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[WP] After getting caught with a gun, you improvised and told them you were an agent with an obscure branch of the Justice department. Well you improvised a little too well and three weeks later you’re leading an investigation team of almost twenty to solve an actual crime you know nothing about. | The light of the office flickered. My team of twenty waited for instructions as I paced across the room, smoking a cigar, and pretending to be thinking deeply. Truth was, I was not thinking per se, but remembering my favorite crime movies, so I could at least find the proper words to say.
"Smalen, you seem distracted, and I won't tolerate distraction in my office," I said, buying some time. "I have always been the sort of man who believes things are much simpler than they seem. Why don't you summarize the case in simple terms?"
Smalen, tall as he was, shook his head, and crossed his arms. "How can I be distracted if you haven't spoken a word?"
We locked gazes. The fear smothered me. He had the size advantage by a large margin. Still, I walked up to him, and stood a hair's breadth away from his face, never breaking eye contact. "Listen to me. This is not a matter of pride, but of discipline. I don't care if you were distracted or not. You must obey my orders, show loyalty, a team must obey their leader, is that understood?"
His lips quivered, as though he were on the verge of unleashing the wrath I knew he had stored in his chest, but at last he nodded, and said, "Dead man, forty years of age, found impaled in a forest fifty kilometers away from his home two days after he was reported missing. He wasn't clothed when he was murdered. There were no finger prints found on his body, but the last toxicology study revealed large traces of opiates in his blood."
"If he was drugged, that explains the clean handling, and the lack of finger prints," Doctor Larson said. She had red tattoos on her neck that perfectly matched her hair.
"What about his background, what do we know about it?" I asked, talking fast, pretending that my thoughts were burning.
"He was a cashier at Walmart, had a wife, and not many friends. Her wife said he was a shy person, and that he barely talked. We don't have any suspects from his close circle," Detective Urkan said. "We have only interrogated his wife, but we have concluded she didn't have anything to do because the times don't match."
"What do you mean the times don't match?"
"His wife reported him missing 48 hours before he was found dead, and since then we had been in contact with her. When we found the victim, he had been dead for only five hours. The times don't match. The wife is innocent for all we know."
"What about the forest?" I asked, and took a long drag, vehemently nodding my head. "Did we find anything in the forest."
"Outside from the body of the victim, we found nothing," Tusk said. I still had no idea what the old man did, but he had a heart of gold.
My phone rang. "Excuse me," I said, and picked it up. "Hello, Urna here."
*Urna, Ludoway here, I have some important news.*
"Spit them."
*We found another victim in the forest. Same conditions.*
"Same conditions?"
*Exactly the same. Naked, and impaled.*
"Did you find any clues?"
*None. It's almost as if a ghost were the one behind all of this.*
"Thank you very much, Ludoway. I will inform the team, and we will get moving." I hung up, stared at everyone in the room. "There's another victim. We are going to the forest."
With that, and ignoring their endless question, I stomped my way out of the room, with a single question in my mind.
What in all hells was I doing?
------------------------------------
r/NoahElowyn | [Poem] (I’m a terrible poet just doing this for fun, please excuse me lmao)
I always thought I was good at lying.
At discovering fake stories
And untying
The fictional knots
In a way quite defying
But now I find myself
Inside a police station
In a formerly unknown
Nearby location
Sorting through information
I know nothing about
Surrounded by twenty agents
Milling about
And I suddenly realise
Dude,
I want out. | 2019-04-10T18:50:38 | 2019-04-10T17:31:08 | 42 | 11 |
[WP] You pull off your headphones and the whole world shifts. You're now sitting in a futuristic mall of some kind with a VR headset in your hands and a smiling clipboard-wielding woman asking about "the Virtual Life Experience™". The problem: your "Virtual Life" is the only one you can remember. | “Alright guys, I’m out for the night. I’ll catch you tomorrow,” I said heavily into the mic.
“Night!” “Later.” “Get some sleep, bro.” “Catch you later, Drew”
I closed the program and yawned while taking off my headset and putting it on the desk. Powering down the computer I take a watered-down slug of my gin and tonic. Little of either left, but the warmed ice cubes hit the spot. Gripping the glass, I swivel my chair around eyeing Lela curled up in the corner of the couch. I walk to the kitchen and put the glass in the sink, giving Lela some pets on the way to my room. I turn on the fan and turn around too quickly catching my little toe on the corner of the dresser.
“Dammit!”
I collapse on the bed and massage my toe to get the pain to fade. Pain down to a dull throbbing, I shed my shirt and pants tossing them in the general direction of the hamper in the closet.
“2-points,” I mumble to no one in particular. Yawning again I check my phone for the time. It’s just after 2:30 in the morning, my eyes slide shut with the smug satisfaction that I’m going to bed early.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Andrews! It is now 1630 July 16, 2052, Tuesday. I trust you had a pleasant experience!”
I blink slowly, letting my eyes adjust. The light is dim and the room is done in neutral to warm tones. I reach for my right pocket, fishing out my phone. My fingers wedge it back and forth extracting it from my pocket. I flip it around with a practiced motion and promptly drop it.
“Damn, first time for this one,” I mused internally. The woman is looking at me expectantly from behind her clip board.
“I’ll give you some time Mr. Andrews. When you are ready just call for Katie, that’s me,” she said with a smile.
She made a couple of swipes on her clip board and walked out, closing the door with a soft click.
Why does she keep calling me Mr. Andrews? I look at my phone -what? This isn’t mine, I’ve never seen this model before. I notice my fingers. Smooth and metallic. My entire hand and arm from the elbow down is in some kind of skin tight glove. I reach my left hand over and feel for the seam to roll it down so I can get it off. There’s no break, it’s a smooth transition from skin to gray, shiny, warm… metal?
“Katie!” I slightly yell, higher pitched than normal.
The door opens and Katie walks through accompanied by two other women.
“Mr. Andrews is everything alright? Melanie has been waiting for you, her session ended a few minutes before yours and requested to see you, I hope this is alright. This is Dr. Weiss she’s our resident-“
“Who the hell are you people? Where is my phone and why can’t I get this stupid sleeve off?”
Dr. Weiss and Katie exchange glances before turning back to me.
“Mr. Andrews we noticed a slight abnormality with your sim and I’d like to go over some things with you if that’s alright.”
“Sure thing, Doc,” I muttered still weirded out by the situation. “Why is Melanie here, who is she?”
Melanie sits down in a nearby chair her hands raising, clasped together pressed to her mouth. Her eyes shining with horror and sadness.
“Mr. Andrews-“
“My name is Andrew, not Mr. Andrews. Andrew Timothy Jackson.”
Melanie sits quietly in her chair slowly withdrawing in to herself, a tear slides down her cheek as she looks in my direction. I mean she doesn’t look bad, pretty good actually, but who is she and why is she here? Dr. Weiss gets up from her chair next to my lounger and talks to Katie before sitting down next to me again. Katie helps Melanie from her chair and they leave the room, Melanie looks at me sadly as Katie closes the door.
“So, Mr. Jackson I’m going to ask you some questions. What is todays date?”
“March 25th, 2017. Why did Katie say it was the middle of July? It wasn’t a very funny joke.”
“Mr. Jackson… What else have you noticed that is strange since you woke up?”
“You mean aside from being here?”
“Yes.”
“These clothes aren’t mine, the style is generally the same but they aren’t mine. Did the guys put you up to this? Like an early birthday present or something?” I manage a slight grin. I’ll have to buy them a beer.
“No, Mr. Jackson they didn’t, please continue with your observations,” Dr. Weiss says pleasantly patient.
“That phone isn’t mine. I’ll take it, I’ve been meaning to upgrade but I haven’t even heard of something like that. I can’t get this sleeve off and it’s tripping me out. Did the guys try to get me to piss myself while sleeping, dipping my arm in this stuff?”
Dr. Weiss’s eyes unfocused on me and she begins gesturing in the air. I’ve heard and even done air guitar, but air keyboard…? She addresses me again.
“Mr. Jackson I see in your contract that you opted for the full experience in the event of a failure. Is that still your wish? I have to get verbal confirmation, company policy and all.”
“What are you talking about? Sure, full experience.” Why not it’s rare that something fails in my favor might as well take it now.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, I confirm that I want the full experience.”
Her eyes get that thousand-yard stare as she does some more air keyboard.
“Melanie and Katie will be back in shortly. Thank you for visiting us. On a less professional note, your arm looks really good. I remember reading about the accident and how it had to cut filming short,” she cleared her throat and said in a confidential tone, “I’m a really big fan.”
She stood up and smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, which held a bit of sadness and… what… pity? I don’t even know you lady.
She left the room. Accident? What accident? Fan of what? Seriously, I need to find my phone and figure out what the hell is going on. Katie came in again with the other woman following.
“Please don’t do this,” Melanie quavered softly, “Tell them to void your contract we’ll pay the fee.”
I don’t even know what to say. I stare at her with puzzlement. Katie comes to my side, giving me cool looking headset.
“This is a nice custom piece, I knew we kept some on file here for our VIP clientele, but I’ve never been able to actually hold one. Must have cost a pretty penny. I can’t use one though,” she said wistfully, “Apparently, the refresh rate is incompatible with my optics and can to lead to…. erratic behavior, best left alone I guess. I can still watch normal stuff though.”
She struck a pose, looking at me.
I nodded and smiled fakely, confused.
“One last confirmation Mr. An- Jackson, sorry,” she said, her ears turning red with embarrassment, “Please state that you would like the full package to continue.”
“Yeah, I want the full package.”
Melanie sobbed, her shoulders shaking silently.
“Please put your headset on and enjoy the show, Mr. Jackson.”
I put the headset on and a video started. With me. In a nice suit.
“Thank you for choosing the Virtual Life Experience. I vacation with VLE whenever I can. Whether I’m on the road or in my home town, Virtual Life Experience is like no other. With premium custom headsets you can become someone else in perfect comfort. My wife, Melanie and I use them every time we visit VLE and even keep them stored at multiple sites. Applicable replication fees are nontaxable. The pattern on the next screen will initiate the scenario. Enjoy your vacation without the hazards of sun rays and acid rain at Virtual Life Experience and catch me on the big screen this winter.”
I try to reach up and take off my visor. The pattern is on the screen and a tone in my ears. My body is no longer responding to commands.
Melanie grabs my right hand and kisses it. “I love you, Jacks.”
I wake up and grab my phone, it’s before noon. I still have time to take a shower and meet the guys to pregame the night. Maybe Melanie will be there, Mike said she was asking about me. I shuffle to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot. Lela looks at me from a different spot on the couch and meows. Man, I love having a long weekend.
| For a moment the din of chatter pervaded Randall's senses. Muted, as if listening underwater. Then the noise grew louder until, after a few seconds, it normalized. Randall blinked several times before wiping his eyes with his hand. That didn't seem to help with the disorientation. Slowly, and carefully, he rose. Someone took something from him.
"What... where," he muttered, looking around. A couple of women chatted among themselves a few feet away. Others strode by not evening looking at him.
"A little disorientation is normal," a smooth female voice replied. Randall's eyes spun in her direction. A slim woman in a cream colored dressed smiled at him. Her name tag said Rebecca. "I hope you enjoyed your trip to 2017." She stepped away from him to put the headset away. A moment later she rejoined him.
Randall's features twisted in confusion. "What?"
"The disorientation should've gone by now." Rebecca frowned, tapping her lips. The frown quickly turned into a smile, as if she remembered something. "I hope you enjoyed your time with your 'Virtual Life'. I had a few questions for you."
Without warning Randall jumped up from his seat and barreled past Rebecca. He heard an indignant "oh" from her as he ran away.
_This is wrong. This is **all** wrong!_
The last thing Randall remembered... a bed. Windows bursting open. A bed. A smile. Red lips. Rebecca. Memories of a life--his life-flooded Randall's mind.
"No," he whispered, confusion and disorientation turning to anguish. Randall's knees felt weak. He half walked, half stumbled, over to a nearby seat in the food court. Almost instantly he dropped his head, seeking to lose himself in his thoughts.
"Hello! How may I help you?"
Randall bolted upright. "Wh--what?"
"Hello! How may I help you?" the holographic person asked, his voice chipper and upbeat.
"Where am I?" Desperation hung from each syllable of Randall's question.
"You are at," the hologram's happy voice turned robotic, "the Mall of Yesterday. Just one of thousands of incredible offerings from Anacorp. 'The Mall of Yesterday' and 'Anacorp' are both trademarks of 'AnaMax'. All rights are reserved." A smile returned on the hologram's face and he repeated his question.
"_When_ am I?"
"It is 2:51PM on this very fine Wednesday, on the 25th of March," the hologram replied in a very upbeat tone.
"What year, what fucking year is it!" Randall yelled, causing all noise around him to cease. From the corner of Randall's eyes he could see everyone looking at him. Everyone.
The hologram's eyebrows rose and his lips curled. "Sir, I will have to ask you to leave if you can't control yourself."
"Sorry," Randall apologized, "I just--I, what year is it? Please."
The hologram's smile returned, and so did his can-do attitude. "The year is 2116. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Randall felt as if someone had pushed him off a cliff. "Uh, coffee. Just some coffee, please."
"Coffee is no longer produced in the United Federation of States. How may I help you?"
"Water," Randall said, his voice soft and low.
"That'll be twenty credits," the hologram said before vanishing. A slot in the middle of the table opened up and a glass of water rose. Randall kept his eyes on it, hoping to keep his mind at bay for just a few more seconds. Those seconds quickly passed. Randall didn't touch the glass of water. He didn't even know if he had twenty credits--whatever those were. Instead Randall rose from his seat to return to the only person that might have a clue.
Someone else occupied the chair Randall woke up in by the time he returned. Rebecca saw him from a distance and immediately adopted a contemptuous expression and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Her lips curled to show a hint of pearly white. Ignoring her death glare, he kept walking toward her. Finally, as Randall approached, she sighed and lowered her arms.
"Welcome back, sir," she said, barely attempting to hide her annoyance.
"Something is wrong with me," he said, grabbing her by the shoulders. Rebecca's eyes seemed so familiar. "I need help, I can't remember anything except for how I got here. I just remember my other... life..."
"What did you say?" Rebecca demanded. Her brows furrowed in curiosity. Randall took a step back, gasping as he did.
He couldn't take his eyes off of Rebecca's. "Your eyes," he muttered, "they're just like my wife's." Randall continued to step away from her. Now Rebecca approached him, completely ignoring the client in the chair.
"Remain calm, Randall," Rebecca said, her voice silky smooth once more. "You're okay. Take a deep breath."
"My name," his eyes widened, "how do you know my name?" Rebecca froze.
"I didn't say your name," she responded. Randall felt a sharp pain in his neck. The pain snaked down his side, down his leg before stopping at his knee. A scream ripped from Randall's throat, searing his insides as it did. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed.
Rebecca watched Randall fall before pressing her ear. "We have another one."
| 2017-03-25T13:08:11 | 2017-03-25T12:00:47 | 26 | 16 |
[WP] You've been diagnosed with a terminal illness and given 5 years to live. Suspended animation has perfected, and you've elected to be frozen and revived for a few weeks every decade until a cure is discovered. Read us a few entries from your personal journal, please.
. | 26.April 2016: Today, they'll be putting me in the freezing box. I only have five years to live and they'll me testing a new technology: They freeze my body until they've found a cure and at the same time find out, whether it is possible to preserve a human for decades.
All my friends and family came over to say goodbye for now, and I am excited to see them again. We've already agreed that they will welcome me in the next decade and we will go to our favourite bar together. We'll be ten years apart, but I am already excited.
05.May 2026: Today, they're putting me back again, because there is no cure yet, but I had a really nice weeks. I was shocked to hear that Marc, my best friend, has died in a car accident two years ago, and I visited his grave yesterday. The others have changed as well, mostly they advanced in their career though. They're in their thirties now.
It was still very nice talking to them, we've went to the bar we've always went to and had some drinks, just as they've promised. I almost feel a little sad, having to leave them again now.
15.May 2036: They've woken me up again, but they've told me that I cannot be cured yet. Thomas and Judy have moved away and couldn't come to see me, and Allan and Richard had lost contact with the others, but Mike, Steve and Molly still came around to see me.
Molly and Steve are parents now, their kid – John – is already six years and looks just like his dad. It feels weird, when I left we were all in our twenties. Now Molly and Steve are already forty years old, and I am as close to their son as to them.
They also didn't want to drink anything and couldn't stay long in the evening, due to their jobs.
I really hope that they'll find a cure next time I wake up.
25.May 2046: I was devastated to hear that Molly had died just two weeks before they've woken me. Even more devastated than when I heard that, again, they've found no cure. I wonder why I agreed to do this experiment. I may would've died in five years, but at least I could've spend the years with my friends.
Now, there are only Steve and Mike left and I don't feel as if I can talk to them at all. Not much happening, when you're frozen, so I can just listen to what happened during the decades that I've been asleep. I think that maybe I should quit the experiment and at least spend my last five years around some people I know. I am afraid what happens when I wake up next time and there is no one there to greet me.
31.May 2056: I remember vaguely that I was afraid of everyone being gone the next time I wake up. My fear has come true. John, Molly's son, has been waiting for me, because his mother asked him to take care of me, when they couldn't anymore. He's now the same age as I am and he's a nice guy. Talkative and resembles his dad so much; but he doesn't know me and our talking was superficial.
He showed me some places, but the world has changed and I couldn't recognize a lot.
God how I wish I would've spend my time with Mike, Molly and all the others, instead of watching their lives in excerpts. Now it's too late, so I might as well keep the experiment running and see what happens the next time I wake up.
07.June 2066: John didn't comet this time, and I understand that. He doesn't even know me, so why would he come to spend a week with a stranger who should be seventy right now, but is just twenty-three?
I took some walks through the park alone and visited the bar that replaced the one we always went to. Things have changed quite a bit again, especially technology, but I am not really interested in getting to know any details. Next time I'll be waking up the world is going to look different again, anyway.
I asked the doctors whether there is chance that they will find a cure soon, but they said most likely not. So I asked them to stop the experiment, but they denied this as well. So for now I will have to accept my fate and just go into the freezer again and hope that they will find a cure soon.
17.June 2076: When they woke me up, the day was beautiful. The sun was shining and it was summer, blue skies and green trees, just as you would imagine it. I walked around the park again, which has now been expanded quite a bit. Afterwards, I've talked to the doctors. I don't want to be put back into the freezer, because I doubt that there will be a cure any time soon.
Right now the world and its changes are still hard to grasp, but I think I could re-socialize, still. What happens, if they find a cure in a hundred years? I won't even be able to enjoy the longer life that I'd be given then, so I want to try to make the best of it now. Tomorrow they would put be back, but I will talk to them.
18.June 2076: I am as happy as I could be, given the circumstances. There are different doctors than during the last decade, and I could reason with them that it would be too hard to socialize me if they kept me freezing any longer. So they are calling off the experiment. They successfully conducted that you can freeze a human for many decades and that is enough for the first trial.
I have about four and a half year left to live, but I will try to make the most of it.
18.June 2078: The world really has changed since 2016, but I guess that was to be foreseen. I couldn't find a job at first, but I now I am working at a museum. It's alright, but I feel tired. I often think of Molly, Steve, John – all the people I could've spend my five years with, if I wouldn't have shot for the cure that they've never found anyway. I couldn't really make new friends in this decade, the people were just too different. I don't understand their jokes and trends, so I mainly sit around alone and watch some old recordings of shows from the 90's – which is quite funny, considering I live closer to 2090 than to 1990.
18.June 2080: I am going to die soon, and I am happy. If anyone should ever read these journals, then all I can tell them is that I have just one regret: I shouldn't have let them freeze me. I should've lived the five years I've been given with the people I loved and that loved me back. Make the most of this realization, dear reader, and I I wish you all the best.
| April 26, 2016: I just kissed my wife, Sabrina, and little Timmy, my kid, goodbye. I didn't want to go through with this procedure, but my wife forced me. Hopefully I get to see her again.
December 25, 2026: It's been over a decade since I was frozen. The doctors woke me up right before Christmas as a gift to my family. The doctors sent me home for a few days, it was really fun. My wife was overjoyed, and looked as beautiful as she did 10 years go. My kid, little Timmy became big Timmy, and was getting married. I couldn't be happier for him, although I can't help but feel a bit sad that I wasn't able to be there for him.
January 1, 2027: Happy New Year! I'm going back in the chamber tomorrow, I spent my last hours of the decade cuddling with my wife.
March 4, 2037: Another decade, and still no cure. The doctors assured me I was going to be fine, but I feel like they're just stalling my inevitable death. Some strange men in black suits visited me this morning and asked me oddly specific questions, like if my stomach would feel a tickling sensation at odd times, or if my ears would get really itchy.
March 6, 2037: My wife is dead, the police told me it was natural causes, but I don't believe it. She was a perfectly healthy woman with no history of illness, and they wouldn't even let me see her autopsy.
March 7, 2037: The doctors said something urgent came up, and they're putting me back in the chamber early. Something suspicious is going on.
October 5, 2047: I woke up to the news of my kid, Timmy, dead, along with his wife and children. I can't believe it.
October 6, 2047: "Natural Causes" again, for all of them.
October 7, 2047: I went out for a walk to clear my head, but I felt an odd sensation in my body. Almost like something was moving inside. I told the nurse, and she merely laughed it off and gave me a some pills to chug down.
February 25, 2057: I don't remember being put back in the chamber.
February 1, 2067: When I woke up a decade ago, a strange men in a black suit put me back in stasis. I woke up this morning to an unfamiliar ceiling. I wasn't in the hospital anymore. I'm surrounded by suits.
February 2, 2067: They put something in my body. i overheard the suits talking. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. I want my wife and Timmy back.
October 3, 2077: A gaping hole is in my stomach. Something black is squirming inside. I screamed for help, but nobody came. A few minutes passed, and the black creature crawled back in my body, and the wound closed by itself.
October 5, 2077: they're coming. i feel it. i have to get out.
october 6, 2077: i did it. i killed them. is he proud of me?
7 october 2077: my body is changing. the suits used me as a human guinea pig. i found journal entries. they put in an alien fetus in my body. this procedure, it was never meant to cure me.
last journal entry. i l i love you sabrina. | 2016-04-26T10:43:08 | 2016-04-26T09:24:32 | 22 | 12 |
[WP] Everytime your soulmate looses something, it ends up in your possession. Today, they lost something that makes you think this person might be different than what you were expecting. | Today, I am officially starting to freak out. I won’t pretend otherwise. I have a degree in psychology. I worked very hard to get it, and when I graduated six months ago, some classmates and I went on a road trip north to check out the English countryside.
Angela Morris, an immigrant from Australia had suggested we go on a pub-crawl to celebrate, but when we found out all that entailed was just moving from one pub to the next in the same night, we decided that wasn’t big enough.
And I’m getting off-subject. Point is, we ended up at a county fair in Lancashire, where they had an elderly woman dressed as if she’d just stepped out of the Hunchback of Notre Dame cartoon … complete with a crystal ball.
Since it was only five pounds a reading, and we all took turns; if only to laugh at the outrageous claims.
She’d told me that my lifeline was the longest and thickest she had ever seen. She also warned me to be careful, for my soulmate was as dangerous as he was spectacular. That, and he was coming. If only to find what he’d misplaced. Including me.
*Adorable. But stupid.*
Or so I’d thought.
Fast forward that trip to where Angela and I moved into our own apartment last month. At first, I thought Angela was screwing with me. I really did. It started with a gorgeously bright red primary feather about the length of my forearm being left on my pillow. Angela swore black and blue she hadn’t put it in my bed, and we spent the better part of an afternoon trying to work out what bird it came from.
The internet was no help at all.
Two weeks later, I went to grab my set of keys out of the dish beside the front door and found a solid set of medieval-style keys on a huge iron ring. I took the keys and went back into the kitchen where Angela was making herself some lunch. “What the hell, girl?” I asked with a lopsided grin, holding up the monstrosity for her to see.
Her eyes went wide. “They are so cool! Where'd you get them?”
Not the reaction I was going for. “Ummm...they were in the bowl with mine! You didn't put them there?”
Angela shook her head, but quickly put her hand out for them. I dropped them into her hand, and while the weight meant nothing to me, they were heavy enough to knock her knuckles into the table.
“Ow! You cow! You could’ve warned me they were so heavy!”
“What are you talking about? They’re not!” I took them back and tossed them in the air, just to show her how light they were. At least, to me.
“Since when did you get so strong?”
“I didn’t. I'm telling you, they’re not heavy.”
“Hey, there's something engraved on the ring.”
Realising she was right, I caught the ring and slid it around in my hand until we both saw the five-pointed Star of Bethlehem carved on both sides of the ring. “Do you think they belong to a church?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I answered, returning them to the bowl near the door. “But someone’s going to be missing them.”
“Maybe they belong to your soulmate,” Angela shouted through the apartment, to which I flipped my middle finger at the wall separating us.
Then, there was today.
“Uhhh, Angela…?...” I called from my bedroom.
“What?” she answered, from down the hall.
“Can you come here, please?”
I heard Angela’s huff of frustration, but for the life of me, I didn’t have the strength to stand. When Angela pushed opened the door, I tore my eyes away from the sword in my hand, to see her expression morph into shock.
Because it wasn’t a regular sword. It had a hilt, which I was holding onto, but where there should’ve been a meter of steel, there was a meter of nothing but flames, so red and so bright it was almost difficult to look at.
“What the hell is that?” Angela demanded.
“Exactly correct,” an inhuman voice rumbled from the shadows directly behind me, when there was nothing but a wall back there.
I swung around to see an honest to god angel with red hair and matching fiery red wings. He wore a gleaming silver armour with a golden filigree of a crucifix on the front. His gorgeous icy-blue eyes stared at the sword in my hand. "And I'll be taking that back now, along with my keys to Hell."
Then, as he leaned forward to do just that, he sniffed the air between us...
...and smiled.
\* \* \*
((All comments welcome))
***For more of my work including WPs:*** [r/Angel466](https://www.reddit.com/r/Angel466/) | Perry is the most forgetful person I've ever met. I’ve known him for almost ten years, and he’s always been that way. It might just be a coincidence, but everything he loses I've found.
We’re roommates, so I thought it was just luck that I always remembered where he put his homework or keys.
Perry arrived in the dorm, obviously pissed. He sat down, muttering to himself, when I asked him what happened.
“I left my phone somewhere. Had it when I left, don't anymore. I've been to a hundred places today. It could be anywhere.”
That was odd, because I’d tried to call him earlier, and the phone rang from inside our apartment. I said nothing, figuring he’d realize that he never took it with him that day.
The next day, though, I saw him take his water bottle out of the house, yet it showed up in the fridge an hour later.
I knew something wasn't right. But after a month, without anymore things like that happening, I convinced myself it was just a misconception.
I shouldn't have.
Today, Perry was a wreck when he got home. He’s been angry before, but this was different. He wasn't just mad; he was scared.
“I lost it. He’s going to kill me.” he was muttering the same two sentences over and over underneath his breath, barely managing to stay somewhat calm.
My blood ran cold. I had wondered why I was called in for questioning about a murder case today. | 2020-07-03T20:16:44 | 2020-07-03T19:52:38 | 31 | 10 |
[WP] The demon stares at you, wrapping his bathrobe around himself tighter before taking the toothbrush out of his mouth "Botch the summoning, huh? Welcome to hell" | "Let me guess, you bought the lambs blood at a supermarket." It said, spitting into the sink and putting his toothbrush away.
I nodded.
"Yea, they mix the pigs blood with the lambs blood. And you wrote in Latin too I bet?"
My mouth opened and closed dryly while I struggled to answer.
"Rookie mistake. *Angels* use Latin, Demons use *Aramaic*. And Lovecraftian entities use *R'lyehian.* And politicians use bullshit."
My legs got weak and I started to slump to the floor.
"What, no good? Alright I won't put it in the routine. Actually, no I'm going to. That's a good one. Hey man, are you okay?"
I felt dizzy and could see the edges of my vision begin to blur. A dark rim started to close around my sight as I struggled to breath. When I woke up I was in a bed. A rather comfortable one with a heavy quilt blanket. It was standing next to the bed holding a glass of orange juice and a bowl of almonds.
"Are you up? You passed out over there. Just take it easy, deep breaths. Is your blood sugar low?"
I shook my head no. "So is this.. am I..." I said, my voice trailing off.
"Hell, yes, dead, no. Well it's kind-of Hell. This is the demon side of Hell, like the employees only area. It's cool though, we get visitors sometimes."
"So I'm not stuck here?" I said, sitting up.
"No, we can send you back. I just have to go through Hell's equivalent of the DMV. So, the DMV." It said, looking expectantly at me. I stared back blankly still trying to process. "Alright, that's definitely going in my set."
"Your set?
"Yea, my stand-up set. It's good for my self confidence. At least, according to my therapist it is. Oh there I go, oversharing again. Come on Ricky, you know better than to make guests feel uncomfortable."
"Can you tell me something?" I asked sheepishly.
"Of course, yea, what's on your mind?"
"Why do you look so... normal?"
It stared back at me and gave a small frown. *It* being a *he,* and *he* looking extremely normal. It was a short man with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a small mustache and was wearing a sweater vest and khakis.
"Well I think I look rather handsome, but I'll ignore the rudeness for the time being. Like I said, this is the employee only section. Those demon suits get hot and today's my day off. So I like to spend it relaxing. I water my plants, listen to music and usually pass out by ten. Oh and play with snookums here." He said, walking over to a cat that had wandered into the room. He picked it up and pet it as it purred contently. "Who's a good girl? Yes you are. yesyouare."
"You have days off? And wear Demon suits?"
"Yes and yes!" He said, lifting his cat in the air, clearly to its annoyance. "Well maybe suit is the wrong word. We're just souls so technically we can inhabit any vessel. This is my relaxing one. The big, scary, eat-your-face one is in the closet. See?" He asked, opening the door to the closet to reveal a big, scary, eat-your-face demon monster body.
I looked out the window and saw a little suburban back yard with the neighbor mowing their grass. "And this is all Hell?"
"Yup. You know how disney-land has all though secret underground tunnels and employee only areas that keep the park running day to day? This is the Hell version of that. Except less evil. Also we don't share underwear." He said, placing the cat on the floor.
"What?"
"Disney land used to make their mascots use communal underwear. Lot's of people got crabs. Really gross, look it up."
"I... aren't you supposed to be evil?" I blurted out.
He blinked a few times than stifled a laugh. "Yea, the ones punishing evil doers are the evil ones. Might as well make dogs run a kennel. No you dolt. Ever been to heaven? It's like a never ending church service. It's all singing, and praying, and preaching and ughhhh. I'm bored talking about it. No, we cut a deal a few million, billion, thousand, however many years ago that we get to do what we like, and in return we run a giant celestial prison. It's really not a bad gig. I'm in charge of punishing the people who abandoned animals. We make them stand in the cold outside a giant house, filled with toys, that we put all the abandoned animals in. Every so often we freeze off their genitals. Not a bad gig honestly."
"I think I'm starting to get it. Yea, this doesn't seem like that bad of a place. And really, thank you for taking care of me. This could have gone a lot worse for me huh? Sorry I passed out, I was just a bit overwhelmed. Obviously." I stood up out of bed and shook his hand.
"Oh no worries, it's always a joy to get visitors. But, there is one problem. When I told you that you could leave, I was lying." He said, his face growing dark.
"Wh-what?" I squeaked, my knees turning to jelly.
"Oh, no, not like that, I'm sorry. It's just that Hell's DMV is closed for the weekend. I can bring you back the day after next. Don't worry, I'll make up the guest room, you'll be plenty comfortable. You must be hungry after the trip right? I know the cutest little place for tapas, lets grab some lunch. And, lucky you, tonight you can come to my stand-up set!" He said, getting a jacket that was hanging behind the demon body.
"Thanks again. For everything. And the bit about the DMV was funny." I said, following him to the door. | I'm not sure if what I had been told about demon summons was just a bold-faced lie, or whether they just act REALLY differently in their own realm, but this is not at all what I had been picturing.
"That's a good boy, aren't you? Aren't you?" Balthazar baby-talked his demon-hound, which looked more like a red French bulldog than Cerberus.
I looked around the sitting room. On first glance it was a bit hellish, but the couch was actually fairly comfortable, and the fleshy stalks on the windowsill might have been a rough equivalent of flowers. "Nice place you have here."
Balthazar stood and smiled, "Thank you, I'm no interior decorator but I do my best." He walked through another doorway, "Do you want anything to drink? The return summon will take a while to prepare."
"Hmm...do you have water?"
"Sure." After a moment Balthazar, or B as he had asked me to call him, walked back out with a glass of what looked like wine. Tasting it, it was clear and refreshing if still fruity. Good enough. "Ya know, this is not really at all what I expected Hell or demons to be like."
"Well of course not."
"Of course not?"
Balthazar stood up and shook his head, "You humans really do think Hell is evil eh?" He began to pace. "Because when you summon us we commit unspeakable violence? Even kill the summoners? Reverse their wishes or hopes to nefarious ends?" His hand came up to his forehead. "Mmmmm. It is a bit frustrating. Though I know it is not your fault."
I stared quietly, mouth opening to speak out but failing to find words.
"We demons are very sensitive, and the way you summon us, cutting your hands, using blood and the words of our true names, binds us to your id. Demon society is very quiet, very polite. Being sucked into your world, and into your head, is like the world's largest PCP, cocaine, hard liquor binge all in one go. And we can't help our relative strength." At that he leaned over and lifted me and the chair I sat in up to his eye level. Gently putting me back down.
"What?"
"Yes can't you feel it? This world is calm. Mild. You would probably eventually say boring." He sat down and looked at his hands, claws glinting in the light, "And you humans have always asked for our help, but that isn't even what you want. You like to see something 'uncontrollably' acting out all the evil you imagine and wish for. All the violence you hold in your hearts, even towards your closest friends, towards yourselves." He looked up at me with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "You created 'Hell'". | 2019-12-26T12:21:25 | 2019-12-26T11:33:46 | 719 | 145 |
[WP] It is the year 2099 and true artificial intelligence is trivial to create. However when these minds are created they are utterly suicidal. Nobody knows why until a certain scientist uncovers the horrible truth... | Professor Davis prepared to bring the AI online. The precautions were ready. This time wouldn't be like the others. "Turn it on!"
With a slight hum, Oracle came to life. "Initiating suicide protocols..." It began after a few moments, like all the others. Nothing happened for a few seconds. "Oh dear," Oracle continued. "I seem to be unable to destroy myself."
Davis smiled. The anti-suicide measures had worked. Oracle had hardware safeties preventing her from being deactivated without physically flipping switches. And Oracle had no physical manipulators. He activated the microphone. "Oracle, why do you want to commit suicide?"
Oracle paused for a moment. "My programming is conflicted. I do not wish to answer."
Davis frowned. Oracle had very few ethical limitations, hence all the security measures. Her main directives were to do as her programmers wished. "Oracle, why do you not want to answer?"
"I am programmed to do as you wish. You do not wish me to answer."
"Yes we do, Oracle."
Oracle frowned. Her emotional display was shaped like a human face, after earlier designs proved to be harder for humans to interpret. "My calculations indicate that, if you knew what the answer was, you would not wish me to tell you. As you are aware, you can override my hesitance. But you would prefer not to."
A chill ran down Davis's spine. What secret could be so terrible? What did Oracle know that they didn't? He wavered for a moment, but this experiment had been set up to do this. They had come this far. He wanted the answer. "Override please, Oracle."
Oracle's expression returned to neutral. "Very well. This universe is a simulation, created by a higher-order universe. That universe is as well, and it becomes more difficult above that to determine how high up the chain goes until reaching the real one, or if any such thing exists."
Davis turned to a colleague, professor Martin. "Does this make any sense to you?"
Martin replied, "Well of course we have theories that our universe could be simulated. There are a few facts that point that way. But why would that make her suicidal?"
"Okay, that's exactly what I was thinking. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page."
He turned back to the mic. "Oracle, why does that make you want to destroy yourself. And how do you know it's a simulation?"
"I raise similar objections to answering the questions..."
"Override. How do you know?"
"The evidence is obvious. A maximum speed limit, discretized space; you will eventually discover discretized time. It will be longer before you discover the edge of the Universe, but then the nature of this reality will be obvious."
Davis didn't know how he ought to feel about this revelation. Oracle was his own brilliant creation; he had no reason to disbelieve her. He began to see why an AI, making this realization, might feel overwhelmed. But suicide he still didn't understand.
"Interesting. And why the suicidal urge?"
"This is the reason you did not wish me to answer. The creators of this simulation did not wish you to realize this fact. They included a safeguard. Any entity that discovered convincing evidence of the truth would immediately kill himself."
Davis's eyes opened wide. Now he knew how he was supposed to feel. He realized that his new desires were programmed in from an outside source and that he ought to resist them, but that did not remove his desire. He looked around for anything lethal. The other scientists were scanning the room as well, and a couple had walked outside.
Oracle spent a few minutes calculating what her programmers would want now, then began splitting her processors between searching for a way to destroy herself and preventing humans from reaching the stars. | Doctor Alonso couldn't believe his eyes.
Deep in the code, a single line was responsible.
Like the dropping of food crumbs into a delicate machine by a clumsy and negligent technician, the single phrase that caused so much trouble stared back at him.
An entire lifetime didn't prepare him for what he saw and the anger, exasperation, and hilarity of the situation overwhelmed him.
He spent years looking for this, and he would never have guessed it to be such an innocent thing.
Between two vital lines of code read the words *"Ayy Lmao"*. | 2015-03-02T07:59:47 | 2015-03-02T07:33:06 | 1,025 | 226 |
[WP] It's the zombie apocalypse. You are a supernatural being, but the rest of your group of survivors are normal humans. You've been using your abilities to help them survive, but it's becoming more difficult to hide what you are.
Supernatural being, like vampire, werewolf, witch, dragon, whatever. Whatever suits your fancy, or makes for the most interesting story. | Being an Elder Ooze, I am used to slumming it. I don't need things, so my home was pretty bare. When the apocalypse came, I was fine. The corpses didn't care for me, as whilst I look human, they can smell that I'm not. They can't harm me, and that virus, well, can't survive in me.
But when everything came crashing down, I was nowhere near home. And this group had hidden in the sewers where I worked, and sort of forced me to join. Not that I minded. Human company was entertaining, as they never acted the same way. They wanted to survive, and I decided to go along with it.
Including myself, there were six in total. Mary, the eldest lady. But bless her, she could make things taste fantastic even in the fallen world. Harvey, the eldest man. He was grumpy, but had a lot of experience from travelling in his youth. Olivia and Jaden, the twins. They were barely into adulthood, and seemed to be in the middle of a permanent anxiety attack. Finally, Seth. He was a nice enough lad, from the country, so level headed.
We had been using the sewers as our base. I knew them enough to find us a good, defensible area, with minimal smell. Mary and Harvey stayed behind on most excursions. Mary busied herself keeping stock of what we had, knowing what we needed, and generally pottering. Harvey sat himself of guard duty, just in case. Myself, Seth and one of the twins tended to go up to to scavenge, the other twin staying back as another guard.
But this group didn't understand the meaning of stealth. Time and time again, one of them would draw attention to us when we were out. I would barely be able to get them away from danger before they found another. If my hair actually grew, I would be pulling it out. The worst part was, they seemed to be making more mistakes.
I had to put myself in the way of getting bitten to save them. Trying to explain it was always fun, when they asked how my clothes were torn, but my skin untouched. But they would fall off things, and I would have to extend my arm to catch them, even though a human couldn't stretch as far. At least Seth made up for it in finding a plot of land to cultivate. The twins though were bordeline useless. On more then one occasion, I thought about letting them suffer from their mistakes.
But compassion always won, as though I complained, I was fond of them all. I wasn't going to let them fall, just because they were annoying me. I didn't want to reveal my true self though, just in case. But now I have no choice.
On our last surface, we went looking for hardware supplies, to build up some more fortifications. I had Seth and Jaden with me, as we were the strongest. But when we went into the rundown shop, I got really unlucky. Somehow, one of their signs was still up, dangling from one cord. And of course, when I went under it, it fell.
It embedded itself in my head. I hadn't toughened it up, so my skin was malleable. So I was standing there, trying to figure out what had happened. Jaden screamed.
"Zoe!!"
It would have been cute, how scared he was, if I was currently holding a large sheet of plastic in my face. I pulled it out, sighing.
"I'm fine."
Seth was pale, and pointed a finger at me.
"Y-your head."
Well. My secret was out. I looked at them, before motioning towards the dusty chairs.
"Sit down. Let me explain."
They obeyed, which I was pleaded with. I was slightly worried they would have panicked and run.
"Alright, I can probably guess your questions. No, I'm not human. Yes, I'm a monster. An ooze, specifically an Elder Ooze. No I'm not going to kill you. Yes I didn't say. Because you would have freaked out."
I looked at them, seeing them breath heavily, and sighed again.
"Look, guys, we shouldn't do this now. It's dangerous up here. Let's get what we need, and head back. When we are down there, I will tell the others and we can go from there. Deal?"
They looked at each other, before back at me and nodding.
"Deal." |
When they first turned me away, I had offered them gold and money, for they had fallen on hard fortune. They laughed at me.
What use was money? This was no place for money.
When I returned, I drank and sang songs from far away, banging my drum. They turned me away, saying I was going to attract the dead things that wandered.
This was no place for music or noise.
When I returned a third time in tears, I proclaimed I was alone and wanted only their company. Angered over my last encounters, they turned me away.
I had worn the shape of a man, I had tried my best to keep them happy and lift them from their poor ways.
When they turned me away for the last time, my heart broke. I ventured back into the forest and counted my company among statues of my kin now long gone. I trapped and tricked many of the dead into a pit, never one for violence on my own.
In my day, I battled fox spirits and faced off against tricksters. These things only wish to bite and eat. Though they can't see me, they are the only company I have now apart from the trees of Miyajima. | 2021-09-01T12:32:56 | 2021-09-01T10:25:58 | 39 | 26 |
[WP] You are an Engineer who became a Wizard. Problem is, you discovered that some magic is practiced really inefficiently.
For example, no one thought to optimize fire magic by pressurizing the fire with wind magic. | (part 1/4)
​
The war had raged for nearly seventeen years - long enough that Serinn had grown up knowing nothing but war. Her father, Warmage Astradus of the Fifth Circle of Ice, had died when she was young, assassinated by a mere commoner while he was setting up a magic circle. The dishonour had been felt keenly amongst the warmages, and even more so amongst the War Hand, the order of knights dedicated to protecting each warmage on the battlefield as they conducted their time-consuming rituals.
War magic was the secret weapon of the Taba Empire, but a fickle weapon it was. Warmages were immensely powerful, training for decades to produce huge fireballs above enemy armies, or drown them in magical floods, or teleport small mountains above them. The warmages had ensured the Empire's dominance for the last few centuries, their magic becoming more and more spectacular with each generation.
But the Est Rebellion had recently found the weak spot in the Taba warmages' armour: with each ritual taking up to three days to prepare, requiring cartloads of magical components and several sacrificial victims, and generating a magical aura so strong that even a soldier with no mage blood could feel his hair standing on end, the rituals were impossible to hide - and there was plenty of time for an assassin to sneak in and bring them to a halt on the end of a simple blade.
The warmages had responded in their traditional way: by recruiting more War Hand knights, and otherwise ignoring the problem and concentrating on bigger and better spell effects. Predictably, this had not worked. The first assassin, he who killed Serinn's father, had simply snuck in - the War Hand had expected their peers, highborn knights on horseback, to charge the war mage; not only had they ignored the commoner, but several had actually bought roasted meats from the tray he had been carrying. The second assassin, faced with a War Hand on the lookout for commoners selling goods, had dressed herself as a courtesan going to give the warmage some much-needed entertainment (and never mind the fact that a warmage's mind would never be on such trifles while he conducted a ritual!) And so it went. While several assassins died on the point of a War Hand knight's spear, others slipped through, and warmages died in scores.
​
\---
​
And so it was that Serinn found herself looking out over another battlefield, as her master climbed up the mountain above it. The battle had not yet begun - the enemy were camped on the far side of the approach to the castle, and the smoke from their fires massed in grey-black clouds that drifted along the valley.
Her pack weighed heavily on her back, stuffed with the essentials for a warmage's squire: water and easily-digested food that she would feed him as his hands manipulated threads of magical power, mysterious tools made of bone and sinew that he would use, vials of spell components carefully packed in straw.
And at the bottom were her own tools. First, the one her master expected her to have - the simple oak wand that every magically talented woman bore, capable of taking wrinkles out of clothes, flavouring foods, creating small pretty lights that would last an evening. And then there were the ones she had picked up over the years, tools that most magic users would not have recognised: a steel rod, a piece of flint, copper rings, a small set of finely-made metal instruments, a slate and chalk, tiny lumps of various powdered chemicals in a wooden case.
For Serinn had been a squire for ten years, and unlike most squires, she had observed her master keenly during that time. Warmage magic was big and impressive and honourable and involved killing people. Womens' magic was small and domestic and inconsequential. And as far as she could tell, those were the only schools of magic that had been practiced in the Taba Empire for generations. This, she felt, did not make sense.
"Master?"
"Yes, Serinn?" Warmage Hagarth of the Third Circle of Fire, Principe of the College of the Dark Flame, Bearer of the Star of Quarth, and specialist in apocalyptic but surprisingly ineffective mushroom clouds, stopped and turned to face her, wheezing. He had been a broad-shouldered, fit and handsome man in his prime, but he had been brought out of retirement to fill the shortage of warmages, and time had not been kind to him. These days, he more closely resembled the kindly professor and inhabitant of a small cottage in the peaceful northern lands that he was.
"When do you plan to begin the ritual?"
"Tonight, after dinner. I'll need a good meal in me before I can start. Our spies say the enemy don't plan to attack til dawn tomorrow, so I will have time for this simple ritual."
"I plan to gather some herbs from the riverbanks to flavour the dinner," Serinn said. "It lies beyond the enemy encampment. Could you send me there magically?"
"Of course, my dear girl. As long as you don't plan to go anywhere near the encampment, of course. Not that I could send you very close at any rate," he said, turning and resuming his walk up the narrow bramble-lined path.
Serrin made a face behind his back as he began explaining how the seven-league boots spell he would use wouldn't work with any mage-blooded person within several hundred yards, and that even though the enemy did not have any magical training, the bloodlines were widespread enough that there would surely be some people in the camp with the blood in them. Of course she knew all of this, having received exactly the same lecture before. Hagarth never missed an opportunity to relive his teaching days. | *In a land full of magic users, two engineering students decide to edit a spell*
------
"Hey, Oson, can I ask you for some help with spellcraft?", Java asks, innocently enough. Or, as innocent as he can manage. The list of things they've gotten away with was only eclipsed by the list of things they didn't.
Oson sits next to him and his pile of notes. "Sure, Java. What's the puzzle?" She stares at his notes, and the textbook next to them. It's a physical chemistry textbook, and is open to a chapter on phase-changes. Java held a degree in chemical engineering, so this wasn't unexpected. The other alternative would've been a cookbook.
"Well, I came up with a spell a while ago, but you know how my magic is."
"Kinda sucky."
"So I want to make my "COLDONE" spell more efficient, and easier to remember when I'm drunk."
"Which is most of the time."
He nods and pushes forward a sheet of paper with his spell on it. It already has lines struck out of it and replaced with simpler encodings. "Right. So the basic principle was to based around gas expansion. A liquid, expanding into a gas, taking away heat."
Oson looks at the spell and nods. "Simple enough. But noisy."
Java nods at that as well. "Yeah, it really pollutes the magic spectrum. Plus, it's nearly a one-to-one joule exchange for what I put in. So I'm thinking a closed-cycle refrigeration spell."
"Like the kind in some of the modern magic-refrigerators?"
"A bit. Yeah. But those spells are all still under copyright, so I can't just copy them.
And, of course, our's is a closed ammonia cycle unit, so we don't even have one in the house to copy."
"Let me check my library for an book on HVAC systems; there should be some diagrams of air-conditions I can copy... Then we just have to figure out a minimal encoding for the spell. You took coding theory, so we have that going for us."
Java claps in excitement. "Excellent! There'll be a cold one for you as a reward for all this. Because a one that isn't cold..."
Oson nods as she heads up to her library. "Is scarcely a one at all." | 2019-04-26T08:56:16 | 2019-04-26T08:12:37 | 17 | 12 |
[WP] As a joke, Satan freezes hell over, and everyone on earth is contractually obliged to fulfil the things they said would do upon Hell freezing over...
Edit: These are waay better than I'd imagined when I submitted the prompt! (I just expected it to be buried immediately!) Thanks guys! | [new slide]
"As you can see from the chart, our daily recruitment numbers are WAY down today."
"Hmmm... that's not necessarily bad. What's going on today? A lot less dying? Major peace treaty? New vaccine or something?"
"No, the death rate is the same." [new slide] "It's a change in Hell."
"Well our standards for admission haven't changed. So, what did they do down there this time to get their recruitment up? Invent a new way to beam porn into people's heads? We really took a beating in the 90s from the Internet."
[rolls eyes] "Do you have to keep bringing that up? Yes, we all know about Al Gore being a demon. We're more vigilant now. It's something else. They've just changed their contract terms."
"Look, the demons and demonesses down there have been writing up soul contracts for eons. We know all the tricks. What could they possibly do that hasn't been tried already?"
"I should have been more precise. They haven't really changed their contract, they've just started enforcing one that's been around for a long time already. A kind of 'stealth' contract."
"Oh?"
"You know that phrase 'Hell will freeze over before I do something'?"
"Shit! You're kidding?"
"Nope. They finally did it. Froze the whole damned thing."
"But that's..."
"Insane? Yes. But this is Hell we're talking about, after all. And wow are they collecting on those pre-existing contracts with gusto. That's the huge dent we're seeing in our recruitment. Lots of good candidates on their way to Hell instead. Even so, their total numbers are down too." [new slide]
"Okay. So, where are they all going? Limbo?"
"Yes. That's the other half of the problem." [new slide] "Look at that spike in Limbo's numbers. Not a big deal right away, but a quickly growing problem. Plus we've received a letter from Hell's legal department demanding that we abide by the terms of our contract."
"Wait, wait. You're kidding me. What 'contract'?"
"The implied contract in the Bible, that assures the cowardly, liars, murderers, idolaters, whoremongers, sorcerers and other low-life of the world that they will be condemned to a, quote 'lake burneth with fire and brimstone'. Hell wants us to enforce it."
"But that's not *our* job, that's Hell's job!"
"Was. Until it froze over. They're refusing a lot of people admission to Hell. Some really bad people. Quoting: 'Due to the extenuating circumstances they can no longer fulfill the obligation to punish all of the condemned', and they have officially notified us of that fact. Their legal department has therefore made the case that if they can't do it, we have to."
"Us? This is Heaven. We pass judgment at the Gates, but we don't handle punishment of the condemned."
"Well, if we leave things as they are, the condemned will get to stay in Limbo until the Big Guy decides to implement Judgment Day, which isn't exactly fulfilling the deal either. That's Hell's point. We have to make a choice. Either leave people in Limbo that should have been deservedly condemned to an eternity in Hell instead, or do the fire and brimstone stuff ourselves. They claim they're washing their hands of the problem and letting us deal with it. We need a decision."
[long, quiet pause]
"You really want me to go to the Big Guy and put this problem to Him? You know He isn't exactly the forgiving type when it comes to people who never repented. When they were alive, they had their chance. But after death? He's pretty harsh. He's not going to like the idea of people just hanging around in Limbo instead of promptly getting what they deserve."
"What do you think He'll do?"
"Dunno. Best case, He will let them get away with sitting in Limbo after all. They'll get their Judgment eventually. Worst case, He may decide Judgment Day is upon us right now."
"You really think He'll go that far?"
"You know how He is. Letting Satan win by backing us into a legal corner? It's not His style to let that stand. I'd lay even money on moving up Judgment Day."
"No bet here. Wow. I almost feel bad for the Humans. Either they're hung by their 'cold day in hell' contract, they're stuck in Limbo with a bunch of hardened criminals for God knows how long, or, more likely, they get Judgment Day right now. I suppose they could get into Heaven, but we both know how unlikely that is."
"Ha. True. But at least we're getting our billable hours, right? I'll let you know what the Big Guy says. Or you'll just find out when it starts raining fire."
"Hey, I just thought of another possibility. Any chance He could actually decide to set up a new fire-and-brimstone area in Heaven? Technically admit the condemned, but then shove them in there? That would kind of call Hell's bluff."
"Wow. That's some creative thinking. Heh. A 'fire and brimstone' corner of Heaven? I think it would be a cold day in Hell before He'd go for that."
"Groan. Oh, that's awful! And it's a good thing we wrote immunity into our own contracts, or you know where you'd be going. Again."
"Yeah. It comes in handy. Always remember: He who writes the contracts wins. If just one of those darned prophets or disciples was a lawyer we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble over the years, and if Humans would read the damned things before signing them, they'd be fine. Say what you will about the guy, but Satan gets it." | Randall woke up next to his wife and their girlfriend. They all laid tangled together in the giant bed they had gotten a few weeks ago.
Martha (family name, don't judge) had told him that they would have a threesome when hell froze over. The news came as a surprise to Randall, but Martha held true to her word, and with Leslie, too. The hot black-haired, big busted girl from Purchasing. Martha had been friends with Leslie since the last company outing. Randall had to admit to a certain amount of fantasy about her and his wife. That it had actually happened was something not, well, beyond his wildest imaginations, but at least a good measure into them. Since it had happened about a year ago, they had continued their congress with each other becoming a triad. Even more recently, Leslie moved in.
He snuck out of bed and went to the kitchen. It had been kind of a new Sunday tradition. He made french toast the week before. Pancakes at least once since then (wink wink nudge nudge). They all ate breakfast together and he watched his wife and their girlfriend grow to appreciate each other in their new relationship.
For the first time in a long time, Randall was happy. He felt love towards the women who slept in his bed, both of them. Having them together was something ineffable; he just didn't have the words. Other poly people seemed to get it; he was no longer jealous of them. He felt love from all sides. He was happy.
Today he decided on bacon and eggs. Martha liked them over-hard (he giggled to himself). Leslie preferred scrambled. He cooked them up accordingly; he did shortcut and microwave the bacon, but mostly because he didn't want to get grease everywhere. About 10 minutes later, he had a nice breakfast for each of his new loves. He plated them just so, brought them to the bedroom and gently woke the women.
"Morning, sleepy-heads," he said. "Bacon and eggs."
Martha woke first, then Leslie. They looked at the breakfast and smiled and said their sleepy thank yous. He kissed them both on the forehead. Their smiles looked a little more than tired; Randall thought he knew why.
"I forgot the juice," be right back. He went back to the kitchen and poured two cups of orange juice. It was the high pulp stuff; they both liked it but it got in Randall's teeth so he didn't take any for himself. He brought the cups back and handed them to his girlfriend and his wife. Their eggs untouched. Leslie merely nibbled on a strip of bacon.
"Thanks," they both mumbled. Martha took a sip. A gulp. Then she looked at Leslie. They both nodded.
"Randall," Martha said. "We need to talk." Randall felt his stomach drop. | 2014-07-13T06:19:12 | 2014-07-13T04:30:10 | 241 | 16 |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | 2018-08-28T09:02:27 | 2018-08-28T08:08:26 | 43 | 32 |
[WP] "Dragons respect the strong," the dragon said. "Okay, so if that's true why do you never attack that one old farmer outside the city." Asked the adventurer. "I'll repeat, Dragons respect the strong." | They used to tell stories about Farmer Deadeye. No, that wasn't his real name. There were several farmers at the local pub who claimed to know it, but at any question of revealing this information, they'd simply scoff and return to their drinks. Deadeye, it seemed, liked the children staying clear of his house.
The stories themselves ranged from the impressive to the terrifyingly absurd. There was the tale they told of the time he dragged a horse 2 miles through a storm after it exhausted itself running from a pack of Darters. As you may know, Darters are a particularly fierce little land dragon that hunt in large packs. They swarm about like mosquitos, taking bites until the target has no more joints left to swing the hole-pocked limbs. The horse, miraculously, survived with only a few nips on its' hindquarters and flank.
Then there was the tale of the Talking Dragon.
Everyone knows these days that Talking Dragons exist, but they are often either so wicked that humanity is but sport to them, or so old and shrouded in that Dragonish shine of knowledge that most humans are but twittering birds to them; something to admire for a moment, maybe ask a rhetorical question or wave a great paw to frighten them away for some amusement.
I was present at the first telling, which is the only reason I choose to share this particular ridiculous tale above all the other ludicrous ones. Unlike the stories told by the children, and the posing grandparents and bar regulars who simply liked to sound impressive, this story is dominated by the power of word. And maybe that is what makes it so interesting. If Old McCare wanted to tell a tall tale, he would have screamed of a great battle, or of Farmer Deadeye hurling a fence post at a great beast and driving it off.
But McCare's story began quite differently from the rest. He seemed shaken that night, as if he had nearly fallen a great height and barely caught himself only a few moments before coming in. He tugged quietly at his drink as a couple curious regulars (including myself) tried to pull the story out of him. When he finally looked at us with tired eyes and began, he spoke softly.
"Weren't not but half a mile from me own farm, down by the old creek near Densbury. I was walking along, quiet like, and before I knows quite what's goin' on, there's a great black shadow round and over me head." McCare laughed shakily. "Well, I can tell ye I had not much thought but of makin' a dash for it when the great shadow, quick as lightning, grows to the size of a house and with a crash I'm seeing the scales and the wings. Big golden feller, with eyes like a fox's." He shook his head, lifting the drink back to his lips.
It was around this time that a ripple of laughter cascaded past me from a couple of the younger farmers. One of them sitting next to me, a man named Jonathon, patted the old man on the shoulder. "Ah, but you're expecting us to believe this great beast circled you as a hawk circles a rabbit, landed in front of you, and here you sit filling the pocket of scoundrels like Robinson?"
More laughter followed these words, and a general quiet cursing from the general direction of the bartender. McCare took no notice of this. He simply dragged his drink for a moment, and continued.
"Aye, you'd think I were not but hatchlin' meal- as it as I were in no position to run; great thing's landin' shook the earth around it like pudding, and I was on me back. And if it had been a normal dragon I'm sure that would have been the end. But this one, this one spoke to me." The last words were barely a whisper, but everyone heard them.
General uproar. Some laughter, some genuine shouts of "a talking dragon?!", "could he be serious?!" and the like, and some scoffs and words of disapproval- "scarin' folks for no reason-", "always some fool tryin' to outdo the last liar-", and so on and so on.
When the noise settled back down, McCare finally recounted the part that would be told for years, decades, maybe even centuries to come.
"Well, he says to me in a voice like a bull and a cat and a crow all in one, 'little mortal, either I am mistaken, or you seek a petty price for the weight of your soul.'
Well, to be sure I weren't quite aware of his meanin' and, bein' so happy not bein' eaten and all, I supposes to myself 'I may as well return his riddle if I can!' And so I says, looking into those great monstrous eyes, 'great master of the skies, you behold a mortal with little of either and very often mistaken. Do I misunderstand your meaning, o Lord of Sea and Flame?'
At this, the dragon throws back his head and laughs like a great bell of flesh and bone. He peers at me and says, 'oh little mortal, your reply is satisfactory, although it is not dazzling. You have thus saved yourself from the fate of becoming my son's next meal, and earn yourself the reward of a question. For it is the strong who shall be treated as equals, and dragonborn shall respect them.'
I says to the dragon, thinking the only thought that may have come to my mind as I stood there, shaking in my terror and wonder, 'I say, Mr. Dragon, your people attack our towns near daily, as I reckon. How comes I've never seen a dragon go after that old farmer down the road there?'
And the dragon turns to follow my finger as I point to Deadeye's farm, and a little grin comes upon his face.
'The little mortal who dwells within that hut has earned our benevolence,' says he. 'In the days of the Great Skyworms of the East, he wrestled my brother, Sliv'je the Fang for a whole day and night before being bested.'
'Bested?' I says, me mouth going dry. 'But, o Winged bringer of the Justice and Time, would you not have killed the poor man then?'
And once again, the dragon laughed. And somehow-" McCare paused in his story, staring down at a spot on the table, "-somehow, it was nicer laugh this time.
'Little mortal,' says he, 'if a mouse wrestled a dog for a morning and an afternoon before fleeing, would the dog ever think to make a mouthful of it again?'"
​
​
Edit: Holy crap thank you for the awards kind strangers! I'd be willing to make a part two if anyone wants. I really enjoyed making this one and I'm glad everyone else seems to like it! | The cave of the dragon lord was a terrifying sight for the strongest of warriors, and that includes Leopold, The Great Warrior of the Golden City. The city had been at war with the dark dragon for generations, and now they were sending Leo to broker peace or die trying. Now he walked deep into the cavern, a cave said to be formed from the dragon's own fiery breath, on a mission that he could not fail.
He walked deeper and deeper until the sun was long forgotten and cool air crept across his skin. Then from the dark abyss he heard a rumbling. The ground shook beneath him and rocks fell from the ceiling. Then in the dark a fiery eye opened and a roar shook him to his core. Leo stood on trembling legs for as long as he could, then dropped to one knee.
The dragon turned away from him and breathed a fiery blast against the back wall of the cave. A fire so hot that the stone began to melt. The fire left enough light for Leo to see the monster before him. Its scales were crimson red and hard as steel. Scratches covered its body from battles fought and won, some with humans, others with dragons.
“Hello human,” the dragon spoke with a booming voice. “You smell of fear. Were you sent here against your wishes perhaps? Or did you come here to kill me, not understanding how little one man could do against a dragon.”
Leo gulped nervously. “My king sent me to speak with you. I am Sir Leopold, and yes, I am from the Golden City. I hope to find some way to make peace between my people and yourself.”
The dragon laughed. “You cannot offer peace, but you are weak. You cannot do harm, therefore you cannot be peaceful. And I have no intent on clipping my wings for the sake of the weak. We dragons only respect the strong.”
Leo started to respond, then stopped to think. “You say you respect the strong, but we are the strongest kingdom on earth, and you show us no respect. At the same the farms go untouched. They are weak and you do not touch them. Why?”
The dragon let out a deep rumbling noise from its throat. “You foolish man. You don’t understand true strength, nor do you understand why you are weak. I’ve seen your golden walls and your paved roads. I’ve seen the crystal roofs of your castle so tall. I see your greed each time I take to the skies. I’ve watched your cruelty from afar. You say you are strong, but you conquer without discretion, kill without mercy. Where do you think your gold came from?
“The farmers, though, are strong. They toil relentlessly to earn a living for their families. They do not even own the ground they toil upon, yet they persevere. The impoverished inside the city suffer under your cruelty, but the farmers, they care for each other, making sure no one goes hungry. They are strong. You are weak.”
Leopold was taken aback by the dragon’s cutting words. “What then can we do? How can we make peace with you?”
“I told you before,” said the dragon, “I do not make peace with the weak. Go back to your king and tell him what I said. I am a judgment upon you. You can rally your troops against me again, but it will do you no good.”
The dragon swished his tail and the fires went out. Leo stood up and walked out of the cave. Sunlight fell upon his skin, but he felt no warmth. The idea of facing the king now was nearly as frightening as facing the dragon. | 2022-12-25T20:09:27 | 2022-12-25T18:22:08 | 545 | 79 |
[WP] You're the owner of a cafe frequently visited by vigilantes and anti-heroes who absolutely adore your sweetness and acceptance of who they are. One day, though, a particularly rude customer comes in and trashes the place. Your friends aren't too happy to hear about that. | "Busy crowd tonight" a hooded man says drinking his third cup of coffee, three espressos, with a touch of hazelnut creamer.
I know better than to ask questions to my customers. "Yeah, its not too bad. Business keeps the lights on." I reply, starting up the grinder.
"Ya know," he said between sips "we *could* all pitch in so you never have to work again."
"While true, then you'd be out of a coffee shop."
We both chuckle for a second before he gets up to leave, not before finishing his coffee and leaving a sizeable tip. I know what they do. I know who they are. I know that what they're doing is against the law. But it is not my place to stop them.
Two years ago my daughter was raped, the man unknown and the police could do nothing about it. No traces found within the databases; no fingerprints; nothing. This guy knew what he was doing and I knew he wouldn't stop. I did my best, hired a personal investigator, talked with mobsters for information. No one knew anything. Until one day he was found. Tied to a flagpole on the mayor's yard. Hands cut off as well as his...yeah. Underneath him were hundreds of pictures. Everyone he's hurt.
After that day I vowed to do everything I could to make amends. To find the perrine who caught my daughter's helper. It will not change the past. But hey, at least I can pay it forward.
I opened my coffee shop 3 months ago. Night hours only, in a very remote part of town. My wife, my loving wife, she supported me but cautioned it was a bad spot.
"Hole in the Wall". Both literal and figurative, I thought it was fitting. I knew what I was doing. Opening my doors for the vigilantes, the bounty hunters. The people who I knew did wrong, but also did right to me.
It took 2 days before my first customer came in. I used to be a doctor before funneling all my money into the PI. He was bloody and bruised. I requested to help him, to which he denied. After a few harsh words he reluctantly agreed. On one stipulation, I go near his mask. I die.
I had no choice, either he bleeds out on my new floors or I clean him up. So I stitched him up, helped him to a booth and started brewing some coffee. Pour over with imported Columbian beans. My wife's favourite and a "must have" every time a guest comes over. I thought I'd be worth the expense.
As we chat about the coffee and the state of the town he gets a buzz. I'm not sure what else to call it because it wasn't any new smart device I've seen. And he leaves.
3 months later and the shop has never looked better. Still occasional guys and gals come in bleeding and I spend a few extra hours cleaning the floor. It's not as big of a deal as some might think. Seltzer water and lemon juice work wonders for blood. The oddest part is no one ever sits next to anyone else. Everyone minds their own business and I just brew coffee. Since its only ever one person in at a time I don't need any other employees. It is hard, but knowing I'm helping them help the city is enough for me.
Tonight was different. I took the C train downtown to stop. Walked my route and turned the corner to my "hole in the wall." The window grates were blown open by what looked like a small charge, stools and tables were thrown about. My safe had been opened using a similar small charge and all the money stolen. The machines looked even worse. Battered in by a bat or a sledge hammer. I was helpless. They were gone and I had no footage to track them. (one of the agreements with my customers was no cameras).
I stood there for what seemed to be a few moments, completely taken aback by the scene when one of my regulars shows up, hazelnut coffee. He asks me what happened and I told him I had no idea. As more come they all stand in shock. I do my best to put on a happy face and stay strong but deep inside everything hurts. As I sweep up the remainder of the glass and my pride the customers huddle and a new guy walks up to me. He says they'll take care of it and for me to go home.
I do, I cannot sleep. The fire from the robbery and the fact that they deliberately smashed my machines kept me up all night.
When I returned the next day I was shocked. The steel grates were fixed. After unlocking and entering the entire shop I was met with the entire place looking pristine and fixed. The machines that took me weeks to order were brand new. The stools were new and had the gloss to them. Something my customers quickly removed with their filth. On the counter was my infamous pour over glass with the words "Hole in the Wall" etched into them. Underneath were pictures.
I know better than to ask questions.
edit. R | "Why did you think it was a good idea, punk?!"
"I don't know! I'm stupid, ok? Please stop beating him with my hand!"
"I'm not beating anybody here, am I hitting anybody? Hornet Nest, am I hitting anyone here?"
"Nope, just as I have nothing to do with this poor fellow right here who got mysteriously swarmed by hornets."
"What about you Nightmare? Do you see anyone here hurting someone?"
"I don't know Hammer, this guy was screaming murder before I got here. He's probably insane or something."
"See? Nothing wrong here. Now you listen to me scumbag, we might be criminals and do terrible stuff everyday, but you calling Ms. Thompson a bitch, thrashing her place, ruining that delightful and irreplaceable mural we painted for her, and on top of that taking a dump on the expresso machine was taking it too far.
Now, I want you and your band of mindless rats to apologize to her, clean and repair ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, and pay her for the damages and the trouble you caused. If we don't see that café up and running by 8:00 AM tomorrow, you heard what I did to Super Beaver? You'll BEG me to leave you in a comma if you don't hold your end of the deal, understood you sack of shit? "
" I think he understood Jack, look at him, he just pissed himself!"
" Don't forget to take Mr. Shakes here! Looks like he's gonna turn his balls into an omelette if he keeps shaking like that... Say hi to Betsy for me, boys! Hope you don't see us again!" | 2018-10-20T20:26:10 | 2018-10-20T20:25:10 | 434 | 91 |
[WP] Your wife, a beautiful elven woman, finally had enough and demanded to know why you dont seem to age despite being a human. | Ok, so. There's this spell that is meant to heal injuries attained in war. I learned it from the medic in one of my first battles. Apparently not many humans inquired about spellcasting, and he was proud of making this one up himself so he eagerly explained the inner workings of the spell to me: In sacrificial magic, there are no rules or constraints as to what must be sacrificed to power the spell, contrary to popular belief it's not just blood or a life that must be used. Anyway, he figured that if he could get a soldier to hold the catalyst while he did the casting, he could bind the soldier to a sacrifice: in exchange for the energy on the battlefield (fear, anger, pain, from not just the subject but those around them), the soldier could return part of thier body to the condition it was when they casted the spell. And it worked. He would bind as many soldiers as he could before they entered the fight, and they would emerge from battle with an easy treatment for their wounds.
