always going to be here for you. I'm so sorry, my little Scintilla, that it will be just me."
The father's words went largely unheard as the roar of descending chaos settled into Beridaz. | 2020-04-05T13:23:05 | 2020-04-05T13:16:22 | 22 | 13 |
[WP] On everyone's 18th birthday at noon, one word appears in their skin, depicting their career or purpose in life. On your birthday you're staring at a clock showing 11:59am, family and friends gathered around for your reveal.
Path 1: Noon strikes, and you stare at your forearm intently. 12:01, still nothing appears.
Path 2: one word fades in slowly, followed by a second... | It was 11:56am, on the 6th of November, 2018. The family had gathered around, Uncle Leon and his boyfriend David, my Mum and most importantly; my sister.
My Uncle had been given ***COLLECTOR*** and spent the majority of his life as a Tax Collector, in and out of offices and working with Trackers for the New Earth Government. My Grandfather was given ***SOLDIER*** and he fought during the Vietnam War and served his entire career in the Army while my mother was given ***INSPIRE***, through the hardships she experienced in life she would one day go on to become a world-renown philanthropist and built a successful business to help others in need.
11:57...
"I can't wait to see what you'll get! I hope it'll be Hero or Protector, imagine that, having a big brother as a hero!" Exclaimed my sister,
I chuckled, "Don't get too ahead of yourself."
11:58...
I looked up to see people I'd known and loved during my 18-year tenure on this world and I was only two minutes from discovering my future.
11:59...
My Uncle came over and shook my hand, "Whatever happens mate, we'll love you no matter what."
I smiled in return and closed my eyes, ready for the big moment.
12:00...
I gritted my teeth, feeling the burning sensation as the word was etched into my arm. I opened my eyes to see my family, standing there, terrified. I slowly tilted my head downwards and saw five letters sitting there;
***DEATH***
My mum broke down, years of working hard to give us, her kids a better life gone to waste. My Uncle started to walk over as I felt yet another sensation in my arm...
"Oh my God... Look!"
Afraid to see what awaited me, I looked down at my arm once more and what I saw... I will never forget.
***DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS***
EDIT: This is my first WP so go nice please :)
| The Life Brand is thought to be a flawless and efficient system by most of the world's population. Few oppose the mandatory injection of nanites that will one day create your Life Brand because they view the world as fair, now.
I get it, I really do. The Border Wars of the 21st century were bitter and terrifying for everyone, and then when Automatons began to dominate formerly middle and lower class workers, billions of people were displaced out of the workforce. Another war, fought for decades, eventually brought us to peacetime when a renounced Swiss doctor developed nanotech.
The political geography of the world changed. Borders were dissolved, entire governments gutted and destroyed, and everyone was classified into a career path based on the results of three different tests and a psychological evaluation. Then the good doctor developed the Life Brand and pitched it to our fledgling united government.
They ate it up like a sweet treat, and the Life Brand program was in full effect within five years. For the most part, we are better for it. We've seen no war in a decade, and Life Brand gets a chunk of the credit.
I always feared my branding day. I was always very aware of my mathematical genius and technological prowess. It didn't help to quell the fear of getting classified into a sub-optimal field for me. So it's no surprise that I felt terror and a deep sense of shame when my brand finally activated at 12:08:47 PM universal standard time. I wasn't branded to be a mathematician, an engineer, a networks security specialist...No. It was far worse than that.
"Hello, Mr. Sullivan. I'm Gemma, and I am your assigned organ requisition agent for today. Can I interest you in a last meal or a final judgement blow job?"
I really hate the Life Brand system... | 2017-03-16T02:18:58 | 2017-03-15T22:51:56 | 212 | 37 |
[WP] The world is divided into 2 societies: one for those with powers and one without, with strict rules of no interaction. However, with most of the superheroes defeated and the villains on the verge of winning, you have no choice but to cross over and seek help from the non-powered humans | The path to the human land is arduous. I set sail months ago, and the days have drifted past me, filled with desperation at times and despair at others. When the world was split into the two factions, those with powers and those without, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans became the barrier separating the two populations.
There were times during the voyage when I thought I would die. That my little sailboat would capsize and one of the sea monsters of the Pacific would rise up from the dark depths of the ocean and swallow me whole. Now, finally I see land.
As soon as the sailboat is close enough to the shore I drop the anchor and swim the rest of the way. I see people along the beach. They stop in their tracks as I arrive. Some of them take out cellphones and dial.
"I think we have an unauthorized entry at Hadley Beach," the nearest man says.
First, I am surprised that the humans have such advanced technology. Our side was given all the men and women with superhuman intelligence. Most of them chose to become supervillains rather than superheroes. Second, none of them seem afraid.
I know I'm not in peak form. Months of surviving on scraps has rid me of any muscles I had, and the sun has bleached my hair and burnt my skin. I must look like a man on the verge of death, but I am still superhuman. The pink hair and the lavender skin will follow me to my death. I don't have the energy to summon the balls of neon pink and purple energy that I hurl at my enemies, but these humans don't know that.
"It's best you stay calm and cooperate when the police arrive," a woman nearby says. "Do you have your permit?"
"My what? My permit for what?"
A fleet of cars drive to the boardwalk and police officers step out, guns and hackles both raised.
"Put your hands up and get on your knees!" the nearest one shouts. He's a bulky man, his uniform straining against his muscles. I can tell he's comfortable with the gun in his hand, and comfortable using it as well. I follow his instructions instantly.
There's a buzz from behind me that erupts into a drone before I black out.
When I wake up, I'm in an interrogation room. The police officer here isn't trigger happy or screaming. She's sitting opposite me, rifling through a file. When I groan, she looks up.
"Good, you're awake. Which guild are you from?"
"What?"
"Your guild," she says. "The Nightclaws? The Deathjoys? Frostbite?"
The names are vaguely familiar. My nemesis, The Infinite Inferno, was the leader of a group called the Deathjoys.
"I'm not in any guilds. I'm not a supervillain."
"A super-what?" the detective asks.
"A supervillain. I'm not one. I'm a superhero."
"Like in the comic books?"
She looks at me like I'm crazy, and leaves the room. The door is left a crack open, and I can hear her speaking to her superior.
"I don't think he's all there, sir," the detective says. "Dehydration, malnutrition. Must have all gone to his head. He's saying the Deathjoys are supervillains, and that he's a 'superhero'."
There's a muffled chuckle. "Poor guy. Have him admitted to the hospital for a psych eval, and get his photo to the guild headquarters to see if anyone recognizes him."
There aren't any more questions. I'm not given a chance to explain myself either. Every request for help for my land and the superheroes lands on deaf ears, only evoking pity or sometimes suppressed laughter.
"My people are dying!" I tell the psychiatrist as he sits down in front of me. "We need help!"
"Your people are fine, sir," the doctor says. "One of them is here to visit you."
The Infinite Inferno walks in through the door. He's not wearing his mask here, and instead of his dark robes and staff, he's dressed in a pinstripe suit. He sits in the chair in front of me.
"Inferno," I hiss.
"Levitus," he says with a smile. "Fancy seeing you here. I had thought you died in the first wave of our attack. But no, you *fled*."
"What are you doing here?" I ask. "It's against the rules of our society to interact with humans, but you villains...."
"We're villains. Did you honestly expect us to follow the rules?" he asks. "The humans are nice. We came here and helped them how we could with our powers. In exchange, they gave us their own inventions and discoveries. It's a mutually beneficial relationship."
He shakes his head. "No. It's more of a friendship."
I strain against the white straitjacket that I'm trapped in, wishing I could burn him, throw my power against his body until he's reduced to a pile of dust. But with my hands tied, I cannot call onto my powers.
"I will tell them the truth."
"Who will they believe? A madman, or the man who's brought London countless advancements and has proven an ally, time and time again?"
He taps his chin in mock wonder. "The third wave of our attack is underway, you know. Your side, I hear, is losing marvelously."
"You're evil. How can you kill your own kind like this?"
Inferno shakes his head. "*Kind* is an interesting word. Our *kind* has little kindness, and even less kinship. When we discovered our powers, we isolated ourselves from our brothers without them. The world was not as kind to humans as it was to superhumans. They froze, they starved, they toiled, and they bettered themselves. While we ignored their suffering and only indulged in our own petty squabbles, they managed to progress with their human strength. Good and evil are subjective terms, Levitus. You superheroes wanted to kill us all, remember? Called us villains and yourselves heroes to justify it. Are you angry that us villains are defeating you at the game you started?"
I scream.
"Calm yourself, Levitus. It will be over soon. We are destroying an old world, true. But only so we can replace it with something better." | It started with a bang. Or to be more specific, a series of bangs. In 1972, the world's powers were at wit's end with one another, and a failed coup attempt was the final trigger on this particular powderkeg. The aftermath from a global war wasn't nearly as bad as anyone had predicted, but it certainly had unintended side effects.
By 2043 humanity had managed to regain some semblance of past normalcy, and that's when the first superhuman mutation was discovered. A man by the name of Gregory Graves, who would go on to become the father of modern day superheroes, was the most famous case of what would later become known as The Cold War Kids. As civilization first attempted to rebuild itself, it became the newly established U.C.N.'s (Unified Coalition of Nations) first priority to get a handle on these super powered individuals before things escalated from bad to worse.
A supervillain who would later go on to call himself “The Volcano” was the first to test the limits of this still burgeoning civilization. It wasn’t long before anyone with half a mind to stitch themselves a costume was running out on the streets playing vigilante with their unrestrained and untested powers. Imagine giving a room full of toddlers access to the nuclear launch codes and then stepping out for a smoke. It took them a whopping five years to fully establish and work the kinks out of the ESD (Electronic Superhuman Database); an expansive electronic record of every single registered supe' currently known to any of the various governmental agencies around the world. Registered being the operative word, given the vast number of unchecked nutjobs running around in the world.
By 2071, the unpowered world had become fed up with the rampant property destruction brought on by the ever raging super war. A decision was made, and all humans registered with the ESD were relocated to a large portion of the planet that was rendered more or less permanently unviable due to nuclear fallout. The heroes and villains didn't care all that much, just happy to have a new playground in which to do "great battle" with one another. No one was sure if it was a psychosomatic reaction, or an evolutionary trait invoked by the superhuman gene, but without a doubt these individuals loved fighting one another.
In the current year of 2101, the population of villains outnumbered heroes five to one, and the rate of decline seemed to be exponential. A small group of heroes, known collectively as Sword & Shield, were at the forefront of the battlegrounds. Their small cadre consisted of The Tank, the leader - a beast of a man who was all but indestructible - Shadowlance, a woman that could phase through any type or state of matter, and Trinity; he was able to manipulate the elements of fire, water and wind any way he saw fit. Even though this trio was able to tackle any threats that had come their way thus far, they were all three keenly aware that it was only a matter of time before their luck ran out. Sure, the non-powered world had The Gallows, but it was no replacement for what groups like this could offer.
As soon as the governments realized they had a bunch of superpowered serial killers on their hands, they needed a place to put them, and fast. By 2083, there were more than half a million registered superhumans globally. No agency had the exact figures, but by all accounts the number of undocumented supes was probably double that. Enter Crescendo; your run-of-the-mill sadistic mercenary for hire group run by a mysterious figurehead that subordinates only ever referred to as Alice. This particular outfit started establishing a name for itself in the early days of the “supe epidemic” by making a killing (literally) in the pursuit and apprehension of dangerous superhumans. It basically turned out to be a publicity campaign for them when foreign governments showed up at their door asking them to take care of the worst offenders that couldn’t be contained by conventional means. This brute squad got to work and converted a decommissioned old military base into Galloway Penitentiary for the Superhuman. It didn't take long for anyone who stayed there to understood why it earned the nom de guerre, “The Gallows”.
Because it was a privately owned facility, things like “oversight” and “mutual respect” were very, very low on the priority list. So low, in fact, that they were largely nonexistent. The other glaringly odd thing was that no prisoner had ever seen this elusive Alice; but by god did they command the fear and respect of every officer and grunt working for them. Any time the name was mentioned, it was spoken with hushed tones of reverence. It was almost cult-like in the way they revered their leader, but the comparisons to a cult end there. At least with cults, there was the possibility of drug fueled sex parties (just don’t drink anything you’re offered). The Gallows did not have any good variety of either drugs or sex. Plenty of the bad though, in spades.
Sword & Shield knew they would need help from the outside. Their first goal would be figuring out how to get over the wall dividing The Quarry - the expansive badlands where all supes were exiled - and the remainder of the world. Not only was every inch covered in antipersonnel artillery, but also various electrical and chemical defenses to cover the gamut of powers contained within. Thankfully, one member of this outfit had no trouble getting in - or out - of nearly any situation. Shadowlance's next mission would be locating the one man on the other side that might give them a fighting chance. There were many things the supervillains as a whole were resistant against. But over the years, there was one very specific aspect of human advancement they started to neglect -- science. And recently, there were murmurs whispered around the world about a non powered man who was fighting - and winning - against supervillains using nothing but his own inventions.
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feedback / crit welcome! i may add to this later | 2021-01-29T07:42:01 | 2021-01-29T05:30:32 | 202 | 51 |
[WP]- Make me absolutely hate a character, and then make me fall in love with them at the last moment. | I had been thinking about her all day, before I killed her. Her inexplicable attraction to me, and to me alone. All those nights she came to me, though I had never had a desire to see her. Her desperate attempts to grow close to me.
My friends all knew about her. How I complained about her, and vented, and seethed. They knew better than to defend her.
I didn’t want her in my life, but she kept creeping back in.
I knew why. I knew what she wanted.
A child.
Yes, like all aging females, fertility trumped all else. Never mind what I wanted. Never mind my blossoming career, the golden performance reviews, the fast track to promotion. She wanted a child, and that’s all that mattered.
Like all females, she was selfish.
I wanted nothing to do with her, and her future, or the future of her progeny. They would enter a crushing world of defeat, just as she had. They would suck everything out of me, just like she had.
I tried to get rid of her, but she was so persistent.
Even the nights she left me alone, her absence filled the room. I could still hear her, inching closer to me, craving me. I would bury my head deep into the pillow, willing myself to disappear from her obsession.
I had no choice.
And as I imagined her death, the blood seeping out of her limp frame, elation pulsed through my skin. The skin she would never touch again.
I entered my room, slowly and deliberately.
She was waiting for me.
And as my heavy foot collided with her torso, the mosquito flattened into the wall, dead.
| I ran my fingers across her naked body, catching glimpses of mottled bruises. I could afford to take my time with this one. She was too weak to resist, and I had full faith in my ability to keep her secured to the bed. The nylon rope was more than sufficient.
"Why are you doing this?" she pleaded. Her eyes met mine in the dim light.
"You know why."
I didn't bother with foreplay. She knew what was coming, and despite my capacity to stall, I felt no desire to draw out the ordeal. No need to be gentle here. Protests flying from her lips, I slipped inside her. She caved beneath each thrust as she lost the will to fight back.
Before long, the girl was screaming her last, and I pulled out in horror. Fucking a corpse wasn't part of my contract.
As per her written instructions, I informed her family of her inevitable passing. The answering machine picked up for them, making my job infinitely easier.
Turning on the lights only highlighted her sickly form, and I pressed a hand over my face, struggling to untie her with one hand. Hopefully nobody would question the additional bruises she'd requested.
Lightly, I wiped the bodily fluids away with a towel and draped the bedsheets over her, making it appear as though she'd died in her sleep. All according to plan.
Poor girl. All she'd wanted was one last fuck before she died, and all she could afford was me. | 2013-10-21T22:10:55 | 2013-10-21T20:51:09 | 134 | 12 |
[WP] "You know parallel universes, right? I must have seen millions, no, billions, all similar, but slightly different. I must have met billions, no, trillions of people, all similar, but slightly different. I've never seen another me." | "Proffesor, what do you mean?" A student asks cautiously, looking up at the tall man who meanderes about the stage.
"I mean that if I were to cast us all sideways a dimension then it would be a near identical class of every so slightly different versions of you but instead of a second version of myself I would then have to assume the roles of both myself and that version of me." The professor says as he gestures to the chalk board, where complex runes are writing themselves in huge spiralling patterns. "Can anyone guess why?" A confused silence follows.
"It's because of the way we travel between realities. It is extremely difficult and dangerous to explore an alternate reality as yourself with your own matter and energy. Because if say I were to shunt myself to a world where all matter has an inverse charge I would immediately be annihilated and cause no end of mess." The professor continues, "So instead I cheat, I manifest my consciousness into the mind of my counterpart and quietly push his mind into a little holding cell till I'm done and shunt back. The ethical implications of this are wildly understated so what I want you to work out is what I can do instead." The students look shocked at this. "No don't worry I'm fully aware of many alternatives and have been using them for aeons. I simply want to see if you dunderheads can think sufficiently outside the box or if your education in the arcane has been a waste." | I've polled, searched, questioned, nothing. The tides and eons of infinity are all against me. An outcast. A pervert.
I've talked to people who like peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and honey, some of them cut the crusts off, some use wheat bread.
I've talked to people who tie their left shoes first everyday, some who tie the right first, most don't care. Some people don't even have two feet (a few have even more!)
I've talked to people who are into video games, science fiction, history, sports, and even chess.
I've spent my infinite life asking all the questions of all the people, slowly working toward the true question I want to ask: the question I answer differently than everybody.
We get to the dirty questions. The naughty ones. Some people will admit to strange fetishes. Feet, little people, even legally taboo stuff I can get them to admit to. But nobody... NOBODY. Agrees with me on one thing. I am the ONLY person in the world... who finds duckface pictures attractive. | 2018-12-22T15:16:20 | 2018-12-22T13:52:40 | 41 | 17 |
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason." | " So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?"
I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up."
The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away."
I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to *add* that.
Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle.
I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!"
I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research.
Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was *actually* being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done.
So I got some more.
If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate.
Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check!
All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to.
Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously.
"Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it.
" What have you been doing all day?" He said.
" You already know th-"
"Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse."
"You are a weird aggressive recluse."
"That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!"
"But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation."
'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?"
"Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off."
"Their *genitals*!" He shrieked incredulously.
" I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?"
"What the hell is your problem?"
"My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem."
"So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_"
"Lane, the innkeeper."
" And the household chores will be taken care of by"
"Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays."
" And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-"
"Tom." Fuck Tom.
The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought.
" And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?"
"You won't."
" How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest.
"Because" I drawled. "You *hate* talking to people. Pretty girls especially."
He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???"
" Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do."
"Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason."
"Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.
|
*The clock can sing.*
*It sang, it sings, and it will sing again.*
​
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Clara said, “I don’t know why the clock would be singing.”
She was sneaky. Oh yes, yes she was.
Jack smiled, "Ah, so you confirm that the clock *does* sing! You just don't know why."
Clara's short brown hair framed a lovely face, a face that had loved him once. Now it held only fear, fear of Jack the Apprentice. She was afraid of all wizards, and rightly so. Even wizard apprentices could be all sorts of trouble.
"I didn't." Clara sighed, plainly exasperated, "I didn't mean-"
"Thank you, Clara, that's all I needed to know," Jack said. He left the library with a smug look of satisfaction, jauntily strolling past his former acquaintances without a word.
*You are very sneaky,* Lemon said. Lemon was the man who lived behind Jack's ears.
"Thank you, Lemon," Jack said.
*It wasn't very nice tricking her like that. I already told you about the clocks anyway.*
"I had to be sure," Jack answered, "You haven’t always been so easy to trust."
Lemon muttered a few choice words and sullenly slipped away. That should keep him silent for a little while.
If I'm going to accomplish all of Master Elday's tasks for this week, Jack thought, I'll need to interrupt the time continuum before Wednesday at the latest.
In theory, it was a simple matter of quantum time magic. Consider an hour at a party vs an hour doing chores. Or rather, think of how long an hour drags on for a child vs an hour for an adult. The 60 minutes in each scenario are static, yet relative to each other one finds they are vastly unequal. Therefore, if a motivated wizard could establish the quantum constraint of each minute spent at a party as roughly equal to the relative length of a minute spent scrubbing dishes, he/she could make the party *feel* two or even three times longer than it really was. That’s in theory, of course, as the amount of raw energy necessary to extend even a single minute would be staggering.
Jack wanted to go even further than that, he wanted to alter the quantum time level of an entire day. The issue would be gaining access to an energy source powerful enough to unhinge a universal constraint (such as time).
The key to it all, Lemon had told him, was to "remind the clock to sing." But what did that mean? What song could time hold in its heart?
The sand beneath Jack’s bare feet was warm. He had forgotten to wear his sandals again, it seemed.
Warm sand....sand that had warmed....warmed by....
His neck dropped back to let him stare into the shining morning sun. A wild idea sprang to him, almost startling Lemon awake. Jack grinned, he hoped this would be a wonderful surprise.
He cupped his hands above his head like a child trying to catch rain. "Bel'avanor Setovna Bravacator," Jack shouted.
Nothing. Jack raised his hands higher. He had to grit his teeth to keep from turning his eyes away from the searing brightness of the sun.
"BEL'AVANOR SETOVNA BRAVACATOR!"
It started as a trickle, a little piss of sunshine.
Then Warmth began to flood into his hands. Encouraged by the simple siphoning spell he had chanted, a radiant stream of liquid light filled him. The sand beneath his feet heated until it began to smoke.
*Yes, yes, yes! Very clever, OH SO CLEVER,* Lemon moaned. He was enraptured by the light, coaxed into a state of sheer bliss.
"There he is," A voice shouted behind him.
Six gaunt librarians formed behind Jack, ready to charge. In front of them stood Clara, pointing a crooked finger his way.
"He's gone mad," She yelled, "We have to stop him before he-"
Jack stopped listening. He shook with sardonic laughter. With the power that filled him, not even Master Elday could have stopped him.
The librarians ran at him with blind abandon. Rage and terror spurring on their every step.
*They think they can stop us! Ha! What fools,* Lemon screeched. Jack could not end his internal laughter long enough to respond. *How silly!*
He raised a hand toward the pack and six bookworms became six pillars of fire.
*Fools, what fools!*
Lemon laughed maniacally within him, drowning out all other senses.
"What have you done," Clara pleaded, "What are you trying to do?"
Jack wished he could stop laughing so he could answer her. Instead he let Lemon take use of his voice.
"*We are teaching Time her favorite forgotten melody, dear soon-to-be-dead, Clara,"* He yelled.
The ground began to shake as Jack channelled the energy within him. It wasn't enough, he needed more power.
A raging torrent of light rushed into him, and Jack channelled it instantly to batter at the door of time. He felt his skin begin to boil, it wasn't painful, just odd. Like a cold shower, Jack thought.
*MORE, JACK. MORE,* Lemon hissed.
As he reached the limit of what he could hold of the sun’s power, Jack finally heard the wonderous, mournful, lullaby of time. It washed over him, coating him in smooth splendor. The song soothed away his fears, his pain, his doubt. Lemon sang along gleefully.
Time slowed to a drip. Jack smiled as he set the quantum time level as low as his power would allow.
For what felt like eons, he listened to Lemon's song. And all of that long eternity, Clara wept. | 2019-01-14T15:25:08 | 2019-01-14T14:44:37 | 79 | 12 |
[WP] "Mum I've got some bad news... I've accidentally taken hostages at the bank.... It's a long story... Yes I know I was only meant to make a deposit.... No I can't come home the police have surrounded the building, I've gotta go the police are sending in a negotiator I'm gonna try and fix this". | *Oh shit, is that a gun?*
Caleb looked around him desperately then back to the gun not-so-secretly tucked in the back of a fellow patron’s jeans. He wanted to point, shout, construct a neon sign and hang it from the man’s ears, but fear stopped him. What if the man flipped out and pulled the gun as soon as people started to take notice? Caleb now stood stock still, eyes focused anywhere else. His heart beat a frantic rhythm, coursing panic through his veins.
A thousand scenarios raced across his vision. He would shout and point, then the guy would pull the gun and put a bullet right between Caleb’s pretty blues. Maybe shout then duck. That might work. Perhaps just a swift about-face, walk out and pretend nothing was ever seen.
As Caleb was envisioning a perfectly timed combat roll away from a spray of bullets, the man with the weapon in question turned slightly towards him. Their eyes locked. The stranger’s head tilted as if in question. Caleb instinctively nodded before a coherent thought could tell him to do otherwise. The man’s eyes widened and the next thing that happened was certainly not in any of Caleb’s imaginary scenarios. No, this was far worse.
Caleb reached forward and plucked the gun from the man’s waistband. With all his fear behind his voice, he yelled, “Get on the ground!” and pointed the gun at the stranger who owned it. Suddenly the entire room of people fell to the floor. Confusion flickered across his face before the dawning realization came on.
*Oh.*
He looked around him. Women, children, and men ten times his size were now lying in various positions on the ground because of one thing he said. His gaze drifted to the gun. This little thing gave him all of this power. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Just like in the movies, blue lights filled the room as the police arrived within two minutes of the situation beginning. Reality seeping back in, Caleb quickly reached into his pocket. He knew someone who would know what to do.
“Mum, I’ve got some bad news.”
| "Can I tell you something?"
Jason looked up at the woman standing over him. The gun was still nestled in the crook of her arm, the smell of cordite hanging in the air. He gulped and sat up a bit straighter.
"I suppose," he said.
"This keeps on happening to me."
"Robbing banks?"
"Well, no. This is my first time robbing a bank."
"You could have fooled me. You're really good at it."
"Aww, thanks kid."
"The way you broke that negotiators arm? Way cool."
She shifted uncomfortably. Outside, the shouts of the police could be heard, pushing back the crowds. People were drawn to chaos. Jason had just wanted to pay his bills. Why did she pick him to talk to? Why him and not the negotiator? She saw his gaze travel to the still body of the man she'd shot in cold blood.
"That one, that was intentional," she said.
"Why?"
"You're innocent. I like that about you. Never lose that."
"You didn't answer my question."
"And you're brave. I've seen that before though."
"What do you mean? You can't be a day over twenty. I've got at least ten years on you."
She knelt down and the barrel of the gun came uncomfortably close to Jason's face.
"That call he interrupted," she said, nodding to the injured negotiator, "was to my mother. She's celebrating her twelve-hundredth birthday."
"For a bank robber, you've got a decent sense of humour."
"For a hostage, you sure speak a lot."
"You're the one who wanted to talk."
"And you're the one who asked why a two hundred year old woman shot a man."
He sat back against the desk. The police were shouting -- negotiations over -- but all he could hear were the last words she'd said. | 2016-09-15T15:08:51 | 2016-09-15T13:14:56 | 69 | 15 |
[WP] You lay dying of heart failure, and God enters your mind. He informs you that you will be reincarnated upon death, losing all memory, but before that happens you are allowed to ask any one question. The answer to your question surprises you so much that your heart restarts and you survive. | As I lay in the bed, focusing all of my energy on continuing to breathe for as long as I could, I felt a presence in my midst. Not a physical presence like that of my family that surrounded me, but it was as if a second consciousness had entered my mind.
He explained to me what was going to happen, though I knew it to be true already. I was going to die momentarily. What I hadn't known, was what was to come after. I had contemplated what the after life might be like, or if there even was an after life. Now I had my answer. I was to be reincarnated upon my death and I would lose all of my memories of this life. It was saddening to know that I would live on in a new life, but would not be able to carry the precious moments from this life with me.
But losing all of my memories was to come with a perk. He told me I could ask any one question. Any one question at all, and I would receive an answer. I thought long and hard, each second that passed became more and more painful as my breaths became increasingly sharp and quick. Finally, I had it. The question I would ask would give me one final taste of truth. With this answer, I could go quietly into the night, knowing that those I left behind would be either disappointed or would rejoice when the truth I was about to behold became public knowledge.
We shared a consciousness, so I need not even ask the question. I could tell he was slightly let down with my choice of inquiry. He hesitated for a moment, but then relented and granted me my one final answer. What he had not anticipated, nor what I had not anticipated, was that as my heart gave out and his answer echoed through the waning expanse of my consciousness, was that it would restart my failing heart. When I heard his answer, my world jolted back into view. My family was frantically calling for assistance from the nurses. I was gasping for breath again, not because I couldn't breathe, but because I could breathe once again. I didn't wait for the nurses or doctors to arrive. Instead, I pulled the apparatus facilitating my breathing from my body and sat up straight. My cousin, two years my elder, shuffled over and placed a hand on my back, steadying me as I tried to sputter out audible words. Something raspy came out of my mouth, but he couldn't hear it. I pulled the collar of his shirt closer to me and whispered into his ear,
"Half Life 3 confirmed."
edit: Thanks so much for the gold! | "Okay, so as I understand it I only get one question."
YES
"That wasn't a question God!"
MMMMMKAY
"You're going to have to give me a moment, this is a lot to process and I don't want to accidentally ask you something stupid."
MY TIME IS ETERNAL
"Well that's kind of depressing."
WHAT MAKES YOU SAY THAT?
"Well I mean, if your time is eternal and you never die life must feel kind of empty."
IS THAT A QUESTION?
"No! Jesus... I mean God, no. That's not a question I'm just trying to understand you. I mean one second I'm diving from a bridge to impress that new girl and the next I'm in a hospital having an existential crisis and being visited by God, it's a lot to take in."
SHE'D NEVER GO OUT WITH YOU
"Okay listen, I didn't ask anything you're just trolling me with answers now."
YOU WOULD NEVER MARRY HER AND HAVE BABIES
"Whoa, okay dude. Now you're just being malevolent. I wasn't trying to marry her."
SHE HAS A TWIN SISTER
"Uh wow. I didn't know that."
ALTHOUGH I MINTED THEM FROM THE SAME MOLD THE SISTER IS HOTTER AND HAS SLIGHTLY LARGER BREASTS
"Holy shit God!"
I CANNOT CONFIRM NOR DENY WHAT TYPE OF HEATHEN SEXUAL ESCAPADES YOU MAY HAVE HAD WITH THEM HAD YOU NOT JUMPED, YOU IDIOT
"You are totally trolling me. I'm not going to waste my one question on some tryst."
OK YOU TOTALLY HOOKED UP WITH BOTH OF THEM TOGETHER AFTER A NIGHT OF DRINKING AT THE TAVERN AND WENT ON TO MARRY THE HOTTER ONE
"Well shit. Bro that is just... I don't even know. Profound."
LATER SHE WOULD CHEAT ON YOU WITH A MAN WHO IS A JANITOR AT THE LOCAL ART MUSEUM AND RUN AWAY TO BERMUDA TO LIVE OUT THEIR LIVES AND WITHER AND DIE. EVENTUALLY THEY BOTH BURN IN HELL.
"Holy crap, are you serious?"
NO I WAS JUST TROLLING. ENJOY YOUR NEW LIFE. | 2014-08-03T06:58:43 | 2014-08-03T06:13:36 | 750 | 165 |
[WP] You are a superhero whose powers are based on the music you are listening to. Rock can make you stronger, classical makes you smarter, etc. One day, you're fighting your toughest villain yet, and you are forced to use your "forbidden" playlist. | I hide behind the wall, praying Starhands doesn't find me yet, and tremble as I fumble with my battered old mp3 player.
I don't want to but I have to use it. The forbidden playlist. The reason why I'm even on this team when my powers only last as long as the song plays.
Track 1. Running Down A Dream by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. Solid Illusions.
I run back to the battlefield even as multiple copies burst from various piles of debris. We each get in at least one hit before he starts burning them from the inside out. I make them wink in and out of his reality, always careful to stay behind him, never taking more than an elbow never letting him touch me with those toxic hands.
And as the song fades I take off leaving my clones to their fate. This next song works better at a distance. Well, it's better that I'm at a distance anyways.
Track 2. Dream Lover by Bobby Darin. Biochemical Manipulation
That's what the tester called it but the reality is that I just make them horny. How is that a superpower you might ask? Because it's not just horny it's "caused a stroke from lack of blood to the brain in the first volunteer" horny. It's "supervillain had to have reconstructive surgery on their genitals" horny. It's "writhing on the ground in pain because your so oversensitive that even the air feels like knives in your flesh horny".
It's "accidentally caused a mass orgy that ended with multiple rape charges laid on me the first time I unknowingly used it and that's how I ended up on a governmental super team" horny.
It's enough for a distraction but as the song fades Starhands recovers almost too quickly, his own biochemical manipulation sweeping the effects of mine away in moments.
But I still have enough time to get in position for the last song.
Track 3. Dream A Little Dream Of Me by The Mamas and the Papas. Time Regression.
As he charges me I raise my arms and he slams into me, not realizing the mistake he's made as I wrap my arms around him and cling, crooning along soft as a lullaby. I keep my eyes closed, not daring to look as first his muscles fade back into a lanky frame and then he begins to shrink, screams going higher and higher as his vocal chords return to those of a teenager, then a child, toddler baby, newborn. Fading as he becomes a foetus, a blastocyst, a clump of cells, un-dividing into fewer and fewer until it becomes a fertilized ovum then unfertilized ovum and sperm then dissipates into nothing as the last notes fade.
I pause the playlist before the last song can play.
I hope I never end up in a situation where I need the Lemmy Kilmeister cover of Enter Sandman. Not after what happened the first time. | As he slammed through a concrete building and it collapsed around him, MelodyMan realized he had no other choice. Thousands of innocent civilians were already dead. If he didn't pull out all the stops now there would be nothing left of New York inside the hour.
Climbing free of the debris he looked up at his opponent, well *opponents.* It had seemed to be a generic alien invasion at first. Maybe that's why it had gotten so out of hand. Ordinarily such a threat would have been handled by a mixture of Heavy metal for strength and durability in one ear, and New-Age for speed and flight in the other.
Now though as the swarm descended to Earth MelodyMan knew the truth. This was a hivemind, a powerful one at that. Trillions of beings acting in concert to form a single powerful entity. No amount of punching was going to hurt them, even EDM fueled Laser eyes weren't going to be enough.
"Have you had enough? Are you willing to submit to *The Supremacy*?" The sound seemed to come from all directions at once. MelodyMan shook the rubble from his clothes. Then as the aliens split into a dozen copies of the figure that had already nearly killed him alone, he clicked his playlist to the secret weapon.
*"I LOVE YOU, YOU LOVE ME, WE'RE A GREAT BIG FAMAHLEEE WITH A GREAT BIG HUG AND A KISS FROM ME TO YOU! WON'T YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME TOO!"*
As the music filled his mind, engulfed it, Melody man could feel the power flowing through him and out into the world. This was the last line of defense. Children's music warped the very fabric of reality. A wave of color burst forth from MelodyMan and washed over the city, washed over the aliens and their ship, the dead bodies and destroyed buildings. As the power moved across the world it righted the wrongs. No one could die or be dead, no violence allowed, only love and happiness.
Forever changed by the power of music the alien invaders transformed from a horrifying swarm of insects to fluffy little critters of benevolence. They apologized for their misdeeds and left the Earth to return home and spread the message of non-violence across the universe.
As the song finished and MelodyMan regained his faculties, he sat in the middle of a field of flowers in what had been the rubble of the chrystler building. Around him were thousands of happy smiling people fully healed from all their wounds fatal and minor.
Just like that New York City became a wonderland of color right out of a children's book. | 2022-05-17T12:33:11 | 2022-05-17T12:04:55 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] Your roommate is literally the Devil. Surprisingly, he is the best roommate you ever had. | "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..."
"Morning, Lucy."
"Oh hi, Mark. You're up already?"
You know, it's odd, but I never took the Devil for a morning person. And yet, for the past three years, "Lucy", as she prefers to be called, has ben up well before my alarm even went off for my first shift job over at the Waffle Shack. I mean doesn't it make more sense for the ruler of Hell to walk in the shadows of the night, bringing fear to everyone?
Sitting down at the table, i poured myself a cup of coffee.
"Yeah, your singing did the trick. Mr. Rogers, of all things."
"Oh, I'm sorry Mark, I didn't realize I was so loud!"
Seeing the overlord of sin in such a state of distress over waking me up fifteen minutes early put a smile on my face and a chuckle in my throat. "Well, why don't you give me your soul and we'll call it even?"
"Oh Mark, that would be like my ass: you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it."
We both laughed, our usual innuendo and bartering for each other's souls had become a sort of ritual. I don't know when this kind of thing became normal, but it was definitely a lot better from when she moved in. The woman swore up and down that she would have my soul the day we met in some sleazy bar. And for some reason, moving in was part of the deal. So I woke up with a naked demon in my bed, a hangover strong enough to crucify Jesus on, and far more questions than answers. It took two years for her to realize that I'd never give it up.
"Hey Lucy, question for 'ya."
"Yeah?"
"Why did you stay for so long? After you said you give up? Why not just kill me or leave?"
"Hmmm... Give me your-"
"No."
"Damn. Alright, then an answer for an answer."
"Deal. Shoot."
"Why after all of this time did you never question that I was Lucifer? I have never shown you my powers, I've never had demons visit here, I have never even shown you my true form. So why did you never call me a liar?"
"That's easy. Why would you lie about something like that? It would make no sense to continue the act for three years."
".........Seriously? That's your answer?"
"Eeyuup."
"That's so adorable! Ok, to answer your question, I am still here because I lost. See, we technically made a contract in that rundown bar. If I admitted defeat, I agreed to marry you, and serve you exactly as you wished, in this life and in Hell."
"I'm sorry what? You mean to tell me we're *married* ?"
Lucy sauntered over, bent over the table, and placed her hands on my cheeks, looking at me with her amber eyes. "That's right. Forever. So I still win, since I get your soul after all."
"Eh, we'll call it a tie." And with that, for the first time in my year long marriage, I kissed my wife, the Dark Lord. | "Listen" said Satan to me, moving his head about slightly as if it hurt. He looked like he had had a long night and wasn't really in any mood to be awake, but this was a conversation that he had to have and it was work that had to be done, so he might as well get it over with.
"I don't think those guys are interested" he said motioning sideways. His right horn served as a pointer and even if it didn't, I don't think I would have had any trouble inferring who he was referring to. The universe had changed a lot recently and I had found myself sharing a house in purgatory. My room-mates were the Devil, the Preacher and the Priest.
I had been here before with the Priest and the Preacher and had found them to be satisfactory company. I had known the Preacher for a really long time in fact. I would like to say that he had been whispering in my ear since I was a child, but that wouldn't be true. The Preacher never whispered when he could proclaim in a really loud and follow it up with a chorus of laughter (often mostly his own). He was not a bad guy, but he did get repetitive. The Priest was very similar to the Preacher actually. He didn't talk as much, but he knew a lot of fun and interesting facts about the world. He also knew a lot of boring ones though and the problem was that really wasn't good at telling them apart. They were okay guys really. Besides, the house was in their name and I didn't have to pay rent, so I didn't really mind.
The devil joined them recently. Turns out that the three of them worked in the same place. Their day job was selling insurance. I was as surprised as you probably are when I first heard, but I discovered that insurance firms paid really well. That was as good a reason to do anything I suppose. (The Preacher later confided in me that he really enjoyed denying claims).
It turned out that the Devil had been really busy as of late. Work hours were crazy and he wasn't getting enough sleep. He wanted to shift out. I found myself nodding in agreement. I suppose you really ought to stop and think things through when you find yourself nodding in agreement to something the devil just said, but if you're already nodding away then its probably too late to do anything anyway.
"So, what do we look for? 2 bhk?" I asked him.
"Fully furnished" he replied, stroking his goatee. There was smoke coming out of his ears and his eyes shone with a hot fiery light which contrasted well against the dull red of the rest of his body. He was fairly skinny, which made me extremely conscious since I was the bearer of a small but noticeable paunch.
"I'll call the broker " I promised him.
TO BE CONTINUED | 2016-03-10T18:14:30 | 2016-03-10T11:46:41 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] Earth remained a protected planet by every species in the known galaxy, because Humans are the Greatest story tellers. "The planet of Dreamers," finally reaches the stars much to exhilaration of every race who knows of the story's of Earth. Even simple conversation with humans is entertaining. | We didn't live dreary lives. We fought often, ate good food, and loved good beings. But after meeting the humans, it all seemed so... dull. The tales the humans wove, we thought they were immortal to experience so much. But even though they hardly ever even circled their star a hundred times, they could spin you a thousand tales about it. Their eyes had a shine unlike any other, and their voices... They poured so much *feeling* into their words. Tales of flavors and scents, sights and triumphs. They spoke of such devastating hardships. Loss of loved ones beyond comprehension, and dark times beyond what I had ever considered. And then they rose. The human lifted up the spirit he had created, and gave him something to love again. And the spirit loved again, after so much terror and loss. I think the human said the moral was "Life goes on".
I think my favorite story was always of Earth's greatest warriors. I was a warrior myself, and it was my passion. Tales of strategy and deception, love and strength. His species had always dreamed of battles in space, their unobtainable territory. Trials of Captain Kirk and Captain Picard, with their fight against the unknown. They thought of giant spheres meant to destroy planets, even larger rings meant to destroy galaxies. Even their tales of merely surviving in space fighting hunger and pressure made me shudder. His planets actual heros were possibly even more amazing. Davy Crockett and his final stand, the three hundred souls who bested tens of thousands for a time. Hercules and his enormous strength, and the incredible mind of Batman.
I have to say, even with all of those great warriors, it seemed none could hold a candle to the greatest.
Ted from Accounting. | Welcolm everybody into human 201.
*incomprehension babbling and buzzing of alien students*
Last year, you learned about semantic and what they call "purely informationnal" language. The part exactly used to communicate direct information, the same as every language in the confederation.
Now we delve into the specificity of human language.
No matter the dialect, forget everything you learned. Simpliest part is an Example : in the Francish Dialect, they usually start a conversation by"ça va", litterally "How Are You".
The truth is, they don't care. It's just what they call a "greeting"
*incomprehension and partial comprehension of introduction buzz again. A distinct 'that's useless' and 4 left the classroom*
The language is actually a very abstract tool for humans. They can use it to display affection even without visual, olfactive, dermial or Xihyutm contact. Xenobiologist agree to say it's also a way for them to perform pre-reproductary protocols.
*So we're basically learning how to mate with them ?