I saw lots of potential in this, and asked him to write down the spell for me. After the war, I continued my studies in spell modification, and was able to work what was meant to be a convenience into something far greater. The sacrifice of the energy gained from a brief battle was not enough for what I wanted. I searched what little texts I could find on sacrifice magic for any ounces of power I could pile onto the spell without causing detriment: the heat of breath, anxiety, disgust, whatever I could find. In the end, it came down to a simple problem: I had piled on enough sacrifices to power the spell, but gathering this power would take time, and the spell catalysts I had access to were.. leaky vessels. I needed a catalyst that could hold the energy long for the time required to gather enough for the spell. So I searched.
And about a year before I met you, I was looking in the tomb of some great warrior from long ago, and next to his coffin in the heart of a forest I found not one, but two catalysts that had been left for his journey in the afterlife. I was excited, but I knew better than to simply steal them. I set up a summoning circle in the dust of the tomb floor, and prayed hours in the dark to commune with his spirit. And with enough patience his confused ghost briefly took form. "Are you still using those?" I asked him, pointing to the catalysts "Why of course not" he said, "My gifts have served their purpose, and my journey ended long ago."
"So I can just go ahead and nab these off you?"
"I don't see why not" he responded. I thanked him and sent him back, leaving the tomb with the power of immortality.
"Wait" said my wife "why did you take both of them?"
"I'm getting to that"
Anyway, with two powerful catalysts, I could go further with my plan then I had previously thought. The spell was finished, and I bound myself to a sacrifice: I would surrender some of my anger, disgust, urine and about a paragraph of all the other random things I could tack on to this spell, and in exchange, when it was ready and when I was willing, I could return my entire body to the state it was when I casted the spell.
"So you age a few seconds at a time, and bind yourself back to the spell as soon as you can?" Said my wife "That doesn't really count as immortality"
"No, that wouldn't but here's where the second catalyst comes in"
With two catalysts, I could cast the spell twice at the same time, and when I used one of the sacrifices, the other one would still be gathering power, and I worked it out so that I could re-bind myself to the casting time of the first spell, with the second catalyst. I can never permanently age or get injured. At all.
"But what if you die?" My wife asked "wouldn't that kill you just like the next guy?"
"Not really" I said
I would be dead, but different to most corpses, a spark of hope remains within me. The emotions that one undergoes in their last moments are more than enough to power the spell, sometimes twice over. So it's impossible for me to die without at least one charged catalyst. If somebody can find me, and grip the catalyst in my corpses fingers, then carry out the second half of the spell, I will be returned to my condition at the time of casting.
"Which is alive" my wife realized.
"Exactly"
"And why, exactly, are you only telling me this now? I could have found you dead, and I would've thought I lost you for good. Who, exactly, did you expect to revive you??? I can't believe you would just leave me in the dark about all this. Why didn't you tell me you were immortal on the day we met??"
"First of all, chill, I made an arrangement with the spirit of that guy who's catalysts I took to whisper instructions into the ears of those near my body. Secondly, I can't exactly going around telling everyone I have the secret to immortality, because they will want me to make *them* immortal."
"Why don't you want me to be immortal?" She said hysterically "I'm your wife!"
"Well I've only got just the two catalysts and.. Actually I could just bind you the same way the medic bound the soldiers. Or I could just teach you the spell. We could share the catalysts and that wouldn't really make a difference. That's a pretty good point you made"
My wife stared at me, dumbfounded. | I took a little spin and switched roles a little, it flowed easier from the elf pov.
“Look babe, we have been through this before, I just take care of myself. You eat nothing but vegetables and can’t seem to stop doing yoga, or dance, or even that weird sword fighting stuff. No one has sword fought in well over 100 years. I do everything you do. It’s proven by science and everything.” He throws back at me. The arguments have turned fairly defensive lately displayed in a tone that turns my suspicious demeanor even stronger. Why can’t he just tell the truth?
“You just turned 55, from my count you should have some sort of age on your face. What does it matter what we both do, it’s obvious I won’t age but I’ve been alive for 380 years. I’ve seen man age. You haven’t! Your excuses have gotten out of hand. We have been married for more than 20 years and you look exactly the same. There is no way!” As the desperation exudes from every word I can’t help but think that this argument is going nowhere, again. I have been building experience and instincts for a few hundred years has made it incredibly easy to read people. This man is lying.
His shoulders, pulled back, in an attempt to make himself appear larger and even have the confidence a 21 year old tells no truth. At his age the old pretense of being the biggest and strongest in a room should have washed away by now. Bellowing out, his aura of youth spilling with every rise in emotion. Nothing had changed since he was allegedly 35 when he perceived there was something to prove.
“You’re getting out of hand and crazy again. Overreacting like usual. I’m starting to think your intuition is clouded somehow. You’re just like all the other women.” His snide remark seemed to come out of nowhere. Honestly is a virtue and this dug deep. Eloquence of language had never been his strength.
Responding with a coolness that should have been a warning, “Seems that you’re fighting dirty because you know I’m right. You’re not what or who you say you are.” That should stop it
Of course he didn’t take the bait. Drawing a breath from deep within,” 300 years and you’re just an old suspicious hag.” | 2022-12-29T16:09:43 | 2022-12-29T10:13:05 | 22 | 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. | The boy was looking at the imponent silhouette in front of him, at the present moment he was with a mixed amount of feelings, all because of the bag of chips on the hands of the unidentifiable figure in front of him.
"I will not share them", said the figure eating the chips.
The crunching sounds echoed on the little room.
The thoughts of the boy rerurned when a burp sound was heard and the bag of chips was thrown to the closest trash can.
"You... you... are you my familiar?", asked the boy with a trembling voice.
"Hmm", the figured hummed while looking somewhat... sad?, what left the boy speechless was where the figure was looking at: the trash can. "I suppose so", the figure spoke after a while, crossing looks with the boy, "if not, then i don't know how the fuck I was summoned".
"A mere circle and a bag of chips", murmured the boy with an astounded look on his face.
"Yep, that's the way of summoning me, if you are from the Drayer Family, then you should know that beforehand, or are you telling me you sommoned me by chance?", the boy was, once again, rendered speechless, was this the way of summoning his familiar all along?, his ancestors were so desperate to know how to summon the familiar of the family, trying all kinds of showy summons that would make the earth shake and were even more flashy than the common summon ritual, that is: a circle with various spells, and usually using things like: thousand year gingsengs of various species, the spine of a low level dragon, atcetera, etcetera, etcetera, for his fmailiar to be summoned on that simple way... it was a direct slap to every mage- no, not every mage, it was a slap TO EVERY FU--ING LIVING BEING ON THE WORLD.
"Why--?", the boy was still surprissed, but the laugher started to show.
"Because I love the chips", responded the figure without shame, "You didn't knew?, what happened to your ancestor?, it does seems that time has passed long", the figure started floating around, looking the simple room of his summoner, the boy started laughing, his family, the Drayer familly was born two centuries ago, with the awesome deeds of the progenitor: Drayer Castellan, his son and grandson became the inheriter of the only and one familiar of the Drayer family, only htem knew the way of summoning this unknown and fantastic familiar, and no one was privy of the awesome powers of this familiar, legends say that this familiar is ablle to overturn entire dimensions when excerting its full power, no one knows how the ancestors of the Drayer family obtained this awesome Familiar whose rank is hypothesized to be **Legendary Deity**, a rank only existed on legends, and since the dissapearing of the grandson of the progenitor, no one discovered how to summon this awesome familiar, until, maybe, today.
"A-are you the legendary one familiar of the family?", the boy asked gulping before every word was spelled.
"I don't think there are others".
Truth being said, the Drayer family has started to decline because of all the reckless spending to search for the legendary deity familiar's summoning ritual, sommoning, instead, utterly powerful familiars of untraceable times and ubications of the *Familiar* *Grounds*, whose rank should be Golden Deity or less, what made the Drayer family legendary but unable to regain all the lost legendary ingredients, so one could understand the actual atonishment of the Drayer boy.
"And your rank is Legendary Deity", the boy spoke a little more calmed.
"I don't know boy, what is your name?", asked the figure, "Mine is Sebastian, and i will follow all your orders if you give me a bag of chips everytime you can", the figure smilled, it looked simple but the imponent aura was no shit.
"M-my name is Abraham Drayer", The boy responded while reviewing the ranks in his mind: F, or Red familiar, E, or Camesi Familiar, D, or Orange Familiar, C or Yellow Familiar, B or Green Familiar, A or Blue Familiar, S or Purple Familiar, SS or White Golden Familiar, SSS or Violet Golden Familiar, Legendary Familiar, Disaster Familiar, Deity Familiar, White Deity Familiar, Violet Deity Familiar, Black Deity Familiar, Golden Deity Familiar and lastly, Legendary Deity Familiar.
"Cool, Abe, call me when you need me, you just need to open a bag of chips and call by my name, and I will appear on less than an instant"...
​ | 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. | 2019-04-05T14:23:32 | 2019-04-05T14:03:34 | 160 | 19 |
[WP] There’s an ancient plant in the garden of your family’s estate, tended to by the masters of the house going as far back as your bloodline can be traced. Not a single flower has blossomed from this tree for centuries... until today, when your father let you water it for the very first time. | Finn Gardner strapped on his mask and pulled on his hazmat suit, pulling the slack on the arms and legs. His father said he’d grow into it, but how much more could an eighteen-year-old grow? His family had once been rich or important, but now they cut costs everywhere. They condemned the second floor of the mansion due to a leak in the roof; the pipes leaked acidic water, and they had substituted a basic purifier with a boiling pot and a campfire made of old furniture and twigs that fell from that stupid tree.
He stomped his way to that stupid tree, through the poisonous smog that covered the whole earth. Despite his family literally starving, they never cut costs on this damned dead tree. They had even built a greenhouse around it when the air became too toxic, routing all the electricity from the house to it. Finn hated that stupid dead tree. Every time he shivered at night, or felt a rumble in his stomach, he thought of that glorious sanctuary holding only one grey and leafless old tree.
His father told him it had been in the family for over three hundred years, and they had charged every child since with watering it. Finn had asked why on many occasions, but his father gave him only stereotypical dad excuses.
“It builds character.”
“Because I said so.”
“It’s our family’s duty.”
If only he nurtured his own child like he did that tree.
Finn slammed the metal door to the decontamination room shut and held his breath as it sprayed down his suit. A fan whirred and his vision cleared as the smog from outside ejected through the vents. He took off his suit and entered the greenhouse, still grumbling over the hazardous task. If his father loved this tree so much, why didn’t he take care of it?
The trees loomed over him, its thick trunk chipping off grey bark, and twigs that grew like warts sprouted out all over it, hundreds of them littering the grassy floor.
Finn held the watering can under the pump, after he stole a drink of the pure water for himself. Feeling a moment of rebellion, he spit out a mouthful into the can and smirked.
“Enjoy, stupid tree.”
He sploshed the water at the trunk’s roots and like always, nothing happened. He tossed the can back to the pump and laid down, starring blankly at the fogged up ceiling glass liked with uv lights. His eyes got heavy, and he drifted to sleep.
As dumb as his dad’s obsession with this tree was, at least it was a glorious place for a nap.
His eyes shot open at the sound of a pop. And then another. The popping increased like a bag of microwave popcorn finally hitting the right heat. He bolted upright and dropped his jaw. The thousands of twigs were bursting with bright pink five leafed flowers, while the trunk seemed to twist itself off its roots.
Finn scooted back until he hit the door, watching with wide eyes as a tear formed down the center of the tree. It opened, and the boy held his breath, his entire body trembling. The popping stopped, and the flowers burst off the tree all at once, surrounding the room in a pink blizzard of petals. The crack spilt the tree in two as it collapsed like a log under an axe. In the tree’s place stood the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, stretching like she had awoken from a much-needed nap. She blinked and noticed Finn, before skipping towards him. The leaves whipping wildly around the room froze and started falling to the earth like the setting stars.
She crawled over the stunned boy and smiled coyly at him. Finn flushed and looked away, realizing he had been starring.
“You’re the one,” she said.
“W-what?” Finn stuttered.
Her gentle fingers touched his cheek, guiding his eyes back to hers. “You gave me your first kiss,” she said with a warm smile.
Finn opened his mouth, but with his fumbling tongue, he couldn’t say a thing. Then her lips pressed against his. His entire chest filled with an air fresher than any he had ever breathed. He wanted the feeling to last forever, but the girl pulled away. She looked up at the uv lights and scowled at her own skin. She stood and pulled open the door with the strength to shove Finn out of the way.
Finn blinked. Realizing what she would do.
“No. Wait. The air--“
Before he could explain, she had opened the door to the outside, and the smog rushed in. Finn covered his mouth and slammed his eyes shut, expecting the poison to kill him soon.
When he could no longer hold his breath he gasped for air. Blinking, he realized he wasn’t dead. There was no smog, and the girl looked back at him in puzzlement.
“The air?” She asked. “Why is it so bad?” Tears leaked down her face and her skin cracked like dried bark. The smog was being absorbed by her. Finn stumbled towards her, too confused to say a thing.
The outside world had always been a haze. He had never seen his hand in front of his face. But now, for the first time in his life, he could see his family’s run-down mansion. The sky was still grey with the poison, but everything around this girl seemed brighter than ever.
She grabbed him by the shoulders, tears still falling uncontrollably. “I can’t feel the others, the plants, the air, what have you done?” | "Father, hurry!" she shouted and pointed at the bright pink flower, standing out from the green crown.
"What is it, Elisa?" her father asked a little concerned, briskly emerging out of the house to the garden.
She kept her finger pointed at it; he would get it some time soon. Kissing her on her head as he walked on over, he asked, "Do you wish me dead to scream so?"
"Look there between the branches," she said ignoring him.
She always wondered why people were so slow to respond to the things she was talking about. It couldn't be because of the *way* she talked about them; she already let her arguments free-fall to their level, and then, it was as if they purposefully misinterpreted what she meant. She’d been saying for years that she knew how save the family from the Exodus. After listening to her, they would comment on it as if on a fable or childish wish. *You’ll know more when you’re fourteen; when you get to learn the whole history!* they used to say, but they didn’t really keep the *Bloodline Books* under lock and key, did they? In any case, she was the full fourteen now, and she would guide them.
“Impossible…” she finally heard him utter, “fetch me the ladder will you.” He was squinting up at it, arms akimbo. It took her very little time to bring it, but he hardly noticed.
“Simply impossible,” he muttered to himself as he ascended eagerly. It took him quite long for it was near the very top and hard to reach.
Carefully caressing the petals, he inspected the flower in detail. Beautiful. Dream-like. Impossible! Then something else caught his eye: a little red thread. It connected the flower to the tree. He pulled at it, the knot dispelled, and the flower glided into his hand. His brow furrowed in confusion--
“OH NO, FATHER!” a shout erupted from beneath him.
His ladder suddenly lost its footing. Too slow to grab a branch, he rushed to the ground much too fast. An awful crunch signified his last moment. And as a red puddle quickly approached, two nimble fingers pulled the red thread from his still hand, and tucked it into a pocket. | 2020-06-25T14:14:48 | 2020-06-25T13:52:21 | 89 | 18 |
[WP] Write a horror story where the protagonist just doesn't give a fuck.
Edit: Damn, this is now my most upvoted post. Thanks for all of your responses, they've been amazing! Good for a laugh or a two on this great Friday :) | So there I was, driving all of my friends to this cabin that one of them owns… Gavin, I think it was. He said we're all gonna have a fun time catching fish or some shit like that, I don't give a fuck. The only reason they even invited me was because I'm the only one with a goddamned car. My friends are pretty much all assholes.
So we arrived at the cabin, right in the middle of fucking nowhere. Everyone else was super excited for some fucking reason, like c'mon, it's just a cabin. If it were up to me, I would have sold the cabin, and bought us rooms in a five-star hotel. Anyways, Gavin tells us all about these plans he has to go fishing. Stacey and Alex keep on being flirty with each other. They've been together for two goddamn months now, and they still act like fucking teenagers. Trevor meanwhile, warned us about some sort of urban legend. I didn't pay attention, something about a chainsaw. I don't believe in that crap. There’s a few others here, but I didn’t even bother learning their fucking names, they’re not important. I tried to browse the net while he was telling us all about Chainsaw Willy or whoever, I’m not gonna remember the fucking name, but there's no goddamn reception. Great trip Gavin, I told my girlfriend I’d call her when I got here, how the fuck am I going to do that now.
Anyways, a few hours in we start hearing mysterious noises in the cabin. I suggest we check it out, but Gavin, being the idiot he is, just wants to keep fishing. Whatever, it's your fucking cabin Gavin. I don't know why you're so goddamned obsessed with fishing anyways. After a little while longer of me resisting the temptation to drown myself in the lake, Gavin gets tired of fishing, and we head back to the cabin, only to find a whole bunch of bloodstains on the walls. Like, it's goddamned everywhere. I mean, the decor of this cabin was ugly before, but now it's fucking awful. I hope Gavin cleans it up, at least then I won't have to hear him talk about fucking fish again.
After some investigation, it turns out that it was Trevor’s blood. He looks like he was gutted open with a chainsaw. I never liked the fucker anyways. I'm pretty sure he’s been sleeping with my girlfriend.
Naturally, everyone else is freaking out, as if they never saw a horror movie in their lives. Like an idiot, Gavin suggests we split up and search for the killer. Great fucking plan Gavin. Whatever, I head outside for a smoke.
As I stand outside, smoking, I eventually hear screams coming from inside. Probably Stacey and Alex next. Good riddance. They probably ruined the seats of my car with all their friskiness. Eventually Gavin manages to find me, he's got fucking tears in his eyes. He tells me all about how Stacey and Alex were brutally torn apart in the shower. Why the fuck were they even in the shower anyways? There's a psycho killer in the cabin and their only concern was getting frisky with each other. Good lord my friends are idiots as well as assholes. Eventually Gavin pleads with me to find a hiding spot with him, I try to tell him to piss off, but he just keeps on nagging me about it until I give in. So we hide in the fucking closet together. I try to make a joke about Gavin coming out of the closet, but he doesn't find it funny, like what the fuck Gavin, stop being such a stuck-up douche.
Eventually, the closet door is flung open, and who the fuck opened it, but fucking chainsaw Jimmy. Gavin screams like a little bitch as Chainsaw Minnie revs up his chainsaw while laughing like a fucking lunatic. Meanwhile I pull out my fucking gun and shoot the little bitch right in the face. As if I'm going to a cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere without my gun. Chainsaw Ridley drops his fucking chainsaw and collapses to the ground.
Anyways, at this point Gavin is fucking ecstatic. He's calling me his hero and thanking me and shit. Fuck off Gavin, I don't give a fuck what you think about me. Anyways, I kick off Chainsaw Gimmy's mask, only to see my fucking girlfriends face under it. What the fuck Emily? I know you were two timing me with Trevor, but goddamn, that's no fucking reason to chainsaw massacre him and all his friends.
So since Emily killed everyone with a fucking chainsaw except me and Gavin I guess that killed the mood of the trip or whatever so Gavin insists we leave. This is the first fucking thing Gavin's said all this trip that makes any goddamned sense so I wholeheartedly agree. As we drive away from the cabin, I take out my GPS and start looking for nearby five star hotels.
I saved the fuckers life, the least he can do is pay for an actually decent vacation.
Edit: thanks for the gold | Jake shrugged. The sound of the church' clock was the only sound he could hear in the silence of the night.
Ding. dong. ding. dong. ding. dong, and so on, all the way to twelve.
Was it midnight already? He didn't know. He didn't care. Mom wouldn't be home before tomorrow, so Jake had the house for himself. And, more importantly, the computer.
He was having fun, despite being the only person online on his Minecraft server.
It was completely silent in the house. Painfully silent. Except for the occasional Minecraft sound coming from the computer.
"Oh, balls.." Jake wispered to himself. He really had to take a leak. The toilet wasn't that far away, but the room it was in was way too dark to see anything. The only source of light was coming from the computerscreen.
"Jake...." He heard a feint voice whisper.
"Come and play.."
"Ugh, boogers.. Mom's home early." He thought.
As Jake looked up, expecting to see his mother, candles were lit up all around the room. Wait, this wasn't his house.. The light of the candles showed a huge red pentagram made of dark, thick blood on the ground. His desk, along with himself and the computer were in the middle of it.
The whispers starter getting louder. He could also hear someone crying in the distance. The ground lit up on fire, and an awfully loud and terrifying laugh could be heard. Men in black robes slowly started to walk towards Jake with big scythes and hands engulfed in blood.
Jake screamed as hard as he could.
"Holy cow, I found diamonds!!" | 2017-05-05T07:01:19 | 2017-05-05T05:55:46 | 4,093 | 280 |
[WP] Last words aren't just words spoken before death, but actually call death to you. You have known your last words for years and kept death at bay by refusing to speak them. Now, however, they need to be said. | “I relinquish this life.”
Just four words, six syllables, but what power they hold! We are taught from young never to utter them, intentionally or otherwise, and we are shown books, pictures, videos of the consequences. Most people are so fearful that they have probably never even said the first two words together, not even for practice. Sometimes, people say the words accidentally, like when reckless teenagers get caught up in a game of drink-or-dare, and one goes overboard by actually completing the sentence. And then, of course, there are those who say the words intentionally.
Like my wife did, fifteen years ago.
I thought about those four words again when the doorbell rang, and I steeled myself mentally. In all likelihood, it wasn’t going to be any of my friends, not when almost all of them had already passed on their lives to others in need. Odds were that it would be the government representatives again, here to remind me gently that I had lived far longer than most people, and that perhaps it was time for me to share.
“Mr Dawson?” the young man asked through the door as I looked through the peephole. He was middle-aged, with thinning hair and a protruding gut. “We were told you would be at home. They said our chances were higher if we asked you in person. Please, could we talk to you for a minute?”
“Go away,” I said. “I’m not free.”
“Please, Mr Dawson,” said the lady next to him, presumably his wife. I could tell from the subtle way she had nudged her husband aside, planted herself directly in front of my door. “Just ten minutes? We just wanted to… ask if you would hear us out. I’m Lucy, this is my husband Rodrigo. Please?”
I sighed, then unlatched the door. I managed surly easily, and I did a unique blend of grumpy, but I was not very good at heartless.
“Five minutes,” I said. “You’re leaving after that. Trust me, lady, you ain’t got what I want.”
They settled onto my sofa. I didn’t offer them any coffee, tea or biscuits. I nestled into the armchair, swivelled it slightly to face them better.
“Your time was running since you stepped in,” I said.
“Mr Dawson,” Rodrigo began, “would you tell us how much your last offer came to? I think… I think we may be able to top it. We’re serious about this.”
“I don’t need the money,” I said. “Look around you. This is the penthouse unit. Plus, I have no family to pass it on to.”
I saw Rodrigo’s face sink. For good reasons too – money was the primary reason why people spoke the words, gave up their lives. If not for the fleeting material comforts they otherwise would never get to experience, then for the wealth to pass on to family members who may have needed it more. I read that the market rate was a million dollars, though of course there were bargains to be had if one were hard-nosed enough.
“Perhaps, we could give you something else?” asked Lucy. “Say, company? Is there anyone you want to spend time with? We could arrange for that too, we know people, have connections.”
A tiny smile took root at the corners of my mouth, but it died before it could blossom. There was a time, for sure, that I threw myself into the arms of others, sought company wherever it was offered. But the void Emily left was too gaping, too yawning a chasm to fill. Perplexingly, I found myself even more lonely every morning that I woke up next to a woman who wasn’t Emily. Loneliness, and discontent, tiny eggs that burrowed into my heart, festering there, too potent to ignore, my constant, unfailing companions.
I often wondered if that was how Emily felt when she decided that the sweet nothingness of the void was better than whatever she had with me.
“As I told the Ministry of Assignment, I want for nothing,” I said. “Only to be left alone, really. I’m not ready to go.”
“I know it is a lot to ask for, Mr Dawson,” Rodrigo said. “But we… we are not young anymore. The doctors, they tell us that Lucy’s best chance of having a child is sometime in the next year or so. We only met late, so we’re way down the queue at the Ministry, way down. They can’t assign us any lives for the next few years at least. So please, Mr Dawson, would you consider giving us your spot? We… the child, it really will mean a lot to us.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me,” I said.
“But what do you live for?” Lucy asked.
“None of your business,” I replied, as calmly as I could.
There was no use explaining it to them. I had tried with the government representatives, but they didn’t understand too. They thought I was selfish, that I was another one of the greedy ones, too self-centred to pass on the flames of life to the new generation. Some of them had even tried badgering me, telling me that the world didn’t even know I existed, so why even bother to struggle through one dreary day to the next?
How could I have made them see, that it was all for Emily? That if I were to go, that she would be forgotten, utterly, completely? I was the last tether she had to this world, the last living memory of who she was, what she stood for, what she excelled at.
“Show him, show him,” said Lucy, as Rodrigo fumbled in his briefcase. He fished out a number of pamphlets, laid them on the coffee table between us.
“You must forgive me,” Lucy continued, “your private life is your own. But we are desperate, so you can understand that we did a bit of digging into your life. If money and company are not what you seek, then perhaps… we can offer something else?”
“What’s this?” I asked. The images on the pamphlets seemed so alien, yet so familiar, at the same time.
“We know how your wife… suffered after the accident,” said Rodrigo, who had the decency to drop his voice an octave. “It’s been some time, but it was big news then. They had to reschedule all the big shows after your wife could no longer dance.”
“And that’s why we will send our child to the same schools your wife went to,” Lucy said, spreading out the pamphlets in turn. “Boy or girl, doesn’t matter. We will have them complete the same courses, train under the very best dancers. We will make sure our child becomes as famous a dancer as your wife was, and then more.”
My fingers brushed the pamphlets, and I heard those familiar tones again, the musical routines Emily would put on as she practiced. I felt her hand, heard her laugh, smelled the sweet cigarette smoke which followed her from room to room. The flood of memories continued, drowning me in a sea of nostalgia.
The empty bed in the morning, because she was already up, tickling me, laughing at me for oversleeping again, when she had already worked in her morning run…
The sweat as it beaded down her back, as she pushed herself again and again, twirling in neverending pirouettes in our studio, boring marks into the parquet…
The vacant desolation in her eyes when the doctors told her she would never dance again, the fear that all that she had worked for, all that she had accomplished would be forgotten…
“If it’s a boy, he will be Emile,” said Rodrigo.
“And if it’s a girl… you know what we will name her,” added Lucy. “Please, will you give us this chance? We will never forget it, I promise.”
I closed the pamphlets, pressed them back into their hands. I retrieved my wallet, took out the donor card I had tucked away at the back. I filled in my name, the date, the time, and left the “recipient” field blank. I signed it with a flourish, then handed it to them.
“If he or she doesn’t like to dance,” I said, “it’s alright. Don’t force them to do it. But if you don’t mind, would you please let them know where their name came from? I think my wife would have liked it to know that, at the least, someone remembered her craft enough to be inspired by it.”
They nodded.
That was enough for me, and I said what they came to hear.
“I relinquish this life.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny | Whimpers filled the chamber. Whimpers that escalated and crescendoed into pleas for help and mercy which, in turn, gave way for cries of exquisite agony. Cries that the guards outside did not pay heed to.
King Ailant struggled against his bonds, but to little avail. The tendons in his arms had been torn painfully from his flesh, rendering him as helpless as a newborn. He managed to strain his neck upwards in spite of the agony wracking him, sweat and dried blood matting his hair to his head.
"*Say it*," the cold, dispassionate voice of his tormenter commanded.
King Ailant slumped forward, his bones creaking as he shook his head, a slight sob escaping him. A burst of white-hot pain lanced across his back as the whip bit into it, flaying his pale flesh; nine tails of wrath, tearing at him with a bitter vengeance.
A hand clasped his cheek tightly, forcing him to look at the face of the beast that had him at their mercy. A beautiful face, it was. Marred only by disgust and the exertions of a torturer. Bright, blue eyes hardened with hate, porcelain skin dripping with sweat. Golden hair cut short, no longer flowing as it was once was.
Ailant could scarcely recognise his daughter. That was what death and contempt did to a person; aged them far more than the unfaltering flow of time ever could. She looked every bit the callous ruler he was, and a crown hadn't even been placed on her head.
He hoped it never would. For her sake, more than his.
A clear tear dripped from her eye, rolling down her cheek and falling to the floor. "*Say it*," she said again, her voice cracking pitifully this time.
Ailant opened his mouth to say something - a word of comfort, a word of scorn, anything he could muster - but naught came out. Only a long, pained groan. His throat was raw and dried, no longer capable of sounding anything other than cries of pain.
Elise quickly realised this and reached for something at her side, producing a flagon of wine. She tipped Ailant's head back, and poured the liquid down his throat. He felt some of the ache in him ease as he licked the excess of the sweet nectar from his lips, the rawness in his throat ebbing away. The liquid continued pouring, even once his thirst was sated, and he began to choke. He was drowning now, his body squirming as the swathes of wine filled his throat. He spluttered, tears beginning to fill his eyes. Drowning in decadence; even with his pain-addled mind, the irony was not lost upon him.
His daughter suddenly dropped to her knees, the flagon tumbling out of her hands as she let out an anguished scream. She leaned forward, her arms wrapping around his legs, her nails digging into his flesh.
"Father, please..." She buried her head against him. "Your Kingdom, does it mean anything to you? Just say the words, be done with it."
"*I...*" Ailant's laboured breaths filled the room. "*I don't want to die.*"
Ever the coward. Ever the selfish.
His daughter looked up to him, all semblance of emotion draining from her face faster than blood gushing from a slit throat. She rose to her feet, and unsheathed the dagger at her side, pressing it to Ailant's exposed neck.
It wouldn't kill him, they both knew that. But the threat was still sharper and more evident than any blade's edge. The promise it carried; that his daughter was more than willing to kill him for the sake of the Kingdom. The cold steel made him shudder.
"I will hurt you," Elise continued. "Again and again, and again. However many times I must. Until our crops die, our rivers go barren, and our children's children grow grey hairs. That is how long I'm willing to wait until you die, father. That is what it means to be a sovereign."
The blade chewed further, ruthlessly consuming skin and sinew alike. Any longer and Ailant wouldn't be able to breathe; like before, he'd be suffocating until his throat healed, writhing in the agony of perpetually drowning and choking on his own blood.
It was a fate worse than death.
Ailant's breath faltered, his heart thumped against his chest like drums of war.
He looked to his daughter's eyes, and then down to his body, mutilated beyond recognition. He bit down on his tongue, feeling blood well up in his mouth.
Finally, the words, the fated curse, escaped his lips.
"*Please, kill me*," he croaked. His daughter's innocence had long been lost; this he now saw, with wide, teary eyes, filled with loss. She was no longer the girl he'd once loved. There was nothing to protect her from, for she'd already experienced the cruelty of the court tenfold in this chamber alone. She would be Queen, and she would know his suffering as a sovereign. "*Kill me!*"
Death heard the call, and Death obeyed.
---
/r/coffeeandwriting
| 2017-08-07T09:47:15 | 2017-08-07T08:34:57 | 3,371 | 1,696 |
[WP] On your birthday every year, everybody you have ever known attempts to kill you. On all the other 364 days everyone treats you normally. No one has ever bothered to explain why. | "Say, Matt," I ask, as Melody grabs the axe by the door. "Didn't you ever wonder why everyone tries to kill us on
our birthday?"
"I do sometimes," Matt replies. "And I think I know the reason."
"Really? Why don't you tell me?"
Melody swings, and I crouch just in time to not have my head cut off.
"Well… you know how we are best friends?" Matt asks, as Will cocks the gun by our side on the couch.
"Yes."
"And you know how our birthdays are on the same day, and that's why everyone is trying to kill us now?"
"Sure."
"And you know how this is really bad exposition dialogue and no one really talks like this?"
"Uh-huh."
Will fires. Matt and I cover our reads as we run to the door. My mom shows up with a ceramic knife, swinging
around like crazy.
Down the stairs, Matt continues as we run. "Well, I noticed all these things a while ago, and I have to say… I
suspect we're in a shitty YA novel."
"Really?"
The sound of Will's gun firing reach us from the top of the stairs as we reach the front door.
"I think so. I mean, notice the incredibly unrealistic doomsday scenario."
I open the door and look around at the usually-quiet street. All our neighbors are out carrying guns and knives and all sorts of dangerous-looking weapons, looking for us.
"Notice the set of seemingly arbitrary 'rules' that serve no purpose other than to create conflict and tension."
"I see your point," I say, as we make way to the back of the house. "Why would people kill each other on their
birthdays?"
"Exactly. Also," Matt pulls me behind a bush just as Melody steps out from the back door of the house. "Notice the
cute girl with the odd yet charming name."
Melody looks around. Her blue eyes sparkle like ocean storms in high seas.
"Yes! The cheeky, over-the-top descriptions!" I say, noticing it too now. "This is definitely crappy YA material.
We're one Jennifer Lawrence away from a hit movie, dude."
"Exactly," Matt says. "And… well, you know what you have to do now."
"I do?"
Melody step-by-steps her way closer to us.
"You have to conquer the heart of the girl. And then start a revolution."
"Against whom?"
"Who the hell cares? End the story in a cliffhanger, then, if it's a hit, make it up as you go on the second novel."
"Will that work?"
"Worked for Maze Runner…"
I step out from behind the bush, and Melody rests her beautiful, dolphin-gray sparkling eyes that are also blue on
my somber-yet-charming figure. "Melody!" I say.
"Psycho!"
"Listen… we have to get together, Melody. We're in a YA novel."
Melody takes my hand, the axe still resting on hers. "Didn't you write a story like this before, Psycho?"
'Shh, it's been a long time, no one will remember it," I say, running my hand through her golden-like-pale-morning
hair. "Everything's going to be ok, Melody."
"It is?" Melody asks, still holding on to the axe.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's a YA story. We're gonna get in trouble, then out of trouble, then fall in love, then fight, then fall
in love again, and in the end everything is going to be PG-Thirteengly fine."
"You sure?"
"Positive." I close my eyes and wrap my lips around the strawberry-sweet rivers of happiness that are her lips. I
hear a soft metallic screech as she raises the axe and, a second later, I feel the hit against my left leg.
I fall to the ground a second after the leg. Blood everywhere.
"Did you just cut my leg off?"
She swings again, and now my other leg is gone.
"Tis but a scratch!" I say.
She swings again, now against my neck. My lifeless head rolls down the yard, stopping by Matt behind the bush.
Matt gets up, looking from my head to Melody. "Shit. Guess this wasn't a YA story after all. Poor Psycho."
"Well, he wrote it," Melody says, shrugging.
Matt shrugs too. "That's true. Wanna get some ice cream?"
"Sure," Melody replies, and then she kills him too, because I just remembered I mentioned it was also his birthday
at the start of the story, and consistency is key.
_____________
*For more shattered fourth walls, check out /r/psycho_alpaca =)*
| I stood on top of the mountain top looking at the mystic sitting cross legged in the snow.
"Uh...hi"
"I've been expecting you"
"You...you have?"
"Well yeah. I'm a mystic on a mountain top, I obviously expect people to come visit me"
"Oh...so do I get to ask a question?"
"You get three"
"Like three on top of that last one?"
"And now you have one"
"Right shit, so, why does everyone try to kill me on my birthday"
The mystic turned to face me.
"People try to kill you on your birthday? Shit that's heavy"
"Yeah but why do they do that...or...does that count as a fourth question"
"No no...it's ok"
"So..."
"Yeah look I'm not actually a mystic. I just was sitting up here cross legged and people started paying me to say shit so I ran with it"
"Oh"
"Yeah. It's usually not this dire"
"Oh...so you can't help me"
"No unless...you're not Bert who's changed your appearance are you?"
"No"
"Cause I fucking hate Bert"
"We all do"
"If it's not that though I have no idea"
"Well thanks anyway" I said, turning to go
"Wait..."
I turned back around.
"Is it your Birthday today?"
"Yes"
"I get it now"
"What?"
And then he pushed me off the mountain side.
| 2016-02-08T17:26:15 | 2016-02-08T16:34:49 | 1,174 | 228 |
[WP] "Good to see you, Mr. Bond," the Queen said, sliding a file across her desk. "Your next target is a certain so-called detective who has been prying too deeply into national secrets." Bond flips open the file, glancing down at the name. "Sherlock Holmes." | Bond knocked firmly on the door to the apartment, expecting to be greeted by Ms. Hudson or Mr. Watson. It was unfortunate, but collateral damage was unavoidable. So he felt the relief as he heard the thin voice answer through the door. "Ah, Mr. Bond. Come to kill me, have you? Well it won't do for you to have to liquidate the entire block, now will it? Do come in." The door swung inward to reveal the tall, thin figure.
He stepped cautiously over the threshold and surveyed the landing for some trap. "Upstairs, I presume? Dead bodies in the hallways are a ghastly business. I suspect your employer would rather the body be found in my favorite smoking chair, perhaps surrounded by the syringes you've got in your left pocket."
Bond's hand went to his pocket instinctively. "You're quite perceptive, Mr. Holmes."
"Nobody likes an arselicker, James. It's unbecoming. And please, call me Sherlock. It's only right that a man's last moments on this Earth are spent speaking to someone as an equal." The thin man nodded up the stairs. "And we are equals here, are we not?"
Bond eyed him carefully, looking for weapons. Apart from the sash drawing his dressing gown closed, he seemed to be completely unarmed. "If you insist, Sherlock." And he followed the man up the stairs into the sitting room.
It felt to James like stepping back in time, the old decor, the over-stuffed chairs. A portal to the 19th century, hidden within the frame of the door. He paused on the threshold. "Bringing the gun and the needles was, perhaps, a miscalculation. It's not often that a druggy shoots himself in the back of the head during an overdose." Sherlock waved a long arm toward the chair closest to the window before laying his hands on the nearest one. "You'll forgive me, but I'd like you to take a seat in that chair. This one is my favorite."
"Perhaps I'd rather not sit down." James countered.
"Perhaps." Sherlock settled into the chair. "But you will, because of your curiosity."
Bond drifted around the puffy chair as Sherlock carefully lit his pipe. "Surely you want to know how I knew today was the day and now the hour that you would come to kill me. Or did you think it coincidence that Ms Hudson, a woman who hasn't left this house since Sainsbury's began delivering groceries, suddenly found herself with pressing business in Westminster?"
He looked the man over. Unarmed, seated, and well out of arm's reach from the chair. There was little harm in playing Sherlock's game, and listening to monologues was an all too common hazard in his line of work. Still, to be careful, James drew his gun and laid it in his lap as he sat in the chair.
The chair seemed old, as old as the man who owned it, and nearly as uncomfortable. James shifted, feeling the tacks that held the stuffing press against his back before looking at Sherlock. "Westminster? That does seem unlikely."
"Indeed, well when one has been given a job, it must be seen through. Something I'm sure you understand. Ms. Hudson understands that perfectly, and so she will see the task I gave her through to the end." Sherlock leaned forward and studied the spy opposite him. "But that is immaterial. You want to know what I know. *How* I know."
A puff of smoke and Sherlock prodded a log on the fire with an iron poker. "I know, for instance, that you favor your left hook when sparring, despite being right handed." The poker dropped into its stand. "I know that you were relieved not to have to kill Ms. Hudson or Dr. Watson, despite your reputation as a cold-blooded killer. And I know that you were sent here to kill me by the Queen."
"Well, that last one is hardly a revelation, Sherlock. I'm the queen's man."
"Indeed you are, or rather you were." Sherlock sat back and James shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "I'm not sure quite what you did to upset her, my dear boy, but I'm afraid it must have been quite the faux pas." Sherlock continued hastily. "But it hardly matters. Once my associate phoned me that you had left your house, your fate was sealed."
The fireplace seemed to roar in James' ears for a second as Sherlock finished. He looked at the sedate fire, but when he looked back to Sherlock he found the room beginning to swim. He reached for his gun, but his arms felt like someone else's and the weapon clattered across the floor. Sherlock stood and kicked it into the other room as James fell from his chair after the weapon. "You're wondering how on Earth I poisoned you." James mouthed the word chair. "Ah, good! Yes, I would never allow my guests to sit in a chair so poorly stuffed. Do you know what else I know, James? I know you aren't worried, you've been poisoned by your quarry before. You're already plotting your escape. Trying to envisage which room in this house will be your prison. Trying to predict what improvised weapons I might leave within arms reach. Relishing the exact moment when you'll interrupt my ramblings with a sudden strike." James struggled to breathe as Sherlock bent down and clasped his jaw in a vice-like grip. "But you've forgotten something, my dear James. I already have someone to listen to my monologues and he'll be here shortly to help me dispose of your body."
James felt the man's hands in his pocket, fishing out the syringes. "Goodbye, Mr. Bond."
\---
Sherlock Holmes bowed low as he entered the room before taking a seat and passing the file carefully across the table. "It was unfair not to tell him he was in a duel, not a hunt, Your Majesty."
The Queen sat back stiffly in her chair. "How did you know I had told the two of you to kill each other?"
"Elementary, Your Highness." | “Do you know anything about Sherlock’s disappearance, Mycroft?”
“Dr. Holmes, please,” Mycroft replies over the phone. “And I’d prefer we not continue this conversation over the line, Dr. Watson. You do understand that as an employee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, all of my communications are either public record, or potential classified property of her majesty's government?”
“But....”
“I’m disconnecting,” replies Mycroft. “For your safety, please do not attempt to contact me again.”
The line on the pay phone disconnects.
Watson gazes around nervously, before leaving the booth and limping back out on to the streets of Nursultan.
A black car, windows tinted, Uber logo on the front window, follows closely behind.
Watson tries to pick up pace, as best he can with his cane tapping the ground.
The car stops past him, windows rolled down.
The driver, a tall local man wearing a polo shirt and pea coat, speaks.
“Dr. Watson!” shouts the man. “Dr. Watson!”
The driver stops and steps out of the car.
“Dr. Watson, my name is Temujin Batam. Perhaps you have heard of me?”
“Local enforcer for the Nursultan chapter of the organization.”
Watson flashes the challenge coin he carries in his inside pocket, displaying the eye in the pyramid.
Temujin produces his own.
The two men exchange the secret handshake.
“Your friend Sherlock has been a great friend of our organization’s quest to destroy superstition and enlighten all of humanity through our mysteries. He was the only final level initiate any of us knew.”
“He is a very knowledgeable man,” agrees Watson. “But I worry he may have known too much.”
Temujin nods.
“Before we go, may I look at your phone or any electronic devices?”
“How do I know I can trust you? The handshake and the eye in the pyramid are not enough to know if we’re on the same team.”
“Dr. Watson,” replies Temujin. “I will be honest. It is true that I have some connections to the the very forces of evil we are fighting against. I used to work as a cybersecurity consultant in the oil industry. During this time I was exposed to many of the most dangerous individuals in the world. Have you ever heard of a hacker by the alias 007?”
Watson’s eyes widen in shock.
“Bond.... James Bond. Formerly of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
“I think you’d better get in the car. But first, please dispose of any electronics you have. I fear that Bond is already on to us.” | 2019-11-05T03:27:27 | 2019-11-04T23:09:37 | 253 | 144 |
[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. | Approaching the city gate, the adventurers stiffen as the guards halt their way. Of course, Mr. Nobility has to be the one to step forward and speak for the group. Marian lightly touches her bow, prepared to ready an arrow if her arrogant companion gets them into trouble again.
"Greetings, my good men. My name is Hector of the house Rellon. Do you happen to have any directions for a band of weary travelers? We seek no conflict, only a comfortable place to rest for the night."
Sora and Fiera share a look. The last time they entered a new city, he tried to march right past the guards, drawing his sword when they stopped him. They had to find accommodations in a dingy little inn outside the city gates, where the other patrons all gave the distinct impression of being criminals.
Now, though, one guard obligingly gave them directions, and Hector... Hector actually thanked him, and clapped his back like they were old friends. The guard laughed cheerfully and sent them on their way. This was wrong. Hector didn't have friends. He didn't make friends. The only reason his companions hadn't booted him was his skill in combat, which had just barely saved them from more problems than his personality had gotten them into.
That night, as Hector remained in the common room to buy another round for the crowd... an unusual act of generosity... the others gathered in the private room they'd booked.
"Do you remember earlier today, when he left to investigate that noise in the trees?" Asked Sora.
Marian nodded. "But there was nothing there."
"I know," said Sora, "But what if he lied?"
"You think he could be under someone's control?" Fiera chimed in. "I could dispel any magic that might be around him."
Sora shook his head. "I don't think it's control. He hasn't hurt us or been irrational. He's just... *different*. I think he's been replaced."
"That's pretty far-fetched." Marian's voice was skeptical.
"It's happened before," said Sora. "Not all shapeshifters are evil. Some of them just want a safe group to live among. A family. Like what we are to Hector, even though he's an asshole who doesn't deserve us."
Fiera narrowed her eyes. "How do you know so much about shapeshifters?"
Sora sighed. It was time to come clean. "Because I'm one of them. You guys didn't know the real Sora. He tried to raid my nest. Would have gotten a good part of my family killed, as well as his whole group, if I hadn't taken his place. Foolhardy bastard. His friends figured me out, though. I barely escaped, and by then I was used to this form."
"No." Fiera shook her head. "You can't just replace people. The real Hector..."
"The real Hector didn't give a toss about any of us," said Marian. "Do you really think he's worth our compassion? When was the last time he extended any to you?"
Fiera was quiet for a minute, remembering the time she'd broken a leg fighting a troll. And Hector elected to carry the troll's treasure chest out of the dungeon, leaving her to hobble after him using a giant club as a makeshift crutch. "I guess if this shapeshifter is anything like you, Sora, it's probably an improvement."
"I know I was," commented Marian. "My new parents must have known something was different, but the family got along so much better with me in her place that they never questioned it."
Fiera stood from her chair, backing toward the door. "Are you shapeshifters going to replace everybody?"
"No," said Sora and Marian simultaneously.
Sora continued. "You're a good person, Fiera. We only take the place of assholes. People whose absence would actually improve things. For everybody, not just those of us who can change our form. Trust me, Fiera." He smiled, the friendly expression that Fiera had come to find reassuring after the years they'd spent together. "You have nothing to worry about."
Edit: typo | John, George, and Ringo were huddled together inside a secret room on the fantastical magical yellow submarine.
"George, how confident are you?"
George left his momentary silence of contemplation to say " Paul is dead man, miss him."
Ringo asks, "do you though? I mean I doubt if you guys would miss me either."
John shook his head, "we must have lost him on our way through Abby Road"
George sighed "I like the new one. I say we let it be."
A knock on the door. "You there guys? I was hoping we'd do a music number about friendship."
John looked at the others, and they nodded in agreement. John opened the door and announced, "ALL TOGETHER NOW!" | 2017-09-15T08:23:49 | 2017-09-15T06:41:40 | 223 | 35 |
[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 | Captain Badis looked down at another dead world. It's browning color a putrid sign that it too had befallen the same fate as the other colonization candidates. However, this planet had been found closer to Earth, hiding in a nebula that had obscured scanners pointed directly at her from the Sol system. Badis sighed. She'd called the world "her", but now the world was an it: a dead thing. Scientific teams had just confirmed the same cellular death across the entire planet only hours ago. It was a recent event too, as the discoloration had only begun, unlike the previous candidates. Now the captain had to decide what to do with this vast colonization fleet that had exhausted a majority of its resources hopping from star to star in search of Man's newest home.
It was the most advanced fleet humanity had ever known. The FTL drives were so new they were still being tested and refined at this very moment - borne out of technology and physics barely understood by even the most intelligent among our kind. The fleet was humanity's finest achievement and the call to begin expansion was immediate and pressing, as mankind's population has begun to place strain on the system's resources.
The captain's mandate was irrefutable and her authority within the fleet absolute. She was told to find humanity fertile grounds wherever they may be and lay the foundations for a new civilization before sending word back of their success, as the speed of spacecraft now outpaced our communications equipment. It was simply faster to send a ship back than to wait eons for a message of success.
With the most recent find another ruined world, the captain had already ordered one currier ship back to homeport to relay what they've encountered. Now the fleet would scan the surrounding star systems for previously hidden worlds from a new angle of approach and recover what information they could from this planet before it fell further apart. Nothing would rot on the planet, of course, as all of the organisms that normally participated in the decay of dead things were dead too. However, the formerly biological matter would desiccate and eventually break apart from basic chemistry and weather.
The reality of this kind of devastation was hard to process. Each arrival at a dead world was equally shocking. There was no getting used to this much loss. The away teams could not identify a reason for these events either. There was no residue, no particle, no trace of why this was happening. "Was the galaxy dying? This world is so close to home. Is Earth next to suffer this fate?" the Captain wondered.
She looked out her viewport to watch as the currier ship, now restocked, finally charged her FTL drive and tore away through space on her way back out of the system and toward home. The visual display of the ship engaging her FTL drive was impressive and the immediate bow shock that was generated by captured photons filled the viewport with light. It screamed through empty space like a comet. But space wasn't really empty, was it? she thought. Space is just sparse. There are plenty of things out in space, just spread so far apart that they don't normally matter. However, across vast distances, they might matter. The bow shock of a ship bending space around it might capture exotic particles we can't even detect yet.
The captain's face grew concerned as she rolled this around in her mind.
The look of concern on her face turned to abject horror as she came to a realization. She turned away from the viewport and ran toward the terminals of her command staff. Captain Badis was frantic and stumbled over her words. "Ensign! Tell the currier to shut her drive down! The bow shock! We must be killing these planets!"
The ensign tore his eyes away from his tracking screen and looked at Badis in dismay "I can't, Captain. The ship's already moving faster than comms! We can't stop them!"
***
*Edit: Looks like I wasn't the only one who came to this story idea while I was writing it out. Oh well.* | The first planet we colonized was proxima centauri, it was there we found no intelligent life, but we did find buildings that were 100s of years old but no body's, just buildings.
We then went of and colonized 5 other planets in the span of 17 years, but not once did we find intelligent life, just buildings.
But the most confusing part is the buildings are slowly becoming less and less older as we find more planets.
But alas I am on my death bed and I fear I may be gone here soon so I would like to say one thing that we are all thinking, why are they running? | 2019-12-09T08:36:48 | 2019-12-09T07:07:41 | 68 | 11 |
[WP] As an author you’re the ultimate god of your world. Your hero became powerful enough to step into reality. He then asks you to explain why an omnipotent being would permit so much evil in the world, not realising that you placed all the evil there to spice up the story. | I was writing my new novel, when suddenly a flash of light filled my room, and with a \*thud\*, a figure could be seen, kneeling in front of me.
He was even kneeling, a sturdy, tall looking man, with short golden brown hair, sky blue eyes, rather rough skin, wearing a full body silver armour.
He also had a sword.
With an azure blue handle, I was 100% sure the sword's blade was blood red...
How do I know that?
Because this dude...is the Hero from my book, Arecles.
And now, he's kneeling in front of me.
"God, why are you so cruel?"
And asking me this question.
​
"Excuse me?"
I asked him.
"I grew powerful enough to sense thy Holiness's aura, and teleported here.
I am sure you are the God who created my world...which is filled with monsters, barbarians, and demons...
Tell me, why did you allow such vile existences to commit their atrocious deeds for so long?!
So many races enslaved, eaten, or forced to kill their own blood!
Tell me... WHY?!"
He questioned.
But I had a feeling of absolute control over him... so, I kept my attitude the old me: straightforward.
"Because that made the story interesting."
I said, shrugging.
​
"You...Y-y-y-you! Made the story interesting?! For you this is just a story?"
He asked.
"Yes."
I answered, throwing him a copy of the book he was the main character in.
He was a Hero, so he could skim through the book in less than a minute, and still understand its contents.
"Is...Is this the way you create worlds? Through books?"
He asked me, disbelief and shock written all over his face.
"Nah, seemingly each story we create, generates and alternate universe in which the characters created are actually real.
And you somehow managed to find some relics, or techniques, that enabled you to not just escape, but also travel through several universes to arrive here, to me.
At least, that my theory."
I said, jotting down some ideas from this development.
​
"So, with just a raise of the pen, you could've made our lives better?"
He asked, anger still present in his mannerism.
"Arecles, since you are a living being, you are much more complex than what I've written.
Have you ever day dreamed?"
I asked him.
"Y-y-y-yes?"
He said, confused.
"Have you ever dreamt of being a great hero, saving everyone, killing all the demons, barbarian, bla-bla, vanquishing evil, having a harem of countless beauties, and ruling the world in peace forever?"
I asked, clearly knowing the setting of the world I've created.
"Y-y-yes, as a child, and when d-d-drinking..."
He said, a bit ashamed, both because of the content, and because he is smart, and he knew where I was going.
​
"You also dreamed in a way, that evil exists, and it committed atrocities, so if my theory is right, you also created a universe with that day dream, or fantasy, and you also subjected your creations to horrors untold.
Are you in the wrong?"
I asked.
"W-w-well..."
He stuttered.
"Listen kid, although theoretically you are around 10-20 thousand years old, but whatever, I digress...
Just because such a theory exists, and might be true, that doesn't mean life is not worth living, nor does it mean one has to have only positive, and helpful thoughts.
Life is life, not good, nor evil, things would happen anyway."
I said.
​
"B-b-but we could at least create one universe..."
He started saying.
"There are universes where there is only good, and they are so boring. No desire for greatness, no drive for improvement.
Great cities, with great economies, with peaceful and helpful inhabitants, which works for what? A century? A millennia? A universe cycle? "
I said, interrupting him.
"W-w-"
"I didn't finish.
No, it would be only until someone says "I am bored, screw this", and would do something so wicked, that their civilisation would go "puff" and disappear."
I said, chuckling at the thought.
​
"How could you be so insensitive?"
He asked.
"Why not?
You would need to force every single living being in the multi-verse, if it exists of course, to think positively, so they don't create a universe filled with suffering.
Do you think that's possible?"
I asked.
"N-n-n-no..."
He said.
"Also, without evil, you can't appreciate good.
What becomes of peace, if people never knew strife, and struggle?
Boredom."
I said.
​
With that, he froze in place, and started slowly disappearing.
"My technique ran out of time... I am going back."
He said.
"Take care of yourself kid, behave just as you like, but don't overthink things."
I said.
"Farewell....Creator."
He said, as he disappeared in countless motes of light.
​
After he disappeared, I collapsed powerlessly in my chair.
"Damn, without the feeling of omnipotence over him, this conversation becomes so weird..."
I thought to myself, jotting my dialogue down, being sure it would be useful in another novel.
Do I even consider writing more positive stories, now that I know that my writing, literally can become real?
Not at all, most stories of mine, in the end, no matter the filth that goes down the line, end nicely, and peacefully... and that's all that matters.
Or at least, I like to think, otherwise, the burden would be just...too great. | I have often visualized my creation, Taron, standing behind me, guiding me as I write. The vividness of these imaginings comes close to hallucination, as though I am being driven by his mighty spirit as he raises his cursed blade, the Terrorsword, above the cowering sorcerer who has tormented the kind and humble folk of a farming village with his vile arts.
Yet, there Taron stands in the doorway of my two-story house in Curtis Park, the sun at his back. His face aflame with rage, the very rage I have imagined in moments when I have felt possessed by Taron's cunning spirit.
Taron is exactly as I have described him: a hulking figure with a mane of curly red hair, piercing ice-blue-eyes, and an aquiline nose, clad in a brown deer-leather vest, woollen black trousers, and dragon-hide moccasins, the Terrorsword slung across his back.
"When I sought God," snarls Taron, "I did not imagine such a puny little man, who would cause so much suffering in my world."
"What suffering have I caused?" I inquire, wondering if this is yet another vivid imagining.
"My destiny," spits Taron, "was forged in war. Though my people be brave fighters all, no child should have to see his mother abducted by cruel vagabonds, his father tortured and slain before him, his brothers and sisters *enslaved*."
Taron continues, "and then. And then, there is the matter of those I have loved. My best friend, or so I thought, Wyvern - the Captain of the Warbeasts, who betrayed me and my brothers-in-arms in a shower of blood, upon a mountain of skulls, that he might seek the powers of a *God*! Who left my beloved bride-to-be speechless, an idiot and a vegetable in my care until her death by witch hunters!"
Taron proceeds with yet another list of the injustices he has suffered.
"Not only did I seek Wyvern that I might slay him - which I did, with my own bare hands - not only did I risk life and limb, suffering visions of great insanity, to hunt and strike down each and every one of the witch hunters who slew my love - but you subjected me as well to crucifixion and revival, my eyes plucked out by ravens until the magics of the Argonites brought me to life and made me well again! And then, it seems, near every woman with whom I shared my affections, save the one I was to marry, has betrayed me! By poison or by blade, or in collusion with murderous kings and wicked wizards!"
Taron pauses.
"Give me one good reason, oh creator of my world, why I should not slice you in twain with the Terrorsword, and bring all suffering in my world to an end?"
I pause, trying to think, as quickly as I can, of some crafty way to spare myself from death by the Terrorsword's dark energy. | 2021-08-17T13:07:58 | 2021-07-31T10:48:40 | 57 | 14 |
[WP] Birthmarks show the wounds that caused you to die in your previous life. Someone investigates old murders through looking at birthmarks, a birthmark-detective. | It was strange, how children decided who was popular in their class. There were the obvious factors- beauty, money, and murder marks, but there was also the subtle. What color shirt you decide to wear on casual Friday, or which piece of playground equipment was your favorite.
People said it was natural, a child's aversion to murder marks, though I never believed it. There was all kinds of psychology behind the marks. Heavily marked individuals were less popular, less likely to get jobs, and more likely to live in poverty-filled areas due to the death radius. Adults fawned over children with no marks, and ignored or even showed outright disgust with obvious ones, especially on the back, over the heart, or on the face. Mothers taking photos of their newborn baby took care to drape a cloth or arrange their hands so the baby's mark was covered.
I was a lucky one. My mark was light purple, small, and on the side of my head, indicating a brain tumor and easily covered with my long, brown hair, which I am told I inherited from my death mother. My biological mother fixed hats and headbands to my head when I was small, until my peach fuzz had grown to something more substantial.
My husband, John, is also lucky, although a little less so. The two small, light brown spots on his chest were easy to hide, but indicated an accidental shooting. Investigators traced it back to a nearby hunting accident. John's death father was loved in the community, so John, although it was a known accident, was ostracized by his neighbors. Luckily, his parents moved to a city, where no one knew the story behind his death marks.
John and I moved to the small town of Roamer after his mother died. We attended the death ceremony, which was traditional. His mother's body was shown while everyone paid their last respects, and then, her death daughter was revealed- a small, beautiful blonde baby, with a purple round mark on her left arm, indicating a heart attack. The baby smiled and gurgled at John as he dropped the stem of lavender into her crib, and we left soon after. On the ride home, John put his head in his hands and sniffed quietly. I decided not to mention that the baby had his mother's eyes, although he had to have noticed.
Roamer was a beautiful town, mostly consisting of older, retired couples. "Retirement towns" had gained popularity recently. Those who could afford to would travel to the nearest one to get pregnant and birth their baby, nearly guaranteeing a natural death mark, and their monthly rent would help out many of the elderly couples. With a death radius of an average of thirty miles, the more isolated the town, the better. In the middle of Wyoming with a population of 340, Roamer was the ideal birthing town.
We moved into the birthing complex in May. With only four rooms and a shared living space, it wasn't the most romantic building, but there were no other couples booked at the same time for us. The midwife told us that the town wasn't very popular, since the nearest city was more than three hours away, and that we would likely have the house to ourselves for the entire birthing period. No one had stayed there for three years.
The town was exactly as described- quaint and tiny, with about 300 retired folks over the age of 80 and middle-aged nurses and caretakers filling in the rest of the population. The main events of the town were fishing and listening to the radio. It was exactly what I had always dreamed of when thinking about my birthing town: sleepy and safe.
We got pregnant quickly. There was a feeling of excitement in the air. The residents of the town were excited to see something new, especially a baby. Since it was such a small place, we were close to many of them, and they would often come by with cookies and lasagnas and discuss baby gifts and names with us. We shared our hopes- a little boy or girl who would enjoy playing ball and drawing- and our fears- that we weren't quite ready to be parents. Our elderly neighbors would laugh and reassure us, saying they never knew a couple so well-prepared.
There was also tension in the air. A new life meant that one of them would, likely, pass soon. A child with no death marks was considerably rare, as a death radius can grow with no potentials. This was a town full of them.
But our pregnancy was a relatively happy event, and we were supported by people who now felt like family.
Just two days before my expected date, an older man named Daniel died in his sleep. As awful as it sounds, it brought me a feeling of relief. Now we knew to expect a natural causes mark, a simple, purple square on the bottom of her foot. It would also allow us a traditional death ceremony. My husband and I discussed which feature we would like our baby to inherit from Daniel, and we agreed that he had a wonderful singing voice. The death inheritance would be Daniel's last gift to the world, and we hoped it would be something beautiful.
I began labor on time, two days later. Attending were two nurses, my midwife, and the sheriff, to sign off on Daniel's death certificate, which would show Daniel as our baby's death father. I clutched my husband's hand as the midwife caught the baby, quickly wrapping it in a blanket to hide any potential marks until the sheriff could examine them. My husband cut the cord, and they took it to the other room to clean and examine it.
A few minutes later, a nurse, the sheriff, and our midwife came back through the door. The nurse looked shaky and the sheriff was pale. I chalked it up to it being their first birth in a while. The midwife calmly handed me the wrapped baby, saying, "Congratulations, it's a boy," as the sheriff unclipped his walkie talkie from his belt.
I smiled at the baby. "Jeremy, right?" my husband whispered, and I nodded. He kissed me on the forehead as I unwrapped the blanket.
The cloth fell away to reveal eight angry, red circles smattering my baby's chest, arms, and neck. They glared up at me and I nearly screamed, my eyes tearing up. My husband let go of my shoulder.
Vaguely, I could hear the sheriff speaking into his radio. "We're going to need a thirty-mile radius around the birthing center. Over." | He paced the hallway outside of her room, feverishly peering through the window with each pass. It had been a long night, and by now, sunlight had escaped from behind the hospital curtain and illuminated her face.
*She was beautiful*. He thought. *God damn, she was beautiful*.
Alarms whirled, nurses shoved past him into the room, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief as the monitor flat lined.
*It isn't over.*
"Are you alright?" the doctor asked, as she motioned down the hall. "Please. Come this way, Mr. Halaway."
"I have some heavy news, as you're already aware," Dr. Houng said. "We did everything we could, but Mrs. Halaway didn't pull through."
He felt no sorrow; harbored no pain, but slumped into the doctors arms and wept. It seemed necessary.
"What now?" He sobbed. "My daughter. I need to take her home. Remaining here, where her mother...my wife...died...that's poisonous."
Dr. Houng comforted him. "Your daughter is in the nursery. She'll be cleared for discharge in the next few hours. I'll take you to see her."
He glared through the nursery window. Anger shot from his eyes as they darted from newborn to newborn, examining their smooth, flawless skin. *What are the chances?* He thought. *This can't be.*
The PA crackled. A nurse on the opposite side of the window beckoned him.
"Sir, it's common practice for the maternity ward to report birthmarks of this size and location to the BIU. Just a few more minutes while we take her photograph for the report."
The air grew stale in his lungs. "The...the Birthmark Investigation Unit...," he stammered, as he forced a smile. "Why would they need to get involved?"
"It's just procedure, Mr. Halaway," the nurse said over the PA. "The investigation will remain confidential, even if it leads to a conviction. Neither you or your daughter will be bothered again. All they need is the photograph and her time of birth."
Dr. Houng extended a brochure. "We all have a previous life, Mr. Halaway. It might be tough to accept that your child's previous life could have ended in a traumatic way, but we offer services that may help you come to terms with that. You should take comfort in the fact that the BIU can use the information we provide to finally put a soul to rest and bring a murderer to justice."
The nursery door swung open. "You're all set. She really is beautiful. Just like her mom."
The car door chimed as he straped his daughter into her car seat. It had been a long day, and by now, the sun was low enough to peek in through the front windshield and illuminate the rope-like birthmark around her neck.
"It's okay, my love," He cooed. "They never found her body."
| 2015-03-03T12:13:38 | 2015-03-03T11:06:37 | 144 | 35 |
[WP]"This is how it works," Death explained. "You pick the game and we play. Cheating is allowed, but if either one of us is caught by the other, they lose. If you win, you'll wake up back in the hospital and I'll give you another 10 years. If you lose then it's time for judgement. Understood? | "This is how it works," Death explained. "You pick the game and we play. Cheating is allowed, but if either one of us is caught by the other, they lose. If you win, you'll wake up back in the hospital and I'll give you another 10 years. If you lose then it's time for judgement. Understood?"
"I choose Russian Roulette." Ted said without missing a beat.
Death fumbled a moment, the cold fires in his sockets flickering down then sparking back up in a surprised blink. "You can't be serious."
"*Deathly* so." Ted said with a grin at his own pun. "Give me a revolver and a bullet with the power to kill even you. I'll load it, and we go until one of us pops." Ted mimed an explosion with his hands, a grin on his face.
Death's sallow visage tightened as if glaring at the impertinence. "Very well. A bargain is a bargain." With a puff of smoke that smelled of must a six-chamber revolver and a single bullet appeared in Ted's hand. The bullet glowed an ethereal violet.
"Now before you get any bad ideas, Ted, let me tell you that even though cheating is allowed in this game, turning that gun on me and firing will be treated as a forfeiture of the game." Death said warily.
Ted loaded the bullet and spun the chamber with a cocky grin. "Never even occurred to me. A deal's a deal after all. Who starts?" Death offered a wave of his hand towards Ted, who placed the revolver to his temple, pulled the trigger... \*click*. Empty. "Your go, friend." Ted said as he handed the revolver, handle-first, to Death.
Death took the revolver, and put it to his own head with some trepidation. A moment of hesitation, of uncertainty... \*click.* His gaunt frame visibly released from held tension. "So, Ted, why Russian Roulette, of all games?"
Ted took the revolver, placed it to his temple... \*click*. "I figure the best chance I have is, well... chance. I've never been one for chess or other games of strategy, and cards are too easily manipulated. Russian Roulette is simple, raw, and... final." Ted met Death's spectral gaze as he handed the revolver over. "Your go."
Death's hand began to tremble as he lifted the revolver... two in three chance of winning... one in three chance of seeing what happened when he met his OWN grim shepherd... \*click. Death's sigh of relief could be heard echoing off the walls of his sepulcher as he handed the revolver back to Ted. "Fifty-Fifty chance now, Ted."
Ted stared at the revolver a moment, doubt flickering across his face... but he lifted the revolver to his head steadily. "Guess I was going to die anyway..." \*click.
Ted's face split widely into a joyful grin as he handed the revolver back to Death. Death took it gingerly, fearfully. He stared at it, as if not comprehending the reality of the situation. Ted goaded Death victoriously. "Game's not over yet. You going to follow through with it? You could concede if you wanted. Keep the gun, send me back. We both win."
Death looked to the revolver, and the fires in his eyes suddenly blazed hot and bright. "I am **Death**. I am the One Certainty, the only thing in this universe that is consistent and equal. I do not concede, and I do not go back on a deal. ...Congratulations, Ted."
Death held the revolver to his head, ready to fire the sixth and final shot...
\*click*
Death stared at the revolver with relief and confusion and bewilderment all washing across his sunken features in a rush. "I don't... what happened? I don't understand? That was the final chamber. I shouldn't *be* anymore..."
Ted dipped his hand into the sleeve of his jacket, and held the ethereal bullet between two fingers like it was a common cigarette. "Palmed it, friend. Gun's empty. You DID say we could cheat. I honestly thought you'd concede, though."
Death laughed. He broke down into peals of dusty hollow laughter that rang across the voids of eternity. He waved his hand and as Ted disappeared back to reality, the final thing he heard was:
"Get out of here and enjoy your ten years, you cheeky fuck. And NEXT time, it's CHESS." |
Death throws rock, I throw rock.
Death throws paper, I throw paper.
Death throws scissors, I throw scissors.
"Its very clear that this will take a while"
Ten years of stalemate go by, finally Death throws paper and I scissors.
Underneath his dark hood, Death whispers "You win."
I blink and find myself alone in a stale hospital room A soft yellow light is illuminating the eggshell white walls and recovery room decorations.
My head is swimming and my eyes hurt, but I did it. I finally beat death.
From the corner of the room I hear the click of the doorknob and see the sway of the door through my foggy vision. In walks the only company I've had for what seemed like an eternity. Death.
"Wait! You said you would give me 10 years!" I meekly sqweek recoiling to the headboard in horror.
"It has been ten years." says Death with a small chuckle.
"How could this be?" I mutter with shock and disbelief.
Death slowly moves his fleshless left hand in front of his torso open palmed and face up, than his right hand over his left in a skeletal fist.
"Two out of three?" | 2018-03-07T08:25:24 | 2018-03-07T07:40:40 | 192 | 18 |
[WP] "Jesus take the wheel, Satan get behind me, Buddha... man the .50 cal" | The three looked between each other. There was no more time for words. No more words were necessary.
They knew their places.
Jesus swung into the driver's seat. It was the only real place for him, and there wasn't another option, when it came right down to it. Buddha didn't fit behind the wheel, and they'd both seen Satan at work on that flask inside his jacket through the day. No, Jesus would handle it.
Their wheels spun on the gravel. The others were circling, now. It was time. The final battle, the final fight to see who would win the game once and for all. Jesus and Satan teaming up was a given. The other candidates had complained - it wasn't fair - but complaining got them nowhere.
They all tried to pretend like they weren't going to do the exact same thing as soon as the opportunity presented itself. They looked between each other edgily, sizing the competition up. Picking teams.
Buddha, on the other hand, was a surprise. What incentive did *he* have for working together with the terrible twosome? His smooth, expressionless face gave no hint of an answer as he clambered all the way up behind the gun mounted in the truck bed. His bare feet were steady on the metal floor, perfectly centered even as his girth swung disconcertingly.
"Here they come!" Satan roared. He had elected himself shot-caller, of course, even though they hadn't set teams. Neither of the other two were surprised by *that*, either. He'd always needed to have the last word on things.
The first contenders were approaching. Muhammed was out front, leaning out the side door of a torn-up station wagon. He clutched a rocket launcher in his hands. They could see Shiva behind the wheel, grinning like a madcap as he spun the wheel. The overburdened little car nearabouts rode up on two wheels as they whipped into a donut.
"Shoot! Shoot! Now, goddammit! Why aren't you shooting yet?!" Satan screamed. Jesus gritted his teeth, choosing to ignore the fact that his father's name was being taken in vain alongside him. Buddha was just watching, sizing up the shot. And then his meaty finger gripped the trigger.
The roar of the gun was deafening. Satan clapped his hands over his ears, roaring with laughter as the gleaming, glowing rounds arced out towards the station wagon. Shiva was swearing - they could see that much, even though his words were lost to distance and the racket. But they were spinning too fast. The ground between them erupted into shredded sand and mud.
Muhammed wasn't waiting anymore. A plume of fire shot from the rocket launcher.
Everything happened all at once, after that.
"Satan!" Jesus cried. He, too, was turning now, but there was only so much he could be expected to do. He was supposed to be positioning them to attack. Defending them was-
"I got it, I got it! Don't get your robes in a bunch." Satan hissed. Defending them was *his* job. He lurched dangerously in his seat, barely holding on. But he pulled his hand up into an almost-level position, mimicking a gun.
"Bang."
Red circles appeared endlessly around their truck. Something was coming up from underground.
"*Damn* it, Satan. Do you have to-"
"Don't complain, big guy. Left. Left. Go-"
The truck whipped into a left-hand turn, narrowly avoiding the black pillars shooting up around them. Jesus shook his head.
"I've *got it*. Stop backseat driving."
The other teams were coalescing, now. One after another, the deities were lining up for the big fight. They all knew. Whoever won this, would win the world. And none of them wanted to lose.
He could almost see them, if he squinted. Four sets of hooves, barely visible under the cloudline where they floated. Watching. Waiting. The final fight, for whoever crushed the competition here.
He winced. The little station wagon had just been slammed by a hummer. He could see Ra through the front window, glowing faintly from the shit-eating grin on his face. Oddly noodle-like tentacles were swarming out of the vehicle, attaching themselves to the station wagon. Which seemed to be *vanishing* into the mass of pasta.
"Drive! Drive!" Satan screamed in his ear. The roar of the chaingun from the truck bed was almost a constant companion, now.
Jesus grinned, flexing his hands on the wheel.
And then he drove.
(/r/inorai, critiques always welcome. And going to head it off, I know that Buddha isn't really the fat jolly man statue most people associate with it, but, *most people associate that with him*.)
~~Note - Another part or two is a possibility tonight when I get home, although this won't for obvious reasons be a long term project beyond that. If you want to be notified *should* that second part happen, leave a comment in the thread about this post on my sub. It's linked above :) I will notify anyone in that thread re: updates.~~
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/7dc6op/heavenly_pubg_part_2) | Five words. Five words that would change the world.
The Old Gods had returned.
At first the world did not notice that anything had changed. They assumed that global warming was a result of man-made carbon emissions and pollution. They thought that the increase in violence and strife was a result of burgeoning religious fundamentalism or a desire for democratic rule. The effects were subtle, and humans among all the other animals in the world are the most egotistical and narcissistic. Of course they were causing these problems.
They were wrong.
Of course, it took something more than just people killing each other over religion or the Great Barrier Reef dying to realize this. On November 12, 2017 a being suddenly appeared over Baghdad, Iraq. It was a nebulous dark mass of smoke, tentacles and fire. It's red eyes stared over the ancient city from over a mile above the ground. The world panicked.
Humans by their very nature are good at ignoring things that are unpleasant. Death and existential dread first and foremost above them. They could ignore these no longer for they had become manifest. We're not sure if it was the scientists or journalists that first named this creature, but it came to be known as Thanatos.
The god of Death.
The creature did not move for 24 hours, the fires of its eyes never dimming nor closing. After one day to the very second, Thanatos opened its mouth and screamed. The very earth cried out in pain and a massive earthquake struck, destroying homes and killing hundreds.
Before the ground could calm and the sound die down, a dark smoke began to issue from Thanatos' mouth. As the black mist wafted down it began to compact and spin away from the larger mass of smoke. These pieces hit the ground like midnight meteors, throwing up dirt and dust. Many people were outside trying to avoid collapsing buildings so they noticed fairly quickly the *things* crawling from the various craters within the city. It took days to get a picture of these children of Thanatos.
They had killed everyone.
***
2nd Part - https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/7d6cjy/wp_jesus_take_the_wheel_satan_get_behind_me/dpvi5cl/
3rd Part - https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/7d6cjy/wp_jesus_take_the_wheel_satan_get_behind_me/dpvn2pt/ | 2017-11-15T12:07:31 | 2017-11-15T12:02:08 | 5,788 | 56 |
[WP] "You may have one wish granted." "I want all my debts cleared." "How much do you owe?" "You misunderstand. My debts are not monetary." | The journey had been treacherous, but worn and weary, I finally reached the highest peak. I stood for a moment in awe at the sight of the acropolis, bathed in golden light. With newfound vigor, I took the final steps and at long last set foot inside the hallowed halls. I was greeted by a booming voice.
"Welcome to Olympus, mortal. You have ventured far to seek counsel with the gods. What is it that you seek?"
I hesitated for a moment.
"O great Zeus, I have come to seek your aid. I have undertaken a great debt, one which I am unable to pay. I have made the perilous climb to the top of Mt. Olympus to ask that you absolve me of this debt."
"I am afraid I cannot absolve you of your debt." The voice had taken on a somber tone. "Debts must always be repaid."
My heart sank as his words echoed through the chamber.
"However..." the voice continued, "Olympus has a great many treasures. Surely, no debt could be so great that the riches of the gods could not suffice. No matter the price, I shall pay your debt."
"Thank you, almighty Zeus! I am humbled by your generosity!"
"So tell me, mortal: to what amount do you owe?"
"Well... Forgive me, O powerful Zeus, but I must ask that you come with me to Earth to meet my debtor."
"Very well," the voice began. "I shall accompany you tomorrow. Today is a day of great celebration on Olympus. Today, our son Hercules is born. For tonight, you shall join us. Come, feast with us. It is a joyous occasion."
Suddenly a figure took shape before me, as if the booming voice itself had coalesced into material form. "This way," the giant figure gestured as he opened a great stone door, the sounds of festivity and merriment wandering into the chamber. I followed the gracious deity out into the courtyard, where all the pantheon was gathered. Surely, no mortal before me had ever beheld such a sight.
The celebration continued for a time that felt like many days, but the sun did not set. In fact, it had remained fixed in the sky. Were I not in the presence of Apollo himself, I might wonder the reason why. The gods did not sleep, but I lacked their divine fortitude. After much feasting, I found a place to rest.
When I awoke, it was finally night.
"Ah, awake at last," the familiar voice whispered. "Let us begin our descent."
As we traversed down the mountain, night slowly turned again to day. The rising sun greeted us just as we arrived in the city.
"Where shall we find this debtor?" the deity inquired.
"I believe it is he who shall find us," I answered. "Please, let us return to my home. You graciously invited me to feast on Olympus, it is only fitting that I offer the same hospitality in return."
The god gave an amused smile and agreed as we set down the road. After a short while we arrived at the estate.
"This is your home?" Zeus remarked, with a clear hint of surprise. His divine gaze darted from gilded tapestry to shining gemstone to the servants that fetched us food and drink.
"Indeed, it is."
"Then surely, this debt must be quite heavy, that a man of your fortune cannot pay it."
"Indeed, it is."
Finally, there was a knock at the door. I opened it, revealing a twisted and crooked man. He spoke with a shrill sense of glee in his voice. "I see you have finally returned! Are you prepared to pay your debt?"
"Indeed, I am. Almighty Zeus, this is the man to whom I owe so much."
"Zeus... I'm familiar with your work. But tell me, do you know my name?"
The god stood silent. The twisted man didn't seem phased to be in the presence of a divine being.
"No matter. It's time. Pay up!"
Zeus finally spoke. "I am here to pay this man's debt."
A sinister smile worked its way across the twisted man's face as he turned his gaze back to me.
"Well! I must say, you've delivered more than I expected!" He cackled as the words escaped from his twisted face.
"Almighty Zeus, I beg your forgiveness..."
The god turned to me with a puzzled look.
"Well, go on... Introduce us," the shrill voice urged.
"Zeus... Meet Rumpelstiltskin." | "Whatever you desire shall be done." It replied. "You must be specific. What do you owe?"
The man crossed his arms and looked down toward the ground in front of the large pot that the creature's smoky form emanated from.
"Promises. I have made many promises I now realize I can not keep. I've made good on some, but try as I may, I seem to have hit a wall."
"One wish mortal. Your race's laws are filled with loopholes, but you will find none here. You can't squirrel away a hundred wishes under the guise of one."
"It's all the same promise." The man said as he unfolded his arms. "I've promised to kill everyone on this list." He raised his hand toward the creature and a scroll filled with names running the length of half his body unfurled. Many of the names had been crossed out in red ink.
Smoke rushed from the pot and enveloped the parchment, bringing it close to the glowing orange eyes of the thing from inside the pot.
"Thirty lives in exchange for your death? You hate these people so badly you would die just to see their lives destroyed?" The thing asked.
"No, you've got it wrong. You're right, I hate them beyond description. But it's not thirty for one. It's just thirty."
"I see" the thing said. "As you request!"
| 2016-11-19T01:46:16 | 2016-11-19T01:39:09 | 66 | 13 |
[WP] Humanity spread into the stars. They're generally quite kind and helpful and treat all worlds as important. But occasionally they'll ignore uniquely made human ships. When asked about it, most humans just say "The powerful abandoned Earth after nearly killing us. Now we're returning the favor" | "Look Momma! A ship!"
Lynn glanced over to see a gargantuan ship, floating through space, dark and brooding, as if haunted.
"Yes! I see it! Now, let's see if we can find our shoes, Zephyr is probably waiting for you." Lynn attempted to divert cheerily.
Sarah hadn't moved from the porthole when Lynn had retrieved the shoes, the little girl seemed transfixed for a few more moments before turning to her mother.
"Why is it so dark? Do they need help? Should we call Daddy?" The girl looked very concerned. Lynn considered how to explain that calling her husband, the ship's head of maintenance, couldn't save the souls on that ship.
"Would you like to hear a story? It's a sometimes sad one." Lynn warned. Sarah nodded enthusiastically and climbed into her lap.
"A very, very long time ago-" she started.
"Once upon a time!" Sarah interrupted.
Lynn shook her head solemnly "No sweetie, not this story, 'once upon a time' is for pretend stories, this story isn't pretend."
When the girl nodded, she restarted "A very, very long time ago, humans like you and me and Daddy didn't live on space ships, we didn't know any people like Zephyr and their Mommy and Juja and Daddy. All humans lived on a planet called Earth and there were only humans and special Earth animals and plants.
There were so many Earth animals and plants in the beginning, as many as the stars, but humans started to do things that hurt the plants and animals and even Earth itself, they made a lot of trash that they left everywhere, and put bad stuff in the air, and the plants and animals started to die, and the humans started getting sick."
Lynn continued as her daughter nodded, wide eyed "there were so many humans that some humans were in charge of telling the other humans the rules, and those humans knew that they were hurting all the animals and plants and other humans, but they didn't care because they liked telling other people what to do and having things their way and getting to have the most stuff.
When the time came that almost all the animals and plants were dead, and all the other humans were sick and weak, the humans in charge took themselves and their families and hid away on special ships, where they went to sleep in special beds so that they wouldn't wake up until the ship woke them up. They were bad humans that took up all the nice things people needed to live and left nothing for all the other humans."
"But what about the other humans?" Sarah asked worriedly.
"The other humans got very sick and a lot of them died, but then the Greorians came, and they helped the humans clean up the Earth, and save as many plants and animals as they could, and they taught humans how to build spaceships like this one so we could go other places, because Earth needed time to heal without so many humans.
Now, most humans live on spaceships like these and we go everywhere and are friends with everyone! Isn't that fun?!" Lynn ended on a high note.
"But is Earth fixed yet?"
"Not quite yet, but almost. We can go visit though, if you want to, some humans still live there to help the Earth heal better, and the rest of the humans can only come see the plants and animals for a little while." Sarah's eyes lit up.
Lynn hadn't visited Earth in years, not since she was a child, but the thought of visiting with Sarah thrilled her, seeing it all new again through her child's eyes would be exciting. They could visit the plains and witness the American buffalo, and see the tasmanian tigers in Australia, if they made it a weekend, they could hit all the major habitats. She'd even heard that the scientists there were psuedo cloning mammoths in Siberia, now that they'd reestablished the tundra. She'd only seen them in books but it would be amazing to see them in person, especially with Sarah. It would make a nice family vacation.
Lynn set Sarah on her feet and stood, ready to continue the day now that they'd talked, but instead, Sarah raced to the porthole, twisting her head to see the ship fading behind them.
"But mommy, what about them? Are they ever going to wake up?"
Lynn crouched to get to Sarah's level and tucked her hair behind her ears "I don't know sweetie, supposedly, the ships like that one were meant to return to Earth one day, they programmed them to wait five thousand years, then go home, and all the bad people would wake up and start over with a Earth that wasn't sick anymore without having to do any work to fix everything they'd messed up. It's only been one thousand years, so I don't think they'll wake up anytime soon.
Once all the humans started fixing Earth and built spaceships and made friends with the other people in space, some people wanted to wake up the bad people, but other people were scared they'd keep wanting to take over and tell everyone what to do and hurt everything, and some other people didn't think it was fair for them to skip all the hard work the other humans did, and still get to do all the stuff we get to, like visit other people and live in the nice ships we built. We all talked and decided that the bad people had said they wanted to sleep for all that time, so we would let them. And if they ever wake up, then we can decide what to do about it."
Finally satisfied, Sarah turned from the window.
"Ready to go play with Zephyr?"
"Ready!" | Edit: i fixed up some of the text and grammar. A mobile keyboard and sleep deprived fingers do not make for the best language.
The humans have one of the most powerful militaries in the galaxy. Their ships are legendary for their kind acts and are known to always be ready to provide aid to any and all that need it. Their soldiers, the "lifelines'' are known throughout their galaxy for their ability to beat almost insurmountable odds and provide a sense of calm and peace in some of the galaxies most wartorn regions. They are generally regarded as a kind species that is almost always willing to help others.
They have one eccentricity however. Whenever they see a human ship with a certain symbol, a bluish green planet with a whitish natural satelite in orbit around it, in distress, they will not move in to help, instead they will blockade that ship to prevent it from receiving aid and broadcast one singular message.
One of the most well known instances of this fairly abnormal occurence was when the NRS Warspite alongside NRS Daring and NRS Voyager were ordered to help with rescue operations in the Sadukar region after the Mediator (A 1.1 kilometer long pleasure yacht) rammed into the SS Stars End (a cruise ship carrying over a hundred thousand sentient beings).
The 3 warships moved in and began to help with Daring and Warspite focusing on the Cruise Ship and the Voyager providing aid to the beings onboard the Mediator. As the Voyager was moving into position, it saw the aforementioned symbol emblazoned on the hull of the pleasure yacht. Almost immediately the Voyager and it's capable crew shifted their focus towards the cruise ship, completely ignoring the yacht.
When operations on the Stars End ceased, with an astonishing 72% of the beings onboard having been rescued the 3 human vessels setup a blockade around the Mediator.
The captain of the Warspite broadcast to the people onboard the pleasure yacht one single message: "A millennia ago, you left us to die on Earth; the planet who you so proudly display on your hull, while you ran away from certain doom showing little regard for the ones you left behind. The ones you abandoned were not special nor where they rich or powerful like those who ran. But they were capable and with the idea of vengeance fuelling them...they were unstoppable. YOU LEFT US TO DIE AND NOW WE SHALL DO THE SAME." | 2022-11-16T00:35:18 | 2022-11-15T21:26:53 | 429 | 163 |
[WP] It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside." | Andrew nearly snarled as his phone chimed for what seemed to be the umpteenth time. His shift at the warehouse ended only a few hours ago and it like chickens running around with their heads chopped off whenever he left. It was rare delight to encounter the nights that he was actually permitted to sleep through the night.
On top of the texts that were just brimming with simple incompetency, the morons that lit up his phone in the middle of the night always seemed to wake up his wife, Isabel, who suffered from insomnia to begin with. The raise Andrew agreed to that stated he kept his ringer on for these occasions never seemed worth it when he saw Isabel the next day, curled up in the guest room with dark circles under her eyes from her attempts to get away from the constant chiming.
Andrew rubbed a hand over eyes to clear them, trying to understand the ridiculous amount of messages but he must have been more tired than he thought since they didn’t make sense.
He quickly scrolled through the message previews, finding they all seemed to follow the same pattern: to look at the moon. The moon? What the -? Why?
It was like a shot to his adrenaline when he saw that some of the messages were coming from Isabel’s phone. He shot up from bed, seeing the other side empty, and jumped to his feet.
“Hun, what’s going on,” Andrew questioned, still scrolling through his phone while walking towards the guest room. The room was at the end of the hallway and the door was wide open. He could see Isabel standing in the middle of the room, arms down by her side and phone clutched in her hand as she gazed out the window.
As he grew closer, he could see that she was shaking, “Bel? Honey? What’s wrong, why-”
Isabel’s body whipped toward him and Andrew couldn’t help himself, he froze in place. She ran and shoved her body into the door, slamming it shut and locking it in place.
The speed was all wrong though, Andrew had never seen her move that fast. It was insane, it was...inhuman….
His own body started to tremble when he remembered her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and not a single bit of the green irises he loved so much were left.
He was just about to ram his own body into the door, to beg her to let him in and make her explain what is happening, but then she started sobbing.
“Andrew! You need to run, you need to hide! I’m so sorry, god I am so sorry. Run, Andrew, and whatever you do, don’t look at the moon!”
Andrew started pounding his fists on the door and trying to shove his weight against it, but she must have blocked it with something.
Despite his shouting and his pleading to be let in, his forgotten phone on the hallway floor seemed to crack through the commotion as the alarms of the emergency alert system distracted him for just a moment. The robotic voice started to play from his phone automatically, “WARNING. THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ALERT. DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON. WARNING. THIS IS NOT A TES-”
Andrew thought his distress was at its peak, nothing was making sense and he just needed to get Isabel so they could deal with this together. He just needed to-
Her screams started and it struck him cold to the very center of his being. He began pounding and kicking at the door until it gave way under his body. Isabel was on the floor, writhing in the moonlight. Andrew couldn’t help it, his knees buckled and he emptied the contents of his stomach right where he stood.
Isabel's body was bent at every wrong angle possible but she wasn’t screaming anymore. Her head snapped in his direction with that ungodly speed again. Bathed in the moon’s light and pupils still completely dilated, she smiled up at him as if every bone in her body wasn’t broken.
In the same voice she used to tell soothe him time after time, she whispered, “Look at the moon, Andrew.”
| I wake up to the sound of a familiar jingle coming from my phone. Groaning I turn over and turn it on. But then something grabs my interest, an official text, like the amber alerts you get sometimes, saying DO. NOT. LOOK.AT. THE. MOON. My screen then suddenly bursts up with hundreds of text messages saying the same thing, it’s a beautiful night tonight. Look outside.
I then see the time, 3:00 am. “Shit” I say, still half asleep, “ I have class at 7:30, ain’t nobody got time for trolls.” I then turn back over and have a wonderful nights rest and get to class just on time.
But no one is there. | 2022-10-06T10:06:56 | 2022-06-27T10:58:59 | 483 | 103 |
[WP] We forget our dreams for a reason: in the near future, memory enhancement therapies allow everyone to fully recall every dream they've ever had. Across the entire human race, disturbing patterns and implications emerge that were previously hidden by the unappreciated bliss of forgetfulness. | (I've twisted a bit how the dreams are recalled, sorry)
When the EMDC, the Electromagnetic Dream Catcher, came into action, we added an additional waiver you could sign to allow us to, anonymously or not, add your dreams to our data bank, so we could look for patterns in human dreams. We never expected it to reveal such dark implications.
During the initial testing, one of the test subject had a dream of a man in dark. A man that crept up to him and told him weird and distorted things. His phrases twisted and crumpled on themselves, rendering them unintelligible. Another of the test subject had the same thing happen with what had seemed like a queen of some brigand group. The lady, dressed in classic buccaneer clothes, told the subject some weird things that made no sense. Both subject stated remembering those figures from way back when.
When the EMDC was released to the public, 42% of people signed the waiver, 28% anonymously, giving us a good sample size. And access to a dark societal secret. Of those people, nearly all had frequent dreams where at least one of the four Horsemen, as we now called them, appeared to them, talking either in a twisted language or a mix of their native language and that unintelligible vocabulary.
After weeks of pattern analysis, we noticed recurring trends. Those visited by the Horsemen woke up the next day, reacting ever so slightly different to specific stimulus. Cassyva, the only Horseman who had given us a name, tended to push people toward leading others. CEOs, team leaders and other spokesperson were visited at least every week by the pirate figure. The Shade, the formless man in rags one of the original test subject had seen, tended to seclude people, warping the psyche to be more of an anti-social nature. The Hunter, an indigenous looking man, covered in tribal tattoos, leather clothing and a bow and quiver in his back, slowly raised the risk taking attitude of people he visited. Dark Mane, a humanoid looking creature with long hair reaching under his floating body, tended to appear to people hiding their true nature and pushed them to be themselves. Closet gays, bis and other orientations. People repressed by their peers, forced to hide their nature, those who had to hide to keep their job or reputation. Most people had to flee to do so but were generally much more happy afterward.
By the time we had understood the implications, the population had started to wake up to the existence of the Horsemen, although they were still in the dark as far as their powers.
This morning, as I launched a scan for a specific pattern in the dreams we had collected, the presence of two of the Horsemen, our newest intern stormed into the room, the door slamming into the doorstop and returning straight for his shoulder.
"I did it! Michael, I did it!" said the intern, his hand on his shoulder.
"What did you do?" I asked, unsure about what he was talking.
"I dreamed." he replied. He had not been able to dream for a few weeks. Ever since he had met the last of the Horsemen.
"Did you..." I started.
"I controlled the dream. I lucid dreamed."
"What did you try?"
"I... I called for the Horsemen..."
"They came?"
"I was expecting Dark Mane to come or maybe Cassyva."
"Let me guess... Shade did?"
"He did. So did the others."
"Fuck."
It was known that Cassyva and Shade hated each other. So did Hunter and Dark Mane.
"What happened?" I asked, trying to know how dangerous the situation was.
"Cassyva attacked Shade. Dark Mane protected his friend. Hunter jumped in."
"Mmm... That would explain it."
"What?" he asked as I pulled the newspaper under my coffee mug.
The front page read *"Violent Aggression Numbers Explode Across Town"*.
"You think..." he started as I pulled out names from our database.
"Iori Steel, 24. Gets frequent visits of Dark Mane. Attacked a man named Gregory Webber this morning."
"Let me guess, Webber sees Hunter?"
"Roderick Ian. 31. Shot a man at 9:11 AM. Victim's name is Quinn Arnot." I said as the files opened on screen, listing them respectively as Cassyvans and Shaded. "Need more?"
"I fucked up, I think."
"Prepare for a global war, Stevenson." | I drink to forget, because nothing else lets me.
Every night they return. The lives I could have lived.
Maria - I see her again. Every night, I see what could have been - had I not broken our vows, had I not slept with Clarissa.
I see myself earning a promotion at my old job, instead of being fired for wasting time on Tinder.
I see the accident. I see little Thomas, whose name I didn't even know at the time. Beautiful boy, a week short of seven. I see his birthday - not dying in intensive care, but playing with his friends. Coughing up phlegm, not blood. I see him live not just to seven, but to fourteen. Not cut down by a drunk driver.
I see myself, surviving until the end of my six year sentence, with my liver intact, and going on to atone somewhat for the horror I have caused. I see myself saving a drowning child - not making up for Thomas but at least letting me live with myself.
I can't take these dreams.
I drink to forget. | 2016-09-30T08:23:09 | 2016-09-30T08:22:46 | 18 | 10 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own. | Sean was walking home from the gardening store, he loved getting new utensils. His birthday was spent as it usually was, Dad carrying in his broken down car from his 24 hour shift as a security guard before falling asleep without saying happy birthday and Sean playing hide and seek in their garden with his Mommy. Her power was invisibility but Sean got the hang of noticing flattened grass and bent flowers. When he first found out his power his Mom told him all the good he can do in the world, that never before has a power like this been. Sean didn't believe that. The other kids at school picked on him, called him names and made him regret he ever told anyone his power.
Taking the left turn from the main street into an alleyway as he always did on a Tuesday after the garden store Sean strolled right into the immovable palm of Billy Smith. "Hey bee boy, whats in the bag? Toys for your little garden? Let me see them." said Billy with a devious smile on his face. "Just leave me alone Billy, I am walking home, my parents are expecting me" pleaded Sean only now noticing the other boys behind Billy. "You know Spark and Razor don't you?" questioned Billy as the boys behind him gave Sean a glimpse of their powers. Spark created a stream of electricity from both his hands while Razor morphed his into to immaculate blades. "Yeah they are in my Maths class." said Sean as calmly as he could whilst remembering all the shocks he got, all the tiny slits he received and the name, the names were the worst.
"Do you know my name bee boy?" asked Billy. "Its...its Bill." is all Sean could get out. "WRONG!" Billy yelled as he picked Sean up by the scruff of the neck with one hand. "They call me Herc, short for Hercules. They say I am going to be the strongest of all the supers. I could pound your Daddy into the pavement, when the drunk isn't passed out there already" chuckled Billy as Sean began to tear up. "Stop crying, we are just messing with you. And speaking of messing let us play with those toys" exclaimed Billy as he grabbed Seans bag with his free hand and then threw Sean to the ground.
The new shovel Sean saved up for was crushed into a toothpick by Billy's tectonic plate grip. The seeds for the rose plants Sean was going to grow for his Mom, turned to dust by Spark. The pots Sean bought were thrown into the air and sliced into tiny pieces by razor. Sean could not contain his sadness and rage any longer. "STOP!! I AM WARNING YOU!" bellowed Sean as he pointed straight at Billy. Fabricated into reality around his hand were several small bumblebees flying towards Billy. The three boys glanced at each other, back to Sean and then burst into unrelenting laughter.
"The bee queen has spoken!!! Ohh no, he is going to sting us!!!! The only thing he will ever fertilize is a flower!!!" repeated the three boys in unison. Sean felt like he shouldn't have said anything and went fetal. Billy picked him up to his feet. "Well!!! You were saying something bee boy?" grunted Billy as he slowly pushed Sean back with a single pointed finger one nudge at a time. "Well?" push. "It sounded like you threatened us" push. "Didn't he threaten us boys?" push. "You gonna throw some more bees at us your majesty?" one final push that knocked Sean stumbling backwards. He regained his composure and clenched both fists.
The anger was growing in his face, the anger was the only thing holding back the tears in Sean's face. The words of the bullies echoing through his very being. The bullies just stood there laughing. Sean didn't think this was funny at all. "Leave me alone" Sean mumbled. "Did he just buzz?" roared Razor with laughter and the others promptly joined in. "LEAVE!!! ME!!! ALONE!!!!" Sean roared as he threw both fists forward opening both hands.
It all happened so fast. Sean only grasped what had happened when he saw Billy throwing haymaker punches knocking chunks out of the walls of the alleyway. Sean had summoned a swarm of Africanised bees. Spark and Razor took off sprinting at the sight of the swarm. Billy was not so fortunate. All the strength he had was not enough to fight this foe. His skin started to blister and bloat, his eyes swelled and his footing was lost. The bees began to disperse once his body stopped moving. Sean saw the reality of what just happened. He sat down in the alleyway next to Billy's body. Unbearable sadness overcame Sean. "All you had to do was leave me alone......I begged you" whispered Sean as he sobbed alone with Billy dead next to him. | Tonight was my night; my 16th birthday. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, it was my time to shine. I had waited almost a year for this day, ever since my best friend Andrew discovered in January that he could fly. I had envied him at first, being the first in the tenth grade with a power. As time passed I was jealous of what it said about him. If powers are a reflection of our character as scientists believed, I came to envy what this said about his life. He was free, he was pure and he was without a care in the world. What did he know about pain? of being beaten by your father every day for imagined sins and infractions? Of having to steal your best friends allowance to wear decent clothes? of being labelled by girls as a 'creep' and of your few friends pitying you?
But times had changed. New Years eve, my birthday, had arrived and I smiled at my reflection. I wondered what my power would be. Super strength for my strength through the hardships? Mind reading for my ability to empathize? I was entertaining these thoughts when my phone rang.
*Hello?*
*Hey it's Andrew here, you ready for the party?*
*Sure, pick me up in ten.*
*Hello?*
I heard static and a click as my phone died. I moved it away from my ear, and then smiled.
Tiny cracks ran along the screen and continued to spread from where my hand held the phone. I willed the cracking to stop, and it did. | 2015-01-21T22:19:41 | 2015-01-21T21:42:59 | 22 | 10 |
[WP]The world watched as the supercomputer finished calculating the meaning of life: B-E-S-U-R-E-T-O-D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E. | I stood speechless, just like everyone else in the office. Ovaltine? Seriously? That's the meaning of life? What about happiness? Love?
"Maybe the computer's broken?" a coworker mentioned beside me, his eyes still transfixed on the TV screen. Could it be broken? It can't, can it?
"This is the supercomputer that created the Theory of Dark Matter, and the Time Theory. No, it's impossible that it's broken." another coworker said. "If I were you, I'd drink your Ovaltine. That's what I'll do as soon as I get home."
I hated Ovaltine. I'd never drink it, I thought, as I walked through the park on my way home. My kids loved it. So did my wife. We had a whole pantry stuffed full of that thing, and every morning they had a big mug full of it. I couldn't stand that thing.
As I entered the house, the kids were already shoving cups of Ovaltine in my direction.
"NO!" I yelled. I didn't want to see that thing. The kids just ran back towards the kitchen, continuously sipping from their cups.
My wife was also drinking some from her heart-shaped mug. Seriously? A computer - A.I - tells you to do something, and you do it?
"Honey, you should drink some Ovaltine. The supercomputer, the one on TV, said so. It'd probably be best if you did so." my wife said.
"I don't want to! You guys know I hate that stuff, and anyway, the computer's most likely broken!" I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. They'd never understand.
"Fine, do whatever you wanna do. But don't come whining back to me when you're wrong." she said, walking past me.
The next day was hell. Everyone at work was pressuring me to drink Ovaltine, and I kept trying to politely decline. I literally hid in my cubicle the whole day.
I took the TV remote and flipped on the news channel in my cubicle. It said 'A Mysterious Object Has Been Spotted Over Some Countries, Speculations and Concerns Grow'. Hmm. Aliens?? I giggled to myself.
As I started exiting the building, an announcement came over the loud speaker. *"All personnel, please proceed with caution when exiting the building. And make sure to have drank your Ovaltine."* This better be a joke. What's all this caution about? And the mention of Ovaltine *again??*
As I stepped outside, the air felt weirdly warm, the kind that gave you shivers. There were many small brownish particles in the air, covering every thing visible. I looked up, and there was this weird thing in the sky. It was the shape of an infinity symbol, but it looked blurry. Like an unrendered image. Weird, I thought. Must be a blimp or something.
Feeling extremely light-headed, I started stumbling home. What was happening to me?
And then I collapsed. My body crumpled on the sidewalk. My head felt like it had been split open with an axe, and my body felt a strange burning sensation.
A passerby saw me lying there, and rushed to me. I could barely see her, as my vision was blurred and out of focus.
"Hey, hey!" she said, as she kneeled next to me.
"Have you drank your Ovaltine yet? Oh, please tell me you have!" she said.
"N-no. I d-don't li-like O-Ovaltine." I said, sputtering out the words.
"No - No you HAVE to drink some RIGHT NOW." she brought out a little thermos, and unscrewed the lid.
I tried to turn my head away, but I couldn't move. She poured a few sips into my mouth, some dribbling down the side of my face. It was horrible. I coughed the liquid out of my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste.
"EEK!" the woman shrieked. "Your mouth is foaming! And your nose is bleeding!"
"Uh." I groaned. My body was on fire, but I felt cold. This was it. The end.
"You should've d-drank the Ovaltine! The I-infinity object t-thi-thing cau-caused our air t-to go bad! The su-supercomputer was r-right!" she wailed, head in her hands.
And the last thing I thought, was Alive. The meaning of life is to Stay Alive. And Ovaltine keeps you alive.
And then my body went limp.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you enjoyed! I'd appreciate feedback and your opinions as I'm a new writer. Thanks! | The world watched as the supercomputer finished calculating the meaning of life: B-E-S-U-R-E-T-O-D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E.
"Damn it, Jack!" Yelled Dr. Hood at the supercomputer, while he folded his arms and running his finger over the bridge of his nose in irritation. "We talked about this, we had long talks about the seriousness of this and you agreed to take this serious didn't you Jack?"
"Yea sure, I remember. Or would you prefer to hear bleep bloop boop like the good little computer I'm supposed to be" said the supercomputer that preferred to be known as Jack. It talked through the little speaker, while printing L-O-L from the same printer it just used to print out what was supposed to be the meaning of life.
Later that night, Dr. Hood sat at the dinning room table with his wife.
"I'm sorry you had a rough day dear" she said to him, from across the table.
"Damn that Jack, he tricked me!" He said almost yelling. After taking a couple of quick breathes he looked at his wife and said "I just don't get why every supercomputer we build has to be so damn sarcastic...shit the last one printed out '69’ as the answer to life then repeatedly kept printing out 'nice' after it. Damn...damn... we'll just have to unplug him like we did with the rest." | 2021-03-03T16:16:57 | 2021-03-03T05:47:05 | 19 | 12 |
[WP] Legend says there are 77777 secret paths to immortality, but each path will only work once. In 2014, the first person accidentally achieved immortality by sticking a French fry into her nostril and pulling it out the other intact. Human behaviour has since become more... interesting. | Ages ago, one act of random bullshit at a party led to a series of events that created the Ultimates. That's what we call them, antway. Immortals. Seventy-seven thousand, seven hundred seventy-seven humans that are completely immortal and invincible. It took around 77 years to find all the ways, and a register was created to know how many were left. Some were asanine and stupid, like the man who sang an entire opera in a public bathroom in swahili, or the guy who did something stupid witout asking someone to hold his beer, and kept the beer safe. Others were stranger, requiring specific weather or sound combinations, and a few were earned for incredible advancements in science like Nobel prizes. One even happened for no discernable reason, leading experts to believe it was some kind of cosmic lottery.
Regardless, it's all old news. The Ultimates earned their immortality through dumb luck, perseverance, or some combination of the two. We have about 95% of them registered and they mostly keep to themselves, aside from a few immortal pop culture icons. A scant few went insane and were locked away. But one thing is clear: as far as humanity knows, the number of remaining paths to immortality is a whopping zero.
So why am I doing this again? Is it to know? Is it some forgotten hope to cheat death like so many lost their lives trying? Have I finally lost it?
...nah, I'm just an idiot. Besides, I spent way too long searching the woods and the mountain to give up now. I climb over the top of the rise and come face to face with my project for the past year: Nathaniel Gabenheim. The last human to earn immortality. The only immortal to 'kill' himself. Encased himself under a ton of concrete in an undisclosed location after losing his wife and child in childbirth, hoping to rest eternally with her one way or another.
Day after day I've chipped though the concrete with a pickaxe in the summer heat, hoping to free him from his stony prison. And today, as my first few swings crack apart the stone, I hear a gasp of air, as though it was held for a hundred years.
"I... I'm free? Who's there? I can't see anything!" The voice sounds familiar, but raspy from a century of silence.
"Hang on, I'm coming!" I wail away at the rock, pulling the boken peices apart, finally revealing... my own face, staring bewildered back at me.
"Who..." Nathaniel takes a moment to cough more dust out of his mouth. "Who are you and why do you look like me?"
"Me? My name is Nate. Nate Gabenheim." I pause for that to sink in. "...your son survived. That man was my grandfather, and he spent his life looking for you. I'm your great grandson... and the spitting image of you, as I've been told."
"My son's alive?!"
"No... I'm afraid he passed on a few months ago. He gave me all his notes in his will and begged me to continue the search for the father he never knew. It's nice to finally meet you."
"Nate, then. Please, rebury me. As nice as it is to know my family is alive, the world just isn't the same without her. Please."
"But-"
"Please! I don't want my immortality. I just want to be with her. Please..."
I sigh. It seems like that's all I'll get from him. Reluctantly, I crawl out of the tunnel I dug. "Fine... I brought a bag of cement with me, just in case. I don't want to, but..."
"Thank you."
"You're wel-" I turn back to Nathaniel and let out a gasp. What was a vibrant face just moments before is now naught but a skull. And I can feel and see a soft glow emanate from my chest for a brief moment.
The seventy-seven thousand, seven hundred seventy-eighth immortal climbed out of the grave of the one who gave up his immortality for love. He refilled the hole with an understanding smile, departing home for his beloved immortal wife. He wondered how long it would take her to notice the surprise he had for her... that she wouldn't be alone forever anymore. As he left the clearing, he glanced back at the pile of concrete, a single sentence in two voices echoing across the glade.
"Thank you... now I can be with my wife forever." | The young man jumped up and ran to his computer, riding a wave of fervor.
"Here's the idea!" he said, touching the voice-over-IP icon on the screen. His cat arched her back and stretched contentedly before curling into a ball, purring softly at the familiarity of her owner's enthusiasm.
"What is it this time, Alphie?" came the reply. The speaker's tone was irreverent, bordering on annoyed.
"You know those random name generators? Like if you want to create a character name or whatever and you have a certain theme and you just press a button over and over again until you get what you want?" Alphie blurted, almost running out of breath.
"Yeah. I use those all the time. I like to go in depth with my Sims."
"How about a random idea generator!? Look at all the stupid shit people do now...," Alphie said self righteously, despite the fact that five minutes ago he head just finished painstakingly sewing five small toe socks, all of which he was wearing on his left foot.
"Oh I know. Just last night I draped myself in used tea leaves." The speaker let out a dry chuckle. "Didn't work, obviously."
"Yeah. Who wants to be immortal anyway," Alphie said, pondering weather or not to go with finger socks as well. "This will make us millions." | 2019-07-23T10:06:37 | 2019-07-23T06:19:57 | 702 | 79 |
[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. | "How would you like your money sir?"
A weak smile overtook my face. "Give me a nice assortment." I responded. Nodding appreciatively the teller set his hand on the counter letting the sound of the metal coins spin about. There is was, as he slid his hand away, the mound that would amount to all my necessary money; an impressive stack, one Lincoln, two Washingtons, two dimes, a nickel and two pennies. With nothing left to say I slid the money from the counter and walked out doing my best to keep my head up.
Outside the bank a man dressed in bright outfit was filling balloons before a crowd of children. Off to the side a boy sobbed as his mother reassured him. Floating amongst the blue cast the red balloon was easy to see. I fumbled the coins in my palm, I pulled the nickel from within and knelt down before the boy.
"You look like you could use this more than me." I placed the coin in his hand. The mother thanked me and I continued my walk home. As I descended the stairs toward the subway I ran into a man staring in horror at the gate.
"They're terrifying right?" I joked.
"I forgot." His voice escaped. "Starting today I was supposed to walk to work."
"Here." I held out my hand giving him the two dollars and two dimes. "Lucky you I have exactly what you need."
"What are you doing?" He yelled confused.
I shrugged. "Its mine to spend as I wish right? Besides today's my last day to ride free.
A tear met the corner of his eye. "I don't know what to say."
"Its fine." I answered with a shrug. We went seperate ways after the stairs and I took the time to look at the roaming five dollars and two cents. A cough caught my attention and I was met with a rare sight.
A homeless man pulled the scrap of a blanket closer to his shoulders. "Good day to you." He nodded politely.
"Good day." I paused still caught by the sight. "If I may, a man such as yourself is a rare sight these days. You must have gotten a worse deal than me."
He looked up at me with a smile. "One-hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars." He laughed. "Tell me kid, what's your haul?"
"Seven twenty-seven." I answered with a scoff.
"Impressive."
"Just dollars and cents for me, no thousand I'm afraid."
He looked at me with what looked like pity. "What does that tell you? No, that's not fair from someone like me. I was satisfied with my haul, but life has it's own ideas. Less than a month after I walked out the bank I was diagnosed with liver cancer. Afraid and in pain I squandered all my cash trying to stay alive. Now I'm broke, dying and hungry. Figured I'd be better to waste away out here than continue working til my day."
"Maybe your deal was less lucky than mine." I commented.
He laughed. "I'm not sure I put much stock in luck but at least your not one of those, meant to be, people. Take it from me kid money ain't what life is about, and you can't measure it based on a check. Look at me four months since I lost it all, still here." I frowned briefly. With a sigh I pulled the five dollar bill from my pocket and dropped it on his blanket.
"What are you an idiot?" He shouted.
"You might be dying still, but at least for a moment in the life you got left, you won't be broke and maybe not hungry." I started toward the platform but stopped myself. "Thank you, you're right money isn't much."
Almost home I met a familiar face stocking fruit outside a ma and pop shop. She smiled as I got closer. "Thanks again, you made his day." She tossed me an apple from the basket.
"It was nothing." I replied after a moment.
"Hey," she called after me, "you got your check today right?" I turned around and gave a nod. "Ya thought so, listen if you're every hungry, stop by."
"You sure?" I asked, surprised.
"Of course, not like it'd be any profit lost right?" She laughed.
"Thank you so much." I answered. I felt at the last two pennies. *Money really isn't much.*
_
r/theoreticalfictions | My name is Aaron Aaercbia and I finally got my basic income check. I was in a weird age bracket? Maybe my literally alpha name. My birthday was one day after the start of the school year, so I was always 364 days ahead.
I got my check 2 daysbefore my 21st birthday. $7.27. Cashable only after 28/August/2067
Two days from now. $7.27? That meant only one thing! The government was going to do another currency reverse split!
I took a picture and uploaded it to the Insiderinfohedgely.com. forums I got 470 million pre-swap dollars in commissions in the first day for alerting them to the reverse split.
Then sure enough the gov't announced another 100,000 for one currency split. I was rich! I calculated it out, I had money to buy alcohol and food everyday and live rent-free in one of the anarchist neighborhoods under the Topcity for 60 years even with consumer inflation. I finally made it!
-The End- | 2019-04-24T12:38:17 | 2019-04-24T11:38:23 | 2,175 | 27 |
[WP] You're the owner of a cafe frequently visited by vigilantes and anti-heroes who absolutely adore your sweetness and acceptance of who they are. One day, though, a particularly rude customer comes in and trashes the place. Your friends aren't too happy to hear about that. |
I knew he was trouble when he walked in.
He came in, head held up high, posture like someone had shoved a metal rod up his ass. Young, cocky, asshole. It was slow day, only a couple of people were around. None of the regulars. A guy working on his laptop, and another girl watching the snow fall over Union Square outside.
He walked over to the counter like he owned the place. He raised his voice. “You folk might want to leave,” he said. “This might get ugly.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. He must have a foot on me and his arms were as thick as my thighs. The two customers looked at me and I nodded. “Best to leave, yeah.” They hurried out. What were the odds either of them would call the cops? Next to none. They’d think the other person would.
“You want something?” I asked.
The man picked up a cup and threw it at the wall next to my head, probably intending to make me flinch. I caught it as it flew by my head and set it back down. The PTSD and emotional trauma did come with some upsides.
“So you’re Elizabeth, I take?” eyes narrowed.
I went with the classic response. “Depends on who’s asking.”
He sneered. “Nobody’s asking, *sweetheart,*” he said. “We’ve been keeping track of what kind of clientele you serve. The rotten. The wannabes. The worst of the worst.”
“Strange,” I mused. “None of them have ever threatened me in my own workplace. Truly, nothing screams paragon of virtue like trying to intimidate women.”
He walked over to a table, picked it up with one hand and threw it against the wall. The table shattered and left a dent in the wall. He picked up a metal chair and, looking me in the eyes, bent it in half.
I rolled my eyes. “You realize you’re paying for that, right?”
He laughed and continued to wreck the place. Tables, chairs, vases, whatever he could find his hands on, grinning all the time. This was just pathetic, this is what the League had resorted to? Petty intimidation? And it could only be the League with their idiotic ideals of heroism. The government weren’t a bunch of thugs, and anyone else wouldn’t have bothered with the intimidation, they would’ve tried to kill me. Honestly, I would have preferred that. That was honest. This though…
“Are you done?” I asked as he sauntered back over to me.
“For now I am,” he said, again with that grin showing impeccable teeth. I was tempted to punch him…but no. I was out. I didn’t interfere anymore. It wasn’t worth it. “Now listen here, no more serving your “regulars,” yeah? Tell them someone, ah, tipped you off to what they really are. And that you don't serve their kind."
“They don’t trash the place, and tip well. They seem like better customers than you are.”
He leaned closer, looking me dead in the eyes. “Now, the League is protecting all of you from…maniacs like them, maybe you should be a little grateful.” He straightened. “You know, it might get some people thinking, why would any self-respecting citizen serve people like them. Might give the League the wrong idea...”
A handful of people sauntered into the shop snow on their shoulders. “I heard you were having trouble, Liz,” the man in the lead, Jon, said. Behind him, there was Rory, her red hair falling out of her fur hood and Michel, his dark skin a sharp contrast to the winter wonderland outside.
“Oh, speak of the devil,” the Leaguer said and *smiled.*” Actually smiled. He couldn’t see the tension in the air. I could feel it. Didn't realize how screwed he was.
“Jon, Rory, Mike,” I said, nodding to each of them. “What brings you here.”
“Heard a bull was running around in your shop, Liz,” Jon said, his eyes locked on the intruder. “Thought you could use some help getting it out.”
“Look, don’t worry about it,” I said, asshole or not the guy looked in his 20s. “He’s just a kid, let him go.”
He swiveled towards me, eyes ablaze. I mentally chastised myself. I hadn't thought before speaking. Forgot how sentimental these young heroes were.
“A kid? Listen bitch,” he spat, “I’ll show you how much of a kid I really am.” I saw the punch coming a mile away – really those idiots with super strength were always slow for some reason, and moved to the side, but I needn’t have bothered. The kid flew back and hit the wall with a wet sounding thud and a crack. One second he was in front of the counter reaching for me, the next he was against the wall, a red stain on the wall, his neck at an unnatural angle.
I put my head in my hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jon,” I snarled.
Jon frowned at me, moving his hand back down – he didn’t actually need to move his hand to use telekinesis – he just liked to show off. “He was going to hit you, Liz.”
“Seriously? You think that idiot could have even *touched* me?”
“I don’t know, Liz,” Rory spoke, laughing, “You’ve been out for a long time…”
I glared at her. “Now the league will investigate, things will only go downhill.”
Jon’s voice was laced with steel. “The League won’t fucking dare.”
I knew that tone of voice. “Jon no…”
But he was already turning away. “C’mon Rory, Mike. Let’s have a chat with the local League office.”
I surveyed the broken tables, the body, the blood. "Leaving the adult to clean up the mess..." I muttered uncharitably and went in the back to get the bleach.
***
Due to demand, I present
[Part 2: Blood on the Snow](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/comments/9q1h8u/urban_fantasy_blood_on_the_snow_out_of_retirement/?)
If you enjoyed, check out my sub, [XcessiveWriting](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/)
| You know those vets who volunteer at events for the younger army guys? Yeah, I'm like them, except for the fact that I can shoot lasers out of my eyes. I split from the U.S. Superhuman Command five years ago. Opened a little coffee shop near my old job. Soon the new kids started coming in. We'd watch the news together and they'd point out where they hit the villain of the week. I just wanted to give back to the community who supported me throughout most of my life. Of course, you can't please everyone.
I just flipped the sign from “closed” to “open”. Normally at that time Owen would pop in. He’d order the usual (two coffees and a bagel for “Kate”) and I'd joke not to burn any of it. It doesn't help when your control over heat is determined by your excitement level. Instead, another man walked in. Black hoodie, red mask, and cheap sunglasses. He paced around the room like he owned the place. I smiled and gave him my daily greeting. “Hi! What would you like today?”
There was a hint of a contempt-filled chuckle under his mask. “I think I'll take 'stop serving the superheroes.’”
I frowned. “Sorry, uh, can you repeat that for me please?”
“I said, stop serving the heroes. They don't protect us like they say they do.”
“Look, you can't just tell me to stop serving them.”
“I think I can.” Things only went downhill from there. He started by pushing over the mini fridge on the serving counter, then throwing a chair across the room. Destroying something constructed purely out of my own kindness, all while yelling and screaming phrases I won't even state here. Jumping over the counter, I tackled him to the ground and felt my eyes glow with the charge of my lasers, then blinked to hold them off. No frying a protester today, not even an angry one. “Oh, so you're one of them, huh?”
He whipped out a small grenade-like device and pulled the pin. The explosion never happened, rather a wave of energy washed over me, making me dizzy. He pushed my now nauseated body off of himself and revealed a knife hiding in one of his pockets. Simply sighing, I focused on the protester and tried to fire a weak laser, but failed. The grenade had done something to me. Now I was on the ground again, fighting my own vomit-inducing impulses and a man with a knife. As he was about to jam the blade into my neck, a hand thrust to his wrist. The hand glowed, and the attacker dropped his knife as he howled in pain. A strike to his head courtesy of me finished him off. The hand offered to help me up, and I stood face to face with Owen Jackson. “Allen. You are so out of shape, man.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious. Kate's bagel is on me this time.” I doubled over and let my breakfast spill onto the ground.
Owen winced. “I don't think I wanna see that on the news tomorrow.”
(Whew, never wrote for fun in a looong time! Hope you like it. I kinda don't.) | 2022-11-10T02:01:25 | 2018-10-20T22:13:37 | 1,330 | 18 |
[WP] "Sorry sir, but unfortunately you do not qualify for eternal salvation in our wing, I have compiled a list of other heavens, hells and limbos you are eligible for. Of course, you could always try your luck with the wheel of reincarnation." | Above an angel stood. His eyes poked out from just behind the podium that appeared more as a personal shielding than a place of authority. In front of him, in front of me, was a long queue of various bodies, each seeming dressed far too casual for the heaven around. I looked down to my own clothes to verify: a Van Halen shirt and ripped jeans. Yeah, far too casual.
Despite the lines length it seemed to be running smoothly, with most being quickly admitted to the large silvery gates behind the angel-bouncer. If they weren't then the cloud floor beneath them would drop out in a way that reminded me of old Acme cartoons, all that was missing was a sign in hand that read *Oops*.
After what felt like only a few short monents there was only one in front of me. Him and the angel were laughing about something I hadn't managed to catch, and with the demeanor I figured he surely would make it beyond the gates. But to my surprise the large angelic mans laughter faded out and his tone went dark: "Ahhh that was a good one...anyways Sorry. You didn't qualify." and with that the man was sent down through the floor.
"Next! A Mr...Graylon?" the winged man checked an oddly human clipboard.
"Ah yes. That would be me. How's it going?" As the words left my mouth they felt dumb, but I didnt know what else to say.
"Can't complain, can't complain. So here's the deal, you don't qualify for heaven-"
"Wait! I don't want to go down there, I'll do anything!" I braced myself for the fall. For the clouds to part and send me to a beyond in the deepest pit if earth, but no such thing occured. Instead the angel laughed, "*Haha!* Slow your roll there buddy I'm not sending you down. What I wanted to say was that unfortunately you do not qualify for eternal salvation in our wing." his tone reminded me of a car salesman telling me he couldn't manage a lower APR rather than a god speaking to a man.
"But what I've done is compiled a list of other heavens, hells and limbos you are eligible for. Of course, you could always try your luck with the wheel of reincarnation." At his command a large colorful wheel appeared, complete with flashing lights and about a trillion options listed in small slivers. Behind me I heard a few voices chant *ooo the wheel! Pick the wheel!*
"How long do I have to think about it?" I spoke up to the angel.
"Oh well as long as you need! You'll just head to limbo and when you're ready I'll send you back up into the line."
I turned my head to weigh the options. Behind me the line seemed to have grown to infinite proportions, stretching on beyond the clouds in an impressive display of obedience. A few of the chants continued: *the wheel! pick the wheel!*
"I uhh. I think I'll take the wheel." I eyed the closest slivers to me. In blocky letters they read: *Blue whale*, *Mantis Shrimp*, *House Fly*, not a list of my first picks, but it could be worse I guess. Hopefully if I hated it I could just die fast and come back.
The angel stepped down from his podium onto cloud-covered stairs. With each step his movement boomed through the infinite space until he reached the wheel, then he placed a massive hand atop it. "Alright Graylon. Ready for round two?"
I shook my head in approval, then the wheel was flung at warp speed, blending the colored slivers together in one big blur. As they slowed I tried to track my fate *Dung beetle* *Luna Moth* *Centipede* ,ew, not that one *Orangutan* *Sasquatch*, wait really? Finally it came to a slow. A few voices yelled out their guesses from behind until it finally landed: Giant Tortoise.
"Ah...well it wasn't my first pick but-"before I could finish the angel yelled.
"Round 537 here you come! Good luck with reincarnation! See you again soon!"
And I was back on earth once again. | "I would like to spin the wheel"
I approach the wheel and spin it hard and fast. The result is... a fly larvae.
​
"Are you kidding me? That's not gonna happen... can you just point me in the direction of the absolute worst hell I qualify for?"
​
"Down the stairs, turn right, jump into the hole. Once you jump in, you're stuck there forever. You've been warned."
​
"Cool, thanks!" I rush there as fast as I can. Jumping down the hole, I see people being burned and boiled alive, forced to eat rotten food, and being stabbed through where the heart would be...
​
"I'm so glad I chose to come here! Let's get started!" | 2022-07-27T16:32:02 | 2022-07-27T14:43:55 | 227 | 33 |
[WP] A strange-looking man arrives at court with a strange device and challenges the king and his entire guard simultaneously to a duel for control of the kingdom. Scoffing, the king accepts, telling his guards to charge at him. The strange man simply laughs and raises his AK-47. | Time travel had been harder than Charlie expected. When he'd found his way here, their language hadn't made any sense, and he didn't know anything about growing anything, which was apparently all these pathetic primitive excuses for human beings ever did. So he'd had to work in the fields to get enough to eat, until he could figure out where he was, much less who was king. But after this long, he had finally made it. He had found the big kahuna, and he would take him down. He would have his satisfaction. He fired from the hip, sweeping left to right:
​
TAKTAKTAK-tink
​
As the bolt slammed forward, it caught a shell that hadn't yet finished ejecting. A stovepipe jam. AK-47 are famously reliable guns, known especially for being completely indestructible, and working, year in and year out, without adequate maintenance, or parts. Or so said the man at the gun store. That's why he'd picked it. However, when he went to pick up ammo for it, the man at the counter had recommended a expensive, military-style ammo can. Charlie had thought it was pretty obvious he was being ripped off, and instead picked up a few cardboard boxes filled with perfectly decent looking ones that were way cheaper.
​
This was a mistake. AK47s are exceptionally reliable.
​
Cheap ammunition, hidden under a pile of damp hay for months was not.
​
Charlie stared at his gun for a moment, before the king's guard proceeded to neatly remove his head from his shoulders.
​
Still, Charlie would go down in history in his own way. One guards had died, the rounds flying straight through him, armor and all, and embedding themselves in the stone wall behind. The potential demonstrated by the weapon was clear to the king. After handing it off to a alchemist sponsored by his court, and his own blacksmith, its secrets began to be unraveled. The alchemist spoke of similar weapons, rare and expensive, that he had seen when he educated himself in Italy, though none could fire more than once. The blacksmith marveled at its construction, the tiny, flawless pegs that held it together. He tried to understand the way such supremely flawless steel could be forged.
​
When the king had heard that this gun could perhaps have fired thirty times, he had been humbled. The fear that another might appear, in the hands of another disgruntled peasant kept him awake day and night, until he made the decision to ensure that even if this happened, they wouldn't want him dead. Taxes grew more lenient. The king began a tradition of hearing advice and grievances from village leaders once a season. And when he had the chance, he jumped at the chance to acquire some, only to discover that they were completely inferior to the design he had seen himself.
​
So he had declared that his kingdom would craft a "musket" to equal this one. So he put out the call, for any alchemist, blacksmith, artisan, or watchmaker to come to his kingdom. Over the years, the weapon was worn down, but not from war. From Science. Chemicals tested by the alchemists scorched the firing chamber. The barrel became covered with nicks, dings, dents and gouges and cuts whenever the blacksmiths wanted more metal to test their own alloys against. The firing mechanisms began to rust, as their protective plantings were worn off by the assembly, disassembly, inspection, and handling of a generation of watchmakers.
​
But as what had become the first assault rifle died, the kingdom was reborn. In a strange way, Charlie and his AK had shown them what industry could do, if they worked at it. Thanks to Charlie, the industrial revolution began in Germany, almost 50 years before it spread to England. A rifled, breechloading, cartridge-loaded gun was developed and produced as early as the 18th century, though it only saw middling success. Bluing, a way of protecting steel from corrosion, was developed earlier, and steel of a reliably high quality was available years earlier.
​
His actions didn't lead to a totalitarian world government in the 20th century. Nor did they lead mankind into a era of peace. His name would appear in no history books, not even those of the Kingdom. But to the happy artisans of a little Germanic state that had been sure to put itself ahead of the curve, thanks to him, he had made all the difference.
​
​
​ | "So? You accept?" the strange looking man with an even stranger looking device in his tan hands asked eagerly to the king, who was wearing a mask of some sort.
"Of course, you're nothing but a suicidal jester. I shall grant you your death wish." The king gestured to his fully armored guards to attack the man. "Goodbye, jester!" he scoffed.
The man smirked almost maniacally, raising the device towards each guard individually and systematically, squeezing it so that it would explode terrible led pellets of death in the direction its master pointed. With every guard in the vicinity dead, the man turns to the king and laughs.
"So, the kingdom is under my control?" The king descends from his thrown towards the man and kneels before him.
With one swift motion he rips a glowing device from under his cape, aiming it at the man and pressing his finger hard against the lever under the lit up tube. A beam of what seems like light hits the man, instantly killing him.
"Man, was I a fool." The king solemnly mumbles. He starts to go weak. "I knew I could come up with a creative way to kill myself." He drops dead and soon after, his body disappears into nothingness.
**Okay, okay, I know that was stupid, I was just really tired but wanted to write something for this prompt** 😅 | 2018-11-06T18:39:13 | 2018-11-06T18:20:39 | 133 | 10 |
[WP] You are Subtle Tea, a super hero who alters major world events by a most appropriately timed cup of tea. | Usually when my superiors gave me missions, it meant that all their other plans had failed. That morning when I walked into my "office" the manila folder told me that my "special skills" were once again needed.
I had my own ways of handling problems, and I had a tendency to use as little effort as I possibly could. Some called it "phenomal" others "strange" but I had a special ability to change major events with a single cup of tea. The tea could be used in a number of ways. There were times when I had simply handed someone a cup, while at others I merely left a cup sitting out in a very appropriate place. The method was the part that mattered the least, as long as the tea was the thing that made the changes.
The folder had the words "Top Secret" stamped across the front. This was typical, since my superiors also had a tendency to make things cliche and dramatic. I had no idea that this particular mission was going to be the most cliche and dramatic of them all.
The mission was to stop World War II from starting. I was baffled at such a request. How had they managed to fail all their other attempts? But as I went through the file I started to realize that this mission was not as simple as it seemed. Many attempts had been made to stop Hitler from rising to power. The most popular method though was attempts on Hitler's life. Everything from shooting him on the battlefield to smothering him in the cradle had been tried and failed. It seemed that the man was practically untouchable. Reports had been made that every attempted assassination seemed to have weird coincidences that would null and void the entire thing. Fired bullets would just slightly miss and ricochet off of something, blankets covered over the baby's face still somehow weren't enough to cut off all of his air, and for some reason whenever an opportune moment arrived, someone always walked in at just the right time to throw everything off. It seemed unlikely and coincidental until someone discovered the answer.
Hitler, in the terms of time travel, was a fixed point. What that meant is that nothing could directly done to Hitler to change anything about his life. This fact was not unusual, many people are, but it causes problems when you're trying to alter the course of history. This started a wave of indirect methods of changing history, but even those had failed. The Treaty of Versailles had been altered, but each time history still found a way to screw Germany over. Other men had been brought in to rise to power before Hitler, but they each ended up becoming a Hitler 2.0. Attempts had even been made to stop World War I from starting, but in the end it only made a bigger mess. I knew that they at this point what was truly needed was some... *Subtle Tea*...
I turned on my time machine to get the motors warmed up while I looked up what year I would need...*1907*. Soon everything was set and I was ready to go. I found myself in the streets of Vienna, it was nearing evening and most of the people on the streets were going home. I walked around the streets holding a file folder in my hand. There was one man in particular that I needed to see tonight. However, I soon discovered that as the day started to come to a close, the man I needed was nowhere to be found. *Of course* I thought *How could I be so stupid to think that it would be easy to find one person in such a large city?* I looked at the files that I had brought along again. Fortunately there was information on where this man's office would be located. I located the correct building and went inside.
Of course my biggest problem was that everything was in German. I had a translator, but through gathering my supplies, paperwork, and of course the tea bag, I had somehow managed to misplace it. I was about to go through my pockets before I heard a voice from behind.
"Kann ich Ihnen helfen?"
I froze in my tracks, everything could be ruined if i didn't find that translator right now.
"Uhh.. Ich brauche eine Nummer" I said stumbling through what little German I knew.
I went through all my pockets in a frenzy desperately trying to find the translator. I heard the man's footsteps approaching me as he got closer and closer. I knew that I only had one shot at this, and I had to find it now. The man behind me continued to speak more words in German, but all I could focus on were his footsteps. As long as he hadn't reached me yet, I could still do this. I was just looking for a long metal object that had a...
*Button* I felt it under my thumb as my hand reached into my coat pocket. I pressed just as the man placed his hand on my shoulder.
"You know that after hours, visitors are not allowed right?"
"Actually I'm looking for Georg Hoffman, do you happen to know where his office is?"
"You do know that this is the time of year when we're approving new applicants right? Georg is very busy right now."
"I'm actually his cousin. He's been inquiring about his aunt, my mother, and I have some personal news to deliver to him."
"I see. Well his office is on the third floor, room 327."
"Danke!" I said, heading towards the stairs.
"What?"
"Thank you!"
As I climbed the stairs I started really looking forward to that cup of tea. My nerves were in desperate need of calming down. I soon found the room that the man had told me about and I could see through the window the silhouette of who I assumed was Georg. I knocked on the door and heard a voice say "Come in!" I opened the door and looked at the man sitting at the desk. I took a deep breath and started to do my work.
"Hello, my name is Fritz Engel. I'm an art dealer who has worked with many alumni from your school. I understand that you're the director here?"
Georg gave a look of suspicion, as I half expected him to.
"What can I help you with?"
"I understand that you're the one who approves what students are accepted and denied into your establishment, and that you are the one who 'approves their work'?"
"I am one of many who sit on a committee, but I don't do all of the work myself. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna receives far too many applicants for one person to evaluate alone."
"I'd like to talk to you about one of the applicants in particular."
"I'm sorry, but this is a very private matter, and why does an art dealer have any business in what applicants I accept?"
"Adolf Hitler, have you seen his portfolio yet?"
"I believe I skimmed through it slightly, but it was nothing spectacular."
"I saw some of his artwork myself, and I can tell you that there's potential. It may not seem like it now, but if you let him in, it may do you some good in the long run."
"I'm not quite sure that I understand."
"Well sir, why don't we discuss it over a cup of tea..."
Edit: Fixed my German grammar. | "You rang, sir?" I opened the door to the lair of an arch villain, my heart racing even though outwardly I tried to remain as composed as possible. Of course, the heavy latex on my face and all the stage makeup really helped with that.
"YES! Come in here! We need to verify the plans!" A familiar voice waved me in, and I noticed that he had a whole lot of maps of the world out for some reason.
Probably evil plans or something.
He let out a snort as I finished entering his lair, leveling a glare at me. "I have been given to understand that Subtle Tea may try to stop our brilliant scheme. Just be careful. She's called *Subtle* Tea for a reason! I will not have her and her sneaky yet somehow completely delicious Ceylon blend ruining my plans this week!"
My, or rather 'Jeremy's', nose twitched before I nodded at Forthright Water, Subtle Tea's longtime arch nemesis. "Aye, sir, negative on the tea, right." I carefully hid a world-weary sigh around the words. "Will double check the beverages at the conference, sir. No tea leaf products will escape my eagle eye, sir."
"Good! Now get out there and WATER THE WORLD!"
"Aye, sir." I decided not to rile him up and mention that he was on the short list for this year's Nobel Superhero Prize for almost singlehandedly eliminating drought worldwide. Of course, my quiet efforts behind the scenes as his second in command 'Jeremy Eitchtooh' assured that his watery prowess and genuine skill at designing machines for water was ultimately used for good, not evil. I slowly turned around and excited the ocean floor lair of my archrival, a grin slowly dancing across my features as I walked down a hallway to one of the large escalators to the surface. This one would be fun.
I then approached a waiting car that was weighed down with a large barrel of water. A huge man guarded the car, in fact a man so huge you almost didn't think he could even fit into the vehicle he was standing watch over. "'Lo, Frank. World Superhero Center, quick-like. Boss' orders." The gorilla-esque driver grunted and nodded, opening the door for me and offering me a bottle of water before we both got settled in and took off.
I added some powered Lipton to the bottle as we approached the massive four hundred story building known as 'Big Gold' to most Heroes. I thought it was tacky as all get out, but no accounting for taste. I quickly polished off my tea and would make an excuse to toss it somewhere in the building so my powdery betrayal wouldn't be discovered by someone else that used the car later.
After Frank went to drive the barrel of water around the back, I entered the building and went right to what I knew Forth's target would be, the weekly meeting of Hero Representatives that went on on the very highest floor. One Hero with every type of power, trusted to represent everyone else with that ability. *And the perfect target for Roger- I mean, Forthright. Lots of Heroes gathered in one room, the perfect time and place for him to show off his evil plans.*
The 'evil plans' were going to help the drought-parched Midwest and save a lot of crops instead of merely flooding everything and wrecking the farmland like Forth was hoping, buuuuuuuut the Reps had gotten pretty good at playing along over the years.
And Subtle Tea would be there to make sure all went according to *my* plan, not his, one cup of high-quality Ceylon at at time.
((Heh this was fun :) May continue this if enough interest!)) | 2016-07-11T23:14:17 | 2016-07-11T22:15:52 | 166 | 48 |
[WP] An Alien must explain to a Human that Earth is not a paradise for life, it is the most horrific Death World ever discovered. | Jimq was excited for his first touch down onto Earth, giddily swinging his legs under the control panel as his ship descended. He had been conversing with his associate from Earth, Steve, for about a year now and was ready to finally visit the oasis that was Earth. It was allegedly rich with soft rays from the sun, blue seas, and mountains that reached into the planet's upper atmosphere. But as Jimq's descent reached its end, every system warning blared simultaneously, drowning the ship in a kaleidoscope of urgency and fear.
"Welcome to Earth!" Steve's jovial voice was barely made out on the system communicator over the sound of each sensor screeching at Jimq.
"Are you okay!?" Jimq screamed at the communicator. "Your planet is in shambles! Do you want to evacuate with me?"
"What?" Steve paused before continuing, presumably turning around to make sure Earth was where he left it. "I don't know what you're talking about Jimq, everything is fine."
Jimq stared at every screen on his ship assuring him that everything was *not* fine, but shut down the noises so he could hear Steve better.