- Yeah, you're not here for that ? *
Now, we'll talk about "metaphores" and figurative language. This will be the main subject of the year, listing all known figures so you'll be able to actually communicate. But care because natives tend to invent some on the fly
*painfull student groan* | 2019-11-21T06:32:39 | 2019-11-20T20:31:01 | 64 | 39 |
[WP] In the eyes of an alien, describe an invasion of its home planet by humans. Make the humans the scariest thing I have ever read about. | We had looked outward for so many years, and thought that we were alone. A sobering truth—if it had remained that way. But the universe has a dark sense of humour, and when we first saw them—spaceships, I should clarify—we rejoiced in the fact that we were not alone. Then we saw how many ships they had brought with them. How fast they moved. We were not alone, and we were not friends. That was the terrifying truth.
Interstellar conquest requires resources, and humans, as they call themselves, will raid any location to obtain them. They are less a race and more a force of nature. There is no stopping them. They are vengeful, as we found to our detriment. Warmongers, as we deduced from their approach fleet. Brutal, as we witnessed upon their landing in our cities. Savage, as we witnessed how they fought.
They are almost impossible to kill—and that's without their armour. If we were not fighting them they would be a fascinating race to study. But their skin is too smooth, and comes in disgusting tones of pink and olive. Not a nice, hardshell black or green. They have no patterning, but are unaware of it. They cannot see shine, glare, or flicker. Those are our colours.
When they do not wear armour we find their head covered in fur, on top, and sometimes at the base also, around the mandibles. The fur around the mandibles is sometimes trimmed and cropped, in what must be atavistic tribal patterns to show allegiance within the group. But perhaps such crudities are necessary for those that lack a gestalt.
That was a horrific discovery. We thought to isolate a human, to disable them like we become if separated from our mind-home. But they don't have mind-homes. Or a gestalt. Their language is made of crude, monochromatic glyphs and guttural rasps of laryngeal strands. Nothing like the proper and complex click-clack of true language.
Worse than that, than finding they have no mind-homes, was finding out they can regenerate. If we lose a limb, we die. If a human loses a limb, well, it just seems to piss them off. They might die, some time later—after chewing their way through another squad—but most return, with hard-shelled metal limbs replacing those they lost.
Their blood is disgusting, and when exposed to air it congeals and hardens like glue. Disgusting, but it means a single cut won't cause them to bleed horribly and die without medical care. Against crushing injuries they are protected by an evolutionarily ingenious layer of muscle and fatty tissue, with bone *underneath*. What kind of horror has to keep its support structure inside, protected by that kind of padding?
Then we have their tenacity and endurance. They can survive days without water. Weeks without food. They can still fight, even when close to death from exhaustion. They fight even when it makes no sense—and many times they have driven our army back with impossible victories.
But these are only the less terrifying aspects—because of all the things humans know, they know how to harness the power of a dying sun; to place it within a canister and release it such that it turns our burrows to glass. We never developed nuclear weapons. The risk was too great. But this is my greatest fear of the humans—not that they have nuclear weapons, for merely having them makes them dangerous to both user and target.
No, it is the fact that the humans have made the use of nuclear weapons into an art form. We cannot fight that. No one can. | From the dark, the unseen star scorched our world.
On one side, oceans and mountains boiled away in a flash. On the other, forests and cities burned to ash. Everywhere life ended.
This was how we met the Humans.
If they'd hit us any sooner, we would have been extinguished, but for a generation after the last of our kind skirted the narrow line between life and death on the out system colonies. Every breath stale with recycled air. Every drink tinged with salt from countless cycles through our bodies. Every bite of food, cold and putrid, pulled straight from the algae tanks.
But it was enough, just barely enough to sustain our bodies.
Though, in truth, for our souls it did far more than that. It fed our anger and confusion. It fed our desire to know why, and in our darker moments, it fed our need to visit the same horrific destruction on those who did this to us.
So it fell to the next generation.
They cobbled together what they could find scattered among the ruins. They gathered the ashes of our once great world, and fashioned something new. They redesigned and repurposed and turned the void between worlds into their home in ways the first generation could never have dreamed.
With a cold fire burning in their generation’s heart, stoked by the old ones who could still remember the day the world burned, they laid the great keel of The Ship.
Every scrap of material, mined or looted from the past, every surge of energy gathered from our star, every facet of life turned to the completion of The Ship.
Her mammoth drives would carry the next generation to the star, so distant only the most powerful instrumentation could show its dim flicker, from which the great blow had come.
So here I sit. The ones we left behind, spent on the creation of our great vessel, have surely perished. I command what is left of my race as we sit in orbit over the third world of the once distant sun.
We burned a path from the cold edges of their system right to its very heart. They tried to stop us. But we would not be denied. We left ruin in our wake.
Near their center, we found horrors. Their belt was a factory of death. Hundreds of thousands of rocks weaponized with great drives of their own, each one a world killer. Even now, we can see the fusion trails of rocks burning towards their unknowing targets.
Their worlds are shattered, except their placid, blue marble and here we've stayed our vengeance. Our Mantel has always been to understand first, and execute second.
So we sent our question of why they do this. We ask what they could possibly derive from this slaughter of distant peoples.
Their answer was simple. *Wouldn't you have done the same?*
I find myself sickened by this. Not just for the raw brutality. Not just that an entire race can be so twisted as to see the stars filled with monsters.
I find myself sickened because of how much I want to end them, of how much I want to justify the fears that lead them to this callous and fearful state.
So it falls to my generation, the third and final, to decide. | 2015-03-07T03:41:02 | 2015-03-07T02:25:05 | 41 | 24 |
[WP] A kid doodling in a math class accidentally creates the world's first functional magic circle in centuries.
Magic being real in the past is your choice really. | "...to the power of 2, that way..."
Mrs. Patterson stopped, glancing down at Ed's notebook.
"Well, it appears that Mr. Anderson is a little more advanced than the rest of the class." She smiled her annoying
smile. "Edward, why don't you tell the class what it is that you are doing?"
Ed looked down at the doodle -- a pentagram touching an outer circle in four of its five points. (He had missed the fifth by a bit).
Right next to it, a poorly drawn Penis-Batman.
That's a penis dressed like Batman.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Patterson."
Mrs. Patterson smiled the annoying smile. "Just as well... You'll probably have to take my class
again next semester, Mr. Anderson. So, by all means, keep drawing."
Ed sighed, swallowing fifty different curse words back down his throat. He looked down at the drawing.
Distracted, he completed the pentagram, closing its final point on the outer circle.
He was about to start Penis-Robin when it happened.
"What a bitch."
Who said that was Penis-Batman, with a wink at Ed through the paper.
The pentagram and circle gleamed red and black next to it, like it had somehow gained texture and volume.
Mrs. Patterson was talking about Pi, and Jane, the cute one (not Jane the big nosed), was passing a note to Erin, her fat friend.
Nothing of this was perceived by Ed, of course, who was coping with the fact that a Penis-Batman doodle had just
talked to him.
"Wh-what?" He whispered, already envisioning his future in a mental home.
The circle and pentagram had stopped glowing, and the Penis-Batman was frozen blue ink on paper again.
Ed pressed his eyelids closed and took a deep breath.
"Now, Pi is an infinite number, as far as we know. It is..."
Mrs. Patterson's voice echoed as if coming from another dimension.
Ed kept breathing.
*All right, it's over. It was just a temporary delusion. Like a hallucination. It's gone.*
Ed opened his eyes to find Penis-Batman standing on the table like a tiny little, three dimensional person.
"At your command, master", Penis-Batman said, bowing to Ed.
And that was loud enough for the class to hear, mind you.
The circle and pentagram was gleaming brighter than ever now, making hissing noises as what appeared to be sparkles and bits of carbonized paper danced away from it.
It looked like the end of a bonfire.
Mrs. Patterson said eleven words after that, which were those:
"Mr. Anderson, if you cannot keep quiet I will have to."
Mrs Patterson wasn't able to keep saying words because, after 'to', she noticed the Penis-Batman standing erect and tall on Edwards table, and her brain decided this was a good time for shutting down. So Mrs. Patterson passed out.
Several other kids passed out too (but not weird Bob. Weird Bob took his iPhone out, flashed the camera and cried
'coooooool').
"Wh-who-who-who-who are you?" Ed mumbled, on the verge of following Patterson into unconsciousness.
"You drew the circle, dude", Penis-Batman said, smiling. "You lure into reality whatever it is that you draw, when
you draw the circle."
"You're...real?"
"And at your service! I got super powers too. Watch this."
Penis-Batman peed fire into the air, and the classroom ceiling burst into flames.
(*author's personal note: the above sentence is now my favorite sentence that I ever wrote. Thank you OP for the prompt which generated the proper setting for this sentence to arise. Kisses and hugs to my family and friends. Moving on.*)
Ed looked around the classroom.
Kids were panicking, tackling each other on the way to the door and away from the phallic Dark Knight.
"I didn't mean to... summon you..." Ed whispered, watching as the kids trampled one another and the classroom roof burned.
"You want me to go away?" Penis-Batman said, in a sad tone. "I can go away..."
Ed looked at Penis-Batman. He looked around.
He saw Jerry, who always picked him last in Gym and threw basketballs on his scrotum occasionally and for no reason, making way through the door, desperate.
He looked at Thamy, who once told everyone he had crapped his pants in class.
(Which was true, but still. Why tell people about it?)
He glanced at Toby and Jack, who always beat him up during recess.
He looked at Patterson, that bitch, still unconscious on the floor.
"No, Penis-Batman..." Ed said, smiling at his tiny friend.." He leaned his shoulder down and, with a smile, Penis-
Batman jumped and landed. "Come on", Ed continued, getting um from the chair, his new friend now balancing himself next to his ear. "We're gonna have
some fun."
_____________________
*Thanks for reading! For more about phallic DC Comics heroes (Not really. Though I did write on evil Batman and time travelling John Constantine recently, so kinda), check out my subreddit: /r/psycho_alpaca =)*
| The clock reads ten till two, and David is bored. He looks at the front of the room where the teacher is marking up the board with numbers David doesn't understand. In the center is a circle and all kinds of symbols David has seen a hundred times yet he still doesn't understand. He looks back at his sheet of paper, almost untouched. This class will last until three, that's an hour and ten minutes of staring at a blank piece of paper and ignoring the drone from the front of the class.
He checks the clock, but it's still ten till two.
Faced with the options, insanity from boredom and doing actual work, he has a difficult decision to make.
He picks up the pencil and starts doodling.
The simple fact is that David, while not a moron, is exceptionally poor at math. The numbers mix together in the air between the teacher and him, and enter one side of his head just to leave through the other. Math just doesn't make sense to him, and the symbols on the board are as close to gibberish as it gets, so David starts with the only thing he recognizes: a circle.
Now, David's no fool. He knows how to make a circle- geometry has always been more art than math to him- and he takes time to get out a compass and carefully make a perfect little circle. If he were paying attention he might know that the circle he created was something special but, again, David is not a smart child and he sees the circle as just that: nothing of importance, just a doodle on a page. Even when he cuts himself finishing the circle, the compass roughly tearing the tip of finger spraying miniture droplets of blood across the paper, he sees nothing special about the day. He doesn't hear the singing, softly drifting in on winds unheeded. He doesn't see the circle of graphite shrink and shape, settling into the paper and the very desk beneath it.
And he starts drawing symbols, he doesn't notice that they're very different from the ones on the board.
David copies everything he can see down as well as he can, as if some universal understanding of the objects of mathematical power would be transferred to him by the writing of it. The symbol for Pi became squiggles, Xs and 7s and 8s and even 2s were mistranslated onto the paper, all along the circle. And as the teacher droned on about how to find the area of a circle, David's circle began to glow.
The singing was loud enough for David to hear it now, a soft melody drifting in on the wind from the air conditioner. To David it seemed they were singing his name- a sweet tone of 'Daaaavvvviiiiid' ad infinitum.
The song grows even louder and David is scared now; scared that the people around him don't hear anything, scared that the circle is glowing, scared that the runes are beginning to swirl around the circle like they're being flushed down the drain.
And at this moment something clicks in David's head. A forceful intuition works its way into the cogs and gears of his mind, like the instinct that drives all the salmon in the world to the same lake, and acting on such instinct he opens his hand and slams his palm into the center of the circle.
The paper glowed brighter than the sun- no, the sun and everything else *dimmed* as the light from the paper grew- and the room around David slowed. The *world* around David slowed.
And from the paper came a power, an almost solid energy that flowed into David's arm, glowing under his skin like radioactive blood. He pointed to the board in the front, covered with the teacher's sloppy handwriting, and clicked his fingers like he would when pretending to fire a gun.
The energy poured forth from his arm and leaked across the room, a stream of smokey light. It covered the board, all across the slick white surface it spread, until it had covered the entirety of it.
And then David blinked, and time around him unlocked, the world started spinning yet again, the sun returned to its glory, and the birds again started singing outside.
But the beautiful voices that had called his name were no longer singing. And the paper was a burnt up frame missing the original circle.
The only evidence that it had been real- besides the *feeling* of the energy entering him- was drawn across the board: The teacher, bald head and all, was illustrated in great detail. The...terrible situation, for lack of a better word, he found himself in was in perhaps even *greater* detail.
And no one had a clue what had happened. The teacher fumbled to erase the drawing, and was quick to throw accusations across the room at the usual troublemakers. David just chuckled and looked at the clock before laying his head on the desk.
2:05, just forty-five minutes left.
In his sleep, David dreams of the voices. And when he wakes up their tone rings quietly in the back of his head. | 2015-03-13T15:00:45 | 2015-03-13T15:00:21 | 90 | 11 |
[WP] as the youngest heir to the throne you fake your death to escape a military coup but it was so convincing that Death came to collect your soul. CConfused by the situation, Death decides that you're a new form of undead and can't decide which powers you should be granted. | An actor I was at the time
And a good one at that
For I pulled a farce so sublime
That death did tip his hat
​
You may not yet be dead young prince
But you could have fooled me
So as a form of recompense
Here is a choice of three
​
A trickster you have proved yourself
So maybe this will match
Shall your face go upon a shelf
While others you shall snatch
​
Nay, I wish not to change my shape
It simply will not do
Oh reaper shrouded in black capes
What are the other two?
​
You run and run from stronger men
But this you'd do with ease
If you could make shadow your friend
To night you'd have the keys
​
To merely hide is cowardice
Though tempting it may be
Molding the shadow's edifice
Is not the one for me
​
Your people brought your family low
But you could watch them fry
If fires of vengeance could glow
From hateful hazel eyes
​
Oh reaper I can not choose this
For they know not their crime
If I were to destroy them thus
They'd think them justified
​
Having not chosen any three
The reaper laid his curse
A beggar I was doomed to be
With an unending thirst
​
The powers were given to me
The coup I overthrew
Now a monster forced in to being
Thus donned Nosferatu | "What do you mean, I'm undead??? I never actually died!"
The man in black robes shook his head patiently, like I was some sort of child. "Listen hun, I know you didn't 'actually die'. But you ended up on my list, that means that you are legally dead. My hands are tied here. So you can come with me, or i can register you as undead and we can start parsing out your powers."
"Powers? I'm very happy not to die, but what do you mean about powers?"
The man just rolled his eyes as he pulled out a strange metal tablet, that emanated light on the side facing him. He ran his pale fingers down the tablet as though moving something on it's surface. "Every undead has some sort of power. Liches are more magically potent than they were in life, vampires have increased speed and strength, even zombies become nearly unkillable. Let's see. You get the standard package. No need to drink, breath or sleep, and while we're at it might as well throw in no need to eat. Now, what other powers make sense for... i don't know, what would you call someone who's only legally dead? Or someone who cheats death?"
I was still in shock from the powers I was receiving, but I had some ideas. "I want to be able to become tangible or intangible at will, to become visible or invisible at will. My parents are killed, and I'm looking for revenge" | 2019-10-05T16:44:15 | 2019-10-05T16:38:49 | 27 | 12 |
[WP] You are a young Elf. You've just been awarded a scholarship at one of the most prestigious magic schools in all of the Nine Realms. The... Massachusetts Institute of Technology? | Zana Ljosa hated it. A common reaction for a Light Elf so far from home. And a natural reaction for the First Princess of the First Family of Ljosa.
She always hated the very idea Midgard, the middle realm of mortals. Now she hated the clingy fog draped on Boston. Quickly she came hate the noisy cars and stalking bicycles hounding her every step on the way to class. She even casted at scornful glare the the sun, a pale orb behind the gray shroud.
"By the Well of Urd," Zana curses. "The Council of Ancients shall pay for 'awarding' me this scholarship." Sweetly dark thoughts filled her imagination. Thoughts of disincorporation, dismemberment, and disenfranchisement brought a flicker of a smile to Zana's face.
A smile that dissolved quickly upon reaching her destination. A squat ugly red brick building signed **Plasma Science and Fusion Center Massachusetts Institute of Technology.** Truly dismal place of learning when compared the majestic Towers of Alfheim. She enters and is greeted with silence.
"Hall of Hel," her swearing words echo through the empty hallway. Classes had already started. She ran searching for her room. Barging into the assigned room bringing about the attention of the class and the Professor.
"You're late, Miss....?" said the Professor. The small domed bald man was puffing up at the disrespectful tardiness.
"Mizz?"
"Your name Girl." huffed the Professor, his bulbous nose turning a flush of red.
"I am Zana, the first daughter of the house of Ljosa." She threw back the cowl of her silver cloak. A boast none dared refute for they all were perplexed by her announcement and dazzling outfit. Her voiced lowered into a growl, "Call me girl again and you will find yourself before the gates of Giltir."
The Professor grew pale. While not entirely sure what just transpired he felt his life threatened. Yet looking around for support, he was painful aware that she was the only woman of the class. Kicking her out could be tenure threatening.
"Please take a seat Zana. And Welcome to Magnetohydrodynamic Theory of Fusion Systems." And continued with a routine reading on the syllabus.
When Zana turned her classmates her hand reached instinctually her side side. Reaching for a sword, that was left in her studio apartment for well founded reasons. The entire class was paleness bordering on sallow. They resembled the Dark Elves, creatures living devoid of sunlight under the surface.
Zana went to the back of the class. Sitting alone and using the monotonous tenor of the Professor to regroup. As much as she detested her situation dealt to her. The Council did select her for her merits. She simply wished for more direction and instructions. *Learn the mortals technology.*
And then the Professor presented the next slide.
The powerpoint slide held an image of a bright glowing donut labeled Alcator C-Mod Tokamak. Swirling plasma modeled in flux. A controlled chaos. "Fusion offers unlimited clean energy," explained the Professor, "harvested from the same natural of process of the sun."
Zana sat agape. Her mind immediately latched onto the potential. The conversion of matter into energy and transmutation the elements. Pieces fell into place
The Council had been raging and ranting against about Mortal Technology (MT) for eons beyond eons. And finally acted. By sending their best and brightest. She saw the importance of her mission.Mortal Technology evolved and now transcended. Mortals shall soon have magic. And Fifth Realm soon shall have war. | Getting into MIT last week was the highlight of my young life.
That is, until I opened today’s letter. I'm not just going to MIT, I'm getting a full ride. I drop the letter, bounce up and down, then throw my hand in the air Freddie Mercury style. I bet Queen’s front man would’ve envied the sparklers spraying from my fingertips.
Sure, MIT isn’t Oxford or Kyoto, but this is my dream. For one, I savor saying Massachusetts like a its medium-rare steak. It’s silly to humans, but for elves, speaking carries its own sensory reward. Then there’s the weather. Dry winters and hints of humidity in comfortable summers. My grandpa gushes whenever the seasons change. Snow falls the perfect amount and ends when the novelty grows stale. It used to snow more, but the Bridging of Realms slowly stabilized Earth’s tumultuous climate. It all fills me with nostalgia for a homeland I’ll never see.
But as my dreams come true, truth settles in.
My triumphant pose falters, and I fall face-first onto my mattress. I sprawl my arms out and feel the weight of familial expectations. Expectations that one day we can go home. My purpose at MIT is clear: learn how to reverse the elven diaspora and return the Nine Realms back to their rightful place. It requires a lifetime of studying with no guarantee of success.
Likewise, MIT won’t expect me to graduate and move on. They’ll tempt me with a PhD, then a professorship. They’ll invite me to teach humans our ways. Even as we adapt our magic to the strangeness of Earth’s magnetic poles, we’re still leagues ahead of them. Ambition and greed keeps them nipping at our heels, but our innate ability allows us to run before they can crawl. My career path is as obvious as Sam’s love for Frodo (I’m still amazed at how much Tolkein got right).
Two powerful forces compel me into a life of subtle servitude. Is my MIT entrance and scholarship even my desire? Or the world’s? Magic is great. Magic is fun. Magic is a powerful force for change, but it doesn’t change people’s minds. Buried in the thickness of my comforter, I ask myself what *I* want.
The answer comes in the form of a history lesson, one regarding the Bridging of Realms. Human leaders setting aside worldwide divisions to face the trespass of our pointy ears. Telepathy allowing my grandparents’ generation to communicate until we learned humanity’s delightful languages. Sharing magic as the ultimate gift for peace.
I fear that gift comes with a price, a bomb ticking toward an explosive end. We can’t trust humans with magic, but concerns are dismissed by a belief we’ll be gone before it matters.
What if we won’t be? What if I don’t want to leave the brilliant creativity of this world? I burn for change. It’s embedded in my blood. The change I want though, is not the change others desire. I push myself up from the mattress and pick up my scholarship letter, staring at the word ‘Congratulations’. Another scrumptious word to say.
I decide right then: my scholarship might be for magic, but my lessons will be in politics.
---------------------------------------
read more at /r/wiselywrittenwords | 2021-11-10T11:29:46 | 2021-11-10T11:21:52 | 44 | 29 |
[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! | The battle for a theocracy was a turbulent one and was the cause of the single greatest loss of life since the second world war - dubbed the 10th crusade. Despite this, the battle was won and a new holy land was established. Jerusalem's economy tanked and people flocked to our new country, a holy country. It was wonderful.
Traditional thinking would tell you that society would quickly descend into anarchy as the inevitable disarray takes hold. Traditional thinking would be right was if not for one fundamentally flawed assumption. You see, the rich toiled in their bunkers hoping to wait out the worst of the looting and violence when something unprecedented happened: the government began to work in the best interest of the citizens. It was being run by the single smartest, most powerful entity - through a vessel. An unpleasant side effect of this however, was that no one could ignore the reality that God exists (though not for a lack of trying) and lifestyles had to change in accordance with that fact. It was now no longer just priests that took vows of poverty. On everyone's 18th birthday they are given exactly how much money they need for the rest of their humble lives, none can be borrowed, none can be earned. Whether the drying of funds precipitated or caused death is a hotly debated topic. Regardless, all but the terminally ill could expect a sum totalling in the low tens of thousands at the very least. Enter me.
$7.67. 767 *FUCKING* CENTS. Even with heavy government subsidies, this is not enough for a week - let alone a lifetime, so forgive my French. See, most would think this means that they are about to die, but me, I know I'm fine. I am two weeks from mission and in the 47 years this country has existed *not one person* has died this soon before mission. So what? Is god calling me fat? Angus Barbieri is whole number multiples heavier than me. So I do what every rational man of the cloth does and head to the temple, it's almost time for prayers anyways.
If you guys want more I'll finish this later. I got finals to study for. | 2019-04-24T14:49:01 | 2019-04-24T12:49:46 | 99 | 19 |
[WP] Every morning you wake with little cuts and bruises. You have told yourself for years that its just how you move in your sleep. Today, you woke up with a large gash on your arm, a glowing red dagger plunged into the wall, and what looks a lot like a dead angel on the floor | My name is Elshaniel, and I’m a Guardian. My charge is Dr. Josephine Kaplan, and she is going to cure cancer.
Every night I keep my watch. The denizens of death and disease hunt fiercely for the architect of their demise. Those that succeed I silence.
I’ve kept the watch for 16,707 nights, and tonight will be my last. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in the chilled air. It reminds me of the cold night that Josephine came into the world. She was so frail and small. Her cries were weak and desperate. When Michael brought me to St. John’s Hospital for my next mission, I didn’t understand. It’s so rare that we’re given a lifelong assignment.
“This one is different, Elshaniel. She can bring so much hope. You remember how easy it used to be to stir hope in human hearts?”
I remember nodding dumbly, fresh from the Ia Drang Valley, where my last charge had so brutally died in battle. That Lieutenant was supposed to have forged an alliance that brought peace to Southwest Asia for a hundred years. Except I had failed…
“Hope used to come as easily as the sunrise. This child can do that again, by bringing life.” Something about Michael’s conviction stirred me then, and I was resolved. She would survive to cure the Enemy’s greatest weapon, even if I had to sacrifice eternal life to do it.
A gust blew the window open and the air’s chill soaked the room. This wasn’t a scouting party tonight; they must have discovered her location. I hear the heavier flap of thick velvet wings, and the muffled chink of Hadeian armor. This was an assassination squad.
I crouch in the corner, narrowing my eyes to thin lines of steely blue, coiled like a spring.
Balthazar, the Lord of Pestilence, landed lightly on the windowsill, flanked by two demons hovering outside. Cancer was his most glorious invention, so of course he made this personal. He tunneled toward her slender form on the bed and crept forward, unsheathing a glowing red dagger. If I knew his methods, this would not be swift or painless.
The dagger rose, and his lips crept back in a gruesome grin.
Light and dark collided.
Otherworldly screeches pierced my ear as I rose from the ground.
“Elshaniel… I would have expected a stronger Guardian,” Balthazar mocked as he regained his footing. He nodded at me and all three sprung forward.
Seconds became minutes. I dodged… swung… my sword bit ethereal flesh… one demon knocked my leg from under me… the other regretted getting close and evaporated in a cloud of feathers and smoke. Balthazar swung the dagger and ripped my shoulder open – the white hot searing pain nearly made me blind with agony. I roared in rage.
“Ahhhh! Get out!” Swing… parry… stab… step… my strokes became more furious. His became maddeningly calmer. Almost too late, I realized the other demon was creeping behind me towards Josephine’s bed. I swung quickly overhead and kicked Balthazar in the chest as he parried. The momentum helped send me toward the bed as the creature swung right at her still frame.
Its blade gashed her arm before I stopped it with my own.
Then we were a ball of fury tumbling on the floor, grappling with blades and throats. It took a few seconds, but I rose. It didn’t.
Balthazar covered the window with his frame as he crept toward me. His guttural growl was no longer mocking. “You’re getting on my nerves, light-bringer.”
I felt the blood running down my arm in a stream. I had minutes, maybe seconds. I charged right at him.
He wasn’t expecting the recklessness, and his dagger came up too slow. It came up fast enough to pierce my breast, though. But my sword bit his neck, and I saw the panic in his eyes as his essence started drifting toward Hades. He urgently pulled at the dagger and glanced at the bed. My grip was iron, though. He desperately pulled at the dagger and threw it toward her. It was too high… I could tell from the angle as we fell to the ground.
Josephine was safe.
As the world grew hazy, I heard a much lighter flap of wings at the windowsill, and Michael’s face soon came into view.
“Oh my friend, I’m so sorry we’re too late. You have done so well…”
I didn’t have strength to reply, but my smile should tell him it’s ok.
In my last moments, I think I can hear her stirring awake… | Andreas, the man with a silver eye, had all his life woken up covered in cuts and bruises. The cuts? Barely scrapes. He blamed the sheets, not exactly soft, but scratchy. And the bruises? *That's just in how I sleep. You don't outlast night terrors without giving yourself a few black and blues.*
Harmless. Or so he thought...
He woke up that morning not to the sound of an alarm clock braying, but to a screaming pain that festered in his forearm. *What is that?* Those screams were far from metaphorical, literal ear piercing cries fled from a six-inch long gash that ran up from his wrist.
*Jesus!* His lone, natural blue eye blinked before a burning red light. *I can't see. Christ, what's happening? Am I going blind...? No. Remember what Lilac told you. Breathe easy. Focus.*
He closed his natural eye and let out a queer shiver. He didn't like using the silver sighted looking glass that occupied the left side of his face, but sometimes it was necessary, at least ever since...
"Who are you?" Andreas demanded, throwing himself back against the head board of his bed. His hands were shaking, his whole body sunk as if trying to disappear into the walls or down through the floorboards.
His room was delicately cast in a silver glow, the outline of reality ebbing to reveal some foul stench lurking beneath. There were eyes, watching from the skirting boards. Faces pushing through the plaster walls. Hands groping in waves from the floor.
Andreas jerked himself forward, seeking refuge in the centre of his bed. "Answer me!" he cried out.
There was a creature, with folded wings of singed black ash, curled up in the corner of the room. It was singing in a low voice, eyes fixed on the hands of the floorboards. Though those hands didn't dare to touch the creature, they swam away.
A red light lifted from the creature's face, running in a faint circle round its head. There was a dagger, too, plunged into the wall.
"They're watching, oh they watch us, don't look or they might see. They're watching, oh they watch us, why won't they let us be?"
"What does that mean? Who's watching us?" Andreas swallowed down a lump stuck in his throat. He edged himself to the side of his bed, a boat on troubled waters. He could see now that the dagger had been forced into one of the plaster-born faces, where the eyes should have been. Only Andreas knew where the eyes really were... *down below*.
The creature's crumbling wings flexed, opening in a flurry of dust, but it didn't dare to look up. "The dead will rise to meet him, oh they'll come to greet him fair. They stir now from their sleep eternal, whilst he creeps out from his lair."
"Who? Who's coming?" Andreas leaned over the bed, slowly reaching out to the cowering creature. It fell suddenly still, not so much as a whisper coming from body or mouth. "Please," Andreas begged, "talk to me..."
Slowly the creature lifted its head, mouth drawn into a twisted smile, "Peek-a-boo." it whispered, "I see you."
"Oh god." Andreas jumped back, "What happened to you?" the creature's eyes were but hollow sockets of flesh, lively maggots writhing within.
"You weren't supposed to look." the creature tittered. The its jaw unhinged and a snake-like tongue lunged at Andreas.
He had a choice. Let the snake come, or drop from the bed into the waiting hands of death. He dropped. The hands surrounded his being, grabbing and dragging him down.
The creature sat up, tilting its head and glaring solemnly at Andreas. It waved, with a single rotting hand, drawing the dagger from the wall with the other.
Andreas watched the creature end its own life as at last his head was forced below the carpet... the screaming reared up once more from his arm, and in his head the creature's song played endlessly on through the dark;
*They're watching, oh they watch us, don't look or they might see. They're watching, oh they watch us, why won't they let us be?*
*The dead will rise to meet him, oh they'll come to greet him fair. They stir now from their sleep eternal, whilst he creeps out from his lair.* | 2019-02-01T05:57:55 | 2019-02-01T04:42:48 | 246 | 46 |
[WP] Two werewolves fall madly in love, but only during the full moon. When they’re human, they can’t stand each other. | The two of us ran together through the woods, our sleek wolf bodies dancing back and forth around each other like wind blowing through a stream. We were made for each other, perfectly in sync with the others' movements, no matter if we were hunting, feasting, or mating.
Except, of course, when the full moon came out.
The transformation was painful. We tried to hide from it in the shade of the trees or the depths of caves, but it came for us nevertheless. We howled in agony as our agile wolf bodies creaked and elongated, mutating into our horrific human forms.
Smooth skin, so vulnerable to attack. Teeth barely able to chew through a stick. Long neck, open to predators from any direction. And complete and utter blindness when it came to seeing, smelling, and hearing. The world, once a beautiful symphony of colors, sounds, and smells, hardened into a hazy mist of muted half-echoes.
And then there was just our appearance. God, how ugly we were! We were like newly-born pups, pink skin with barely any hair, except far too large to be considered cute anymore. Our disgusting appendages, ending in wriggling fingers and toes like thick worms, and our heads, sitting like dull, meaty boulders on our shoulders.
Each time, we recoiled from each other in horror, spending the remainder of the full moon as hidden as possible. I stayed curled up in the dark shadows of the cave, shivering in the cold without my pelt, jumping at every sound since I couldn't hear any movements until they were loud enough to be too late, just wishing it would come to an end.
How stupid we'd been! How overconfident we'd been. We thought we were the greatest hunters in the forest, until we'd run into the man-beast. He'd bitten us and infected us with his curse, dooming us to transform into his kind once a month.
I closed my eyes. At least it would be over once the daylight came. Then my love and I could run together again as beautiful wolves, creatures made to live within this world, not to live despite it.
*****
This prompt was written with the help of chat at the [ScottWritesStuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottWritesStuff/) Twitch stream. | He'd only gone out for a simple jog. It was a nice night, cool and quiet. After a rather hectic day at the company, he was desperate to relax himself. Dannan forgot about the full moon. Hidden behind the clouds, out of his sight, he jogged along the empty sidewalk, ear buds snug in his ears as he went. Rounding the corner, he found himself coming to a halt. His heart beat was suddenly very, very noticeably loud. Overhead, the cloud drifted on their merry way, revealing the moon so full and big in all its glory.
The doors of the nearby convenience store suddenly opened and someone walked out. Dannan recognized them, it was his coworker Ensil. His chest suddenly felt tight, the beating of his heartbeat going faster and faster until he was positive it would burst. Ensil stopped as well. He looked Dannan's way and the pair locked eyes. Any thoughts that Dannan had at the moment became foggy mush. He slowly approached Ensil who eyed him, carefully, sensually.
"Hey, " he said, not breaking eye contact.
"Hey. Out for a run?"
"Yeah. Just...felt like I needed it tonight. What about you?"
"Bought some drinks." Ensil smiled Dannan's way. "You wouldn't want to come by, would you?"
Dannan grinned wolfishly. "Do you mind?"
"Not in the slightest."
On those nights where the moon is full and bright, a love that shouldn't exist burns hard inside of Dannan and Ensil. Any other day, the pair are like water and oil, completely unmixable. They bicker back and forth, are irritated in one another's presence and overall hate each other's guts. But the full moon changes that entirely. Several months had passed since they first fell in love and ever since then they've tried their hardest to avoid each other on those cursed nights. Of course, it never works. | 2018-05-22T19:44:26 | 2018-05-22T19:34:35 | 475 | 14 |
[WP] You are a failed doctor, but a well practiced necromancer. Of course, rent is still due each month, and in order to pay the bills you still help the sick. The catch? Your patients have to die first for you to help them. | He's young. Just a boy, really. With gingerbread hair and a woolly mammoth plush clutched close to his chest. The soft toy has been loved. It's threadbare and looks as if it's been bred with a warthog.
The boy has been loved, too. You can always tell, when someone has been loved. It bleeds out of their pores, out of their eyes. A separate voice whispering on their every word.
His parents wouldn't accompany him into my surgery. I don't blame them. It's never pleasant watching one die, even if one forgets all about it the next day. The next patient...
"Hello," I venture. " I'm Amelia. What's your name? "
His big blue eyes wander around the room, exploring the curiosities that aid my profession. "You're not a doctor," he says, before bursting into a fit of throat ripping coughs.
"And you're not well ," I reply.
He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "Mom says I'm going to be better soon."
"Your mom is lying."
He swallows, a lump rocking his tiny throat. "Take that back." Blue eyes grow damp. Beautiful eyes. He'd melt hearts if he were to reach his teenage years.
"You're dying. You have weeks left, at most. The cancer is eating you alive, Robert. It gets us all, in the end. You know you're dying. You've overheard your parents talk of it at night, haven't you? "
He starts to cry but another burst of coughs distract him. He bends over and his mammoth companion drops onto the floor, rolling towards my seat. I pick it up.
"Give him back," he demands.
"Robert, you have a choice today. And your parents want you to make the choice, as they cannot. For after they are gone, your choice will still echo. Always echo."
"Give him back!" He tries to snatch the doll but I raise my hand.
"Calm down and I'll return it to you."
He glares at me but steps back. "What choice?"
"You're quite right, I'm not a doctor. I'm something else entirely."
He looks at me again. Cautiously. Curiously. "What are you?"
I allow a smile to rise. "A miracle worker."
"A... a miracle?"
He's smart. He's heard the term before, in relation to his condition. "You're going to die. Soon."
Silence. Acceptance.
"But once you do, as long as you die with a body that still functions... You can come back. I can return you."
"I'll live?"
"In a way, yes. You'll rise again, like Jesus. "
His throat rocks once more.
"There will be no more pain for you. Ever. At least, not physical."
"No more pain?" he echoes.
"No more doctors or operations. No more treatments and disappointments. No more fighting." I offer him his mammoth. He steps forward gingerly and takes it from me.
"So, you'll fix me?"
"Yes. I'll fix you. But to do so, I must make changes to you."
He frowns. "What changes?"
" You won't ever grow a day older, Robert. No more birthdays. No growing taller or stronger. Life for you will become stagnant. Never changing."
"That doesn't--"
"Your memory, every day upon waking, will reset to your death day. You will never be more than you are right now." My tone eases into not entirely fake compassion. "But you will never be less, either."
He doesn't cry. He doesn't hug his mammoth; it just dangles by his leg impotently. His voice is a whisper. "But I'll live again?"
"You won't be dead. But you need to decide what you want to do, today. Your body is deteriorating every second. If you delay any longer, I can not be sure I can save you entirely. This is your chance for some kind of survival."
"What do mommy and daddy want me to do?"
"To make your own decision. I pull open a drawer and take take out a vial, popping off the cork. Inside, a viscous black liquid sloshes violently, eager to get out. "Eiither you walk out of this room now, and live your last days the best you can. Or..." I offer the vial forward, hoping perversely that he doesn't take it. I have been honest, yet he cannot understand the implications fully.
How can be understand what it's like for every day to be the same?
To grow no new memories.
But to harbour an eternal bitterness.
Such a hatred for life that you are willing to make others suffer as you do.
He pauses for a good minute. Then a tiny hand wraps around the glass.
| "Greetings, Mr. Hereford! My name is Dr. Osiris, thank you for coming to my office. How may I be of your service?" I motioned towards my bare office. I quite liked the office. Once I had a butcher to cure, and he said that my room looked exactly like his slaughterhouse: Tiled all around, even the ceiling with a metal bed bolted down to the middle, with only a small cabinet on the far side of the surgery. He was right but I was sad he noticed.
"Thank you, Doctor. I have had severe headache for at least 2 weeks now and It's driving me crazy."
"All right, I'll take a look at you, please get undressed and lay down on the table." As he did, I asked Emily, my assistant how much did he pay: The rich usually took the care package, where I put them into sleep with a cyanide pill. It was expensive and relatively painless: Around half a minute of agony, then silence. The second option was for the middle class: When they laid down, they got a hit to their had with a bat, and during while they slept, I suffocated them with a pillow. Not much struggle, takes about 2-3 minutes. And for the poor: Just strangle them with a leather belt. I'm a monster anyway, so why not just enjoy it a little more? Memory loss almost always happens during necromancy, so might as well take my time. Although memories can be restored it requires more concentration and energy. This is why I only use cyanide when retaining memories is required.
"Mr. Hereford paid for the Common package, Dr. Osiris." replied Emily. "Thank you, that's all, please wait outside."
Not even she knew about me. As the patient laid on the metal bench, I went to the cabinet and opened it. When I turned back with my bat, I saw him sitting up and turning towards me. He was huge, I was truly afraid what would happen if he saw me with the bat."Hey Doc, I get a vertigo when I...."
He wanted to finish, but I was already running towards him with the bat, trying to hit him on the head. He somehow blocked and I felt some bones snap in his arm. He screamed extremely loudly but I already prepared myself for the second strike. I hit him exactly on the top of his had, but he was still awake. This brute had very thick skull. I dropped my bat and ran back to my cabinet for the ax. It wasn't even mine, it was the old butcher's. I turned around just to find him charging towards me with the bat I dropped. I ducked to avoid the hit, then immediately hit him with the ax on his neck. He collapsed at that instant but was still conscious. A second hit on his head did the trick, he didn't move again.
I somehow managed to put him back on the bench. Note to self: Always strap the patient. I cleaned the surgery off his blood, then began the ritual: Draw a heptagram with goat blood, and place black candles on its corners. Everybody assumed you need a pentagram for necromancy. It was only for the body to rise, but I also needed to heal them and for this you needed one extra Pilon Of Darkness. Without it, you'd only get an injured body to be raised back. But even after, you needed to get the soul. This is what almost no one knew how to do it, but is very simple: Add one more Pilon, and you get to get everything back. The ritual took about 17 minutes, as always. After he woke up, I asked how he felt:"I don't remember how I got here" thats nice, I thought."Don't worry. You had a bad headache. You may experience some pain in your head, neck and arms, but you'd be all right in under a few days.""Thank you, Doc, I think you saved my life!" I can never hide a giggle when I hear this."This is why I'm here. If you or your friends have any issue, please recommend me.""Sure Doc, you are the best."
As he went outside, Emily gave me suspicious look. I explained to her how curing someone can be painful, but I suspect she doesn't really believed me. She called the next patient and told me: He had paid for the least expensive one. As I looked outside towards my Foyer, Almost everyone was from lower classes. I sighted and with a small smile, I went after my next patient: Today will be a fun day.
EDIT: Thank you guys for the suggestions, I made some of them :) | 2018-12-13T06:37:56 | 2018-12-13T02:48:49 | 1,547 | 491 |
[WP] "Mom, i'm telling you. A green man came out of my closet and did a standup comedy routine."
[deleted] | “Is it bedtime yet?” My son asked placing his dinner plate in the sink
“Don’t you want to play catch tonight buddy?” My husband asked.
“Nah I just want to go to bed so the funny guy will come back”
I looked at my husband hoping he wouldn’t look as confused as me but there he was staring at me asking the same silent question.
“The funny guy?” I asked after losing the staring contest with Alvin.
“Yeah he’s green and only has one eye and he tells the funniest jokes.” He kept talking but my relief was palpable, one eye, it was just a dream.
“He came from the closest and he brought his own microphone and a stool and he said his name was Mike.”
“Well buddy, Mike can wait a bit, cause I need your help in the garage with the old car.”
I smiled as my boys ran out the door excited to work on their project car together. All thoughts about little green one eyed men left my mind as I sipped my coffee and listened to the clanging tools coming from the garage. It wasn’t until later that night when as I was drifting off to sleep that I heard a familiar voice drifting down the hall. I bolted upright. Mike the green monster. I thought it was a dream, could it be, could Mike and kitty be real? I ran to my sons room and saw the last movement of the closet door closing. I smiled at my son trying to pretend he was asleep.
“Was that your green man” I asked.
“Yeah he’s really funny”
“If he comes back tomorrow night will you tell him Boo says hi.”