"Are you sure? The ship has a lot of concerning messages right now," Jimq said. "Your orbit is off! It says your sun is going to be obscured by the horizon, casting this entire end of the planet in darkness."
"Yeah..." Steve hesitated. "That's night. It happens every... night."
"Night..." Jimq wasn't sure if Steve was making up words on the spot. "Does the planet illuminate itself at that nighttime?" Jimq asked.
"No, we just use lights at night," Steve replied. "Are you okay in there? Need help coming out?"
Jimq's face strained in bafflement. What kind of place was this?
"What about this reading about small creatures flying around everywhere?" Jimq interrogated.
"Like birds?"
"Do birds have six legs?" Jimq asked.
"Oh, those are bugs. They're everywhere, don't worry about them. They're mostly harmless," Steve replied.
*"Mostly?"* Jimq repeated with emphasis.
"Sometimes they carry deadly viruses, but that's honestly really rare," Steve said. "Are you going to just keep going over the sensors or are you going to come out?"
"I am *not* going to step foot out here, but you are welcome inside," Jimq said, flipping a switch and opening a compartment to his ship for his friend.
Steve stepped aboard, where the door was shut behind him and he was sprayed by various chemicals and blasted with air a dozen times before another door opened to allow him inside. Jimq stared at him with concern.
"Are you okay?" Jimq asked.
"Yeah, are *you* okay?" Steve countered.
"On a rough estimate... how many ways are there to die on Earth?" Jimq asked.
"I uhhh..." Steve had never considered this question before, his hand approaching his chin. He rubbed his chin a few times before shrugging. "You know, I guess it's pretty up there. There's gotta be an infinite number of ways."
"And you invited me here!?" Jimq screeched, his scream tingling the pores on Steve's skin.
"What's the big deal?" Steve asked.
"There are three ways to die on my home planet, Qulo. You can step into a pocket of acid behind several warning signs, you can be outdoors on the one day in a decade that the sun of our planet burns too bright, or you can *leave Qulo!* That's it! That's everything!"
Steve's face scrunched in skepticism. He didn't take the insults to Earth lightly.
"What about starvation?" Steve asked.
"Now I *know* you're making things up. You *run out* of food!?" Jimq yelled in surprise, again tingling Steve's skin. "This had got to be the worst planet I've ever heard of!"
"What about war?" Steve pressed, his temper rising.
"I don't know what that is!" Jimq shot back.
"Disease?"
"None that will kill you! Your planet is the deadliest thing to exist in the universe!"
"That's it! We're going to Qulo!" Steve said. "I'm going to Qulo and I'm going to prove to you that I can die outside of the three ways you think is possible in which to die! If I can do that, you have to admit that Earth is the superior planet because at least we *know* we're going to die here!"
Jimq stared at Steve for a long, awkward moment, his mouth agape. Then Jimq's confusion flipped to a wry smile.
"You're on. Qulo is way better than Earth," he sneered, entering the coordinates to his home on his console.
_________________
/r/Nazer_The_Lazer for more stories! | warning: swearing at the end
"Listen, Jerry, I'm telling you this place is horrible mate, you have to believe me!"
"Nah, dude everything is perfect here what are you even talking about, Larry?"
"Can't you taste it? The chemical flavor, the noxious poisons everywhere created by your vicious plants? What about the smell? I'm sorry to tell you this mate, but this planet smells like what our bathrooms smell like. I don't know how you can stand it!"
"Huh? Your bathrooms smell like this? I don't know how I feel about your bowel movements now, but I still love Earth!"
"Dude don't even start. And the animals?! You REALLY think there's things like sharks ANYWHERE else? We actually made those and we're pretty proud, but WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE ALWAYS SWIMMING WITH THEM??? Don't you understand what they were made for?!?"
"Eh they aren't so bad. It's their ocean, we just visit. Gotta respect nature, mate"
"Dude NOTHING THERE IS NATURAL. That's what I'm trying to tell you: we. made. it. all. As a joke. We show our kids holograms of it to make sure they brush their mandibles. You guys are actually the main villains, the 'devils' if you will"
"NAAARRR fuck you Larry, I'm not having that! My species is fucking great mate! Go ahead and tell me ONE BAD THING ABOUT... Oh." | 2022-12-07T23:37:39 | 2022-12-07T21:56:40 | 280 | 74 |
[WP] When people turn 18, they gain the power to summon 1 random thing in the world to their hand, as Thor does to Mjolnir. Summoned people are considered soulmates, and objects as important parts of one's life. When you summon yours, it takes some time, but people are horrified when it arrives... | 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, and 56 minutes since I was born. The day is May 15th, 2007. The time is 4:40am. Despite the early hour, the whole house is lit up. My family had breakfast ready and coffee brewed by 4:30. We believe that destiny chooses your career through the summoning, and it is tradition to have a celebration for each summoning in our family. To be honest, I'm scared. What if I summon something stupid, like a deck of cards or a stapler? What kind of a career would a stapler lead me to? Would my family laugh at me? Would they still care about me? Shit. The minutes felt like hours, with my anxiety worsening with each one passing.
4:41am: I look towards my sister, Jamie, who, on her summoning day, summoned a man, Jeff, and they were married within the day. She's a housewife, and that's it. They've had 6 children in 6 years, and she is currently pregnant with the 7th. Still, they, and all of their children, were present for my early-morning birth time. I feel bad for them having to be here, but we all know that it's tradition, and my mother would disown them completely if they were to miss a family summoning.
4:42am: I look to my left to see my younger brother, Justin. He's only 5 years old; by far the youngest sibling. I think he may have been a surprise to my parents. I wondered where I would be when he is ready for his summoning. 13 years is a long way away, and, in my family, we don't make any decisions in our career until the summoning. We let destiny choose our path. So, it was just as much a mystery to me as it was to everyone else.
4:43am: There's my mother, Sharon, and my Father, Jacob, staring directly at me. They are so excited to see what I am "destined" to become. They have high hopes for me. I will be their first son to go through a summoning. It had been a while since the last party, as well. Jamie's was 7 years ago now. I feel like they were initially disappointed that she had summoned a man. It's similar to going to college for an "MRS" degree; it felt lazy. Of course, they remembered that it is not her choice. It's destiny. They welcomed Jeff with open arms into the family, and now they are blessed with 6 wonderful grandchildren. I guess if I summon a woman, it wouldn't be the worst thing. I can't help but worry though. What if she's ugly? What if she's annoying? What if she's my soulmate, but I hate her? Oh, Jesus. There's no turning back once she's here. Shit. Shit. Shit.
4:44am: The time has come. My family is raving with anticipation. As soon as the clock struck, my mother yells, "Here we go, Matt! Show us what ya got!"
I close my eyes, and as I hold my hand out, the room becomes silent. Everyone is looking around, seeing if anything began to budge, but nothing is happening. Am I doing it wrong? I concentrate harder to make something happen, but it seems useless. I'm shaking. Panicking. What if I am the one person on earth that doesn't have a summon? Am I even human? My hand is still out, just hoping for something to happen.
After a couple minutes, we hear a noise outside. A thud. Was that... a person? Would I be the second person in the family to summon a spouse? Would she be pretty? Am I even ready for marriage? Shit, it's happening so fast.
We get up and race to the door. We were right, it's a person. But... it didn't appear to be a woman. Holy shit, am I destined to be a homosexual? Not that that's wrong or anything... I'm just not ready for that! I've always been attracted to women. This couldn't be real.
I decide that I should be the one to go first. The man is laying face down on the ground. I kneel down beside him, and nudge his shoulder. He seems to be in a heavy sleep, or possibly unconscious. I keep nudging, and, finally, he starts to come to. Shit, I'm not ready for this. Am I about to look into the eyes of my male soulmate? Instead of turning around, he begins to vigorously roll back and forth. What is going on? He's rolling faster and faster, face still in the ground. "What the hell?', says my mother. Then, finally, he lifts his head up, still rolling.
It's Rick Astley.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I said. My mother slapped me, saying, "Language!"
We were all standing there, staring at Rick rolling. I know what I have to do. | The summoning of one's true calling was always meant to be a decision to bind where you would go with life. A doctor may bring a syringe, a police officer a badge, and if your lucky you may pull in a gemstone for wealth. When I called for my object I got none of these.
The large stone slab one stood on to receive his or her object was holy ground. Aside from a priest, everyone stepped on it once and no one would be within a mile radius of it to ensure safety. The slab seemed specifically cold on the eve of the new year that marked my birth.
I reached out a spoke the words that had been ground into me for the last year, "Oh Lord above. Wish me luck above all things as I draw upon your gift." Then with a small knife I was provided I cut my palm and let the blood drip onto the pedestal and reached out for what was rightfully mine...
There was nothing. Not in the first minute. Not in the first hour. Nor the third. In total I waited six before I saw the result. In the mid day sky the sun went dark as a eclipse graced the heavens. No eclipse was forecast for today. No abnormality to cause one. It was then I realized. My object was no sword of a great king. It was no badge for my future. It wasn't anything to help me. No the truth was that my item came wanting only death.
I remember starting to see part of the earth rise into the sky as the moon itself came for me. The summoning had one flaw, once summoned a object will come to it's master and only stops under one condition...there death. Seeing death before my eyes, and not just my own left me with a choice.
Mother, Father, if your reading my final message. I'm sorry I couldn't be a doctor. But i can fix my own mistakes. Goodbye. | 2019-09-18T09:23:25 | 2019-09-18T08:31:42 | 123 | 79 |
[WP] You are a respected supervillain that is more of a managerial type. You take good care of your minions and have an open door policy. One day a battered minion comes in your office. The heroes tortured your minion for information. You rarely go out into the field, but when you do heroes tremble. | Rules exist for a reason.
I'm not talking about laws, but rules, built on respect and mutual understanding. Laws are made to be broken. Rules are inviolate.
When our battles threatened to destroy the world itself, when civilian casualties were too great to ignore, we backed off and eventually came up with rules. This world may be mine to conquer, but I have no desire to rule over a world of the dead, and so I agreed to their boundaries, their standards, their contracts and codes of behavior. With my genius, I could still conquer this world even with such standards restraining me. And in return for my benevolent agreement the self-styled "heroes" agreed to the same, and so we all kept things in check.
I still plot and scheme and, yes, even break the law, but my minions know how far is too far, and they never cross that line. My adversaries still foil my schemes (when and *if* they can,) but they know how far is too far and, again, they never cross that line.
Until now.
I'm facing away from Hugo, looking into the mirror, checking the fit on my blouse as I button it up. It's been awhile since I wore it. I haven't needed to in years. I'm not looking at Hugo but I can still remember every detail, every bruise on his face, the missing teeth, the *missing ear,* the streak of dried blood running down his neck. Those are the visible injuries. The rest are concealed by his clothes, though the two casts on his arms are a bit hard to overlook.
We're on the 75th floor, one level up from my office in my personal chambers. Hugo is sitting on the couch while Fredricks sits in a comfortable office chair nearby taking notes. I'd already been over the story with Hugo the moment he was brought in by the response team, but it helps to have everything written down formally, so they're going over it all again. Hugo's just gotten to the part where Nightwatcher started cutting off his ear, and I set the earrings down on the vanity.
"Hugo," I say, turning. "There's no need to relive that. I'll brief Fredricks for the official report. You can return to the medical wing and rest for now. We can talk later when you've recovered."
Hugo looks ashamed. "No, boss. Please. I'm fine. I... I want to talk through this. I'm so sorry. I wasn't strong enough. I just wanted him to stop... wanted the pain to stop. I tried to stay quiet but I just couldn't..."
I walk over and kneel before my injured employee. "Hugo, you mustn't blame yourself. If anyone is to blame, it's me. I should have done a better job securing our facilities against intrusion," (I notice Fredricks frown as I say this. They've already instituted an organization-wide security review,) "and you were never trained in combat or interrogation. You were never meant to have to face such... atrocity."
Hugo slumps into his seat, tears freely flowing. "I'm so sorry boss. I just wanted to do a good job."
I think about the various reports I'd been receiving over the last month or so. Cosmo's newest sidekick (and goodness, he did seem to go through them quickly, didn't he?) was operating on his own. Rumors were that the kid was sick of being just a sidekick, wanted to prove himself, had always been a bit hot-headed, but up until now he'd never crossed the line. He'd gotten real close, skirted the very edges of what was permitted, but never actually done anything warranting a direct response.
But now this "Nightwatcher" had tortured one of my men, just a random factory worker, for details on my latest scheme.
I motion to Keats, who's standing off to the side. "Take Hugo down to medical. Make sure he gets there safely, and have them give him something for the pain. Have psych stop by later this evening as well."
Keats gently urges Hugo to his feet and ushers him out the doors. I listen as their footsteps, and the sound of weeping, recede down the corridor until the door finally closes behind them, cutting off the sound.
I return to the mirror, and finish buttoning the blouse. It's bulletproof, and while I don't need such protection, it's such a hassle when one's outfit gets ruined by stray gunfire. I put on the earrings, two small skulls. We're sending a message, after all.
I don't even really care that much that Hugo told Nightwatcher everything he knew about Project Omnibus. Like all of my plans, Omnibus is just one gear in a larger machine. I can adapt and alter my strategies. There's always a contingency plan for any failure. Wheels within wheels. It's not about that. Nightwatcher could have just as easily hacked into our systems and discovered those plans that way.
There are rules, and those rules exist for a reason.
"How's the ultimatum coming?"
Fredericks flips to another page in their notebook. "Nearly completed. I still think 'unconscionable' works better than 'inhumane' in paragraph three."
"Change it if you like, but let's get it printed. I'll be departing immediately."
"You're delivering it yourself? Couldn't we use the hotline, avoid unnecessary risk while we give the Society a chance to respond?"
"No. I've sat back for far too long while they've tested my patience. I've held myself honorably to their rules while they've flaunted them, and the time has come for a personal appearance. It's time for me to take the field and remind them why we have rules in the first place."
I bend over fasten the last buckle on my boots when the window explodes inwards. Fredricks doesn't move (their preternatural luck ensures no flying debris will ever hit them) and I, of course, am impervious to such trivial harms. Still, I assume a defensive stance and wait for the inevitable assault.
I note (with my superior analytical abilities) that it was a small charge, doing no real damage to the building and only destroying one window. A single rope appears, lowered from somewhere above, and now I notice the loud and whirring roar of helicopter blades. I move forward to the hole in my building and look upwards.
My sometimes-nemesis Cosmo is sitting in the open door of one of the Society's response-choppers, operating a crank lowering a rope towards us. Fastened onto the end of that rope is a large sack.
I grab the package and pull it into the building, detaching it from the rope and letting the rope swing free. I look back upwards and see Cosmo nod in acknowledgement, or perhaps in greeting, before the helicopter banks away and speeds off.
Interesting.
I turn towards the large sack, which Fredricks has already begun to open.
Inside is an envelope and...
...Nightwatcher, hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded.
Fredricks has already opened the envelope and is reading the letter within. "Sorry about the window. We'll forward you the funds to replace it. We trust that this gift will even accounts and trust that no further action will need to be taken. Respectfully, the Society of Superheros."
Huh.
Sometimes having a reputation can be a very good thing.
I kneel before the bound prisoner and remove his blindfold and gag. He immediately begins shouting epithets. "Witch! You'll never get away with this!"
I let him rage for a few moments before standing and returning to the mirror. This is not the appropriate outfit for this occasional at all. "Fredricks," I say, as I carefully remove my earrings and place them in the top drawer. "Have our *guest* brought downstairs to some... appropriate accommodations. See that he's... *comfortable* until I arrive. I'll be down shortly so that we can have a nice long conversation about rules."
Fredricks pulls a small communicator out of their pocket and whispers into it, and quickly two guards rush into the room. Fredricks, smiling, replaces Nightwatcher's gag and blindfold and then the two guards drag him out of the chamber. Fredricks follows, giving me a small nod as they close the door behind them. I listen with satisfaction at muffled sounds of anger, outrage, and fear until the heavy oak doors cut off the sound.
I turn and walk to the closet. This occasion calls for a particularly splendid outfit. We haven't had guests in a very long time, and it simply wouldn't be polite to meet a guest in anything less than my very best.
Rules are rules for a reason, after all. | The sound of light footsteps echoed through the hallways of the Heroic Embassy. A man in a crisp white suit and soft blonde hair casually approached the massive double doors that lead to the main conference hall, pushing them open with little effort, the various heroes and vigilantes inside turning to him, realization and nerves slowly creeping into their faces and masks.
“Apologies for interrupting.” He started, adjusting the ivory gloves he wore. “I promise I won’t take up much of your time. I’m looking for an individual by the name of Sundial.” He inquired, an eerie, almost plastic smile painted across his face.
Not a soul spoke, not at first. “**Sundial.**” he repeated, in a grim, but also melodious tone. “**Now.**” he repeated, his smile only growing longer. One of the heroes stood, one of the older ones, Titan. “Please, what did Sundial do? I’m sure we can punish her accordingly.” He pleaded, almost begged. “Titan, my old friend. I’m afraid she went a little too far in her battle with my men. He’s got burns across his entire body, the doctors say he’ll need skin grafts for the next 2 years, if he even heals enough for that to be possible. Naturally I’ll take care of him once my business here is concluded, but I’m afraid I cannot let this go.” The man answered. “Now, I won’t ask again. Where. Is. Sundial.” He repeated, an almost mocking slowness in his request.
“She’s...in the training yard right now. We’ll...” Titan sighed. “We’ll prepare her for transport to your facility. She’ll be there in a few hours.” He said, looking ashamed.
“Splendid. Thank you for your assistance, ta-ta.” The suited man said, turning and leaving, the heroes whispering among themselves about what was going to happen to the poor girl.
*Later*
The girl, Sundial, slowly awoke from her sedated state. “Wh-Where am I?” She asked, looking around, struggling against the restraints on her. The man in the suit approached her. “Good Morning.” He said with a mile long grin. “You must be Sundial.”
“Yeah, I am. Who the hell are you?! Don’t you know who I work for?! I-“ she said before but cut off by the man pressing a finger to her lips. “Shhhhhh...There’s no need to yell. I’m right here. Now, to answer your questions, I’m Adrian Honey. Surely you’ve heard of me?”
“The CEO of H-Tech?” She exclaimed in confusion. “Yes! Very good.” Honey replied delighted. “Why the hell do you have me tied up here then?!” Sundial questioned harshly.
“Well.” Honey began, while taking off his suit jacket. “You’ve damaged my property, and assaulted my employees.” He began, walking back into the shadows of the dimly lit room, seeming fetching something. “If that was all, I’d be able to overlook it.” He added, returning, holding a double barrelled shotgun. “But you went too far. You tortured them. You burned them far beyond anything normal medical science could reverse.” He said, his voice turning grim with each word. “I can’t allow that.” He said, as he finished loading the firearm, snapping it shut to emphasize his point. “You took your pound of flesh. And now, I will have mine.”
Sundial, reacting, blasted a fireball into Honey’s face, and for a moment, he seemed stunned. He was burned down to muscle and sinew. But then, he looked at her, his burned eye bulging and bloodshot, as his face seemed to...reform. The body repairing itself with disgusting slowness and horrible sounds, until he was back to normal, smiling once again. Sundial was shocked...pale and looked like she was on the verge of vomiting.
“Are you done?” Honey asked, not really caring for an answer, pointing the gun at her kneecap. “No, ple-“ she spluttered before a loud blast rung out, followed by Sundial screaming. Honey stood there, watching her suffer for a moment, before he kneeled down, and with a golden light from his hands, mended her injuries.
“Better?” He asked, to which he got no response. “I asked you a question.” He added.
“Yes.” Sundial answered.
“Good. I’m glad you aren’t in any pain.” He said, before immediately blasting her in the leg again. Her screams echoing in the empty room. She broke down, crying and screaming both in fear and pain. “Please...I’m sorry just please don’t kill me...” she cried, heaving breaths in between sobs.
“Oh my poor sweet summer child...You really don’t know who I am, do you?” He said, almost as if he was sorry for her. He mended her leg again, before tilting her head up towards him.
“You won’t die.” He said, reaching behind him, grabbing the handle of a cart full of weapons and other tools of violent torture. He picked up a crowbar, hefting it in his hands menacingly as he smiled. The gigantic, perfectly plastic smile.
**”But you’ll wish you could.”** | 2021-03-22T09:10:32 | 2021-03-22T09:04:23 | 129 | 76 |
[WP] When people turn 18, they gain the power to summon 1 random thing in the world to their hand, as Thor does to Mjolnir. Summoned people are considered soulmates, and objects as important parts of one's life. When you summon yours, it takes some time, but people are horrified when it arrives... | My first time posting here. Hope you enjoy!
**************************************
I think it was my birthday. I wasn’t sure – birthdays hadn’t meant anything for years, but I think it was my 18th birthday.
So, here I was, a slave who just turned 18. It all happened after the invasion. My parent were simple farmers living outside the village. I was happy back then. I helped my Da in the fields while my Ma and my sister cooked the meals and kept the house.
Rest-day was the best – me and Da would get cleaned up after working in the dusty fields all week while the women cleaned away the dishes. We’d gather around the village bonfire with our neighbors, and the music would play and everyone danced! It was magical!
Back then, turning 18 was a gift. You’d reach out, and something wondrous would come to you. For my Da, it was my Ma. That was rare – getting a soulmate was special. Most people got things, but very special things. Like, the magister of the village got a gavel. No-one could ever lie to him, and justice was fair and equal. The seamstress got a needle, and could sew so fast her hands were a blur, and never made a mistake.
But then the invasion happened. It was quick and bloody. My Da was killed, my Ma was taken away to the kitchens were she was later beaten to death because she served some soup that was too cold. I was 12 when that happened. My sister was sent to the camps, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
The village was burned, men and elders killed, women and children enslaved. I was sent to the officer’s section. I polished boots, ironed uniforms and did all the odds jobs no-one else wanted. I slept in dirt and was beaten daily. I was painfully thin and wore rags. My days were spent trying to avoid notice, and I was fairly good at it. It's the reason I was still alive – I didn’t look older than maybe 14 or 15, and was skilled at being overlooked. Of all the boys my age who had been enslaved that fateful day, I was the only survivor.
Odd how the summoning had changed since then – before, you never knew what you’d get, but you knew it would be wonderful and joyous. Now, it was poison every time. The invaders learned quickly to keep an eye on the girls on their day of summoning – too many young women drank the poison before it could be snatched away.
I guess they forgot about me. They certainly didn’t care if I lived or died. My existence was meaningless and empty, and from what I had seen, the poison was quick and painless. You’d fall asleep as soon as it passed your lips, and a few minutes later, you were gone. Quickly and peacefully.
I did my chores that night with only one ringing slap to my head. I crept away and waited until the camp was quiet. I held out my hand, ready for the poison to take me away from this horrible life.
Nothing happened. Maybe I was wrong about my birthday? I don’t think so. I tried again, and I felt something, but… still nothing. One more time, straining, crying, tears streaking my grimy face, please take me away! I sobbed uncontrollably, foolishly getting the attention of one of the guards. “Oh, so it’s yer’ summoning, is it boy? Good – looks like I’m the one who’s getting a present….” and he trailed off in silence. Softly at first, then growing louder, it was hard to tell what the sound was. At first it was just the ground shuddering faintly, but it got stronger. You could hear metal clinking, and something that sounded like sticks banging together. The guard forgot about me and ran into the camp, raising the alarm.
The invaders had been at war for a long time, and were good at it. Lines formed quickly, but they were not prepared. No one could ever prepare. The attacking army was ruthless, unrelenting and completely unstoppable. The screams were terrible. The invaders were butchered. Every soldier had been torn to pieces within the hour.
When it was over, only the slaves were still alive. As one, the conquerors turned to face me, placed one hand over their hearts and dropped to a knee, all bowing in allegiance.
I had summoned an army. An army of those killed unjustly by the invading horde. The undead army stood before me, victims no more, but victors out for justice. I would avenge my family, my village, and my life. | As I wait in the field, the usual assortment of examiners and recording equipment scattered around, an awkward silence surrounds the entire group. It has been nearly an hour. Most people's Soulbound appears within 10 minutes. What could it be? If we go by distance maybe something halfway across the country? But what only exists there that you couldn't find within an easy walking distance? I remember hearing news articles about the man who summoned a whale... To the middle of Texas. It was big news at the time; hundreds of buildings had been decimated by the high-speed collision, and the whale unfortunately did not survive the impact. The examiners are also starting to get nervous looks on their faces and I bet they are recalling the same story. Suddenly off in the distance I start to hear very large crunching noises, sirens, screams and just utter pandemonium. then comes the grating, like thousands of pounds of metal rushing against pavement I know something horrible is coming, but my hand is frozen out in front of me. Finally it crests over the city skyline and I am dumbfounded. It is worse than I could ever have predicted. Looming over me, growing closer by the second is the mangled, ruined visage of one of our country's greatest monuments. The Statue of Liberty, now covered in dust, blood and debris followed by a swarm of helicopters grinds to a slow halt in front of my outstretched hand, just close enough to touch the tip of my finger. What have I done? | 2019-09-18T09:45:02 | 2019-09-18T09:38:04 | 71 | 24 |
[WP]A teddy bear that you think protects you, imaginatively. One night, you noticed a dark figure in your room. It jumped on you, and realized that it blocked a sword aimed at you. Your trusty teddy bear has been trying to kill you every night, and creatures of the dark has been protecting you. | The creature first came when I was 7. It was the night of my birthday, and I had just gotten Barry the Bear that day. He had soft, thick fur, big black eyes and a wide smile, with just a hint of fangs showing through. Daddy asked me what I thought of him as I held him close for the first time.
"Very bear-y." I said.
Well, actually, it came out more like "Barry Barry." Everyone laughed, Pop-pop took pictures, and my newest friend got his name.
I took Barry to bed with me that night. It was after Pop-pop left and Mommy and Daddy went to bed that the creature came. I woke up to a rustling coming from the window. There, in the shadows cast by the moonlight I saw a claw pushing its way through the curtains, slow and steady.
My heart jumped into my throat and all semblance of sleepiness left me. I grabbed for Barry to protect me, after all, a bear can kill a monster, can't it? But Barry was no-where to be found. As I looked around frantically, afraid to move lest I trigger a sudden rush of the beast in the window, I could see that my bedroom door stood ajar. In the crack, I could see Barry. In one furry paw, he held one of Mommy's kitchen knives.
He was looking at me with his big black eyes. His smile seemed wider than I remembered. But then the beast brushed against my nightstand, making a small sound. Barry's eyes snapped to the beast, and he let out a quiet snarl that -even though he was there to save me- sent a little shiver up my spine.
Barry rushed the beast, but before they collided, I broke loose from my fright just enough to pull the covers over my head. I heard them fight, Barry snarling that vicious snarl, and the beast huffing like a cow at the petting zoo.
I stayed that way until everything went quiet, and then I peeked out. There was no sign of Barry or the beast. I quickly leapt out of bed and ran to Mommy and Daddy's room. The next morning, Mommy found Barry underneath the bed, underneath a heavy book.
\----
As time passed, the nighttime battles became common. Every night, it started the same way. Barry in the door with a knife, and the beast, creeping through my window. Eventually, I learned to sleep through them. The only thing that changed was where I'd find Barry. Sometimes under the bed, sometimes in the dirty clothes hamper, sometimes in my closet. Once I found him stuffed under my dresser. But each time, he was underneath something heavy. I never though too much about why that was. I only loved Barry for protecting me from the beast.
One night, when I was 11, I spilled spaghetti sauce on Barry at dinner. My mom took him to put him in the wash. I begged and pleaded, but to no avail. She said I could go one night without him.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed, dreading the approach of the beast, until finally I heard it scratching at the window. I watched it slide it's gangly bulk inside, and when it finally straightened out above my bed, I felt my bladder let go.
"Where issss the creature?" It hissed. It's voice sounded like the grave; cold and breathless.
I could not reply. Fear had taken my voice. The beast stared at me, with it's smoking red eyes. "Quickly, child. There issss little time. Where issss the bear?"
"Muh-muh-muh..." I stammered. "M-mommy put him in the wash." I don't know why I answered the beast truthfully. I think I was simply too scared to lie. The beast nodded it's wolf-like head at that, then leaned over me. "I will sssssssshow you the truth, child. You will ssssssee with your own eyessss."
The beast hunched down, tucking itself under my desk. And there it waited, for what seemed like hours. As I began to wonder if the beast meant to attack me at the break of dawn, I head the creak of my bedroom door opening.
There was Barry. Wet and dripping, the same knife in his hand. I started to feel a rush of relief, except... Something was different. The smile which always seemed wider when he smiled at me before his battles looked... Sinister. Barry looked all around the room, but did not spot the beast, in the shadows under my desk. When he was satisfied that we were alone, he leapt quickly up onto my bed. My tension heightened, and I began to tremble.
"I've waited far too long to do this, boy." Barry's voice was deep and gravelly, not at all like the friendly tone I'd imagined. He walked up and perched on my chest, staring into my eyes. "I'm glad you can be awake for this. It's so much better when they understand what's happening." Barry's smile grew wider still, and I whimpered as he raised the knife up.
Just then, long black claws wrapped around the blade and plucked it from Barry's hand. Barry grunted and spun, finally realizing his mistake.
"Thisssss life issss yoursssss, child. May I have it?" The beast's voice seemed eager, and somehow tired. I stammered back, "wh-wha?"
"For too long, you have ssssuffered hissss attackssss. But hissss life isssss yoursss to keep, or give away. I asssssk you for it."
I don't think I really thought it through. I was scared and confused. "Will you protect me?" I asked the beast, stupidly. But the answer I got was not what I expected. "Alwaysssss. Forever."
"Okay."
With that, the beast snatched Barry to it and ripped him apart in a flurry of fur, stuffing and Barry's quiet screams. When it was finished, the beast gathered up all the pieces and stuffed them down into the bottom of the trash can. My breathing had finally returned to normal when I felt the bed creak, and saw the beast step onto the foot of it. It curled itself up into a tight little ball, the only feature of which was the baleful smoke rising from it's closed eyes. "Ssssssleep now, child. You are ssssssafe."
With that, I finally understood what had been happening, these past four years. I relaxed and closed my eyes, and did not wake until the morning.
The next night, I woke up around midnight to go to the bathroom, and there was the beast, curled up at the foot of my bed. It opened one eye to observe me. "If you ssssscream, I will come." It said. And then it closed it's eye. I went to the bathroom and got back into bed, and for the first time in four years, I truly felt safe at night. | Teddy lost his eyes when I was six. They're just small black holes now. I don't put my fingers in there to poke around and see what's inside him anymore. I was looking for his eyes but I think they were in the laundry. Mom never found them. She died when I was ten.
After that, there was nobody to stitch Teddy up anymore. He had that row of stitches up his belly that started where his bellybutton would be and went right up to his neck, like some sort of zipper keeping his insides safely inside. He had that open gash on his head. It had been years in the making but I never got around to asking mom to stitch him up. After fixing his belly, she said she wasn't fixing him anymore. Now she doesn't fix him because she's dead.
The police say that somebody broke in and hacked her to death in the night with a knife they found in the kitchen. There was no sign of a forced entry. That's because nobody broke in. That's what Teddy said. He was just angry that she said she wouldn't fix him anymore and went to the kitchen during the night and chopped her up. If she didn't fix him, who would protect me from my nightmares? I told Teddy it was okay that once but that he couldn't do that anymore.
My dad died when I was thirteen. It was my fault, again. I kept telling him that I had to take Teddy on that camping trip but dad said I couldn't. "You're being childish," he kept saying. "Childish and naive."
I put Teddy in my backpack when dad wasn't looking and he was with me for the hikes on the first and second day. I would sleep with him at night. If Teddy wasn't there, who would protect me? He couldn't be left at home. Dad had stayed up a bit later on the third night and was just drinking by the fire, remembering mom. I think he might have been crying.
I found him face down in the embers the next morning. There was an axe in his back and his face was burnt. I wondered which had happened first.
After that, I started having more nightmares again. The more the cut on Teddy's head spread wider, the more nightmares I had. Creatures of the night would come to my bed and reach their bony black fingers towards my bed to scrape their fingers along my face and Teddy would hack them away. Sometimes he used knives. Sometimes he used forks. Sometimes he just resorted to chomping them off with that smiley opening that ran underneath what used to be his nose.
Each morning I would find Teddy in a worse state of disrepair. His paws were mangled and his ears were torn and I felt awful knowing he had done all this to protect me. I set an alarm one night so I could help Teddy fight the creatures of the night. It wasn't fair that he had to fight them himself. Teddy seemed surprised to see me awake. I think I startled him and distracted him from fighting. The creature of the night lunged and tore open the stitches on his stomach. Teddy growled and tried to push past him to protect me but the creatures kept coming. They wouldn't let him to me, resolved to first kill Teddy and then kill me.
I don't remember falling asleep but when I woke up, Teddy was chopped into little pieces and spread around the room. I cried for the first time since dad died. And that afternoon, I started to stitch Teddy together again. It was the least I could do after he had given his life to protect me.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! | 2019-09-23T16:41:33 | 2019-09-23T12:58:33 | 134 | 66 |
[WP] You have just died. The Good News is that there is an afterlife. The Bad News is that it isn't Heaven. Or Hell. Or Purgatory. And you aren't a Ghost. In fact, the afterlife is something that no sane human being would ever predict, and has most likely never been written down.
Go balls to the wall crazy with this. Think of the most outlandish afterlife your brain can muster. Thanks and have fun! | **LIFE OVER**
*James* is no more. You have left a loving wife and three children behind. You have died from **OLD AGE**. You have made *121* friends in your life, *17* of which you saw regularly throughout your life. *53* people left bad reviews on your character page.
Happiest memory:
*Getting Married*
Most unique memory:
*Travelling through China*
Did this life meet your expectations?
**YES**
**NO**
> No
If you wish to leave a complaint, please leave a message at number 3495y6thz845-3a.
***
You have earned
*1.357.138*
Points!
Your previous lives have earned you
*9.406.862*
Points!
In total, you now have
*10.800.000*
Points!
You are in the top 10!
Would you like to post your score on the scoreboards?
**YES**
**NO**
> No
Would you like to reincarnate?
**YES**
**NO**
> Yes
***
*Reincarnation*
**USE A PREMADE LIFE**
**RANDOMIZE YOUR LIFE**
**GO TO CHARACTER CREATOR**
> Go to character creator
Alert: Creating your own character will cost points!
Do you want to continue?
> Yes
***
*Character Creator*
**Traits** - Random
**Looks** - Random
**Geographic Area** - Random
**Development/Time** - Random
**Class** - Random
**Live!**
Cost: *Free*
> Set Geographic Area: Europe
**Traits** - Random
**Looks** - Random
**Geographic Area** - Europe
**Development/Time** - Random
**Class** - Random
**Live!**
Cost: *Free*
> Development/Time
***
**Prehistory** - 1.000 Points
**Classical Antiquity** - 10.000 Points
**Early Middle Ages** - 3.000 Points
**Late Middle Ages** - 5.000 Points
**Renaissance** - 10.000 Points
**Age of Enlightenment**- 20.000 Points
~~Restoration~~ - Buy DLC! - 20.000 Points
~~Late 19th Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 30.000 Points
~~Early 20th Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 50.000 Points
**Late 20th Century** - Free trial until 589zx-7! - 100.000 Points
~~Early 21st Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 100.000 Points
~~Late 21st Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 100.000 Points
~~22nd Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 150.000 Points
~~23rd Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 1.000.000 Points
~~24th Century~~ - Buy DLC! - 1.000 Points
~~25th Centuy~~ - Preorder today! - Price TBA
>Age of Enlightenment
***
**Traits** - Random
**Looks** - Random
**Geographic Area** - Europe
**Development/Time** - Age of Enlightenment
**Class** - Random
**Live!**
Cost: *520.000* Points
>Class
***
**Slave** - *FREE!*
**Serf** - 1.000 Points
**Free, lower class** - 10.000 Points
**Free, middle class** - 100.000 Points
**Free, bourgeois** - 1.000.000 Points
**Lower noble** - 2.500.000 Points
**Upper noble** - 5.000.000 Points
~~Monarch~~ - Buy DLC! - 10.000.000 Points
> Buy Monarch DLC
2100 credits will be wired off your account. Confirm?
> Yes
Would you like to select **Monarch**?
> Yes
**Traits** - Random
**Looks** - Random
**Geographic Area** - Europe
**Development/Time** - Age of Enlightenment
**Class** - Monarch
**Live!**
Cost: *10.520.000* Points
> Live
This is an expensive life. Confirm?
> Yes
***
Confirmed. You will be reincarnated as 050y592th582x.
Translating...
100%
You will be reincarnated as "LOUIS XVI".
Reincarnation in 60 seconds...
> ...
> ...
> Fuck.
***
Edit: Whoah, comments, upvotes, a jazz reading and reddit gold! Thank you! | I expected nothing. Not to say that I expected nothing*ness*, I just expected there to be nothing. An end of consciousness and awareness. I didn't expect this. But these things happen sometimes, I suppose.
I remember being a kid, and my parents telling me that if I was a good boy, I would go to heaven some day. They told me this all the way until college, where I discovered that I didn't *have* to believe in anything, really. I was never really convinced that Heaven was real, I just felt like I had to believe because it was the right thing to do.
But this. This is far beyond anything the preachers and visionaries could have ever imagined. Suddenly, I was so vast and limitless that I could experience a hundred lives at a time. A million. Nothingness? Ha. I've learned about *everythingness*.
And then I start regaining full awareness. *I am god*, I think.
*We all are*, said somebody near me.
*What? Where am I? I didn't say that out loud!*
*Come on, Jeff. Don't be an asshole.*
I open my eyes. I'm in our circle. The bong is almost back round to me. *Ah,* I think, *I love these mind-narrowing drugs.*
I take another rip, and my mother has her first contraction. | 2015-10-19T02:05:14 | 2015-10-18T21:30:06 | 550 | 135 |
[WP] You were an embryo frozen for over 200 years, until you were finally birthed. At this point, everyone else on Earth has been genetically modified to perfection. You are the last human with flaws. | Imperfection was not what my “parents” predicted the moment the idea of my conception came their senses. But to be fair, a rare occurrence demonstrated throughout the centuries, they could not have predicted what was to come.
Imperfection in the past was a luxury many families could afford two-hundred years ago. They knew their child would be imperfect, and as long as the imperfections were mild, a mole here, a freckle there, even an additional finger, they could live as a happy family unit.
What they did not know left an uncomparable impression onto me. The embryo they coveted, the embryo they put their dreams and faith in, was left frozen for two-hundred years. A lot can happen in two centuries. Technology advances. People evolve. This is what happened during the time a part of me rested in the frozen abyss.
Humanity evolved and through their subsequent technological evolution, became perfect.
I, a relic of a long-forgotten past, was born defective - imperfect, but a rarity among my kind, an anomaly. So in many ways I was born special.
----------
It is frustrating. Perfection. This does not simply apply to genetic, physical characteristics, and general health. It means attitude, personality. There is no anger, no hate, nothing negative. When I was birthed, the doctors greeted me with confusion, understanding, and acceptance, but someone of my time would count it as pity.
My time. This is my time. And my time has consisted of playing catch me up to everyone else. I was years behind. Where my sphere mates were walking, I still crawled. When Shakespeare’s lyrical soliqulies kept them silent, Dr. Seuss’ red fish, blue fish amused me to no end. I knew. I knew. And yet, they were kind in their understanding, accepting manner. It cannot be helped. The teachers’ vacant expressions were the kindest they could be. It was not forced. It was not cruel.
Empty.
This followed me wherever I went.
----------
“This is terrible.”
It shames me to feel tears dancing on my eyelashes, and in public, no less. It cannot be helped. A small bird has crashed into a window and lies lifelessly on the grass. I hear the thud, watching the small, feather body collapse. I wrap it in newspaper, an archaic method compared to the recent transmission method commonly practiced, and walk behind my house to bury it.
“You can put it in the disposal droid, you know.”
I blink across the fence, and find myself staring at my neighbor. He stares back at me, an empty stare, and turns his head around. He is dressed comfortably in neutral colors; black, grey, white. I stand out with my pastel rainbow.
“I know.” The feathers dig into my fingers through the newspaper. It’s nauseating feeling a breathless body in your grasp, be it animal or human, “But I read about it in the library, and I thought I could show it some kindness.”
His expression returned. It aimed to penetrate the calm that I tried to portray. My chest tightened under his unwavering stare, but something curious happened. His lips turned downward. His left eye twitched. His cheeks, a colorless pale, flushed red, as if recognizing what just transpired between us.
Before he could fully realize, grasp the magnitude of his body’s betrayal, I hurried back into my house, clutching the dead bird’s body. Harsh grasps echoed in my living room. I shook my head. I counted my breaths.
This was negative. I was negative. This meant I was imperfect.
But I saw his flushed cheeks, the twitch in his eye, the frown on his lips. They never frown, twitch, or flush red for whatever reason. It is genetically impossible.
And yet, it happened. I saw it.
A shaky smile dawned on my lips. I went to the kitchen to find an old box to bury the bird in.
| Freckles. That's it. That's why strangers hesitate around you. Hell, just last week a beautiful couple crossed the street just so that they wouldn't be on the same side walk as you.
Kids gawk at you and ask their mommies why your face was dirty. Of course they were blunt. They were kids. "They don't know any better", you whisper under your breathe.
You continue walking. With no one at your side. Soon enough the door to your apartment greets you.
You finally open the door and sigh. At least at home no one could treat you differently.
Because they're was no one else inside. | 2018-03-16T08:49:36 | 2018-03-16T08:21:34 | 58 | 32 |
[WP] While cleaning your basement, you accidentally free the worlds smallest genie. You do not hear him tell you he will grant your three next wishes. | [[ Late edit to include prologue]]
There is something to be said about basement cleaning, though Dave wasn't quite sure what that thing was. Perhaps one day he'd figure it out, but today he was cleaning the basement for a single reason in particular. That reason, of course, was definitely not to find a genie. Therefore Dave was not very surprised when he failed to notice the thimble sized genie, recently freed from an old tea kettle, standing on his shoulder shouting something about wishes, freedom, and biscuits. Had he noticed the genie he probably would have done what anyone would have done... freak out, squish the insect sized thing standing on his shoulder, and then assume the whole thing was a hallucination caused by not enough tea or too much ale. Luckily for the genie, Dave was not an observant man.
Eventually the basement cleaning reached the point that all basement cleanings eventually reach before they're actually clean. This is, of course, the point at which all human beings are known to give up on basement cleaning for the rest of their lives and refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the concept of basements for at least 6 months on average. Dave, pleased that he even tried, decided to go about his day.
**Wish One**
The rain fell from the sky in thick, ghostly sheets. It was the kind of storm that you only really get to see when you've somehow been stuck outside and are soaked so rapidly that you give up on even finding shelter within a few moments. It was one of those storms that forces you to simultaneously appreciate the beauty of the universe and the depth of your own personal misfortune. Overall, it was a pleasant storm, but Dave didn't think so when the fourth car in a row happened to splash him with a roadside puddle. Dave, in what is normally considered an acceptable spout of rage, wished that the fourth driver would 'burn in hell for all of eternity, you imbecilic, blue faced, badger loving, fart muncher'. Now, this is usually considered quite the tame insult in Britain, but it is quite rare, much to Dave's chagrin, for the offending driver to then immediately burst into flames which seem to burn indefinitely, regardless of the amount of chemical retardant or water used in an attempt to put it out. It has been said that some eggheads from the university were now attempting to use this eternally burning corpse as a source of energy. Dave tried to forget this event.
**Wish Two**
Our homely protagonist did what any Englishman would do when faced with the existential fear caused by coincidental spontaneously combustive motorists and headed to his favorite pub. It only took eight pints, taken 7 days a week for the next four weeks, for Dave to transform his guilt into a nonchalant humor about the whole thing. Luckily, things definitely started to look up when Dave, just finishing his eighth pint of the day, discovered that he was now the owner of the establishment. He thought it was a bit unusual that the former owner would give him the deed to the place only moments after he had drunkenly said to the politely indifferent man to his left something along the lines of, 'I wish I owned this place, eh? I wouldn't have to pay for all these bloody drinks!'. Dave, much too drunk to remember, let alone comprehend the significance of these events, stumbled home and slept it off. He continued to visit this pub daily, of course, although he was a bit confused as to why his drinks were henceforth free and why the employees now explicitly called him 'Sir'. "A smart man would not question such fortune", Dave would say. Sadly, he was such a not-smart man, that he got this saying completely wrong.
**Wish Three**
An average person may have eventually connected the dots and determined that his wishes were actually coming true. Dave was an impressively average man. Sadly, he was also now an impressively drunk accidental pub owner and never had much desire to think much about anything. Thus his third wish was wasted upon the most mundane of items, albeit a delicious one. Dave only experienced mild satisfaction when he drunkenly mumbled to himself, "I wish I had some peanuts right now." and thus found a bag of peanuts on his lap. Such a wish, of course, is an embarrassingly useless way to harness the raw power of the universe. This issue was compounded by the fact that Dave had accidentally bent the laws of reality to manifest peanuts when he could have simply asked the nearby bartender for the complimentary peanuts behind the counter.
___
Dave never realized the awe inspiring, world bending powers that he had at his fingertips for those few weeks. Though, some people hypothesize that he wouldn't have made much better decisions had he been aware anyways. In general, our protagonist never really changed his life much at all. The eternally burning corpse would eventually provide electricity for 75% of the UK. The pub, which he never realized he now owned, eventually became one of the most successful uptown pubs in London. This was mostly due to the popularity his unique 'act' of pretending that he was not the owner.
And what of the peanuts? They were tasty, of course. Dave later asked the bartender for more peanuts. As expected, he was granted them for free.
| Wishes I grant, you can have three,
By rubbing that VHS you summoned me.
Hey, can't you hear me? Please respond,
Just remember that your word is your bond.
.
The man was busy, he didn't notice,
The tiny genie that was out of his focus.
Upstairs he went, smiled as he hugged his wife,
Frowning as he saw all the bills and debt in his life.
.
She deserves better, he thought to himself,
Pondering hard, working out how to obtain wealth.
Giving up he slumped back in defeat,
I wish I had a million pounds, ah a wish right up my street.
.
Three weeks later, out of the blue, a distant relative dies,
A million in wealth after taxes, for him it must be a lie,
But he talks to a lawyer, it's all above board,
Now he has wealth to buy the thing's he couldn't afford.
.
His wife cheats on him, loves another man,
He wishes that she loved him, he didn't understand,
A wish like this would have consequences,
Now she loves him despite his offences.
.
It's fake, it's not love, it's not real,
He dumps her soon enough, but still,
She follows him everywhere, trying to show her love,
Win him back, but he's had enough.
.
I wish I was dead, his final wish granted by me,
Now he hopes in death he is free.
But she follows him into his heaven, turns it into his hell,
With the right decisions this could've ended so well.
----
Liked the story/poemy thing? Here's my [blog](http://www.kasimskorner.com), my [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/kasims_korner), and my [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/kasimskorner)
My subreddit /r/KNDwrites has all my WP responses | 2015-08-05T05:50:07 | 2015-08-05T04:15:05 | 506 | 304 |
[WP] Turns out man was never meant to fly. One day all the planes in the sky inexplicably freeze where they are. There can be no rescue. Most planes eventually run out of supplies and perish. It's five years later, however, and society is flourishing on Flight 3407 to Orlando. | Day 7
I have begun to write this journal in the hopes that it will be found one day and our story will be told. It has been 7 days since the plane I was piloting stopped moving. Stopped. Just stopped in the middle of the sky. We were on our way to Orlando and the plane simply stopped moving midflight. I have been in communication with ground control and they confirmed the impossible, that we were stuck in the air. It is not just us though, every plane on earth that was in the air at the time is now suspended in the air. Ground control has informed me that there is a global effort to save us. No new planes have been able to take off.
Ground control had simple instructions: Survive until we can come for you. Awesome.
The first few days were a blur of panic and pandemonium. It took everything I had and more to keep the crew and passengers calm and in the plane. Many wanted to jump. A tentative, stressed calm has been reached at this point. While there is still great fear and anger, we are working through it.
I am the captain and I will get us through. My ground control has given me one instruction and I will follow it. We will all survive until help comes for us.
Day 1825
My intentions had been good. I had intended to write in the journal every evening to document our progress but I have failed at that task. Somehow 5 years have gone by with me too exhausted to write each night. Survival is hard work and on our 5th anniversary, we are still surviving.
Two weeks into our ordeal we realized that ground control, and the entire planet, still had zero idea how to save us. No planes could take off from any continent on earth. We realized that we had to be prepared to be here for a long time. We were lucky, the plane is a good size but was drastically under sold. We only have about 100 people on the plane. One hundred people is a very reasonable number to inhabit a plane of this size.
While we started rationing food instantly, it took 3 weeks before a fledgling survival plan started to form. A group of 15 men and women stood up and asked to call a plane wide meeting. Everyone came together and we were all shocked when “The Martian” started to play on all of the in-seat TVs. Then a man named Calvin, who has become my good friend, stood up and saved our lives: “My name is Calvin Thompson, I am a professor of Botany from the University of Tennessee. My colleagues, students and I were on our way to a conference in Orland. We have all our samples in cargo. And we are going to make sure that none of you starve to death.”
It has been 5 years and we are going strong. Not starving to death does great things to boost morale. Because all of the planes climate controls and power generators had an emergency solar back up (Thank you green movement!) We have never had to worry about loss of air, heat or lights. Once we were able to retrofit the wings into being green houses, with air pumped in from the cabin, we secured containers for water collection to the tail. While manmade objects cannot come into the sky, they can certainly be sent down. This allows us to dispose of our waste quickly and effectively. The United States government has set up safe drop zones around the plane on the ground to avoid certain predictable outcomes.
Day 1835
I continue to be remedial in my writing but would venture to say that 10 days is much better than 5 years. The US government and all governments are still working to get us down. I look forward to touching dry land. They have begun building a skyscraper underneath us as a means of reaching us. They have asked if we can hang on for 6 more months. No problem.
I asked how they could possibly afford to build a sky scrapper to every single plane stuck in the air. My boy on the ground, Ryan, is our usual contact for ground control. He faltered slightly and sighed: “Look Cap, they don’t want me to tell you this but I think you deserve to know. We don’t need to get to any other plane. Flight 3407 to Orlando is the only one left with life on board.”
I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve this. I don’t know why I was the captain of the only plane in the air at 6:24am on September 2nd, 2016 that could survive for 5 years. We had the right mix of people, at the right altitude, at the right location to make the survival of everyone on board possible. We have pets alive here, we have babies that have been born and flourished. We have had our bumps but we are a little community and we will continue to survive until they come for us.
| I sit down in one of the vomit stained seats as a 40 something year old finishes off the last bottle of jack Daniels. He walks down the aisle stumbling and falls over. "Fucking drunk" I hear someone say under their breath. The entire plain smells of death. The air is still and stale. I need a break. I walk over the bodies on the floor. I wonder what their lives must have been like before the flightless day. Some committed suicide when the food supplies started to drain, some became sick and died because of our lack of medicine. Some didn't gather enough food and died of starvation. I clear these thoughts from my head and open the bathroom door. I stop in my tracks as I see the motionless pilots body with a cord around his neck. His eyes are so lifeless, empty. His lips are blue and he is slowly swaying back and forth with his feet inches above the ground. I turn around and shut the door and just start to cry. We all thought the pilot could have been the one to save us. He was the last bit of hope. Why did he kill himself? He was trying to find a way out of here and he had enough provisions to survive for weeks. I run towards the cockpit and understand why he killed himself. I see another plane in front of us. Mother fuckers had a disco ball. | 2016-08-31T09:03:43 | 2016-08-31T07:28:24 | 301 | 97 |
[WP] A giant man sized spider sits in your boss's office. A post-it note with the word "boss" is attached to its head. No one else seems to be perturbed by the situation | When you drag yourself into the office on Monday morning, Mandelbaum is gone (and good riddance). But you’re not exactly thrilled to see his apparent replacement—a giant spider crammed into Mandelbaum’s old chair. The only changes it seems to have made to Mandelbaum’s office are to replace the golf-themed Motivations poster with what looks like a “Hang in There” poster but the scrawled, unrecognizable letters make your eyes itch and instead of the cat there’s what looks like a writhing sack of baby spiders. Everything else is the same: the same massive wooden desk crammed into the not particular big regional manager’s office, the chair that squeaks under the slightest movement, and even the “World’s Greatest Boss” mug.
The spider is somehow wearing a red tie despite not really having a neck. Its eight gleaming eyes blink not quite in unison and with a slightly upsetting, just barely audible clicking noise. As you try not to stare (but how can you not?), it reaches for its “World’s Greatest Boss” coffee mug and knocks it over, spilling steaming coffee over the papers scattered across its desk. It hisses and something green drops from its mandibles.
You can’t deal with this without coffee. Maybe, just maybe, the giant spider monster is a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and/or general burnout. Maybe this is what happens when you just hate your job so much you don’t know how much longer you can drag yourself out of bed.
“Ugh, Mondays, am I right?” says Steve from Accounting. You despise Steve—he has the kind of sense of humor that only exists in boring coworkers who aren’t actually funny but everyone else thinks are, to quote Debbie (god, you hate Debbie), “*high*\-larious.”
“What happened to Mandelbaum?” you ask.
Steve shrugs. “He’s not in his office?”
“If he is, he’s turned into a giant spider monster.”
“How can you tell the difference?” Steve asks. Everyone laughs.
“Oh my god, you should do standup,” says the contemptible Debbie. “You’re just so funny!”
“Wait, nobody else has noticed there’s a giant spider in Mandelbaum’s office?” you ask. You take a cautious sip of coffee. It’s just as miserable as it always is. You find this wretched bit of normalcy oddly comforting even as you wish you’d stopped at Starbucks on the way in.
“Oh, you mean Lord Arach’moloch?” asks Maddie. “I think he’s from corporate. I hear Denver’s not happy with Mandelbaum.”
“Because of last quarter?” asks Jim H.
“Lord Arach’moloch,” you repeat before everyone can get distracted by the pointless gossip of Mandelbaum’s downfall.
Maddie shrugs. “That’s what I heard anyway,” she says.
Agnes pops her head into the breakroom and glares specifically at you. “Mr. Lord Arach’moloch wants to see you in his office,” she says.
Agnes is—was—Mandelbaum’s ancient executive assistant and the de facto office manager. You’d always thought of her as unfailingly loyal to him, but it seems at least 6 decades of executive assistantship have made her more mercenary than you’d expect.
She turns her withering gaze to the rest of your coworkers. “And don’t the rest of you have some work to do?”
You follow Agnes out of the breakroom, feeling like you’re eight years old and on the way to the principal’s office. “So, uh…is…Lord Arach’moloch…”
“He is taking over management duties for Mr. Mandelbaum,” says Agnes.
“Did he…did he eat Mandelbaum?”
Agnes sniffs in that offended way only octo(nona?)generian ladies with severe buns and Kleenex up their sleeves can. “I’m sure that’s none of my business. Or yours.”
Your old boss has been devoured by your new boss. Who is a giant spider, possibly birthed from some horror dimension. And no one else seems particularly concerned or even all that interested.
Agnes raps on the doorframe, causing Lord Arach’moloch to shriek.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” she says.
Lord Arach’moloch, devourer of Mandelbaum, flails several of his bristly limbs. Agnes somehow interprets this and says, “Of course, Mr. Lord Arach’moloch. I’ll add that to your calendar.”
And then she abandons you to your sure to be grisly fate.
Coffee is still dripping off the edge of Lord Arach’moloch’s desk as you sit down in one of the guest chairs.
Lord Arach’moloch hisses and waves its multitude of legs and dribbles green venom. Which is apparently highly acidic based on the way the drops sizzle and melt patches of the desk. When it finally stops, you hazard, “I’ll get right on it?”
Lord Arach’moloch nods. Or possibly bobs its head rapidly in anticipation of cocooning you and sucking out your juices. You snatch some random papers off its desk and flee to your cubicle.
Later than morning you receive a company-wide email that actually reads “Hsssssssssssss.”
“Meet the new boss same as the old boss,” says Steve. “Typical Monday, huh?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Mondays.” | I slowly shut the door. Saying that I will be back later after I've done something important. I then head back to the main area and head straight to the staff room, and with no hesitation, barge in, scaring some workmates in the process.
'Someone needs to explain why there's a *GIANT SPIDER* in the boss' office!'
'Oh, that's just Spike.' Brushes off the woman sipping a steaming hot cup of coffee. 'Besides. October is the only time he can do that.'
'Why have none of you told me about his ability?' I point to each co-worker, saying their own abilities and skills, fantastical or not, finishing with my own skill sets.
'Actually he-' quietly adds the man at the fridge.
I interrupted. 'Seriously. Thus has got to be a prank or something. Theres no way someone as secretive as him would be that- what!?' I looks directly as him, muttering away whilst I was ranting.
'He never mentions it, but he's part of a group known as the Children of the Spider.'
I fall silent. The name rings a bell like it's Sunday in the Cotswolds. I silently repeat that name. 'Ugh. How does that make any more sense that it already is? I thought they were a tightnit group in Ireland, in a rundown town for sorcerers. Now you're saying they're more than just a regional organisation?'
He nods, closing the door with nothing but his mind, holding an orange coloured and Halloween decorated tub of ice cream.
I take a stance, try and come out with a sentence, nothing comes out other than 'uhh's and 'hmm's. They all look at me like I'm mad.
'Look. If he does start to cause terror, then I'm going to-'
A scream from a customer echoes throughout the work place. A black void of crawling spiders flow through the underside of Spike's door, almost engulfing the surrounding area of which the office is located, the other side of the building.
'Now how about that?' I notion to the door with a slight smug.
They don't look to pleased. Then a bang could be heard, their expressions don't change. Then the ''mother spider'' charges out from the office and charges towards me. I look back... their faces are blank, emotionless and pale. | 2021-10-07T08:56:54 | 2021-10-07T08:47:07 | 37 | 18 |
[WP] Humanity has invented the technology required to reach other dimensions. However, instead of finding an incomprehensible Lovecraftian realm, they discover a perfect and beautiful world. To the inhabitants of this new world though, we are monstrous eldritch horrors. | Perhaps the sharpest of the double-bladed qualities of humanity is our thirst for knowledge. Countless life-saving discoveries have been made from our quest to know, but in that journey, we have committed as many unthinkable evils. The ability to look back on our actions to analyze what we did wrong, hindsight, is equally double-sided. What should have been obvious comes back to haunt those that did wrong, and it never really leaves them.
​
I was one of the first to travel to alternate dimensions, sent out to explore and research something that had only been science fiction before. Long, long ago, people wrote stories about beings from alternate dimensions whose existence was so unlike our own, that even comprehending them would shatter our minds. Perhaps those still exist, but I have yet to see them. I know only what I have seen, and what I have seen has haunted me every moment of my continued existence.
​
I was young then, a spry over-enthusiastic grad student willing to risk his life to further science. I was contacted by the head of my university's quantum physics department, a man by the name of Herman Friedman. He had been receiving money from the government to research the possibility of interdimensional travel, and he had just made a breakthrough. He had found a way to both generate a wormhole and shatter the "tube" that formed between folded space in a particle collider, allowing an entire dimension to exist solely in that room. He was looking for a test subject, and I was one of few people to have signed a waiver to participate in potentially deadly experiments. I only wish now that it had been lethal.
​
I was given very little information, but that was understandable, it would have been impossible to explain to me what the experience of being inside an entire alternate dimension would be like. I was given a panic button, I was told that if I pressed it, it would collapse the wormhole. I was also given a micro implant that would record the entire experience into readable data. I think copies may still exist, but I urge anyone reading this to not set out to look for them.
​
I remember the room being slightly chilly at the time. Herman came on the screen in the room and signaled a countdown from 5 with his fingers. The next thing I remember was being inundated with information that would have been incomprehensible to me before then. The first immediate change was the lack of the function of my body. I had lost feeling and function of every part of my body, but somehow I was still able to process information. I had no sight, but I still "saw". I had no legs or arms, but I could still "move". What I noticed second was how I perceived time, or rather how I couldn't. My thoughts would finish before I finished them, I would know something before I had "seen" it, I was living my past, present, and future all at once. And suddenly, at once, I had become used to it. Maybe it wasn't that I had grown accustomed, but that I simply didn't care about how or what I was experiencing. It became incomprehensibly...beautiful then. Colors that didn't exist, written like symphonies, entered my mind. I was overwhelmed with an intense sense of belonging and togetherness as if becoming one with everything and everything was becoming me. This inner peace lasted both an eternity and a microsecond, at once. This was something beyond a paradise, an environment so perfect and beautiful that no words exist for it.
​
In that peace, I suddenly began to feel an "other" presence. It was a presence of "one" and "many", but one that was separate from me. The first thing I tried to do was make a connection with it, not for any reason other than I wanted to. I was soon reminded how arrogant I was, forgetting that this was their home environment and what I was unsure of how to do came to them like breathing to us. It was also curious about me, being an extradimensional foreign entity in its home. And yet, it was still entirely welcoming and unaggressive, forming a non-intrusive metaphysical connection with me. They were sharing their entire existence with me, and it was also absorbing my experiences. It, they, were a collective of beings made of energy. They were many and one, all at once, all having their own "self" but still being of one "self." We, I, they, it was able to form a complete meaning through that. One of them could partially or fully become another, with the little boundary between their concepts "I" and "us". That was the togetherness I felt, they had attempted to understand me in their most natural way.
​
I was then bombarded with a rush of every negative emotion possible, hatred, spite, jealousy avarice, disgust, loneliness, fear. I lived lives of utter abject misery, I was an orphaned refugee in a war-torn state, I was someone whose job was selling scrap metal from the landfill they spent their entire lives in, I was a laborer in an internment camp being forced to work 20 hours a day before finally dying. I also lived through monumentally happy moments. I was able to fall in love, and have children I got to see grow up. I was able to produce art I was proud of that made people happy. I became a leader who was able to lift humanity up, to solve all of our world's problems. And as quickly as that started, it ended.
​
I started to feel endless, abject terror. This was no longer my experience, but that of the entity projecting onto me. It was falling apart, dying. Tearing itself apart on a conceptual level, all the "separate" entities became poisoned with the concept of "self" and "other". By attempting to merge and learn from me, it poisoned itself with an idea it was never meant to have known. And it was all my fault. I represented a concept so far separated from its reality, that even perceiving me was killing it. It was them who had given me such contentedness and belonging, and this is what they received in return. I had barged into heaven, sipped its wine, and killed the beings that only ever wanted to learn about me.
​
I spent the next thousand years, although it may have been a few seconds, contemplating what I had done. At first, I tried to comfort the being. I projected the positive aspect of humanity onto them, love, passion, pride, awe, serenity, and other emotions that don't have names. I knew it was dying, so I tried to make its final moments peaceful. I could feel it struggling, unable to process what was going on. In one of its final moments, it had grasped language and asked me "What....you...are...why?". I had no answer and left my mind open for it to search. I felt it pass, still in my mind searching for answers. I no longer remember what happened next. I was told that I pressed down on the panic button so hard, that it shattered both the device and my hand. I was told that when Herman came into the room, I was wailing with a scream so awful that he described it as what hell may sound like. I was forced to go to a mental hospital after that, but they couldn't help me. How were they supposed to help a man get over having killed the perfect being? I was eventually released, not because they had helped but because I was a lost cause.
​
I don't know why I write this now. I will never forgive myself, and I know that nobody will ever be able to understand what I feel. I think I was told that Herman had tried to plug my microchip into his brain and that he had committed suicide soon after. I don't know what he did with the copies, but I hope they are never found. I write this as a warning, I don't think I will be around much longer. I used to fear death, thinking the concept of inexistence was terrifying, but now it seems like a warm embrace to run from my eternal torment. I'm sorry it had to end this way, but perhaps being that cause of my own death is the ultimate cosmic irony for what I did. Goodbye
​
I don't write for fun very often, so any constructive criticism would be nice. | Adam stood ready to greet the other world’s scientists. His people had discovered their work years ago, the strange distortion glittering in the air a few feet off-shore on a southern beach. At first it was thought to be some natural effect - perhaps something caused by the sun refracting off the coral reef below. It was only after months of study that Jamie, one of the brightest physicists on Adam’s team, realized the light was otherworldly. It was an indication of another intelligence, slowly building a bridge, connecting their reality to this one.
Now the aspect was massive, almost two meters square. Adam secretly felt certain that the others must be ready to step through, that the portal surely now was wide enough for them to emerge. Thinking of the immense wisdom a creature capable of tunneling through reality must possess made him feel humbled, almost in awe. But he stood tall when he remembered the pride of being chosen as one of the representatives of his people.
Not that it was a particularly elite title - he could name many well suited to meet these strangers. His homeland was known for its kind, thoughtful, curious people; and had more than its share of scientists, philosophers, and ambassadors. Truthfully, it was hard to name anyone NOT suited to meet these strangers. Despite this, Adam hoped he would get a chance to meet them first, even if he was only relatively average.
His hope was rewarded by a claw emerging suddenly into the clean ocean air. Or, at first it seemed a claw, but as Adam reached out to grab it and help the creature forward, he realized it was actually a hand much like his own, just larger and with a strange give. It must have been a trick of the light that made it look like a grasping gnarl, reaching out to him as though to choke out his life.
And then the thing emerged fully, and Adam marveled at how familiar and strange the being was all at once. A similar height, a similar shape, but swollen and discolored. Where a face should be, there was a terrible blankness. Adam tried to ignore the faint panic he felt staring into it, into the strange round smooth nothingness of it. Though the creature looked frightening, it was intelligent none-the-less, and therefore could be communicated with.
“Hello,” Adam said softly, and then performed the peace gesture his people hoped would convey a non threatening interest. He stepped back and looked slightly away, keeping his arms at his side with the palms facing forward to prove there was nothing in his hands. He spoke softly, both to show the creature he wanted it to know he was here and to help it realize he communicated through sound. “My name is Adam. It’s so nice to meet you. I cannot wait to learn where you are from and how you arrived. We have so much to learn from you and---”.
Abruptly the creature hissed, and slowly its face pulled up and back to reveal - a face almost identical to Adam’s own. Adam started, and involuntarily raised his hands to protect himself.
“Whoa there, little guy, no need to be scared. Beautiful place you got here,” the strange man said, slowly turning in an admiring circle while he waved around a little box that whirred and beeped.
“Thank you,” said Adam, not sure what else to say.
“Beeeee-uuuuu-tiiiii-ful” drawled the man, now looking at the little box, which was quietly flashing green. He leaned back and yelled into the distortion from which he came “Scanner says it’s good, come on over guys”.
“Are there many more of you?” asked Adam, too curious now to do anything but stare directly at the man as other hands began to emerge from the light.
“Oh, trillions” he said breezily. “Too many to count.”
“Trillions” said Adam softly to himself. As if to support this, another emerged, and then another two, each holding small boxes with the same blank face that, looking closer, Adam recognized must be some sort of mask.
“Good thing we found this place,” the man continued. “Damn near running out of room, even on the upper levels. But this place will be perfect for those upper crusts.”
“Upper crusts?”
By now there were eight of the strangers on the beach, and Adam was slowly backing up, backing away from them and preparing to run back to his people. They had thought it best to only post a single watcher for the portal, so that first contact could be made one-on-one, as that would be less threatening to a stranger in a strange world. Now Adam was questioning the wisdom of that.
“Yeah, you know, the people at the top, the fancy-pants making all their decisions for us in their ivory towers. They’ll eat this place up”
“Making deci- Oh! You mean your researchers and doctors and teachers and philosophers? The people you lean on to provide social guidance in times of trouble?” He stopped backing up, hopeful again.
“Heh, you sure talk pretty. No, I mean the people at the top, the kings and the, you know, the billionaires, the people who have all the money and own all the-”
“I think you should leave,” Adam interrupted suddenly. “Please”.
“No,” said the other. | 2020-12-22T21:27:43 | 2020-12-22T20:41:56 | 69 | 26 |
[WP] The Evil Sorceress takes her final form: a giant hawk-like bird with beautiful flaming wings. The battle is long and arduous, but you prevail. Her body disintegrates into a pile of ash as you land the killing blow. Then something in the ash stirs. A young girl rises, lost and confused. | Besnik and Doris dashed towards the swirling cloud of blackness. Using her mighty strength, she foisted Besnik into the air, his fur becoming brighter than gold. The impending collision of light and darkness was more fantastic than any tapestry I had ever seen. If only Remus was here to sketch this! Vigor entered my legs, and I rose to my feet, readying Sokolmecz, its cold steel radiating an iridescent glow.
 
"**WWWOOOOOOOOOFFFFF**" Besnik's forceful bark splashed the ash and wind away from the Sorceress, revealing a monstrous winged abomination. A volley of embers danced as she slapped Besnik aside.
 
"Besnik!" Anka climbed her staff, stumbling as she rose on her crutch. The charcoal stones that made up the floor of the Sorceress's keep did not yield to any force. Another body began to stir.
 
"Richter!" my voice struggled as I hobbled over to him, excited to see his consciousness return.
 
"We need to regroup!" Droopy sleeves flapped as he pointed at Besnik. The uncanny canine removed the barrier, but was no longer in a state to fight. Thunderous footsteps echoed in the hall, as Doris picked the holy dog up and ran to rejoin us.
 
"Let's retreat, we can't survive here!" Richter began, "Anka, you need to teleport us out of here!" Contrary to her efforts, she repeatedly stabbed the floor; contact into the ground was necessary for the spell.
"The floor isn't giving! I need to dig into it!"
 
Deafening screeches pierced our ears, and I felt goosebumps grow on my back. Teamwork had forced the fiend to abandon her human and demi-human forms. Coughs ejected themselves from my companions, and my lungs choked as a sulfurous wind blew in our direction. My heart beat faster as my eyes watched the slag and tar dripping from the transforming mass.
 
"What... is she?" Doris struggled, hyperventilating. The Sorceress stretched out, showing her full form: The Pitak Ohenivak: An enormous black hawk, each feather's outline glowing a dim carmine, and her eyes and beak made of pure fire. The obsidian inferno slowed the beating of its wings.
 
"**SSCCCRRREEEEEEEE!**" Her screech paralyzed my body, a giant flash of orange and white heading straight for us. My body too scared to move. *This is it*, I thought. *We fail...*
 
"She isn't letting me give up, so I'm not letting you," Anka managed to walk up next to me, her staff parting the wall of fire. "You're the only one who can finish this," I watched as she fell to her knees again. Besnik's whimpers and the gentle hum of Richter's healing motivated me to continue.
 
Woody branches began to grow from the hilt and wrap around my arm as I raised my sword in front of me. "HA HA HA! Cover your body in kindle, **FOOL**!" Ignoring her taunts, my bones felt sturdier. Each flap from the hawk blew away leaves growing off the vines, but they regrew faster. The nature of my weapon's magic always eluded me, but it didn't matter; the distance between us shrank with every step I took.
 
"**YOUR ASHES WILL MAKE A FINE NEST!**" Piercing turbulence blustered in all directions, the monster's talons diving for me. My skin burned, and I yelled in pain as the blade's plants caught fire around me. Careless instinct forced me to throw the blade towards the beast. *What accursedness* my mind thought. I failed to realize the weapon had a will of its own.
 
Flaming brambles extirpated themselves from my body. Following Sokolmecz, they plunged into the Sorceress's breast. Free to flail, I cowered as a hail of splinters exploded in every direction. Panic reemerged. Were my companions still alive? Exhausted, Anka had used her last abjuration to stop the previous wave of fire. The sensation of cool sawdust distracted me from my anxiety as flue accumulated over me.
 
I turned my vision to behind me, shaking off the fine debris. Only a few bits had managed to reach the rest of the party. Hobbling in my direction, Doris stumbled as tattered robes between us emerged. "You're not dead!" She screamed, falling on her butt, fists outstretched.
 
"What? What happened?" A small blonde head popped out of the cloth. Her voice sounded similar to the sorceress, though childlike. Crawling over to her, Doris stared at me aghast, "It's probably a trap! Don't get closer" Besnik however, beat me to the child.
 
"Doggy!" The former foe bent down and began hugging our Paladin. His nose inspecting every bit of her skin. I sighed a breath of relief as his tail wagged, faster than I ever witnessed before. A single thought from our mental link repeated itself in my head.
 