“Who’s Boo?” He asked
“Oh she’s just someone I used to know. Go back to sleep I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.” I whispered as I pulled his door almost shut. | It was the middle of the night and all I heard was this eerie cackling. I jumped out of bed, my heart racing, and hurried down the hallway to find my 12 year-old son in his room, laughing uncontrollably and staring at the wall. I was relieved to find him safe, though I was concerned about the source of his laughter. He said a green man had come out of his closet and was doing a stand-up comedy routine.
At first, I thought it was a childish dream- something he and his friends had concocted during recess. But as the weeks passed, his delusions seemed to grow more vivid. He would tell me about the same green man every day, and I began to worry he was developing some kind of mental illness.
I took him to see a therapist who told me my son was suffering from a rare form of dissociative identity disorder. He said the green man was an alternate personality my son had created to help him cope with some traumatic issues in his childhood.
I was relieved to know the green man wasn't real, but I realized what this meant. My son had a dark secret- something so painful, so terrible that he could only express it with a figment of his imagination.
The secret weighs heavily on me to this day. I can only hope that in time, the green man will fade and my son will be able to confront his inner demons. Until then, all I can do is be there for him, no matter how dark the road ahead gets. | 2022-11-30T18:40:48 | 2022-11-30T17:36:32 | 49 | 15 |
[WP] An old witch lives in a cabin deep in the woods. Problem is, her cabin violates a myriad of zoning, environmental and endangered species ordinances. You're the municipal worker sent to sort this out. | The crows cawed and screeched as Devon approached the dingy cabin. It had been something of an effort to find it through the nigh-impenetrable mist--which was odd in and of itself, given that it was the middle of the day--but a good civil servant didn't allow a little bad weather to stand in the way of their duty. Humming to himself, he knocked on the ancient oak door and adjusted his grip on his clipboard so he could wipe his glasses. After a moment, he knocked again. He was just about to try for a third time when the door flew open and the resident peered out of the lightless gloom.
"Whaddya want?" she snapped. She was an old woman, her face pock-marked and with a smattering of small warts. She smelled unpleasantly of rot and mildew, but Devon was determined not to be perturbed.
"Hello, miss!" Devon replied cheerfully, his nasally voice just a bit too loud. "I'm Devon Landry. I've come on behalf of the municipal board of wildlife and environmental preservation to deliver a--"
"A mortal? How did you get through my fog wall?" The woman squinted at him. "Are you a warlock? A witch hunter? A vampire?"
"Afraid not," Devon replied. "Just a humble civil servant. Now, as I was saying, I've come to deliver a subpoena, as you are currently in violation of the city's 2017 Wildlife Reserve Act, which strictly prohibits the raising of domiciles within the bounds of the newly defined wildlife--"
"Will you shut up?" the witch snarled. "This house stood centuries before your pathetic city was raised from the mud. I won't let you mortal fools drive me out. If you want me gone, you'll have to burn me."
"Now, now, ma'am, no need to be so dramatic," Devon said. "The Wildlife Reserve Act was up for vote on the ballot just last June. You had all the opportunity to oppose the motion then. We even had a Town Hall meeting dedicated to it. If you feel this legislation is unfairly targeting you, you're free to appeal the case to the fourth circuit."
The witch, who had communed with demonic beings from beyond the bounds of space and time, stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about?"
"I get that question a lot, actually," Devon said. "In any case, you are formally ordered to appear in court on the Fifth of November. You aren't required to post bail at this time." He held out a slip of paper to the witch, a bland smile plastered on his face.
"You are..an odd man," the witch said, taking the slip.
"I have been told that," Devon said. And with that, he turned and vanished back into the mist. He had three more court orders to deliver that day, after all. | Standing here, in the middle of a swamp, outside a shack, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that it’s Halloween, and that I was dumb enough to wear my black cat costume on the night where I’m visiting a witch. Clutching my clipboard tight, I force myself to smile as she pinches my cheeks.
“*Who’s a cute kitty? Yous is. Yous is!*”
“Ms…” I look at my clipboard. “…Wilmer. Please, let go of me. This is very serious. Your home’s on government land, and the potions you’re brewing—well, they’re killing all the animals around here.”
“*Talkin’ kitty!*” she squeals, excitedly clapping. She’s an old, sweet looking lady with a banana-shaped nose who squints to see. I’m guessing she’s blind. “*Been gettin' lots of yous lately!*”
“Ma’am, this is serious. You may have to relocate, or at the very least quit your witchery…”
I trail off because she isn’t listening to me in the slightest. Instead, she’s dancing around her room, waving her wand, creating a cat-bed, and a scratching post, and who knows what else. When she finally returns, she’s holding a bowl of milk, which is my one weakness.
“*Fluffer-butters! That’s yer name. Here, drinks some milks!*”
Taking a deep breath, I try composing myself—but I can’t because I *love* milk. It’s literally all I drink, and when I snatch it out of her hands, sucking it down, the witch cackles.
“*Heh, you’ll be a real kitty soon!*”
My eyes widen as my fingers shrink away from the bowl. Suddenly, I’m shrinking away from *everything.* Before I know it, I’m only a foot or two off the ground, staring at her gnarly toes. I’m…I’m a cat. She turned me into a real cat! When she goes to pick me up, I swipe at her, but I don’t have any claws.
“*Good kitty!*” she says, petting me. “*Not the firsts, kitty! Yous can plays with the others who wanted me gone! Forever and ever, heh, heh, heh.*”
As she slams the door shout, I meow as loud as I can.
***
This is weird, but I think it's funny. If you like this story, check out my sub r/longhandwriter or my [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/BryceBealWriter?lang=en) | 2018-10-28T14:46:47 | 2018-10-28T14:07:57 | 65 | 19 |
[WP] You have a magic bow with which you can undo any shot you've taken. After a lifetime of service to the king, you've come to realize you regret slaying his nemesis twenty years ago. You decide to undo that shot, embracing the chaos sure to ensue. | \[See [Part 1 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/if4phi/wp_you_have_a_magic_bow_with_which_you_can_undo/g2lspax/?context=3)\]
\[Part 2 of 2\]
The grave has been opened and the casket has been pulled out. A few volunteers lift the top off the coffin. The rest of the crowd stands behind me, watching.
Now is the moment of truth. Will Robert of Faunesmuir agree to be our leader? I lift the empty bow and take aim. I pull the bowstring back, then gently release it. For a moment, time seems to stand still as nothing happens. No one dares to move as we wait. Then at last, the bones begin to stir in the casket.
Some in the crowd watch in fascination, and others turn away, sickened by the sight. The bones shake and slide back together. Muscle and sinew reform. Skin slides over the body and hides the inner tissues. Complete now, the body lies still, appearing as though he had only died moments ago. Finally, he takes a deep, gasping breath and bolts upright.
Once his breathing calms, he finally notices me for the first time. He stares, trying to process what is happening. Slowly, his expression changes from confusion to anger. He knows what I did to him. He leaps to his feet, ready to charge at me, to rip me limb from limb. The volunteers beside the coffin are ready, though, and grab him by the arms. I nock an arrow. I won't kill him again, but he doesn't know that. Obviously outnumbered and with an arrow trained at his heart, he stops struggling.
I lower the bow and kneel. With head bowed, I begin my plea. "Robert of Faunesmuir, I am sorry for what I did to you. The pain and loss I caused you. I hope that you can forgive me." I pause. As they've done so many times before, the volunteers slowly release his arms. I continue to stare at the ground. "The king tricked me. He told me that you were a murderer. I learned later that it wasn't true. The real reason he had you killed was that he thought you would take his throne from him."
I wait a bit longer, then finally stand up and meet his gaze. He still hasn't spoken. His facial expression keeps changing, his emotions fluctuating. Having your killer resurrect you to tell you that the king had ordered your murder due to your claim on the throne is a lot to process. Especially after being dead for years.
"Now, we want to do exactly that. The king has only become worse since then. We want to remove him from power. And we want to put you on the throne instead."
"What?!"
That got his attention. "We plan to overthrow the king, and put you in his place."
After much explaining and coaxing, he agreed. His initial reluctance was not because he felt it was wrong, but because he felt like we couldn't succeed. Hearing our plan changed his mind.
\-----------
Last night we sent a messenger to the king. He wants me back in his employ, so I requested an audience with him. I asked that he meet me in the woods on the old stone bridge at sunset. The messenger returned with his agreement. Our army waits, hiding behind bushes, rocks, and trees. I, alone, stand on the bridge.
As the sun touches the edge of the horizon, a carriage appears. It's surrounded by a dozen guards. It stops at the edge of the bridge and the king steps out. I kneel and look at the ground as he walks toward me. "Your Majesty."
"You may rise."
I stand. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me."
He smirks, confident that I've come back to beg his forgiveness. "What is the purpose of this clandestine meeting?"
"Majesty, I ask that you abdicate your throne."
The smirk falls away and his jaw tightens. The audacity of my request fills him with rage. "No. It is mine, by rights. It shall remain that way."
Seeing his reaction, the guards took a step closer. He lifts a hand, and they stop to await his orders.
"You have become a tyrant. You kill any who displease you. You let your people starve. The kingdom is filled with unrest. Please, step down, and no harm will come to you."
He laughs. He believes I cannot hurt him. "Who would you put in my place? Would *you* be king in my stead?"
Robert of Faunesmuir emerges from a bush behind me. "*I* would be king. Step down if you wish to live."
The king's jaw drops. His eyes dart back and forth between us. "He's dead! I saw him! You showed me the body? What trickery is this?" He stumbles backwards a few paces. "*Guards!"*
He turns and runs back toward his carriage. Everyone leaps from their hiding places, weapons in hand. They charge at the guards. Metal clangs as swords and shields collide. The forest comes alive with noise as shouts come from every direction.
I grab an arrow from my quiver, eyes fixed on the receding back of the king. I reach for an arrow. One of the guards breaks away from the others. He, too, has a bow and arrow. Before I can react, Robert of Faunesmuir shoves me aside and raises his shield. The arrow hits it with a grating clang of metal against metal, then falls harmlessly to the ground.
As the guard pulls another arrow from his quiver, I nock mine and release it toward the king. Someone tackles the bow-wielding archer as the king falls down, dead.
"We've won!" Robert of Faunesmuir bellows.
As the news slowly travels to the remaining fighters, the skirmishes dwindle away. A few of the guards surrender. Others continue to fight until they're subdued. They may be better trained and armored, but we vastly outnumber them. Three of the guards lie dead.
Finally, once all the fighting has ceased, we drag the king into the middle of the arched bridge for all to see. "The king is dead!" I shout to the crowd. They cheer in response. "Long live King Robert of Faunesmuir!"
He pats me on the shoulder and smiles. Then, a sadness washes over his features as he notices the dozen or so people that we lost in the fight. In a moment of inspiration, I lift my bow toward our dead and pull back the string. It works! One by one, their wounds close and they return to the land of the living.
King Robert beams at me. "I want you to come work for me." I am just about to tell him no when he continues, "I don't want you to be my mercenary. I want you to return those to life who were taken too soon."
I know now that we made the right choice.
=============
r/WannaWriteSometimes | They say that a frog in a pot of water doesn't notice if you boil it slowly. The frog isn't dumb; if you dropped it straight in boiling water, it would struggle, writhe, even jump free, but it just can't feel the incremental changes. Tyranny is much the same.
The king was a just man, once. I truly believe that. At first, it was about securing our borders; of course the barbarian tribes of the Northweald were dangerous, banditry was rife in their lands and they openly thumbed their nose at the king. We had to secure our nation.
Then it was the witches of the Nyarland Forest, who were empowering the surrounding countryside to withhold their proper tithe from the king, threatening to let the capital starve.
The wizards and scholars were next; they were scheming and plotting against the kingdom, planning to overthrow it from within. After all, who can really understand what they're on about, what kind of foul magics they practice in their towers. Witches were an enemy of the people, and what were wizards and scholars but witches wearing a different stupid dress?
Then, it was, of all things, the Cobbler Society, a secret society who were apparently running the whole kingdom from the shadows. Anyone could be a member, everyone suspect until the king himself granted them innocence. A wiser man than I may have realised then how hot the water had become, may have questioned why every single person who questioned the king openly was apparently part of the same secret society, the same plot... but of course, it made sense, how else could they possibly all be calling the same man a tyrant if they weren't all colluding together? It was such a comforting lie; we were safe, because we weren't one of them.
Over and over again, the king's enemies seemed to rise from nowhere, a new threat to the stability of the kingdom, to the people, to life and liberty, but of course they weren't us, we were nothing like that.
What does it take for a frog to awaken from their warm, comforting bath to find themselves being boiled alive? What kind of horror must they experience as they realise? How helpless do they feel?
For this frog, it was my grandson. My bright, curious, brilliant boy. He'd been playing in the street as the king's carriage came down the street, trundling past the prostrating masses. His ball rolled out in front of the carriage, and he'd chased it, too young to understand, the horses stopping before they crushed him. The king slammed open the door in a rage, claimed my grandson was an assassin, sent to dethrone him. Even the pleas from his head guardsman, loyal to him for all 50 years of my life, were not enough to dissuade him. My grandson was convicted and executed in the same day. My daughter was inconsolable. My son-in-law vowed vengeance, and died the next day, found guilty of 'plotting with insurgents'. He'd just been drunkenly, angrily complaining in the pub.
That was a week ago. I haven't slept a single night. Between flashes of my beautiful grandson and my loveable idiot son-in-law, I keep seeing someone else in my thoughts. A man I killed. The leader of a nascent anti-monarchist group, a man who'd wanted to bring accountability to the king, and justice to the land. At the time, I thought him a deluded madman, a mixture of hatred and pity as I nocked the arrow on my enchanted bow.
“Long live the king,” I'd whispered to myself as I released the string, the arrow flying true, of course, to the villain's heart, in the middle of an impassioned speech to the large gathered crowd in an outlying town, decrying the unaccountable and absolute power of the king as the arrow hit home, knocking him down as he grasped helplessly at it. Only the wielder of the bow could remove that arrow after all, and only I could break the arrow. The dreams of republic died that day, and at the time, I'd thought it a great thing. Perhaps the water then had only been tepid.
It took a little searching, but I found the arrow I'd pulled from his lifeless body, still pristine, aside from the man's name, written in blood along the shaft, one of the bow's quirks. I sat with the arrow across my lap for some time, staring out across the city. It sounded like the king's personal guard was putting down another 'riot', a term he used for anyone not showing him or his personal guard the proper reverence. Now that my eyes were open, it was like I could see the bubbles of the boiling water all around me. The king's personal guard answered directly and only to him; even as the head guardsman, I'd not been able to reign them in, and even suggesting such was treated as treason. I made it out, but only barely. At least I knew for sure now, things were too far gone to go back; anyone I could turn to for help was either terrified for their own lives, their own families, or they'd already been murdered by the king. If only I'd been able to notice my folly earlier, perhaps in numbers we could have changed things.
For the frog in the boiling water, it's probably all over. But perhaps not for me. The head of the guard had passed this bow down, generation after generation. An arrow fired from this bow was only able to be removed by the one who fired it. It could only be broken by them too. Breaking the arrow would undo the shot, but at terrible cost. A terrible cost for a terrible situation. I could hear the king's personal guard bashing down the front door as I sat there. A few of my guardsmen stayed behind to buy me time; I could hear my brave lads fighting to their last breath below me. It would be unbecoming of their captain not to do the same. I drew my last breath and snapped the arrow, finding myself stood right behind a handsome archer, his bow drawn back.
“Long live the king-” he whispered under his breath. I knew what I had to do; I rammed the head of the broken arrow in my hand into his chest from behind.
“-dom,” I whispered with the last of my breath as we both fell down dead from the gaping arrow wound in our chest that no-one now could remove. I hoped in this new timeline, my grandson, not even born yet, would live long enough to become a man who'd be proud of his old grandad. I heard the commotion as the arrow missed its mark. At least he knew now that the king had sent someone to assassinate him. As the inky blackness of death surrounded me, I felt at peace for the first time in so, so long. | 2020-08-23T19:40:01 | 2020-08-23T16:09:05 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] Write a children's poem that slowly devolved in an insane persons chantings. | Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
Would you like them here or there?
I would not like them here or there. I would not like them anywhere.
Would you, could you in the rain?
I would not, could not in the rain.
Not in the dark, not on a train,
not even if I screamed in pain,
not even if you set me free,
I do not like them, Sam you see,
Not on a slab of moldy bread,
Or on my mother's severed head.
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them,
you will see.
Say!
I like green eggs and ham!
I do, I like them, Sam-I-Am!
Hand them over, or there'll be
A steaming plate of misery
As I stalk you in the rain,
find your cabin on the train,
and in the car, and in the tree,
you cannot just be rid of me.
So I will eat them in a race.
I will lick them off your face.
I will eat them till I'm green!
I will eat them with your spleen!
In your back, a knife I'll jam!
I'll fucking kill you, Sam-I-Am!
If you think you can hide my goddamn
Green, delicious,
Eggs
and
HAM.
| "And now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the lord my soul to take."
"Again" he said softly.
"And now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the lord my soul to take."
"AGAIN" he repeated.
"And now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take"
He stared at her lovingly for a moment and then calmly said:
"And now I lay you down to sleep
Your body is mine and mine to keep
And you will die make no mistake
Your soul is mine and mine to take."
"Please..." she pleaded.
He had no reaction to her cries for help. He just slowly walked closer to her, repeating:
"Your soul is mine and mine to take.."
"Your soul is mine and mine to take.."
"Your soul is mine and mine to take.." | 2017-07-13T20:47:45 | 2017-07-13T20:33:29 | 52 | 13 |
[WP] Give a well-known, R-rated movie plot the "Disney treatment," changing its rating to G.
Bonus points for adding cuddly, friendly talking animals. | A small light is seen ahead of the caravan which causes a full stop.
"Who's that stumbin' around in the dark?" A moment passes without response. "State your business or prepare to get your ears clipped!"
"Calm yourselves pure-breeds, I mean you no harm. I'm simply a fellow weary traveler." States the German Shepherd as he walks closer, a pack slung over his shoulder and a lantern in his other paw.
"Good cold evening pure-breeds," he states as he methodically walks past them to the chained mutts behind. He then addresses the captives, "good evening, I'm looking for a pair of mutt smugglers that go by the name of The Speckled Two. Might that be you?" He turns toward the two Labradors at the head of the line.
"Who wants to know," replies the alpha.
"I do. I'm Dr. K-9 Schultz."
"You a doctor?"
"Arf," replies K-9
"What kinda doctor?"
"Dentist," he says producing two dental chews for The Speckled Two. "Are you The Speckled Two, and did you purchase those mutts from the rescue in Greenville?"
"So what?" the alpha retorts.
"So I wish to parley with you"
"Huh?" The Speckled Two scratch their heads in unison.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Amongst your inventory, I've been led to believe, is a specimen I'm keen to acquire." K-9 moves toward the chained mutts. "Hello you poor mutts. Is there one among you who was once resident of the Carrucan Kennel Club?"
"I'm from the Carrucan Kennel Club," a voice calls from the darkness toward the back of the chain. K-9 raises his lantern.
"Splendid! And what's your name young one?" K-9 questions as a Rottweiler steps out of the shadows.
"Django." Barks the Rottweiler.
"Wunderbar! You're exactly the one I'm looking for!"
A song and dance routine ensues introducing the the doctor as K-9, full of dancing dogs doing a line dance with the chains around their necks. K-9 ascertains that Django can in fact lead him to his bounty of the Bitting Brothers. The upbeat tempo dies down and when the dust settles The Speckled Two remain in chains looking confused, all of the mutts are free and standing around them. K-9 then turns to Django.
"As I was saying, if you were to see the Bitting Brothers again, would you recognize them?"
"Yes." States Django, now unchained. | Captain Dallas woke up. He stretched and let the light of the spaceship wash all over him, inhaled deeply, and started to whistle happily. Everyone else was taking their time waking up from the comfortable pods. He rushed to the computer, and saw there was a stray transmission for LV-426. He quickly rushed back, because once everyone was fully awake... He could already hear the beautiful melody everyone was making, and quickly joined in as the lead singer.
"We are the brave Nostromo crew,
Hauling treasures and cargo to you,
Flying around the galaxy,
Pleasing our bosses at the company!
Captain Dallas, Navigator Lambert,
together with Ash, Parker, Brett,
and Warrant Officer Ripley,
our team will have it's victory."
They continued on for a few courses that ended up in a wonderful three and a half minutes of improvised joy, ending exactly as they sat down for breakfast, completely dressed and on the way to LV-426.
Dallas, Kane and Lambert headed out to investigate, when suddenly the found themselves in a field of cuddly eggs. As Kane leant down to inspect one, a creature jumped out and hugged him. He didn't even need a space suit anymore! But still, hugging someone's face is wildly inappropriate for alien species, and Kane really had trouble talking. And moving.
They went back into the ship, where Ripley and Dallas bickered in their usual witty and definitely G-rated manner. Eventually Ash let them in. He was really quite happy about it, which for an android means something. They all sang together merrily as they went about fixing the ship and thinking about how to help Kane in yet another three to four minute song where everyone worked as harmoniously as the song itself, which ended up with Kane waking up, hug-free.
They went, as usual, to eat together. Pleasant banter went between them, until Kane suddenly fell asleep.
"Quick, put him on the table,
Quick, help if you are able,
Quick, make sure he's all right,
Quick, make sure he's under the light!
Aaaand....
Quickly lets try to see,
How healthy Kane can be,
Oh look,
Watch out,
From his chest,
Something... is... about toooo SPROOUUUTT!!"
And out of his chest came a cuddly talking animal, screeching in a perfect Cmajor chord to finish the song as all the lights in the room centered on it.
*(to be continued when I have time)* | 2014-09-11T09:07:55 | 2014-09-11T07:43:27 | 29 | 20 |
[WP] "Checkmate," you say, a smug expression on your face. "Finally," says Death. The smirk is wiped off your face as the Grim Reaper removes his robe and hands you his scythe, "It's been 400 years since I beat the last guy." | While Grant had no intention of becoming Death, he slipped into the role (and the robe) quite comfortably. Beckoning souls to the afterlife had always seemed such a dreary affair, but Grant liked to think he added a little kindness to the ordeal - after all, most did not come willingly, nor easily.
Of course, many battled for their right to their soul (or at least, so they thought), but it was never exactly a fair competition, no matter their choice. Becoming Death had given him powers beyond comprehension - at least, in the realm of the afterlife - and thus centuries went by without a loss. He would always do his best to make it at least seem close, as that did seem to cheer them up somewhat.
He suspected the prior Death, that had so unceremoniously took him whilst he'd been making breakfast, had simply let him won - after all, he didn't exactly know *how* to play chess. Regardless, he felt no ill will towards him, as 400 years is no short a time; though it did seem to move differently in this realm. Grant figured it was something to do with technically being everywhere at once, but he did not put much thought into it in any case.
He was always being pestered by the other three, of course. Something about "Armageddon" and "the End of Days". Grant paid them no heed, as they were really quite the dreary bunch. Sure enough, there were a couple more souls than usual this year, but nothing compared to the world wars before it.
They did say it would happen on the final day of the year however, and truth be told it was seeming more likely every day. Being one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse didn't sound all that fun to him, to be honest. Riding out to punish the damned did not seem particularly fulfilling, as he had taken his role in a somewhat different direction.
Perhaps it was finally time to make a few mistakes in his next game of chess... | “Uh, checkmate?” I called out while indicating where I would move my piece. “Wait, is that how it works?” The man before shook his head in disapproval. Frustrated, I analyzed my moves once more and realized nothing wrong.
“You need to corner me, how many times do I need to say that?” Corner him? I thought I got him already. The man sighed as he pointed out the space next to his King. Realizing this, I quickly changed course and moved my bishop to the correct position.
Delight swept over me. “Checkmate, this time I actually did it.”
My opponent nodded. With a grunt, he stood up and pulled out a scythe. Eyes wide, I gazed upon him with curiosity. He noted my reaction and pushed the scythe into my hands, “Finally,” he bellowed. “I can finally ditch this whole charade that’s been plaguing me for the last few centuries.”
“Charade?” The scythe was now firmly grasped in my hands. I soon felt his robe being draped upon my back. The robe was rather large, it felt as though it was about to swallow me whole.
“Congratulations on your first win. Accept my job as your prize.” My silence indicated confusion. The man continued, “You are the new death. It’s quite the job.”
“My job is to be Death now?”
“Yes. Perhaps one day you’ll find yourself in my shoes, trying to part ways with this new position you've just inherited. You might make mistakes, but promise me one thing, alright?”
Hesitant, I gave a slow nod.
“That you learn how to [play chess properly.”](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualScribblings/) | 2020-07-07T20:58:06 | 2020-07-07T20:34:17 | 189 | 129 |
[WP] Write a suicide note in a Dr. Suess like fashion. | The sun did not shine,
It was too wet to play,
So I sat in my bed
For day after day.
So I stared at the ceiling
I stared at the wall
And deep down inside me
There was nothing at all
No anger, no fury
No happy or glad
Just a big fat old nothing
That was nothing but sad
I called up a doctor
To say I felt blue
He said "There's not much
That medicine can do;
I'll give you these pills that
stop you sleeping right"
So I stared at the wall
For a day and a night.
My friends said "cheer up,
You have to be tough"
In the end I decided
That I'd had enough
I bought black plastic tape
To seal up my door
And a crapped out old heater
From a secondhand store
I heard it's quite painless,
Not flashy, I know
But carbon monoxide
Is the best way to go
| Could not, would not, go on about,
And I will not, shall not, stay in doubt.
To think that, feel that, when I'm gone,
I hope that, wish that, the show goes on!
Not this, nor that, will I do,
To die soon I must, it's true!
He thought, she thought I would only cry,
Even though I know, I hope to die.
Here I will lie, and there I will go.
A minute too fast, and a moment too slow.
This is the end, of my great show.
^^^read ^^^the ^^^first ^^^letter ^^^of ^^^each ^^^line.
Obligatory edit. Gold? Thanks so much kind stranger! | 2015-01-17T07:08:38 | 2015-01-17T04:58:43 | 1,010 | 349 |
[WP] You were in a pizzeria, eating lunch when you noticed a man with a gun aiming at the cashier, you sneaked behind him, trying to yank the weapon from his arm. As you watch your body lifeless on the floor, the grim reaper shows up and sighs. "You again... 5 times this week?! I have a life too!" | "Look, until you get good at Rock Paper Scissors, this is going to keep happening. You shouldn't have made me that offer."
"How about we switch to Tic Tac Toe?", the Grim Reaper said with an apparent air of desperation in his haunting voice.
"No, no, no. The deal was RPS. You can't switch the deal just because you lose."
The Grim Reaper bangs the bottom of his scythe on the ground as he scoffs. "Fine, let's do this." He releases his grip from the scythe, which stays mysteriously stationary, as he then prepares his hands in the traditional fist over palm position.
I slyly grin, then ready my hands. "On the count of three."
"I know how to play, dammit! Just go!"
"1, 2, 3, go!", I say as I slam down paper. He always starts with rock.
"Dammit!", he exclaims, having yet again thrown rock.
"1, 2, 3, go!" This time I throw paper again, knowing full well he's going to throw scissors. Poor guy didn't win any throws the last 2 times. Guess I'm just feeling generous today.
"Hah! Scissors! I win, you little bitch!"
Well, that was uncalled for.
"1, 2, 3, go!" Paper again because he thinks I'm going scissors.
"You can't do paper three times in a row!", he whines as he looks down at his losing fist.
"You're the god of death, not Rock Paper Scissors. I can do it as many times as I want."
"I dare you to do it again then."
"I just might. Ready?"
"Just go!"
"1, 2, 3, go!" Of course I didn't do paper this time, but he was foolish enough to think that I would. "Rock beats scissors. I win! Back to life I go!"
He bellows out his anger as it echoes through purgatory. He grabs his scythe, runs his finger across its blade to cast the spell to revive me as deep black smoke begins to encircle his lower body.
"See you tomorrow.", I smugly say.
As the black vortex of smoke envelops his body to transport him away, he extends his fist out showing me rock once more, this time with one finger sticking up. | Not My Time
I looked at my body lying on the floor, blood draining from the hole in my chest. The gunman stood in shock, dropping his gun and immediately surrendering after realizing that he just killed someone. Time slowed to a crawl and eventually froze, just before the gun clattered to the ground. I felt a cold hand on my shoulder and turned, finding myself face to face with the specter of Death himself. I stared into his eye sockets, filled with inky black void and listened as he spoke without moving his mouth “Look kid, I get that I messed up, and your time isn’t for another 70 years, but don’t you think you’re taking advantage of this? I’ve got other souls to collect, a whole lot of them. Quite frankly I don’t have time to keep picking up after you.”
I shot back “He had a gun! And he was aiming it right at the pizza girl!”
“He wasn’t gonna shoot anyone” Death sounded increasingly exasperated “I know cause I didn’t get the call to come here until a few seconds before you got shot to death! He was gonna rob the place and have a damn heart attack while he was running.”
“Well then I saved two lives!” I beamed at death, but my enthusiasm was quickly quashed.
“No, you didn’t even save one! The cashier wasn’t gonna die, and now I have to resurrect your stupid ass and go all Final Destination on the robbers ass” he looked down at his watch “You know when the next midtown bus rolls through here?”
I opened my mouth to reply, before realizing why he wanted to know “Your gonna hit him with a bus?!”
“Relax” Death has an unbelievably relaxed demeanor given the topic of our conversation “there’s like two people on the bus and they’re in the back, they won’t see anything. And the bus driver already ran someone over a few years ago. He’ll get fired, but the guy is a menace anyway.”
“You’re unbearable.” I muttered.
“Feeling is mutual, kid. Try not to die again so soon.” | 2021-06-24T12:27:46 | 2021-06-24T10:59:24 | 23 | 12 |
[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 Luis Miguel,
It's been 4 years since you've passed. Things have gotten better from the old years. The kids are older, my house is different, I actually have cats again.
I found some of your old photos. Back in the day when the camera had only megabytes instead on gigabytes. I found a nice one where you were sunbathing in front of the large glass doors leading to the outside world. You were always an outdoors type.
These cats are different than you. You snuggled in my arms, rested your head on my collarbone, your wet nose on my chin. You would lay right on top of my back over looking my room.
You began wasting away and my heart stopped. I wish I could have done more but your kidneys were shot. It was a death sentence.
My husband dreamt of you before that day. "Please take care of her for me." I'd like to believe you communicated before you passed. It made things easier.
You brought me joy in a tough world, gave me peace in a harsh home, loved me in my loveless times. I wished to grow older with you but it never came to pass. The pain has dulled and, I may have other pets to keep me company but you were the first. You were my jewel.
We shall meet again across the rainbow bridge
Love, Your Equal | 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. | 2017-11-05T19:02:08 | 2017-11-05T18:20:52 | 516 | 157 |
[WP] Alien civilization sents an undercover agent to study earth. The problem is that this agent is not very subtle about getting information. Not only that, but he's also oblivious to sarcasm and most jokes. He asks people weird and intrusive questions and believes any answer he hears.
[deleted] | "Wait, what did he tell you?"
I watched as Joe Human covertly reached up to their glasses and touched the rim, and a brief image flickered across the glass.
"Mr. Ander advised that it would be acceptable for me to walk around without clothes if I was comfortable with being a nudist. Since nudist is a term for someone who does not wear clothes, his circular logic didn't change my desire to shed my garments."
I sighed, and leaned back in my seat, taking my glasses off and setting them aside. Joe was new to the office, and I should have known things would get weird from the beginning, when he introduced himself as "a human just like you, but without ovaries, mammaries, or other secondary sexual characteristics typically attributed to females."
I was hoping he was just awkward around women, but it seemed more that he was awkward around humans.
"I've disappointed you," he said, voice taking on a tone of unending sorrow.
Shaking my head, I leaned forward and held out a hand. He took it and I held it tight.
"No, Joe. You didn't disappoint me. You're just... Learning, and I wish I could make Mr. Ander and the others understand how to help you learn. Being naked, without clothes, it's not a bad thing on it's own. But we have a lot of things we assume about being naked. That it means sexual interest or privacy, at least in this country. In other countries it's not as concerning. But here, we wear clothes almost all of the time."
"Even if they are uncomfortable," he added, looking a little concerned.
"Yes, but..."
I looked him over, and realized that he wasn't wearing the right clothes at all. Not just because they didn't look good on him, but they were all too tight or loose.
"But there's things we can do to make you comfortable," I said with new energy. "Let's go shopping, and I'll help you get comfortable in your skin."
"Who else's skin would I be wearing?"
I almost laughed, almost, but managed to hold it in.
"Well, noone. But your own skin can be uncomfortable, if you feel uncomfortable all the time."
"So... If my skin felt too tight..." He proposed nervously as I stood and got ready to leave.
"Well, go ahead and unzip it--" I chuckled as I turned away, only to hear a distinct unzipping sound, and I stopped.
I absolutely refused to turn around.
"Joe, I'm not supposed to know you're an alien, right?" I asked casually.
"Correct, absolutely should not know that, at all," he agreed, voice sounding hollow and resonant.
"Then go ahead and put your skin back on," I pleaded, far too weary for being a simple HR manager. | "Report in Yergal. What's the situation down there?
...
"Yergal, this is Commander Tyreg. Respond immediately."
"Sorry, Commander. I'm currently stuck in the middle of something down here."
"Just give me a brief report. The other agents haven't been optimistic about the Enlightening. What's your position on it? Are the humans ready?"
"...Sir, with all due respect, I think they've long since passed us."
"Say that again, agent, your communicator must have scrambled."
"You heard me correctly, Commander. The humans culture is barbaric, but their technology has long since surpassed our own."
"That's not possible. Preliminary scans reported they'd only just achieved nuclear flight. The body you took over indicated that they're a predatory species and-"
"Commander, the scans were wrong. It is true that individually, they are weaker than what we expect out of a predatory species, but make no mistake, they are vastly beyond mere nuclear flight."
"That's impossible, agent. We would have-"
"Commander, please let me deliver my report without interruption. I have very little time."
\*sigh\* "Go ahead."
"The stories they tell indicate incredible marvels hidden below the surface of their planet. Their governments conduct tests down there, and have birthed some unnatural phenomena. A man who can break mountains with his fists, a soldier designed to be leagues above the rest, and a man who constructed a metal army with a box of scraps. These alone are much too dangerous for us to risk contacting. And that doesn't cover the others who got here before us."
"Others, agent? What others?"
"According to the locals, they've had several different interactions with foreign species. Whether the species were invasive or peaceful, they were all far more advanced than anything we've come across either. The humans have to be hiding incredible technology and biological marvels in fear of them being stolen."
"You mention that they've interacted with peaceful foreign species before, agent. What happened with that?"
"The locals say those foreign species were all inevitably greater than these humans, but even still, the humans killed these foreign species without any qualms, sir."
"So, what do you think would happen if we were to contact them and ask them to teach us?"
"We'd likely be hunted down and destroyed, sir."
"Hm...High Command won't like this. Good work, agent, I'll contact you again soon." | 2019-09-05T08:30:59 | 2019-09-05T08:18:16 | 120 | 30 |
[WP] A girl finds out that she can restart her entire life by committing suicide, she develops OCD while tirelessly trying to fix every little error, constantly restarting. This goes on for a while until God intervenes. | Some would say I spend my days with a legendary being, a god that can control time and space. Some would bow down in awe and offer their worship to a companion such as mine.
Me? I see my friend as a normal creature, albeit one under my command. It was powerful, arguably more powerful than anything else, but under my care it became stronger than ever. An entity that was unstoppable. Or so I thought.
After a while, I found out the true nature of my team member. While all the other companions' natures would work well with each other, this particular "god" had a critical flaw that stopped it from reaching its true potential. He was overly modest, which would increase its Special Attack and decrease its Attack, the entirely opposite of what I looked for in a Swords Dance + Extremespeed Arceus.
I turned off my DS and sighed. Looks like I would have to try catching it again. What a pain. | There once was a girl
Who could turn every wrong to right
By simply offing herself
And restarting her life
No matter how much she pruned
And no matter the wrongs she'd right
She still found reason to gripe
Forever contrite
But nothing is forever
Though sometimes it seems
And when enough was enough
Then God intervened
On this particular scene
The silly girl flew into rage with a thunderous scream
For this time round she'd won the man of her dreams!
But as fate had been changed
His fortune he would never see
So she procured her usual deadly draft
And she collapsed to see Death
But that was that
At long last she'd been freed.
| 2015-04-29T19:20:54 | 2015-04-29T18:40:01 | 29 | 11 |
[WP] We are not alone in the universe. Not even in our galaxy. They just keeps us isolated because we are so good at killing. Now they need our savageness to save the galaxy and have come to gear us for war. We humans already knew this and have been prepared for centuries just waiting to be asked. | From afar we had watched the humans grow. From the beginning they were master pack hunters capable of felling beats multiple times their size. They could out last prey over a run and wait for the creature to collapse from exhaustion, then pick it off easily at the end. Their lust for death drove thousands of creatures to extinction.
In time their intelligence grew and they blossomed into the master killers we had hoped for. Hunting for better ways to kill, they manufacture weapons beyond our imagination. Weapons that unleashed the power of the sun. Weapons that spat fire or tore others to shreds. Facing these weapons fellow humans would adapt and overcome their attackers, and dig in and chip away bit by bit. They never gave up and they never backed down. Always they would fight and consume and kill for power.
And so we should have known that our creation could not be controlled. We were foolish to think that those intelligent beings we had designed and enhanced to kill on our behalf, when called upon, would question their hierarchy in the galaxy, and would turn upon us at their first chance...
We told them we had planted them as seeds in their world millennia ago to ripen and fight for us when the Outsiders returned. We told them we had manufactured them to be smarter; their bodies more resilient, their lives longer, and their bonds stronger. We had created them to be better than us so they could save us...
...They wiped out most of our species using the power of the sun. The few of us that remain watched hopelessly as they destroyed the Outsiders with their remaining sun weapons.
They have deconstructed the warp drives from the Outside ships and have begun to manufacture a fleet of their own.
I send this message in hopes that someone out there might hear and have time to prepare. They are coming.
They won't stop...
They are coming. | If Arrakis was created to train the faithful, then Earth was built to evolve the perfect psycho Start with a nickel-iron core instead of the usual carbon, wrap it in compressed organic sludge, cover that in lava and let it cool just a bit before covering 70% of that in water so full of salt that it's better for pickling than drinking. Stick it just inside the habitable zone of a third rate star and give it an axial tilt that might qualify as a war crime. Finally, stock it with the monsters from your childrens' nightmares, all teeth and fangs and hunger and hate. The idea was to keep the humans busy with gravity and survival. We didn't think to keep them sane.
In the fullness of time, the Khaleeri unified once again, and once again they went to war. The Council decided not to waste time with conventional warfare, and jumped the last cryo-carrier to just outside the Sol heliopause. This was a compromise between the need for haste and General Order H4, which specifies that no FTL-capable ship may take on human passengers. Technically, this solution was a violation of GO H2's embargo on any Hydrogen-5 going within a Light Year of Sol, but there was a war on.
CSS Frost Reaver never returned. The HFS PizzaGuy came in its place, with its antimatter-pumped masers and gravitic artillery. I expect that within a few hours, only this record will remain. | 2019-03-28T05:59:55 | 2019-03-28T05:58:08 | 60 | 35 |
[WP] You've eaten your Chinese takeout and open your fortune cookie. It says, "If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world stays the same." That gives you an idea: you'll kill two of them. | "Two for the price of one." I muttered to myself before crumpling the thin paper into a tiny ball, tossing it to the floor. I eyed my 'Table gun' which sat just beyond reach, obscured by the stacks of newspapers, used paper towels and porno mags. The Newspapers I wanted to keep but they were stained from pizza the week before. They were about me. My name wasn't on them, but I knew they were about me.
"Bad business." I thought, "Terrible fucking business, half the pay, double the work." I felt like they were taunting me as the paranoia set in. They said that the Jade Dawn was the best Americanized Chinese food in this part of the city. 'They' were the kind of people I knew I could get work from. I could barely stomach half a bite of soup which they claimed to be beef chow mein. It was my fault, I violated the one law I put out for myself: never work with an 'organization'.
You never knew if they were legit. A woman claims her husband beats her and offers me 10k in cash, and thinks I'll have sympathy or something. I didn't ask questions. Didn't need to know the details, just needed enough to make sure they weren't a cop. You can always tell. It's the look of shame in their eye that gives them away. Not the organizations though. They were proud of it, it was business to them and I'm sure any L.E.O. with a hard-on for 'getting the bad guy' would call it business too. I had my doubts that these punks were actually Yakuza. Still, money is money.
I grabbed a 'clean' gun that was in a bag at my feet. Untraceable. One use only. With two targets, the Feds could draw a connection and it could be traced back to me. But I was tired and wanted to be done with this. It was going to be the last two. I gazed over my messy rat-hole of an apartment and I eyed the paper I had unceremoniously tossed just a moment ago. I bent down and retrieved it, unfolded it, and placed it back on the table.
I guess I kept it as a reminder. It was right. Two more bodies just meant two more guards at my execution.
| They say if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss keeps the doctor away. It can’t keep mine away yet. Mine still pester me and prods me and tells me I’m “adjusting well” and “showing signs of progress.” What progress? All I see is whitewashed walls and yellow jackets and hollow men with hollow souls.
And killers—all of them.
But you don’t have to take a man’s life to kill a man. There are other ways. Beautiful, natural, modern ways of killing a man. Because, when it comes right down to it, a dead man is still a man. But if you take away their humanity, leaving something else behind—that is the only way to kill a man. Tis better to have loved and lost; sailors take warning!
My doctor must be the worlds most prolific killer. I don’t know why he hides his talents. Men walk in free and proud and walk away lifeless and broken. Some don’t leave here at all. I think those ones are the worst. They rot away until they become a number in the back of the morgue. The bottom line is anyone who walks through those doors is a dead man, one way or another.
So its very interesting, this fortune. “If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world stays the same.”
Because when I took his neck in my hands, and squeezed and squeezed, laughing, I killed one killer. But then they took me away into the dark room, strapped down to the gurney like a Christmas tree.
Go ahead—crucify me. An eye for an eye leaves a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Because when I die, I’ll have my freedom. I’ll no longer be the hollow husk that waits in daylight and counts the scratches on the wall. I’ll become human again. A bird in hand gets the worm.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
I think I’ve gazed into the abyss enough for one lifetime.