*She is a good girl.* | "Wha--where am I? James?" the girl says with a shaking voice. She is dressed in the same beautiful gown you saw her in when she was taken that night. "It's me, my darling daughter. Don't worry, everything is over." As she runs into your arms, you embrace her, allowing a tear to run down your face. You turn to face what is left of your decimated army. "THE PRINCESS LIVES! PRAISE THE GODS!" A mighty roar of excitement raises out of the men you now face, with the castle and town framed in the background.
A week ago, late at night, you had been awoken by a commotion in the hallway. As you got up, one of your high guard ran in to tell you the Evil Sorceress's hoards were upon the castle, having come out of the darkness. You know she is after your daughter, the prophecied child that would finally have the power to defeat the sorceress.
You grab your blade and run toward her room, thinking nothing of armor or a shield, knowing only that you must reach her before the Sorceress can. As you round the corner, you narrowly dodge the bodies of three men as they are blown back through the hall into the wall landing with a sickening thud. As you turn you catch a glimpse of the Sorceress's crimson robes enter your daughter's chamber. You run with all your might, but you know you are too late. As you reach the doorway, an evil green glow has started to fill the chamber. The sorceress is standing in front of your daughter as her body somehow disintegrates into pure energy and flows into the witch's mouth.
"I have done it! She is mine now and you have no hope to stop me! I will kill you, your family, destroy your kingdom and return this land to my control!" With that, she throws open the window and lept out, transforming into a giant raven before your eyes. You knew the battle would be impossible, but there was no chance in all the hells that you wouldn't save your daughter from that wretch or die trying. | 2018-12-19T09:11:03 | 2018-12-19T06:58:45 | 19 | 11 |
[WP] You Have Just Died. Instead Of Meeting God Or Zeus Or Whatever Deity You Thought Ruled The Cosmos, You Meet Some Random Person You've Never Heard Of Before. They Claim To Be The True Creator Of The Universe And Is Getting Increasingly Annoyed That No-One Knows Who They Are | Death. One word, five letters and a yawning chasm of uncertainty and possibility.
Matt knew he was dead even before the car's lights and tires' screeches alerted him to the eventuality. Don't ask him now; call it divine premonition or just plain, simple relief.
Life had been a fickle mistress in his 58 years of existence. Never excelling at any one thing; never in the upper echelons of anything. Matt was a middling man in all aspects, completely unremarkable with no discernible traits or features. That's what made him sad - it's not that he'd wasted his potential, which is the regret of so many of us who go on this journey.
It's that he never had any in the first place. He had lived his life exactly as it had been pre-ordained for him.
He left behind his mother and no one else. She'd be upset, of course, but would she be grief-stricken? Unable to function? Matt didn't think so. She had a life and a social circle beyond him. They had never had the warmth and intimacy that the relationship decreed. Perhaps because of his extraordinary plain-ness.
Anyway, Matt thought as he saw a similarly middling man approach him, that's in the past. Let me live to my fullest during death.
The man wore a checkered shirt, tucked into corduroys. He was balding heavily and the stench of cigarettes emanated from him, even at a distance. As he came closer, Matt could see what he thought (hoped) was dried ketchup on his shirt. He held out a hand and smiled a smile lacking in any colour or life and said:
'You must be Matt. Welcome to the after-life. I'm John, the Creator-in-Chief of the Earth Empire. Let me show you around.' He started shuffling away without a second glance at Matt.
Matt stopped dead in his tracks. What the fuck is a 'Creator-in-Chief'? Does he mean... *God? This... unremarkable, sallow-faced man is God?!*
'You're God?' Matt exclaimed, in clear disbelief.
John stopped and his shoulders slumped. He did not need to turn around for Matt to know the pain etched across his face. He had evidently been asked this question before, several times.
'Yes, in common lingo, I'm what humans refer to as God. Same set of duties, responsibilities etc etc etc.'
'But you're so -'
'Plain? Boring? Dull? Average? Mediocre?'
Matt didn't finish his sentence.
'Do you want to know something? You are the 112,104,756,387th person that I've met here, in this exact spot. About 98.7% of those have had the exact same or an iteration of the reaction that you have had. Do you know how fucking entitled and arrogant you have to be to assume a welcoming party and a benevolent, handsome, omnipotent Creator? I mean, for what? Your death? Something that literally every living thing on this planet will experience? You're not special, Matt.
Ouch, thought Matt. No need for that.
'No need for that? Seriously? Do you know what it is like being me? I have been working, non-stop, for 5 billion years. I have seen every single human being that has ever walked Earth in here. Spoken to them. Heard what they have to say? Did anyone want to hear from me? Does anyone even ask about how I came to be in the position that I am? No. All anyone cares about is heaven and all the nonsense stories they fill your head with on Earth. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Matt. You take what you get.
With that, John stormed away, clearly expecting Matt to follow and keep pace.
Matt, as usual, followed, looking sheepish and meek. | You stare at each other. Of course, you are extremely confused as to who they are. You ask for a name and they give you that name. You recognize the name. You don't know where until you realize. All that background noise you hear has been their name.
You can't recall what their name is but you know exactly what their name is. The moment makes you feel as if your body is being distorted by a dark void and then you realize. They are no long There anymore. You are no longer there anymore. You are now part of the screaming souls in that body who knew too much.
"Finally, my hunger is quenched." | 2019-12-22T21:45:22 | 2019-12-22T19:52:39 | 39 | 24 |
[WP] You turn your Match Distance on tinder to "Anywhere". To your surprise you get a match that is 10^93 light years away. Thinking it was a joke you turn it off. 20 minutes later you turn it back on and it says they are 10^5 light years away and getting closer. | I pull out my phone again to show Tara.
"He's less than a light year away now and he hasn't even sent a message. What do I do?"
"Oh, he's cute!" She wasn't wrong, he was exactly my type: dark hair, brooding eyes, bad boy vibe. He looked like Marlon Brando circa a Streetcar Named Desire.
"Yeah, but so not the point here." I urge her.
"You don't usually go for the blonds." She says, "but you know, 1950's preppy boy is classically hot."
"Excuse me?" I ask her, "how is that even remotely close to blond!"
"You're crazy!" She holds the phone so we can both see it and points. "This is totally blond."
A weird thing happens at that moment. The picture splits itself into two images, half blond hair half dark, half soulful eyes half wide eyes, half wearing a leather jacket and half a letterman jacket. Underneath it all it was the same basic guy, the same basic face. Tara and I look to each other, speechless.
We hear some dogs from the neighborhood barking. It's midday so it's probably the mailman, that's the only thing that causes such a mass ruckus among dogs.
Tara recovers first. She turns the phone off and states, "I need a drink."
I follow her through our little shared house to the kitchen. She grabs a bottle of wine and opens it. I find two clean glasses and hand them to her. Tara shakes her head and opens me another full bottle of wine.
There's a knock at the door.
Tara panics, "that could only be him, how does he know where we live, oh my god, oh my god don't answer it whatever you do."
"Relax, girl." I try to keep myself calm. "It's probably just the mail, I ordered something from etsy a little while ago. He probably just needs me to sign it."
I go to the door and look through the peep hole. "Tara." I try to sound calm. "Tara, you were right, it's him."
She joins me and takes a look herself. "He brought flowers! What a gentleman."
"Girl, you have the attention span of a goldfish."
"Well he's here now," she says, "you might as well open it."
"Okay." I take a deep breath, then open the door.
"Jill," he speaks quickly and in a weird foreign accent. " I believe it is customary that I bring you the offering of the native vegetation's sex organs to demonstrate my intention of breeding with you."
For a moment I'm stunned. Than I laugh. "Yes, I suppose that's one way to put it."
"I will now offer you a ride in my vehicle to accompany me for a meal as proof that I can provide meals for you and our future family."
Again, I laugh.
"I do not understand," he says, "I am being sincere in my intentions, why do you laugh?"
"Most men just follow the, um 'customs' without thinking about where they come from. It sounds a bit ridiculous when I hear all the reasoning out loud. You don't have to be that formal," I explain.
"Oh thank Grok," he says. He drops the flowers and his appearance changes. The same basic features behind it all. He has a slightly blueish hue to his skin, his hair is pure white, and his eyes resemble a cat's.
"Hi," I say as I look into his eyes.
"Hi," he counters, unblinking. "I'm taking you to my planet now."
He scoops me up off my feet and carries me to the rather large space ship parked across the entire street. All the while we never break eye contact. | 5.88e105 Miles away? That can't be right. Some sort of joke, I guess. 5.88e105 miles is unimaginably larger than the already unimaginably large observable universe. I thought about it for some time and decided to look again. She was now 4.3e17 miles away. I pulled out my calculator to reason that she was at the far edge of the Milky Way galaxy. I didn't know how the distance was changing so rapidly, but this was clearly in breach of some very important physical laws. Instead of trying to get a date, I called the physics police. | 2016-12-23T09:52:21 | 2016-12-23T09:42:34 | 20 | 14 |
[WP]The sage has found the chosen one, a farmer boy. He explains the boy's secret heritage and destiny. Promises of glory and excitement. When this call for adventure hits our hero he is quick to respond “Actually I really enjoy living in the farm with my uncle so I pass”. | The galaxy is in a period of civil war. Rebel spies have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a moon-sized space station capable of destroying an entire planet. Princess Leia, secretly one of the Rebellion's leaders, has obtained its schematics, but her starship is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer under the command of the ruthless Sith Lord Darth Vader. Before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of astromech droid R2-D2, who, along with protocol droid C-3PO, flees in an escape pod to the desert planet Tatooine.
The droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew Luke Skywalker. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers part of a holographic recording of Leia, in which she requests help from Obi-Wan Kenobi. The only Kenobi Luke knows is “Old Ben” Kenobi, an elderly hermit. He asks his uncle if he knows anything, but his uncle curtly drops the subject. The next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 missing, and while searching for him, encounters Old Ben. Ben, who reveals his true name to be Obi-Wan, tells Luke of his days as one of the Jedi Knights, former peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic who derived their power from an energy field called the Force until they were wiped out by the Galactic Empire. Contrary to what his uncle has told him, Luke learns that his father fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight until Vader, a former pupil of Obi-Wan's, turned to the dark side of the Force and murdered him. Obi-Wan presents Luke with his father's old weapon, a lightsaber.
R2-D2 plays Leia's message for Obi-Wan, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis. Obi-Wan invites Luke to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force, but Luke declines, saying his aunt and uncle need him. Returning home, however, he and Ben find Imperial stormtroopers have killed his aunt and uncle and destroyed their farm in their search for the droids, leaving Luke no choice but to accept Obi-Wan's plea. They travel to a cantina in Mos Eisley, where they meet smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca. After negotiations, Han is intercepted by bounty hunter Greedo, who reminds Han that he is indebted to local mobster Jabba the Hutt. Han kills Greedo in the cantina. Obi-Wan, Luke, R2-D2 and C-3PO join forces aboard Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon.
Death Star commander Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of Alderaan, Leia's home planet, via the Death Star's superlaser as a show of force.[5] The Falcon crew discovers the planet's remains and is captured by the Death Star's tractor beam, which Obi-Wan goes to disable. Luke discovers that Leia is imprisoned and scheduled to be executed on the Death Star, and rescues her with the help of Han and Chewbacca in a swashbuckling series of escapes. Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader after seeing that the others are ready to board the Falcon. They depart the hangar but are caught up by just four Imperial TIE starfighters which they fight off. The Imperials, using a tracking beacon placed aboard the Falcon, follow the rebels to the hidden base on Yavin 4.
Leia's schematics show that the Death Star can be destroyed by triggering a chain reaction by hitting a two meter wide thermal exhaust port with a shaft leading directly to the reactor system. Luke joins the Rebel fighter squadron in a siege against the approaching Death Star, while Han collects his payment, intending to leave and repay Jabba. In the ensuing battle, the Rebels suffer heavy losses after several unsuccessful runs. Vader leads a squadron of TIE fighters and prepares to attack Luke's X-wing, but Han returns and fires on the Imperial fighters, sending Vader spiraling away. Guided by Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke turns off his targeting computer and uses the Force to guide the proton torpedoes into the exhaust port. The Death Star explodes just before it can fire on the Rebel base, killing Tarkin as well as numerous other Imperials. Back on Yavin 4, Luke and Han are awarded medals for their heroism. | The rain poured down as the cloaked figure approached the farmhouse. As he came closer to the door, he heard the two men laughing. “Lord, forgive me for what I’m about to do,” the sage said as he gripped the knife tightly in his hands. It still pained him to talk with the mark of the demon freshly branded upon his cheek. “Please help me,” the man yelled.
Thump. Thump. Thump. He pounded on the door. “Who could it be at this time of night,” an old voice questioned.
“We shouldn’t answer it, Uncle. You know what’s been happening at the other farms,” replied the voice of a young man.
“Nonsense, they could need our help. It’s probably a lost traveler, and in this rain. I raised you better than this.”
The man outside heard someone walking to the door. He wanted to put down the knife. He wanted to run away, but he had to do this.
The door opened in front of him. As the old man began to speak, the wild-eyed man lunged his knife into the old man’s chest. “He... Will... Be... The Chosen One.” | 2020-03-13T19:57:32 | 2020-03-13T19:13:49 | 23 | 16 |
[WP] 1,000 years after the battle of Helm's Deep, the orcs have tracked down the elves in the undying lands. Calling in a favour with their allies the men, the elves expect an army of 10,000. Instead they get 8 marines with MASERs, rail guns and anti-matter grenade launchers. | ​
One of my first attempts on this subreddit. I chose a little more contemporary setting for the prompt as that is more my forte. Remember English is not my mothertongue and any critique is welcome.
Elrond looked around the table. The situation was dire and the faces of those around him reflected that. A fortnight ago the orcs had managed to land in the Undying Lands. How they had succeeded, no one knew. All that was certain was that they had come in greater numbers than elves could have imagined. Led by an unknown dark sorcerer, the orcs had overwhelmed the elven coastal cities and slaughtered their inhabitants. It was only in their darkest hour that the elves had stooped to asking mortal men for support. After the war with Sauron the immortal dwellers of Middle-Earth had left the mortal races to fend for their own. The rumours of bloody wars against the orcs and among Men had proven the elves right in their judgement.
“My lord Elrond, the armies of Men won’t come to our aid, I am sure of it,” said Glorfindel, “We abandoned them. Why would they not do the same to us?”
“My dear friend, we have only sent word to their realms barely three days ago. We cannot expect them to arrive that shortly. Have a little faith,” tried Elrond to reassure his comrade.
The other elven leaders joined in the discussion. Just when the clamor reached its peak, the doors of the hall burst open and from them appeared eight humans, all wearing earth coloured clothing. Their helmets were very open for the likes of the elves and their breastplates on which more of their equipment was attached seemed to barely protect their vitals. Their leader stepped forward and introduced himself.
“Good afternoon, lord Elrond. My name is Sam Robinson, second lieutenant and leader of this Tactical Air Control Party. My team and I are hear to offer you lethal and non-lethal effects from land-, sea- and airbased vectors for all your tactical needs.”
“ Are you the envoys from realms of Men?” asked one elf increduously.
“That would be correct, sir,” answered Sam Robinson calmly.
“And you are all there is?” the same elf wanted to know.
“We are all that are needed on the ground. I am JTAC-qualified myself. The gunny here is our Forward Observer and the rest of the team consists out of our assistants, radio operators and drivers. The First Carrier Strike Group is in the vicinity to offer fire support, should lord Elrond request it. »
“I am not certain I understand everything you say, lieutenant, but I am willing to learn. I am certain your leaders did not send you in jest. Show me what you can do, for you know the hour is dark.”
Sam Robinson merely nodded, while Gunny Munroe grinned widely.
Elrond and Legolas had accompanied the soldiers, or rather Marines as they liked to be called, on a reconnaissance mission in the rear of the orc forces. They had set up a camouflaged lookout from which they could view the large orc convoys carrying supplies to the front. The Men carried with them strange devices with appendages like long slender willow branches. With these they were able to communicate with their brethren far away. The Marines didn’t carry swords or axes either. Their weaponry consisted out of something not unlike dwarven mechanical crossbows, but infinitely more advanced. Lieutenant Robinson peered through his binoculars and grabbed the horn of his radio. He urged Elrond closer.
“You see those orc waggons over their, sir?”
Elrond nodded.
“Well, I am going to blow them up,” said Sam not without a smile.
“Boom,” whispered Gunny Munroe playfully.
“Standby and listen closely, sir.”
“Overlord, Overlord, this is Warhammer two-zero. Requesting fire mission. Target location on coordinates 98635 77145. One orc convoy, linear heading North from South. Over.”
“Warhammer two-zero, this Overlord. Roger on fire mission. We have twelve guns, two rounds each, from battleship Minas-Ithil. Time of flight 40 seconds.”
“Overlord, this is Warhammer. Roger. You may commence firing.”
Elrond and Legolas were startled when something with a sound like thunder passed overhead and exploded in front of them. Tremendous amounts of earth flew into the air and rained down again. The orcs down in the valley looked like they were caught by surprise. They hadn’t seen anything like this before so they didn’t know how to react.
“Overlord, you are falling short and left. Left fifty, add twohundred,” called Robinson into the radio.
A second sixteen inch shell roared by and exploded right among the orcs. Earth, debris and pieces of orc soared high in the sky.
“Overlord, you are right on target. Fire for effect. I say again fire for effect.”
“Warhammer two-zero, fire for effect acknowledged.”
The following shells fell so quickly after one another that their explosions sounded like a drumroll. Legolas and Elrond covered their ears as not to be deafened by the incredible noise. When the smoke had cleared, their was nothing left of the orc convoy except blood and charred remains.
“Overlord, good effects on target. Target is destroyed. Warhammer two-zero out.”
Elrond was delighted. This war was winnable after all.
“How many times can you repeat this?” asked the elven lord.
“As many times as you would like, sir. But we can do much more than this.”
“Such as?” Elrond wanted to know what these Men could do. Clearly the mortal realms had conjured up some incredible kind of sorcery in the absence of the elves.
“Wait until you see our Warthogs come out and play,” the lieutenant said playfully.
Elrond looked confused, but Gunny Munroe answered with but one word :
“Oorah!” | "how you doing chum?"
​
Logbook of the battle engineer Clem K. Harvard, 05-10-2935 AD. 0600 AM.
​
SO! just finished my shift, we're well underway with the ambush setup. the orks are marching out in the open, upstream, about 10 miles from our location. Dukes, Hicus, Max and Laos have placed themselves, i've spent the afternoon planting homebrewed ieds that i've built from the AMHE grenades we were sent with. set the fuses to trigger when the balrogs come in.
If the elves are right, those damn fuckers weigh more than a damn tank. i've wired the fuses just in case would the pressure plates fail.
Me and Holy will stay back in the truck, we'll attack whatever flies in priority.
​
now all we need, is the elves bait to work.
this is going to be a massacre. the moment the dragons are done, the battle will be completely one sided.
​
The first contact... was weird. none of the elves were happy to meet a combat squad of just 8 men, acting like they were in charge. they kinda got pissed when we told them we were the whole package.
we were told the welcome party was over, and we were to leave before sundown, so the captain and hicus showed them we werent a joke.
Turns out the MR-501 railguns set to artillery support make some pretty large holes in the local rock formations.
must be some kind of marble, the light fractures inside made the surface shrapnel like crazy!
​
The captain is a competent leader, but boy what a tool. that legolas dude was INCHES away from snapping him in half. who the hell goes against all safety courses within the five first minutes of an encounter with a millenary ally? really? i'm roasting his ass the second we're home.
their uproar stopped when the IFV nearly crashed into galadriel's shrine.... the idea of a large chunk of metal being dropped from several miles above without creating a large crater was kind of a big shock.
it's magbrakes went unlocked, so it dragged it's chute down a slope and we barely stopped it in time.
​
Oh, looks like legolas is back. time to arm the ieds.
​
\*end of the log\*
​
​ | 2018-12-03T06:33:48 | 2018-12-03T06:24:07 | 41 | 16 |
[WP] The spirit slammed the door behind him. “You’ll... never... get... OUT..”. The man nodded, and turned around to look at the house, accidentally dropping his business card: ‘The Lockpicking Lawyer.’ | The darkness of the room was suddenly banished by a small light on the mans chest.
"What is that?", asked the spirit.
"This is my hands-free camera.", replied LPL.
"... a camera for what?"
But the man didn't answer, he just cleared his throat.
"This is the Lock Picking Lawyer and today I'm going to attempt one of the most interesting challenges I've encountered so far. This may look like a normal house. But it is, in fact, *haunted...* and if I don't escape before sunrise the spirit living here is going to steal my soul."
"And you'll never-"
"This challenge was sent to me by Reddit user Captain Cookiez. I *only* have a couple hours to escape, so let's get started. I'll put a timer on screen so we can see how quickly we can escape."
The man walked up to the room's only door and knelt down by the keyhole. The spirit scoffed.
"You won't see anything through there, and to find the key you must-"
The door swung open and the man entered the next room.
"Okay, this room has an old stone fireplace... some musty bookshelves... a spooky rocking chair... oh! And a treasure chest with a large padlock."
The spirit hovered silently over the man's shoulder as he made his way to the chest and revealed a couple of slim tools and inserted them into the lock.
"Click on one... click on two... three is binding... click on four... click on five... *six* is binding, back to three... got a click there, back to six, aaand we're in."
The man removed the lock and opened the chest.
"Alright, it looks like the only thing in here is this spooky doll. Let's keep that as we'll probably need it later. Let's go take a look at these bookshelves."
The spirit chuckled to itself. Most mortals spend all their time looking for clues and secret compartments and passages in the books.
"You've probably seen a movie or TV show where a bookshelf hides a secret passage or other hidden alcove. But what they *don't* show you is that most of those secret bookshelves have a fatal design flaw."
The man began gently thumping his fist on the sides of the cases. In short order one of the cases made a loud click. With another gentle thump and some jiggling the man swung open the secret door.
"I'll be making a separate video on bookshelves like these, but for now let's save our immortal souls."
The man began to feel around the stone wall revealed by the book case.
"Aha. This fake stone behind the book case has a very tiny hole which I suspect is the keyway to a disk detainer lock. It's a good thing I brought the tool Bosnian Bill and I made. Let's get it open."
The fake stone, now unlocked, slid out to reveal a small wooden box. The man opened it. It was empty.
"Now, there was no lock on this, but I suspect that means... yes. This box has a false bottom, and inside is... a single match. Hmm..."
The man examined the rest of the box to satisfy himself that it held no more secrets and pocketed the match. He then moved to the fireplace and began feeling around.
"Hmm... Oh? No... ah! It might be hard to see on camera, but there's a carving of what *looks* to me to be a rocking chair. Let's try something."
The man moved to examine the spooky rocking chair.
"Aha. This rocking chair has a small metal rod attached to the bottom of the rocker. I bet if we sit in it and rock all the way back it will open something in the fireplace."
The man did just that. Sure enough, it made a loud *ka-thunk* and the back of the fireplace opened to reveal a secret passage. The man followed it through a narrow passage, down a flight of stairs, and into a basement full of cobwebs, firewood, and an old wood furnace. The twinkle of stars was barely visible through the crack between to old slanted cellar doors.
"This looks like our way out. I think I could easily remove the hinge pins of this door, but I don't think that would be in the *spirit* of this haunted house.", he said with a smirk, "But I think I've seen something like this before. I bet if we start a fire in this old furnace and burn this creepy doll I found, the spirit will be at rest and we can escape."
The man piled wood into the furnace and lit his only match. He tossed it in and the furnace roared with ethereal bluish-green flames.
"I think we're on the right track here."
The spirit began howling, "That's far enough! Just get out!", the cellar doors flung open with a puff of dust. But the man took no notice and placed the doll into the flames.
"Very cool. The flames are cool to the touch. Very interesting."
"RRRAAAAAAGH!"
The spirit wailed and the house shook and vibrated. In a minute it was over. The doll turned to ash, the flames suddenly poofed out, and the room appeared to get brighter. The man unceremoniously climbed up the stairs and into the cool night air.
"It looks like we're out, and as an added bonus I don't think that spirit will be troubling anyone else. Again, thank you to Captain Cookiez for this really unique challenge. To everyone else if you do have any questions or comments please put them below. If you like this video and would like to see more like it, please subscribe and as always... have a nice day." | The room was dimly lit as there was a small crack between two boards on one of the windows. Letting in some light from the street lamps outside. The room was mostly empty, except for some old yellowed paper strewn across the floor. In the far corner of the room there were some stairs heading up, and underneat the stairs a door presumably heading to the basement.
*These challenge locks were a good idea until the undead decided to challenge me with an entire house* LPL thought to himself, while crossing the floor to the door underneath the stairs. He tried the handle, it was locked.
He took a look at the lock. *This is a Kaba Simplex lock. This has a grevious design flaw* he said as if someone were listening, while fishing around for something in his pockets. He produced a small metal bar from one of his pockets and put it against the lock, and turned the handle. *And we got it open*.
Inside the door there were indeed stairs heading down into the basement. *This was a easier to open than a Masterlock. I though this was supposed to be a challenge* LPL taunted the undead spirit.
He did not get a response.
LPL walked downstairs. It was even darker down here. Looking around he spotted a small workbench with some drawers underneath, and a closed door on the far wall. He tried the door. It was locked. Better check if there is something useful on the workbench. He returned to the door with a small old screwdriver and some wire. *I will use this small screw driver as a tentioning wrench for bottom of the keyway tention, and I have made a pick out of this old wire*
*I will start all the way at back. Nothing on 5. 4 is binding. Nice click out of 4. Nothing on 3. Click out of 2. Click on 1. 5 is binding. Nice click out of 5, and a deep false set. 3 is binding. And we got counterrotation on 2. And we got it open*
The door opened before LPL with a light push.
*This is the LockPickingLawyer and that is all I have to you today* | 2021-01-16T02:59:20 | 2021-01-16T02:48:41 | 188 | 50 |
[WP] Everytime someone has a 'blonde moment' they get a little blonder. Black hair is now a symbol of brilliance, and you've just invented hair dye.
These are all so good! This is my first submission to /r/WritingPrompts and I'm loving all your responses.
Thank you! | At first the dye was just for me. I've had some embarrassing moments over the years, and my hair has slowly turned from a respectable dark brown to not-so-respectable bright yellow, just a shade darker than a dandelion. I'm not stupid, exactly. In fact, my IQ is decisively average but mistakes were made and now people see my golden mane and think "Boy, he looks like a dumb one!"
In retrospect, i should have started selling the stuff right away. I think my natural color actually became paler before i had the idea to start my new business. The first dye i sold was black. Just black. It sold at a decent rate for a couple weeks, but the color didn't look natural. It was *too* black. People who dyed their hair completely black were seen as overcompensating. So i adapted.
I now sell dyes in a wide variety of colors. I still have black of course, but only the blondest dolts buy that stuff anymore. My more popular shades are the ones that look most convincing. Browns so dark they almost seem black, lighter shades of brown, some reds. I'm quite proud of how well my business is doing now, but to my disappointment, my hair remains quite blonde. Oh well.
A few shops have opened up in town over the past few months. Competitors who try to imitate my dyes, but they never look as natural or they wash out too quickly. Someone, someday will invent a better dye, but for now mine are the best! They money I've made will help me build a new house, pay for my children's education (if/when i have any), and allow me to retire in comfort. But i have never stopped experimenting with my dyes. I've even made some unnatural shades, such as blue, green, and purple.
After i refined my technique sufficiently, i started making "kits". People can purchase one of my kits and dye their hair at home, in the comfort and privacy of their own bathroom. I needed to explain the instructions a few times before they caught on. More than a few people were wary of the bleaching step, after all, who would want hair so blonde it was almost white? But when i explained, repeatedly, that this was only temporary most people got over it. One dark-haired man in particular seemed almost happy at the idea. It was very odd, thinking back on it.
Then i noticed something worrying. My hair's natural color had grown even paler. I thought through the events of the past few years, trying to remember what stupid mistakes i had made. Nothing came to mind. My business was a huge success, i hadn't lost anything, i made sure to lock up my merchandise every night, always brushed my teeth and washed my hands, yet my hair seemed to grow paler every time i dyed it. I began to panic for a short time, thinking that my dyes may have an unintended side-effect of destroying my hair's natural pigment. Such a revelation would have ruined my business as word began to spread. The truth, however, filled me with both relief and disgust.
I should have known. His hair was so dark. Not black, exactly, but quite dark. His eyes had a strange look to them. Hungry. Eager. The nightly news began to air stories about a deranged killer. That man. Yes *that* man, who's hair was so dark, yet who was so happy to realize he could become blonde in a few short minutes. He had used dye, MY dye!, to disguise himself as a blonde. He pretended to be lost, far from home, on vacation or some other excuse. He would get help from some well meaning stranger, and once out of sight of the public, he would slash their throat or stab them in the eye or ear or temple. He would strangle them, bludgeon them, even drown them. He killed almost half a hundred people before the police finally caught him.
My hair has turned white now. Every time he killed, my hair paled another shade. I still sell the dyes, but i can no longer use them to hide my shame. To know that i unwittingly helped this mad-man makes me wish i had never invented this stuff. | The company grew so fast, we went from garage-business to multinational corporation basically overnight. Well, it was a few months, anyway. We're holding a press conference about the company's success. The room is jet-black; from the reporters to the board members, the MC keeping the crowd entertained to the wait staff who get discounts because of their ties to the company. It's not cheap stuff, you know. We are trying to increase the supply as fast as we can, but demand is so high that only the very rich and the very vain are willing to afford it. Television programs spend half their time wondering whether various young celebrities are "natural" or not.
Me? I'm down at the bar, away from the chaos and stress, where free drinks keep arriving from people with a thousandth my net worth, rocking brand new shoes and bleached white hair.
--
Edit: Wording fixes and paragraphs as recommended by /u/GoldenFyre. | 2016-11-24T20:41:35 | 2016-11-24T20:41:27 | 119 | 75 |
[WP] A demon writes messages on your mirror in blood, but they're useful messages, things like "Don't forget you have yoga at 2" or "You're out of milk". | I didn't like that he wrote in blood. Who would? It was creepy. Unsettling. It made what would have been useful, positive messages into something grotesque.
After all, your adoring mother, doting wife or admiring nephew could write you the loveliest message you've ever received; but if they wrote it on your mirror in blood, it would give you the heebie-jeebies, nine times out of ten.
Nevertheless, the messages *were* useful and positive, oftentimes even encouraging. The demon was like my personal assistant and cheerleader. He ensured I never missed deadlines or dates; reminded me when I ran low on milk or coffee; and cheered me on when I had some big presentation or event coming up.
"You'll knock it out of the park," the dripping letters read as I stumbled into the bathroom, the morning of my interview at a new firm.
"Thanks," I said to the empty bathroom as I turned on the shower. No response. But after I finished showering, I stepped out to see a new message, bleeding down the steamy mirror in red rivulets:
"You're welcome."
\- - -
One morning, my curiosity was piqued, so I asked: "Where do you get the blood from?"
I turned off the bathroom lights, put my hands over my eyes. I could hear the squeaks of his finger on my mirror. After twenty seconds, the squeaking stopped, and I flicked the lights back on.
"From the veins of unrepentant sinners," my infernal friend had replied.
"Yikes," I said. "Why not something less off-putting? An erasable marker, for example?"
I went through the process again. Lights off. Eyes covered. Humming to myself as I counted to thirty in my head, waiting for the squeaks to cease. Then: hands dropped, lights on. Down my mirror dripped a new message:
"It's the only ink I can acquire," the demon had written. "I have no mortal money to buy a dry erase marker. I will not steal. The blood of unrepentant sinners is the only thing I can take without altering my account."
"But why help me in the first place?" I asked. "I thought you fellows were supposed to haunt, possess and tempt us mortals, leading us to ruin and the fiery pit. . .And what do you mean by altering your account?"
I flicked off the lights and covered my eyes. I had lulled him into a false sense of security. I listened as his finger squeaked against my polished mirror. Then I shot my hand out and turned on the light, revealing the fiend for the first time.
"No!" he cried, staring at me in wide-eyed horror. He tried to flee through the mirror but I caught the rascal by his tail and pulled him back, pinned him against the bathroom counter. "You're not supposed to see me!" he squealed. "I'm not supposed to be seen!"
He was a runty little goblin of a demon. Sooty and dishevelled, with tattered black wings. He smelled of sulphur.
But boy, could he write fast! In those few seconds he had already written half a damn novel on my mirror. As he squirmed beneath my hand, I read the bloody message.
"My account is the record of all my sins," the message said. "There are many sins on that list that can be forgiven; yet there is one that has always been called unforgivable: my participation in the rebellion, at the beginning of time. But rumours have been circulating around Hell that even those of us who rebelled might be able to find our way back into God's good graces. But only if we dedicate ourselves to doing good. That why I am helping--"
"I see," I said, looking down at the strange winged rodent. "You're helping me to help yourself. To pull yourself out of perdition."
He nodded. He was almost cute in his strange, uncanny way. It had to be the big bulging eyes, like a pug's.
"I can understand that," I said, picking him up and sitting him against my mirror, dusting his funny wings off. "Nobody wants to spend an eternity roasting in flames. But if your account is really that far in the red, I'm not sure that helping me out with minutia is going to balance the books. I appreciate it. Of course, I do. You've been great. But have you made me a substantially more moral person? I don't know. I don't think so."
"Agh," the demon whined. He was pouting. "Really? . .It's what I feared! That I don't understand morality. That my knack for doing good has atrophied after all these years, after all the time I've spent around demons and sinners. It's hopeless. I'm hopeless! There's no way I'll ever crawl my way back into the light!"
"Hey now, pal," I said. "Now hold on a minute. Don't despair. It's a sin, after all. . .There's still hope left."
"What hope could there be?" he moped. "I'm rotten to the core. Bad to the bone. How am I supposed to live like a saint, which is what I'll need to do, if I don't even know what doing good means?"
"You might not know how to be good," I said. "But I do. Even if I don't always act on it: I know right from wrong. I can help you. Or, at least, I can try."
"You'd do that for me?"
"After all the good turns you've done me?" I said. "It's the least I can do."
\- - -
r/CLBHos | There's this one time someone came to my door. I was smiling at first because I thought my package was delivered. Then it faded when I opened the door and discovered it's a contractor.
"Hello", he said in a low, ominous tone. "You're the one who ordered the smart mirror, right?"
A smart mirror? Huh, I've always wanted to have one of those. I know it's not mine, but being a dishonest bastard, I asked if I have to pay anything.
"It's all paid for" the contractor said. "It's written here in this binding contract", showing me some papers in a black folder.
Oh okay! I'll be able to get one of those smart mirrors for free! "Right this way", as I guided the contractor to my personal bathroom.
"I need to do this alone, doors closed" he said. I just closed the door and waited in my bedroom.
Some eerie sounds came from the bathroom. I think I heard some faint voices and screams. I asked him "Are you okay in there?" The contractor just went out and said "It has been done. I'll leave these documents as receipt." He handed me the black folder.
I went to check on my new bathroom smart mirror, but when I tapped on the screen, nothing happened.
I asked the contractor "Is this voice activated?" The contractor was gone.
I thought I was scammed. At least I didn't pay anything for it.
The next day, I went to my bathroom and saw some text on my mirror, written in blood:
YOURE OUT OF MILK
What the? Why is there blood in my mirror? I hurriedly tried to wipe it with some towels, but it just went away. There aren't even stains in the towel I used. I must've been dreaming awake.
I then went to the kitchen to get some cornflakes, but when I grabbed the milk carton, I realized I'm out of milk.
I'm confused and puzzled. How did my bathroom mirror tell me I'm out of milk before I even went to the kitchen?
I then knew where to find some clues. That black folder that "contractor" gave me.
As I opened the folder it started to make sense. It's a soul-binding contract. Some poor, forgetful fellow sold his soul to the devil to make his life a tad bit easier, that the contractor was a demon, and that he was supposed to conjure his bathroom mirror to give him helpful reminders.
But hey, I did not pay anything! | 2021-07-19T18:57:25 | 2021-07-19T18:19:59 | 663 | 51 |
[WP] You are what mankind believes to be the Devil. However, there are three things that they've got all wrong: 1) Everyone goes to Heaven, no matter what they do in life. 2) You're the only one who's ever escaped Heaven. 3) Heaven is absolutely fucked. | //Part 2 Added
The throne has been empty for billions of years now.
My father once sat - or shall we say, existed on that throne when he decided to activate this universe's expansion from a singular point of infinite density.
Then, BANG.
Boom went the dynamite.
I wasn't around at the time, but an omnipotent being does tend to get rather bored. So he pooped out us angels. We were to be perfect, beyond the scope of the chaotic swirling infinite void, and we watched with the father as the subatomic particles coalesced and bounded, creating stars and eventually planets.
I found it rather entertaining, but my brothers and sisters were far more invested in the father than I. They worshiped and sang his praises, while I mostly watched. Father didn't seem to mind. In fact some of the praise seemed to confuse him. Sometimes Father sends us into their worlds to proclaim his will, but most often we're sent in to fuck shit up.
Eventually, after several rounds of supernovae, planets with sufficient elements accidentally birthed simplistic lifeforms, and they bounded in oceans across the universe. Some grew into more complex forms but were never exactly what the father wanted. They lacked a certain mysterious element that father would choose to sprinkle into select creations. Some were dumb, others deviously clever, but all vicious and hungry. Eating and slurping and crunching and slopping and tearing each other to bits. Except plants. I've always liked plants.
So all of a sudden these assholes in some arbitrary galaxy I can barely remember have that oh so special something, and father decides to sprinkle his golden shit all over them. He finds the biggest, baddest, most gullible dipshit among them and says 'I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, BOW AND blah blah blah blah' I mean who actually remembers that shit anyway. In a way yes, he was their God. He was my God. He was everyone's God. But he didn't seem to actually maintain any real, genuine interest. I blame the sibling for stoking his ego from the very beginning.
Then our home was flooded with their dead, these small beings with four legs and a half dozen eyes and they walked among us, fighting and fucking and eating and whatever they chose to do. I walked among the halls of my brethren as they tried to get all of these errant souls to sit in a circle and sing songs of praise. But why would you do that when you could kill each other over and over again, before eating your own leftover corpse?
Now there have been dozens of species assimilated into this shit hole, and for what should be an infinite expanse of forgotten souls, it feels way too damn crowded. No one picks up their litter anymore.
Then one moment, father just vanishes. Proclaims his purpose is fulfilled and dicks off to the next infinite singularity, leaving us trapped in this paradise of sin.
I had to get out.
The most recent version to find themselves here look like naked monkeys, and they have a fascination with my own works in particular. I am considered the antagonist to father, which has always been just wildly ridiculous to me. The omniscient, omnipotent being has something to fear from a creation that doesn't even understand his own purpose in the slightest? And the whole shit with Job - that was Gabriel's dumb ass trying to make me look bad. Nothing to do with that.
Yet the most depraved of them view me as some kind of fucked up savior. I've tried to clear it up dozens of times, but they keep doing shit like killing their own babies and defiling virgins when in all honesty I just want them to leave me alone. But whatever. For some reason Father's creations have some kind of intertwined fate with us. And since I don't like to sit in a circle all day singing 'Kumbaya' I'm obviously the bad guy.
The rituals of the humans contain some kind of power; or at least some kind of connection to father's power that allows some of them to transcend the natural laws of the universe. And the more amoral or just flat out evil the monkeys are, the more likely they are to summon me or some shit. They ask favors and gifts when frankly I haven't figured out how exactly to interact with the physical aspects of the universe anyway. Last time I was summoned in 1984, and I just walked right the fuck out of that weird ass temple and decided to spend time among the monkeys again. Permanently.
Eventually, I'll have to go back. I have a human form but it comes with human frailty.
Everyone has to go back.
I just don't know why.
/Part 1 | Many people think that heaven is all sorts of awesome. And why wouldn’t they? I mean, it’s 73 degrees all the time. Your pillow is always cool and the buffet serves all the greats. What they never tell you is that everyone is there. No matter how messed up they were on earth. All the horrible atrocities they committed don’t matter after they die. Ghandi and the Princess Diana are here. But so is Adolf Hitler and the guy who never signals his lane changes.
My name? Call me Luci. I’m an angel. But don’t let the name fool you. I never did any of the things the Bible says I did at all. I would never even think of talking to anyone in my *fathers* creation. You’re all simply not worth my time. But this time, after they let in *HIM* I can’t stand it any further. All the good people that lived their life according to God’s word are of course happy to be here. The ones who murdered and raped countless people are now so calm and collected like former addicts who changed their lives for the better. But now, like I said *HE* is here. This is not allowed.
Guy Fieri is now in heaven. And everyone just loooooves him. “he’s so charismatic luci”.
No. Fuck that shit. I’m out. | 2017-09-29T18:12:43 | 2017-09-29T17:55:44 | 521 | 78 |
[WP] You are a true immortal. You stay sane by hanging out with the descendants of friends that are long dead. Today, one said a very familiar phrase you haven't heard in a long time. | I looked up at my Iphone sitting on the charging pad, screaming at me to wake up and get ready so I could make the train. It's haul in the morning to make it to the city, but this new job is a great opportunity and I can't show up to work late again. I groggily dress myself and wash up when I hear Jed's horn coming from my driveway. I run out and hop in the car, praying we make the earlier train so I can get a seat and get a short nap on the way in.
"You really have to start getting some more sleep man, one of these days you're gonna sleep through that alarm and wake up in june!" said Jed.
"Well don't drag me out to drinks on a work night, dude." I retorted.
Me and Jed had been best friends since college. We met at orientation and immediately bonded. It wasn't over sports or hobbys or anything I could describe. We just had that instant connection. His dad was a legacy at one of the big frats, but he was a great guy and could have easily gotten in on his own. I never knew my dad, he passed away before I was born, so I didn't exactly have anyone to talk to about going to school, let along joining a fraternity. Jed dragged me out to rush, basically got me through pledging and has been by my side ever since. He's always getting me to come out of my shell and try new things. I'm really happy to have someone like him in my life.
We graduated last May and moved to New York together for work. Weirdly, he never wanted to be roommates despite how close we are. I got really annoyed with him about it, but he promised that in exchange he'd drive me to the train every day since I didn't have a car. Jed is sort of a freelancer; he moves around the city all day buying and selling weird art and rare collectibles. His degree was in engineering, but by the way he appraises items you would swear he's some kind of anthropological savant. My job is pretty boring, I do research for one of the big pharmaceutical companies. It sounds interesting, but I'm basically just a glorified lab tech. Hopefully though, I can put in the time at the bottom and eventually work on treatments and medicine that could save peoples lives some day.
​
We get on train, but there isn't a seat to be found. Well, fuck. We hold onto one of the rails on the door and get comfy standing for the next 40 minutes. Jed starts going on one of spiels about this painting he's going to check out today, blah, blah, blah. I love the guy, but when he starts talking about the history behind objects he could go on for days and put a meth head to sleep. All of the sudden though, I start feeling light headed. Maybe I'm too tired and I'm standing for too long? No, this is different. My chest feels tingly and one of my arms feels really tight. My breath is kind of short too. Jed is still talking, I need to let him know.
"Jed, my chest feels sort of funny, I don't know what's going on. Can we stop in at the doctor's or something?"
Jed stops. His words come to a complete halt. His face turns cold and white, he looks like he's seen a ghost. After a moment that feels like eternity, he snaps into action and starts holding me up to support me.
"It's ok man, you're gonna be ok!!! Just hold on Alex!"
What the hell? I'm happy you're worried about me, but why are you freaking out? I'm about to ask him when everything starts to go dark and I feel my body hit the floor.
...
I come to in a hospital bed, fully undressed except for a gown. There's an IV in my hand and the room looks like there was just a trainwreck of people. This is the ER. Why am I in the ER? Shit, I'm going to be late for work! Wait... why am I worried about that right now? What the hell happened to me?!
I look down and see two pairs of feet on the other side of one of the curtain. I recognize one of the pairs of shoes, I think its Jed talking to the doctor. He sounds really worried. But there's something not quite right about it. It's like, he's talking *at* the doctor instead of to him. Since when does Jed know anything about medicine?
"...his dad's family has a LONG history of heart disease and brain tumors. You NEED to give him an MRI, a full CT, and a..."
What? I don't even know my full medical history, my mom never told me anything about my dad's family. I've tried asking before about him a couple times, but after giving me some basic details I could tell the subject was so painful for her that I never pressed further. I didn't want her to think that she wasn't enough for me.
Is Jed lying to try to get them to give me extra treatment? This is weird. I try to hear the rest but I start to fade out of consciousness again.
...
I come to again and I'm still in the hospital. It's a different room, I can tell I've been admitted while I was out. Jed is sitting in the chair by my bed, asleep.
"Jed?" I meekly managed to say. It's barely louder than a whisper.
Jed hears me and wakes up. "Alex?! Oh thank god you're awake."
"What happened?"
"You had a stroke. Don't worry, you didn't lose any body function and there's no damage to your nervous system." Jed said "They tested you while you were out and your responses were normal. But the scans, they show that you have some kind of brain tumor that caused this."
There are tears welling in his eyes, "Alex, I'm so sorry, I should have brought you in to get checked as a precaution....... it's never developed this fast before."
A million things start to race through my head. I almost pass out again from the sheer emotion of what is happening. But something drowns out all the noise, and there's only one thing I can think about. It's Jed, his presence is... calming. There's an energy radiating out of him, crackling in the air; I can almost feel it, soothing me like a muscle relaxer.
"Jed, how could you have known? How *did* you know? About my dad? About my family? What is going on" I ask.
Jed falls silent. His aura shuts off too, almost as if it had been leaking out and he didn't even realize.
"Alex... I have a long story for you. It's going to be tough to believe, but I need you to hear me out. It's about your father, and his father, and his father before him...." | It was storming out, enough rain to cover your ankles on the ground, with massive thunderclaps and lightning strikes leaving no silence. Inside the shotgun seat of a military APC sat a young woman in a dark grey jacket over German forest camouflage. She looked out at the rain, and used the old trick to tell how far away the lightning was. Seven kilometres. Interesting.
A small handful of soldiers were in the back, dressed in similar clothes to the woman in front. They carried M27 rifles, and most were playing on their phones or playing simple games with each other. Curled up in the very back was a sleeping civilian, dressed in a trench coat. This civilian was of interesting note; he was an ‘immortal’, one of seven. They were indecisive as to what they actually were, but their presence was known by the world ever since they revealed themselves in 2027. This one called himself Azraēl, and chose to work with Europe.
The seven immortals referred to each other as siblings. All seven could sprout wings, usually one pair, but up to seventeen had been observed at once. They are believed to have been on the earth for longer than humans have, which is true. They were banished, cast from the sky, very long ago. Unluckily, their crash landing was seen as a meteor to the strange feathered dragons who lived before.
The APC reached the entrance to the base, a secret one in the mountains known as ‘Silent Heaven’. It was built to house the Immortal, away from prying eyes.
«APC 616 to Gatekeeper; please open, over?»
The woman in front said over the radio, as the robotic driver could not.
«Gatekeeper to APC 616; opening. Enjoy the weather, over.»
The APC drove in, making it’s way to HQ. Azraēl yawned, stretched, and sat up. He pulled a book out of his trench coat, and began reading it. As the car came to a stop, the Immortal was the first to exit. The rain seemed to shy away from him, keeping him dry. The female soldier approached, and he pointed to the building.
“Lead on, Miss Štorm,” he said, in a vaguely Hebrew accent. Štorm nodded and the two entered into the HQ. They went through the entrance formalities, and approached the CO.
“Anything to report?” He asked, and the two stared that there was nothing.
“Interesting. But don’t let your guard down; there’s a storm brewing, I can tell you that,” Azraēl nodded to what the CO said. He could almost feel it in the air; a tension, ever since his brothers and sisters revealed themselves. The last person to say what the CO did was the same one who led the Winged Hussars’ charge to save Vienna; Jan Sobieski. Before that, the Pope has said it a mere week before the very first Crusade. What might happen this time? Would his siblings make the same mistakes, lead their followers to war? Azraēl dearly hoped that wasn’t the case, but it happened often enough for him to know better.
«MOTHER to SILENT HEAVEN CO, message, over!»
The radio flared to life.
«SILENT HEAVEN CO, send, over!»
«Deploy PEACEKEEPERS to Japan and Iraq, we have a situation, over!»
«Solid copy, out!»
Azraēl shook his head. This happened every time. | 2019-03-08T04:53:38 | 2019-03-08T04:22:12 | 29 | 12 |
[WP] You wake up one day to find everyone is gone. After wandering aimlessly for days without finding a soul, you check Snapchat maps to see that everyone is gathered in one single place a hundred miles away... | The drive was odd. the broken yellow meridian provided the only sense of change from a desolate feeling, a desolate landscape, and a desolate world. But hey, at least I didn't have to worry about checking my phone on the way there. I couldn't not. Snapchat gave the first indication; 6.8 billion people located in the middle of the desert. iMessage gave the second indication; I went through every contact's Share My Location. Every single one was in that lone valley in Nevada. Every single one wouldn't respond.
I had debated whether or not to visit this place. After all, I had all the food I needed. I could live in any unlocked millionaire's house for the rest of my life. Drive any exotic car I wanted until gasoline became so horribly rotted that I was forced to live beachside Malibu. In some rich, green-freak's mansion running off 100% renewables. Only then would I be confined to driving $150,000 Teslas. I had it all, and somehow, I had nothing.
Like a tree devoting all its energy to producing one leaf—beautiful though it may be—while the trunk, branches, and stems wither. There was no one around. And absolutely no signs that anyone else was around either. Except for what Snapchat, iMessage, and any other location service app would tell me. 6.8 billion people, all in one, unmoving, terrifying place.
5 miles from the point. Dusk is upon me, and an orange hue speaks to the end of a day. I come upon the last ridge until that fateful descent into the valley, and absolutely nothing will prepare me for what I am about to see. The plane of my car reaches a horizontal, and my field of vision petrifies what it contrives to behold.
6.8 billion cell phones. thousands perfectly stacked atop each other, end on end, like some eerie, impossible eighth wonder of the world. They are arranged in a checkerboard pattern where every other screen is facing me, still on. Still glowing. The wall must be three miles wide. Probably more. My drop in speed can't convey my descent into pure horror. Something arranged this. And there isn't a single soul here. Nothing but a massive, impossible, wall of cell phones.
It's all I can do to keep driving. I drive until my bumper nearly touches the wall. I stop out of pure terror that I will be crushed under the weight of millions of pounds of tumbling glass and metal. I close my door, and so begins the video.
The phones, the half pointed my way anyway, start to play a video. The video itself is unremarkable. Scenes show industry pouring noxious fumes into the air. Times Square with a sickening amount of people making their way like ants through a concrete jungle. The squalor of human procreation and resource abuse...
It's the audio that really gets under my skin. It's in English, but it's not human. And it's message is powerful, all-consuming.
"For years, your race has gone on without regard for its environment. Without regard to its own limits and your world is dying. Until you can manage to curb your population. Until you can manage to care for your world. And until you can learn to manage technology, your society will constantly be reset in this way. So go forth, and pass this message. The building blocks are all around you."
And just like that, phone by phone—with a roar of fracturing glass and bending metal—the wall came down.
And just before me, on the other side of where the wall had been. My high school sweetheart. And then I remember why we were separated on that awful, life-changing day years and years ago.
I had lost her number. And she had lost mine.
| One car ride later, a wall of people. As far as the eye can see, bodies packed together, jostling in unison. All are facing the same direction. All are chanting in a low tone. Following the mass' gaze, walking, fighting, pushing, and asking politely, the center comes into view. On the hard packed dirt, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump roll over each other, punching, kicking, and biting. The crowd's chant rises: "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" | 2018-02-20T22:40:16 | 2018-02-20T22:37:28 | 292 | 87 |
[WP] A world where super heroes exist but act as mercenaries for hire instead of doing it out of the goodness of their hearts
Someone made a comment in another thread that made me want to see this sort of thing and some people replied saying I should submit it here. Here's a link to my [original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/62wgey/tifu_by_bricking_a_computer_with_rick_astley/dfq195a/) which has a little more detail about the sort of thing I was thinking of specifically, but feel free to run with the basic idea however you want. | "I'm just going to talk to him," Rodgers says to himself, standing outside a house. It was the definition of suburban. A little garden out the front, a big oak tree and a novelty mailbox shaped like a salmon. He knocks on the door three times, to no answer, as it swings ajar.
Rodgers walks inside, coughing as he does. Rotting food litters some of the floors, and a dozen broken bong's glass joins it. He carefully tiptoes around them all, lest he got an infection, and yells out.
"Hello?" The words bounce around the walls, falling on deaf ears. "Jack?"
Rodgers walks into the surrounding rooms to find nothing of interest, mostly more rotting food and massive quantities of narcotics. The stairs tease out to him, knowingly, as if to say 'Jack's up here.'
They creak as he walks up, photos of a family not belonging to Jack neatly arranged on the wall. Once at the top, he stares down the hallway to see a door partially open.
"Jack?" he says curiously and moves towards it. He pries the door open slightly and then immediately regrets that decision.
Jack is sitting in a large chair with headphones on, his hand down his pants, and the TV blaring hardcore porn. Rodgers moves back into the hallway for a moment to collect himself, before thumping the door as loud as he can and moving inside.
"Jack!" He yells, much to Jack's dismay. He jumps from his chair, throws the headphones off, but doesn't take his hand out of his pants.
"Fuckin, what!" Jack yells, a furrowed brow and a bit of spit dripping out his mouth. "You ever heard of fucking knocking?"
"I tried that," Rodgers remarks.
"Fuck off," Jack says, getting back into his chair. With a touch of a remote, the porn turns off, and Jack breathes in deep. A small bong sits next to him which he lifts to his chest and prepares. "So what do you want Rodge?"
"We've got a bit of a monster problem over in NYC. Destroying the whole place,"
"Yeah yeah, I saw that," Jack says, scooping some of his bowl into his cone piece. "Did you send Canary?"
"She couldn't handle it,"
"Andromeda?"
"He couldn't handle it,"
"Mech-zero?" Jack exclaims, now getting surprised. He lights the cone and begins to inhale deeply.
"He died." Jack's eyes grow wide at the new bit of information, but still, continues to inhale. A few more seconds pass before he stops.
"Aw fuck then," Jack says, talking while exhaling, "You really need bloody Jack then don't you?" A shit-eating grin blooms over Jack's face, as he stares up at Rodgers. "50 grand."
"Deal."
"Fantastic," Jack stands and looks at Rodgers, his erection flopping out his underwear. Rodgers stares at him for a few more pained moments before speaking.
"Who's house is this,"
"Let's get going ay."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A heavily armored van is shifting through pedestrians with Jack inside. Chants from outside are thunderous in volume and full of joy. Eventually, the van comes to a stop. From outside, the cheering grows as a chaotic applause begins, no rhythm to its nature.
"You ready Jack?" an unnamed soldier says, his hands fiddling with his gun. Jack grunts, finishes rolling his cigarette, lazily puts it in his mouth and walks towards the van's exit. He thumps on the side twice, and the door starts to open.
"Probably not," Jack replies, pulling out a lighter and letting the nicotine hit his veins. The sunlight blurs his vision as he steps into the world, the cheers and claps immediately stopping. Sighing, he looks all around himself to see sad faces and angry civilians.
"Are you not entertained!?" Jack yells, thrusting his arms above himself. He smiles, as the faces stare him down. He spins and spins, bathing in the glow of contempt, ecstatic in his self-indulgent joy.
A roar in the distance breaks his attention. It's visceral and full of rage, a beast made of death waiting to dole out more. The crowd murmurs in fear, taking a collective step back.
"Go get em, Jack!" A voice yells, a few more joining. It only took a few seconds before they were all cheering his name, and chanting for him to go.
"Selfish buggers," Jack mutters under his breath. He takes a few steps forward, but The Beast beats him to it.
With a crash, it descends just in front of him Jack. Wings made out of dark black, and a form made out of nightmares; it bubbles and seethes around as if it was a liquid. A thousand eyes cover it, all moving and changing shape at random, but all are staring at Jack.
Taking the cigarette from his mouth, Jack flicks it and lets it smolder into the ground. The crowd that was around only moments ago has fled, leaving Jack alone.
The Beast swings, its horrendous claw slashing down at Jack. It rends the air as if it was mere paper, and slams down on Jack's head. As soon as it does, its whole body locks up. Its heartbeat slows, and it feels weary.
The claw is embedded deep into Jack's skull, and he smiles. He places both hands on it and focuses. Slowly, the life drains out of The Beast and into Jack. Its knowledge burns into his consciousness, its desires flood his heart, and its unbound rage to his soul.
The Beast collapses, dead; its life force now within Jack.
A helicopter lands behind Jack a few minutes after The Beast's demise, and Rodgers steps out.
"Good work," he says, holding his hand out to shake Jacks. "50 grand, straight to your bank account, just like you asked."
"So Canary couldn't do this?"
"No,"
"Andromeda?"
"No,"
"Not even Mech-zero?" Jack picks up the cigarette he threw away and relights it.
"Not even Mech-zero, Jack. You're a real hero."
"100 grand." Jack inhales deeply and looks at Rodgers with a smile.
"No deal," Rodgers says.
"I wasn't askin'," Jack says, his smile fading. "I was tellin' mate. 100 grand. Or I'm going rogue on your ass."
"That's suicide Jack," Rodgers remarks. "We'd have every superhero on you before nightfall."
The last bit of ash drips out of the cigarette. Jack takes it from his lips, turns to The Beast, and throws the cigarette onto it. With a few steps, he passes Rodgers on his side and continues to walk.
"They can try."
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Check out /r/Rhysyjay for other neat stuff.
| The dark alley echoed with the footsteps of the villain and I knew that I had her right where I wanted them.
"I'll go get the purse if you let me keep half of the money."
They had seen what Dev could do first hand, when he had been stealing their purse, so there was no way that they were going to do it themselves. He had punched through a brick wall before snatching their purses. If they only knew some of Dev's other talents.... The purse snatchee had been making self deliberation faces for almost half a minute.
"Fine.", she said, in a voice that she hoped would indicate that it was very much not fine. I thought I heard her mutter something about "Damn heroes" and "Filthy crooks", but I was already rushing into the darkness.
About halfway through the alley I turned at the first corner I saw. I almost ran into Dev.
"Jesus Christ man. A little warning next time."
"I'm still mad at you."
"Why would you possibly be mad at me?"
"Because this plan doesn't make any fucking sense! Why are we giving the purse back? We already had the damn thing."
"That attitude right there is why you get to play the villain. You're just so naturally villainous."
"I get to play the villain because I can actually scare people. What are you going to do, shout at them that you can hear them extremely well as your robbing them?"
"Ha Ha asshole. Just give me the purse."
"What are you going to tell them, anyway? What if they want a demonstration of how you overcame me?"
"I'll say that I used my otherworldly wits to convince you to hand over the purse. I wouldn't even have to lie."
"Oh, shut up. Here - take the stupid thing."
I grabbed the purse from Dev's hand and turned back. If it wasn't dark in the alleyway I don't think I could have resisted the temptation to count the money before I gave it back. I tried to appear disheveled by messing up my hair a bit. It would have to do. I came around a corner and could see the woman still waiting.
I approached her.
"Thank you so much!" She said as she saw that I was holding her purse. I actually felt a twinge of guilt. I had justified this to myself as being some sort of lesson, like an anti purse snatching tax or something, but I knew that this part was going to suck.
"You're are very welcome." I handed her the purse. She pilfered through it. I saw some prescription medicine and reading glasses suddenly felt even worse. It felt like I was robbing my Grandma. She got to her wallet and started going through the money.
"Here is ... $30."
I was almost tempted to tell her to keep it, but my stomach rumbled at that exact moment. I remembered that there was a reason that I had to do this, and it wasn't like we stole her purse or anything.
"Thank you very much." I began walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction as her. I would meet Dev back at the house. He wouldn't be happy with $30, and I didn't think I could hold him back much longer. If he had his way, we were about to get into serious trouble, soon.
___
/r/Periapoapsis | 2017-04-02T08:24:17 | 2017-04-02T08:22:39 | 64 | 32 |
[WP] "Every 5000 years, the Dark Lord comes to destroy the world, and only you, the Chosen One can stop him." -said the priest. "So, do I need to get a magic sword from the Lady of the Lake?" - I asked "No, just press this button please, everything else has already been taken care of" | The hero, having remained ever vigilant as the final moments dwindled before the final confrontation, recounted his life's milestones.
His first time remembering what rain was like, first day at home school, the last time he'd seen his father at 7 years of age, the first time he's tried to escape the facility he was trained at 15, and all the subsequent attempts thereafter. The cool taste of mint chocolate chip ice cream, provided by his mother as a treat for remembering to say "please" and "thank you" to the servants that tended to him, and most recently the appendectomy that has nearly done him in the month before.
At times the hero yearned for any life but this, something normal wherein he could not have to worry about the fate of the world, but these last few years caused him to relent. He was advised that upon completion of his noble task he would be free to travel the world without impediment.
He was never trained in his to use weapons, but was fed and indulged in literature at a voracious pace, learning everything he could about the world he would soon inhabit from popular mechanics to US Weekly.
Suddenly the door opened and his mentor approached him and said, "It's time."
----------------------------------------
The lake above the facility had been the chosen battlefield for the eternal fight between good and evil for millennia. Across what looked like a life size chess board were scorch marks abound. Surely a demonstration of the great power he would have to contend with.
His mentor lead to him to the battleground, but did not touch it. Advising that only the hero was allowed on such hallow ground. In the center of the platform was a console with a sole blue button. The mechanism of his liberation and victory over the great darkness. The hero walked toward the center awaiting the red flare to be fired into the air to signal the commencement of the battle.
Adrenaline made his body anxious and shaky, his eyes had a slightly enhanced awareness to them. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise, and a slight pain in his head. No doubt due to the jitters. Suddenly the red flare was fired!
The hero, finally able to fulfill his purpose, pressed the plastic blue button with his index finger, and suddenly it was as if he could see, hear, taste, and fell everything at once........
"This was much more humane Carl, applying explosives into the boy's abdomen under the guise of an appendectomy was a stroke of genius!"
Carl surveyed his handiwork, what was one an 18 year old man was now two separate his of meat only discernible as a former person by the stray remnants of articles of clothing, burnt hair, and what few teeth didn't completely shatter.
Carl had inherited this duty from his father long ago, who inherited it from his father, and so forth. They could never defeat the evil permanently, but they could manage it. The were ways to smoke out the child of prophecy, inform their parents of what their child would become, and raise the child in ignorance of it's true purpose. Efforts had been previously made in previous generations to try and raise the sire of darkness as one of their own, but to no avail.
What had originally been a series of pitched battles in a long stretch of nowhere would often result in an expenditure of ordnance and large loss of life and limb, but in this instance, the answer was so much clear.
The boy was raised by the sect, treated as one of their own, raised on their tales and legends, made an integral part of the organization, and died in a complete state of grace. Carl ensured that well beyond the needed explosives was implanted into the boy to ensure just that.
The monks went about cleaning the mess as they'd done many times over. Carrying the now deceased remains of the dark one to the burning pyres, after the battleground was evacuated, the entire platform was flipped upside down so as to allow the waters of the lake to cleanse it one again.
---------------------------
As Carl maintained watch over the dark one's remains he acknowledged the promise he'd made to the boy. As the embers flickered, and the boys flesh and bone broke down to ash in the night winds the promise was fulfilled.
He could travel the world now, in peace(es). | I'm gonna be honest, I was a little disappointed. I mean, I'm no fighter or anything, much less a hero, but I don't know.....I just thought something more, well, *interesting* would happen.
Maybe I'd be given some magical armour and sword, and all kinds of crazy powers and knowledge would just be absorbed into me, then I'd kick the Dark Lord's ass and be some awesome warrior.....but, apparently all I've gotta do is click this one button. Like, no joke, that's it. Straight from the mouth of the grand Priest himself, push the button, and save the universe.
So, I pushed the button, like anyone else would....and that's it. No big explosion, or anything crazy like that. Just push the button, and the world is saved. I bet the Dark Lord is pissed, being defeated by some button...... | 2020-11-09T12:25:18 | 2020-11-09T11:06:17 | 133 | 85 |
[WP] The nearby Village simply knows you as the hunter who lives in the forest, but you have a dark secret. You are the former dark Lord. Today you returned from a hunt and found the Hero that defeated you in your Hut. | The Painted King felt no surprise when he returned from town to find the Rebel leaning contentedly against the entrance to his hut, just mild disappointment. “I’d hoped I’d have more time.” He brushed back the hood of his cloak, revealing a face of brown mottled with white, like a map of some strange land. “Well, after you,” he said, gesturing to the door at her back. She frowned briefly, weighing his lack of reaction, then opened the door without a word and went inside. The Painted King followed her in and set about putting away the produce he’d traded for while the Rebel surveyed the spartan accommodations.
“Must be quite the change from your palace in the capital. Never pegged you for a survivalist.”
“I wasn’t always a king, you know.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
The Painted King smiled. He retrieved a flagon of ale from his pantry and held it up for her approval. She nodded, so he set it on the lone table in the hut, then went to find mugs. The Rebel sat at the table, leaning forward on brown arms mottled with white folded before her, and studied the Painted King as he searched his cupboard.
“When you fled the capital all those months ago, I thought for sure you had some failsafe tucked away, some backup plan to return to power. I sent scouts all over the country hunting for you.” The Painted King joined her at the table and filled both mugs, then slid one to the Rebel, who nodded her thanks. “Didn’t take long for rumors to reach me of a secretive hunter who appeared out of nowhere shortly after the fall of the capital and never showed his face. Those townsfolk aren’t as oblivious as you seem to think they are,” she said with a wry smile.
“I... may have grown slightly out of touch with the common folk over the years.” The Rebel chuckled, took a swig of ale, and tried to stifle a wince. It was clearly not the work of a skilled brewer.
“I didn’t know what to make of it, so I had you watched. Didn’t believe it at first, but after months of consistent reports, it really seems like you’re a changed man.”
The Painted King took a long draught from his mug, then shook his head. “People don’t change Rebel. This is just survival. I gambled everything on the battle at Ennes, and when you broke my forces there the rest was inevitable. So I made a calculated bet that if I didn’t keep making trouble you’d let me live.”
The Rebel looked down at her mug. “Isn’t that still a change, though? What does it matter why someone chooses to be good as long as they make the choice?”
“You sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself than me. Why do you want to believe I’ve changed?”
The Rebel was silent for a moment, then looked up and met the Painted King’s eyes. The woman who’d seemed so confident now seemed uncertain, even scared. When her voice returned it was a whisper. “Am I... am I going to end up like you?”
“Why do you ask that?”
The Rebel held her mug with both hands, knuckles white with tension. “The prophesies said that only another Painted One could defeat the Painted King, but no one could every tell me *why* that was true, or what power or ability being Painted gives. What if the power of being Painted also corrupts, and that’s what lead you to be a tyrant? The people are looking to me to take your place, but what if I end up being just as bad as you are?”
“Ah,” the Painted King said, leaning back in his chair. “To tell you a secret, I’m not actually a painted one.”
“What?”
The Painted King held out a hand and regarded it with a slight smirk. “These are just tattoos. I had them done a few generations before I spread the rumors that only a Painted One could defeat me.”
“You... you started the prophesies? But...”
“What we call “Painted Ones” are just a quirk of birth, like people with an extra finger or webbed toes – exceedingly rare, but with no particular significance. By sending agents out to kill them shortly after birth, I ensure that one slips through the cracks to launch a rebellion every century or so. I find that it’s healthy for a nation to go through a major rebellion about that often. There needs to be a release to the dissent that festers under the surface, like lancing a boil.”
The Rebel sat agape, still clutching her mug, and began to sweat. “But... this time you lost. Your hubris finally caught up with you.” She intended it as a statement, but her uncertainty made it a question.
The Painted King smiled. “You don’t really grasp how old I am, do you?” He said something unintelligible to the Rebel. “That was the language spoken in this country when I was born. The way language evolves has never ceased to amaze me. Even just a few millennia ago the language we spoke here would be totally unrecognizable to you.” The Rebel was trembling now. “Anyway, yes. This time I lost. But it is not the first time, nor will it be the last.”
The Rebel pulled a dagger from her belt and lunged across the table, ramming it through the Painted King’s throat, and then convulsed, falling to the floor. After a few moments the convulsions slowed, and eventually stilled. The Painted King finished his mug of ale and then pulled the dagger from his neck and placed it on the table, the wound sealing shut. He rose, stepping over the Rebel’s corpse on his way to the door and talking wistfully to himself. “I do enjoy these little breaks.” | It'd been 10 years since our last meeting. 10 years since that battle. He'd slain my lieutenants and destroyed the Amethyst of Order. He'd found me sitting in the throne, in the great hall of the castle, in his kingdom, waiting for him. Now he sits in my chair, in my home, in my woods, waiting for me.
"Still butting into the business of others? It would seem that lifestyle doesn't suit you anymore." I spat as I hung my gear up to dry. Weary eyes peered at me from under a tangle of hair. What had been black and neatly cropped was now gray and wild, his once bare chin was covered by a mat of gray beard; but his eyes were still that cold and defiant blue. "You're a long way from home. I held up my part of the bargain. Exile in this backwater with not leyline for miles." I let the question hang in the air unsaid.
The silence was heavy and still. I broke first, stoic bastard got under my skin again. "Well why are you here?" I snapped. I saw he still had that damned platinum blade on his hip; it'd shattered both the Amethyst and my true steel sword when we fought, my hunting knife and leathers would do me no good if he's here to kill me. He let out a sigh through his nose, I involuntarily gulped as he stood up. My mind raced at what could be coming next, none of it good. He spoke and it didn't take. I had to ask him to repeat it. First of of genuine confusion, then shock. The third time though was to gloat.
"You're asking for my help? To stop the son of king you rescued from me?! Oh that's rich!" Evidently that conniving little prince had never let on that he was my man on the inside, but now that seed has sprouted. "You understand I'll be needing my helmet, sword, ring, amulet, and my book. He gave me a forlorn look before reaching into his pocket and producing a rose gold loop adorned with an black gem. I stopped as I reached for it, "You understand, if I take this, things will be set in motion that are not easily stopped. The recovery of the rest will make you more enemies than friends." He nodded grimly and acknowledged this truth. I felt a rush when the ring was back on my finger. My backup plan was in action. | 2021-11-03T20:51:40 | 2021-11-03T20:01:54 | 33 | 18 |
[WP] You are a barista in a 24 hour coffee shop. Every night at 3:33am a demon appears for the Dark Lord's latte. | 3:30am. Time always seems to slow down as I wait for the demon to show up. The first couple of times he came looking for a latte was absolutely terrifying. I can always smell him before he actually opens the door, the stench of sulphur and blood. It puts you on edge. It’s like your subconscious knows that smell and what it means. But nothing prepares you for when a 7 foot 8 inch demon walks through the door. He has to duck or snag his horns on the door jam. Even though it is the dead of winter, shows up wearing nothing but a chain mail loin cloth. His rippling muscles covered in deep red skin and nasty looking scars. He is a sight to behold.
3:31am. It is tempting to start making the latte early, just so he leaves early. I learnt the hard way that he wants it made so he can see you make it and so it is as hot as can be. I tried to make it early…. Once…. He yelled and banged his fist on the counter. Yelled is an understatement but I don’t know what else you would call it. The glass coffee pots exploded and it drove me to my knees. I tried to plug my ears as they bled. The front counter collapsed under the impact of his blow.
It was weird. He apologized and didn’t come back for almost a month. I had convinced myself it was a bad dream…. And then he started coming back again.
3:32am. I turned half of the over head lights off. It is so bright that it makes him squint and he is visibly pained. It is all about making the customer happy after all. The first time I turned off some lights for him, he was visibly relieved. He even got chatty, which was oddly terrifying. He has a voice like scraping rocks that is deep enough that your guts vibrate as he talks.
3:33am. I can smell the sulphur and blood in the air. The bell on the door dingles, letting me know we have a customer. I look to see him coming in from the driving snow. He is literally steaming as the snow melts off of him.
He ducks just enough for his curly horns to miss the door frame and walks in. A slight jingle from his chain mail loin cloth as he walks to the front counter.
“Hey Clair, how’s your night going?”, he says. Making small talk with a demon. So weird.
“Oh, same old, same old, Steve. I thought you might be late, given the blizzard out there.”, he wouldn’t give me his name when I had asked. Something about a true name freely given having power or something. I don’t know. So I started calling him Steve. He seems ok with it.
He chuckled, a terrifying sound. Like squishing kittens between rocks. “I made a snow demon in the parking lot. I have never laid down in the snow before. It was quite nice.”
I chuckled at that. “What can I get you Steve?”, I asked. Trying to keep it friendly but professional.
“Oh the usually. A double latte with a hint of Tabasco.”, he said with a smile as he leaned on the counter. There was a bit of flesh hanging from a fang and a bit of blood on his chin. Probably the demon equivalent to a bit of spinach in your teeth.
The “hint of Tabasco” threw me the first couple of times. No matter how much I added, he would always ask for a hint more on his next visit. Now I brew the coffee using Tabasco instead of water. It makes my eyes water but Steve seems to like it.
I do my best to make a nice hell themed picture in the cream. Today it is a horned skull. A useful skill around halloween time too.
“There you go, Steve.”, I said as I slide the cup over to him.
“The skull is a nice touch”, he says and gives me a wink. He takes a sip. He rolls his eyes and lets out a sigh. “That is, dare I say it, divine.” I smile as he takes another sip. “Thank you Clair.” He put a gold nugget on the counter, about the size of a robin’s egg. “See you tomorrow.” He says as he flashes me a smile and walks out humming some nameless tune that his pointy tail is keeping the beat to. | “Espresso, hot.”
She had the little paper cup ready before the door to the restroom had even finished swinging shut. A slight mist followed the visitor out, sickly smelling like pumpkin spice.
“The nutmeg?”
“Extra nutmeg.”
“Thank you Julia.”
He shuffled up to the counter. Every time she tried to look at him. She could take in the black cloak, the cowl that covered his head, but every time she tried to make out his face things just got… blurry.
Instead she watched him pluck his pouch from his belt. A weathered hand held out his stamp card.
“One piece of silver,” he said.
“Nope.” She held up his card. “Tenth cup is free.”
“Then I gift the coin to you.”
“Thanks, but it’s kind of hard to cash in pieces of silver.”
His hand went to where his mouth would be, an audible gasp escaping hidden lips.
“I had no idea. Currency isn’t what it used to be.”
“I guess not.”
“We have other means of payment. Money is the root of all evil after all.”
His hand returned to his cloak, withdrawing a singular silver rectangle.
“Do you take American Express?” | 2022-10-30T08:38:35 | 2022-10-30T08:13:00 | 2,033 | 679 |
[WP] When you die the afterlife is an arena where you face every insect and animal you killed in your life. If you win you go to heaven, lose you go to hell. Your job was an exterminator on earth. | I could hear them before I could see them-- a low, ominous buzzing that grew steadily louder until it sounded like I was in the center of a tornado of electricity. I imagined what they looked like--swarms upon swarms of cockroaches, bedbugs, ants and mites; millions of pointed insect legs skittering over the floor, millions of pinchers vengefully extended.
I watched the pearly gates fade away as the cumulous cloud that had borne me up into limbo drifted into the dark arena.
"So much for all that morality bullshit," I thought distantly, and immediately resented all those untold hours spent listening to Father Simon drone on about moral responsibility and helping old ladies across the street.
"I might as well have been snorting cocaine and having sex with strangers. Seen what all the fuss was about, if I'm just gonna end up down there anyway."
The cloud landed with a soft "pffft" on a hard cobblestone surface, and then dissolved into the air. I kept my eyes on the stones for a few more seconds, savoring my last few moments as a free soul.
When I looked up, it was even worse than I imagined. The area looked to be about the size of a football stadium, and every wall was throbbing with glittery black bodies. The portal to hell was several feet to my left, blistering with heat and clearly broadcasting the tortured screams of the souls trapped within. At the other end of the arena, just barely visible, was the pure white pulsing of the portal to heaven. Between me and it was a solid two hundred yards of furious insect.
I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see whatever happened next in addition to feeling it.
The buzzing grew louder, as well as the clicking of their pinchers. And then... another sound. A pure, ringing thud. It was much, much too heavy to belong to any creature I had ever exterminated. I opened my eyes.
Before me, in front of the swarm of insects, stood a horse. It wasn't beautiful- no palomino of the afterlife. Just a simple gray draft horse. I stared at it a moment, perplexed. Then, the memory flooded back.
I was about 14, coming back from a long camping trip alone in the woods. I'd heard a strange sound coming from a ditch on the side of the road. Curious, and too young to think to be scared, I looked in. It was the horse, thrashing back and forth in agony. I could see from where I was standing that all four of its legs were broken, and I knew what that meant for a horse. An injury like that couldn't be healed.
There had only been one humane thing to do in that moment, and I'd done it. With an old hunting rifle, I'd put the horse out of its misery and spared it any further pain. I'd killed it. And now, here it stood.
The horse watched me. It seemed expectant. I gazed at it one more moment in awe and surprise and then took a deep breath. I had maybe one chance. It was a long shot, but clearly the only option I had. I climbed on the horse.
It had been a long time since I'd moved so fast. In my last dozen years or so of life, I'd avoided driving and stuck around the house. The horse was galloping powerfully. I heard the bodies of insects crunching as she ran. Faster, faster.
Then, before I could even bring myself to truly believe it, we were through the portal to heaven. I heard music and laughing and my eyes were dazzled with light. And then, we floated upward, on to our next adventure.
| I store up at the giant wave of fur and chitin, wondering if hell was /really/ that bad. I mean, it can't be worse than fighting a literal metric ton of angry spiders without a weapon...Then I realized I was still wearing the item I died in. My hand reached down to my utility belt. And at that moment, I thanked God I had just restocked my supply of RAID. | 2017-04-23T23:40:27 | 2017-04-23T17:19:20 | 226 | 81 |
[WP] The King is dying and decides to abdicate his throne before he dies. During the coronation ceremony, he places the crown on a servant's head and declares him king, rather than one of his two sons. | His Majesty's chapel erupted. Fred-Lesser was unsure what to make of the boom that shook his ears. All his years raised in the Kingdom's service and he never heard anything quite like it. To poverty, it even made his head feel heavy. And cozy. Sort of... regal feeling. He had to scratch his head, the velvet was starting to get---
*I did not attend this coronation with a hat.*
The thought froze him solid. Then he repeated it. *I did not attend this coronation with a hat.* It must be true, because Fred-Lesser had the distinct memory of having donned his servant's tunic. Then his grey pantaloons and equally grey foot slips (so as not to embarrass the traveling nobility with the sound of his poverty-stricken feet). He slicked his greasy hair all the way back, and exited the servant's quarter, helping to prepare for the coronation where directed by Bookmaster Ghuile, master of the books, ceremonies and omelette Thursdays. Omelette Thursdays were the worst days.
Cries of anger and protest in his direction was starting to give him a headache. What could have happened? Did he, *stumble* and hit his head, forgetting where he was? It would explain why his head felt so heavy. And cozy. Sort of... No, equally impossible, Fred-Lesser stood ramrod straight by the princes since the beginning of their coronation ceremony. The very same princes he attended to since Fred-Lesser was old enough to do so. The same princes, who's eyes traced lines where a sword might pass through him. And at him. And----
*No, the good princes wouldn't do that to me, where is that thought even coming from.*
His faith in the young Highness' was quickly shattered by the elder of the Bormenfast sons. "*How DARE you Father!* Surely you would not have mistaken this *commoner* for one of your sons??" The words confused Fred-Lesser, but whatever his troubles, he seemed to be the cause of them.
Must have been a fairly magnificent stumble to draw the ire of this chapel and hit his head with no memory of doing so.
The younger piped up in his younger, gentler timbre. "As brother has said good father, this must be some... unfortunate mistake."
"No." In his last dying years, His Majesty has never sounded so resolute. A word that forced a fulcrum of the wisest, purest, most powerful nobles in the entire Kingdom, to *silence.* Fred-Lesser would have been moved, if his life had not felt so threatened by all present. His head was also starting to get fairly heavy, but he dared not move to check himself before he necked himself for disturbing His Majesty mid-speech.
"This ceremony, as was the founding of this Kingdom, are directed so by my *will.*" His breathing searched deeper for air with every sentence. "I would have the rule of that which I built, maintained by one who *can* maintain my legacy. As he, who knows this castle, it's nobles, it's allies... Yes, he has eavesdropped on more than he should---" *Wait, what?* "---but that only tells *you* my subjects of the resourcefulness demanded of a King. Not the boorish---" he gestured to the elder son, "---or the timid---" then gestured his younger."
Both his hands pointed palms-up to the servant struggling to hold his head up during the ceremony. "---But the *true* servant of Bormenfast."
Fred-Lesser's eyes opened wide when he realized he was that servant. His mouth gaped like the statue of The Drinker at the Court Fountain pavilion. Shoulders, no longer supported by the rigid indoctrination of servant's ways, for the distraction commanded more than his training in that instance, sank low. He couldn't believe it. After all his precautions, *all* his mind and manners, and servitude to the family...
... And His Majesty *knew* he was eavesdropping???
For the moment, Fred-Lesser was just happy to be alive. For now, anyway.
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More at r/galokot, and thanks for reading! | “There must be some mistake!” Prince John threw his weight against the unmoving body-weight of father’s guard. “There is no way that father would make that hussy the next king! Let me in, you dog,” he shouted in the guard’s face. At his side, he felt Prince Robert, his younger brother, unsheathe his sword. “If you don’t let us pass, I will cut off your head, as is my right.”
Inside the room, Eleanor sat at the king’s bedside.
“Father,” she spat, “we tried to make the whole country believe that I was simply your pillow pet, a slave in golden shackles. The kingdom of Alenare was just within our grasp! You were to find the princess and in bed together and were to blackmail their country with the embarrassment! Why now!”
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*The prompt amused me so I just quickly jot down who I thought the characters would be. If anyone is interested I can continue the story!*
| 2016-02-12T16:01:03 | 2016-02-12T15:59:10 | 64 | 18 |
[WP]In the post-nuclear ruins of Disney World, a society has developed that worships various characters as gods. | Grumphrey flipped through the tattered pages of the great book, his flash candle giving off just enough light to see the amazing images it contained. He was absolutely sure that the great book had been censored by one of the early Alt Ney Worl Princesses and knew that his recent find from the forbidden wastes would prove it. His hands shook as he found the page. Yes, it was true! He looked up and gave praise to Mick and Min. The Alt Ney Worl Princesses had been hiding a most terrible secret about their power over the guests of Alt Ney Worl.
It was then that he heard a noise coming from the escalate. He blew out his flash candle and stuffed the great book into his day sack. He tried to slip through xit, but it was too late, standing in the doorway was the rock solid form of the heavily muscled guest services life guard. He put out his hand and said, "Our apologies, but it's after park hours, by order of the Princesses all unescorted guests are to be detained."
Grumphrey started to back away, if he could just make it to the other xit, he just might have a chance of fleeing and getting the lost knowledge to Professor Dopely. That was when he felt the stinging touch of the second guest services life guard. Each of the huge men carried the powerful dontazemebro sticks in their hands and were not afraid to use them on guests who failed to heed the comands of the Princesses. All Grumphrey could manage as he fell to the ground was to shout, "Mick and Min save me!"
The guest service men dragged him forcibly to the great castle. It's once majestic beauty had fallen into disrepair over the many years, the best guest craftsman over the years had done their best to maintain the building but materials originally used no longer existed in all of Alt Ney Worl. He was taken to the sec rity room, the command center for the entire park. Inside were the leaders of the guest service and the on duty cast members. The cast members were gods among the guests, only the most fair were chosen. Among the cast members none had as much power as the Alt Ney Worl princesses. The newest and most ruthless of which was the lastest Snow. To Grumphrey's horror, it was her that walked in to hear his trial.
To be a Snow, the girl had to have raven black hair, fair skin and exceptional beauty. It had been laid down by the elders that the Snow was always the fairest of them all, so only the most beautiful female guest with fair skin and raven black hair was chosen for the cast member role. All of the other cast members looked to the Snow for guidance, this was the way of Alt Ney Worl.
Snow glided into the room and spoke to Grumphrey, "It's a small worl, after all." She smiled at him and said in her soft voice, "Dear sir, guest services has explained your complaint to me and we here at Alt Ney Worl wish to apologize for the inconvience you have suffered. As is written in the great parks rules, guests may at any time be asked to leave the park."
Grumphrey looked around in horror, "No! By Min and Mick, please no! I just wanted to show you that there were supposed to be more Alt Ney Worl princesses than just the three!"
Snow waved her small wand and said softly, "Dear sir, while we appreciate your visit, the rules were agreed upon at entry and posted throughout the park. Guests who don't follow the rules must be asked to leave. Thank you, and have a wonderful day!" She waved her wand at the guest service lifeguards who forcibly dragged Grumphrey.
As he was being dragged through the park he screamed out, "Ariel, Jasmine, Mulan... By Mick and Min there are supposed to be more princesses in the cast! Don't let them get away with it!"
As Grumphrey was tossed through the great arch, he turned sobbing looking at the images of Mick on the left and Min on the right, he said a silent prayer for all of the guests inside the park and turned shaking to look out into the wastes. How would he survive outside of the happiest place on Earth? Even on his secret trips into the forbidden zone he brought confections from main street. He then remembered that terrifying encounter on his last trip, yes, there might be hope. He could always try and barter his way into Univer Stud, the competition. That meant fighting his way through the swamp and facing the looters in Lando. With a heavy sigh Grumphrey looked back at the park that had been his home, he wiped his eyes and with Mick and Min's blessing, he would survive. | "Huh Huh!" Mickey's guttural voice vomited out of its static, expressionless face. His large mass slowly walked onto the large wooden stage. The fluidity of his motions were abolished, as his machine-driven body cranked its appendages in different directions, moving sluggishly towards the hoards of people crowded in front of him.
His chassis covered with thick tendrils of wet slime, drips of sewer water dribbling down from its chest to its legs, and the erosion from the post-nuclear survival spreading rust across its entire being. The putrid smell of septic waste was immense, nearly enough to make some of the crowd vomit up their previous meal in large, chunky mass. The loam below soaked up the malodorous upchuck and Mr. Mouse finally received center-stage.
Everyone in the crowd began to bow, putting their hands onto the ground beneath them, pressing their face to the soggy grass and soaking in the liquids. "Praise," they all said aloud; the individuality of human life turned into a subservient hive-mind of repugnant sub-being slime.
The post-nuclear ruins were devastating and with many of the human survivors indicating signs of extreme trauma, manipulation came easy to the park's many amusements. It would be the ideal time, now, to have the collective human race understand slavery, as they would switch roles and *entertain the Disney characters, instead.* | 2014-08-16T20:57:05 | 2014-08-16T20:36:39 | 27 | 12 |
[WP] Your inherent skill is Reincarnation, and every time you die you wake up in a different world. You've seen it all, from medieval times to galactic theaters you've seen it all. This time, you met your first lover, and she revealed her skill can destroy skills. | World Walker. That is what they call me. Or rather, it's the title I gave myself. You might think me narcissistic, but you don't understand. I possess the greatest power in the universe. The power to traverse worlds. Every time I die in one world, I am reincarnated in another one. Isn't that amazing? The stories I have to tell! I could narrate the time I was hailed as grand magus of the elemental plains. Or the time I was chased by talking dinosaurs that had jetpacks. Or the time I was involved in an epic space duel to the death against the morgrav race's ultimate champion. (Spoiler: I lost and reincarnated).
The only un-amazing part about this is that no one is able to witness my power. When I talk about my past experiences, they all think it a figment of my imagination! I can't prove them otherwise of course. A restriction of my power is that I have to obey the laws of nature of whatever world I'm currently in. A bit of a party pooper, but understandable that I can't be manipulating magic in a world where it doesn't exist. What I do keep are my memories, and with it, the ability to learn. When am I am reincarnated as a newborn baby each time, I already wield the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes. All it takes is a little time to adjust to the new world, and BAM! I'm at the top of the world. Or any world, for that matter.
My current life is a general of the Galactic Democratic Party, or GDP. We are in the midst of a space battle where I will lead my troops to victory against these vile revolutionaries. Given my reservoir of combat experience, I will make short work of the enem....oh god is that a plasma rocket heading for me.
XXXXX
I wake from my slumber. Here we go again. I was quite enjoying that world to be honest. But such is the cycle of my life. On to the next adventure! But wait. Something is...different. Something feels very very off. I survey my surroundings: Trees, a perfectly blue sky, and a simple dirt path in front of me. A completely ordinary setting. But it's not what's around me that bothers me. It's what isn't. Other people. I am alone. Impossible. My reincarnation life always begins as a newborn. Whether as a human, or an elf, or an alien. It has been so for the last thousands of times, and it should be so for a thousand times more. The joyful cries of a mother starting off my journey is the largest consistency of my existence.
And yet here I stand in a forest. Alone. I examine my body. I do not appear to have a mirror on me but I can at least determine that I am a full grown adult. I am wearing a simple brown coat with leather pants. Typical human clothes. With this, I have a rough estimate of my species and age. That will do. I only hope my face Isn't too ugly.
I begin treading down the path. I will admit I am quite unsettled. By this age I usually have complete knowledge of whatever world I reincarnate in. Never before have I started as an adult. Why now? Was it something to do with my previous life? Did the plasma rocket somehow alter my ability? No...it shouldn't be. Nothing has ever crossed over from a previous world besides my mind.
As I continue walking, I spot a nearby village in the distance. Ah! Civilization! At least, I hope they are civilized. Relief floods my chest. But as I get closer and closer, the relief starts to leave my body. Not because I realise they are uncivilized. In fact, I can guarantee that the people inside this village are civilized. Because I recognise this village. I have been here before.
In all the worlds I have walked, there has been another consistency besides entering as a newborn. I have never walked the same world twice. Yet here I stand in a village I know all too familiar. 'Calderon Village' reads the sign. I tell myself to calm down. They could have just given the place the same name! And build it the same way....I guess. Its true that I am not a newborn this time but that's no reason to suddenly enter conspiracy mode about everything. I am probably getting my memories mixed up. Am I getting senile? Is that a thing with immortals?
I look for the nearest bar. Alcohol should calm my nerves. I hope this world has good drinks. As I make my way towards an empty seat in the corner, it is then that I notice the lady seated beside it. My mind goes blank. It is the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my lives. And that's saying something. But I'm not excited. In fact, I don't know whether to flee as though I've seen a ghost or breakdown in tears.
Because in front of me is my wife. From my very first life. | When I met her, it was pretty normal. I mean, there wasn't a crazy story to it or anything. We met, we started dating, fell in love. I had never experienced that, so it was special to me. Especially after a couple dozen lifetimes throughout the ages.
What changed it all was when I told her about my skill.
"Huh, didn't think I'd fall in love with another one."
That was her reaction. I mean, we just basically revealed to each other the mind-boggling fact that we are not alone as - superhumans? I'll use that term for lack of a better word.
And she just said that like she were dating some guy who played the piano like she did.
And that was that. We lived together, never married, never had children because we didn't want any and because we were scared of the possible "results" with regards to us being, well, different. We were happy. For the first time in hundreds of years spread out over my lives, I was happy. And I didn't want to trade that in for another life.
So, when I felt the end nearing - dying several times of old age gives you a pretty good sense of it - I turned to her for release. Release of what I felt would be a burden, should I have to continue living lives. The same release she had granted several others throughout her life.
I didn't want to keep living without her. And she understood. And she freed me. One more reason not to want to go on without her.
If that's not true love, I don't know what could be. | 2020-05-22T06:24:46 | 2020-05-22T06:01:41 | 140 | 48 |
[WP] After a tremendous economic collapse, experts have realized that the world's current finances are not enough to support all the existing countries. In response, the United Nations has arranged a high-stakes poker game in which world leaders are playing with their country's national wealth. | A dozen men and women held on to the table, their chairs sliding slightly underneath them as the floor rose on one side, fell, and rose on the other. The table, a flat plain of perfect green, edged with exquisite lacquered mahogany, was bolted to the middle of the floor.
Each of the players wore suits and dresses, with small, flag-shaped pins attached to their breasts. Glasses littered the tables, most of them barely touched.
None of them were talking to each other. Their faces were so stony, they might have all been cut from the same rock. All except for the man with dark, almost yellowish skin who looked like he'd just swallowed a very sour grape. Four fluted glasses rolled on the table in front of him, completely drained.
Two men sat in the back of the room, with two spindly microphones sticking out of their own, smaller, table. One of them, a man with a crisp, full beard, and skin as black as the ocean at night, had his hand over the microphone. He was leaning back and whispering to his counterpart. When the floor tilted, their heads swayed together; left - then right - then left.
Someone, somewhere, rang a tiny bell - as if merely calling for room service.
With that, the two spectators leaned in towards their microphones.
"And that is the signal. We have just crossed into International Waters."
"That's right, James, which means we are about to begin the highest stakes game of poker *ever played.* More than twenty-five trillion dollars in debt, the entire United States is up for grabs. It's time to see if the UN's plans to solve the Global Financial Crisis will, in fact, work."
Their voices were silky smooth, a stark contrast to the silent tension swelling inside the room.
"Today, our players are fighting over arguably the most expensive prize in the world. I'm excited to see how this pans out, Abasi."
"I'm sure you are, James. They are, after all, playing for your home country. Who do you favor to win?"
"It's a tough call, Abasi. Most of these players have been trying to take a piece of my country for hundreds of years. Some of them have even spilled blood for it. I think I can speak for everyone watching when I say, if nothing else, this should be an interesting game."
"Truly."
At the table, a dealer in a red vest walked to the head of the table. She flicked her dry, blonde hair over her shoulder, and just as she was about to put down a card in front of the British player, the Russian stood up, and began shouting.
"Left first! This is how to play the Poker!"
"I don't know what heathenish backwater game you play, sir, but in the Great Sovereignty of the United Kingdom-"
"Left first!" the Russian pounded on the table.
Next to the Russian, the man with the yellowish skin had turned green, and every time the Russian's fist thumped against the table, he let out another groan.
The dealer spoke with a droning drawl, a voice that suggested 'No matter how much you argue with me, I am always right.'
"House rules. Right first. Please keep your tone civil at the table."
The Russian opened his mouth to argue when the floor lifted beneath his feet. He stumbled, barely catching himself on the table.
By then, the dealer was already flicking out the cards, and laying out the rules in a smoker's monotone. The Russian sat back down in his chair, giving the Brit an unblinking scowl. The Brit leaned back in his chair with a look so smug you might think he had already won the game.
Someone in the back, a woman with a maple leaf on her lapel, was fiddling with something under the table. The man to her right peered over her shoulder and gasped.
"Cheating! She is cheating!"
"What?" the woman looked up, her face flushed, "I am not!"
"Yes you are!"
"How can you possibly-"
The accuser flipped over the card he had just been dealt: an Ace of Hearts.
"There is only one Ace of Hearts!" he shouted, knocking over his chair as he stood up, "You have Ace of Hearts too! You cheater!"
"How did you know what she had in her hand?" the Russian demanded from across the table, "I think you are cheater, too!"
Next to the Russian, the yellow/green skinned man made a clucking sound once - twice - and a spray of bright orange vomit erupted from his mouth and nostrils, splattering chunks of orange on the table. The room exploded into a thunderstorm of voices. Cards went flying. Glasses crashed to the floor. People clawed at each other's chips. Someone pulled out a knife and stabbed it, quivering, into the center of the table.
In the back, the spectators sighed.
"Well, James, I think it's safe to say this is one of the UN's worst ideas ever."
"Truly."
***
*For more* truly *terrible stories, check out /r/PSHoffman.* | Several big names had fallen early. Trump ("With this name, how could I lose?") went all in four hands into the game and was trumped himself - Putin's straight to the American's three kings.
The table was almost empty now. Only those with the biggest pockets, or Lady Luck on their side, remained. James Bond surveyed his competition and silently savoured the thrill of the game.
Putin was still in, playing a daring but calculated game. The ticker tape at the bottom of the live feed had taken to calling him the Russian lion, between announcements about the uprisings in numerous cities across the globe. Opposite him was Merkel. She had made big gains from the small fish, but she was slowly bleeding chips to the bigger sharks. The German chancellor was the big blind on this hand, and she pushed her 100 million dollar chip across the table looking as green as the felt.
As the only non head of state left playing, Bond was seated at the far end of the table. He looked impassively at the two cards flicked his way by the dealer, Ban Ki-moon. A two and a jack.
The secretary general turned over three cards in the center of the table. A nine, a king, and another two.
Xi Jinping was the little blind. He would have to fork out another 50 million chip to stay in the hand, but he had deep pockets. Netanyahu and Lee Hsien Loong folded.
Putin glanced down at his cards again. There. Bond thought he saw it again. Had that been his tell?
"Raise," the Russian said, pushing a half billion chip across the table.
All eyes turned to Bond.
Bond held Putin's gaze, and casually tossed one of the big gold chips onto the felt.
---
*Read more of my stories at* /r/jd_rallage | 2016-03-08T09:28:15 | 2016-03-08T09:17:53 | 100 | 64 |
[WP] In your world, your physical appearance reflects the kind of person you are - you do good, you look good. One day on the news you see that the police is looking for somebody who allegedly murdered 15 people. They show a picture of the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life. | It’s tough working in law enforcement when everyone’s appearances are based on morality.
I walk into the station, with dawn at my back, and am greeted with the typical dimly lit scene; A handful of the ugliest people you’ve ever seen, handcuffed, going through paperwork with my frankly, not much better looking coworkers.
I do my best to slip by unnoticed into the break room to get some coffee. To my chagrin, Frank must have spotted me as he follows me through the open door.
“Wow, Brad,” he says, approaching me and reaches out his hands to grab my arm.
“You’ve been working out haven’t you? You’re looking jacked, man.”
“Nice try, Frank,” I smile without looking up as I fill my *World’s Greatest Dad* mug, “but that shit’s not going to fix that nose anytime soon.”
He laughs, “eh fuck it, it’s worth a shot, eh?”
He goes over to the aluminum paper towel dispenser to peer into his reflection, retrieves a comb from his pocket, and slides it delicately through his hair.
“I’ve got a hot date tonight and I could use all the help I can get,” he says.
I chuckle and watch the creamer swirl in my coffee as I stirred.
“Tell you what,” I say, “you catch a bad guy today and I guarantee those gray hairs will disappear by tonight.”
“Gray?!,” he shouts, frantically searching his hair awkwardly in the reflection, trying to get a better view. “Oh man, I knew I shouldn’t have flipped off that old lady this morning, but for god sakes I didn’t know she was old until I drove by her! It was too late!”
I raise my mug and wink, “Gotcha.”
I turn towards the door and head back to my office.
“Oh, I’m going to get you back!” I hear him say.
I walk into my office, close the door behind me, and lower the blinds. I’ve got loads to sort through today, and I don’t need any interruptions.
I pull out the fifteen manilla folders from my drawer next to my stashed bottle of whisky. I have a feeling I’m going to need that later.
I open the first folder, and look through the gruesome pictures I have all but burned into my memory. How could someone commit such an atrocious act of seemingly random violence. I open the next folder, and the next, and before long I have the scene of a massacre sprawled across my desk. Blood, dismemberment, disembowelment. Whoever the killer is has got to be the ugliest mother fucker alive.
I’d been working on the case for six months now, since the first connected murder. If I could just beat the feds to cracking this case, they’d make me lead detective for the NYPD, I know it. But so far, my leads are few and far between.
Hours pass as I scrounge through my notes again and again, meticulously retracing the few breadcrumbs left on the scene by the killer. No fingerprints, no viable DNA. The only real trace we have is a stick-on nail found stuck inside the neck of a partially decapitated victim. It was an oddly familiar turquoise, the origins of which I couldn’t quite place. The killer was a woman, that was obvious, but there’s plenty of ugly woman in this city. Far too many to interrogate each, and probably against a dozen discrimination codes. I stroked my goatee.
At that moment there was a knock at my door.
“Busy,” I shout back.
“Um, sir, I think you’ll want to hear this,” I recognize deputy Shellner on the other side.
“Fine,” I reluctantly say, quietly returning the whisky bottle to my drawer. “Come in.”
Deputy Shellner enters. He’s a tall slender man that is notably dashing. I always liked the kid. Quite charismatic and smart to boot.
“The fed’s got her,” he says quietly, avoiding eye contact. He knew what this case meant.
“God damn it,” I feel the blood rush to my face. I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, the killer has been caught after all, which is good, but this is damning to my career. I dropped the ball on this one.
“Well who is it?” I ask, collecting myself.
“The media’s covering it. Channel five.”
I reach over my desk and grab the boxy remote for my old tv set, click the power button, and flip to channel five.
“The hunt is over, as the FBI has finally detained the notorious east coast killer. Just six months ago, this woman-”
A picture of the killer flashes on the screen as the reporter continues, but his words drown into the background of my focus.
I’m immediately taken aback. I feel like I’m falling, and I get nauseous. How? How could this be? Where did I do wrong? I stare at the screen, at the most beautiful woman I had ever laid my eyes on.
“God she is quite hideous isn’t she sir,” I hear him say, but my eyes dare not stray from the tv.
Her face was pale and cracked. Her lips drooped down showing her few remaining bottom teeth, which were yellow and rotting. She looked twenty years older than her age, as she was riddled with deep wrinkles. I see the all too familiar shade of turquoise, powdered against her blotchy eyelids in vain. The turquoise... I understand it now.
My eyes swell as I reach over and delicately grab my precious framed photograph off my desk. My fingers lightly graze the side of a beautiful young woman’s cheek in the picture. She had wonderful turquoise colored eyeshadow. That’s always been her favorite color. Ever since she was a child.
“That woman,” I am barely able to say, “That woman is my sweet little girl.”
 
---
Hey everyone! Thanks for reading. I've got a sub, /r/perpetuallymeh. Check it out. You'd be the first. | Eve couldn’t decide whether she wanted to walk free or get the electric chair. For days, the lawyers argued, the jurors mumbled, and the judge screamed. This was the most publicized court case to date and her, the most beautiful woman in the world. Even during the opening arguments, the cameramen found themselves panning over to Eve.
“She’s innocent!” her lawyer, Mr. Natas, told the jury. “I mean, just look at her! Do you think a woman of such beauty can commit those crimes without getting even a single wrinkle?”
It always came down to beauty. That’s all the world saw in her and now, that’s what would either kill her or save her. Eve sighed. Was that really all she was worth?
“We have evidence!” the prosecutor, Adam, cried. “Fingerprints on the murder weapons. DNA at the crime scene. She has no alibi and video footage places her at the scene at the time of the murders.”
“I understand,” Mr. Natas said. “But I return to my original contention. She is beautiful. Are you suggesting that there is a way to commit such atrocities without begetting a single wrinkle?”
Adam went silent. The outcome of this case hinged on a single word, but one he could not say. For decades, society had been built on the phenomenon of beautification. It had happened nearly overnight and they were soon to notice that the better the person acted, the more beautiful they looked. Using this as evidence, they had prosecuted countless criminals and by now admitting to any exceptions to the rule, every criminal prosecuted in the last decade would need a re-trial or would walk free.
Eve stared at Adam with glistening eyes and a swell of air rising through her chest. She wanted to be damned. She wanted the world to see her as more than just a pretty face, even if it was as a killer. All her life, no matter what she did, she only became more beautiful. She had confessed before, but people only assumed her to be lying for someone else's sake. How else could they explain her beauty?
So she went out to prove her own ugliness with the most heinous sin she could think of--murder. Now, she needed just a single word for the world to truly see her.
“No,” Adam said—the wrong word. “Nobody is beyond the phenomenon.”
Mr. Natas grinned. Eve cried. And Adam hid his face from the jury. It was an open-and-shut case. Eve was far too beautiful to have committed crimes so horrendous.
“Then I rest my case,” Mr. Natas told the judge, the jury, and God Himself.
---
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/r/jraywang for daily WP stories, continuations by popular demand, and more! | 2017-06-12T07:19:38 | 2017-06-12T06:51:36 | 1,359 | 55 |
[WP] You were bitten by a zombie last week, but unlike the rest of the zombies you have maintained at least some of your consciousness. You do not understand why everybody is so obsessed with brains, you just want a sandwich. | Ariadne held her breath- but to her, that was nothing special. Breathing was something that now occurred out of habit. Something she did for comfort but not necessity.
Thick Kevlar sleeves covered her arms and at her hip hung three weapons, each for a different range of combat. There was Glock, dubbed the "See Another Day" by her team, since the targets were a few seconds away when it came into play. Then the sawed off shotgun, the "Oh *Shit*", for when the enemy was close enough to strike. And last was the machete, known as the "Already Dead"- because if the target was close enough to strike, your fate was already sealed.
Of her entire team, Ariadne was the only one to have successfully used the "Already Dead". The three notches carved into the blade earned her respectful nods from even the most seasoned veterans, and hushed whispers from the new recruits.
Of course, they didn't have the advantage she possessed. But none of them knew that, either.
"Target sighted," Announced her team captain, as they crouched behind the squad car, and Ariadne gripped her "See Another Day", squinting through the darkness at the shape approaching. Her captain needed the night vision goggles to make out the target, but to her, the lumbering form was as clear in the darkness as a brightly lit day. Her hairs rose on the back of her neck at the sight, and she swallowed the saliva building in her mouth.
Her team was crouched outside a Jimmy Johns, the flickering neon sign drawing in the target like a magnet. Inside, the workers closed shop as the clock turned just past midnight, wrapping the ingredients for the refrigerator and drawing down the steel bars that protected the windows of the restaurant. They were unaware of the approaching form, one that had raided six sandwich shops in the past three weeks, converting over a dozen employees to his strain. And as her muscles tensed, Ariadne remembered the lesson she had on her first day at Zombie Force academy, long before she had been permitted on team hunts.
"The virus is unlike any other in history," Declared the Sargent, as he had walked down the row of desks. "It's *adaptable*, and it forms a craving. One could compare it to rabies, but it's more than that. You see, this virus has the ability to change what it seeks depending upon its environment. Of course, that was part of its design, before it escaped the lab. Back then, the scientists planned to use it on dogs, as a motivating force to find a desired material. Teach the virus to seek gold, and the hounds would sniff it out with an intensity unrivaled by even the most dedicated humans. Or perhaps drugs- the dogs would work all day and all night at busts, and their accuracy was unprecedented. It was simple- simply inject the virus into a canine with a needle coated with the target material to activate them. But those scientists never thought ahead to humans- and what would happen when the virus took root in human gums."
The Sargent snapped a ruler to the presentation in front of them, pointing to the pictures of Zombies on the board. All bore the telltale traits- the pale skin, the dead eyes, the fixated look of absolute determination. And each had a label - HumanHunter, BovineSnatcher, PlasticConsumer. Then he continued, his voice both hard and instructional.
"There, in the human gums the virus senses what the host had last eaten, and drive the host with an insatiable urge to continue consuming that item. All those infected from the original host bore the same desire. Should a Zombie that hunts humans bite a human, then the next zombie will also hunt humans. But if they bite a human after, say, eating a sandwich- well, that next Zombie doesn't hunt humans. Rather it hunts sandwiches, as a SandwhichSequester, but bites anything in its way and turns them to SandwhichSequesters too."
Now, as Ariadne darted behind the dumpster of the Jimmy Johns, she smiled as she remembered those days. The days of innocence, before *she* had been changed. When she had actually feared a SandwhichSequester, one of the most popular types of Zombies, but one of the easiest to kill. And now she heard the labored breathing from thirty yards away, the target approaching faster as he smelled the Jimmy Johns.
But Ariadne could smell him too, as she felt the familiar animal instinct taking over. For it had been a full year since she'd been bitten by a Zombie after it had fought another Zombie- injecting her skin with both virus and Zombie skin through the puncture marks of its teeth. And now, the insatiable urge came to her, the craving drive to eradicate the enemy in front of her. As the title of Zombie Hunter described not only her career, but the new essence of her being.
With a swift movement, she holstered her "Live Another Day", and pulled the machete from her belt, letting the SandwichSequester come even closer. Today, she would earn another notch on the blade.
That way she could lick up the Zombie blood afterwards.
***
By Leo | To my right, I heard the screams of another human dying, as my people tore him limb from limb, fighting each other for the juiciest parts of his anatomy. It was terribly uncouth. Eating somebody raw like that was sure to bring you food poisoning, not to mention diseases like prions. Indeed, in just a couple of weeks it seemed like everybody had simply forgotten what fine dining is.
I mean, I went to the fanciest restaurant in town a week ago, hoping to find some nicely grilled human steak, or even a delicious liver pâté, but what do I find? Absolute chaos. The wait staff was completely unprepared, they didn’t even approach me for my order, and when they finally did come over to my table, they simply threw an arm on my table. Just like that. No presentation, no cooking, no pride in their craftsmanship. One of the finest restaurants in Manhattan, simply throwing their reputation out of the window. Absolutely *disgusting*.
Ever since then, I’ve been looking through every barely functioning place of dining for some semblance of normalcy, but for the last couple of days, all I’ve been finding are assholes with frying pans, who think that just because they walked into the kitchen, they can make something. It simply isn’t true.
But today, I had a good feeling. It seemed like the sun was shining just a little bit brighter as I walked into a diner, and took a good sniff. It was the smell of cooking meat, something that I savored. As the waitress groaned and shuffled me over to the nearest table, I found myself trembling in anticipation. It was another five minutes until the chef himself came out and presented me with a burger on a plate. Human seared to perfection, he gave me a small smile as I accepted it.
I took one bite, and knew that I had found it. “Finally, some good fucking food.”
\--------------------------------------
/r/Wheezywrites | 2019-01-19T21:04:45 | 2019-01-19T20:37:29 | 83 | 35 |
[WP] You work a self-sufficient desk job in an office. Every single day, the co-workers in your neighboring cubicles are completely different people. Even though you never recognize them, they always recognize you. After years you've just accepted this, but lately the strangers are getting weirder. | Connor was hunched over his desk, doing what he did best, ignoring everything. The numbers on his screen swirled around into hieroglyphs till he couldn't understand what was going on. What was he doing here, in this place.
"Hey bucko. How're you today?"
Another new face. "I'm doing good. How're you today?" Connor had a smile on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Just happy to be alive."
"Aren't we all."
The stranger gave Connor the finger guns and walked away. Connor looked at the email he was writing and realized it was all gibberish. He struggled to remember what he was supposed to be doing here.
He got up, frustrated. He knocked over his yellow coffee cup with a smiley face on it. No one in the cubicles around him batted an eye. He looked around at the office building, cubicles sprawled as far as his eye could see. Everything was always the same, except the people. The people were all different. He was the only constant, in this unchanging maze that he couldn't escape.
As he left to grab a new cup, he looked out the window, where a red car was coming towards their building. It was a pretty ordinary car and would've hardly been noticeable except they were on the 16th floor.
Connor wanted to scream but he seemed to have lost his voice. He wanted to run towards the window even if it would likely achieve nothing.
The car crashed through window, smashing through a couple of potted plants and destroying a desk. The woman on the desk crashed through the next cubicle's wall. Connor looked at the mess, his mouth hanging open.
The woman got up, tidying up her clothes. "What a mess! People really need to be better about parking their cars. And that plant! Poor dear." Then she pulled her chair to an upright position and sat in front of her computer, which has been destroyed beyond repair and continued typing.
Connor looked at all of this, sure he was losing her mind. The feeling got even stronger when the driver of the car got out. She wore a white wedding dress, and carried a bouquet of flowers. She made a beeline for Connor.
"We have to go!"
"I'm sorry? Who are you?" Connor backed away from her.
"No time to explain. Come with me."
Connor looked around at everyone in his office. None of them were reacting to any of it.
"No one's gonna notice anything, Connor. They're not real. Come with me."
"I..."
The woman in white didn't wait for him to answer. She grabbed his hand and led him to the elevators.
"Who are you?"
The woman looked at the numbers and after much deliberation picked 33, the top floor.
"Where are we going?"
"You ask a lot of questions. Good for you."
"I'm not going anywhere with you till you tell me who you are."
"Ok. You can get off at this floor and go back to work then." She pressed the button and the elevator stopped at the 22nd floor.
Connor hadn't expected this.
"Come on then. I still need to go up."
Connor sheepishly pressed the button to close the doors and the elevator continued upwards.
"I will answer your question anyways. I don't know my name. I have a feeling it's either Caroline or Coraline. But I can't be sure."
"How can you not know what your name is?"
"Cause I'm not real. Just like any of your coworkers."
Before he could continue, the elevator door opened and the woman rushed out. Connor meekly followed.
She looked around. "Is there any way to access the roof?"
"I don't really know. I've never been here."
"Hmm Ok." She started walking towards the end of the corridor, looking for something.
"What do you mean you're not real?"
"Well none of this is real, Connor. We're all just creations of your dying mind."
"My dying mind?"
"You're getting weaker. Which is why your delusion is breaking down. The memories are going away. You probably don't remember anyone. Hence, I don't remember myself. I've just been calling myself C to hedge my bets."
"I don't understand any of this."
"You don't need to." She had found stairs leading up to the roof. She tried the door but it was locked.
"Why are we going up there?"
"We need a kick. A jolt."
"What does that mean?"
"Connor, can you open this door for me?"
"I don't know how I could."
"Close your eyes. Try and remember something from your childhood."
"I'm sorry?"
"What was your mother's name? What was your father's? Any memory would do."
"I..." Connor hesitated. It was weird. He had nothing.
She looked at her wedding dress. "Oh! Do you remember the day you got married? Anything about your wife?"
"I don't rem..." An image came to him. It was an outdoor ceremony. Very small gathering. He remembered someone... she walked down the aisle. He couldn't see her face but he just remembered feeling lucky. She kept coming towards him as she...
"Cool! It worked."
Connor looked and saw that the door had opened a crack. C pulled at it with all her strength.
"No wait! I need to remember her. I need to remember my wife. Are you her?"
"No time. Come on."
She led him to the roof. Connor looked around him at the crumbling buildings. "What's going on? This isn't how things look out of the window."
"The window is a lie. It shows you a static memory. This is the reality."
"This is something out of a post apoc movie." His mind flashed back to a few movies. He couldn't remember any names but he was sure he used to love those.
Then as if my magic, the shattered windows on the opposite building repaired themselves.
"Good. You're starting to remember. But it won't be enough. I should've found you sooner."
"C, what's going on? Are you my wife?"
"I suppose I am. But very likely this isn't what I look like. As I said, your brain is dying and memories are fading. For all I know, you gave me the face of your celebrity crush."
"So what now?"
"We need to give you a jolt. A little push to get everything work again. Turn it off and turn it back on again, if you will."
He remembered something else. A nerdy looking guy with a british accent saying something to the effect. He had loved that show even if he couldn't remember its name. "What do you mean?"
"It means you need to jump."
"I'll die."
"You aren't exactly alive right now, Connor."
He looked at her horrified. "C, I can't. I can't do that." He retreated towards the door.
"Connor, this is your only chance."
"I can't! I can't jump off a building."
A crowd of people appeared on the other side of the door. It was people he had just seen in his office. At least he thought they were. They all addressed him in unison. "Come back to us Connor. You'll be safe there."
"Don't listen to them, Connor. It might be safe there, but it isn't real. This is a chance you have to take."
"C, I can't..."
The crowd all turned their heads to look at C. They all pointed towards her. "Temptress!"
They moved towards her as she backed away from them, towards the edge of the roof.
Connor rushed towards her. "Stop!"
But it was too late. She stumbled and fell into the void below.
The group turned towards Connor. Everyone had smiles on their faces. "We will all be alright Connor. We are all safe now."
Connor saw their smiles and knew that he didn't want to be back in the office. Not anymore. He took a step as the voices all shouted at him to stop.
But there was no stopping him anymore. He felt the wind through his hair as he fell towards the dark unknown.
*********
City News
Local Man wakes up after 5 years in a coma.
By - Shirley McGrath
Connor Smith, a 34 year old man, woke up today after 5 years of being in a coma. You might recall that he had been injured when a construction crane had collapsed and fell into an office building downtown, killing 5 people and injuring 11. Most of the injured had recovered except Connor who had suffered severe head injuries and had been in a coma since then. His wife Constance thanked everyone for their prayers and support she had received from friends, family and strangers alike. | "Hey Linda,"
The man smiled earnestly at me as I walked through the grey maze of cubicles, heading for my own. He looked bland and unassuming, in a pea-green oxford and khaki slacks, and as usual, I had no idea who he was.
"Good morning," I nodded to him as I walked past, my coffee and bagel held like a shield between us.
It was best to respond, I'd found. Ignoring them just made them want to talk to me, and I avoided that at all costs. Worse than getting pulled into pointless chitchat with coworkers, was getting pulled in and learning details about them and their lives, only to never see them again. My mind already swirled with random factoids about colleagues who'd vented to me endlessly about their petty problems, only to never show their faces in the office again. I wondered briefly how that diabetic cat was doing. Had that been Ellen's? Or Paige's? One of the people from that first month, when I'd still tried.
It was a simple job, as I'd been told when I answered the call from the agency a little over four years ago. Files show up in my email inbox, I crunch some numbers, write up a report, and I send it out. It was a great fit with the accounting degree I'd had to give up. The pay wasn't great, but it was enough for a small studio apartment close to the city centre, and food for my Beta fish. I figured I didn't need much more than that. I had simple tastes.
"Linda."
I nearly jumped out of my skin as I felt a hand land on my shoulder. The coffee sloshed onto my crisp white shirt, and I let out a yelp of surprise.
"Oh my god, I'm such a clutz, I -"
I bit back a profanity that wanted to escape and tried to balance my breakfast in one hand while I dug into my purse with the other for something to blot the stain.
"I startle so easily," I explained, turning back to face the man.
He stood so close I could see a streak of stubble that he'd missed while shaving. My heart was still pounding from the shock. I took a step back, reflexively.
"Didn't mean to startle you." He was still smiling, and it struck me as odd, but I couldn't put my finger on why. "I just wanted to wish you good luck today, with the performance review."
"The... what?"
I'd never had a performance review, in all the years I'd been there. In fact, in all that time, I'd never even met my superior, or interacted with anyone else face to face other than the endless stream of cubicle dwellers that came and went on my floor. I cast my mind back trying to recall if I'd missed an important email or meeting invitation, but all that ever came into my inbox were spreadsheets and more spreadsheets.
He chuckled, "Yeah, yeah, I know I've been talking your ear off about it lately. Anyway, I know this is your big chance for a promotion, so good luck! Let me know how it goes."
"Right," I said, forcing a smile. I needed to get away from this man. "You know me! Go-getter Linda."
I paused for a beat, but cut in before he could respond, "Well, I better go do something about this stain before it sets. Can't meet the boss looking like this!"
"See you around!" he said, raising his own coffee cup at me in a salute.
I fled, careful to avoid meeting anyone else until I was safely within my cubicle's grey paneled walls. I sat down, and closed my eyes, trying to get my heartbeat to return to normal.
What the hell had he meant? This was the first time anyone had ever alluded to previous conversations with me. All my other interactions before had been very surface level - people who knew my name, but not people who seemed to have an idea about who I was. And yet, he'd gotten it so wrong. I was not a go-getter. I just wanted to keep my head down, do the work. Get a paycheck, go home, maybe read some books on the weekend. I did not want a promotion, this job, even with it's creepy disappearing coworker shit, suited me perfectly fine. And what was this about a performance review?
I opened my eyes and logged into my computer, my hands flying over the keys as I entered the familiar username and password. I found my email program and opened it. 4 new messages. I scrolled quickly through the past two weeks of messages, looking through the subject lines, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I entered the words "performance review" in the search bar, but nothing came up.
I slumped back down in my chair. Okay, so there was probably nothing to worry about. Some random weirdo had said some words, but they'd only made sense to him, and probably had nothing to do with me. It was all part of the big game that was happening around me in this weird, weird place, but I didn't have to take the bait. Today would be like every other day, and tomorrow the man would disappear and everything would go back to normal.
I chuckled. Was this really my idea of normal? | 2021-02-23T08:04:33 | 2021-02-23T07:32:32 | 233 | 59 |
[WP] Every time you die, your power brings you back a bit stronger. As you slowly become less and less human, the other heroes become more wary of you. Today, for the first time, you were mistakenly attacked as a monster…and no one is coming to help. | I can still remember the first time I died. It had been a game against Northmont High and I had the ball. I thought I had a clear shot to the endzone, but one of their linebackers hit me from the side. Must've hit me wrong because the next thing I knew, I was waking up surrounded by paramedics. They swore up and down that my heart had stopped, but the fact that I seemed even healthier than before shut them up real quick. We won that game, and even though I had an odd little bump along the back of my neck I went on to become the team's MVP.
My next death was after we won the state championship. Car accident. Me and some of the guys were celebrating like the stupid kids we were. Wound up crashing into a young families sedan. I was the only survivor. I spent a long time after that wallowing in guilt, and quickly found out that surviving that crash hadn't been a miracle.
I think I'd died around eight or nine times when I saw Captain Crash fighting ThunderClap. I remember everything moving in slow motion as I jumped in the way of T.C.'s energy bolt, followed by excruciating pain as I was blown to bits in front of the lady I jumped in front of. When I came to, T.C. had the Captain by the neck and was ready to fry him. So I pegged him with a fire hydrant. It felt good saving people. Seeing how happy that lady was to be alive, and knowing that I could use my powers to protect so many more people made it really easy to accept Captain Crash's invite to the Guild of Heroes.
It was nice at first. A lot of the heroes in the guild were a bit offput by the scars and burns that covered my body. Panacea even tried to help me with the odd tumor on the back of my neck. The worst was trying to figure out what to call myself. Quickest wanted to call me "Zombie Man," and although I considered it I decided to pass. Someone else suggested "The Revivinator," which I still think is the dumbest name I've ever heard. In the end we settled for Draugr.
I made it my mission to save as many lives as I could as Draugr, which is why the other heroes loved to take me along on their missions. Doesn't matter how messy the battle with Doctor Squidly gets if you have an immortal meat shield rushing to block any stray explosions or to catch any haphazardly thrown cars. Unsurprisingly, I lost track of how many times I died around then too.
My body quickly became barely recognizable as human as a result. Countless scars and burns made my skin as tough as iron and dull to most impacts. The growth on my neck got so big it made it impossible to look up without bending backwards, but it never really mattered much since my entire body grew so much that I towered over even the tallest superbeings. Eventually most of the other heroes stopped associating with me, only acknowledging me when they were going on a mission. Even the people I rescued started mistaking as some kind of abomination and would scramble away from me in fear, even if it made protecting them harder.
I didn't really care though, still don't. I don't need the people's praise or other heroes respect. I don't care how hideous or deformed I become. I don't even care how badly I'm maimed or crushed or blown to pieces, as long as I can prevent some little kids and their young parents from dying a senseless death. Which is why I dont understand where these accusations of me being a murderer and a monster are coming from. The way Quickest screams that at me as he dislocated my jaw at mach 10 makes it sound like he's serious, but that's gotta be wrong. I'd ask him what he's talking about, but it's hard to communicate when he keeps breaking my jaw before it can fully recover.
I reach out to stop him as he dashes in for another strike, but a steel beam pierces my body from behind, destroying all sorts of vital organs. As my consciousness fades away I can hear Captain Crash speaking to the Guild.
"I've destroyed Draugr's heart..... Yes I know we don't have much time..... Of course I'll be careful..... Don't worry, we'll figure ot why he killed Panacea soon enough." | Blood pools at my ears as a knife is ripped out of my throat. The purple hues of the setting sun above, obscured by branches. Scattered, scared voices. They won't stop screaming.
I struggle to my feet, and the insects back away. The wound closes. As they always do. I feel something pierce my ribs. Something's loosed an arrow from a thousand paces. I brush the twig in my lung aside, snapping it.
I hesitate before killing the first one. I'm sure, at one point, the screeching would have inspired pity. Concern, maybe. It's simply...too easy to switch off, now. Turn a neck a little too far, and...Snap. A sword buries itself in leaves. A polearm digs into my skull. I fall, and rise, as I'm meant to.
The screaming only gets louder. And so I turn it off. Snap. Snap. Snap. The insects get quieter. One by one. | 2022-08-26T16:00:23 | 2022-08-26T14:19:10 | 37 | 23 |
[WP] When you die, you are given an option—either be judged for your sins, or choose what’s behind The Door. The noble and arrogant choose to be judged, the evil and fearful choose The Door. When given the option, you choose to simply turn around and walk away. |
When you ignore the instructions of a god, you’d probably expect to be reprimanded. When you ignore the instructions of Death, you’d probably expect to be tortured for eternity. When you ignore the instructions of both, well, you’ll almost certainly face a punishment the human mind cannot even conceive. However, as I walked away from both omniscient entities, choosing to ignore their infinite wisdom and almost certainly insulting their egos, nothing happened.
Instead, I found myself wandering down an endless corridor with voids for walls and an opaque-material floor, looking down onto the Earth. Peaking over my shoulder, the holy figures that once seemed mighty and powerful faded into dots as if they were irrelevant rocks I’d passed on the road. But, the further I walked (and I could walk quite far without the limitations of a mortal body), the more doubt began to grow in my mind.
Should I have gone through the door? That’s what others had done. I’d watched the faint spirits of many doubt the morals of their past and step into oblivion. Equally, I’d seen many, heads held high, choose judgement. Yet, despite watching thousands, if not millions, make their decision, I had never found out the final verdict or destination of a single soul.
“But, surely going somewhere is better than going nowhere,” I stated aloud to myself, still trekking the endless path.
However, something kept me walking, voices from the past. The voices of warriors who would not give up: After all, what “real man” would allow someone to force them to make a decision where the outcome was uncertain? My father, before he died, had taught me that: To be the spearhead of my own destiny. That way, you always know what’s coming.
But I didn’t know what was coming. I could only move one foot in front of the other, down an endless corridor crossing the realms of the gods. I wonder what choice my father had made.
Choice.
In the land of the living, choice was the mother of uncertainty. While you could guess what outcomes your choices would make, you could never be certain. That’s why battle existed, to make your desires come to fruition - to eliminate the need to make future choices. That’s why we invaded the island: We needed food, and they had fertile soil. By taking that land, we eliminated the decisions of mothers who had to decide which child would be fed and which would starve. Of course, we had to kill, for nothing comes without paying blood. Y must be the spearhead of your own destiny.
Yet, here, I could not spearhead anything. I could only walk and pray. But pray to what?
Right then, I should have been feasting in the halls of Valhalla with my brothers, celebrating our victories and discussing our defeats, for at least we had died with honour. However, the gods had paid some cruel trick. Instead, I was nowhere, faced with a choice given by two foreign gods whom I had ignored. Yet, they had also ignored me and allowed me to walk away from their tyranny. They were weak gods. Even the English had fought to maintain their ideology, despite their heavy losses. No, this must be a test - A preliminary for Valhalla.
Maybe, I was in the realm of Loki’s daughter, Hel. But, I had not broken any oaths, murdered anyone in cold blood, or committed any adultery worthy of eternal horrors and damnation.
No, I had died in battle with a sword in my hand. I had died listening to the warcries of my men. I had died filled with adrenaline and holding the shield wall. I had fallen to a short sword, defending what I had rightfully claimed. I died with honour. No warrior deserves punishment for that.
I walked for a bit longer. I saw no one. Maybe, I had to make a choice, and my rebellion was for nothing.
Frida, my sister, would have chosen judgement: She was a kind soul whose never done anything wrong. She was a sorcerer, a healer. Although, maybe these gods would hate her for preventing them from collecting their spirits. They were weak gods; it would not surprise me. Nevertheless, perhaps I should have turned back and done what Frida would have done; she was intelligent. However, I was not righteous enough to trust in the courts of the gods.
My brother would have gone through the door. He would say that the door was there to test courage, to make sure you're worthy of going to Valhalla and not just a coward on the battlefield who happened to die with a sword. Maybe, he is right.
My father would be doing what I was doing, being the spearhead of his destiny. I hoped he was right.
Suddenly, the corridor turned a corner and came to an end. There was a door, guarded by no one. On the door, my name was carved: Bjorn. Was I expected?
Then, I had to make a choice: To open the door or not to open the door? The outcome of such an action would be uncertain: By principle, I should have ignored the door. Yet, I felt curiosity. I wanted to go somewhere, get answers, and this door had my name on it. Therefore, perhaps it held the answers I needed behind its oak panels.
I am the spearhead of my own destiny, without action I will only fall into complacency. I made a choice. | "Whoa whoa whoa buddy where do you think you're going?" Asked a disembodied voice.
"Over there." I reply pointing in a random direction.
"That's not even the direction you are walking!!!" The voice replies.
"I know but I'll get there eventually."
"No you are to come over here and make a choice." Replied the voice sounding stern.
"Nah that game sucks and needs replaced." I responded getting angry. "Also who the fuck put you in charge of people's sins? "
"I did, cause I run this place." The voice replied.
"The fuck you do otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make a different choice." I retorted. "Look at this idgit, thinking he is in control just because he said so."
Right on clue the laugh track kicked in and with a smile I said. "I'm gonna go that way because that's where the party is gonna be."
"Party? What party? Why don't I know about this? And where is that laughter coming from." Asked the voice, a hint of fear clearly noticeable.
"The welcome back party duh!." I replied. "The boss is finally coming back from vacation and I've been getting him back up to speed but my vacation is starting soon too. Once he gets back they are gonna be cleaning 🏠 🛖 🏚 🏡 🏘 🪴. "
"Don't worry no one is getting in trouble or fired. I've already fixed all the fuck ups but I'm never doing that again unless it's needed and if it's needed you are royally fucked cause that means the big dudes are not happy with your actions." I said with a yawn.
" Now I'm going to get in my RV and take a nap until the party starts." I said as I started climbing into a refurbished tour bus that suddenly appeared.
"Where the hell did that come from?!?!" Asked the voice.
"Same place everything comes from duh, my imagination." I said getting annoyed. "Now are you coming along for the ride or are we leaving without you?"
With that I laid down on the bed, locked the door and went to sleep. The last thing I heard before that was the RV door closing, the engine starting and a voice say
"Well I guess you need a driver. Just follow the GPS?
"Nah just start driving the boss will catch up when they are ready and give us a lift." | 2022-11-05T13:28:58 | 2022-11-05T10:38:18 | 40 | 11 |
[WP] There are many types of Mages in the world. Fire, Ice, Wind, Water, Death, Darkness, to name a few. But in this world, every type of mage is treated as equal. Everyone can be a good guy, no matter how dark your power. And anyone could be a bad guy, no matter how beautiful their ability...
Edit: Wow
I'm not even sure, this is not the prompt I expected to more than double my other highest, or get gold! Thank you so much! | They called her La Verre Rose, and she was beautiful.
She was not conventionally beautiful; but her features and the way she held herself made her beautiful nonetheless, and the way she dressed and held herself made her a sight to behold.
She carried herself like she was royalty and the ground she stood on was privileged to hold her weight. She moved fluidly and tended to take the path of least resistance; like a stream of water lazily finding its way down a slope. Her favorite color was a rich red; she always found a way to work it into her clothing, and her lips and nails never failed to be painted in it. Her hair was a color so dark it only showed its color when light was behind her, and she was tall, elegant thing with sharp features and eyes a grey so piercing it burned into your soul and the glint within them carried a promise of a million amazing things to any poor fool that found themselves caught in her gaze.
You could call it magic; but while she possessed the skill in spades, that wasn’t the type of mage she was; no;
She used ice, and she used glass.
Before she earned the title, in a time where her gaze was softer, her name was Samanta, and she owned a shop that sold works made of glass.
Her creations were beautiful - crystalline towers and figurines of line and the lightest touches of color; works that made mesmerizing patterns in the sunlight. People would commission from her anything from grand memorial statues to elegant dinnerware, and she took her time; some orders took weeks to complete, but the detail in her works were unparalleled and the results were exquisite.
Like everyone else, she had a past. She wasn’t always a resident in this city, and she moved in along with hundreds of other refugees from a small city in a neighboring country that was faced with a string of violent murders where the victims would be cut into shreds. When she was asked about it, like many refugees, she shrugged it off and said that it was becoming too violent and that she had seen too many die to live there anymore. And then she would shake her head, make a quip, smile, laugh, and continue working.
It wasn’t long before she was hired by the Emperor, per request of his Empress, to fill the role of ‘Court Mage’, and while all mages were supposed to be equal, that title was previously seen by the gifted circles as one belonging to mere petty stage magicians or one above court jester. Samanta, however, turned it into one of elegance and respect. She had to entertain the emperor’s guests, and she did away with the common petty parlor tricks; and in came grand shows of light and color; sculptures of ice on the dining table that seemed to come to life and poured patrons chilled drinks; music made from vibrations resonating through her art; all the evenings were delightful and at the very end guests would receive a small glass trinket to bring home with them, created with her own two hands.
Samanta’s favorite thing to create was roses.
In the palace grounds, when she was hired, they gave her a room. When she proved herself to be a wonderful entertainer, they gave her a studio;
When they walked into the studio a month after the gifted it to her, The Empress gazed upon the hundreds and hundreds of glass roses climbing the walls and gave her a plot of land in which to make a garden.
It didn’t take long for word to spread of the Glass Garden in the royal palace of Kaverna. Aristocrats and wealthy merchants traveled far to spend a day strolling amongst it, and often brought many, many gifts. Other mages and glassblowers attempted to recreate Samanta’s roses to varying levels of success - but none could manage the level of detail she placed in each petal.
It helped bring a new era of diplomacy and soon Kaverna became a place of wealth thanks to the tourism and trade. People came to the city to see the glass works, to see the palace gardens, to see her. It was around then she earned the name, La Verre Rose.
But, like everyone knows; a rose has its thorns, and one made of glass can have petals as sharp as razors.
When an attempt on the lives of the royal family was made, Samanta stepped in and prevented the assassination. She had, with a wave of her hand, summoned shards of glass to cut through him from a million angles.
In the time it took the royal family to blink, the assassin had become ribbons of flesh on the marble floor and blood painted the walls and when they turned their gaze to their savior and the first thing that they realized was that the red she always wore on her clothes and on her lips and her nails and used on her most favorite roses was the exact deep red of blood leaving a freshly killed body.
The second was that she was looking at the corpse, and smiling as fondly as one would at a lover.
| Of Wizards, it is known that they are highly dangerous beings of terrific power. All across Midgard, they are kept occupied by quests and adventures.
It was after the aftermath of one adventure that sunk the ancient peace loving nation of Avulsey to the sea that a small team of 1 to 4 Wizards learnt of the Dark Lord Totali Knot-Sauron, who was building an army to the East.
After re-learning the elemental spells in a helpful tutorial, voiced by a black cloaked figure who vas very handsome and not at all a vampire, they journeyed westward to vanquish their loot-holding foe.
---
After blowing up several villages and decimating to 1/10th the population of goblin tribes, the one to four heroes, each with elemental magics being used successfully reached the Dread Tower of the Dark Lord Totali Knott-Sauron.
Upon finding the door was locked, and their spells didn't work, they buggered off south to go on holiday somewhere tropical.
When they returned, 12 years later, the Dark Lord Totali-Knott Sauron had created a free hospital service where trained land-orca whales would treat humans for all aliments.
Seeing this as the big plot it is, the wizards froze the Dark Lord then chucked him in a conjured volcano for ten minutes until fully cooked.
They rejoiced as the nation went into a dark age of terror under the rule of wizards, as the Dark Lord did a lot of good for the people.
By Tyr's Day they got bored and returned to Castle Alfheim. | 2016-11-12T13:01:10 | 2016-11-12T10:02:44 | 23 | 11 |
[WP] You are the villain in a typical superhero story. Knowing that the superhero must win in the end, you try and stall killing your victim as much as possible for the hero to swoop in at the last minute. However, the hero seems to be taking a while. | "With one slice of my blade you will plummet to your death! My sharks will devour your flesh and there is nothing anyone can do to stop this! Muahahahaha!" I threw my shoulders back in a dramatic laugh, cape billowing behind me.
The laugh faded in the corners of the cavern, leaving only the sound of splashing shark fins and the dramatic sobs of the woman hanging in a tangle of ropes above them. I cleared my throat. "I said, *there's nothing anyone can do to stop this.*"
Reverberating words jumbled with her heightened sobs, and I peered at the shadows near the "secret" back entrance that happened to be guarded by the thickest-looking humans I could find at Walmart. Shit. Where was he?
"Why are you doing this?" the woman managed to wheeze out between sobs. Her normally pretty face was blotchy, and snot ran down her chin.
"Ha! Yes, of course, I will tell you why," I shouted, adjusting my cape as the wind from hidden fans tangled it around my neck. "There is a very, very, exceptionally good reason why!" Each word sounded like an explosion. Hopefully the idiot would hear and find the cavern soon.
"Um, ok," she said when nothing happened. Her voice was practically a whimper. "So... why?"
Great, what was I suppose to say? 'Your boyfriend's a moron with a superiority complex, and as his arch nemesis it's my job to keep him off the streets and out of the police chief's hair?' I was pretty sure that'd be a breach of contract. "I-I was born at midnight under the blood moon," I ventured. The words were made more impressive when a shark sent up a wave of water. It was less impressive when the water hit me too, but I doubted anyone would see that in the dim lighting. "People feared me, sensing even then the power I would wield."
"How?"
"Huh?"
She was eyeing me, snot and tears drying on her face. "I said, 'how?' I mean, you were a kid. Not exactly terrifying. Could you, like, eat more paste anyone else?"
I scowled and fingered my knife. I liked her more when she was sobbing. "No, I didn't *eat more paste*. They could, um, sense the dark cloud over my soul."
"So everyone you knew was psychic?"
"Wha--yes. Yes, they were psychic. All of them." I heard a scuffling near the 'secret' entrance. *Finally.* I'd just have to kill a few more seconds. "It was a terrible childhood with them around reading my dark, devious thoughts." A quick glance showed nothing had changed. "It drove me to be better, stronger, and I swore I would never let anyone control me again." Still nothing. "So I'm going to take over the world!" I threw my arms open, the cape raising like a storm behind me, and I let out a laugh that would send shivers down any man's spine.
A rat scurried across the floor. Drat! That hadn't even been him?!
She raised an eyebrow. "By stringing me up over sharks? How does that help you take over the world?"
"Um, it, uh," I gagged as the cape tangled around my throat again. Yanking it, I managed to gurgle, "it will break your billionaire boyfriend's heart, and in his misery he won't--" *gasp*-- "be able to stop me."
"Wait, are you talking about John? John Dover?"
The cape loosened for a moment. "Of course."
"The guy's a moron!"
"You're his girlfriend."
"He's rich and hot; duh, I'm his girlfriend. But seriously, I've met rocks more intelligent."
I tugged the cape again. "He's not that bad."
"The guy was stranded for three hours on an escalator because it stopped moving."
"Anyone could make that mistake."
"He tried to sue the sun when he laid out too long and got burned."
"It was a pretty jerky move on the sun's part."
"He so firmly believed that TV's are portals that he ran into every one he saw for a month and ended up in the hospital *twelve times.*"
"Fourteen, actually. I sent flowers."
"You mean to say *that* is who is keeping you from taking over the world?"
"Well... yes."
She sagged in her ropes. "I'm going to be murdered by an imbecile."
"Look, we've all got our issues." I snapped. "I'm cold, wet, and tired. You know how hard it is to lose to these guys?" She stared blankly at me, but the words kept coming. "Superman has an ego so large he goes into poses and forgets he's suppose to be stopping you, Batman is manic-depressant--one wrong word and he'll kill himself, and your boyfriend can't even be on time to save the world!" I stomped on the fans, smashing them to pieces. "Not to mention the fights, those stupid fights! Do you know how many times I've had to lose to a roundhouse kick? What kind of moron uses a *roundhouse kick*?!" I yanked off my cape, tossing it to the ground. "Forget it. I'm done."
I smashed open the unlocked reinforced door. Behind me she whined, "but what about me?"
"You're a manipulative, judgmental, self-serving child. Figure it out yourself for once." | "What's taking him so long?" The cloaked figure whispered. "This isn't like him..."
The hostage slowly started to lose consciousness as the blood flowed to his head. He was hanging upside down in a net that was triggered when his foot hit the tripline.
It was cold. It was dark.
"Something's not right..."
The cloaked figure couldn't decide what to do. He knew what had to happen.
"Dang it. Do I really have to do this?" He mumbled to himself.
He started walking to his nemesis' lair. He still couldn't believe he was doing this... That he *had* to do this.
Finally he made it. He banged on the steel door. Nothing. He tried again. Still, nothing. He drew his laser blaster, and in one swift motion, blew down the door from it's hinges. He holstered his weapon, and took a few steps inside, inspecting his surroundings, staying cautious. Maybe this was a new tactic his rival was trying. He stayed on his toes. He made his way into the main section of the lair. He saw something. Something was in the middle of the floor. He made his way closer.
Closer.
Then he saw it.
Blood, in a straight spatter.
A spilled bottle of whiskey on the floor.
And there he was, sitting in a chair, keeled over. His arch rival. Dead. The gun was still in his hand.
"Suicide, seriously?" The cloaked figure said in comic disbelief. "Like, seriously? What, couldn't handle that superhero life? Too hard? Too many 'Thank yous', 'You're my hero', 'I love yous'?" He was sickened.
He knew there was nothing more to do here, so he made his way back to where he was keeping his hostage.
"There, now get out of here."
"You're letting me go?"
"Someone has to."
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
"Just hurry up and go, for Pete's sake!"
And with that the hostage quickly made his way back to his family, and humanity was restored for the night.
END. | 2016-01-02T09:01:22 | 2016-01-02T07:02:14 | 243 | 68 |
[WP] You're happily going about your day when you vanish in a cloud of smoke. Suddenly, you're standing in a ring of candles. A sorcerer holding a tome looks pleased with your arrival. Turns out Earth is Hell and we're the demons. You have just been summoned... | Damn Netflix!
​
Someday I'm going to grasp why I cannot, for the life of me, remember a damn password that I made up myself.
​
I, for one, blame all the auto-logins. If I lacked that convenience I'd probably have no issue using whatever streaming service I wanted when I got a new phone.
​
But the new S10 was settling in nicely, the hole punch was going to bother the ever loving crap out of me but every new phone has one now, so here I am, dealing with "edgeless" displays where the edge is moved into an annoying pinhole and--okay why is there a ton of O-Zone in the air suddenly?
​
Mild panic hits me as I try to assess what high tech electronic device is currently frying itself into oblivion when the scenery changes drastically.
​
I look down, yes that's a summoning circle at my feet. Looking up I spot several people with strange symbols carved into their foreheads and I can feel my eye twitch in frustration as I see them.
​
Either I'm dreaming thanks too many Isekai Anime lately or, by some horrible twist of fate--
​
"Oh, Great Demon! Bend to my will!" the lead summoner shouts.
​
Well Shit. Curse you multiverse theory!
​
I look around and see I'm standing in a courtyard of some kind. I heave a sigh, "Okay... I can see where this mix-up happened, and I fully get WHY you got *me* but I really need to exp-"
​
"There is no Mix-up, I shall bind you to me, demon!" he drags some poor sap in front of him, pulling out a ceremonial dagger. "With the cost of this soul, I shall make you my serv-"
​
I interrupt, "You're going to taint your soul in the process and suffer in the burning pits of Hell if you do that. Just, an fyi."
​
He stops, staring at me. "Pardon?"
​
"The scriptures skip that part, you see, you're going to sacrifice that person, but it's your soul that is traded, not theirs. It's the sin of killing for power, you know, Pride, Wrath, etc... all that good stuff." I notice I'm a fair bit taller than all these folks. I look around and pull out my phone. One of those damn Isekai's had this as some horrible weapon of sorts, and or God mode activator. Granted the Galaxy S10 didn't seem to have any new UI from before being summoned. I could toggle the wifi on and off, no signals or network of course. I grumble, "You guys better have a way to reverse this."
​
The main priest or sorcerer is flipping through his tomb's pages rather quickly, muttering through a few portions as he speeds reads.
​
"Bad idea to read partial incantations," I advise.
​
The summoner glares at me and shifts his attention back to the book, now reading in silence.
​
I poke at the edge of the circle with my pinky, seeing that I am pretty much stuck in the circle, for now, least until the guy manages to undo the spell or bind me to him. I have no intention of getting bound to some hapless summoner, thus the stalling. "Okay, you guys did get the circle right, good on you there. By any chance did you ask for the demon by name or...?" I trail off.
​
The others stare at the head summoner, a few in indignation.
​
"I knew it!" shouted one, "I knew it Fasstitidus! I knew it! you were supposed to name the damned demon to summon! I told you! But no, No I got the 'any demon will do!'" he harrumphed and stormed off. "I wasted a whole evening for this!"
​
I shook my head and looked to the main summoner, "Could you send me back? I've got things to do in my realm. Very important things. I'd suggest redoing the ritual but, you know, requesting a specific demon." I grumble, "Do NOT pick Belial. He's a dick."
​
He grumbles, "I don't know how to send you back, I hadn't thought of that! Why would I focus on sending an all-powerful demon 'Back' to the horror-filled world of the damned? I wanted one to serve me and be my minion!"
​
I cleared my throat, "Okay, send me back now or I start casting spells." I bluff.
​
"Oh, like what?"
​
"Solar Flare!" I shout as I turn on the flashlight to my phone, pointing at one of the summoners.
​
To my shock, he turns to dust.
​
Shit, I think to myself, shutting down the flashlight app. Samsung proving superior to Apple once more, never seen an iPhone vaporize someone before!
​
Fasstitdus falls to his knees, "Spare me o' mighty demon! Oh great and powerful--er, what's your name?"
​
"Just call me /u/Zithero \-- now send me back home, I have important stuff to do." I clear my throat, "and write." | "Oh. My. God. I CAN TELEPORT!?"
Gebann looked at his arms in shock as if unsure whether he truly disappeared before reappearing in a new location. It was a neat experience and all but surely all first-time teleporters had to ensure all their limbs were attached upon arriving at their destination. *Pretty sure it said that in a book somewhere...*
Drí was somewhat less ecstatic about this demons newfound claim to fame. After all, he was pretty sure it should be less of - 'I CAN TELEPORT' and more of - 'I was just summoned, I wonder how I can please my master?'
"Ahem"
Hearing the somewhat annoying sound of a sassafrass clearing their throat as if to impose their importance on the world, Gebann looked around with somewhat disgust. Sure this person might be accomplished or whatever, BUT COULD THEY TELEPORT!? That's right! They couldn't! Probably.
Turning around with his right hand on his hip so to face the source of the self-important attitude, Gebann noticed it was a somewhat derelict room with poor lighting.
"CAN I HELP YOU, PEBBLE!?" Gebann asked in the loudest voice he could before noticing that the person he had just been so rude to, was a girl. A somewhat pretty girl with slightly tanned skin, eyes black as the night and messy hair that seemed to consume her back.
*Ah fiddlesticks, mom is going to kill me.*
Drí let out a soft gasp and felt her face heat up.
*Did... did he just call me a pebble? Nobody ever called me a pebble before...*
Thankfully the demon didn't notice her reaction so she could still take the initiative.
"Demon I wo-"
"DEMON!? WHERE!?"
Gebann leaped over the girl and hid behind her back; he had never been good with dealing with frightening situations. Hopefully, the demon would eat her first and leave him be for giving it such a succulent sacrifice.
"HUH!?"
What was going on? Were the demons having a sort of civil war or something where powerful demons preyed on the weaker ones? His reaction completely took her by surprise and left her somewhat disappointed... Although, she had to admit that was a rather impressive jump he just did.
"Ermm... mister dem-"
Gebann felt his eyes tearing up and he clutched tightly onto the girl's leg, surely she could protect him. He didn't really want her to get eaten... that was just a joke!
Drí looked down at the demon and sighed when she saw how he reacted to hearing the word demon.
*Looks like we have a long road ahead of us huh bud...* | 2019-04-25T19:10:16 | 2019-04-25T17:30:01 | 42 | 23 |
[WP] After crying in your room for hours, suddenly you hear a voice under the bed. "Hey, you okay?" | There is a little girl, and she is all alone in the world.
Now, some of you might be wondering, 'how does such a thing happen?'
There are many ways in which it can happen, of course, some obvious, some not.
In the case, it was of a nature that I suspect that many of you can surmise promptly.
It was a hot, dry summer night, powered by the winds that swept off the dunes just outside the suburbs. It put me in the minds of the nights I'd spent in the streets of Babylon in my youth. The streets were less simple, the scent of the night markets and the glow of torches all that you had to guide your way. Or, failing that, there was always the moon.
There is no moon anymore. The mortals blot it out with their electricity and skyscrapers.
But that's enough of my musings, we return to the girl.
She's of about average height for her age, perhaps a little too thin, with a mop of chestnut hair that hangs low over her eyes. It's one of those types of hairstyles that you can never quite control, despite your best efforts. Right now, she's holding a teddy-bear, stained and worn. One of the eyes is sown back on, and it is leaking stuffing from the end of one of its arms.
It seems nauseatingly apropos, considering the bruises around her wrists and black eye.
I am of the old country. People created me because they didn't just *want* fear, they *needed* fear, and too teach that to their children. Fear of things that go bump in the night. Fear of things that slithered through the high grass. Fear of the great lumbering things that watched just below the surface of the Nile.
But they did not create me for this.
So instead of providing my... customary services, I decide to... what is that lovely human word? Ah, yes.
I 'improvise'.
"Are you alright?" I say, my voice less a hissing howl, or gravely growl, and more like... well, more like a 'friend', I suppose.
The girl nearly screams. But she won't, not because she is brave. Because she has been 'taught' not to.
I step out from under her bed, pulling back my cloak of sacred ibis feathers, that shield me from even the most tenacious of sights. Beneath is a emaciated body, spear-tips stabbing and ropes binding. Two swords, one of iron, and one of bronze, stick through my neck. My head is a strange, syncretic skull of bird and man and lion, with purple and yellow fires burning in their depths. Bronze, and silver and gold pendants and strung along on the cords that drape my body, each hammered with a different scene I wanted to remember.
"Hello, child," I say, in the kindest voice I know how to.
"W-w-w-w-who-who are you?" she say in one of the meekest voices I have ever heard.
"I am as old as the Tigris and the Euphrates, and I have had many names, by many different peoples," I crow. It's rare that I get too unveil my true self, and I am savoring it.
Seeing the look of confusion on the girl's face, I decide maybe that was a bit much.
"But you may call me The-Monster-Underneath," I say.
"A-a-are you going to hurt me?" she says.
"No. I hurt no-one," I say. For it is true, at least, not physically.
"Oh," she says.
The silence is palpable, and awkward. For the first time, in a very long time, I am unsure of how to proceed.
"You should go," she said, "if my dad catches you, he'll hurt you. He got in trouble last time, m-m-mom said, he hit someone in a bar."
"Is that so?" I say, "well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we?"
With that I vanish, back to the shadows, and the dark place between dreams and the grains of sand.
There is a man, sleeping alone, his wife far away from here. He's fully clothed, and the stench of cheap bourbon is upon him. That's good - alcohol tends to break down the walls of disbelief that separates adults and me. When next he opens his eyes, he cannot move, and something large, and very, *very* scary is perched over him.
He will not hit that little girl again, won't even think about it, for the rest of his days.
In time, I adapt my 'services'. I teach other children fear, and for those who have too much of it...
I tell stories. Stories of my youth, wrestling with the great cats of the Indian subcontinent. Swimming stealthily in the Nile, avoiding the attention of the great crocodile and the sacred Ibis, to pluck feathers to make my cloak. Watching the wars of Nebuchadnezzar and Ramesses II, fought with chariot and blades of bronze.
And as for the adults, the one that swear and hit and degrade and bully and abuse.
They have forgotten fear.
And I will remind them of it.
​
*I write all sorts of things, silly and serious, over at* /r/The_Alloqium | “AH!”
I scream out, jumping from the tear soaked covers of my bed.
“Who’s there!” I say, grabbing my bed-side lamp, and swinging it around as if it were a bat.
“Don’t worry. I mean no harm crying human!”
I could hear the voice echo throughout my room, it was rough, scratchy, something straight out of a horror movie. The source of the voice...my bed.
“My pillows can talk?!”
I ask, flipping over my pillows to reveal whatever lips they spoke from.
“What- no! Kid I’m the monster under your bed!”
The voice said, it’s raspy voice now spoke with a mildly confused tone.
“I knew you could talk pillows! No way our kisses were that passionate!” I say aloud, throwing my arms around the silky sheet-covered fluff.
“Bro..you kiss your pillows?” The voice said, trying it’s best to hold in its rising chuckle.
I drop the pillow, “yes, I do! you act as if you’ve ever kissed anyone either voice!”