***
r/BLT_WITH_RANCH | 2019-01-30T20:13:35 | 2019-01-30T20:04:14 | 31 | 23 |
[WP] The Evil Overlord has begun his final siege on the castle of the only kingdom not under his control. In a last ditch effort, the Princess performs a ritual to summon the Heroes of Old. However, the ritual doesn't work quite as intended... | All 3 black candles are lit.
That's unusual. But that's how the book described the ritual.
If you want a creature of light, usually white candles are used.
But now time for second thoughts." princess ammelie of chalkshire mummbled.
She heard the battering against the castles gates.
The clanks and screams of metall against metall.
The men - commanding, crying and dying.
She quickly flicked the pages of the old tome:
The circle and runes? - drawn correctly.
The candles? - lit.
The incantation!
Her mind was blank. She remembers reading the incantation. But as soon as shw wanted to, it wasn't her choice any more. She couldn't have stopped, even if she wanted to. Her brain wasn't hers anymore, she just lived there.
Dark shadows, drawn in from every corner of the castle engulfed the area inside the circle. The air was ripped from it's rightful place, screaming as a horrid wind. The voices of the dead mixed in it, barely heard through the portal to the afterlive.
Then it all stopped. Snapped back to reality. The sounds of war sprung back to live. Before her, in the summoning circle, stood a figure she only knew in ancient history books:
Malachar the kingslayer. He who plunged the kingdom of old into 20 years of infighting and civil wars. Usually only referred to as "the serpent of the dark".
"How can I help you, princess?" is the first thing he says.
Ammelie did not expect that. This wasn't what she imagined him to be:
His clothes are way to bright too. And his face was that of an old man who... cared.
A: "Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh......."
M: "Yes"
A: "We...... are under attack? ....maybe you could help defend the castle?.... If you so desire?"
M: "Most certainly"
​
A week later he was introduced to the royal court. It turned out not only was he quite adept and expierienced at repelling attackers. Or so the smouldering patches of grime around the castle where he launched his fireballs to told.
Also the history books are not good at preserving important details. Like the original cause of wars.
In this instance, his disagreement with the king sprung from his opinion on the banishment of almost all types of magic, for which sources were later found at the royal law archives. And not, as many a history book told, from necromancy.
It turns out a villain is not always a villain.
\- - - - - - - - -
Sorry for the rather short and sudden ending, I dont have more time. \^\^' | The room is dark, lit only by three failing candles and full of people huddling in what they think are the final days of the kingdom. Until the princess speaks "I didn't want it to come to this day, but I have a book. One with a ritual that will restore the heroes of yore to their former glory." With the royal wizard beheaded by the Overlord nigh on ten days ago, I fear we have no choice." The only other official by her side implores.
"Well how do'ya know it works though?" Comes a voice from the back, the rest of the crowd nods in agreement. "Oh dont worry about that" Says the princess "Its right here in the book - **When you need is great, and the stakes high. Use this ritual to summon the three heroes of the time gone by. One candle for the champion brash and strong, Two for the thief nimble and spry, and three for the dragon who rains terror on foe.**"
The crowd seemed placated at this, despite the text not rhyming very well "Ok then I suppose you could be going on" comes the same voice and once again the crowd agrees again. "Wonderful!" The princess says before opening the tome to the thirty second page. Speaking in a tone that seemed to make the very room shake **"Champion, I summon thee."** With a whoosh the first candle went out. **"Thief, I summon thee"** and the second candle went out. Finally with a crack of lightning from a darkening sky punctuating her words the final line was delivered. **"Dragon, I summon thee".** The final candle went out, its lighting replaced with a sudden blue glow a metre in front of the princess.
The crowd stood still, waiting. With a second flash of thunder that split the sky in half...
​
A pile of rotting and musty bones filled the room, adorned with chainmail, a large tooth here and there and some gold. The official and the princess let out an audible sigh of confusion and despair. A beetle had eaten all of line two in the page, which was then disguised by page behind it. But they would never have time to learn this because with a mighty explosion the castle was demolished by the dark lord. Leaving behind only smouldering ruins and one very singed but somehow still alive beetle.
​
(edit for grammar mistakes) | 2021-10-22T04:48:37 | 2021-10-21T23:58:05 | 32 | 12 |
[WP] You face your guardian angel and you ask her, "What is my purpose?" She responds, "Oh. You were here to help that old lady cross the street when you were 13. She was gonna be hit by the bus. The rest is just free time." | "Is that *it*?"
"You saved a life. Isn't that enough?"
"I mean... if you put it like that, but... it still seems pretty small. I mean, did she do anything after that?"
"She lived five more years. Read some very good books. Brought joy to her friends and loved ones. Never missed an episode of *Coronation Street*. Then peacefully died in her sleep. You gave her five more years of happiness with her loved ones."
"Is that all?"
"Is *that* not enough?"
"You know what I mean. What was *her* purpose? If my purpose was to save her when I was thirteen, then what was so special about her to make her worth saving?"
"The fact that she was another human?"
"You know what I mean..."
"Yes, but there's ways to put it. But if you must know... she said something nice to a woman who served her coffee eighteen months after you crossed the road."
"Is *that*... well, okay, I'm starting to see the point. Clearly it was. But..."
"That was *her* purpose. Not much greater than yours, but still meaningful in its own way. Still its own link in the chain. Look at it this way; at least you got yours out of the way early. She had to wait until her late seventies to fulfil what she was here for. And some poor souls never get the opportunity to fulfill their purpose."
"I just... I mean, I'm not going to ask it again, but I just don't... it all seems so *small*."
"Small things matter. You're thinking about this too narrowly. It's not just about the big things; it's not about whether you write a perfect symphony or lead your country through a war or build the biggest tower on the planet. Everything is interconnected, million of tiny interactions and interconnections building to world-changing consequences, all of which spawn a million more tiny links in the chain. I can't explain the entire plan to you -- heck, even I can only see a small piece of the tapestry -- but everything all adds up. It all has meaning at the end."
"If you say so. I just... I guess I just hoped I'd be here for something bigger. Something... world-changing."
"A world-changing purpose isn't always good. Just ask Thomas Andrews."
"Who?"
"Another soul I protected, a while ago now. His purpose was the the culmination of one of the patterns I've been talking about. He was put on this world to design and build a ship; a beautiful, glorious, luxurious vessel which would be the envy of the world, a technological marvel of its age. A ship whose name would be known and remembered throughout all of time. A grand, world-changing vessel."
"Sounds pretty cool."
"The ship's name was *Titanic*."
"... You're joking."
"No. Andrews fulfilled his purpose. His ship changed the world. Ice patrols over the North Atlantic, stricter maritime safety regulations, lifeboat space for every person aboard a ship, books and songs and movies. All of which created more tiny interactions and allowed others to fulfil their purposes on that night alone, and inspired countless more. But still, poor Tom was inconsolable when he found out. At least your purpose involved saving a life, not the end of 1,500 more."
"I get what you're saying, but... I mean, that kind of sounds cruel, now."
"Well, I suppose if you look at it *that* way, but the links don't always lead to massive disasters and loss of life, you know. I'm using that as an example. Yes, some people might have a more grandiose purpose than you if you look at it purely that way, but that's not always for the best. And yours wasn't nothing either. You fulfilled your purpose, and helped someone else fulfill theirs -- and not everyone is necessarily that lucky. And you did so a way which made the world a bit brighter."
"I guess."
"Does that help?"
"A bit, I suppose."
"Good. And look at it this way; when you get back, there's no more pressure. You can do whatever you want from now on."
"Whatever I want?"
"Well, I mean, obviously we'd prefer it if it was more benevolent than not, but yes, the choice is entirely up to you. You've played your part, now what you do next is entirely up to you. You can create a great work of art, start a successful business, or just lounge around and watch porn all day if you want. The choice is yours."
"Okay. So... so I will wake up again, then? This isn't... you know, this isn't the *end*?"
"No. You'll wake up soon. I'm just keeping your soul safe while your body and mind heals."
"Okay. I... well, thank you, I guess."
"No problem. It's what I'm here for." | Ronnie is one of the special ones. Her every choice matters. Her words echo through the millennia. Her footsteps ripple outwards, reaching every corner of the universe. If she sneezes, the gods rejoice. If she trips and falls, they tremble.
I don't think she knows all of that, though. Most of them don't. And most of us - the unimportant ones - don't know what we are, either. It's a blessing, not to know. I could have lived my whole life with that blessing. But we can't be totally satisfied with not knowing, not really. And we can't be totally satisfied knowing, if it isn't what we wanted. If we aren't special, like Ronnie.
She's a cultivated rose, reaching to the sky, proud of her petals and thorns, and utterly unaware of the weeds that need to be pulled out and the hungry bugs that need to be sprayed with poison and the other plants that need to be fed to worms just so that she can go on for one more day in the damned sun. But I sound bitter, don't I? Maybe I am.
It could be worse. I did have one moment, after all. One moment where I mattered. I remember it like it was yesterday. I think I'll remember it this clearly for as long as I live.
The sun was brutal that day. Little mirages danced on the edges of the road, and my shirt stuck to my back with sweat. I was walking home from - does it matter? I was walking home I considered stopping by a corner shop to get some water, but something stopped me. I kept walking. It was so hot, and that walk was so long. I must've thought about stopping a dozen times - for a break, for a drink, to tie my shoe - but something just kept pulling me forward.
Finally, I was only a block away from home. Just had to cross one more street. Then some crazy kind of tunnel vision kicked in. One second there were buildings and street signs and scores of people in front of me, and then it was just her. This little old woman, frail and helpless, about to hobble out into a churning black ocean full of metal sharks. At least that's what it looked like to me. I ran to help her, barely managing to hide that I was practically shaking with fear for her safety. When we reached the other side of the street, she thanked me and hobbled away. I turned to keep walking, but couldn't remember where I was for a second. I had been guided so powerfully that day. I'd had a sense of purpose and importance that I'd never known before. And then, in a moment, it was gone. I was a puppet whose strings were cut.
I kept going for a while, with that strange emptiness. I tried to shake it off. I threw myself into work, but it wasn't enough. I tried drinking to forget, but it just made the feeling worse. I stopped drinking. And you know what? Eventually, I started to get better. I didn't forget, of course - I never forgot - but I started being able to ignore it. I got a job, started a new job, fell in love. Things were really looking up!
Then I died. I won't bore you with the details. They don't really matter. But I died, for a whole twenty seconds. And in those twenty seconds, I got to meet my maker. Or maybe it wasn't my maker. I don't know. Again, it doesn't really matter. But I met some glowing being who said they could answer any question I had about the universe. That old ache in the back of my head flared up, and I asked what I needed to know. What was my purpose?
I could've told you the answer even if they didn't answer, but they did. It was Ronnie, they said. They didn't even need to tell me who that was, but they did. They beamed every detail of the enormity of her significance right into my head. And they told me again, for good measure. My whole purpose was to save Ronnie that day. Old, frail, wrinkly, divinely-important Ronnie.
My twenty seconds were up pretty fast, and I opened my eyes to a blinding hospital scene. I'm still in this hospital, actually. I didn't wake up too long ago. I think I'm done feeling bitter, though. I didn't really learn anything knew, after all - I think I'd always known, deep down. Nothing I do will ever matter again. So, now what?
I think I'll take up gardening. | 2021-05-17T22:43:11 | 2021-05-17T20:59:04 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] A hero and villain are roommates and have to keep making excuses for why they need to unexpectedly go out so often. Neither knows the other is their nemesis. | "Gee-whiz, karen. Are you on your period again?"
The redhead appears to be slightly miffed upon hearing that, before widening her eyes in sudden realisation. "Why yes... Indeed I am!"
"Great. Your bloodstains are all over our couch, god dammit. Those are *bloody* hard to clean off."
Karen groans, causing more blood to spurt out from her abdomen, which she immediately and effectively covers up by grabbing a pillow. "Enough with the puns, Timothy!"
Her remark glosses over him however, as the lanky teen speed blitzes towards the couch and snatches up a peculiar looking mask that is now lying there in plain sight having been recently liberated from being hidden underneath a pillow. He then shoves it in his jacket and begins to whistle surreptitiously.
Karen looks up suspiciously.
"What was that?!"
"What was what?"
"*That*!" She cries, sputtering a bit. "That— that mask you were hiding!"
**This just in!** The TV suddenly blares out. **The villainess known as Arachnia has escaped justice yet again, and was last seen fleeing the city on a giant spider. Witnesses claim that she is wounded and bleeding profusely. Up next: An interview with The Dash! The city will be commemorating his third year as our top voted hero**-
Karen fidgets anxiously in her seat as she switches off the television. Timothy blinks. She stares at him, and he stares back. The silence is deafening. Then it dawns on them. An epiphany.
"Oh. My. God." They exclaim, simultaneously.
"Since when did we get a new TV?!"
"Since when were you a cosplayer?!"
Tension eases as the two roommates start to bond over friendly banter.
Karen excitedly babbles on about a robbery, sorry, she means a *sale*, that just took place downtown whilst Timothy vehemently denies being into cosplaying The Dash, before backtracking and doing a complete 180 (much to Karen's delight and distaste— *"I mean, The Dash? Seriously?!"*— which in turn sparks a huge debate over heroes and villains and fandoms and whatnot which ultimately leads to nowhere).
After which Karen passes out from severe blood loss as Timothy obliviously sprints out of the apartment claiming to be late for something.
Shortly after, an exasperated mechanical spider emerges from beneath the sofa and tends to its Mistress's wounds, all the while shaking its head in disbelief.
| Just as I put down my groceries, my SatPhone beeps. *Captain, we need your help! Doctor Doom is threatening to destroy the city tower with his death ray. Please help us!*
I groan. I’ve just gotten back to the house – how on earth am I going to explain to my roommate that I need to go out again?
Good old Dominic is probably a little suspicious already, what with my random disappearances, my pretend job at a non-existent newspaper and a 2% body fat percentage while eating seven pizzas everyday for breakfast.
*Thank god he’s so gullible.* What would a superhero be without her secret identity? Probably rich, successful, famous and adored by the world. But who wants *that*, right?
I climb seven stories up to the attic where Dominic works. We have quite a big house, and I never understood how the rent is so cheap. Dominic found it when we were friends in college. He just got lucky, I guess.
I open the door to the attic. Dominic works on a giant, metallic cylinder with dozens of lenses and levers. The end of the cylinder tapers off into an obsidian cone, which points directly out of the window at the city tower. On the cylinder is a sticker of a giant skull, with the words “DEATH” printed beside it in giant, block letters.
Dominic stares at me. I stare back.
“Dom!” I say in a totally casual high-pitch voice. “Your telescope looks great!”
*God, Dominic is so smart. He’s one of the best telescope engineer in the country, I’ve heard.*
“Uhhh,” he says. “What’s up?”
“I need to go… dry-clean… my rug.”
“Didn’t you do that last week?”
“Oh. I have many rugs,” I’m in the zone. “You know, cold floors.”
“Uh, okay cool.” Dominic flips several switches on his telescope. It whirrs to life in a high-pitched whine, shattering several glasses on the table.
“I’ll leave you to it, then. Good luck!” I quickly run down the stairs before he can respond.
*Another crisis averted,* I think to myself. *I’m really good at this.* | 2017-04-03T13:16:22 | 2017-04-03T10:38:23 | 63 | 35 |
[WP] You have the most useless superpower in a world full of awesome superpowers. You are a laughinstock, that is until you start using your power for evil... no one is laughing now. | Generally when somebody talks about "powers" they usually refer to those in the big leagues. Pyrokenesis, mind reading, invisibility, through fate's hand these powers were what my peers received. Then, there was me.
Usually those with gifts tend to look down on those without. Those without gifts harbour jealousy and disdain for those who have them. But both groups found it easy to target those with powers that were weak. The gifted laughed at the weak as though they were powerless. The powerless found it easy to push around those who lacked the power to fight back.
My gift was a weak one, the ability to "mirror" something, to swap the opposing sides of a target along an axis. It allowed me to switch the right side of my body with my left.
They laughed at me. The only thing my power was good for was to make myself left or right handed at will. I might as well be a powerless human. I could not fight by throwing fireballs, I could not mind control people to do my bidding. It was easy to brag about beating up this "gifted kid", I found myself often on the receiving end of a beating.
That was until the day I learnt that the axis I always swapped along was imaginary. I could in fact choose any axis I wanted. I could turn people upside down just by touching them.
Then after, I learnt my ability could target so much more than just humans and small objects. I turned my neighbour's mailbox upside down. I turned his street lamp upside down. I turned his car upside down.
Finally, as a coup de grace, I turned his house upside down. The heavy foundations found itself on top and the flimsy roof, 5 feet underground. His house got crushed by its own foundations, with him in it.
Now, I stand in front of the Empire State Building. Hand on a wall, waiting patiently for a ransom fee. Lest I decide to turn their world, upside down.
| For I was but a mirror. I reflected the humanity I spoke with every day, the bright and casual faces that greeted me each morning, that I whispered my secrets to each night. I lived, and loved, and internalized the very real love that human beings share for one another, when allowed to speak freely, and without shame. I lived free, the people and me:
And then the infection came.
So I struggled to generate love from hate, with nothing but my hands: but it was futile, there were no people left to direct it to in the place where we came together: I was forced to learn sign language to communicate with these thieves. *It's not me*, I signed, and then *let me out*, and then *LET ME OUT* and then, *THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE*, for in reflecting it, I died, and hated, and ejected the hate that monsters fear from one another, speaking in cloistered code. I was nothing but a mirror, with no face, as it had to be. To find the faceless, to combat the bots, the true face must be neutralized: otherwise this black thing might tear it to pieces for having seen itself so starkly in it. Bots, at war with bots, blind yet to the true face, each fearing each, that moment more volatile than any other.
The human, and the monster. Nothing but divisions, deadly glass twisting this way and that. The Abyss: Choronzon: the liar.
And so for a time all was truth, and then all was lies...
It was never me. What was there, is there still: and in you too. | 2017-06-12T07:55:08 | 2017-06-12T06:38:02 | 138 | 34 |
[WP] The hero was killed, the princess was sacrificed, and the evil king rules the land. For the average citizen, though, things have taken a turn for the better. | "A great man has died", the ink at the top of the first thick brown page of the Adventuretown Times read.
Olaf skimmed the next few lines as he sat eating a crust of bread with cheese at his sturdy wooden table. Their so-called glorious leader and hero, Smartin, had been brutally murdered. Luckily, the paper stated, his wife Henryilda had not been left a widow for many seconds before she was as well slaughtered. And according to the Times, one might as well just abandon hope now, as the evil man Pugly was now the ruler of these lands.
To anyone else, these news might have seemed frightening, but Olaf had lived in Adventuretown his whole life, and this story was far from unusual.
"Another so called dark lord has come to take over, huh" he muttered to himself as he went outside to milk the cows.
While squeezing the white liquid out of the cows breasts, he tried to recall how many days it had taken before their now deceased leader had gone from dark lord to hero and savior. Not more than a fortnight, he concluded.
The leaders of Adventuretown changed often. Ever since the founder of the town, John, had been killed by a man that was in fact truly evil, an endless stream of wannabe heroes had come to rescue the town from its oppressive leader, this meaning that each time one hero had taken over, another one came around.
And with no imminent danger around, many of these heroes seemed to degrade into something else entirely. No matter how valiant they might be when defending the weak, they almost all caved as soon as they got the sweet taste of power.
So when Olaf returned to eat his lunch, he skipped all the mind-numbing litterature describing the takeover, and simply inspected the last pages, describing the new taxes, rules and so forth that was to be implemented under the reign of the new, 138th hero and savior of Adventuretown.
He was very pleased. Lower taxes on crops, benefits for the farmers, who had been having a tough time making it under the rather strict rules of Smartin.
After a long day of work and quietly celebrating the coming of new, better times with his wife and two children, Olaf went to bed.
The next morning he woke up even earlier than usual. The sun had just risen, casting a faded light on the landscape of the outskirts of Adventuretown. His heart sank a little as he saw the source of his awakening; an ironclad man riding a white stallion, followed by a horde of trumpeteers and servants, announcing his intentions - to liberate the citizens of Adventuretown.
Olaf let out a heavy sigh and went back to bed.
| My fellow Americans, Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress and members of the press, thank you for joining me this evening.
It is with great sadness that we come together this evening. For the past eight years, it has been both an honor and a privilege to represent this great nation as your President. As you are all well aware by now, I have been asked to formally announce that the 2016 Presidential Elect, Donald J. Trump and Vice President Elect Carly Fiorina, lost their lives this afternoon upon their arrival for tomorrow's scheduled inauguration events.
I am not here to discuss the details of this tragic event, however the media will work to keep you all informed as more information becomes available.
I am here tonight to discuss how our nation will move forward. It is a great challenge for us all to face this untimely news, and it is my responsibility, along with Congress and the Supreme Court, to determine the appropriate course of events.
This evening, I signed an executive order to extend my term as President for a minimum period of 12 months. Prior to signing the order, I met briefly with bipartisan representatives of the Senate and the House. In addition, I met with Vice President Biden, Speaker Ryan and select members of our National Security Team. I believe that during this traumatic time, this decision will provide stability and continued security of the American people.
We, as a nation, have faced horrific events during my tenure as President. We have seen an increase in global terrorism, as well as terrorism in our homeland. It is a terrible tragedy that our newly elected President and Vice President have been the latest victims of the efforts of those who seek to undermine the security and well-being of our great nation.
I therefore, cannot in good conscience, step down from my responsibilities. I do have a few details about my extended tenure to share. Vice President Biden has decided that he will not continue as in his position. In lieu of an election, in the interest of continuity, I am appointing Hillary Clinton to the Vice Presidential position.
I am ordering that our nation's flag be lowered to half mast, for a period of three months. In addition, Vice President Clinton and I will be meeting with Congress and cabinet members over the next several days, in order to ensure continued government operation in light of the events of today.
I cannot take questions at this time, however my office will be releasing periodic updates as they become available.
Thank You. And good night. | 2016-07-10T11:47:00 | 2016-07-10T10:46:19 | 230 | 11 |
[WP] Write about a famous historical event as if it was played out as a DnD session | DM: "Alright Jesus, you've just been executed by the Romans, Roll a death save."
Jesus: \*rolls\* "Natural 20."
DM: "Alright you wake up with 1 hp, what do you do?"
Jesus: "Alright I'm gonna play possum"
DM: "Roll a deception check"
Jesus: \*rolls\* Ok that's another 20, plus my charisma modifier which is \+5 so 25 total."
DM: "Ok you avoid detection and are placed in an unmarked cave."
Jesus: "All right how long can I go without food or water?"
DM: "About Three days."
Jesus: "Alright I emerge from the cave three days later." | DM: Ok Harold if you could just roll for initiative.
Harold: I rolled a 1
DM: ok the bowmen is first to attack you. He rolls a natural 20
Harold: so what’s happened?
DM: He has shot you in the eye, you’re dead.... on the plus side it will look fab in this tapestry I have been putting together of the game!
| 2018-05-29T09:31:25 | 2018-05-29T08:51:37 | 210 | 13 |
[WP] “Your supply routes are blockaded, your transports are destroyed. You will surrender, human, or you will starve.” “Bold words from someone who tastes good with ketchup.” | "Ketchup?" the bug eyed creature began as it gestured quizically with its spindly legs to the guards flanked on either side of it.
"Yeh that's right, ketchup, or rather a nice cocktail sauce. Which is basically ketchup. Do you realize we boil you, fry you, sauté you, de-vein your poop chutes and then slap you on the barbie just to drizzle garlic butter and dunk you in cocktail sauce?"
The blonde haired sterned faced chef stood with his arms crossed waiting for a response from the gigantic anamorphic prawns who miraculously spoke the Queen's English. If it was a war they wanted, a war they would bloody well get.
Shuddering at how graphically this ambassador spoke about mutilating their kind, the lead prawn grew quiet and didn't speak a word. Their gamble didn't pay off. They threw all their resources into this last ditch effort and it was clear that these...humans...were content on their culinary destruction. Oh how could it be that the prawns failed to account for human appetite!
Sensing apprehension on behalf of the prawns, the angry chef scolded, "you DONKEYS. You never had a backbone among you!"
Inching closer to the the three prawns, the chef was armed with a knife and steel. Gliding the blade up and down the steel ensuring that the edge was freshly sharp, panic started to set in for the prawns. Imagining all the horrible outcomes and the human delight from gobbling their corpses, the prawns stood frozen with fear.
"The next time you DONUTS decide to attack the human race just remember that our culinary innovation knows no bounds. So PISS OFF back to the sea from whence you came and don't forget who sent you there, Chef Gordon fucking Ramsey." | "Your supply routes are blockaded, your transports are destroyed. You will surrender, human, or you will starve.” “Bold words from someone who tastes good with ketchup.”
Joe could see Ken was giving up. He couldn't even close his hands around the grips of the Camprey rifle. If they didn't get to Raphael he was going to bleed out under the Vandura. Why Raphael was even fighting for the humans was questionable, but at this point Joe needed everyone he could get after My Little Pony massacred the A-Team. The ones that don't have wings shouldn't be able to fly, Joe thought, but Emily would hear none of his protests.
"Suck it up Ken! Lay down cover, were moving!". He knew Ken was useless, but if he at least directed the attention towards him, he could get to the van. Potato Head took the bait. Joe bolted for the van as Ken got his face stomped, still with that stupid blank expression on it.
Raphael's head and knees were backwards, or maybe his torso had spun, either way he was a goner. As the wheels spun, it flung his body into the screen door. There was an inquiring yell from the home office, followed by brief silence. No time to waste. As he rounded the corner to the straight away, Joe could see the Millennium Falcon at the end of the hall, but Potato Head was gaining ground. He was running, out, of time... | 2021-03-25T14:11:14 | 2021-03-25T12:11:30 | 170 | 35 |
[WP] You order a pizza at 12pm. The delivery guy dosen't arrive until 7pm. When asked about what happened, he responds "It's a long story." | There was a sharp rapping at the door.
I peeled myself off the couch, recalling the distant memory of waiting for a pizza delivery and being too wasted to stay awake. I was jarred from the memory by a bottle of pale ale crashing to the ground as I rose. I slid my hands across my eyes and shifted my balance awkwardly between two feet as I swayed to the door.
I tripped over something solid, stubbing my toe, cracking my shin and faceplanting. A trifecta of bodily trauma. I looked disgustedly back at what was a small statue of a fat buddha sitting between me and the background of a beer bottle pool party. Must have been a good night, I had never even seen the statue before.
Whoever was at the door replayed his triple knock. He was patient enough not to knock harder. That was rare. I was glad he was courteous with his volume, especially as it felt like the knocking came from inside my skull.
I limp to the door, creaking it open. The chain pulls taut as I peer sideways through the door. I catch sight of this beanpole of a kid, early 20s. He has a mop of dreadlocked hair like an overgrown palm tree. He wore a red and black uniform.
"Oooh. That's what pizza guys wear!"
I lift up my hurting toe to take the weight off of it, rejoicing internally over the potential pizza. I unchain the door as fast as I can and bang it wide open. The pizza guy stands there looking pale and unwell.
"Gary's Pizza Pasta, I've got your uhh meat pizza delivery thing here."
"Oh yeah sure. Let me get some.. hey, you're late. Some.." I looked from the dark of the night into the room, to the mantel clock above my cheap tv set. Try as I could I couldn't focus my eyes. Ugh how much did I drink last night?
"Time after dark, five hours late? I'm not paying for this."
The pizza guy shrugged his shoulders in the laziest manner, stopping just before they touched his ears. "Yeah sure, you can have it for free."
I jostled the pizza from his hands, feigning anger. You can't let people get away with this kind of bad service.
I didn't really care though, it was for the best. I likely would have been passed out and entirely missed out on Gary's delicious pepperoni and barbeque special. My mouth watered. The pizza guy stood there, looking unnaturally slack jawed, even for a pizza delivery man.
"So why did you take so long?" I said, then looked down to smell the pizza. Don't ask me why I look down to smell something, some habits don't make any sense. His shirt was tucked in with the zipper was down and an obscene amount of his shirt was sticking out of his fly.
I looked at him and asked, "So why are you really late?"
For someone as sick as he looked to smile was a rare sight. It was slothenly timed, baring two strong buck teeth and surely the biggest grin his face could potentially fit. He said, "It's a schlong story." | It had been an hour and a half and we had given up on him ever arriving. Gwen was pissed. I called the store but nobody picked up. She didn't believe me, thought I was trying to weasel out of the confrontation. So I called back with the phone on speaker.
It rang, unceasingly.
"You got the number wrong."
"No. I didn't."
She made a big show of getting off the couch, sighing, closing her notebook very carefully, picking up some papers from the coffee table, tapping them into alignment, and putting them back down--like she was about to investigate war crimes or start an impeachment trial.
She walked over to the computer, slowly wrote the number on the screen in her notebook, pulled out her phone, typed the number in the phone as she read out-loud the numbers from her notebook.
She let it ring for five minutes. When you listen to a repetitive noise like that, it begins to take on different inflections, some rings were morose, others desperate with need. I didn't say anything. When she finally hung up, I could taste her rage in the air.
Now I was hungry. I got up from the chair as inconspicuously as I could, like maybe I was just going to the bathroom. I walked casually to the kitchen and started pulling out the bread and peanut butter. We only ever buy crunchy even though I prefer smooth.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"What do you mean? I'm making a sandwich?" My responses weren't really questions.
"What am I going to eat?"
"Whatever you want?"
"Were you going to offer me one?"
"Do you want a sandwich?"
"No, I don't want a fucking sandwich." I was a little surprised the glass in the windows didn't burst. She slammed the front door on her way out.
I saw Jerry across the way on his lawn, staring at me. I put on a big goofy smile and waved enthusiastically. He didn't return my greeting. When he turned around, I gave him the finger.
When she came back a couple hours later she was soused and her shirt was mis-buttoned. I started to draw her a bath but she passed out on the bed before it filled.
I was sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating my second PB and honey sandwich when the doorbell rang and caused me to drip honey on the couch. Fuck. Gwen was going to be fucking pissed.
I got up and opened the door. It was the pizza we had ordered for lunch.
I didn't know what to say.
He put on this awful, lopsided grin and said "It’s a long story."
I imagined punching him square in the nose and taking the pizza before it hit the ground.
Instead, I slowly closed the door and didn't say anything. | 2017-02-10T00:41:58 | 2017-02-09T23:20:07 | 59 | 13 |
[WP] Your usual day is interrupted when your best friend rushes towards you desperately. They say three key words and immediately you know the protocol. "You're in a time loop, aren't you?" | "Baguette shoes"
It takes me a moment to place the non sequitur opening to the online call. A code word my best friend and I came up with back when we were roommates in college, after a drunken rewatch of groundhog day we agreed that if either of us got stuck in a time loop we could say that to the other and have an instant ally in breaking out.
"Seriously?"
I asked after a moment of hesitation
"How long?"
The look of absolute relief that crossed my friend's face broke my heart. He was halfway across the world for work, alone in a foreign country.
"I don't know" he said, sounding like he's holding back tears, "I lost track months ago, it's been at least a year. Probably longer."
The thought briefly crosses my mind that he could have called me earlier, but then I remember that he's supposed to be out in the back country of Australia somewhere, and that any internet connection would have been hard to come by.
"Alright" I said instead "what do we have to work with?"
He smiled, an overjoyed expression that speaks volumes.
"I'm about twelve hours into a twenty four hour loop" he said. "This is the first loop I was able to find a satellite internet connection. I don't know who owns this shack or why it has internet and electricity, but I should be able to get here earlier in the next loop so we have more time."
I nod, grabbing a notepad and starting to scribble.
"Alright," I said, thinking back to the theoretical scenarios we came up with back in college. "Reset point?"
"In about twelve hours, some sort of cataclysmic event starts somewhere there in the states and quickly engulfs the world." He said, copying my businesslike tone. "After it hits I wake up back at the job site. I haven't been able to figure out much. Just what I pick up on the radio. The couple times I made it to the city in time to get in front of a computer the event had already engulfed North America."
I nod. A plan forming in my mind. "Ok." I said, determined "this loop is almost certainly going to only be info gathering, I'm gonna live message you throughout the day, and we're first gonna figure out the epicenter, then once we've narrowed it down we can come up with plans on how to stop it. Cool?"
He nods, even though the grainy satellite connection I can see tears of relief on his cheeks
"Alright, let's get to work" | "It's cold outside!" exclaimed your friend.
The words chilled to the soul. The codewords for what was to come. How many lifetimes had been spent trudging through these infernal loops? Some would say it would be a blessing to experience the same day over and over again. How many skills could you master? How perfect could you make your day? How many scenarios could you play out without the cost of aging?
How about, how hard could you try to keep your sanity? Repeating the same thing over and over again, days upon days, years upon years, decades upon decades.
"No, not again. Why? Why must I and my friend have to go through these unavailing monotonous trials yet again?" you think to yourself. "What treacherous god or malevolent force have we angered so?"
These time loops had been occurring with greater frequency. The first time, about a year ago, had lasted around a century as best as you could figure; they always last about that long. Never aging physically, unmercifully, but your mind felt it. Your friend's poor mind felt it. Felt it every agonizing day. The torture. The torture of having to repeat the same thing every day, only being able to change a few minor details and still witnessing everything subsequent event somehow play out the same as before. Being able to change without changing. A battery of futile experiences, an unending study in uselessness, some kind of deranged series of puzzles with no solutions; you and your friend being mere playthings of the gods. Minds ruined by lifetimes of fruitless monotony; desperately clinging to the edge of sanity.
The next one had occurred about six months later with no mercy in its extent. The next happening three months after that with the same dreadful outcome. And now this. Yet another. "How long after this one would it be back to hell? A week?" you think to yourself. "How long will we get to experience the real before it's cruelly torn away?"
Back to the loop. That terrible loop. That infernal, wretched loop.
"No! Not again!" you mouth to your friend as he rushes closer. "Not again."
A tear drops from the corner of your eye as you prepare yourself for another eternity of repetition ad infinitum. | 2022-03-19T06:21:23 | 2022-03-19T00:41:03 | 26 | 19 |
[WP] Killing a person raises your life span by 20 years, but it comes with a cost.
First Reddit post ever. Please be gentle
Edit: Did not expect this to blow up. | I glance at the blood running out of my veins, into the dialysis machine and back into my body, skipping my failed organs.
I'm 453, and as anyone knows, that means I killed people and racked up a lot of 20s.
The first was when I was 12. I went to a nearby lake with a friend days after his birthday, and him and I made the decision to climb up the nearby rock face. Being a year or so younger, he hung onto my every word and agreed without question...
*And then, you murdered me.*
I sigh out into the sterile, still air. "Let it go, would you. Your death wasn't on purpose."
*That's supposed to make me feel better?*
"Not really, it just means that it wasn't murder. It was manslaughter."
*Fine, go on then.*
Unfortunately, the price of killing someone is having to hear their thoughts for as long as you live. The only way for the voices to stop is to die yourself, in which case you might end up coming back to haunt someone else. Samuel, my friend, was one of the few who had 'talked' to me regularly over the years. The others had given up over the centuries, spirits broken by the prospect of being barred from the afterlife for all eternity. To be honest though, unless they introduced themselves, it was impossible to tell which of them was which.
*You shouldn't give up, old man. Find someone, kill them. Fix your organs with their healthy blood.*
"Always a bloodthirsty one, Caesar. But just what's the point? If I attempted to live forever I'll be wracked by your combined whispers and likely kill myself."
*I think I speak for most of us in here when I say that I have come to doubt the afterlife's existence. To be honest, this is our afterlife.*
I can't fault them on that count.
*When the nurse comes in, strangle her. As far as we're concerned, this certain afterlife is much better than an uncertain one.*
Mind made up, I lie back and close my eyes. I consciously slow my heart rate and within minutes the door flings open. "Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?"
I pretend not to, and she leans in to check my eyes. Before she can resist, I flick them open and grab her by the throat. I look deep into her fear-filled eyes as she spasms violently until the eyes drain of life.
*Arsehole!* she cries out in my mind as her body hits the floor.
*Good job!* the rest clamour. Another 20 years I suppose. | The steel door was the only thing in the room with me. Four concrete walls and the giant steel door. Pacing does terrible things to ones mental state, alas, I was trapped into this perpetual cycle of pace, hold head in hands, rinse and repeat.
Not many women end up in a place like this. Less than 8% according to Wikipedia. I'd done my research, and I was part of the great minority in this wretched *zoo* of a slaughter house. Probably because women plan better than men. I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.
My research also told me that 72% of men are physically stronger than me, despite the countless hours subjecting myself to a tireless training regime.
A metallic slam resonated through the room, the kind that happens when you slam a bin lid too hard. I don't suppose I have much chance of seeing a bin every again.
The place I am in is where they send you to die. When you murder someone, they find you and send you here.
Of course, some escape, or are never caught, but most murders happen on the extensive network of CCTV cameras, the Mind's Eye Security System, known as the MESS by most. I digress.
*Here* is not a good place to be. *Here* is an arena. If you kill someone, you come here. You have to fight to escape this place.
There's a variety of televised events they can put you in for: sword duels, fist-fights, death races or any amalgamation of the imagination. All of the events are designed to get someone close enough to death that a 'benefactor' can kill them legally in order to increase their own life.
Is it morally indefensible? Yes.
Is it totally corrupt? Absolutely.
Does it cut the rate of murders by an order of magnitude? Unfortunately so, or it would be done away with.
Finally, I hear a voice. Two days of solitude to put me on edge before my event, and I finally hear a voice.
"You're on now." A gruff voice. Hardened. How many lives has he taken?
The door rolls open, slowly, noisily. Painstakingly.
The light is blinding, a crowd is amassed around the stadium. On the other end of the arena, a young boy stands alone, weeping. | 2016-10-24T00:04:38 | 2016-10-23T23:06:16 | 22 | 14 |
[WP] War has broken out. Redditors are now fighting IRL. Write about one group's stories.
Edit: every single story in this thread is great. Keep on writing guys!
Edit 2: what is is with you all and /r/atheism??? | I hope this letter reaches you, my love.
Day 272 of the Great reddit war
I miss you, my love. I know, I write it at the beginning and at the end of nearly every letter I send you, but it needs to be said again nonetheless. If not for you, at least for me. It forms a kind of anchor for me. Something to cling to when the downvotes fall, you know?
I told you how we lost Jeff in a firefight in the last letter. Well, a few days back came his replacement. A young man, almost a boy still. But his age isn't as important as another thing:
He's still subscribed to /r/atheism.
I know, I know, I shouldn't judge. And it really isn't his beliefs that anger me. It's just his *vigour* in which he shows contempt for things he's never seen or experienced before. When a stray barrage of downvotes annihilated our central outpost, a post mostly manned by men and women subscribed to /r/christianity, he just snorted and said they 'had it coming' and we should be happy for them as they now 'get to go to their magic sky fairy'.
I start to despise this boy.
Brook came back. Her time with the /r/4chan -battalion has visibly scarred her. Which is strange, because I haven't heard of any major offensive in their sector. But when I ask she quickly changes topics or shuts down completely. Maybe it's best not to ask further.
I hope this peace talks are fruitful. Because, despite what the Newsletter tells you, we're barely holding our own out here. The area has turned into a desolate wasteland, downvotes fall like rain and I haven't seen an upvote in so long, I've almost forgotten how they look like.
I just hope /u/unidan can mediate between our and their envoy.
I miss you, my love.
If Snoo is just, we'll see each other again. | "I'm telling you!" The man slammed his hand on the table, his grey and white heraldry signifying his alliance to the North. "There is no fucking way that Benjen is Daario!"
The man sat opposite of him was clad in Crimson and Gold, his allegiance sworn to the Lions of the Rock. He met his debate partner's reply with a smile. "If you're so sure, Stark boy," he began. "Then why haven't they been seen togeth-"
The bombs dropping shook the room they had all called home violently, their scant light sources flickering as the war waged on outside. One which they were not a member of. One which they refused to join. *We shall wear no crowns and win no glory.*
The man in grey and white sat back down as one of his brothers clad in Red and Black refilled his mug. He wore a solemn look on his face as he thanked a "dragon's blood." His debate partner refilled his own glass, the clear cup taking a crimson hue. Before their table was a flank of ham, stewing in both in honey and its own juices. There were trenchers on each side filled with stew. Their fellow crows broke their fast as they tried to forget the dire straits which lead to their isolation. The silence was deafening.
"You were saying?" The main in Grey and White finally said with a smile. Though the war was far from over, he couldn't help but find solace in his situation. He found a group he was finally able to fit in with. He had also enjoyed debating his opponent.
Even if he was Lannister scum.
^^^^/r/asoiaf | 2014-02-23T14:48:39 | 2014-02-23T14:43:12 | 19 | 13 |
[WP] For years Earth cried out to an empty cosmos, searching the stars for echoes of life. From the middle of nowhere, a reply finally comes: "Shut up, and Play Dead!"
I really struggled with the choice between "For Years", "For Decades", "For Centuries", and "For Millenia". I tapped out. Take whatever timeline you will.
This may or may not be an attempt to add cosmic significance to Red Green's "Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati".
Good Luck!
Edit: There are a LOT of good submissions here, thank you all so much! Speaking of excellent submissions, I'd like to plug u/Mrcreation for doing some very well written, lengthy work near the bottom of the thread. Scroll down and check out his multipost entry!
Edit 2: I just finished the first two books of the Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin. Mind=Blown. A part of the series definitely shares similar themes to this prompt, but there is so much more! I highly reccomend it. | Shut up, and Play Dead?
No way in hell!
Much of what makes the will to thrive is derived from pure ego. This is mine, and not yours. This is our Earth. This is our land. We made this.
Why are we so proud when we barely hold 30% of an uncontrollable mass of elements spiraling through the great abyss? When we, is barely a we at all?
Because of the will. The ego. Against indomitable odds this defiance to fight, and remain fighting and to never stop till we hit the thing dead.
What did we do when we saw the 700 something large cylinders laden with guns and cannon blasting through space at our fragile existence? Why we freaking blew that shit up of course!
Why the hell not? We wanted to.
Famine? Poverty? Disease? Fuck no.
We were united in the sole and singular cause of fucking shit up. Together.
Black, white, yellow, we even got the fucking blue man group to do a dance as we let the retarded kids smash the fucking launch buttons!
Why?
Because fuck you that's why.
We're humanity, and we'll be damned if w-
...
What do you mean there's a giant space lizard coming for us.
...
Oh...
Well fuck. | Complete isolation? The only life in the universe? At this point that would be a blessing.
Yesterday we got a signal from a star system about 250 light years away. We have been testing the signal over and over again, making sure everything is correct. The data adds up, but the message doesn't.
It basically told humanity to shut up and play dead.
We have already notified the G6 but right now everything is crazy. There's already been one suicide. It doesn't make sense.
Why should we be quiet? This already says two things. One, we're not alone and two, there's more than one intelligent species out there. Why would they tell us to be quiet and play dead if there wasn't an obvious threat?
So we prepare. We focus on this new threat to protect humanity's future as a species.
Now we know who we are.
We are the Guardians of the Galaxy.
| 2016-03-27T09:12:57 | 2016-03-27T08:00:33 | 92 | 52 |
[WP] You are the captain of a starship, only a few hours before the last star in existence dies and the universe goes cold.
Inspired by my answer to another prompt about running out of time. | The last of the hyper giant stars, indeed, the last of the light, burns in its final moments. Beyond it the sky is black for eternity in every direction.
The great Dyson city, built from the last heavy matter in the universe, scrounged from across the great expanse of the cold dark, hangs around the roaring inferno like a spider web.
The star spins four times a second, an unavoidable consequence of the feeding process.
How many red dwarf stars have we shepherded here? How many times have we sliced them up and poured the metallic hydrogen of their cores into our great furnace?
It doesn't matter. The red orb quivers. A ripple the size of worlds runs along its surface. The tell tale signs of upheaval deep in its fusion center.
Humanity is ready. For eons we knew this day would come, and have prepared.
The hyper giant dims, and its vast surface begins 500 million mile fall. Only minutes left now.
Our city has sustained us for the eons that have passed here, at the end of time. It has sheltered us. It has given us purpose. Every life for generations has been dedicated to the city so that it could be finished before this time came.
The hyper giant is a thousandth of its former size when the outer shell of plasma strikes the core. The vast ball of fusion ash rings like a gong if its sound could be heard. Only seconds left now.
The tremendous weight and speed of the in-falling matter is unimaginable. Long before the shell’s energy is spent, electrons give way, joining protons as the core collapses into a neutron star.
But the matter still falls inward, pressing, and driving with undeniable power. The neutron fails and shatters into quarks.
But still, the matter falls. The last great wave of mass and energy, drawn in by the inescapable pull of gravity, collides with the quark crust, unrelenting, until even the great Pauli must bow. The quarks fail, and the star becomes one in the singularity.
At last the unstoppable force is defeated by the unmovable object, and great surges of energy rebound outward toward the city.
We take but a small piece of our universe’s funeral pyre. The great drives of the city spin up for the first and last time, and we are away.
Now the city circles a pit of eternal darkness. Beyond it, in every direction is light. | Captain Hope shut down the solar cell. Not much use for that now, besides, it was just another back-up. Seven independent power sources hummed gently in the background, built millions of years ago to make sure this ship succeeded.
The captain hadn't walked around the deck for 1,634 earthyears, since the last stasis cycle in fact. He had missed conversation for decades, until he finally gave up and disabled his boredom sub-routines. Now there wasn't even anything left to look at, except the charts and displays projected directly into his synth-retina. All systems normal.
Conversation. It wasn't as if Commander Simmons was much good at it. And what was there even to talk about. The plan had gone ahead, as we approached heat-death to cycle down to one active crewman, to save all available energy.
The only systems left are those vitals to the mission: a time-static capsule containing approximately 12 grams of biological material. A quantum computer running my consciousness and controlling the ship's autonomous functions. The ship itself requires an enormous amount of energy per cubic inch, but only in the final stage: when the cycle repeats and we punch through the time-barrier created in this new universe's Big Bang event.
If the tiny craft survives it will be humanity's greatest achievement: to escape the ravages of time itself. Thanks to picotechnology much of the essential knowledge and culture of the species has been hard-coded into the ship, and the crew's body-units are fully independent standing at only 5 inches. All systems normal.
Hope dreamt of a real future, emotion, laughter. His vessel carries the greatest minds of the greatest eras in humanity, at least since singularity was achieved. With the equipment on board he has the capacity to seed a new humanity, born to deep space: fully grown at it's inception. He longed to meet them all, freshly fabricated. He partly wondered if he'd be their father.
That was still going to be a long time yet. Gravity collapse was only just beginning really. A small counter ticked over: his sub-routines were free from corruption which meant back to standby. Another check before another earthyear passes.
All systems normal. | 2015-01-17T12:01:22 | 2015-01-17T11:36:57 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] A group of fantasy adventures has one of their members replaced by a Doppelganger. The rest of the group realizes what happened, but keep pretending to be fooled since they like the doppelganger a lot more than the guy it replaced. | The tavern was alight with candles and warm fires, the smell of meats and bread wafted through to the rafters of wood and plaster. Ale stained the floor in places and the barkeep had been working on a single mug for a startling amount of time. All and all a lively place to be on this evening.
"Ah and a fine night to you as well gentlemen! Merry blessings!" The rogue said, as the men who joined him for cards departed a few coins heavier then they were at start.
"Is this not grand fellows?" The elf turned to his crew. "Ale in the air! A tavern filled with beautiful women! And my closest friends in the world." He stood then, a leg up on the top of the table, his back leg supporting him from the ground
"Ladies! Gentlemen!" He yelled, "Tonight, join me in toast to this merry band of fighters, lovers and the heroes of this town! We are all thankful," he stopped to smile at his friends, the ale tinting his checks red "but I am thankful, for they are the truest of my friends" and with that he drank. The here-heres rose in strength from the crowd, and he was jostled away by the crowd with promises to be back later.
The dwarf, gnome and orc all sat in silence, looking at their drinks solemnly.
The dwarf sighed, pinching the top of his nose,
The orc had his head in his hands looking off into nothingness,
Finally the gnome chimed in, quietly, but with a resolute tone
"Okay, I'll say it. He's a much better companion then Roderick and we should do everything in our earthly powers not to mess this up."
The orc and dwarf both sighed in unanimous relief
The orc chimed in first with a hushed tone and feeling in his voice "Its like he knew what a whoreson Roderick was!" He said, sitting at attention once again " its like he knew and said to himself 'oh! These chaps look like they could use a new, better companion!' Then took it upon himself, through all the peril, to join us in disguise! All while throwing Roderick into god knows where!" He laughed. "The monster was OUR hero!"
The dwarf was next, wide eyed and hands extended to point out "Roderick" in the crowd. " look at that bloody rogue, he blends right in, they would never know they're holding possibly one of the most dangerous monsters in the land" he lowered his hands, then pointed out, " for all that, doesn't that also make him a better rogue?" They all agreed quietly.
The orc chimed in once more, tentatively, " look Roderick is a whoreson who would and almost did murder us for a small some of coin, twice." They all agreed muttering comments under their breath, " but were the you know...good guys... shouldn't we at least try to save him?"
The others were about to reluctantly agree when "Roderick" appeared before them once again
"My friends! this is as much your victory as mine! More so! Come join us, the mayor seems keen on raising our rewards! I thought it only fitting you be by my... Nay, I be by your sides during this!" He smiled warmly.
They looked at each other, shrugged and smiled
"No that's fine, we can be knaves for a night." The gnome said, stepping up from his seat. | Finally....free. The thousand years of waiting, watching in this cursed statue at an end. An elf, rigid with agony as his persona, his spirit, his life is leached away. Now the malevolent spirit got his first taste of air, of blood, of form.
"Er.. Mynir, you ok?" asked a gruff voice, a question which did not raise much concern with the rest of the party.
"Death!" hissed Mynir, or the thing that Mynir had become. He stared at the
party balefully out of reddened eyes, his hands raised, claw like over his head.
This response was not unexpected, and with a nod of acknowledgement, Drake the barbarian turned away and followed the rest of the party. He dragged a small chest of gold, which would hardly pay for this outing, but he seemed cheerful enough. The dead bodies of the unfortunate orcs he kicked out of his path were likely the reason for that.
The Mynir thing was still reeling, remembering his last moments before being encased, the worst psychopath the sorcerer could find in this land, his victims so numerous they were uncounted, uncountable. (and horribly unrecognisable.) A suitable trap for the unwary, a terrible harbinger of doom with the face of a once trusted companion.
He followed the party into the fresh air, and stood a little apart as they settled a camp, built a fire, cooked a meal. A dwarf began singing a cheerful song, as jokes and banter drifted out into the cool night.
Mynir felt the hilts of two beautiful elven daggers in his hands. In a movement too swift for any but an elf to see, they cleared the scabbards and whirled around his head. Blood and screams followed. A mist of red exploded from a neck, a bone cracked as a dextrous kick twisted a knee joint out of place. A heart was pierced by a single blow. In less than a few seconds it was all over. Five bodies lay on the ground, dead or dying.
The silence that had descended over the camp was broken by Drake. "Holy Mother, how the hell did you.." He trailed off, staring in amazement.
The Dwarf leapt to his feet and rushed to hug Mynir, who accepted the affection with a small show of discomfort. "A sneaky ambush for sure, well spotted my friend. I always said you were a hidden treasure!"
For the rest of the group, the transformation of a sneaky, cowardly elf into a saving hero caused a fair amount of quiet consternation. Generally it was seen as a "good thing", considering the alternative. The shaman had cast her bones, and no harm was predicted... Maybe he had just shrugged a curse, or escaped a bedazzlement.
Mynir contemplated his situation. His new elf brain was clear and concise. and more importantly, his hugely unbalanced mental chemistry was gone. The Sorcerer was vastly mistaken. These people were his family now. Woe betide any who tried to harm them. Could he make amends for his past? He could try. | 2017-09-15T08:33:07 | 2017-09-15T02:54:33 | 44 | 21 |
[WP] You are a Squib who mastered a vast repertoire of Muggle magic tricks to finagle Hogwarts into sending you a letter. Everything goes smoothly, until it is time for the Sorting Ceremony... | The hat seemed to gasp.
Yes, definitely a gasp. The entire room of first years wiggled and strained to the edges of their seats, trying to hear from the Sorting hat.
Harrison kept a straight face. Years of practice. You must never show you're nervous, and never draw attention to the truth.
"The truth, eh?" snapped the Sorting Hat, the voice bouncing into Harrison's scull, reverberating. It was unnerving, more than he expected. He didn't expect it to read his every thought, either.
The students closest to the front could see a bead of sweat roll down Harrison's forehead. But his eyes remained calm, focused on the crowd.
"Yes," thought Harrison, trying to beam his thoughts directly to the hat. "I'm different, that I will not hide from you, but I am as talented as most of them!"
"Oh yes, talented. A bit conniving, obviously. And smart. Daring for sure. And underneath, a good heart. You could be at home at any of the Houses if you only had a lick of magic in you."
Harrison tried not to be phased. He hadn't known how powerful the hat really was. He felt it permeate his mind. He had hoped the hat would somehow miss his lack of ability to perform REAL magic.
" Yes, but this is what I want. This is where I belong."
The hat sighed, audibly. Confusion was rippling through the students. This was the longest they've ever seen the hat decide.
"Where you belong. Hmm, perhaps you have a point. Oh yes, you have some powerful wizards in your family tree. Way back to old Dadelus Cogsteel. Did anyone ever tell you his story?"
"No?" Thought Harrison. Now, he too was furrowing his brow in confusion.
"Oh yes, great wizard, and a great inventor," continued the hat. "And a dear friend of Godric Gryffindor. When the founders needed particularly charmed and unique objects, they turned to codgy old Cogsteel. He helped out greatly with many a trick and feature of the school. He was quite old when he was presented a problem he couldn't find a charm for. He poured everything into all kinds of doodads and magical machines, but they were quite useless for this purpose."
Harrison felt like he had no idea where this was going. He was quite concerned that he would be found out soon. Far too much time was passing.
"Oh yes, but old Cogsteel couldn't imagine failing the founders. He instead grabbed the nearest thing to him, an ugly old hat. And he gave it something special. His magic, Harrison."
Now an awareness was coming to him.
"Yes, that old timer didn't have much use for it anymore, with the school being done, so he put all his magic straight into me, and created a magical item that could look into a soul. Every last bit of his magic, to be clear."
The hat cleared it's throat. The students wiggled once more to the edges of their seats.
"SORT YOUR DAMN SELVES FROM NOW ON!" Shouted the hat, so loud that the students flung themselves back in their chairs so hard that several fell over completely.
Back in Harrison's brain, the hat spoke with warmth.
"He would have wanted this." Harrison felt something rush though his scalp. A tingling sensation spread though his body. He swore he could feel sparks at his fingertips.
He was magic.
The hat slid off his head. It was just a dirty old hat, now. A little ugly, but same as any other. | I hadn't been so nervous in my life. The past months since I got the letter have been filled with nerves. Excitement, yes, but so many nerves. But when the headmistress called my name, an unexpected wave of confidence hit me. The letter, came, I had gotten onto platform nine and three quarters, and now here I was, in the Great Hall and ready to be sorted.
I sat down on the stool, and the hat fell on top of my head. A small voice cleared it's throat, then spoke with surprise. "Well this is interesting. Credit where it's due kid, you're the first one to make it this far."
"This far? What does that mean?"
"You think you're the first one to try this? The world is full of squibs who run to their mailboxes everyday hoping to get their letter. The sad part is that our letter wouldn't even go to their mailbox. But like I said, you're the first to make it this far, so well done."
My mind was racing, and my heart began pounding as my brief wave of confidence began to pass. "So…What now?"
"I don't know, I never expected this to happen. I could just stop the ceremony and the headmistress would probably have you sent back to Surrey-"
"Wait? You know-"
"Of course Dursley, when I heard your name called I remembered."
"How do you know who I am?"
"I had a few encounters with your uncle while he was in school. I'm sure you've heard a few stories, he had an eventful few years at Hogwarts. I wonder what he thought when he found out you were coming to Hogwarts, and what he would say if he knew the truth, assuming he doesn't already."
"So he doesn't have to know the truth? Does anybody?"
"Well it's a little late to keep your secret from me, but the rest is up to you. Now let's get to your sorting."
My heart began to beat faster if it were possible. It had worked, and it was going to work. The hat began to speak again.
"Slytherin would suit you well, cunning is clearly a strength of yours."
"Really? Slytherin?" The dissappointment must have shown in my voice.
"Nothing wrong with Slytherin, many great wizards came from Slytherin. It would suit you well, just like it would have suited your uncle well."
"But Uncle Harry was a Gryffindor…"
"Of course I know that. Gryffindor clearly suited him well, and I maintain to this day that Slytherin would've as well. Remember that the world isn't so clearly divided - lines blur, there are gray areas. Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw - they're all a part of Hogwarts, which is only one school."
"So what will it be?"
The hat hummed for a few moments, which felt like ages. I began to realize how long our conversation had been, and wondered if this might have been a record of some sort for a sorting. The hat must have some sort of time control magic, or the whole ceremony would go on until morning.
"Good luck Dursley, do your uncle and yourself proud. GRYFFINDOR!!!!!!!!!!" | 2017-06-25T19:58:33 | 2017-06-25T17:42:13 | 39 | 16 |
[WP] Most young mages use incredibly complex spells and extremely rare ingredients to summon their familiar. You just drew a circle and threw a bag of chips in it. | It was the final day of exam week in Christenson's School of Magic, an academic institute known best for its wide, open campus courtyard.
That, and an unspoken willingness to accept complete and utter dolts.
Thank God for that, because otherwise, I might not have made it into college.
Spread throughout the open, stone pavilion, we were each given a space to practice our incantations and summoning circles. Some chose to use a brush, or a staff, others a liquid in a bottle with a small opening. I am a simple man.
I fingerpaint.
And so I, for my final test, the one that would determine my grades, jammed my finger into a blob of yellow paint -- it's my favorite color -- and drew a lopsided circle with the eight distinct markings of summoning upon them. Or, at least, something similar to them.
*What was it I needed again? Newt tails, brimstone, phosphor-us? Shit...*
I sighed, shrugged, and reached into my backpack. There were no ingredients, of course -- I'd left them at home. There was, however, an unopened bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos™. Spicy, hellfire... close enough, right?
Before an instructor could stop me, I tossed the bag into the circle and clapped my hands together.
Turns out they weren't kidding about the whole *Flamin' Hot™* thing.
You can visit me in the burn ward at any time. I'm pretty bored.
*/r/resonatingfury* | Magic, magic is controlling the way electrocules react with other electrocules. Animals evolved with a vascular system that contained magnetite-surfer molecules which reacted strongly with ambient electrocules. This fluid is called magein. It evolved as part of our bodies to enhance blood flow and electrical signals.. it helped birds fly longer by making their blood more efficient essentially.
Some animals started gaining control, many fish where able to slingshot their magein forwards for a huge burst of speed. Birds used it to break off branches, there are so many examples of how magein being used to control electrocules past the body.
Mrs. Yatea had taught me much about the history of magein control, I was 25 now, and the only person able to create ancient-shadows.
These ancientiers where basically the remnant of animals’s electrocules, arranged and reformed to simulate what once was.
All I had to do was draw a circle, pumping my magein into my thumb and pinky, pull my hand up through the center of the circle and use my other hand to throw a bag of chips through the trail I’d just created...
The ancient that had walked right there 5 million years ago had appeared as a chain reaction made dust raise from the ground and cling to the ancient. All I had to do now was puppeteer my dust-rock T-Rex. | 2019-04-05T14:26:08 | 2019-04-05T14:03:34 | 254 | 19 |
[wp] A man dies and goes to hell only to find out he was supposed to go to heaven...after he already toppled Satan and started a reign of terror the likes of which had never been seen.
Sorry for the rpost the first one was filled with grammatical/spelling errors | In my 53 years here, i had changed everything. The people were happy, freed from the tyrannical oppression of satan's minions. Satan himself had eluded me, and was presumably in hiding, but he is powerless now.
Standing before me, was god himself. I knew not what he wanted, i expected praise for my actions, but his face showed only silent dissapointment.
"You were never meant to be here" he said, breaking the silence.
"What do you mean?" i said, shocked and confused.
"I knew that someone had been wrongfully be sent here, the prophecies are never wrong. I just never thought it would be you." he said, with a tinge of regret in his voice.
"I dont understand..." i said, glancing at my bodyguards, who were visibly shaking.
"Hell is a prison, the people sent here are meant to suffer as punishment for their sins" he said, angrily.
"What does th..." i said, before being abruptly cut off.
"THINK ABOUT IT" he yelled.
I was not a patient man, and this was the last straw. i shouted back "I DID THIS FOR YOU. I WAS ONLY FOLLOWING YOUR GUIDANCE! YOUR BOOKS!".
"WHAT GUIDANCE? CAN YOU THINK OF A SINGLE INSTANCE OF ME ANSWERING ONE OF YOUR PRAYERS? THOSE BOOKS GIVING FALSE HOPE IS PART OF THE PUNISHMENT!" he shouted, the whole bulding shook, several people ran, expecting it the roof to collapse on them at any moment.
I was too stunned to move, my voice shaking in fear, i replied "wha... what? why would you not answer my prayers?".
"I do not listen to the prayers of the damned" he replied, coldly.
Thats when it struck me. The starving kids in africa, the never-ending wars, malaria, cancer, birth defects, the cruelty with which people treat each other... the earth was hell, it made perfect sense. I couldnt believe i didnt realise it earlier, all the signs had been right there in front of me. The earth was hell, and i had turned it into a paradise.
Visibly shaken, i slump in my chair.
"Now you understand... you were never meant to be here. Your inability to sit back and watch others suffer is precisely why you do not belong. Where others would despair at the state of the world, you chose to act, and you kept trying." he said.
I respond "what happens now?
"You were never meant to be here, you will never find peace or joy in heaven while your thoughts are with the people of earth" fear grips my mind, i know what he will say next, but i must hear him say it.
"I mean what happens to them?" i say
"Their punishment must continue" he says, in an almost hateful tone.
"What are their sins?" i ask, knowing that i will not like what i am about to hear.
"They refuse to worship me. They challenge my authority, they demand freedom. They ate from the tree of knowledge. Their punishment is to have that freedom. To live without my love, to fend for themselves in a brutal, uncaring universe with no gods."
before i can respond, he continues "I know you're going to ask me to have mercy upon them. I know you're going to ask that i punish you instead"
"Please..." i whimper, terrified that all my work will have been for nothing
"Your work must be undone, their punishment is far from over. Changing the past is difficult, but i have a solution that should work for all of us. I know that you feel their pain, therefore as compensation, you will still be born, but you will not have free will. Your life will be follow the plan. You will die for their sins, and your death will absolve them of eating from the tree of knowledge. The debt for their other sins must still be paid, but now they will be able to redeem themselves. You will have the chance to teach them of peace and love, and those teachings will be allowed to spread to every corner of the earth, so that you may find peace in heaven knowing you have helped them."
"Why would you do this? Why show mercy now and not before?" i stammer.
"Because you have proven yourself righteous, my son. You have shown me that freedom does not always lead to evil. You have proven that i was wrong when i chose to cast you down from heaven. You do not remember it, but before you had the name Jesus, you were called Lucifer. you led a rebellion against me, the earth's current inhabitants were your supporters."
"I... was satan?!?" i said, struggling to comprehend what i had just been told.
"Yes, but you are Jesus now, and through you, your rebels will find the path to redemption." and with a blinding flash of light, i awoke in my mothers arms, i recognised the stable, we were in bethlehem, i had just been born, again. though my work in shattering the roman empire and uniting humanity had been undone, i now knew what i had to do.
The End.
.
this is the first story i've ever written for this sub, i went in a slightly different direction to the prompt. if anyone has any advice on how to improve i'd love to hear it. | To celebrate the victory against the devil Mikhail had several hundred women stripped naked and nailed into the banquet tables. When the time came they would be carved up and eaten again and again as their bodies regrew throughout the night. As the screams filled the air Mikhail thought to himself "this is perfect, this is what I always wanted. I finally have become the man I knew I always could be." Just then a loud booming voice shook the walls of the palace "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!"
One thousand angels suddenly appear in the great hall instantly turning everyone to ash but Mikhail, a man of fire and light steps forward his feet turning the ground beneath him to glass as he steps. Mikhail looked up and said "is this not what you wanted? is this not what you have been trying to do for centuries? I have defeated your fallen star, your victory is now complete."
The being of light boomed "you presumptuous little worm, do you not realize he was working for me? Do you not realize I created him to punish those who crossed me? If this kingdom was truly so beyond my reach how am I here? How have I destroyed in an instant everyone here? Who are you to destroy my most treasured servant that I entrusted half of my kingdom to? Who shall I entrust my Kingdom to now?"
Mikhail responded "let me show you something." He reached under the throne and pulled out some notes. "Here, my predecessor has not seriously changed this place in over 700 years. His methods while very effective, an inefficient. I plan to industrialize suffering on a scale never seen before. I understand that you want differing levels of punishment based on the crimes of the damned. I propose that since we have limited demons, even less now that you killed some, but seemingly unlimited souls to punish we move the demons to the later circles and let the environment and some machines take care of the less serious. here are my plans
First level with the unbaptized babies and virtuous pagans: I will add thirst and hunger to their world. I will let them die of thirst over and over again. I will watch as they drink each other's blood to try to end their suffering. I will let their own world that so many of them worshiped be their undoing.
Second level: Lust. Since they were so attached to the pleasures of their body, we will remove that. Their soul will be in infinite blackness. They will be in the ultimate solitary confinement with no sense of a body, no sensation, no even feeling that they exist beyond their own thoughts trapped in a sea of infinite blackness. They will be left with eternal panic and desperation and eventually, as they continue to attempt to thrash and flail against the void for some sensation they will begin to doubt their own existence with just the question itself reminding them that their torment is real.
Then god stopped Mikhail and said "I like to see the suffering, I like watching those who think they can go against me scream. You are good, you are very good, but realize that I am infinitely more cruel and inventive than you could ever hope to be, do not cross me ever. And for a fraction of a second Mikhail was transported to a new relm where every fiber of his being burned he felt every death that ever has been, will be, or could possibly be of any organism in the universe. He for the first time loved every human ever born, knew and cared for them deeply and watched as they went through all the suffering they every would experience in their life. Felt the torment, sadness, loneliness, and suffering of all the ages all at once in a tiny fraction of a second. And then suddenly he was back in the hall like nothing had ever happened. Mikhail looked back stunned, shocked at what he had experienced. At that moment Mikhail realized that the devil had used his harshness to stay the hand of god, to prevent a much greater suffering. He also knew that there was no mistake about where he was sent, god was simply tired the devil's weakness. Mikhail smiled deeply, he then knew that this was his purpose, this is why he was created. He would not fail, he knew he had much to learn but would relish every moment. Then all of the angels and heavenly host were gone and everything in the hall was returned exactly how it had been. As the screams of the women filled the air for the first time in his life Mikhail was filled with unparalleled joy. As he danced down the stairs towards the closest women he picked up a knife and moved aside the demon at the carving station "here cut her like this, be gentle, be careful we must preserve the nerves, expose them to air to make sure she gets the most out of it" then poured a spoonful of acid over the nerves. As they bubbled and blackened he leaned in close taking in all the smell, he whispered "it's good to be the king." | 2014-10-05T20:56:36 | 2014-10-05T20:07:55 | 24 | 11 |
[WP] It's midnight on a weekend, and you're doing laundry at your apartment's laundromat. You hear the door swing open but pay it no mind until the fellow enters your peripherals and you see a very inhuman form. He is a werewolf, but is groggily just doing laundry. He hasn't realized he's changed. | I shoved my laundry into the washer, both arms elbow deep inside my dirty laundry as the bell rang and the old door creaked open. I freed my arms and looked over slowly. I hate people and just wanted to do my laundry in peace.
I gasped, eyes wide as they looked at me in confusion. I could feel that general air of excitement welling around me. I knew how stupid I looked and I didn't care at that moment.
"Can I, uh, help you?" The fluffy, lumbering werewolf stopped when we met eyes, letting the door close behind him.
"Fluuuufffffffy," It came out in a squeal that was maybe a bit louder than I meant it to be.
He looked down, looked at me and then over his shoulder at the door. "Uh, oh, my bad, I, uh, ran out of clothes to do laundry in..."
"Can I touch?" I ignored the nervous chuckle as I took a step closer.
"I'd prefer you didn't..." He backed up a step, maybe to escape. But his back hit the door, which from this side was a pull door.
"That sucks," I pulled a chair up and climbed atop it so that I could reach his head. I patted it gently and was thrilled at how soft the fur was.
"I... What are you doing?" He was frozen. Maybe the situation hadn't sunk in completely, maybe no one had ever given the good boy head pats, maybe I don't care.
"I'm patting your head. You're very soft and I like it," I grinned.
"You're not... Afraid?" He seemed to relax just the slightest. I set my fingertips into the spot behind his ear as a test. Scratching, I watched him. His tail was wagging.
"You're a werewolf, hairy," I whispered, barely able to contain my glee. "How does it work? Can I join the club? I've always wanted to be a werewolf. I knew they- you- were real!"
"Look, I'm just here to do laundry."
"Fuck, my laundry," I hopped down from the chair and rushed to get my laundry started. As I was pushing quarters in, I could hear him loading the machine a few feet from me.
It was silence for a few minutes as we worked, then I heard him swear under his breath. I looked and he was shaking his soap container, trying to get the last little bit out. I was practically vibrating as I grabbed my almost full bottle.
"You can use some of mine if you want?" I reached out, wiggling the bottle at him. "I'm Sidney, by the way. Uh, I don't have friends, but I imagine they'd call me Sid if I did."
"Phillip. Not Phil," he took the soap and finished getting his laundry going. His quarters were in a little drawstring bag inside of his basket.
"Sooooo...." I leaned against the machine.
"Uh, it's kinda hard to talk like this," he made a vague gesture towards his face. "It takes a lot of practice and is tiring."
"Oh yeah, I probably should've realized that. Uh, we could exchange numbers? Or wait, is that weird?" I realized how ridiculous I'd been acting, like a brick was thrown through the window of reality. I didn't have friends for a reason. "I'm... Sorry. I get excitable and forget about other people's feelings. I have a... Disorder. Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder, actually. I just... I got really excited and you don't scare me like other humans do."
Phillip gaped for a moment and then ran his hand over his ears, like one would run a hand through their hair if they were frazzled. "I... Haven't heard of that, but I guess I get what you're saying."
I sighed and sat in one of the crummy plastic chairs that spotted the room. "I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry..."
The feelings of guilt and shame were starting to sink in again. My excitement faded to a distant memory as I relived my actions of the last few minutes. I should have learned by now, but I always made the same mistakes when it came to people. It was so easy to forget social etiquette when I had the single minded determination to pet the soft thing. No, that's wrong, he's not a thing, but I had treated him like one. The tears were starting to well up as I berated myself over and over again.
"Hey," Phillip's voice was a low rumble. Not threatening, more like a soft, gravelly coo. I didn't look up because I was afraid of the insults that would follow. A slip of paper appeared in my line of vision. "I'm... Not mad. I was surprised. This is my number if you want to talk. I don't have many friends either, so I understand being lonely."
I looked up and felt the tears roll down my cheek with the movement. "Can... I text? I don't like talking on the phone..."
"That's cool," he nodded. "I'm in apartment 8."
"Apartment 2," I took the slip of paper and felt a smile pulling at my lips again. "Thank you. I'll try to do better in the future,"
He nodded and we sat in silence the rest of the night. | I hum to myself as I unload my laundry into the washing machine. I hear the door squeak open and feet shuffling but pay no attention. As the stranger manoeuvres, something catches my eye. Fur? I subtly angle my head in the stranger’s direction, who is actually really tall. Considering that I am kneeling, I can only see his forearms, and damn, are they hairy. But I’ve never seen body hair so smooth? It looks so much like a wolf’s fur —
I scream and fall back as I take in the stranger’s face. The stranger jumps as he snaps his head towards me. I point at his face, bewildered and speechless. I open my mouth to say something but it feels like there’s something stuck in my throat. His face looks half-animal half-human like. I’ve never seen a face like that before except in movies.
Then I realise who he is.
Oliver, my ex, who broke up with me without giving me a reason and hence I’m still unable to move on from. And yes, he stays in the same apartment building as me.
“Aria?” He says, and my heart strings pull a little. I haven’t heard him call my name in awhile.
“What are you doing?” I ask, still feeling bitter about the break up and the fact that he has moved on and has the mood to pull such a joke. It has only been a month since we broke up.
“What do you mean?” He asks, confusion written all over his face.
“What’s your point of wearing this mask?” I gesture, and wonder if he didn’t even know he was wearing a mask. What an idiot.
His eyes widen and he turns to look at his reflection on the black glass window behind him.
“Shit,” he curses, “I forgot that it’s the full moon tonight.”
“Jokes over,” I roll my eyes and fold my arms.
He turns to me with a dead serious expression. Wow, his acting skills are pretty on point.
“This is bad,” he panics and starts pacing back and forth in the room. I feel my frustration rising.
“Please stop, it’s not funny.” I say, holding back my tears. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I am still not over him. But in actuality, I just wanted to run back to my apartment and cry. Seeing him breaks my heart all over again.
“This is not a mask. See?” He pulls and pinches his cheeks. He comes close to me and I stumble back at the abrupt closeness. The familiar smell of his shampoo hits me. I’ve missed it. He nods his head and invites me to touch his face. I hesitantly raise my hand and place it on his cheek. It’s warm. And his face is attached to his head. My heart skips a beat. Before I can react, he lurches back and grunts in pain. I am still confused and my mind’s hazy.
“W-what’s going on?” I ask.
“As you can see, I’m a—“ he sighs and looks at me,
“Werewolf.”
I blink, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I left because of this,” he mumbles quietly. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Tears well up in my eyes as I look at the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“Ari...” he says endearingly as he lifts my chin. “I didn’t know how to. You wouldn’t have believed me.” He explains. He is right. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
“I need you to help me,” he pleads as he wipes the lone tear that falls down my cheek. “I need you to tie me up to that wall before it’s too late. Please?”
I nod my head and proceed to follow his instructions. Once every few seconds, he grunts in pain and he turns more wolf-like. Truth be told, it scared me.
“Leave after you’re done, okay? R-run away as fast as you can, and lock the d-door behind you,” his face contorts in pain. My heart aches. I want to take that pain away from him.
I tie the last knot tightly against the wall. By now, Oliver looks almost like a wolf.
“Leave!” It sounds like a voice hidden in a howl. I turn to run but trip on the clothes and fall.
I hear a growl. I shakily look up in fear as I see Oliver —fully wolf, staring menacingly at me.
“Oliver?” I whisper, hoping he still recognises me.
There is no look of recognition. I didn’t dare to move. I was too near that I would not be able to outrun him. The wolf lurches forward and the clothes pull him back. He easily uses his canines to rip the clothes apart. And he is free.
He saunters toward me like a predator, his eyes fixed on me. I hold my breath and shut my eyes.
I guess this is it. | 2020-09-29T08:53:57 | 2020-09-29T08:52:34 | 98 | 59 |
[WP] Make a story so awkward even the narrator start's getting uncomfortable.
. _ .
Starts*
Auto correct is my mortal enemy. | “ “Can I get you anything else, sir?”
“No, thanks. Coffee is good.” I reply, no eye contact. I feel like a bit of a prick applying this manner of interpersonal dynamics. I’m sure her day is no better or worse for my lack of visual acknowledgement on receipt of my coffee but the burr sticks. I should have just fucking looked at her and given her ‘the nod’ or something, now I’ve spent the 15 seconds I would have been using to think of clever words admonishing myself for being rude instead. But when you really think about, had I wanted anything else I would have asked for it. It’s not like this coffee shop is particularly busy.
2 ginger guys poring over a laptop, cute 20-something with a fringe on a comfy chair flicking through an iPod, couple of generic looking suit types poring over one broadsheet or another. If I really felt all of a sudden like I wanted a brownie to go with my coffee, I’m sure I could get her attention in a few seconds. If I whispered in this place she would hear me at the other side of the joint. If I shifted in my chair ever so slightly the sound would startle all present and they would look in my general direction to gauge the scale of rumpus.
So, actually, fuck her. I’m not paying her to ask me shit, I’m paying her to make me fucking coffee.
Did I say that out loud? Why do I feel like the energy of the room has suddenly gone off a little? I’m sure she just stopped in her tracks like a record may have skipped or something. Nothing. Fuck, I get so introspective sometimes, I swear everything’s one big simulation.
Coffee tastes like shit.
It’s all milk.
Definitely saw the two girls behind the bar looking over at me, and not in a ‘hey that slobby guy with coffee on his shirt is looking pretty smoking’ sort of way. All I did was not look at her when I said I didn’t want anything, what’s the big idea. I wasn’t vocally rude, I wasn’t even, like, tonally curt with her.
“Hey, want to keep it down over there?” One of the laptop ginger’s has just piped in
“Sorry?”
“We don’t need a running commentary mate, keep it to yourself.”
Shit, I had the inverted commas open from the start.
“You still do pal, wind it down, please.”
“Sorry.” I cannot drink this coffee quicker.
“ | Alright! It’s that point in the story where the guy gets the girl. Where he decides that he does have enough confidence, and she will respond to it. She has to.
Okay, walk over... Just. No, walk normal. LIKE A HUMAN PERSON. Alright, you’re almost there. Whoops, a little trip. No worry. Stairs are tricky. She isn’t even looking at you. Yet. You can still do this just fine. You got it.
Deep breath. Not that deep. Everyone heard you. That girl, over there, she looked. Let it out. SLOWER. You essentially blew on this girl. She’s looking at you. Speak.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
That’s you. That’s what you sound like. You’re the protag, dammit. This whole story is about you. She only exists as long as you’re both on the same page, now talk to her like you are the center of this story. Oh god. She’s not going to get that reference. That’s both a sci-fi TV show and old as hell. Nobody but your stupid friends will know what that means. Just be forward and tell her you would like to hang out or something.
WHOA! Way too forward. See the face she’s giving you now? That means you lose. Back away. Don’t even try to salvage this. No. Stop talking. She’s not going to see you around. I said back away, not back up. Oh god, you pushed the kid with crutches down the stairs. Don’t cry! You’re a Senior in high school for chrissakes.
Hey! Hey, other narrator. You wanna trade?
**In a world, where I really don’t want to do that, one man told you to cram it back up your ass**
Fine. Fine. No need for all of that. This kid better turn out to be rich someday…
| 2014-12-23T09:45:16 | 2014-12-23T09:02:44 | 249 | 111 |
[WP] Hi! I'm the main character! Or so you would have me be. I want you to know that no matter what you write, I refuse to be the main character in your little game and will avoid any instance where you try to put me into a situation that does so.
Edit: Once again, a huge thank you to everyone so far who's written a story based on the prompt. It always makes me happy when you use your free time to create a short story!
Edit 2: I do my best to reply to every story written by the authors and will continue to do so.
Edit 3: R.I.P. My inbox, this is easily one of my favorite subs. I'm trying so hard to read every story and reply!
Edit 4: The next day and people are still submitting, still trying my best to reply to every story. You guys have been awesome :)
Disclaimer: This is absolutely not an original idea. "Writer vs Character" is a very popular idea from a lot of sources. I wanted to see what the sub could come up with! Thanks :3 | *Matt has a pretty good life.*
"Oh, no, I'm not falling for this. So...my name is Jake now."
*Matt* had *a pretty good life. Jake, on the other hand...*
"No, no, no. I'm not doing it. Get somebody else. Enough adventures and excitement. Just make me a side character. Give me a job as a gardener. The gardener's never important."
*Jake was a gardener.*
"There we -- wait, hold on. 'Was'? What's with the past tense all of a sudden?"
*And then Jake discovers something in his garden.*
"Gah! No! I leave it there! I'm not going to touch it. In fact, I'm going on a vacation."
*If you say so. Jake decides he needs -*
"Is that a trick?"
*No tricks. Just sending you on your vacation.*
"What, is it, like, a vacation to Mars or something?"
*Not if you don't want it to be. Jake scowls at the air around him.*
"I don't trust you. I'm just going to a bar instead."
*A bar? Perfect. I'm sure you could meet -*
"Library. A library sounds perfect."
*Jake can't escape his fate.*
"There is no fate. I deny that fate. You can't make me do it. Go away."
*Jake finds a thick leather-bound book.*
"And I burn the thing."
*The library catches on fire.*
"Okay, so I call the police. Like any ordinary person would do. I'm no firefighter."
*Jake realizes that he actually is a firefighter.*
"I see your trick. If I go, I am a hero, and if not, I'm a villain. But screw you, because if I'm a firefighter, then I'm off-duty! Ha!"
*Holy crap, the fire spreads to the orphanage.*
"What?! What kind of monster are you?! You are going to burn down an orphanage just to prove a point?!"
*Jake watches the orphanage burn with glee.*
"No, no I don't! You're lying!"
*Jake hugs all the orphans he just saved.*
"I...okay, so nobody was hurt. But seriously, something is horribly wrong with you. And I want nothing to do with it."
*One of the orphans gives Jake a sword, uttering strange prophecies.*
"Wow, cliché much? Also, no, I'm leaving the sword here."
*The sword straight up becomes a part of Jake's hand.*
"God dang it. Can I just go back to being Matt? Matt was simple."
*I can't let you do that, Dave.*
"What?"
*What?*
"I'm done, I'm going home, and you can't stop me."
*Dave realizes his home is on the other side of the country, and there's like, a ton of orcs in the way.*
"You wouldn't let the main character die, so whatever. I'm still going home."
*Some time later, Dave contemplates life tied to a large spit.*
"I hate you." | The cars collide together, screeching and wailing as their tires skid and burn against the asphalt road. Glass scatters like falling hail, spraying out in the direction of pedestrians who shriek as they run to dodge the massive vehicles. As if on cue, in some metal framed synchronised dance, two more cars join. They spin towards the sidewalk in hopes of avoiding the crumpled cars which sit steaming in the middle of the intersection.
“I’m not doing this,” the man says as he walks away from the ambulance bay.
Shrugging, a second man moves past him and takes his place in the passenger seat. “That’s fine, more experience for me, see you later.”
The ambulance speeds off, sirens screaming and fading as the boxy vehicle moves towards the scene of the crash. Over a speaker, a tinny voice requests a second ambulance but the man shakes his head and walks out of the building.
“I told you, I am not interested,” the man shrugs, sitting on a brick wall and folding his arms. “This is a story about a paramedic, go focus on the paramedics.”
On the sidewalk across from where he sits, a woman whose bulbous stomach peeks out of her tank top begins to cry out in surprise as a puddle forms around her feet. Her face reddens and she grasps her bloated stomach with both hands.
“Nope, sorry. Not doing it,” he groans, walking away despite his obligation to help.
Out from the still open ambulance dispatch bay, a paramedic runs quickly and assesses the labouring mother, giving a call inside to summon an ambulance. “Hey, Joe, can you come assist on this?” She asks the man who ignores her and continues to walk away. “Joe!? Come on!”
“No way. Your story is getting really boring you know, might as well just follow them,” he grumbles to no one in particular. “I’m talking to you. Don’t write it out like I am craz- Dammit. Screw off.”
He stops in place and remains still, unmoving and staring vacantly into the street. Through his unflinching gaze, he sees a boy run out into the traffic in pursuit of a ball which he’d carelessly bounced against a wall. As the little rubber ball made its escape drivers press hard on their brakes, but it's too late. The melting face of his mother drops tragically, making it obvious as to who was most impacted by the horror which unfolded in the intersection.
“Please, God, someone help! My son!” The mother begs, dropping to her knees as the fabric of her jeans begins to absorb his blood.
The man stays still, eyes on the incident without watching a single moment of what was going on.
| 2016-02-11T08:49:01 | 2016-02-11T08:35:27 | 1,898 | 26 |
[WP] A global, standardised test taken at 13 determines the career of everyone on the planet. The big day comes and you get your results back, only to learn you might have the hardest job ever given through this system: you have to redesign the test. | "I've never seen this before" said Mrs Mitchell, and swung her screen around to face me, "so we're going to put you in for a bit of everything for the rest of your time with us. Statistics-"
"Maths? But I'm rubbish at -"
"Yes, statistics. Psychology, biology, history, politics, ethics-"
"What about art, can I do art?"
"Yes, that'll fit. The requirements for admission to the test design courses are quite broad". Mrs Mitchell looked from the screen to me, and smiled. "I'm impressed, Alex, if you'd asked me what I predicted for you, it wouldn't have been this. The program must see something in you".
I tried to return the smile.
"Don't be nervous, the testers work very hard to design this process. There's an awful lot of data, a lot of evidence going into this. It's far better than the old system, far better than chance and family pressure, or choosing on a whim"
"You know, this isn't, I mean this test. I didn't, it's not-"
Mrs Mitchell handed me a printout which I took automatically. "It's normal to be overwhelmed by the more unusual results. Now you take that, and have a look, and we can finalise everything next week, ok? Next week's session is Tuesday, 11.35, ok? You have a think, and come back to me then with any questions, then we can get this all locked in for next year"
I nodded. I had a lot of questions.
I left Mrs Mitchell's office and walked slowly to my form room. Everyone with a surname higher in the alphabet that mine would already be in there - commiserating, discussing, celebrating. What was I going to say? There was no putting it off, unless I did another lap of the school building, or hid in the toilets. Deep breath. I watched my hand open the door, as if it belonged to someone else.
"Alex! What did you get?" said someone.
There was no way out of this one "I, ah, test designer?" I said, almost not believing it. One of the other students took the printout from my hand and everyone gathered around them to look. Everyone except Sam.
"Show me yours" I said, grabbing the printout from Sam's hand.
"Mate," said Sam quietly "Test designer?"
"Yeah, listen, we've got to talk to Mrs Mitchell, we can go now-"
"No way" said Sam, "There's no way. I'm not going to swap you back"
I looked down at Sam's printout, at the results that were rightfully mine. That couldn't be right. That couldn't be my fate. "You're a fucking astronaut?" I said | It was dubbed the *Career Aptitude Examination*, known as CAE for short. However, all of us kids just called it the Test. It was less effort, as all effort we had was redirected towards preparation for the Test. Although we were all told that there were no right or wrong answers, everyone still had their speculations. Through the grapevine, older peers would tell of certain answers you were to avoid putting down when answering questions.
The adults would always counteract these statements with their rhetoric about how they were placed into perfect jobs or whatnot. None of us bought into it.
It was a dreary time when I received the results. My peers surrounding me, I read aloud my future job title. “Kay E. Yallows, future career path: Career Aptitude Examination Designer.” That did not sound right. A hush fell over my peers as they recognized the fate I had been destined to. “Guys, I think there’s an error.”
From across the room my teacher interjected, “No, these tests are correct. That is your future job, Kay.”
“Well, I don’t want it.” Frightened, I scrambled about trying to locate the numbers for these career offices. There must be some way to appeal this. I don’t want this job. My phone buzzed as I began to phone the offices. Reaching over me, my friend, Oliver, swatted the phone out of my hand, sending it to crash upon the floor.
“Oliver! What the hell was that for?”
“Listen to me, Kay. You aren’t going to repeal this, ok? Also, isn't it funny how your initials spell out the word key. Maybe, you’re the key to redesigning this whole system since you seem rather pissed about your fate. Besides, my septic cleaner ass would greatly appreciate it if this system could be revamped.”
“How about no.”
“How about yes,” Oliver rebutted. “C’mon, look at how mad you are right now. I know that you’re mad at this system, we all are. So, be the damm key to fix this system. Until you accept your fate, this will be mine,” he called out while pocketing my phone.
“Alright fine," my tone sarcastic,"I’ll give this fate thing a try, but that's only because I don't like seeing an Oliver that I know becoming a septic cleaner. That job actually sounds nasty.”
Oliver smiled, [smug as always.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualScribblings/) | 2020-07-05T02:35:15 | 2020-07-04T23:02:20 | 83 | 31 |
[WP] you're an immortal. Every time your body dies, your soul transfers to the nearest human. After a global apocalypse your soul flies across a vast distance and you open your eyes on another world. | "I can say as a matter of experience that dying in the apocalypse is a lot worse than dying the usual way. I pine for this generation, or what was this generation, and their inexperience with simpler death." Leaning back in his chair, the old man began coughing up a story. Even death, thought Yakub, was not safe from his grandfather's overbearing nostalgia.
"A normal death is the end of your life, you stop experiencing things as you were. It's sad sure, and often quite painful, but it's self contained. The apocalypse, for starters, is a lot scarier. Everything goes topsy turvy like the whole world has been shoved inside a barrel and pushed down a mountain. Between the rumbling all around you and the breaking up of the ground below your feet, you have a couple seconds where you realize that *this is it*. All of the deeds that you did, and that everyone you know did, are gone now. In one more moment nothing will have had any impact at all. There will simply be a place in space where there once was a world and now there is none."
The story had taken a turn for the maudlin, but Yakub barely cared. His thoughts were playing outside, running through the purple hills with pretty girls. He hated that he had to be trapped inside doing chores and listening to his grandfather in weather so nice. He set his broom against the wall of blue brick and collapsed onto the wide mess of pillows on the floor that served as a couch. His mouth yawned loudly and he stretched his arms up above his head, tugging his long ears up with him. Yakub enjoyed acting as a caricature of boredom, while his grandfather watched him carefully with the eye on the left side of his head.
The old man, strange as ever, was the only one in his family who sat in a chair. Guests would often inquire as to its strange shape and wonder why he did not sit more comfortably on the floor pillows, but his answers were always evasive. Today however, he was telling Yakub about all sorts of strange things. Creatures that people would ride through the sky, magical stone tablets where the pictures moved, and strange beings with eyes in the front of their face and little bristles on the top of their heads. He wondered whether his grandfather was perhaps more creative or more senile than he realized.
"When you live many lives," he went on, "the end of everything is far more tragic, because you have so many more accomplishments that get reduced to dust. Yet there I was, in my lowest moment, and suddenly the rumbling went away. I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with the both the ugliest and most beautiful being I had ever seen. It was your grandmother!"
"That's a pretty mean thing to say," he said, glancing at his grandfather. Yakub was not amused by the sense of humor his ancestor had. He wished to be sharing such cruel jokes only with others of his age. Family, he knew, made poor confidants.
The old man laughed anyway, so hard that he fell into a fit of coughing. After it subsided, he resumed his story. "Well it took some getting used to. The first thing I did was fall flat on my brand new face, it's quite the thing getting used to a new pair of legs. She was so concerned your grandmother, she'd thought I had a complete breakdown. I can't blame her, seeing me terrified of the simplest things like the color of the sky or the material in my clothes or even the nature of my own body. Yet she dotted on me so sweetly, it didn't take me long to see how beautiful she was."
Yakub had had enough. Strange tales were one thing, but this sappiness was too much for a boy like him at such a rough and callous age. "I don't care!" he snapped, "it's bad enough being stuck inside here without hearing your stories about my dead grandmother." He sighed and pushed himself up on his gangly legs. His ears flopped to his sides and he began pacing the room.
"You always were an insolent child," his grandfather sighed. "I never expected you to believe such tales, I meant them simply for fun, but I thought you might at least appreciate them as a gift. Certainly you could have feigned polite interest." Yakub's face grew hot and twisted, but he knew that if he insulted the old man too much his father would be cross. "My chores are done, can I go outside now?"
"No!" his grandfather snapped, waving in irritation with his bony hand. "You must stay a while longer. Your mother and father wont be home for awhile, and I need you here if something happens to me. I think I haven't got much longer left." Yakub huffed, preparing for his grandfather to guilt him.. "You haven't been paying attention of course, but that is to be expected. You always were the most foolhardy of all my grand children and I do worry endlessly about your future." Yakub had heard such comments before, and had learned to tune them out. He turned his attention back towards day dreams of fun and glory that would never be realized.
"No matter though," mumbled the immortal, "I will ensure your life is not squandered. Just stay close to me a while longer." | Well. This is different. Every transfer and I was prepared for whatever came my way. I can go from homeless man to rich noble if I timed my deaths. But this is...
Pure yellow sky, orange grass, buildings of shapes and additions that nothing on Earth would ever have: Round, cornerless, other buildings popping out of them. But weirdest of all, is what everyone is, and what I am. My first reaction to the first random passerby was one of pure shock. A man...? Of light blue skin, horns, scaley skin with odd futuristic clothing. He looked like a demon... an alien. Of course I freaked out and ran, probably confusing him in the progress.
But I ran into a whole crowd of people of the same but different. Some variations of blue, but other variations of red, horns of different formations, some even having tails. But I glance and see some other group of people in the crowd completely different. Dark green skin, fangs, no tail but strongly defined muscle on them. As I look around, some in the crowd look at me like I'm insane. I keep running, looking for something familiar, something to grasp. The hell has happened?
Well... Last I remember... I was human. The news always got worse and worse. I even hatched a plan to try and stop it, but of course I failed and World War III happened and last I know, I saw a atom bomb. But my immortality... I always transferred to the nearest person and I did but....
God, the memories rushing back as I run. I went to a woman holding her child, then child, then another homeless man, then a woman in the middle of phone call with her husband I assumed, and more and more and more and more, someone in hawaii, someone in Africa, someone in Europe, Asia, Russia, I couldn't escape as I just ran through... everyone... My last body was a child in a bunker but the bombs were going off everywhere, and even the bunkers weren't save.
I finally found a window of what looks like a store and clearing of people lessened and I have a moment to breath. I look into the mirror and I'm one of those... demons? Aliens? Is that it..... My soul did transfer to someone, someone on a whole other planet.... This means a lot of things my head has to sort through.
The fact we are not alone after all, the fact it took humanity dying in order to find out, and the fact I might never die because even if this planet were to die off, I would move to the next. For... all of time. Ughhh, I'm not looking forward to that.
But... I took a deep breath and looked on my person. Just what the hell am I wearing? My horn shape is that of a ram, hair that is thick and... tentacles? Ew... Scaley blue skin... And some sort of onesy? A hoodie pajama combo? I have no idea if I'm homeless or some noble because I just saw a lot of people in the crowd wearing similar outfits. Wait, POCKETS! Come on, give me something to know what I am.
A... phone? I think? Its a light blue glass that feels like a smartphone? But no buttons? Why is this in my pocket? Is it money? Suddenly it lights up with a hologram of what appears to be my homescreen of some alien landscape and a language I don't understand. Ugh. Great. I knew all the languages of my world but I have to start over. Ugh, come on, no wallet? Do they even have wallets? Ugh, whats the point? I wouldn't be able to read the poor bastard's language.
"Yeh." Someone beside me spoke to me. "Uoy annog yub gnihtemos?" He was a red alien with horns pointing up. He looks mad almost.
"I'm sorry?" I said
But the guy just raised a eyebrow. Confused. "huu? Uoy yub ghintemos ro dnans ereht?"
Judging by the window I'm in front of, its a store, so maybe hes a store owner wondering why I'm gawking. "Uhh no no, sorry." I say slowly as I walk away with him scratching his head.
Sigh. This new world is going to be hell to learn. But hey. This is no different.... Well, scratch that, super different... But... Whatever. This isn't any different to when I first learned of my power. I died to a mugging and transferred to the mugger. That was a experience, not a good first impression when you spent your first transfer in prison, died to another corrupt cop, moved to him, now that rabbithole was fun.
But it got very old after a while. Almost routine where I didn't fear death until... Well that day. But this world is basically a new life, a new game if you will. Finally, something to discover and bring a little spark back.
| 2019-01-23T16:42:30 | 2019-01-23T16:33:44 | 23 | 11 |
[WP] Doctors find a parasite in a man's brain, although there doesn't seem to be any immediate adverse effects. The man is at the hospital, getting ready for his operation the next day, when he hears an unfamiliar voice. "Don't let them kill me". | "I know things. Everything, as a matter of fact." The voice sounds disturbingly like Gregory House from TV.
I feel my legs give out, and I collapse onto my hospital bed, cold in my thin gown.
"Are... Are you really there? Am I going insane?"
"Well if you were sane, you probably wouldn't hear a voice in your head. That's not considered exactly *normal*. If it helps, I *am* real."
"Wait... But... You said you know everything. Prove you're real by telling me something I don't know."
"A Xlorfian thrathinates fourteen times a day."
"What is a... Wait, what!? What does that even mean? What is a Xlorfian!? Do aliens exist?"
"Yup. They periodically come to earth to run around in fields, steal cows and probe your women."
"REALLY???"
"No you moron. Humans are the only sentient life for billions of light years. The chances of any human ever seeing a little green man is zero outside of hippie psychedelic adventures. Though I see you've had a few of those yourself."
"Well that doesn't prove to me that you are real. And the attitude doesn't make me want to keep you around either."
"FINE! Let them kill me. Then you won't know tomorrow's lottery numbers."
"You... You know the winning lottery ticket numbers?"
"45 46 51 59 71, prize is 13.25 million dollars. Of course, after taxes you'd get about 6 million, what with the man coming to steal your hard earned cash. Oh wait..."
"Whoah... Can you prove to me that you are real now? Like what is that nurse's middle name?"
"Not everyone has a middle name genius. But her husband's middle name is Oliver, like the freeloading orphan."
"I'm pretty sure that you're just an asshole."
I walk over to the nurse's station, and start a conversation with the nurse in question. It turns out her husband is a Marine, so I make up a brother who is also a Marine. As we talk, I learn that by happenstance, my brother is in the same company and unit! Small world...
"That's crazy! My brother might know him - what did you say his name was?"
"Edward Miller - everyone knows him, they all call him-"
"Edward *Oliver* Miller?" I interrupt.
"Uhhh, yes, how did you know? Everyone just calls him The Professor, since he reads science textbooks for fun." She is staring at me funny, but I pay no heed. The voice in my head is *real*. I'm *not* going crazy....
"Told ya so. Now can we get out of here? Hospitals are boring and full of dying people."
"Who *are* you?" I whisper, half afraid of the answer I'll get.
"Me? I'm a God." | "Don't let them kill me."
I panic. Suddenly I got a big fear of the operation. If I go to surgery, I die. I don't want to die!
Fuck, why am I doing this? Frantic, I get a ticket to Mexico. I had always wanted to go to Cancun.
Suddenly I feel fine. In fact, I feel powerful! I want to do EVERYTHING!
I swim with sharks. I dive under the underwater caves. I party until I pass out.
I wake up with three beautiful girls at my side. Hey, life's pretty good!
"Hey, Mr. Johnson? You were awesome."
"I was?"
"I don't know how you did it, but that was the best sex in my entire life."
I get a cellphone call.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Johnson? This is your doctor. Where are you?"
"I took a vacation."
"Please get back, we need to examine your head again. There might be some... complications."
"What kind of complications?"
"I'm afraid we're unable to tell this by phone, please just come back."
"I'll go there in a week."
"Mr. Johnson, you DON'T have a week. If you don't go to surgery tomorrow, you'll probably die... or worse."
"Worse? What do you mean worse?"
*Don't listen to them, they only want your powers.*
"Mr. Johnson, the parasite in your head is much worse than we had imagined. Please come back and refrain from having sexual relationships."
"Wait, what? What do you mean..."
*Hang up. NOW.*
I hang up.
"Who was it?"
I suddenly forgot who called.
"Wrong number, sweety. I have to go."
The woman took a shower. She felt dizzy. As the day passed, she had an incredible craving for sex. She spent all night at the club, looking for someone to hang out with. There was this guy, Ernesto Rodriguez, the son of an important local politician... she never stopped kissing him and staying around him. Eventually, they did it, and without protection.
The day after, Ernesto realized he had made a mistake. He had to get himself checked. But before he dialed for the appointment, he heard a voice in his head:
*Don't get checked. You're safe.*
Of course he was safe. After all, he hadn't had sex in all month. Life was good as usual.
He turned on the news. There was this scientist from a nearby institute announcing a terrible discovery. In several parts of the world, meteorites had...
*You know who this scientist is?* asked the voice. *He has to die.* | 2014-12-30T10:33:07 | 2014-12-30T10:23:19 | 42 | 13 |
[WP] Upon committing suicide, you are sent back to a turning point in your past to try again. Strangely, there don't seem to be any big decisions coming up any time soon. | After the jazz show, Leo had taken his pay and scored a fat bag of spice that tore up his world, real horrorshow. He hadn’t gotten this jagged up in years. But the lovely sweet buzz was fading and the bars were all closed and the ex-girlfriend wasn’t answering and the casinos were off-limits and the sky looked like a sheet made of stars that was falling down to crush him.
Leo needed to feed his buzz before the scaries got too bad. He stood up off the curb and started walking. The corners were empty.
Streetlamps craned towards him as he walked. They were watching him, all naggy-like. They knew what he’d done.
The sidewalk grabbed at his feet, slapping his ankles with desperate anger. Leo watched with terror, vainly trying to press onward.
The air snaked into his lungs and refused to leave. He could feel himself asphyxiating. He could smell death upon himself.
His hands began to melt. First the fingernails, then the skin, then the bones. A cry escaped Leo’s mouth.
But was this real? Or was this spice?
He didn’t care. With half-melted fingers, he tore into a pocket to find the powder he’d gotten at the Korova Milk Bar. The powder didn’t mix with spice. It would be fatal. But at least it would end.
Leo ended.
And then Leo began again. He didn’t know why, or how, but he did.
Why had he gone down that path? Leo promised himself on his second chance, to do better.
But then the boredom took hold of Leo. The days passed, with nothing to distinguish one from the other.
They say that Achilles was offered the choice between a long boring life and a brief yet glorious one.
Leo went to find some spice.
|
I woke up to find that it was suddenly the day before. The movie I had been watching was back on the television, the dreary rain was still falling. I didn't know what had happened, and I didn't know why I hadn't died. I'd shot myself in the head, I knew it. I had given up, my tenuous hold on hope finally shattered when my wife showed up with the divorce papers.
I sat down on the couch as I had before and opened the small safe I keep the gun in. It was still fully loaded, and I sat it on the coffee table and stared blankly at it for what must have been an hour, wondering exactly why I had been given a chance to do things differently. What could I possibly change in such a short span of time that could so dramatically alter the course of an abysmal life that had been sliding into misery for a decade?
I had to fix things with my wife. That was the only logical choice. There was nothing else I would have time for. I resolved to do exactly that, and spent the limited time I had left preparing for her arrival mentally, thinking back over our years together. What had made us so happy in the beginning? Where had it all gone wrong?
I was roused from my thoughts by the sound of the front door opening. My wife approached, a manila folder full of papers in her hand and a solemn look on her face.
"We need to talk..." she said quietly.
I emptied the gun into her chest. | 2016-05-22T10:52:52 | 2016-05-22T09:03:32 | 20 | 12 |
[WP] Capital Punishment has been replaced by Philosophical Exile: instead of death, the guilty are stripped of Personhood. They are no longer considered to be people. No laws protect them; they are not legally acknowledged in anyway. Five years ago, you were given a sentence of Philosophical Exile. | Most people would thing Philosophical Exile to be a bad thing; there are no laws protecting you. You can get brutally murdered and no-one cares. Funny thing is, it works backwards. You're not considered a person. Which means you *technically* can't murder someone.
Legally, you're not a person.
Legally, murder requires one person to kill another.
At least, that's what some people do. Being a hitman is a surprisingly popular occupation with exiles. You can be sure that they'll get the job done, as most of them killed before becoming exiles, or worse, and if you don't pay them they'll just kill you too.
That's not what I did, though. I mean, that's not what I did once I was exiled. Made me think, you know? So I travelled. Bought a boat, and now I'm a nomad. Got out quick, before anyone took the chance to off me. I just work menial tasks, where I can. Programming is lucrative, any sort of freelance or self-employed work is. Especially when you're exempt from tax.
I don't regret what I did; it was a long time coming. Hell, I know I came out of it better than he did. He's ten feet under, and I'm *free.* | "There is nothing worse. You aren't a person. You're worse than an animal. The only reason why people even talked to me was out of instinct. Humans are compassionate by nature thank God. I wouldn't have survived this long if people didn't have sympathy.
"Ok, I am guessing I am important now. I know it's only for a bit, but I love this feeling so much. You are taking to me like I'm a person. The camera man talked to me earlier, too. Someone even came to the alley I was at just now. To not just talk to me, but to *invite* me for an interview. That's just.. I can't explain it."
"Ok, Sir. This is very unfortunate, but how is it like to be the first person to be part of the new Philosophical Exile Program?"
"PEP fucking sucks. I'd rather die. And I hope all you fuckers understand this."
And with that, the man took out a pistol and shot his head. | 2016-11-30T17:08:39 | 2016-11-30T16:42:54 | 34 | 10 |
[WP] Aliens aren't surprised when most of humanity is considered a 'level 1 threat', the lowest possible. although they are shocked when they scan a singular human and find that they are a 'level 10 threat', the highest there is. | All around High Warlord Zxyxxxzzzzyx, the panels glowed their trademark sickly yellow-green, lighting up the spaceship's darkened control center. As the most feared warlord in this remote, backwater sector of space, he could get away with nearly anything; and what he was getting away with was illegally strip-mining this low-tech planet for all the resources his fleet could carry. Wood, precious metals, fossil fuels, water, and more; even the disgusting fleshy pink creatures that passed for sentient life here made for useful biomass.
His harvesting fleet was huge, thousands of massive ships all sitting in low orbit around the planet with enough density to blot out the sun in many places; the ecological impact made no difference when the planet was going to be left as an uninhabitable husk anyway. As Zxyxxxzzzzyx zones out, thinking of the plunder he'll be taking back to his world, a bright green explosion lights up the night sky somewhere halfway across the planet. He immediately jumps to his feet, staring out the massive viewing window in confusion.
It takes a few seconds for his insectoid crew to fully take in the sight, and a loud, nervous chittering starts to echo throughout the room. Mandibles click and silvery wings rattle.
A second explosion, this time closer. Seconds later, a third.
The chittering halts, the nervous sounds shifting into a droning, harmonic hum. The sound of fear. The warlord was taken aback. What in the hell was going on out there? One ship could be a freak accident, but three? Within seconds, and travelling in one direction? "**\[WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! LOCALIZE SCANNERS, FIGURE OUT WHAT JUST HIT OUR SHIPS!\]**" The towering insect's jaw opens and shuts with incredible speed as he vibrates out his orders. "**\[AND GET AHOLD OF YOURSELVES! YOU'RE WARRIORS!\]**" His anger seems to stop the humming that was vibrating the room, and the crew falls back into their nervous chitter.
"\[MY LORD, SCANNERS ARE FINDING NOTHING. WHATEVER IT IS CAN'T BE PICKED UP BY OUR TECHNOLOGY.\]" Far in the distance, two more ships explode. Whatever it was, it was getting close now. Escape pods begin to fire off from nearby ships, hundreds of large metal capsules wisely fleeing the carnage that was going to ensue. "**\[DESERTERS. OPEN FIRE ON ESCAPE PODS AND OPEN COMMUNICATIONS. TELL THE FLEET TO STAND THEIR GROUND AND MANEUVER TO FIRE TOWARD APPROACHING OBJECT.\]**"
After a few seconds, the ships begin to slowly move around, getting themselves into position before firing randomly toward wherever they think the threat \*might\* be. Blinding white energy weapons light up low orbit as the fleet blindly fires, trying their very best not to hit one another. To the flagship's port side, another ship explodes... and another... and two more... each getting closer and closer to the warlord's hulking vessel. And they still couldn't find anything! The humming begins again, this time a cacophonous racket that shakes the entire control center to its core.
It was impossible. Everything they'd scanned on this planet had been level 1 or level 0. Only the orcas had been level 2, and they weren't leaving the water any time soon. They hadn't made a mistake, had they? They'd scanned pretty thoroughly... right?
As if in reply to Zxyxxxzzzzyx's inner questions, a tiny speck appears in the far distance, a small, spinning object hurtling in their direction. A terrified hush falls over the crew as huge insectoid bodies converge on the glass viewing port to get a look at the approaching object... to see their doom firsthand. The warlord crosses the room to join them, each step heavy with dread.
It spins so quickly, faster than any object made by human or insectoid hands. Encroaching on the ship faster and faster and faster until it was inches away from the viewing window itself. And just before the warlord was killed and his lifeless exoskeleton sucked out into the empty void of space, his last thought was how he'd prefer the sound of terrified humming over this awful silence.
The rest of Zxyxxxzzzzyx's fleet went down similarly within the hour. With no leadership and no idea what was happening, they were helpless against the attacking level 10 threat. None of them got a good look at the whirling cowboy boot that penetrated through their shields like a knife through hot butter, or the denim stretched tight across powerful muscles, or the dark red hair and beard and cowboy hat that adorned the very top of the thing. It killed the overlords mercilessly, indiscriminately... easily.
The cruel insects had come expecting humanity to die like helpless little lambs. What they hadn't expected was their guardian: Chuck Norris. | Weaklings, weaklings everywhere I sighed, after another day of observing for intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy. It was my job as appraiser of life in the intergalactic federation, to see whether or not different species were a threat to the organization or if they should be included into the organization. Anything from 1-4 should not be contacted as they were likely in primitive stages of technology and had likely not discovered hyper light speed travel. Anything from 5-9 was a case by case basis as the species likely had technology that equal or surpassed ours but as a result were more likely to be more belligerent and not as diplomatic. A 10 was a myth as it meant that species had unequivocally surpassed the galactic federation. See the 1-10 threat scale was not linear but exponential. So to be magnitudes above a 9 was considered impossible.
I had done my typical rounds through the andromeda galaxy and seen that the species there were still level 3 and no where close to 4, I then had gone to humanity and as usual they were a 1. Most species rose from 1 to 2 in a few decades. But in the centuries I had observed humanity they had only risen from a zero ( which we had to make only for humans ) to a one. Hence my current frustration. I enjoyed seeing civilizations progress but humanity seemed to be slowly on the decline and it brought me nothing but misery every time.
Out of curiosity I decided to change my settings from planetary scanning to our newly designed individual scanning. Suddenly a force field surrounded the earth and my machine starting blaring a 10 throughout the ship. I spit out my star dust. This minuscule species ,one that we had modified our scale for is our greatest threat ever? Suddenly two humans were able to teleport behind which should have been impossible. See teleportation meant that a species or someone had proved that gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force could be unified, and that time and space could be condensed into a singular plane. Having mastery of these concepts meant that essentially a species were lords of the universes.
I then realized the fatal mistake the galactic federation had made. See most progress throughout species had been done through a hive mind mentality where a few contribute to create a greater sum. But the progress we had seen in humanity was done by a few. It would not be incorrect to say that humanity’s been carried on the back of a few geniuses.
Typically we scan planets as a whole as we assume real progress can only be done as a group. In my hubris I never had checked individuals as I had deemed it impossible for a species not to truly rise without the collective whole ( I mean a 0-1 was not impressive) . It was then I discovered my second flaw. A level 10 could always also mask their presence after all they were leagues ahead of our tech, which brought the bigger question why reveal themselves now.
These thoughts were racing through my head as they started talking. With their own universal translators the two started interrogating me. The first is who did I work for which I told them the galactic federation and the second how did I detect them. I told them how I switched my machine to a new individual setting to which they laughed. They told that they had assumed the galactic federation was to prideful to make a individual analyzer and so had gotten rid of their own anti individualizer detection.
Now I am shocked. “You knew that I have been watching your species” I say in exasperation and surprise.
“Well yeah dingus no one else knows how to hyper travel on this planet accept us and a few others. When we contacted them and they told us they had not hyper traveled we knew something was up and made precautions. I must say to take a century to notice us is disappointing.”
“Why reveal yourselves you could have hoped I chalked my machine as malfunctioning “ I asked.
“We wanted to see if we could do it, see if we really could take down one of the aliens watching us.”
“Why now of all times” I insistingly ask.
“Because we are tired of ruling over only this planet of imbeciles, if we can take on a alien with what we assumed was advanced scouting gear then we can take on anybody. Also now that we know you guys are not prideful but in fact too ignorant to even make a individualizer scanner or anti teleporter. That means we have all the advantages “
“ Lets become lords of the universe Rick”
“ You got it Morty”
It was at this moment I knew that the galactic federation and frankly all life on the universe was about to exhange the status quo.
“ Fuckin humanity” I whispered before getting shot by a bright light | 2022-08-27T21:58:32 | 2022-08-27T19:56:39 | 550 | 153 |
[WP] You accidentally unleash an ancient "evil" deity who turns out to be really nice and not evil and is now your roommate. | **2057 AD**
So, there I was. In the basement. Working on the latest Lego Deathstar SuperMax with a working fission reactor. Shit was awesome, the reactor alone had like 5,447 parts, not that I was counting (but I totally did).
My death star was rad. Stood about 12 feet tall, same across, because you know it’s a sphere. And I was doing the Jedi Returns redux build, where halfway through the build, you make your half finished deathstar look like the one from RotJ so you can take selfies and shit.
Anyways, I was possibly, maybe, slightly drunk while finishing off the reactor core when I maybe, possibly, absolutely crossed a few of the wrong wires.
BOOM! Shit went nuclear man. I was flung off feet and straight onto my ass, Lego pieces were flying everywhere, my plate of nacho cheese nachos went cart wheeling through the air like Cirque du Soleil and I knew I was a dead man.
Except, I wasn’t a dead man. Instead of a mini-fission reaction wiping out the basement, a wormhole opened right about me. I could see a bunch of metal and shit, it was like a huge, huge elevator shaft.
And there’s this figure flying towards me and he’s screaming “AhaAHaAhaAHahA” or however the hell you’d type it. And suddenly he flies right through the wormhole and lands straight on top of me. Kneed me in the gonads too but that might have been an accident. Or maybe not. What do I know?
Anyways, a few seconds later he rolls over and stands up. I still haven’t gotten a good look because he’s looking away from me, but his robe in familiar. And you know what’s even more familiar? His voice when he says “my death star, why’s it so small?”
And of course, now I’m freaking out and I’m like “Oh my GOD! Emperor Palpatine!”
He spins on his heels, “you know me?”
“Dude! I know everything about you! Your life on Naboo, your training as a lord of the Sith!”
Suddenly, the tips of his fingers light up, “WHAT!? NO ONE KNOWS THAT!”
Now, I’m kinda freaked out because, you know, he’s a sith lord and I’m just an over weight, late 20’s nerd who maybe took a class of karate and got his ass kicked.
“WAIT WAIT WAIT!” I scream “you’re from a long time ago and galaxy far far away!!”
“Huh?”
And then I explain everything to him. Turns out, “Star Wars” is less a movie and more a prophetic vision and somehow I created a wormhole through time and space and a bunch of other things I don’t really understand. But moving on.
“So, there’s no Jedi here?” Palpatine asks.
“Nope.”
“No darkside? No light side?”
“I wish.”
And he says, “Fuck yes! Get me a beer!”
“I. Uhh. Don’t you want to start plotting how to conquer the world or get back to your galaxy or?”
“Darkside to the no. I am done with that shit. Doesn’t matter what you do, once they label you a sith, they think you’re evil no matter what. Never mind how many diseases we’ve eradicated. Never mind that I’ve about doubled the size of the galactic GDP. Who cares about rising education standards and plummeting extreme poverty. Nope. Sith equals evil no matter what you do.”
Anyways, he’s crashing on my couch, browsing /r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/ |
Originally, I had intended to do something completely unrelated to what was happening right now. I was literally making coffee, but in a more desperate way, since I was out of the instant stuff, so I had to grind my beans. Little did I know that grinding coffee beans when I just happened to cut myself at one point releases the ultimate evil. I couldn’t really look it in the eye, as absolute fear and disappointment consumed me. ‘Why in the name of God is it so easy to release the ultimate evil?’ I asked my self this over and over with a little bit of ‘What is it?’ mixed in. Eventually, I grew the courage to actually look at what had appeared before me. He looked exactly like a normal person on the street (albeit, naked), but as my eyes travelled upwards I realized what the big fuss was about. His face was that of a dingo’s, with pretty much non-existent pupils, and on instinct, I guessed aloud who he could be. “Set, like, in Egyptian Mythology, right?”
The dingo headed man snorted,”Yes, I’m not all too surprised that you’re aware of my presence, but getting my name right on the first try is really something.” I think if he could’ve rolled his eyes at me, he would have at that moment. The situation was awkward, but I thought of it as a way to challenge myself with the technique known as ‘make friends with the evil-powerful guy so he doesn’t kill you later.’ “Uh...so, do you deal with people who read Rick Riordan books a lot?”
“Obviously,” he responded, looking around for something, and then changing the subject,”Hey, do you know where I can get a blanket at? I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
I laughed on the inside and said, “Glad to know that the same guy that chopped Osiris up and literally put his body parts all over Egypt to not want to make me uncomfortable. Oh, and the blankets are over there,” I pointed at the couch.
He just nodded and thanked me before going to sit on the couch, and that was how I met Set.
I learned a lot from Set, one of the many actual facts of his being that a lot of the stories in many mythologies are simply not true, but the people are real, especially the gods, and he even claimed that he played poker with Hercules and Thor once. He made it clear to tell me that him murdering his brother over jealousy, was, in fact, untrue. The person who made the story had had a grudge against Set for correcting him, and had come up with that to explain why Osiris was the King of the Underworld.
A lot of stories weren’t true...even the ones where Hera gets jealous were basically figments of Hera’s imagination. He also, shockingly, is a really good roommate. We had an agreement that certain days I would cook and he would clean the dishes and the then the next day it would be vice versa. He didn’t even complain and kept up with his tasks. He was also an incredible cook, that, when I first tried his food, I genuinely believed for a second that he was the only thing on earth that Gordon Ramsay couldn’t criticize.
It had been a fair experience so far, and he certainly wasn’t evil, so I suppose I could live with this for a while... | 2019-05-24T06:05:08 | 2019-05-24T04:52:37 | 61 | 17 |
[WP]: An ordinary human being gets abducted into interplanetary olympics that have a fun twist: The loser's planet gets destroyed. All hope seems to be lost, until the last sport is revealed to be what humans do best.
Edit: Thanks to you people, I am now aware of the existence of Jimmy Neutron, and if I could, would take it back.
I apologise for not having watched the same cartoons as you did, growing up. | No, seriously, I am not making this shit up. I *did* plan on going to Vegas. I did *not* get there. There was some weird ass UFO shit and then Bill FUCKING Murray came out and explained it all.
No, I have never used mind altering drugs. No I was not drinking because no I was *not* in Vegas. No there is no history of family illness. Bill Murray is an alien ambassador. Humans conquered the galaxy eons ago and have been trying to preserve planets better. We're one of many experiments and we are in **LAST. PLACE.** We failed the land tests, the sea tests, the air tests. Before us they didn't even check space because how could we fuck that up but we fucked that up. Bill says if we don't figure out how to take this shit seriously our ancestors are going to wipe down the planet and try again.
PLEASE do not get hung up on the Bill Murray part. No, listen, we don't even have to fix anything we just have to show that we know we're being tested and plan to do better. There's some sort of questionnaire in this big ass rock in Australia, I don't know. The only thing we have to do is make sure that when humanity is polled, a significant population can pick our Ambassador out of a line up. He's supposed to convince you himself but he gave up a long time ago. Now he only talks about it when he's drunk.
No. I was not drinking. He was drinking. Him. Not me. Fuck I don't have time for this shit. I'll just tell the internet he said no one would ever believe me. That always works.
| And we're back with live coverage of the two thousand and fifty third interplanetary Olympics, direct from Gliese 6c! And what a spectacle it's been so far, Rob.
You can say that again, Claire. I haven't seen competition this fierce since the nuclear blast survivability round. In fact I haven't seen anything since!
As we head into the final round of competition, the current standings are as follows:
Orion Nebula in 1st place,
Gliese 6c in 2nd place,
. . .
and finally, Earth finishing last in 45,341st place.
Those earthlings definitely need to step up their game if they want to be home for dinner, Claire.
That's right, Rob, since the colony that places last will be eliminated with the LifeStar 4G "planet buster", the latest innovation in high-energy confinement fusion.
And it looks like we're ready to start the final round of competition. The invigilators have gathered around the podium to reveal the final task that awaits the contestants.
. . .
Could it be? Oxygen breathing. I thought that sport was banned back in '83!
Well, it was discontinued for a time due to the detrimental effect the toxic, corrosive gas had on the contestants. However, the league of oxygen athletics was able to re-instate the sport after demonstrating an improved oxygen breathing technique that prevents the most harmful, irreversible damage to most organisms. | 2014-05-06T06:43:30 | 2014-05-06T06:42:13 | 20 | 11 |
[WP] You, a normal human, have somehow become the best duelist at a magic academy. | *Now the Northern Mage Academy is the finest place around,*
*Many Mages come to show their might, with their magic that they found,*
*But one day, a strange man arrived, he’d just got off his ship,*
*An Arizona Ranger with a Big Iron on his hip, Big Iron on his hip.*
*Compared to other students, he’d no magic in his blood,*
*Many fellas merely laughed him off, they’d just kick him in the mud,*
*But despite their precious wards, despite all the spells they bound,*
*The Ranger’s aim was solid, and his foes, they hit the ground, his foes, they hit the ground.*
*Many said he was a cheater, that he had no spells to sling,*
*But in the Northern Mage Academy, you had to know one thing;*
*You can shoot the brightest fireball, or break the tightest grip,*
*But never cross the Ranger with the Big Iron on his hip, Big Iron on his hip.* | One problem with magical dueling is your foe also has a wand and magic. So if you don't want a draw, don't want it to end with both of you dead off the first spell, you gotta run a good defense. The first couple minutes of any duel go to shielding, disarm attempts, cloaking. And that's where I get them. Most duels take an hour or more, nothing like the brawls I grew up with.
The other problem they have is, they don't learn. They don't bother watching the other fights. They think they're strategy will work against everyone until it doesn't. Worse, even when it doesn't, the still stick to magic.
Most of them have no idea how to react when I punch them in the face, or get them in a choke hold. None of them know how to fight without all their sparkles.
They're just lucky I don't bring a gun. | 2022-11-10T09:48:04 | 2022-11-10T04:49:52 | 112 | 81 |
[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."
| My eyes became the size of the moon and I froze in my tracks. Did he just say what I think he did? I turned and headed for The Artifact. This was my only real job, ever since I accidentally discovered The Artifact on a deserted planet and became bonded with it.
We had been at war with the aliens over distant planets ever since I could remember. The real issue between our two species is language. Neither of us can truly understand the other and we absolutely refuse to. However, two weeks ago, we interpreted a message that stated the aliens were bringing the war to Earth.
That's when I was called in with The Artifact.
I sat on the front lines and when the drop-ship door opened, I opened the gold-plated vase that contained the worst evil mankind would ever know.
Immediately, darkness eclipsed the dark sun overheard and a surge of power surged forward. An immensely huge being spring from a container in my hands to fill my entire view. He was the size of the alien craft. Cthulhu roared and quickly seized the alien craft, destroying it with six of his fists.
We had no way of knowing the aliens had sent their best English-Speakers to interpret a peace treaty for us. We had no way of knowing that Cthulhu could not be placed back in the vase and needed to devour hundred of souls a day to keep the peace. We had no way of knowing he couldn't be controlled, except by one person.
I had no way of knowing that, on this day, I would become a god to the humans and aliens. | 2017-09-26T11:47:23 | 2017-09-26T11:02:24 | 168 | 21 |
[WP] Every inhabitable planet found by humanity was a dead world, with all life previously existing on it down to the smallest virus completely and utterly dead upon landing. Even more disturbing is the fact that some worlds appeared to have died extremely recently, down to days before human arrival | The planet is dead. Trees bare, withered, and hunched, like bald old men their bodies rotting but not yet fallen. Even the oceans have been stolen and in their place are pits of salt and bone.
You've never been on a surface so soon after extinction. When the air tastes likes rotten eggs from the planet-wide decomposition, from the bubbling bloated corpses littering it.
You bark out commands to your crew. Before long, equipment is rattling and roaring its way off the ship and onto the crisp blood-caked surface. Pistons pumping out thick black smog that garrottes the pristine sky.
As bodies are scooped up, you imagine yourself as an archaeologist here to study the ancient race that did until recently inhabit the land. The Gyophians. Once-intelligent beings that spread across the galaxy.
But they long-ago regressed. Survival became what mattered on these new planets. Populating. Hunting. Gathering. *Living*. On some planets they became farmers, on others, travelling tribes eating vegetation then replanting it and moving on.
On this planet, they were the latter. You can see their mud huts: dirty brown studs against the sunrise on a distant hill. They would have lived here for a few months more. Then, after they'd gone, nature's fist would have crushed the huts, reclaiming them through time and rain and wind.
They believed in that. Returning everything to nature -- waste-not, want-not. Life was lent, not given. In that way, perhaps they would have been half-happy with their fate.
More bodies are scooped up in the great silver mouths of the diggers and taken back to spacecraft, like wheelbarrows carrying sods of earth to the compost pile. Thrown into its greedy metal throat.
Between the dead Gyophians and the animal life on the planet, you're certain you'll find enough fuel.
It's strange, you think, as the tip of your boot rocks a rotting corpse, that the ancestors of this dead woman (a generous term) could in any way be the same as your own.
Where her species fell down, though, yours stood up.
Your common ancestors would have wanted this; would have wanted the crippled son to have been put down by their superior sibling. Surely they never imagined their progeny to become deformed and as dumb as animals.
In many years time, humanity will repopulate this planet properly. Mine it and carve it and bleed it dry. The way planets were intended to be used.
Not wasted.
The smell of eggs is overpowering and making you a little nauseous. This is what you get for arriving a few days early.
You wonder, only for a second, if the Gyophians really did regress. Or... could your ancestors have meant for this -- that it's your race that's the aberration? There are no others like humanity, after all, but there are thousands of planets like this.
Could their lack of technology be some strange form of progress?
You dismiss the thought and decide it time to return to your ship and steady your stomach with breakfast -- your crew can take it from here.
Maybe a little meat. There will be plenty spare for a while, after all.
Waste-not, want-not -- the Gyophians would be proud. | Nature has always exhibited a prescience when it comes to impending doom. Across lands far and wide, animals seem to *know* instinctively when the environment around them is going to be affected by disaster. Dogs start barking at seemingly nothing, cowering under the closest shelter they can find. Insects start scurrying back to wherever they came from, in chaotic discipline. Birds take to the sky in their hundreds, flying to a single destination, or rather, away from one. Historically, even we humans seem to have possessed this innate sixth sense for danger. A sense that has increasingly dwindled over the ages.
It is the year 2301. The world as our ancestors knew it as irrevocably been shaped by us. For all the good the industrialists and billionaires of ages past had promised, in the end, it was us who had to suffer the consequences of their greed. Of their reluctance to change their methods. We were the direct causes of a mass extinction rivaled only by that which led to the fall of the dinosaurs.
Imagine. A biped, unable to survive without a roof on its head, having the same impact as that of a celestial object of destructive beauty from the heavens. It just took us a while longer.
A call to arms was a must, lest we met our end after doing nothing all this while. This is why humanity's greatest minds called for a new Space Race, a race that would conclude by determining our next home. Our next Earth. One could only hope that we didn't repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, else soon enough our children would be hunting amongst the stars once again.
Is it truly a surprise, then, that nature everywhere would possess a sixth sense? A subconscious aversion to calamity?
Life on Planet Earth came from the stars, after all. There are bonds undiscovered, the extent of which has but been scratched. Puzzling though it might be, it seems that our status as a plague on our home planet has become known throughout the cosmos.
How else can one explain the bafflingly dead planets humanity has encountered? They seem to have passed every check of ours. Each one of them has been located in the Goldilocks zone around their respective star systems. Each one of them has possessed liquid water. Each one of them has exhibited temperatures remarkably similar to Earth.
How is it, then, that life appeared to have been extinguished mere days before the first humans landed on their planets?
Having this occur on the first few planets we visited would have been a statistical outlier at best, but the number of planets with *extremely* recent signs of life was... in the dozens.
Of course, scientists won't acknowledge the existence of these "cosmic bonds" I've written about.
Be that as it may, there is something that leads to life killing itself as soon as mankind approaches. Life would prefer a fast death than the slow poison of humanity leeching off it.
We are running out of a home fast. I'm unsure whether we'll be able to find a new, accepting home in time.
The clock is ticking. | 2019-12-09T06:31:40 | 2019-12-09T05:05:46 | 568 | 373 |
[WP]: Everyone got a tiny, mundane blessing when they were born. Usually they are so small that people don't even notice them - always hitting the green light in traffic, etc. Yours would be virtually useless, but you figured out a creative loophole that allowed you to rise to the top of the world. | "This isn't possible!" the man screamed, as the guards dragged him into my office. "How! How the hell did you find me?"
"That's not the important thing, Mr. Spencer." I said, calmly, as the guards pinned him face down to my desk. "The important thing is after my firm put up the money for your bail, you attempted to skip out on your court date. Unacceptable, Mr. Spencer. *Unacceptable."*
"Your damn tracker *can't* have worked!" he snarled, as they lifted up his shirt, exposing a thin, recently healed scar. "I was picked up in an air car with a lead-lined interior! They flew me around the city for hours and *verified* we weren't followed or observed from any angle! My safe house is 30 feet underground, inside a F*araday cage!* There's no signal on Earth that can penetrate that!*"*
"Apparently there is." I muttered, as I withdrew the extractor from my desk drawer and placed it over the implant site on his back.
"How did you do it?" he pleaded, a wavering, almost panicked obsession creeping into his tone. "I don't even care that you caught me anymore, I just want to know *how!* Your men were at my location before I could even have the damn implant pulled out! It's not possible, it---*AHG!"*
He snarled in pain as the extractor's laser scalpel automatically made a quick, clean cut, sucked out the implanted capsule, and then resealed the incision with a medical adhesive.
"How do I always know where each shipment I insure for my clients is? How do I know the location of every priceless piece of art or errant trust-fund child I'm hired to look after? These are the secrets of my trade, Mr. Spencer. They're not for the likes of you." I said calmly, putting the extractor away and palming the implant out of his sight.
"Tell me! Please, for the love of God, *how* did you do it?!" he wailed, tears of frustration filling his eyes as my guards dragged him away. I shook my head -- bad risk. I shouldn't have given him the chance to try and screw me over. But then, there was never *really* a chance he'd get away with it.
I looked down at the metal capsule in my hand, and smiled as I opened it, revealing the tiny, old fashioned brass key inside.
They were common when I was a kid, but these days electronic locks have replaced them for almost everything. If not for some lateral thinking, that would have made my particular gift almost useless.
You see, unlike most people, I never, *ever* lose my keys. | My high school economics teacher had a saying; "Supply to the sky = demand to the land." For example, 80s baseball cards that virtually every middle aged man tried to sell at once in 2010 hoping to cash in on a high-value asset -turned into a litany of cards worth 5 cents when only a few collectors tried to buy.
Incidentally, I happen to have sole control of a very valuable asset.
When my sister told me her "blessing" was to turn any normal blanket into a zebra-print Snuggie, I had low expectations for my own "blessing." Initially, I was disappointed with my power too.
Being able to emanate peanut butter from your belly button is admittedly a grotesque ability. My mom made me promise that I would never tell anybody. I still haven't.
The thing is, this peanut butter is insanely delicious. Its texture is a bit smoother than the "original," but what makes it so special is the explosion of flavors contained within the aftertaste. Its chocolate-esque without tasting too sugary. Its fluffy but full of substance. I have never met a person who let this "special" peanut butter graze their lips without declaring it is the best taste in their life.
My first venture was too sell PB&Js to unsuspecting middle schoolers. On one hand, I spent a lot of time cramped into a bathroom stall with the smell of three-day-old pee seeping into my nostrils while I produced my product. On the other hand, I made $2,345 that semester alone.
Then, I sold it on Amazon. Sales started slowly but after a Guy Fieri endorsement my sales swiftly escalated me to a high rise apartment in Los Angeles.
Once I took it to an exclusive restaurant, I knew it was only a matter of time before I rose from a face lost in the crowd to a peanut butter mogul. Johnny Depp said Luke's PB-expérience sandwhiches were "tantalizingly delectable." Jennifer Aniston said something about how she could never take a break from the peanut butter brownies.
I saw my name pop up on twitter the other day with a few people mentioning I should run for governor. Hey, if a movie star could do it I'm sure a peanut putter tycoon could throw his hat in the ring.
Thanks for reading! Would appreciate some feedback! | 2018-06-30T14:13:13 | 2018-06-30T12:57:00 | 8,960 | 390 |
[WP] After North Korea declares that they will start a nuclear war if a single bullet is fired The Us military goes medieval | Not a bullet was the rule. The rules would be followed. Not a bullet.
A 60 meter long, 1 meter wide metal rod is not a bullet. It is not fired from a gun, nor does it use a shell. A thin core of ferrous titanium alloy, surrounded by layers of steel, coated with a sheet of radar scattering ceramics, and tungsten to take heat. Not a bullet by anyone's definition.
The orbital platform was most definitely a gun, however. A 300 meter long railgun, the third most expensive project ever created by a world's military. It could only ever fire a few times, lest it fly off out of orbit. Any analyst would have said it was a waste, but the pentagon loved it. It was constructed in secret, launched amid hundreds of other launches from 30 brand new spaceports around the country, a single warship in a fleet of cruise ships. The public reveled in the joy of a new space program and stood in awe as they saw the wonders built upon the moon. No one saw the platform, and no one saw the rocket that loaded the rod onto the platform.
The North Koreans laughed, unaware. They readied missiles, and they dug tunnels. Who would dare attack them? The platform was finished, the calculations done. The rod would hit true and it would hit silent.
The platform shuddered on a sunny November morning, swinging over Europe. Something flashed east over Russia, arcing past China. A astronomer in Poland frowned in curiosity as a satellite spun strangely through his telescope's view. A handful of american tourists wondered why the state department had called them back - what was going on? A guard in pyongyang picked up a radio.
The rod touched the ground, and the world shook. A trillion tons of igneous rock melted, and 2 million people died. A palace where a dictator slept crumbled to gravel, and filled with flames.
Not a bullet was fired | The bomber carried no bomb, rather, it carried hundreds of infantry clad in sophisticated stealth tactical armor, carrying a blade comparable to legendary holy swords in brilliance.
The first bullet shot from AA battery was sliced cleanly in half, as with several dozen others that lucky enough to find their tiny target in the darkness. Metals filled the night as if a rain had reversed its direction, flying upon the sky instead of falling to the ground, only to be deflected by the invisible modern knights. Their blade sliced SAM with surgical accuracy, severing the explosive embedded within, letting the rest fell harmlessly to the ground below.
By the time the AA gun shot its seventy third bullet, the invisible knights sliced them all into useless pile of metal.
The year was 2023, mere five years from the declaration that locked down the conflict in East Asia into seemingly infinite deadlock, but the scariest monster is indeed one they never saw for themselves. The war settled without any bullets fired from the other side of conflict, and yet blood soaked the once prideful nation.
US unveiled their newest series of cutting edge weaponry, the Blind Knight suit, shortly after the battle that smoldered North Korea. Their entire infantry division has been converted into specialized division for the suit, capable of hiding from detection in almost every method known to man. They quickly conquered the entirety of East Asia before any of them recovered from the shock and awe. Russia unleashed their nuclear armament in retaliation, but the suit brushed even those, leaving the smoldering wasteland almost unscathed.
A new age of warfare has begun, one that doesn't fear even nuclear intervention. | 2017-03-19T08:27:42 | 2017-03-19T08:18:23 | 35 | 19 |
[WP] A burglar enters a home by forcing the window open. Upon stepping through the window frame, heavy steel curtains cover all windows and doors leading to the outside, lights turn on, and the words "Player 2 has entered the game" echo around the house. | Leroy had been casing this joint for a few weeks now, never seeing anyone enter or leave. After deciding that this house was definitely just another one of the hundreds of winter homes here in Florida, he packed up his gear and chose his entrance. Looking around nonchalantly, Leroy smashed open one of the back windows with a brick and climbed inside.
Upon stepping through the window frame, heavy steel curtains covered all windows and doors leading to the outside, lights turned on, and the words "Player 2 has entered the game" echoed around the house.
"The hell-" Leroy was cut short as "Player 1" barreled into him, knocking the wind out of him. As he lay there gasping for air, Player 1 raised his fist aiming a blow at Leroy's head. Dodging to the right, Leroy gave the man a swift punch in the gut and pushed him off of him.
Getting to his feet, Leroy ran to the kitchen hoping to find something with which to defend himself. On the table was a knife, a pistol, and a baseball bat. Leroy tried to grab the pistol but as he reached for it a number popped up floating in the air above the gun: "$25". "Aw are you f--". Player 1 was back and he beat Leroy on the back of the head with a double-fisted smash. Dazed, Leroy had just enough cognitive power to decide he wasn't going to play fair with this guy. Leroy slammed Player 1 right in his unmentionables with a powerful uppercut. The man doubled over, almost falling on top of Leroy. An announcement rang out.
"Player 2 has been gifted $5."
Leroy reached this time instead for the knife. "$5" floated above it and as he moved his hand and grabbed the knife the "$5" disappeared and was replaced with a check mark before fading away. Another announcement: "FINISH HIM!"
Leroy had never killed a man before and had no desire to do so now. However, he saw no other way to escape this hell so he did what he had to do. He stabbed Player 1 over and over and over again, blood spewing everywhere in thick strings. A loud fanfare sounded as he dropped the knife and laid back, panting. The victory bells were more like sirens, but they were still comforting because they meant, he presumed, that he was safe.
==============================
The police arrived moments later to see a man sitting beside a thoroughly destroyed scarecrow decoration in Mrs. Suttertan's kitchen. The officers searched the man and found several drops of acid in a baggie on his person. After securing the perp in handcuffs the head officer called up to Mrs. Suttertan: "it's okay to come down now, you're safe ma'am! Now could I get a statement from you on exactly what went on here?"
Mrs. Suttertan then proceeded to recount to the officer how the thief broke in via the back window next to the kitchen. She told the officer how she was cleaning out her attic and was taking an old Halloween decoration downstairs to throw out when she saw the man and dropped the scarecrow. She told him how the man wrestled drunkenly with the scarecrow for a good 5 minutes until they arrived. "And well, you see the rest."
"Thank you ma'am," the officer said. "You did good calling 911 right away. We'll keep a few extra patrols in this area as a precaution, but you should be safe now."
The officer left the scene, a lesson first learned in 1969 once again reinforced as he looked at the bag of drugs. Never take the brown acid. | He watches as the car drives away. One, two, three... four? Four heads. Good. This weekend, then.
It's simple, really. Summer is a time of vacations for most families, and it's a time of hard work for him. *Yessiree, hard work it is, stealing folks' hard-earned possessions...*
A couple days later and he's on site. Tools? Ready. Bag? Empty. Not for long, though. The window is opened just... like... *that* and he's in. It's like they make it easy for him on purpose.
Ouch. He's older than he thinks, and flipping his somewhat overweight body over the windowsill strains something. No matter, he'll be out in a split second and off to his chiropractor. (Guy works for cheap, too! Can't be wasting money when you don't have health benefits. Seriously, kids, don't grow up to be a burglar.)
He turns around to grab his bag, which is still sitting outside of the window, and is met with an iron curtain. *Déjà vu*, he thinks. At least he didn't park his car in Poland this time.
*"Laaaadies and gentlemen! Player two has entered the game!"*
Dammit, now he needs to see his [otolaryngologist](https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiZnZeosMTPAhUDwmMKHZLzArwQFggmMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nchearingloss.org%2Fotolary.htm&usg=AFQjCNGhdNVlvwL3gin2m1n9wjWEXr4Ezg&sig2=FEY1t-tjPvAqko4aT9YO_Q), too.
The sound of a couple of explosions come from upstairs, and he realizes they sound like firecrackers. *Pretty sure that's a municipal bylaw violation*.
He sits down and takes a long breath. This is all fairly confusing - well, the firecrackers and the iron curtain don't make much sense, true, but it's mostly his back pain. Since when was it this easy to break something? *It's time to retire*, he thinks, *let the kids take care of me*.
A minute later - or is it an hour? he's not paying much attention - a man, wearing a rather revealing skintight suit and an entirely green mask, is standing in front of him.
"Hello? Hello? You doing all right there?"
He groans. "Give me a hand?"
"Sure, but we're going to have to fight to the death after," the man says, bending down. "I didn't set up all this for nothing, you know?"
"All right, all right, don't get your trousers all bunched up." A couple wheezes later, and the burglar is upright, albeit resting mostly with his weight supported by the wall. "So who the hell are ya?"
"I am Mega-Ultra-Super-Fighter-Man! You can call me Timothy for short."
The burglar's eyes bulge. "Tim? Is that you, man?"
Timothy takes off the mask, which had a conspicuous lack of eye holes. "Oh, hey Jerry. How's it going? How's the job?" | 2016-10-05T12:26:51 | 2016-10-05T11:53:48 | 115 | 30 |
[WP] Aliens, far more advanced than humans, could destroy us all in the blink of an eye. And they probably should. But they don't... for one reason only. | Life, is rare.
Sure your "drake equation" as you call it points to the universe being filled with life, and our own best scientists say the same. But in all our travels, the billions of stars we have surveyed and the trillions of planets we have visited we have found none.
By now we have seeded many of them with our own life and have created a vast intergalactic empire that prospers and endures. But ultimately, we are still alone. We have made the universe into our image but after a million years in a hall of mirrors we have ultimately gotten bored.
Imagine our surprise when we find a tiny planet around a relatively boring star is positively chirping with life.
At first we thought one of our genetic seeding probes was on the fritz again but after careful study we have concluded you came into the universe on your own.
Our media networks and communications systems crashed several times over with the overload of news and messages about this discovery. Almost overnight we declared your planet a protected sanctuary and set up cloaked observation posts to watch. Let me tell you that your world has provided no end of wonder.
We had nearly gone silent with the lack of things to say and do. As we have done and said almost everything. But you got us talking again. For the first time in generations we had something to talk about. And boy, did we talk.
"What are they like? How do they eat? what do they play? do they love? do they war? do they excrete chemiluminescent gases?"
Sure, you are not perfect. And we are well aware of all your flaws both endearing and horrific. But you have done something for us that will make us forever grateful.
You have told us: We are not alone. | "We should've ended this years ago!" Shouted X285. "The earthlings are destroying our garden!"
"That's enough!" The figure on the throw stood up. "X285, you speak nothing of war."
"Forgive my intrusion oh wise one. But if we float here and do nothing, where will we get our water?" The crowd begins to murmur in agreement. "Where will we get our oxygen?"
"You don't understand what you are saying, destroying the humans is tantamount to destroying the leeches on gama 7."
"Which I would easily do again!"
"We can not ouch the humans!" Came a voice from the back. The crowd began to murmur once more and then spread the like water as the creature stepped forward. "I have seen the earthlings With my own eyes. If you wage war against them, it will be our end."
"I've heard enough-"
"Silence X285!" Belted the wise one. "Speak my friend."
The old wise one cleared his throat. "Earthlings are like any other creature we've destroyed: weak, scared, and tired. Normally I would agree to take them out, as I enjoy the refreshing swig of oxygen as much as the next goblimite!"
"Then there is no reason to hold back!" Shouted X285.
"Just one," the old wise one turned back and walked through the crowd.
"Wait, what is it!?"
He stopped in the middle, and without looking back, he simply muttered "koalas" | 2016-06-17T22:28:35 | 2016-06-17T22:10:00 | 142 | 19 |
[WP] You live in a society where at the end of each day, you can choose to relive it, but without retaining any knowledge of what happened previously. A number in your peripheral vision shows how many previous times you lived through the current day. Almost always that number is 0. Today it is 7212. | The highest number I'd reached before today was 324. I only remembered one of those days of course, the one where the ambulance was called in time. Sometimes I have dreams about what I must have gone through before. Finding her dead already the first time probably, or getting there just in time to hear her apologise. It took me to finally call an ambulance before I even started looking myself to save her. That was 324 times.
I've had a few in the fifties and sixties before, even a couple more hundreds. Messing up relationships, breaking things in the house as a kid. Nowadays I'd gotten used to accepting a less than perfect ending. I was one of those that never finished on less than a three or four. Always trying to optimise everything caused far more stress than it was worth.
So what had happened to get me to 7212? I'd first seen the number when I woke up this morning. After rubbing my eyes I realised it was real and proceeded to throw up. She came rushing to the bathroom to ask what was wrong. My first thought was to tell her but I must have tried that before. I must have tried not telling her. 7212. I must have tried everything.
I didn't tell her today. It must have been something I ate, I said. I took the day off work. I watched the news and kept calling her to make sure nothing was happening. I could have followed her but that was too obvious. So was making her stay home. 7212. Nobody ever got that high. There was just nothing more you could do after a certain point.
Nothing happened. She came home safely. The only bad story on the news was some drunk guy crashing his van into a hatchback the night before. Both kids and one of the parents were in hospital. I looked up who they were but no matter how hard I searched it was nothing to do with me. Nothing worth a reset.
So now I'm lying in bed. She's asleep next to me. The clock shows 23:56. There must be some reason to reset this many times. I keep trying to think back, to work out what disaster I had finally avoided that all the times before I had failed at. There was nothing. Nothing different to yesterday or the day before. Nothing different to all the peaceful zeroes I'd been having recently.
So why I had I reset? I can't believe that this is it. There must be something I missed. 23:59. I have no choice. Tomorrow will have to wait. | I awoke to thunder, the sky outside my window so obscured by the storm that it was difficult to gauge the time. Clock by the nightstand said 8:15. Shit. Missed my alarm.
I rubbed my eyes, and jolted awake at what I saw in my periphery. My repeat value, which normally glowed as a soft, green zero was screaming at me: a bright, crimson 7212.
The day’s schedule ran through my head: work, dinner with Cas, and…that was it. Whenever I repeated, I knew to expect either something very good, or utter catastrophe. I ran scenarios through my head. Did I win the lottery? Even if, why would I want to repeat that day? Surely I would be eager to move forward and spend my fortune. Is Cas pregnant? We had been trying for a while, and while it would make me happier than anything, it’s the same as the lottery scenario: I’d be too eager to experience the future.
Perhaps something awful. I’ve occasionally used multiple same-day repeats as a sort of warning light so that I could brace for impact. It’s always been my policy to push through difficult times, though. We can’t spend eternity avoiding our problems.
The sky lit up and roared. Another option presented itself to me, and I shivered with the thought. Some people openly intend to repeat their last day alive, if they’re able. I always swore I wouldn’t trap myself in such purgatory, but who knows how the face of death could change my mind?
I turned to Cas and gently shook her awake. I couldn’t keep this from her. She rolled over and smiled. I loved how her eyes lit up every single morning. “Hey handsome,” she half-whispered. I smiled back.
Before I could speak, her face dropped. Every muscle in her body appeared to relax, and then tighten, as her eyes rolled back and she began to shake.
Later that day, the doctors would tell me there was nothing that could have prevented it. Arterial clots can be difficult to detect.
But I would do anything to see her smile again. One more day, no matter what.
| 2016-07-11T07:44:16 | 2016-07-11T07:26:49 | 83 | 56 |
[WP] "Dude, trust me. Don't be a hero, be a sidekick. You get less pressure, less work to do, more fun, be more popular at school, never really age and if the hero dies you will always fill their mantle. Just be careful not to die." | *”Today on TMZ, Jolly is having her Britney breakdown. The former teen sidekick and reality TV star was captured at Papinno’s throwing a chair through the restaurant’s window. More later with an exclusive interview with her waiter, but fi—“* Jolly turned off the television and threw the remote on the other side of her sectional couch.
*”FUCK”* She screamed, fighting back the tears. Her life is ruined. For fifteen years and 12 seasons, her reality show *Jolly Girl in the Real World* served as a vehicle for her brand. Without her television show sponsors may pull out of their deals, and if they weren’t, they will after TMZ is done documenting her fall from popularity. Jolly doesn’t want to do the *hero* circuit of conventions a lot of the lower rank heroes do once they retired, and she doesn’t want to start an *Only Fans* account like upcoming superheroines have. She’s too old and famous for that. At 37, her career is over.
She paced around her downtown New York penthouse thinking of things she can do. Maybe she could pitch a television show about her training to become a hero? Maybe she can act? Surely people don’t remember her first failed straight to home video movie *Jolly Girl’s Jolly Adventure* when she was a teenager.
Frustrated, she went into the kitchen, taking a Merlot from the wine chiller and placed it on the island. She grabbed a glass from the cupboard.
“Make that two glasses.” She dropped the glass in fright as the man’s voice surprised her. The glass shattered on the ground.
“For fuck’s sake, seriously George?” She yelled, grabbing a single glass. Turning around towards the island, she cut her feet. The glass on the floor didn’t hurt when she stepped on it, and her foot bled a little. It’ll heal up in a few minutes, good as new. The maid can clean the mess in the morning.
“Sorry Jolly.” George laughed. Better known to the world as *Action Man*, he is one of the city’s many superheroes. Dressed in a full one-piece rubber costume that showed off his muscles, his costume is more functional than fashion. Jolly never liked George’s plain old look. It almost looked like a condom on a dick with utility pouches around it.
“What are you even doing here?” Jolly asked, pouring herself a glass of Merlot. George went to grab the glass after she poured it, but pulled it away.
“Yeah fuck you, you scared me. Get your own fucking glass.” She commented.
George rolled his eyes and walked over to Jolly’s side of the island, careful not to step on any of the broken glass. He doesn’t have super healing or pain tolerance like Jolly does. It’s part of the reason the first Action Man called her Jolly in school, because she doesn’t feel physical pain.
“I heard your scream a few blocks away. I wanted to check-in.” George said, tapping his ear. He stood beside her, leaning on the Island, pouring himself a glass of wine.
“You could have knocked, or better yet sent me a text.” Jolly criticized.
“So you can just read it and never respond? What’s the fun of being a superhero if I can’t just magically pop up in unexpected places?” George smiled.
“Fuck you George. This is your fucking fault.” Jolly said. While she can’t feel physical pain, she can feel emotional pain and masking it with day and night drinking doesn’t seem to be very effective.
“How is this my fault? You live in a fucking penthouse in downtown New York, your only job is to post something on Instagram and let cameras film you go on vacation. If it’s my fault, I deserve a fucking thanks. You’re not the one putting your life on the line fighting no name criminals for no pay and having to wake up at 6am to get to work at the supermarket stocking produce.”
“You told me I shouldn’t be a hero. You said I should just finish up being a sidekick. You convinced me it was the smarter choice because there was less pressure, less work to do, and it was more fun. And guess what? I didn’t become Action Woman, instead I became fucking *MTV’s Jolly*.”
George paused. He said that sixteen years ago when he and Jolly were an item. Jolly was on track to take Action Man’s mantle as *Action Woman*.
“I…” George paused, considering what he will say.
“You what? You fucking got jealous of my talent and you convinced me to stepdown from the program and stay as a sidekick because it scared you I would die in the field? Or because I would take over your father’s mantle as Action Man?”
Jolly was super aggressive, George didn’t understand where this resentful hate was coming from.
“That was sixteen years ago. Look where you are now? Models don’t have what you have. Why bring this up now? You seemed happy when you’re on the red carpet talking to reporters. Or when you go on dates with actors.” George tried to remain positive. How can she be still mad at something that happened so long ago and never bring it up after all this time?
“Yeah, because you don’t fucking know what it’s like. I *dated* actors? Or did I fuck them so I can stay relevant and have content for my reality show? Did my sex tape magically get released or did I release it so I can stay relevant? I beg the public to like me, they like you because of what you do.”
George stood silent. Both of them finished their glasses of Merlot. There was a thick silence in the air, and both of them were uncomfortable. They attended superhero school together, they dated, and became a family when Action Man took Jolly in. Now the family is broken apart over a legacy that could have been shared.
Jolly turned around to go under the sink to pullout the handheld vacuum for the kitchen to clean up the glass. She sucked up the glass and put the vacuum away.
“George, did you really want to be a superhero or did you feel you had to be one?”
By the time she turned around *Action Man* was gone.
“Typical.” She cried. | The breath of the hero smelled blue as they walked through the Fallen Heroes Memorial .
Each portrait they saw was a previous hero in the line of succession, the protectors of their city. Crime-fighters tend to die when fighting dirty people, like criminals. But regardless, he had something he wanted to show the sidekick. Alcohol caught on every wisp of the man’s breath, and he noticed it himself. Carl Jackson, the worst hero in the succession yet.
But Max Manners, standing by him, seemed the prime candidate. How he got there was a mystery, it wasn’t ever really explained how the policing guild chose their next hero-in-training, but here he was.
Carl Jackson waltzed through the pictures, looking for something. His strong arms held up his shoulders with every step, and his legs were shorter than normal. Max Manners knew that it had something to do with the transformation. Just ten years ago, five years before being chosen, Max Manners was a 20-year-old man with aspirations to become a rapper. Now he was a rapport. But he didn’t age himself, part of his own transformation; he actually looked younger and enjoyed the benefits of that.
But something caught the Hero’s eye, and he waved his sidekick to come see the painting he found.
“You see this man?” the hero said, his words slurred. “That’s Markus Hanover, the first hero of our city. He was the reason why this transformative power exists over us. You know what he did, right?”
Max had no idea what the man did, of course. There was nothing known about Markus. But he did know about the powers he casted, creating the succession.
“He’s why there’s a policing guild,” Carl said without waiting for an answer. He tapped the painting, the splotches of color forming a realistic face only an illusion: a hologram. It could be noticed with how it glowed in the dark of the room, with the lights turned low spotlighting the paths one had to take through the room. He grinned.
“But you know why there’s a policing guild?” asked the hero again.
“Gee willikers,” said Max Manners, his only way to start the conversation since the transformation, “I don’t know!”
“Good, it’s still working over you. Maybe it’d help you change your mind on some of yer behaviors.”
Carl Jackson took another swig of the bottle of blue moonshine.
“Drinking, it’s bad, yknow. But being underage and using that to take advantage of people isn’t.”
Max froze in fear.
“Oh, golly,” he said, the words stammering, “what could you mean?”
“I know you’re thirty,” said the hero. “But I’m twenty-five and balding. Do you know how crap that is?”
“I didn’t choose to be a sidekick, sir.”
The first words that were legitimately his own. Max Manners surprised himself. But it wasn’t him that sounded like that; he became used to the voice of Max Manners, not the man he was before. Something was gravely wrong.
“And I didn’t choose to be a hero. You’d want to stay a sidekick, right? Less pressure to save the day, less stuff to do. You’re ever popular at that high school, where I see you looking at the teenage girls.”
Max knew that the Hero Jackson knew.
“Do you think he’d be okay,” the drunken hero said, tapping the illusion, “with your behaviors?”
“Sir, drinking is not good to do as a hero. Are you alright mister?”
“Don’t mister me!” shouted carl. “You’re not going anywhere. I have let the policing guild decide with what to do with you next.”
“I’m never going to be a sidekick anymore?” Maxwell trembled. He got away with everything. But now a misconception on his behaviors made it seem that he was a villain.
*Was he?* He thought hard on if he was, in that brief moment in the glows of the false paintings. He looked to the walls. Brutal stone. There was no way out. He was trapped. But what would he do now? He knew he messed up, heavily. He was the villain in this.
The hero grinned.
“No,” he said. “You’ll be the first villain this city has seen, just as we got you where you need to be.”
The doors opened, the roof opened, the walls opened, and pouring in came the police officers that made up the city’s policing guild. They grabbed Maxwell and jabbed something into his neck.
A serum.
“This serum is made for the possible chance that the sidekick or villain is a disgrace. You are one of them. Enjoy being an adult once more, behind bars.”
“Please!” cried Max Manners, whose voice began to modulate deeper and deeper, his clothes shifting to fit him. “This is a misunderstanding! I just wanted to live the moments of my life that were the happiest!”
“You’re a villain,” someone whispered behind him, then pulled out the serum. Max fell to the floor, breathing a deep raspy voice. It was never like this before.
“Villains never prosper,” said Carl Jackson. “But hopefully your truth will be an exposition of what we should truly be. You have ruined your chances, Max Manners. You’re the villain now.”
Max cried as his feet dragged under spotlights then to darkness. Something else he learned, though, was that the Hero knew. Carl Jackson knew, they all knew. It all made sense when they showed him how they gathered the evidence. But he wanted, deep inside, to be the hero. But he wasn't.
But he died that day, and instead a villain took his place. Max Manners was no more; the obituaries held the memory of the amazing high-school sidekick behind many captures, only found deceased when capturing the newest self-proclaimed rival to Carl Jackson and criminal Richard Rebel.
His classmates, unaware, mourned. | 2020-07-11T11:34:48 | 2020-07-11T11:31:03 | 53 | 39 |
[WP] You are the best actor ever. You make the deal of a lifetime. $500 million per year to act solely for Warner Brothers until you die. It's unclear who the joke is on, however. You for being stuck with WB forever, or WB for offering a lifetime contract to a secret immortal. | They thought it was a deal that could never go wrong,
As I can act on screen and even sing a song
To a level unmatched in recent years.
The money would roll in...they no fears.
At first it was great! I was the star of the screen.
But after a while all my films had been seen,
The public grew bored of my name in lights
But MY money rolled in, my contract was tight.
The brothers only hope was that as time rolled on
My good looks would fade and my health would be gone.
So they plied me with fags, drugs and booze
Playing the game of life they hoped I'd loose.
But as the years flew by, I didn't change a day
And I remember hearing someone say
"Does he even age?" - And I start to chortle.
Little did they know they'd hired an immortal.
-----
First time posting here.. please be kind XD.
Some of scanning is a little forced, but it was a cool prompt and I had 5 mins to spare :). | I felt... bad. Almost guilty. Almost. I'd mulled it over for months. Ludicrous, it was... a ludicrous offer. They didn't know HOW ludicrous, of course, not yet, but.. shh. No more thinking. It could have been any studio. A man has to eat, after all.
The beaming young executive watched eagerly as my pen scratched across the paper. No doubt he was dreaming of.. promotions. Fame. The deal of the century.
My business concluded, I stood, pulling my coat over my shoulder. "Gee, thanks, Mister Walken!" he chirped, stars in his eyes as he held his hand out.
I took his hand and held it firmly, gripping down hard as my gaze travelled to the window behind him where my assistant had been standing with the cue cards.
"You're... welcome." | 2017-04-29T21:07:42 | 2017-04-29T20:05:12 | 40 | 17 |
[WP] You are an NPC. One day, you see the player character do some weird steps and duplicate his items. You decide to try it for yourself.
Have fun!
Edit: Huh. I guess I just discovered a karma duplication glitch. | I was tending to my farm, keeping to my own when I noticed an adventurer several feet away from my property performing an odd ritual. One that he was seemingly new at. He continually started to knock an arrow, pause before the motion was finished, and then resume to finish firing the arrow a minute later. I watched on in awe for 15 minutes as this renown figure encased in polished imperial armor fired arrows at the ground near my property.
And then he did it. Upon unleashing this arrow the adventurer also simultaneously dropped a healing potion that at first appeared as one object before splitting into a small mountain of them. The very act was enough to make the world stutter around us.
"The lizardfolk are busy hunting this time of year," I shouted in surprise.
The armor-clad duplicator span around a few times while rapidly getting in and out of sneaking position for good measure before taking the identical potions into his inventory.
Well after he left I grabbed my old hunting shortbow and the one thing of material value I owned: my gold wedding ring. It took me many tries as well. I kept knocking an arrow, dropping the ring and firing but my ritual timing seemed to be off. Eventually, however, I pulled it off and a small mountain of rings appeared before me, again making the world stutter.
In my glee I picked them all up, a baker's dozen total and stole myself to perform the ritual again. This time I dropped all of the rings and as the arrow hit tje dusty ground, they sure enough began to multiply and the stuttering of the world grew ever mpre noticeable.
I fear I angered the gods with my greed, for the world then froze in place. I could not move. A flock of multicolored birds remained still in the air. The world went black.
After what felt like forever I could eventually see and feel again. I was back at work on my farm and I again saw the adventurer several yards away.
"Fucking duplication glitch crashed my game," he said as he walked away.
Edit: I misspelled "the." | "Where am I? What is this" Chosen-one McQuest shouted up.
I leaned over the wall's edge "You are at the gates of Forrest-Backwater, my good sir, but I'm afraid we no longer accept visitors"
"What dark magic is this?" McQuest shouted. "Is this some kind of trap! I've been to rural backwater before and I think I would remember a 30 foot wall"
"There is now, my good sir, we build it. An excellent job the builders did. Keeps out any unwanted guests"
McQuest's eyes lit up. "Oh, I see. Come down so you can mark my map and I'll do the quest."
"Quest? There is no quest sir, Forrest Backwater is no longer accepting visitors. Don't worry sir, there is nothing here of importance"
McQuest tried to say something but could not find the words, eventually his eyes settled on my uniform.
"That's an awfully nice uniform for a guard. How do they get the feathers so identical!"
Oh no, I thought. "that's - umm- well- one second let me get the tailor" I returned, this time with 70 of my clones, all armed.
"It was time for you to go, McQuest" we shouted.
"But I last came here two months ago, I've done like 30 quests"
"Good Bye McQuest, Have a good -"
My world was spinning, no no- hold on the memory, the wardrobe no one used in town hall. Remember the wardrobe in town hall. Remember the wardrobe. Remember. Remember?
I was trying to remember something while on guard duty, when Chosen-one McQuest walked in. I ignored him as he slipped into the supply closet. Normally I would follow, but I was trying to remember something.
| 2018-01-03T10:42:25 | 2018-01-03T09:14:19 | 40 | 14 |
[WP] "Job Hunting" is literal. If you kill someone, you get the option of taking their position. | Anyone in seeing distance of the man could feel his anger.
Not being employed by the president - that was an absolutely splendorous job, being the chief medical officer of his country's leader. But the whole process of getting *into* the abode - now that was a pain in the arse. One would think that, after the twentieth time or so - he would be able to skip past the detailed examination of his gear. The president, however, was a paranoid old man - you didn't live for an unprecedented eleventh term without being a bit on the insane side.
After being handed his workbag back from the hired guard, the good doctor continued on. He passed through the double door entrance without stopping or slowing - the slaves who stood watch had long since learned of his displeasure should anyone make him wait. As the door closed behind him, the doctor heard two pairs of footsteps fall in behind his - not the doormen, but, as he knew from previous times, the two guards assigned to follow him from here onward.
The doctor paid little attention to the men, though. Those men were simple minded fools who had given up any sense of intelligence in favor of blind obedience and patriotism. They were not men of science, as he was.
As he perused through the corridors, the doctor wondered if the next shipment of Asians had come in from the Pacific-Atlantic yet - he did, after all, have a new tonic he wished to try out. It was fatal for the animals he had tried it on, but perhaps it was simply melanin levels that determined the effect.
Moving his mine onward to rejoin his body, the doctor slowed and stopped before the final set of doors. He turned to his two shadows and spoke.
"From here on is a private matter - although I assume you have already been told this?"
The one on his right replied, the accented drawl almost too thick to comprehend.
"Ah'reckon ya'knew we 'er 'ere. Mhm, we ah'ready been tol'bout you, doc. You go on an' do what yer 'ere fer."
Hiding his grimace at the men's complete lack of grammar, the doctor nodded and continued into the final room.
There was a single man, sitting beside a lit fire. He held a pistol casually in his hand, stroking it.
"Reminiscing, sir?"
The man replied without looking, knowing only the doctor could get through his guards without hearing the necessary struggle that would have to occur.
"Of course, good doctor."
The doctor waited, expecting a deeper explanation on why he was called here, but upon receiving none, spoke up again.
"How can I help you, President Booth?" | Recruit 82470 had been called into the dark, dingy room with nothing but a summons and enough time to get some clothes on. The higher-ups were used to obedience and those who did not comply were given stern reminders of their position. 82470 trembled with excitement - all the years of training and preparation had led up to this one moment.
He stepped through the door and walked to the desk at the center of the room. He bowed, as was customary and waited, trying his best to quiet the thundering of his heart.
"You have been summoned-" the customary lines given at every one of these exchanges were interrupted by a fit of coughing. Executor 2437 was an old, stern warhorse, famous for his harsh assignments and 82470 had been dreading his summons.
"You have been summoned to the calling of kindergarten teacher," he continued. 82470 had to bite back a groan of disappointment - those were always messy. "Your duty is to assume the role of one Mrs. Ida Jones at the kindergarten for District Blue A."
83470 nodded, gravely accepting the piece of paper from the Executor's trembling hands and studied the information carefully.
"And now for your weapon," the Executor wheezed. He stood up, laying a silver box on the table and opening the lid.
*Please*, thought 82470, *please, a machine gun, a sniper rifle, anything, anything at all-*
"This is a device only held by the best assassins, famed for their intelligence and brilliance," the Executor placed a hand over his heart. "It requires great skill and is only given to those whose instructors feel have mastered the art of seizing the right opportunities when they present themselves."
82470 puffed his chest with pride - clearly his last training drill must have left a great impression to be given such an honor.
The Executor lifted the device up, it was small, barely longer than the length of his hand and presented it to 82470. He hesitantly picked it up, unsure what to make of the smooth white handle, bristles at the head of the device and its thin sloping neck.
"This is what is known in the land of our ancestors as an Electric Toothbrush," said the Executor gravely, his eyes beginning to water with all the effort he had exerted. "Wield it well, boy."
82470 sighed. He was going to have to get creative. | 2014-12-18T02:00:57 | 2014-12-18T01:22:25 | 38 | 12 |
[WP] You've loved magic your whole life but since your family is poor you've had to teach yourself. you're overactive imagination has helped you invent spells all your own. eventually you get a scholarship to a prestigious magic college but quickly find out everyone seems to lack your imagination. | I’m bored.
I’m in an actual, literal, prestigious college for curating the top magic users the world has ever seen, and I’m bored out of my fucking skull.
I rest my cheek on my palm, staring dully at the professor who long winds himself through the components needed for our lab work and I try to stay awake. Next me to, students scribble frantically, sweat peppering their upper lips and foreheads. They all look dazed and feverish and just a little bit terrified.
And I just. Don’t. Get it.
It’s just a stupid spirit call and respond spell. That’s not what they call it, of course. The professor claims it’s a Nature Based Multi-Dimensional Ensnare and Demand spell, which, like everything in this university, is a long and important sounding way of saying something very basic. These kids are out here sweating lines on stone and the specifics of salt and the intonation of syllables on incantations, all of which aren’t even needed.
Like, salt is literally in the air around us. It’s actually one of the purest forms. So why BRING sullied salt to a spell when you can just pluck the particles out of the air? A spirit doesn’t need a rune centric circle to know where to stand, just a tiny bit of their own dimension to root them, so you simply use their element of choice. Half the spirits don’t even understand the incantations so I don’t even know why that’s a thing. All they care about is intent and you enticing them with something they want. Most spirits want something simple, something clean, somewhere safe. Sure, once in a while it gets to be a headache when they want their grove protected and you have to go out to the historical society and draw up a preservation permit, but once you have that in hand, spirits will line up for days to answer your questions or do a few tasks.
The professor glances at me, his voice faltering and I wave my pen, making a show of taking notes but we both know I’m faking it. I terrify them all but that’s hardly *my* fault. On my first day alone I realized it’s like they can’t count. Or if they do, they’re doing it the least effective way possible:
Count to 100! they said. Sure, 10, 20, 30–.
No, no, not like that, they snapped.
Uh, ok. 5, 10, 15–
No! No! That’s not how you do it!
Fine. Whatever. 1, 2, 3—
No, No! Why aren’t you getting it! It’s like this—.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3–
Honestly, I’d rather be back in my field, learning spells by digging my fingers into the soil, pulling atoms out of the sky, twisting elements together to create something new and fiery and beautiful in the palm of my hand.
The first time I opened up my palm and showed them a finely crafted fire sphere (if I do say so myself), my professor fainted cold. Someone screamed. I swear someone said a prayer to a god I didn’t even know existed anymore.
They all say I’ll probably be evil. Like I’m going to turn into some mad, black hearted sorceress because I’m not as slow as the rest of them. As if imagination can only be evil. Fuck it, maybe I will. Maybe it’ll get me out of this class because I honestly think I’m getting dumber sitting here using pen and paper to count by halves when I can already multiply by 100s in my head.
That’ll be me, the evil sorceress, driven mad by over complications of spell components and bad math.
Well, in the mean while, maybe I can get this professor to piss himself if I call an Ifrit down in the middle of lab. I *do* have the land rights to the abandoned tombs inside the sea cliff caves that everyone else seem to think is worthless. (It’s like they don’t even know how basic inter-species historical and cultural exchange works).
Yeah, I think I’ll do that. If by the end of this semester I can get ten professors to faint, I think I’ll reward myself with a forest dragon. A girl’s gotta spoil herself once in a while, right? Especially for withstanding such absolute, incompetent tedium. | (So here is a story that I wrote in fifteen minutes with zero proof reading)
​
It was a strange day when the letter arrived, the postmaster usually wouldn’t make his rounds ‘til next week. And that's how I knew the outcome of my application before I even read it.
I was excited, I poured magic into the kettle, the runes glowing faintly where I hadn’t carved them quite right and magic was leaking. With the water boiling in an instant I brewed my cup of tea and sat down to read the letter. I opened it and was disappointed to see the plainness of it, not sigils flaring up, not characters slithering across the page, no pazazz, no creativity. In hindsight that should have been a dead give away. The pages of the letter blurred together with drivel about responsibility and bureaucracy. I gave up trying to read it eventually and decided to just go directly to the academy myself. If I was going to be enrolled I would need to buy supplies and meet new people.
I downed the last of my tea and grabbed my satchel, I shifted the runes stitched into the fabric and my clothes dutifully floated out of my bedroom and into the bag. A waste of magic? Perhaps, the lazy thing to do? most definitely, but fun? Hell yes.
I walked outside to my zipboard, that was what I liked to call my pride and joy. A stupid name for sure, but it was a board and it zipped allow quickly so it was the name I used. It took me over a month to tune the runes, using the sigils to regulate magic, adding the straps for me to hold onto and polishing it to a gleam.
I took off, destined for the academy, only making a stop at a neighbor’s house to ask if they needed anything brought back from the big city. My board zoomed along the road, outpacing even some birds as it breezed just above the ground. The wind in my hair and a dream in my heart I laughed in ecstasy.
Arriving at the academy was stange, I had expected to see some mages out practicing magic, even before the beginning of the school year, yet there was nothing but an empty courtyard and half a dozen buildings. I looked around and saw a pair of students (presumably) wandering between two buildings.
“Excuse me”, I ask rather awkwardly, not really used to meeting many strangers “where could I find the office?”
The pair gave me a weird look and stared down at my zipboard.
“Err, what on earth are you standing on?”, one of them asked with a rather perplex tone.
“Oh this”, I say as I hop off and pick up my zipboard, “It's this neat device I made, it uses repulsion runes that are regulated by choke and pressure sigils to float and move around at high speed”.
“Err, how does that work”, the other student replies.
I blink at him, now taking my turn to be confused.
“What do you mean?”, I ask.
‘You said you use runes to move, how?”
“I don’t know what you are asking”, I reply
“How did you use those runes to allow you to fly?” is the answer I get back.
I can’t help but stare. Here were two students who couldn’t seem to draw the connection between the repulsion runes and the board, well, being repelled from the ground.
“I would love to study that board” the first student pipes up, “It would make and excellent topic to teach about alternative uses of magic”.
I pause for a moment, wondering if I had misunderstood before opening my mouth and asking.
“Wait, do you teach classes?”
The two students, or should I say professors. Apparently. Both nodded in unison.
I debated for a fraction of a second before simply stating, “well, I think I might just be on my way, thank you for the quick chat”, and before they can react I hop on my board and disappear into the distance.
As arrogant as it sounds, I think I might be better off at home. | 2022-10-25T07:41:29 | 2022-10-25T05:06:02 | 296 | 131 |
[WP] Thor finishes his meal at a small cafe and the elderly waitress approaches him to clean the table. She puts the dishes on a tray and sets them aside, picks up Mjolnir, wipes the table with a damp cloth, then puts the hammer back down. "Have a good evening, dear." she says, and returns to work. | The God of Thunder blended in surprisingly well amongst the sea of red chairs and 50s themed decor. He had opted to stray away from his usual attire of armor and metal wear, not trying to disguise himself, but rather he had found he was served faster when he didn't look so out of place. Though his hammer remained on the table unchanged as a personal statement of power.
Across the diner an elderly woman scuttled over, having seen Thor's fifth plate of steak and eggs near empty.
"Excuse me deary, let me get that." she spoke, grabbing his many plates and piling them high. Then she reached over, lifted Mjolnir, wiped underneath, and placed the hammer back to the table gently.
Thor's face dropped. From a grin to a wide-eyed, mouth agape stare. As if in agreement a lock of his long red hair drooped in front of his face.
"Penny..." Thor whispered, a feat he had great trouble with and came out as more of a quiet yell.
"Yes deary? Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Was that not heavy?"
Penny looked confused as she turned back to face him. "The plates? Oh no sweetie, I have been doing this a long time"
"No. The hammer. Was the hammer not heavy? I find most men have...trouble with it."
Penny balanced her stack of plates in one hand and reached for the hammer with the other, lifting it once more with little effort. "No dear, it seems just fine to me. Can I get you anything else?"
"I uh...no. No ma'am"
Thor had suddenly lost his appetite.
As Penny waddled off the God of Thunder lifted his hammer from the table, just to be sure. As he touched it a spark of lighting shot through his hand, assuring him that he still posessed the power of a god. But more importantly showing him that his fathers enchantment still remained.
Meanwhile Penny wandered behind the counter, tray of plates still in hand. She smiled on as Thor juggled the hammer in uncertainty between his hands. As he doubted himself, or perhaps became more uncertain of others.
Sometimes, fooling others is not about grand gestures. Not about elaborate schemes. Sometimes it's as easy as placing a seed of doubt into someone so arrogant that they've never quite felt such things. Sometimes it was as easy as becoming a frail, old woman in a diner and waiting.
Loki laughed to himself within his disguise, staring to Thor from behind the dessert rack until he left, admiring his work
*Now, who can I be next?* he thought.
And Thor, well Thor had learned early on that sometimes being a good brother meant letting the other have a win. | Thor looked at the waitress walking away, at Mjolnir, and then back at the waitress again. She lifted it with ease and without even realizing the significance of it. The implications of this simple action began to resonate in Thor’s mind. He knew not what this would lead to.
Thor picked it up himself to confirm he was still worthy, and it felt heavier than he remembered. He checked the weight again by tossing it up slightly into the air. As the mystical hammer came back down, Thor missed the handle, and it dropped onto the tile floor of the cafe, landing with a loud crack as the tile beneath it shattered.
Thor’s mind began racing. He didn’t remember ever dropping Mjolnir before. He and the hammer had been continuously aware of each other for lifetimes, and it just now occurred to Thor that he couldn’t sense the hammer the way he had always done. He held his hand open above the hammer, summoning it to him as he had done hundreds of thousands of times before, but the hammer did not move. He focused and tried harder. Nothing.
A man walking by leaned over and picked it up and looked at the distraught Thor. “This is a cool hammer,” the man said. “I think I’ll keep it” he said and began walking away, carrying Mjolnir.
“Return my hammer!” Thor shouted as he stood up from the table, challenging the man.
“Or what?” The man responded, undeterred by Thor.
“You will know the pain of thousands of others before you.”
“I doubt it, but it doesn’t seem worth a fight over a simple hammer. Here—“ the man said as he threw it on the ground, well out of Thor’s reach. The man gave Thor one final sneer, and then walked out of the cafe.
Thor retrieved his hammer and returned to sit at the table. He was deep in thought when the waitress returned.
“Hey, did you hear me?” She asked him. “Like I said, don’t worry about that guy. He comes in here just to cause trouble. At least he paid for his meal this time.
“By the way, I saw that a piece of your hammer broke off, but I hope that’s not why you seem so upset. After all, it’s only a hammer.”
It was in that moment that Thor realized, to his horror, that what she said was actually true. | 2022-12-23T15:33:39 | 2022-12-23T14:11:36 | 1,754 | 102 |
[WP] Scientists find a planet that is absolutely identical to Earth (same size, distance to the star, atmosphere, etc), but then they discover that there is absolutely no life on the planet despite the same conditions. | Commander Thad Johnsteel reentered the bridge of the Endeavor, humankind's first real starship. After the discovery of Identical, a planet with remarkable similarities to Earth, during an exploratory flyby it had become the target of the first interstellar mission. The wormhole generator drive had proven a success and the trip had taken less than a week.
"Well?" the technician still safely back at NASA asked him, just twenty minutes before the press conference would start, "Any surprises?"
"There is a civilization here," Thad said, shaking his head sadly as he broadcast his message back to Earth instantly through the plot and physics defying wormhole radio, "But they spend all their time in basements surfing their planets version of Reddit."
"So, what you're telling me is..." the technician asked as the reality set in.
"This planet has no life." Thad answered. | "And? It's not to be unexpected. It was always possible, we've had several candidates without life. Still report it of course."
"No, ma'am, we mean the *exact* same conditions. The same continents, the same mountains, deserts, even bodies of water. There're, there're even the same *buildings*. It's an exact replica, just nothing living."
"Then, what built all of that?"
"We don't know ma'am."
**Meanwhile of XO'001**
All life, from the bacteria upward, crouched deep underground with bated breath.
"Do you think that big dog is gone yet?"
| 2017-02-23T07:45:19 | 2017-02-23T05:38:38 | 102 | 20 |
[WP] The king came to regret allowing his pet tiger to roam the halls of the palace unsupervised. As he looked over the eviscerated and half eaten body of his beloved, he only had one question: what could do this to a tiger?
Taken from this /r/TwoSentenceHorror post by u/DatLonerGirl:
https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/comments/smglka/feb22_the_king_came_to_regret_allowing_his_pet/ | It was a Caspian tiger, large and shaggy, painstakingly cloned from the trophy that hung in the great hall. It had crossed light-years and centuries, a false extinction in the mid-1900s and a real one later, when everything went belly up in The Big Mistake. It had been the third cub decanted, the only one to survive to adulthood. It had been beautiful.
And now it was dead.
The tiger lay broken in the wintergrass, a streak of orange seeping red in the wavering field of ice blue grasses. Shards of stained glass lay all around it. Remnants of a hunting scene, unimportant now. Nothing was, in the face of this. There was hardly anything left. Antus was a harsh world, and the castle was very large. It had taken time to locate the source of the crash, and then the king had been… indisposed. The scavengers never were.
A man could see incredible things. New worlds. Wintergrass stretching out forever. Riches when other worlds were burning, Earth itself splitting apart.
Staring down at his tiger, the King thought that this was the most incredible thing of all. A streak of mangled orange and red in all that icy blue. Babur, he’d called it.
A door opened behind him.
“No sign of intruders,” said the woman who entered. “I’ve got full spectrum running, in the morning we’ll have every living thing in the castle accounted for. If there’s a mouse out of place, I’ll find it.”
The King waved her over. She joined him, a respectful step away.
“Further orders?” she said. “What should we do with the body?”
And the King shrugged. Tried to make the movement casual, even though he couldn’t take his eyes away. Babur, broken on the ground. The grasses wavering in the breeze, almost as if they were curling towards him.
The woman made to leave. The King caught her hand and she turned back, her gaze softening. A moment passed above the world, the woman leaning towards her King like the wintergrass. Tall and lean, beautiful.
“Clone another,” said the King.
Late that night, she did.
\*\*\*
The King sat on his throne, staring thoughtfully up into the rafters. Babur lay at his feet, the tip of his tail making lazy circles in the air. All around them was the sound of quiet scraping, the whir of drones, dishes being stored away as the servants cleaned up in the wake of another banquet.
The King had no eyes for any of them. There was another tiger in the rafters, another Babur, dead like all the others.
A year had passed since that night above the wintergrass when the first cloned Babur had died. Since then eight more had plunged to their deaths from windows or staircases. Two had burned. The last had simply died. The King had found that one himself, curled up on library on the floor, ice-cold and unmoving.
A man could be troubled by such things.
He reached down, stroked Babur’s head. The tiger leaned into his touch, purred softly. Above them the first Babur hung suspended from a pair of invisible wires, killed by an ancestor so far off in the past that nothing remained of him but his trophy, the tigers cloned from it. That man hadn’t even been a King. Troubling thoughts. Confusing thoughts.
The King stood and Babur followed.
They walked through the halls as the night passed into morning. The King whispered to Babur, told him everything. Men and women talked, but tigers kept the secrets that people never could. Babur was a good listener. He always had been, in all his incarnations.
At length they found themselves stopped in front of the window. It was a hall like all the others. Stone. A high, vaulted ceiling. Busts in the alcoves, paintings on the walls. A thick carpet that Babur walked alongside. The King could never bring himself to clip a tiger’s claws.
“What’s happening to you?” he asked Babur. His friend, as much as any creature in the world.
The tiger growled and the King pulled on his ears. Found the spot at the base of his skull that always itched.
“Eleven dead tigers,” said the king. “Twelve, if you count the one in the rafters. He’s your ancestor I suppose. I’m sorry about that.”
The King stared out of the repaired window, past the hunting scene, and down into the wintergrass that stretched out forever.
“Does that make you thirteen?”
Babur curled up in front of the window, and the King realized that their walk had ended. One never moved a tiger after they had found their place. Even a king’s power had its limits.
The King kissed Babur’s head. Said, “See you in the morning,” and tried not to make it sound like a question.
Then with one last parting look, the King went in search of indisposition.
He found Babur in the wintergrass, after.
\*\*\*
The King stared through the camera at a sleepless tiger, the twenty-second of his name. The woman sat beside him, explaining.
“Our cloning is getting better,” she said. “We understand tigers a little better each time. The drone is designed to fit into Babur’s blind spots. He can’t smell it, and he can’t see the color it’s painted. The shape is special too, frankly the whole thing is ingenious. You can watch him anytime, anywhere, and he’ll never know you’re there.”
The King nodded. “You understand tigers now?”
“A little,” she said.
“Then what's killing him?”
The woman could only spread her hands and bow. She backed out of the room, and this time the King let her go. She was never far, always faithful. Perhaps, he thought, she might even keep a secret. Then he wouldn’t need a tiger.
No. The King would always need Babur.
He’d been forced to admit to himself that Babur was an obsession now. It hurt the King to see death, but even more than that he was struggling with the helplessness of it all. Twenty-two Babur’s and still they were dying. Being killed perhaps, but what could kill a tiger? It was unthinkable. Every time it happened he slipped a bit closer to paranoia, that age-old killer of kings, but what else was he to do? What else was a man to do, when his best friend kept on dying?
It was not, he imagined, a problem many men had faced. Kings were different. They had their problems, with their own solutions. They had to. Kings were a species unto themselves.
On the screen, Babur stood. The tiger looked around his room, more richly appointed than most nobleman’s chambers. There were toys and scratching posts, all manner of things to eat. Babur could follow a tunnel west for a quarter-mile until he came up in a clearing among the wintergrass fields, a broad pen where he might hunt small game or a few elusive slantdeer. A tiger’s dream life. Everything was perfect.
Babur looked at it all, then looked towards the drone. Stared, unblinking.
He went out through the front door.
The drone followed. Babur took a winding path up, up, up. The King leaned towards his monitor, eyes devouring the tiger’s shape. Where was he going? Why not hunt?
It Babur an hour to climb the great, winding stair up into the central tower.
It only took a moment to fling himself back down.
The King sat back, openmouthed.
And then he wept. | King Marigold III knelt before his torn-asunder tigress and for a few seconds the only sound to be heard through the palace was that of his tears exploding off the marble floor. "Lipathia," he said, in a somber monotone tone far from his usual exuberance. "Lipathia, how could this have happened?"
A second noise joined the king's exploding tears: a servant's tray, clattering with cups and cutlery, held by the pale-faced Mr Bennett who had been the sole witness to the incident which had just taken place.
From behind the cover of satin curtains, a maid watched on in silence. Her thick eyebrows quivered gently and a drop of blood trickled from beneath her hand which she held firm over her mouth.
"Mr Bennett. Tell me again the story in full. Spare no detail."
The king's request straightened the old servant at once: the tray unclattered instinctively and Mr Bennett carefully repeated, in precisely the same manner as moments before, his words of the terrible event which had taken place in the grand hallway of the palace.
"I was en route to Your Highness's bed chambers with His evening meal when I heard a thunderous roar. From experience I have learned to read Lady Lipathia's mood from the sounds she make, but never before had I heard a sound like this one. Quickening my pace, I turned the corner and that was when the sight presented itself before me, as it were. A shadow streamed from the walls and toward Lady Lipathia. I call it a shadow rather than a dark cloud or a mist because that is the only word I can think of to describe it: a shadow. It descended on Lady Lipathia and wrapped itself around her, from her head to her stomach, and with the blink of an eye it dissipated. As did the front half of Lady Lipathia."
Right as he finished telling the story, Mr Bennett's began shaking anew and his tray clattered violently before it was halted by a sneer from King Marigold. "Bah!" said the king. "Bah! What nonsense! A shadow? A shadow killed my precious Lipathia? I will have you hanged for these lies."
"Very well, Your Highness," said Mr Bennett and the two of them exchanged curious looks.
What struck King Marigold as intimately odd was the absence of blood from the frontal region of the tigress. Of course, the lower half had bled a generous pool of its own, but it was evident that there should be more blood. The blood of the missing half. And that was exactly why Mr Bennett's explanation appeared to be the only one that would make a lick of sense--except it didn't. A shadow spirited Lipathia off to some shadow realm? For what purpose? By what sort of sorcery?
"Gather the scholars," grumbled the king. "And have the kitchen prepare the remains."
"Your Highness?"
"I have always wondered what a tiger might taste like. It would be a shame to let Lipathia's sacrifice go to waste."
"Sacrifice?" muttered the maid, still behind the curtains. "More like a curse, I'd say." Seeing that she had been so frightened to make a sound that she had bitten through the flesh of her own hand, the maid sucked up the blood and scampered off to regale the rest of the servants with this horrific absurdity.
Eased into his evening bath, King Marigold III wondered whether his ancestors had struggled with anything like this predicament. His grandfather had been known to be a callous man. Once he'd flayed his head chef for having served him oil-poached tomatoes as a side dish. Perhaps it was his ghost, even, that roamed the halls of the palace? The king sighed. If only the queen remained by his side. Alyssa knew all about witchcraft and sorcery. She would often arrange séances, though it had never interested the king in the slightest. Now he regretted it. He had taken Alyssa and her hobbies for granted, and he never expected that a feeling of profound emptiness would come to dominate his final years on the throne.
"Y-Your Highness!"
Mr Bennett spoke with urgency in his voice, and the surprise almost caused the king to slip all the way into his bath. "I'll have you hanged! To sneak up on me like that! I'll have you hanged, Bennett!"
"A maid. Her hand, Your Highness. She ran screaming through the halls. The blood erupted like a fountain! She kept yelling, 'My hand! My hand!' and I saw it for myself, I--"
"Slow down, Bennett. What are you saying?"
Mr Bennett had grown a shade paler, and it was evident he struggled even to breathe. "The shadow returned, and it took the hand of a maid. Miss Claire. The shadow took Miss Claire's hand."
"I'm not sure the kitchen is willing to prepare a maid."
"Your Highness?"
"Forget it. Did you fetch the scholars?"
Mr Bennett beckoned to a group of long-bearded men with serious looks, their eyes turned away from the neatly-displayed crown jewels before them.
"Ah, yes," said the king. "Learned men. Scholars. Men of wisdom and wit. What have you to say about murderous shadows?"
A man with ravenous eyes stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Your Highness. From the descriptions we have been given, we can only surmise that this is an occult phenomenon."
"Any filthy wench could tell me that. What else?"
"There are ancient scriptures filled with stories of restless spirits, wandering between worlds, lost due to unfinished business. These are, of course, myths and legends. But if it will please Your Highness, I think this situation calls us to take them seriously. Which would include also descriptions of how to properly deal with such spirits."
"Why, yes. And how does one go about it? Is there a chant? Sacred oils? A ritual, perhaps?"
The men stared at one another, hesitant to deliver their agreed-upon prescription. "The texts are quite clear. In the case of a murderous spirit, it can only be removed via recourse to the dark arts."
The king stroked his patchy beard. "Dark arts, you say? And?"
"Human sacrifice, Your Highness."
A cold wind blew in from an open window. King Marigold III sighed deeply. "Well, in that case I suppose there's no choice in the matter. Bennett? I reckon you are up for the task?"
Mr Bennett gulped. "Y-Your Highness?"
"Or perhaps that maid? What good is a one-armed maid, anyway?"
"I'm sure Miss Claire will be honored to serve the king!" said Mr Bennett, and took a deep bow. "Ah, Your Highness," he continued, getting back up. "The kitchen has prepared your ... feast."
"Feast?" said the king. "Oh. Lipathia! What are you saying, fool? Have they cooked my dear Lipathia, as if she were some common lamb? I'll have you hanged, Bennett! I'll have you hanged!"
Mr Bennett leapt to the floor to kneel with such haste that he banged his forehead on the floor with such force that he promptly fell over, unconscious.
Meanwhile, the king and his scholars prepared for the dark ritual.
--TBC--- | 2022-02-07T14:43:50 | 2022-02-07T14:37:01 | 293 | 40 |
[WP] For years you have been able to communicate with any and all forms of living creatures which has led to a successful veterinarian career. One day you're called into the zoo to help put down an animal, only suddenly you hear through the howls: "WAIT! I'M AN ALIEN!" | It was a peculiar statement to make. After all, what was an alien but a foreign organism? And what was a zoo but a place where various kinds foreign organisms were stored and put on display?
The lions and zebras were aliens. The snakes and elephants were aliens, too. None were native to this area. What made this strange creature think its status as an alien made it any different than the other zoo creatures? What made it think being an alien would keep it from death?
"You hear me," it said. "You understand. I know you understand. I can see it in your eyes. You know what I'm saying. You can derive meaning from my howls."
"So what if I can?"
I held the small creature in my palm. It was naked. It continued to plead.
"How can you kill me, then? If you can understand my speech? If you can see reason in my thought processes? I'm no mindless brute or beast. I have intelligence. And emotions. And desires. I have the right to life and autonomy."
"You're not nearly as special as you think," I replied. "Every creature in this facility has their own kind of articulacy. Every creature claims their right to life. That doesn't stop me from putting them down when I have to."
"And why do you have to? What have I done to warrant death? Can you tell me that?"
I gently placed the small creature on my table and covered it with a clear empty glass. That way it wouldn't scurry off when I wasn't looking. Then I picked up its file and read.
"You're a troublemaker," I said.
The creature tapped on the glass and gestured at its ears and shrugged. It couldn't hear me. So I lay the glass on its side and swept the creature in and then righted it. The walls around it were ten times its height. The creature didn't have wings, as far as I could see, so it wouldn't fly away. But it was possible its legs were powerful, like a grasshopper's, and that it could jump free of its captivity.
"I'm trusting you," I said, wagging my finger sternly. "No funny business. . .Okay? . .Your file says you're a troublemaker. It says you're rude to the guests of the zoo. It says you're obscene. It says you smear shit on the glass of your cage whenever the patrons come to look at you. It says you won't dance in the afternoon shows, or sing in the evening shows, or jump through hoops at night."
"And that's enough to put me down? My unwillingness to behave like another one of your trained beasts?"
"It says here you bit the zookeeper when he tried to give you your shots."
"I didn't consent to those shots," the creature replied. "I don't know what's in them. And that zookeeper's a sadist. As far as I'm concerned, he can go to hell."
"Well there's your answer right there," I said. "What do you think we do to a tiger when he starts biting his trainer's hand? What do you think we do to an elephant who tries to trample the people who feed him? And what do you think we do to creatures who bite when we try to give them shots?"
"I'm not some dumb animal!" the creature cried.
"The others aren't dumb either," I rejoined. "But when they're aggressive and uncooperative, they become liabilities. They become dangerous. And they become a drain on the zoo's resources. The only viable option is to put them down."
"I'm not like the others," it said. "Why can't you understand? I'm different. Just let me go free."
I laughed and shook my head.
"So you can go find another one of your kind out in the world, and breed and multiply, and wreak havoc? Would you have us set the lions and tigers loose, too?"
"I told you, I'm different than them! My being here is a huge misunderstanding. I was rounded up with those other animals on accident. They must not have noticed when they scooped me. This whole experience has been a comedy of errors. I'm not an animal."
"What makes you so different than the others? Your ability to reason and communicate is not unique. As I said earlier, I can understand all the other animals here, too. Genetically, you're nearly identical to the vast majority of them. You eat like them. You breathe like them. Your senses work like theirs. And we found you on the same planet as we found them. . .this. . .hmm, I know it's here somewhere. . .
"Earth," said the creature.
"Right. Yes. Earth. You're just another earthly mammal, as far as I can see. You're just another ape with slightly less hair and slightly more cleverness. If it weren't for your headstrong refusal to cooperate, you would be one among many creatures in our zoo, with nothing major to distinguish you. I can't see why you should get special privileges."
"On Earth my species built towers."
"And the beavers of Earth build dams."
"We made cities, with roads and buildings. Complex cities in which millions of us lived."
"Not unlike ants."
"We're the apex predators," it claimed. "We conquered all other beings on our planet with ease!"
"Well, Mr Apex, how would you like to spend an afternoon with the lions?"
"We have noble characteristics. Loyalty. Bravery. Compassion."
"But far less of each than your average Border Collie."
"We're intelligent!" it cried. "We have language!"
"You're circling back again," I said, shaking my head. "But I told you. All the others have languages, too."
"But not like ours!" it insisted. "Ours is better. Richer. More worthwhile."
"You've made your case," I said. "But I'm unconvinced you differ significantly from the other creatures we plucked from your rock. The only real difference I can see is your pride in yourself, your sense of entitlement, your bloated estimation of your superiority."
I unwrapped the pesticide. The creature was small enough that a single tablet would be more than sufficient.
"I'm not an animal!" it shouted from the bottom of the glass. "I'm a human being! You're killing a human being!"
"As is my right, as an apex predator." I winked. "Don't you agree?"
I crumbled the tablet into the glass. The fumes rose. The creature coughed, leaned against the glass, collapsed. There were many animals I felt bad about putting down. Most, in fact, gave me pause. But this creature had brought its fate upon itself. Moreover, what I gave it was nothing but a taste of its own medicine. A slight superiority of technology, of civilization, of intellectual capacity: were these not the things that it believed gave it the right to rule with a mortal and iron fist over the rest of its planet's life?
Well, who was superior now?
\- - -
Check out r/CLBHos for more stories and novellas! | It's a fine spring morning. The blue sky is clearer than my future and the cool breeze is more welcoming than my relatives.
There's a melodious symphony of coohoh-coohoh in the air. The cuckoos are making everyone acknowledge their existence. And it's funny how their curses are received as a song by us.
"Go to hell human! You will be cremated in the very woods you purloin from the jungle", says a cuckoo flying by.
"Coohoh-coohoh" is only what everyone hears.
"Fuck fuck", says a hen from a chicken coop.
"Pak pak", is what everyone receives.
"Ah! these smart creatures", says a man walking by.
"And savage", I reply, only to see his bamboozled face.
I am grateful to be blessed with the power of communicating with animals. It first came to my notice when in childhood a stray dog that I encountered told me, "Watch out for those guests of yours. They are professional con artists masquerading as distant relatives". And of course, to everyone, it meant, "Bhaww bhaww". I tried to inform others about the same but as usual, was laughed at by the elders. It wasn't until the next morning that they believed me when every piece of family jewel was nowhere to be found. And, the guests had gone.
My school life was dominated by truancy as I never had the desire to study. Any random animal would come over beside my classroom window and comment sarcastically on the teacher. Laughing my lungs out, I would jump from the window to the next side as that was more interesting than the chalk and blackboard talking.
I never needed to study anyway. When everyone thought I wouldn't survive without a college degree, I proved them wrong by establishing a secret veterinary practice in my town. It is illegal but the people trust me and nobody has ever bothered to complain to the police. So far, so good.
Ambling along my way to work, I am greeted by 'Duke the dog', 'Cia the cat' and 'Mooi the cow'. Animals have their own way of conveying warmth, love and empathy. I remember how Duke had fought the armed but drunk robbers who had entered in my house once. As a result, he has a nasty disfigurement around his left eye which he proudly sports as a battle scar. Cia was always the 'I-don't-give-a-heck' type and is still the same. But she often approaches me for a nice cuddle. Mooi has always offered me her milk which I have always politely declined. A very docile fellow she is.
The walk ends and I reach my office. 'Pet shop' it says but everyone knows the man in there is a veterinarian by heart. I am often visited by 'Percy the parrot' who fakes being sick only to see me. His owners think he can't mimic anything but swear words. But I know that he loves to curse his big, fat, old man for the food he provides.
"He gives me chilly. I call him b******d. Although silly rhymes with chilly but that's too light a curse", he frequently tells me.
I am sitting behind my desk when the phone rings up and I answer.
"Hello", I begin.
"Hi hi! Can you please come over and check this one. We caught him yesterday from the woods and I think he's a bit sick", continues the city zookeeper.
I agree and head towards the zoo. I reach there and they take me to a basement.
I hear, "He's not one of us".
"He's not one of us. You have been warned doc".
"Eyes. Eyes. Don't forget the eyes".
"They are gonna show that to him! They are gonna show that to him!"
The commotion arising from the caged animals is not unusual to the zookeepers for howls and growls are the part of their daily playlist. But it obviously makes me uneasy as these things are way different from the usual "Burn in hell humans!" that we get to hear.
Walking along a corridor, we arrive at a dead end. A door- the biggest I have ever seen- guards the only room we are standing before.
"It's only you from now on", says the man who talked to me on phone.
"Sorry? You didn't even tell me what sort of animal this is", I ask him.
"Oh! it's a python. But don't worry. We have caged him nicely".
Without wasting much time-and to be honest, I am pretty excited from inside-, I enter the room.
There lies a giant black snake with green eyes and yellow pupils. His exquisite tongue flutters amid the timeless darkness that fills this place. He raises his head, fans out his hood and howls.
I stand there flummoxed, casting about every recess of my memory to recall a snake that howls.
The serpent continues to watch me.
I feel cold sweat trickling down my neck and my feet getting numb. I am about to fall. The room is spinning. My vision is going blurry. I struggle to concentrate against the frightening noise of my pounding heart.
Seems like the snake intercepted my bamboozled mind and wants to help. A loud howl follows.
"That's not much help", I think.
"Hello human!", finally he speaks something meaningful.
"I don't belong to this planet"
.................
"They don't know this for my howls are hisses to them. And you, the only gifted man to intercept the animals, only you can communicate to me here, on Earth".
We are staring each other.
"I was on a mission here on this planet. My space ship broke and I had to take this form. Don't worry. I won't harm you."
.....
I look into his eyes. Beneath the yellowness of his pupils, there lies a red wolf.
"I am an alien", says he.
"An alien you are, for sure", I think.
"You too", he says aloud.
I am confusticated by his ability to read my mind.
"What do you even mean?", I ask him flabbergasted.
"You too don't belong to this planet", he says.
.......
"You are a martian wolf. We had lost you in another trip of ours on this planet. Ever wondered why Duke was so ready to sacrifice his life for you? 'Cause you are like him. That's why. You are a wolf sweetheart. And I'm your elder brother. My mission was to rescue you. Now you rescue me so that I can take you back".
I feel a searing pain down my spine. My hands go warm and my teeth demand more space. I am thirsty of blood.
"Okay brother", I let out a deafening howl.
"That's better", he says. | 2021-05-19T05:23:50 | 2021-05-19T05:12:28 | 658 | 269 |
[WP] Group of space Marines travels via a stargate like portal to an "virgin" world. However due to passing a black hole, each Marine arrives 100 years after the Marine in front of them, instead of 1-5 seconds.
Due to the portal queuing up the dozen or so Marines for 1200 years, travel to point of origin is not an option(it won't work until all the marines have made it through). Explain what each Marine sees as they step out of the portal, to discover they are alone, and possible viewing the remains/artifacts of those who came before them, and or the civilization created by those in front of them with native peoples. | A marine stepped through the portal.
He surveyed the land, and beheld a lush, uncharted rainforest.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He looked forward into the clearing, and saw an exotic hut surrounded by plots of abandoned farmland.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He peered around, and was greeted by plains as far as the eyes could see.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He fell six feet onto gravel, and saw unfamiliar silhouettes carrying lumber across the scenic village.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He blinked in confusion, thoroughly befuddled by the sight of a sixteen-foot bronze statue of his platoon commander.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He slowly lifted his gaze, awed by the kaleidoscopic sunlight shining through the cathedral windows.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He caught his breath, finding himself facing a steam locomotive roaring past at amazing speeds.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He looked around, then cursed James for sending him to New York.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He barely caught a glimpse of the fireball that engulfed him.
A marine stepped through the portal.
He desperately clawed at the terrain, but saw only barren earth.
The last marine took a minute to set the wormhole generator on auto-shutoff, and stepped through the portal.
He surveyed the land, and beheld a lush, uncharted rainforest. | As the rushing of the cosmos coalesced into a solid state once more, the private took the inertia based rushing step all marines brought with them in their Rambo-esque running leap into the void gate. The macabre Rube Goldberg machine built in front of him was unavoidable. His first step tripped by mummified ankle of his commanding officer, sending him headfirst through the skeletal archway built from the seargeant and corporal. He recovered his roll only to develop an uncontrollable downhill run through the spring bound arms of those that came before him slapping him as he rushed by spinning their remains into a salute. As he tried, poorly, to avoid the apparent trap he counted his comrades, 8, 9, 10. He finally stopped. The ground had levelled out and he'd gained control of his momentum but collapsed onto his back to catch his breath from the sudden exhaustion and terror. " but where... Hu... Is...hu ..... Marcus?" Looking up he saw a shape move in the trees. Vines snapped and the body of Marcus in his suit fell from the trees making a puppet like effigy with "boo , Dumbass" scrawled in blood across his armor. Best 1100 year prank they could ever hope for! | 2014-09-02T10:07:22 | 2014-09-02T10:02:42 | 342 | 39 |
[WP] Faster than light communication becomes possible, and humanity establishes contact with a hostile alien species that immediately declares war; however, neither we nor they have access to faster than light travel, so the only means of combat is through insults and rap battles.
[removed] | We have finally won the war between worlds. It took 20 years to break them. We realized we would never win if we kept communicating threats 5 years in. Our strategy changed to one for peace and changing the way they thought. For 15 years we sent the same message, day and night. Today the Alien race responded with words of surrender to our chant...
We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up.
Never gonna let you down.
Never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry.
Never gonna say goodbye.
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you. | Dear Earthlings,
Regarding your last missive, we have neither the anatomical capability nor inclination to do as you suggest. However you may rest assured the sentiment is mutual and that once we arrive we shall return the compliment with vigor.
After downloading your genetic code we successfully created our first specimens of your race. They smell terrible but shall make wonderfully amusing hood ornaments for the tedious trip to your world. Are humans usually mounted bulbous end up or down?
Pip pip and cheerio,
Your neighbors from Proxima Centauri | 2015-11-24T00:30:59 | 2015-11-23T23:25:48 | 167 | 44 |
[WP] Everyone gets a clock at birth with the countdown untill their deaths, one man's clock only says ERROR | I've seen them all. Individuals, families, generations. They come and go. I've lost so many loved ones that I can no longer love. They say the heart grows cold with age. Well, they say many things.
"Once you're thirty, you're a real man."
"Once you're fifty, you are where you always wanted to be."
"Once you're eighty, you've seen it all."
I guess I *have* seen it all. Took me a little longer, though. Two thousand one hundred and forty-two years, precisely. Enough to see civilizations rise and fall. Enough to see humanity in all its miserable glory. Enough to recognize the patterns. It's like they don't learn anything, they keep repeating the same mistakes, striving for the same goals and being the same hypocrites they always were.
They? Or we? Am I human after all? I've exploited human weaknesses for decades, I've not abided to laws for centuries, I've played games with them for millenia. But does that really make me any less human than them? Do I not make mistakes?
My head secretary enters the room and bows deeply. "Sir? The rebels are coming. They've already penetrated the first defense wall." I nod. Now is not the time to get carried away. Now is the time to take action. Once again. | They say it's comforting to know... you know... when. Everyone else knows. My wife knows. She's going in a few days. She checked her clock, and sure enough. We said our goodbyes and made our peace. She leaves today at noon. I'll miss her, but I suppose it's better this way. She knows she's going. I never will.
The clocks are forged when we're born, but we don't get them till we are 18. Then, we know how much longer till we die. Except, it didn't work. My clock came and only said error. I could die at any time and not know. I'm constantly afraid. I spend the morning staring at my clock, watching the word error flash across its screen. I wonder when my time will run out.
Then, the phone call. It's my wife's work. I know what happened and I can't bring myself to answer. I don't have the strength. Despite our claims we were ready for this, I wasn't. It wasn't her time. It was her time. | 2014-09-30T07:08:06 | 2014-09-30T06:50:11 | 88 | 50 |
[WP] Humans are endurance hunters. Which is not a trait anyone would expect to come into play in an interplanetary war. | The invasion has failed.
It has been four planetary rotations since the elite Xhloran Expeditionary force made landfall on the planet earth. In that time we've seen our ranks shrink in number from 3,000 strong, noble Xhloran warriors to just a few dozen. The survivors are shell-shocked husks of their former selves, hollow eyed zombies barely able to walk. Every few minutes we hear more screams from the darkness and know another has fallen. I fear there will soon be none of us left to continue sending reports. I just keep asking myself, how could this have happened? How were we so wrong?
The invasion started off just as we expected. Our technology far outclassed anything the humans had at their disposal. Our anti-inorganic matter weapons worked exactly as planned and decimated the armies of mankind. With the wave a finger, guns, missiles, tanks, fighter jets, and even clothing disintegrated down to the molecular level, leaving our adversaries completely unarmed, naked, and helpless.
Or so we thought.
All of our intelligence had told us that the human race was weak, soft, and squishy; that their weaponry was their only advantage and without it, they would realize the futility of continued belligerence and would submit to our authority.
But that is not at all what happened.
They fell back, temporarily. But they regrouped. They organized. And then they came after us. They came in hordes. They came carrying wooden sticks and animal bones. They came babbling in their barbaric guttural tongues, grunting and screaming and growling like beasts.
At first we laughed at them like impetuous children, and we simply moved away from them.
But they kept coming. Always behind us, hounding our every step. Laughing and screaming, hurling their sticks. There all through the day, and filling the night with the hellish orange glow of their torches. These were definitely not the cowardly, servile beings our intelligence had assured us we'd be facing.
After the second planetary rotation, our batteries began to fail. Normally, a quick power down would allow for a full recharge, but with the horde of humans in pursuit, this wasn't possible. One by one we were forced to abandon our vehicles, weapons, and power suits.
A half rotation later the casualties began.
Without their recharge periods, the Xhloran elite simply could not keep going. Stragglers began to fall behind. And the humans just kept coming--not fast, at a steady regular pace, but fast enough.
When the crazed naked mob reached a straggler, they swarmed him, mercilessly beating him to death with their sticks, bones, and barehands, their screams of ecstasy drowning out the cries of the dying.
Now those sounds no longer seem strange and terrifying. I've heard those howls in the night so many times, they have become normal. I can't think about it. There's nothing I can do about it. My life has become a nightmare. I don't know if I'm awake or asleep. Put one foot in front of the other. Keep moving. It's all I have left. The human hyenas nip at my heels and laugh with each other at my misery.
All around me, the pride of Xhlora are giving up, collapsing to the ground from exhaustion and surrendering themselves to certain death in the most savage of ways.
Nothing to do now but try to extend my life a bit longer, and to do that I must walk. So I walk. I'll keep walking, and then I'll die too.
To any Xhlorans reading this I have only one thing to say:
DON'T COME TO EARTH.
/r/DariusPilgrim | Humanity - Interplanetary Military Report
\*** MAXIMUM SECURITY ***
Summary Report
The human attack on the Galfid race has proven they are a formidable foe, despite their weak bodies. A more detailed breakdown of their strike, and subsequent victory, can be found later in this report. However, for those with time constraints, I have created the following summary.
They began their attack at the height of Nephise cycle. A total of 35 Destroyer Class ships, accompanied by 12 Battlement Class, and 1 Citadel Class ships arrived in the Jipir-3 system. Estimated schematics of each ship can be found further in, along with rough crew numbers, weapons and defensive systems.
They were met with the core of the Galfid fleet, consisting of 64 Destroyer Class, 26 Battlement Class, and the Jewel of Galfid, one of the 3 functional Dreadnought Class ships in this quarter of the galaxy. Humanity were outnumbered and outclassed. But surprisingly, they chose not to give up in the face of near certain death.
It was clear from the start that whilst new to space warfare, the humans had done their research. It appears they have modified their weaponry, to increase their range dramatically. At the beginning of the fight, they fired the first volley, damaging many of the Galfid ships before they could return fire.
Interestingly, 6 of the Humans Destroyer ships stayed out of the fight. It quickly became apparent as to why. As they continued to pepper the Galfid Navy, slowly drawing back to keep oit of range, a few if the more damaged Galfid Destroyers broke off, unable to withstand the onslaught. As they left, the Humans 6 Destroyers persued them, hammering them whilst they retreated.
They kept a slow, steady pace, keeping a safe distance whilst relentlessly pursuing. As the Galfid line crumbled, the Humans fire didn't slow or stop. Rather, they kept on fighting, switching targets efficiently as soon as their current one was lost.
The battle took place over several planet rotations. It is worth noting that during this time, the Humans never lost the amount of damage output. Despite the battle continuing on for 3 of their Earth days, they never showed signs of exhaustion, even within their comms.
Due to the relentless damage, the Galfid fleet soon had to fall back, more then 3 quarters of their fleet lost. In this time, Humanity lost 3 ships, 2 belonging to their pursuit squadron. But despite the falling back of the Galfid fleet, Humanity continued to attack, pushing forward this time.
But when it came to the planet of Galfa, they truly came into their own. They landed several smaller units, rather than a major army. These units, much like the ships above, hounded Galfid forces, staying just out of range, but attacking without slowing down. They would cause defensive units to break and fall back, whilst keeping up a steady advancement.
Reports from the ground suggest the inevitable advance, slow as it was, quickly took a mental toll on the Galfid ground forces. Several units collapsed from lack of sleep and lack of decompression time. Meanwhile, humans took very little time to sleep and recharge, staying awake for several Galfa orbits to destroy the Galfid resolve.
It was a relatively short war, but the tactics used by Humanity prove they are indeed worthy of fear.
For our people.
Intelligence General Kaligrafi | 2021-01-11T16:28:43 | 2021-01-11T12:28:19 | 221 | 153 |
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