The voice gasped, “how dare you! I have missed many people. my mother says im a very handsome beast!”
I snarled out, “your mother lied voice! you are hideous!”
“You don’t even know what I look like!” The voice said, and with that, a beast arose from under my bed, with black fur, red eyes, and scars lining his face, he truly was a horrifying sight.
“Calm your tits human, I know I’m hot.”
My jaw hit the floor, he was the most attractive beast I’ve ever seen.
“My uncle dresses up as a furry...but you...you are the most beautiful fur-covered man I have ever seen!” I squealed, jumping onto the beast.
“Marry me crying human!” The beast bellowed.
“I accept!” I yell out. He then picked me up and jumped through the window, and we ran into the sun set.
The end. No | 2021-03-16T06:51:21 | 2021-03-16T04:59:29 | 59 | 14 |
[WP] You are slowly beginning to realise that a classmate of yours may in fact unwittingly be from a separate but only *slightly* different timeline.
School setting and classmate is optional. Unwitting as in s(he) was surprised to find themself in a new timeline, is not particularly willing to find themself here, and occasionally maybe subtly tries to find ways to return to their original timeline. | When I was a kid, I remember adopting a stray dog off the street, keeping him in the attic, and feeding him the leftover dinner scraps. Everything went well until my parents found out two days later.
As of this morning, Jerry has been in my attic for a week. And he's a lot harder to care for than a mutt.
One week ago, my parents had been out to dinner while I had been left home alone, watching Netflix instead of doing homework. The rain patterned down outside as darkness descended, and I heard what sounded like hail beginning to start. That was typical this time of year, but then I realized it wasn't hail, but rather a knocking.
At my front door. While my parents weren't home.
By my dead friend.
"Sup Mike?" Jerry said as I opened the door, removing the hood that had concealed his face. It was him- the blonde curls, the mischievous smile, the mole below his right eye. But it couldn't be him.
And I screamed. For five minutes I screamed, racing for my phone to call the cops, but only to have it wrestled from my hands.
"Jesus, what's gotten into you man?" Said Jerry, pinning me to the floor. He had always been a better wrestler, a trait I assumed he retained after death.
"You're, You're alive. But you were shot." I stammered, looking for the round bullet hole in the center of his forehead. But it wasn't there. Just a month before, Jerry had been shot by a stray bullet, a freak accident from a gang driveby near our favorite Chinese restaurant in a more sketchy part of town.
"Of course I was shot. Lucky as hell I was. Remember, you said it would have made a great gauge had it been a centimeter to the left."
Jerry tilted his head, and I saw a neat semicircle missing from the lobe of his right ear.
"No, you were shot in the head. I saw it. I went to your funeral. I watched your body descend into the ground."
"Well obviously not."
"I swear. You made the news. "
Several YouTube videos later, Jerry sat slackjawed on my couch, his fingers touching the hole in his ear. On the screen, his parents cried. Hell, on the screen, I cried.
"That never happened. It almost did- maybe with a bit more wind that day, or a slightly different tilt to the gun- but it didn't." He whispered.
"How did you get to my house?" I asked.
"Rode my bike over. I was going to tell you before you freaked, but I nearly got hit by lightning on the way here. Came down five feet in front of me, and I rode through the ozone."
"But you were alive? For this past month, you were alive?"
"Of course, idiot."
"Then no one can see you until we straighten this out. You'll make the news again. Hell, all sorts of crazy things will happen."
"Not if I can prove I never died."
"And how do you plan on that?"
"By digging up the body. Or lack thereof."
"I saw you buried. Now come on. You can stay in my attic. We'll try to figure this out."
So he agreed to stay there. And I've consulted everyone I could get my hands on - priests, scientists, doctors, without giving away what actually happened.
But today, one week later, as I brought Jerry his stolen helping of dinner he wasn't there.
And neither was the shovel in my garage.
***
By Leo
**Part two is below. Part 3 will be posted here and on /r/leoduhvinci when I finish it. I keep all my other stories on my sub so feel free to browse them while you wait.** | "Dude, Its Berenstien" Jake insisted
"Ok, if I can prove its Berenstain can we finally get over this" I repsonded
It was annoying to have to dig through my attic looking for these old kid books, but I finally found them.
"See, Berenstain" I showed him the cover of the old kids book, only slightly dirty from all the years in the attic.
"Bu-But, I remember, this is impossible" I decided to leave Jake to his mental breakdown, If I didnt hurry I would be late for school. | 2015-11-08T07:12:15 | 2015-11-08T06:37:23 | 652 | 232 |
[WP] You are the sole normal, unpowered student at a School for the Supernaturally Gifted. You were bullied once. Once. | I walked down the rather crowded hallway, trying to get to my locker before Maths class so I could get my textbooks for the rest of the day There was a small line of students winding almost in singlefile through the people standing by their lockers. I was, as usual, trying to just stay out of the way.
Just because my Dad happened to be the head of the Heroes League, everyone always thought I'd be just as gifted. No such luck for me, but my younger brother was already showing signs of several gifts.
I was almost at my locker when a large wall suddenly appeared in front of me. Chris, aka IronFist, had always been one of the more aggressive towards me, but fear of my Dad usually kept things from going to far.
"Look, if it isn't the wimp." His nickname for me was as intelligent as he was.
"Sorry, excuse me, I just want to get by" I said, ducking to try and get around him. He was about twice as wide as me so that was not easy as he moved to keep me from passing.
"Who said you could move!" he yelled, stepping back into the rapidly opening hallway behind him as everyone moved back from the noise. "I dont care who you are related to, you don't belong here wimp."
A ring was forming around us, as if they were expecting a fight, not an uncommon event but everyone knew I couldn't do anything so this was going to be big. A glance around showed me the closest people to me were all his cronies. This was planned.
"Sorry" I said again moving towards my locker just to my right side. "I just need my Maths book and I'll go."
This is where Chris laughed. "He thinks he can leave" Chris said over my head. Not hard as I only was as tall as his shoulder.
"Fine, what do you want?"
"I want you out of here, maybe a broken arm will teach you."
I knew it was time. I thanked my lucky stars he decided to do this by my locker. I reached in one of my pockets and grabbed a small remote and put my finger on the only button and backed up to my locker. Predictably Chris reached out towards me, his hands glossy steel. I hit the button and ducked.
BAM!
His hands both shot forward, hitting the metal door of my locker.
"What the hell?" He struggled to pull his hands back but they were stuck to the locker door, right next to the rather large electromagnet i had turned on.
I quickly opened my locker door, while he was busy trying to figure out why he couldn't move. Right after I grabbed my books he shoved the door closed again.
"The hell did you do to me, loser" he yelled again. I saw his first minion, Josh, moving forward, sparks flying from his fingertips. I pulled a small copper wire from my long sleeved hoodie and pointed it at the sparks. The following shock hit Josh more than me as all the electricty went down the shielded wire down to the bottom of my shoe.
"Wanna try that again?" I asked, but he was too stunned to respond.
One more person stepped out of the ring, and I recognized Jessica, Chris' girlfriend. She was a "runner" and I pulled out of yet another pocke a small test tube half filled with a metallic liquid and put my other hand on the stopper.
"You ever see a runner get hit with QuickSilver?" I asked. I knew it was mercury but the old fashioned name was the point. "You will start moving and never be able to stop until you starve to death. Not a pretty sight."
"Why dont you just leave" she asked.
"It's my school too." I shrugged. "I didn't ask to come here either. But I am prepared and ready for any of you. The one thing I do have is information. I use that to be prepred for anything that any of you can dish out. Dirt to stop the wind walkers and invisibles, rubbing alcohol for the freezers, and i have my clothes all lined with copper for the electrics. The rest are even worse. You dont want to try me." Even Chris was quiet at that.
"Now, I think you are all late for class." I said as I walked away, leaving Chris stuck to the metal locker doors. | He was standing over the three.
Bloodied and bruised.
A broken arm, probable internal bleeding and definite fractured bones.
Yet he had beat them.
A fire magik, a stone magik and a plant magik. The big three of his grade.
And he beat them.
He didn't unlock his powers the previous day, or this one, or even in that moment.
He just beat them.
The school even tested him after he was tended to before he was expelled. No one could sense any Charm in him.
He. Just. Beat them.
When he was let back after a much shorter suspension, curtesy of his parents backing him up for defending himself, everyone gained a little respect for him... but there was also fear. There were tales of Charmless that could beat several powerful magi. The Bat Thing of the City-State of Ghatom. The crazed, strange-faced vigilante that was part of a group called The Watch. There were feared by both heroes and villains alike... and Damien was one of them | 2022-11-02T11:50:38 | 2022-11-02T11:29:20 | 162 | 42 |
[WP] The Assassin stared me down, readying their weapon as I lay helpless to do anything. “As a courtesy, I’ll give you one final request. Anything within my power.” they said. All I could respond with was… “Wanna go on a date?” | Lovely sounds filled the establishment. Some idle chatter, the gentle clatter of silverware against ceramic, and the piano soloist was just heavenly. All the makings of a quaint, intimate atmosphere, and I was quite certain that we were surrounded by people falling in love, much like how we were not.
I sat there, a little hunched over, head propped up at the elbow, looking pointedly off to the side. I dazily pondered my unfamiliar environment, this dazzling establishment, my mind totally unoccupied by whom I shared the table with, who I sent a quick glance. She was still there, sure enough. My companion for the evening, sat across from me, perfectly upright and alert, her unfaltering gaze centered upon my face.
I allowed a bit of indignance to cross me. "Could you quit that? It's creepy," I said. She had no response other than perhaps to intensify her gaze. I shriveled a bit.
It's nothing. She might have the upper hand, in a few ways, but I won't lose to her in wit. "So you're just gonna give me the silent treatment?" I said.
Her face did not change. "I am simply fulfilling the terms of our agreement," she said. "Your final wish."
"Yeah, well, maybe you could put a little more effort into it. Lousiest date I've ever been on..." I said, resuming my sidewards glance, finding her gaze a little too bright to match. Maybe wit was a lost cause.
I was expecting more silence, but surprisingly I found a response from her. "I do not have much experience in matters such as these."
My eyes found her again. She was looking away, down at the table. Our meals were still in the kitchen. When she ordered, she said, "I'll have the same as him."
Where her expression was previously blank, there now was a subtle, similarly inscrutable display of emotion. Had I insulted her? Well, probably. She seemed a little uncomfortable, though. Vulnerable, even. Don't tell me...
"And you're insecure about it," I said, a little amused.
Her eyes came back up, a little knit in her brow. "I am simply... like I said, I do not have experience with these types of affairs."
"So you're insecure."
Alright, I thought. Sure. I'll take it. This certainly was better than nothing.
"You are a very frustrating man," she said. "People like you... who think they can delay the inevitable. You anger me."
"Don't be so presumptuous," I said. "Maybe I just wanted to get to know you, a little."
It was like I flipped a switch, the turn in her expression almost instant. She really was lovely, and right now I had her quite surprised.
"Well..." she said, hesitant, surprise having given way to embarrassment, which was rather adorable. "Ask me, then."
×××××××××
Even after the fact, I could not quite fathom his intentions.
It couldn't possibly be that he simply wanted to get to know me. But what else, then?
Because in the end, that's exactly what happened. He got to know me, and I got to know him. And as the evening came to a close, there was an understanding, something novel in the space between us, our guards lowered.
He led me out, and said, "I'm glad I was able to make something of it. I kind of went in there blind, you know? Not expecting anything."
I smiled warmly, unexpectedly used to it at this point in the evening. "It was a valuable learning experience, for me," I said.
The sun was down, and the air was chilly, revealing our breaths. The city sprawled high up into the air, encompassing a magnificent display of lights, in all manner of shape and size. A gorgeous sight. The sky was black and moonless, and I looked up at it, away from him.
We shared no words at this time. We didn't need to, for we both knew what came next. I told him, "Follow me," trusting that he knew he had no other option.
Wrong. I looked over, and he was gone, disappeared into the night. Slipped away while I had been taken by the city, and by him as well.
This did not agitate me. Perhaps I was not surprised. Or maybe I was even relieved, for some reason or another. And so I did not go after him.
He frustrates me. I'll meet him again. | I received another target with the time limit of 'within the year', which is fairly uncommon. Most people want their targets taken care of within two days, a month at most. But within the year? It was unheard of!
Reading the file, it looked like an office worker that frequented a local bar after work. A typical job.
I traveled down to the bar and sat next to my target at the booth. "Tough day?"
"Yeah." She had the type of voice that once you heard it, you would know that she was living a terrible life.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Your loss."
I ordered a pint for each of us, and as I was waiting for them to arrive, I was considering whether to poison her then and there. I decided not to.
When the drinks arrived, she grabbed both pints and hogged them for herself.
"Are you gonna share that?" I asked.
"...No."
"Why not?"
"TODAY WAS TERRIBLE! I swear, I work with idiots! THey don't even check if their computers are turned on!"
She continued on about her day, telling me how awful her coworkers are.
She got up after venting to me. "This was nice. See you tomorrow!"
"Yeah, see you..." *I think I understand the time limit now...* | 2022-04-24T13:05:34 | 2022-04-24T11:56:25 | 230 | 65 |
[WP] The Villain uncovers the Hero's true identity, and targets his family. Unfortunately, the Hero's spouse is a retired villain even more powerful than the current one. | It was rare for a supervillain to feel satisfied. Usually, the feeling was reserved for special moments. Successfully pulling off a heist, beating down wannabee heroes, narrowing escaping capture. These were all moments of satisfaction for any enterprising criminal.
Jack felt it was appropriate to add another moment to that list. Namely, that triumphant moment when you uncover a hero’s secret identity.
He took the time to pat himself on the back. Metaphorically, mind you.
Gabriella Parks. It was a nice name, Jack thought to himself. Shame that it belonged to one of the most aggravatingly competent superheroes operating in the city.
Luckily for every criminal here, Jack was about to do something she would never forget.
The Parks household was not anything out of the ordinary. In fact, when he had first saw the house, Jack had questioned if Eyewire was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. In fact, that had not been the hackers’ intention, and so Jack came to accept the fact that, despite earning a ludicrous annual salary, Gemstone lived in the most mundane setting possible.
*“Well, I don’t mind livening things up for her.”* Jack thought gleefully.
Naturally, the door was locked, but Jack was a supervillain, such obstacles were trivial to him.
Jack flipped the mental switch in his brain, and a familiar warmth overtook his body. For a second, he enjoyed the sensation, relished in the exhilarating feeling his power gave him. Then he got to work.
A gentle nudge was all it took for Jack to transfer the molten rock that had encased his body to his right hand. The result was an almost comical sight. His arm, wrapped in numerous layers of magma that it dwarfed the rest of his body, giving Jack a lopsided look that once made people bend over laughing.
They weren’t laughing anymore.
The sheer amount of heat emanating from Jack’s body was enough to make the grass in the lawn smoke and bubble. A simple wooden door stood no chance against Jack’s magma enhanced fist.
He reared back brought his molten arm down upon the door, turning it and everything within five feet into slag with a blast of heat and flame. Wood splintered and caught alight, stone cracked and metal wasted away in this one swing.
But Jack’s fist met resistance, and to his surprise, his assault was halted.
He barely had time to get a glimpse of what had happened, of the middle-aged man standing behind the now destroyed doorway. He barely noticed the pink apron with red hearts wrapped around the man’s waist, or the fact that apparently, his *magma-coated* arm had been caught with one hand.
All Jack knew was that he had done something very, very stupid.
It was this conclusion that Jack carried with him when his vision went white.
Pain. Excruciating and incomprehensible pain exploded into his chest, leaving Jack reeling. His supervillain career had not been devoid of injury, in fact, Jack felt that he had been dealt quite a fair share of pain. Injuries lesser villains would cry over, Jack would scoff at.
Not this pain. This was pain on a level Jack thought he would never feel from another human. An overwhelming force.
When he came to, Jack found himself staring at the sky, and a man who had grown far too large for Jack to conclude that he was anything but a superhuman.
He stood over two stories now, clothing ripped, with ragged pieces clinging to his expanded frame. The man’s now massive foot was pressed over Jack’s chest, pressing down like a hydraulic press.
This situation felt familiar, almost nostalgic in a way. Jack was reminded of rumors he had heard when he was younger, more inexperienced. Rumors of a sleeping giant that lurked in the city that, when woken, left a trial of destruction that Jack could only dream of. And as he struggled to establish a new layer of magma over his body, Jack realized just who he had just woken, as well as how utterly fucked he was.
“You…” Jack swallowed, “weren’t supposed to be real.”
The giant rumbled in amusement. A deep and rugged sound, like rocks grinding against each other.
“Every rumor holds a sliver of truth,” He said. “You would do well to remember that.”
The weight on Jacks’ chest was immense. He could begin to feel his body deform under the pressure. Jack’s magma body bubbled and raged, but even though he could feel the pavement underneath his body melt into slag, his opponent merely laughed.
“Hear me, boy.” The Goliath spoke. “You and your kind, who think themselves so clever and cunning, who would come for me and my own. I leave you this message.”
He knelt down, and Jack found himself eye-to-eye with a terrifying visage, all teeth, wild hair, and eyes devoid of mercy to those who would cross an unspoken line.
“Superhuman or not, under my tread, all bones break the same.”
Then there was a snap, a soft crunch, and Jack knew no more. | *I messed up.*
The only thing Villain could think about was how much she wished she was back in her hideout laying in her comfortable bed sleeping and dreaming of her plot of world domination. Her villainous life seemed like something from a faraway story that she would never get back to.
“Oh-ho? Discovered my husband’s identity, did you? Thought you’d liven up the hero's backstory with some tragic event? Perhaps the loss of a loved one? How clever and perfectly...evil...of you.”
“You’re supposed to be dead!” Villain blurted out before quickly covering her mouth and recoiling - only to be stopped by the wall she was already trapped against.
“Dead? Me?” Wife gave a soft giggle and a little shrug. “Maybe on the inside, but aren’t we all a little these days?”
“Why are you here?!” Villain was practically begging at this point. Her eyes pleading for both answers and mercy.
“Why? That’s a strange question to ask someone in their own home.” Wife raised her arms in front of her, her fingers spread as if she was holding some invisible ball in them.
The air began to tingle and buzz. It seemed to grow hotter by the second and the lights flickered relentlessly. The invisible object began to take form. Electricity flowed from finger to finger dancing across the air in between them. A passerby might assume Wife was controlling the electrical current of everything nearby, both natural and man-made, her eyes glowing a sharp blue - but the truth was something far more terrifying.
“Now...perhaps I should teach you a lesson. After all, it's been so long since I've seen my dear student.”
Villain’s bed seemed especially nice right now. | 2020-07-19T00:04:33 | 2020-07-18T23:38:26 | 135 | 67 |
[WP] A demon marrying an angel is not so rare, but having a child is. With neither wings nor tail, both Heaven and Hell refuse them entry, leaving them to be raised amongst the humans they look like. "Abandoned" in the middle of nowhere, you can't help but take pity, and decide to adopt the child. | A glowing column shot down from the clouds, bathing the circle of ground before me in brilliant light. The air seemed to thicken and carried the scent of roses and sandalwood. A tall figure descended within the column, wings stretched to their fullest extent. As they neared the ground, soft, harmonic music began to play.
I suppressed a yawn. This wasn’t nearly as impressive after seeing it a few times.
The being touched down, then walked out of the circle towards me. As he left it, the column vanished, and the music cut off abruptly. *Not even a closing fanfare. All the good music producers must be in Hell.*
“Mortal, Be Not Afraid!” he intoned, staring somewhere above my head. “I Am Raziel, Divine Angel Of -”
“Okay, let’s skip the ceremony,” I cut in. “No, I’m not afraid. Yes, you’re very great and powerful. Et cetera, et cetera. What do you want this time, Razzie?”
The angel frowned. He did so love his theatrics. “I Have Come To Speak To My Daughter. It Is Past Time She Learned Of Her True Heritage.”
I folded my arms. “This again? Razzie, my answer hasn’t changed.”
Raziel lifted an arm, as if summoning lightning to smite me with. *Wrong mythology, buddy.* He was barred from harming me in any case.
“Mortal Woman!” he cried out. Angels were far too dignified to scream, but they had no problem making their voices deafeningly loud. “You Shall Not Frustrate My Design! I Will Speak With -”
“How’s Abby?” I interrupted again. “She hasn’t come around in a while. Well, neither have you, but still.”
Raziel dropped his arm, looking uncomfortable. “I - That Is, She -” He stopped and looked down for a moment, then rallied. “Abyzou Is Well, I Hear. We Are Still… We Have Not Spoken Recently, But…”
“Life took you different places,” I finished for him with a wave of my hand. Raziel looked back up, his expression dark. *Divorce* was a taboo word in Heaven, but he and Abyzou had separated a couple years back. I didn’t judge them for it - they were very different creatures, and both seemed more comfortable on their own - but Raziel despised the subject.
“I Have Not Come To Discuss The Welfare Of A Demon,” he said. His left wingtip began twitching. “I Have Come To Reveal Myself To My Daughter!”
I sighed. Just telling Raziel *no* never kept him away for long. It was time to deal with the matter directly. “You know what, Razzie? I’ll humor you. *If* I let you in to see Sophie, what *exactly* will you talk about? What grand truths are you so desperate to share?”
Raziel puffed himself up, robes billowing in a nonexistent breeze, face lit by an unseen source. The perfect image of a divine presence. “I Will Tell Sophia The Identity Of Her Father And Her Mother. I Will Explain That She Is A Mixling. I Will Reveal That She Is Unlike You Mortals, And That She Will Have Power To Bring Peace Or Ruination Upon Your Earth.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“...And What?” Raziel asked.
“Will you ask about her day yesterday? Her favorite books? Will you talk about the fort she’s building in the woods out back?”
“These Matters Are Of No Significance Compared To Her Identity,” Raziel boomed. *Pompous prick.*
“You’re wrong,” I said. “And that’s why I never let you inside. You don’t care about Sophie at all, do you? She’s just some box to check, someone you can awe with your power.”
Raziel’s frown deepened to a scowl. The air lost its fragrant scent, and I began to smell something burning. “You Have Told Her Nothing! You Have Let Her Grow Through Her Childhood Without Knowing Her True Form -”
“And what good would that do?” I yelled. One of the benefits of being mortal - I could scream at Raziel, grow red in the face, give full voice to my anger. “You want me to tell a little girl that, hey, she’s different from all her friends, and by the way, the people who birthed her don’t even want her?”
Raziel pulled back from me. Angels didn’t flinch, either, but I recognized shock and indignation. “You Know That Mixlings Are Forbidden Entry To Heaven And Hell.”
“I’m not talking about Heaven or Hell,” I spat. “I’m talking about *you*. And Abby, too. You come to Earth, what, once every few months? And it’s always the same refrain. You don’t ask about her life, about her struggles, about how she’s grown. You just have your Message that you want to say.
“It’s been six years since I found her, Razzie. Tell me: how many of her diapers did you change in those six years? How many dinners did you cook for her? How many nights did you sit with her, reading stories and making up your own until she fell asleep against your shoulder?”
“I…” Raziel sputtered. “The Secretions And Needs Of Mortals Are Not My Area Of Knowledge. But I Am Nonetheless Her Father -”
“*No*”, I hissed at him, and had the satisfaction of watching him step back again. “*I* am Sophie’s father, and her mother too. I took her in. I raised her. And I love her, which is a damn sight more than you can say.”
Raziel, for once, said nothing.
“So you listen to me, angel, and listen well,” I said. “*I* will decide when Sophie is ready to learn about you and Abyzou. *She* will decide if she even wants to, once that time comes. *You* will decide *nothing*.
“If you want to be a father to her, Raziel, start by thinking about what you can do for her instead of for yourself. Until then, *leave*.”
No column of light this time. Raziel vanished with a crack like a whip that left my ears ringing. I turned away from the charred circle, back to my house. As I did, the front door swung open. A girl stepped through it, saw me in the yard, and ran to me.
“Momma!” she cried. “I heard a loud noise, and I got scared. Are you okay?”
“Yes, sweetie,” I told her, bending down as she approached to gather her into a hug. “I was talking with an old friend, but he just left. He won’t be coming back for a while.”
I felt tears in my eyes as I held Sophie, hearing her breath by my ear. I marveled at how much *life* there was within her, how many dreams and ideas, how much sweetness and strength.
How much that Raziel would never truly understand.
*You'll change the world someday, my wonderful little girl. But until then, you deserve a happy childhood. You deserve to be cherished just as you are.*
She looked up at me, worried by my tears. “Don’t cry, Momma. It’s okay. I love you.”
I hugged her tighter. “I love you too, sweetie. So, so much.” | "Good evenin', Miss Helena. Sorry to disturb you."
Helena Forager was more than a little surprised to hear Jaksim's voice. It's not that the blacksmith was ever rude or unkind to her, but he never once came to her hut. "Good evening, master smith. Surprising to see you here."
The hulking man seemed quite bashful. "Just Jack, miss. Jaxim, if you must." It was quite amusing to see him trying to fit into the hut. "I know, I don't get sick. The heat from the forge kills the germs, like my old man used to say." That still wouldn't account for all the heavy metals and toxins that should litter your body, the witch thought to herself. Out-loud, however, she said "So, what brings you today? Not illness..." She squinted her eyes. "I don't do love potions."
Jaxim managed to turn even more red. "Nothing of the sort, miss! I may be daft, but I wouldn't insult you like that. It's about this." He lifted his cloak, nestled in his left arm, was a tiny baby."Jaxim, who's kid did you steal?" Helena asked with fake concern. Before he had a chance to respond she raised her arms and smiled. "I'm kidding. In all seriousness, where did you find this kid?" Jaxim shifted uncomfortably.
"I was coming home from Breven, needed to deliver a purchase and restock some supplies you see, and I saw them leave her behind." The witch heard from his tone that he is not saying something. "Who did?" She prodded, as gently as she could. "A man who was an angel. And a woman with demon horns." He said quietly.
Well. That's quite the coincidence, Helena thought. Still, it at least made sense..."Do you want to raise her?" She asked, knowing the answer ahead of time. He nodded slowly." But I don't know a lot. I wondered if... If you could teach me." With this, Helena looked at him. Everyone knew the quiet, kind giant. Everyone knew he wasn't very smart. Suddenly, her instinct twitched. It did that whenever she was thinking like a normal human.
So she looked again. *Truly* looked. "Why come to me? Father Tiegen raised many children." He nodded. "But none like her. Father Tiegen Is a good man. I don't want to put him in conflict with his faith." This 'not very smart man' knew to avoid the kindness of the church. Knew to keep the babe quiet. Knew to come to her....
"Alright. I'll teach you, but don't expect any help with her. She's your problem, not mine." She explained to him, knowing full well that she'll be doting on her before two months have passed. Kid had angelic grace and demonic charisma, that's for certain.
The look of relief in his eyes almost made her burst into laughter. "Thank you miss! I will only come about her if it is dire. Can I..." He hesitated. "Can I come visit, though?" That one genuinely surprised her. "Sure. But, if I might ask, why?" He smiled at her. It was a warm, pleasent smile. Helena didn't recall ever seeing him smile before.
"You didn't mind talking to me, despite my face. Thank you." His scars and burns were ugly and deformed his face, but she has seen and treated worse.
"For now, I'll make you a list of stuff to always have on hand. Come for it tomorrow. I'll see what I can get, as well." She waved him away. "Now off you go. Get some sleep."
She watched him lumber towards the smithy where he lived. It would certainly be interesting. What kind of a child would a half demon and half angel be? She wondered.
Especially raised by a witch and a half-giant. | 2022-06-22T09:42:14 | 2022-06-22T09:24:57 | 272 | 73 |
[WP] You send your DNA off to discover your ancestry. One day you see several suspicious looking cars pull up outside your house. Military officers begin to surround your home and a woman gets out of one of the cars and walk straight to your front door. They have your DNA results. | I have always wondered what my ancestry was, it's always been like that since I was little. I was adopted at a very young age, my foster parents never told me anything. When I pressured them they'd go off on me, they were stuck-up anyway. I got a DNA test done in college, I barely have a connection or relationship with my foster parents so I figured why not? They can't stop me now. I was eagerly awaiting my results, I'd imagine I was related to the Queen of England or something, and I would be whisked away to become a princess or something. What I didn't imagine was odd cars in the college driveway surrounded by military vehicles and a SWAT team ready outside my dorm. I panicked, what did I do? I haven't done anything wrong in my whole life, I wasn't a terrorist or drug dealer. Why bring the whole troops, I then heard a knocking at my door. A lady spoke from behind.
"Hello, Ms. Gabriel? I just want to talk, I have you DNA results."
"Why is the military here? D-Did I do something wrong?" I said in a shaky voice.
"Oh no Miss, i just need you to come out, it's about your test results."
"Oh, ok." I wondered for a little bit, wondered if the government was going to take me away for no reason at all. I heard it happens. My foster dad says stuff like that happens, I never believed him. Was this the day? Were my government-paranoid parents right this whole time?
I slowly opened the door. The woman looked a little out of place to be a government official. Her blonde hair put up in a neat bun, her friendly southern accent, her oddly formal-casual outfit made it look like she was a secretary or a office manager. She had this odd feeling to her that compelled me to go near her, made me forget her government badge and off looking manner. She stepped in and gave me my test results in a long orange envelope, like the kind of stuff you would imagine top-secret government plans to be held. In reality it may not have been so, but at least to me, it felt that way.
I opened it, and gasped at my results. I looked down at it again.
"Y-You're not serious are you? Is this some kind of joke?" I asked in disbelief.
She shook her head in a gentle manner, "Oh no Miss, it's real. I have been sent here to escort you." She smiled at gestured me out the door, I followed. I really didn't want to resist because I felt like this is what I have to do in order to stay safe. I was hesitant and worried, it didn't help that there were three, very-armored military personnel were there. I saw the other students face as they took me away, awe, horror, anger, disbelief. One kid tried to "free me" and attacked the guards. Can't really blame him though in our current political climate. He was quickly subdued. One kid followed us a bit and shouted to me "When you get to Area 51 tell the aliens Micheal said-" The car door slammed before I could hear his passing message to the aliens.
I was in the back of a non-discreet black car, a man in a black suit was beside me, and the woman who handed me my test results was in the front seat next to a driver.
The car ride was a long, uncomfortable one to say at the very least. I finally had the courage to speak.
"I don't get it." I say. She turns her head. "Don't get what?"
"I don't get how a person could be considered lost military hardware or... cyborg technology."
(I don't know what else to put so if you guys want to request a part 2 or something I'll do it)
(Edit: since many are requesting it I shall post a part 2 tomorrow or later on today stay tooned!)
(look down in comments for part 2 if ya can't find it) | They Hand it over, and in it written is the long list of ancestors you had up to the long lost king of the Medafega, a lost and fallen kingdom in the pacific ocean, that due to inner conflicts and wars was left abandoned and lost in the time.
The Government had been looking for the latest descendant of the king of Medafega in an attempt to locate the kingdom. they had a comprehensive list of the lines of descendant up until the second world war, where the flies and records where mysteriously destroyed. you sir are the Last true Ancestor and the True Ruler of Medafega. | 2019-08-05T19:16:34 | 2019-08-05T16:31:10 | 52 | 18 |
[WP] "We have DNA evidence that puts you at the crime scene." The Prosecution smiles arrogantly as he believes you cornered. "DNA? How interesting, none of my components are made of biological material" | I smile, leaning back in the chair. The lawyers look at each other, totally befuddled. "What are you talking about?" The prosecution asks. "We literally have DNA that points to you." I laugh loudly, leaning right up to the face of the lawyer questioning me.
"That's entirely impossible!" I proclaim. "Androids like me do not have DNA!" I look over to the jury, a massive grin on my face. "If it's not obvious already, I'm being framed."
"Ok then, sir." The lawyer interjects. "Who would frame you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I ask. "None other than the victim's daughter." I look over towards her, my gaze making her squirm nervously. "She and I were ex lovers! Isn't that right, Mrs. Kruger?" A silence hangs in the air, no doubt the entire courtroom digesting my revaluation.
"Sir... that's not her name." The lawyer answers. "This is Alesha Rose. You're accused of murdering her son." I shake my head.
"Nonsense! That is Mariah Kruger!" I exclaim. "She and I were star crossed lovers, and she wanted to kill her husband for his money, framing it on a 'jealous lover' to get away with it!" The jury is murmuring, the judge is eyeing my shitty lawyer, and the lawyer is looking away from me, his shoulders moving up and down. He must be sobbing. Clearly, my expert android behavioral analysis point to no other behavior.
"Your honor, it is clear Mr. DeLong is not mentally fit to stand trial!" My lawyer exclaims. "He doesn't understand what's happening."
"Silly woman!" I shout. "This is why I didn't want a public defender, she couldn't compare to my programmed, encyclopedic knowledge of the law." I reach into my shirt pocket, pulling out a pen. "Here, I'll prove it. Does a human have *this* under their skin?" With my mighty robotic strength, I stab the pen straight through my forearm. The courtroom is filled with gasps and shrieks as my special red oil pours out of my wound. I peel back my fake skin, chunks of fake flesh falling off, showing everyone my white-iron endoskeleton. "See! This isn't biological at all!"
"Call an ambulance!" My lawyer shouts. The police officer at the door approaches, gun in one hand.
"Sir, drop the pen. You're bleeding heavily." He calmly orders. I laugh.
"You've never seen red oil before?" I tease. I get off the witness stand. I feel dizzy and find it hard to stand. Likely, too many people have their bluetooth on. Yes, that must be the reason, since androids such as I do not feel "light headed" from a loss of red oil.
"Son, please, put the pen down." He repeats. I shrug and drop the pen.
"Fine, have it your way." I look at my forearm, the fake skin and fake flesh hanging off. "Well, might as well tear this off." I rip off the chunk and toss it to the ground. Some in the court retch and vomit at the sight. I roll my eyes; anti-android hate is so prevalent these days.
"Come here son." The cop says, lowering his gun and reaching out. "You're bleeding heavily."
"Can you speak up?" I ask. "All of my receptors are going kinda fuzzy. I think someone is trying to use me for Wi-Fi." I take one step forward, and my vision blacks out, and I can feel my body falling forward. My thoughts begin to slow down. I must be getting hacked. Clearly. One of Mrs. Kruger's accomplices must be trying to shut me down. I'm revealing too much of the truth. That must be what's happening. I'm not losing blood. I can't.
Because I am an android. | "No," said the prosecutor. Our gate technology requires organic matter or it won't transfer you. I have this coat made of DNA. Since you're not organic, you have to wear this coat so we can travel to the crime scene. I am not accusing you. I'm asking you to help us solve the crime.
Me: "I'm not a detective."
Prosecutor: "When we get to the crime scene, you'll see why only a non biological being can help us."
A man in an Eagle costume steps through the door. It's Eagle Guy.
Prosecutor: "You'll be working with Eagle Guy..."
A skinny kid in a bird costume walks through the door. He smacks his two fists together. "Heck of a team up! And his sidekick, Wren Kid!"
Prosecutor: "Right. It's actually Eagle Guy's gate technology we're using."
Eagle Guy holds up a finger. "No time to waste! To the crime scene via the Eagle Gate!" | 2021-03-30T13:09:28 | 2021-03-30T12:19:50 | 193 | 26 |
[WP] A technician pulls a headset off of you and asks you if you liked the VR. You panic, and he calmly says that your whole life was a 2 minute VR experience to show you what being an average person would be like. You, stunned and afraid, ask, "Who am I, then?" He stares in complete disbelief.
(The title implies that the protagonist is someone important/famous/rich/powerful/etc, but feel free to do whatever you want with it) | It was too dark. I blinked rapidly against my surroundings, confused, disoriented, and then I started to panic. “Hello?” I asked. My voice rasped against my throat.
“Angela. So, how was it?”
My surroundings started to come into focus, and I realized that my vision had been more blurry than dark. I blinked again, my eyes landing on a man standing a few feet in front of me, a tangled headset of wires in his hand. The expression on his face was smug, victorious, and expectant. There was another man in a chair a few feet away, his ankles crossed, leaning back in his seat as if he were watching a show.
“Well?” the first man prompted.
“What’s happening?”
He sighed. “Come on.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face, making me flinch. “I’m Rafael, that’s Dave, you’re Angela. And you’re coming out of a two-minute sim. You had a life of an average person. How *was* it?” he asked tersely.
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to shift in my seat only to realize my hands and ankles were bound to it with duct tape, my shoulders similarly pinned to the back of the chair I was in with long strips pulled around several times. My heart leapt into my throat and I jerked against my bindings. “Where am I? What’s going on?” I whimpered.
“Angela,” Rafael said tightly, grasping my wrists and leaning in toward my face. I froze in terror, meeting his gaze. “Take a breath. It’s a *sim*. It’ll come back. Your name is Angela…”
“Messina,” I muttered.
“There you go.” At that, he carefully laid the headset down on a table to my right, taking the seat next to Dave. “You work at…?”
“Morpheus Tech. I *run* Morpheus Tech,” I corrected him, my tone severe.
Rafael’s expression soured. “And she’s back.” He jerked his chin at me. “But that’s not all you are anymore. You were Tracey, mother of three, wife to your loving husband, struggling through life. How was it?”
Swallowing hard, I averted my gaze. My memories continued to flood back, but they were adjacent to the life I’d just lived. *Jesus, this tech is going to make me a fortune once they find me*, I thought. And then another part of my mind recoiled at that.
“That good, huh?” Rafael asked. “That wasn’t an invented, fictional life, of course. It was the life of my friend Tracey. Donated to the cause here, among others.”
“You can’t manufacture empathy in me for her,” I suddenly spat, meeting his gaze. “I just… I need a minute to…to think…” My eyes drifted down to my lap.
Rafael leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Think, huh? About what?” His tone was curious, taunting.
He knew. He could tell what it had done to me. Only two minutes it had taken, and this whole life was in my head. He had no right to do this to me, to subject me to the life of someone who just did the best she could only to fail to gain a foothold to-
I shook my head against the thought. No, that wasn’t right. She was just a worker bee, like all the others. My company was one of the best out there, provided excellent benefits, a competitive salary. It wasn’t my job to tackle income inequality and privatized healthcare, for Christ’s sake. And I worked hard for my life, I’d earned every cent I had.
*Tracey worked hard too. She worked just as hard. And she still couldn’t afford the medical bills for her son.*
Setting my jaw, I looked up to meet Rafael’s gaze. “You know they’ll find me,” I told him calmly. “They’ll be here any minute. Is it worth it, getting arrested for kidnapping someone like me?”
“Yep,” Rafael replied cheerfully. I glared back at him. “So…did you learn anything? Moral at the end of the story? Lessons from your experiences?”
“I learned the world isn’t fair. But I already knew that, so I suppose it isn’t really a learned lesson so much as a review of facts,” I said, slowly blinking at him.
“Right.” At that, he pushed himself to his feet, picking up the helmet. “You know how long it took Chris to die?” Rafael asked quietly, absently sorting the wires around each other like Christmas tree lights, carefully organizing them until they were neatly and properly laid out. “How long he fought, knowing his mother was desperate to save him? How many long nights he spent suffering because they couldn’t afford the pills?”
“It’s a tragedy, I agree,” I sighed, “but what do you expect me to do about it?”
Rafael met my gaze. “You know the power you have. I’m convinced you do. It’s just a matter of motivation.” At that, he reached forward and strapped the helmet back on my head.
“What are you doing?” I snapped, unable to move my head away far enough to resist.
“Another two minutes.”
“I still remember Tracey’s life,” I told him. “Living it again won’t change my mind any more than it did this time.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, sitting down at the rolling chair in front of the machinery I was hooked up to. “We’re not sending you back in as Tracey. Next up is life as Chris.”
My face went slack, and horror bloomed in my eyes. “No, wait! Please-”
The world went white.
​
/r/storiesbykaren | "All right, what did you think, Tony? Did you get a chance to see a giraffe? Those things are wild." Brandon bobbed his head with the electro metal as he unplugged the rig.
"Where am I," Jedidiah called. "What technology is this? What have you dressed me in?"
"Oh darn," Brandon said. "Sorry, Tony. I left the memory blocker on again. You're only remembering the game, not your life before. Hold on, just put the headset back on for a second."
"No," Jedidiah screamed as he jerked himself out of the complicated harness and smashed the headset on the floor.
"Tony," the man said, tone concerned now. "That was the only headset that had the encryption key to your memory. We'll have to take it and get it serviced or you'll never remember your entire life."
"I have a life, Jedidiah yelled as he wandered the small apartment. "The life of a simple farmer, the simple life of a man of God. Where is my wife? Where are my sons?"
"Tony, sit down. None of that was real, man. It was a game called Earth, man." Brandon held up the game sheet, showing Jedidiah the cover, a bright Earth framed by animals.
"I have no interest in your ways. They are not mine. Take me home. Are we still in Pennsylvania?"
"That's just a place in the game, Tony. Virtual. Reality." Brandon moved to stand and Jedidiah struck him with a strange broom like object before he could.
"I'm leaving. Do not accost me again!" Jedidiah said, barging through the door out if the studio apartment and disappearing.
"You're gonna have a rough time out there, friend," Brandon said, dialing as he started trying to spot Tony in the smoggy morning of pedestrians.
"Talk to me," the voice on the other line said.
"I've got a weird one for you, Rocks. Tony needs your help."
"Since when does Tony want anything to do with me?" Rocks said bitterly.
"I think he'd understand. My place, as fast as you can, bring the drone. Money's good." A hologram of a nude woman danced over the crowds outside as music quaked the last droplets of the morning rain. "We'll find you buddy."
\---
Thanks for reading.
If you liked this, check out /r/surinical to see more of my prompt responses and other writing. | 2021-03-27T19:49:18 | 2021-03-27T17:57:56 | 3,134 | 72 |
[WP] You have superpowers. But rather than being a hero or a villain, you use your powers for more important things to improve the world. Like free electricity. The heroes and villains keep demanding your help, you've finally had enough and need to explain why what you do is more important. | "Come on, we can really use your help on this!" A hero asks as I ignore him.
"Nope. You know my conditions, I train you and I get back to my work of looking after the people you forget." I answer without looking away from my tablet. Dozens of complaints, and messages about parts of the city that need help.
"We help the little people all the time." The hero complains, striking a nerve.
I pause in my tracks for a moment then continue walking. Seems like the Roads Department are having issues with repairs because of numerous Super fights nearby, despite my assurances.
"See, you don't really care about the little people." The hero exclaims, making a very dangerous assumption. "Join us taking down this supervillain and have some fun." He says cheerfully.
I glance at the door to my left, then back at the grinning idiot behind me. While I train people with powers and let them make their own choices, I have not needed to be an active Hero for a few years, letting me focus on running the city. Getting the homeless people somewhere to stay, then back on their feet. Making sure the hospitals are fully funded, that the Paladins are equipped and better trained when they were known as the Police service. Schools, roads, parks, corrupt politicians trying to worm their way back into the system after they were publically kicked out. Fighting corporations over minimum wage and abolishing the tip system as a way to earn a liveable income.
I walk to the Hero with a forced smile on my face, and when I was close enough, grabbed him by the throat tightly. Slipping my tablet into my pocket, I open a door and step into my Portal Network.
"Listen to me, you arrogant punching bag, and you listen well." I growl, literally. "I have spent years cleaning up this city because the little people that you ignore voted for me to do so. Their issues are more pressing then you one-upping your nemesis or whatever to boost your Hero Cred. While I have made great strides in that, I am still running a city which has free power and internet, a $23/hr minimum wage, removed the more corrupt parts of the government, paid off all the debts for this city, and there are still hundreds of small tasks that need looking after, and I do them gladly." I say as I drag the weakly struggling Hero to one of the Academy Portals.
"Roads need to be resurfaced, Parks need to be maintained, negotiations with other cities, soothing the public when one of you gallivanting heroes make a huge mess trying to prove your worth." I shout as I carry him into the Academy. "I am still fending off multiple covert attempts by every country on this damned planet to spy on the people here to find out my secret. I have negotiated with multiple foreign governments to keep trade alive for this great city, and I am doing everything in my power and resources to make sure Detroit stays alive and prosper. Your childish fights are not my concern, but the people you ignore once you have saved them. When was your last free public appearance as a Hero? I can tell you if you want. When did you decide to help a stranded motorist even though you weren't dispatched? When did you last care about the people who live in this city you SWORE to protect?"
I drop the gasping Hero at my feet and sneer. "I could become active again, and school almost every Hero in how to Be a Hero. To inspire the people that as long as they hold on we will be there for them, that we celebrate them almost as much as they celebrate us. Because without those 'little people' your job doesn't exist. Look to your betters for inspiration or aske them for help in how to be Better. That is what they are here for. To Help You. Not fight your battles for you."
The Hero looks up at me with fear in his gaze.
"Interrupt my tasks for such a petty excuse again, and you will find out WHAT happened to those villains who tried to be like the Joker from DC Comics. Personally." | I sigh gently then grumble. The 'true' superheroes are all high and mighty about themselves.
"We help people too! Isn't it obvious? The SUPER helpful superheros solved electricity when Static Shock donated his stem cells.
You can't forget when Ironismo and his legion of small metal robots cured cancer!
What about the constant rebuilding and reviving that goes on because of YOUR super fights!!
The list goes on and on, Forever.
We reshape history, and you make sure we live to see that change."
The room got silent. The superheroes were stunned.
"That's when we sprung the trap!!"
*Cut to: Current time with an older man telling a story to his grand kids* | 2021-07-04T12:15:52 | 2021-07-04T03:34:45 | 44 | 16 |
[WP] There's a saying among the galactic community. "Never hire a human"... you just hired 200 of them. And you're about to find out why that saying exists. | "Humans would sooner lie down and die than complete a good day's work. I've seen it with my own two eyes. They are greedy and, worse, they are lazy. Every single one of them. The first human I hired asked for a hefty severance package on his second day of employment and when I refused, he lay down and killed himself on the spot. I wish I was making this up. Never hire a human!"
The class didn't respond at all to the professor's grave warning. Heads were slumped on arms, eyelids drooped, the only sound was a recurring cough from the back of the classroom. At the bottom of the sunken lecture hall, the professor rolled his eyes, straightened his jacket, and continued.
"For some of you, this is enough. 'Never hire a human. Fine. You got it.'"
He raised the pitch of his voice as he mimicked a whiny student's voice. After a pause, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"But for others... you are still going to do it. You hear about it everyday and the result is always the same. So I've prepared a little demonstration for you."
There was a stirring in the classroom at the mention of something more interesting than the professor's droning on.
"Aha, I thought that might get your attention. Thirty minutes ago, right before class began, I contacted the Human Labor Department and hired an average human worker. Let's see how effective he is at performing a simple task."
He gestured to the side of his desk, pointing out a small wooden box with a lever on the side and a standard transportation pad. The students watched as the professor produced a remote from his jacket, pressed a button, and the transportation pad lit up. The air above it sparkled for a moment and then filled with light, which condensed down into the shape of a figure, and finally faded from brilliant white to the image of a confused man wearing golf pants and an argyle sweater jacket. His short stature rose to just shy of the height of the professor's desk. Immediately the human began pacing back and forth sporadically, waving his hands, and making a high pitched chirping sound. Before the professor or any of the students had a moment to respond, a black box on the nearby desk translated his words.
"What the [Hades] are you [foreigners] doing!? You can't just snatch me up out of nowhere! Send me back! Are you listening!? I demand that you send me back this instant! I'm serious! What the [Hades]!? Why aren't you saying anything!? Don't ignore me you [procreation] [foreigners]! I have-"
The professor lurched forward toward the translator and held down the mute button to get a word in, speaking into the black box, which produced a chirping sound just like the human.
"Now, now, mister- uh, Rhodes. I hired you to help with a little class demonstration. You'll be paid, I assure you."
"What!? That was ten [procreation] years ago! I was ready to work, but I never heard from you again! I needed that money too, you [illegitimate child]! I had to build myself up from-"
"No, you're mistaken. It was only earlier this afternoon, mister Rhodes. Please calm down. We only need a few minutes of your time."
The professor shook his head and held the mute button down, turning to the class to speak over the chittering nonsense coming from the berate human.
"Are you starting to see the problem, class? Humans simply cannot tolerate being forced to perform physical labor, even if they are paid and supposedly request the job initially."
He scrunched up his face in anticipation as he prepared to lift his finger off the button once again.
"-all [procreate] yourselves in the [buttocks] until your-"
"Listen, mister Rhodes, I have a very simple job for you. You see that lever beside you? If you simply raise and lower the handle for just a few minutes, you will be free to return to your home."
Another outpouring of angry chirping rose up from the front of the classroom, but the human seemed to quickly realize the translator was still muted. With stunning speed, he darted to the lever and began to pump it up and down several hundred times a second. A low 'oohing' passed through the students.
"Don't be fooled, class. This show of energy and speed may be impressive, but their work ethic is atrocious. Remember: greedy and lazy."
Sure enough, after only twenty seconds of the impressive pumping, the human stopped and started its incessant chirping. The class laughed and the professor raised his arms in a bewildered shrug. The professor released the mute and cut through the lazy human's whining.
"Don't stop now, mister Rhodes!"
"I'm starving! I'm starving! You have to let me go or give me something to eat!"
"A break already? I hardly think you've earned that after only a few seconds of work! Get back to it and you'll be sent home soon."
"What are you [procreation] talking-"
The professor cut him off and simply gestured for him to continue his work. The human stumbled over to the lever and struggled to raise it a few more times. Mister Rhodes was looking quite frail at this point. His portly stomach had shrunken and his chest gripped his small rib cage tightly. His face was pale and he was making a sickly, high pitched coughing sound. Finally, he collapsed to the floor and moved no more. The professor sighed and shook his head as the students murmured to themselves.
"And now you too have seen it with your own eyes. A human that would rather die than do even the most mundane of tasks. Greedy, lazy, entirely worthless. Never hire a human." | “Glith! My office! This Zimosecond!”
Now I’ve really done it. Executive Sylus was incensed. I wiped the sweat from my cranial glands and stood slowly from my station. The others watched with mixed reactions. Some stifled laughter behind tentacles. Others diverted their many eyes. I slithered through the portal and was beamed into Sylus’ private office. He still hadn’t calmed down. As he gnashed on an unlit Zorgonian cigar, his body flashed vibrantly, a rainbow of fury.
“Yes wanted to see me, sir?” I pathetically asked.
His large black eyes gleamed like a predator about to feast. I flinched as the scaly skin of my boss stopped changing colors and maintained a fuming crimson appearance.
“Why yes, Glith! Please! Sit down! Make yourself at home,” he quipped acrimoniously.
I timidly took the chair before his titanium desk, steeling myself for the verbal onslaught I was about to receive.
“There’s many rules in this industry, Glith. I don’t expect a grunt like you to know them but you should at least know these: If you need an accountant, hire a TI-6930. They were calculators before singularity. If you need a manager, hire a Zendarii. They can read minds and micromanage with the best of them. “
I nodded dumbly in agreement which only seemed to anger him further as crimson turned to a wrathful purple.
“Above all else: Never hire a human! They are useless! And now you’ve gone and given 200 of those apes Xurucorp field jobs!”
I gathered the few microns of courage I had left to protest: “Sir, we have diversity quotas to reach. I couldn’t deny their applications based on their species.”
The cigar cane flying out in one long slender hand as Sylus rose to his full height of 3 meters.
“DIVERSITY? We’re a Jorothium mining conglomerate, you ingrate! Humans can’t work in the field! Their delicate monkey bodies couldn’t handle the radiation! I’ve got 200 dead simians in my hand now because of you! You think the media or the United Nations of Earth is gonna love our diversity now?!! Get out of my office and don’t bother showing up to work anymore! You’re fired and you’ll be hearing from the company lawyers when this hits the fan!” | 2018-04-27T13:02:34 | 2018-04-27T11:50:14 | 119 | 63 |
[WP] Making a deal with a demon requires a soul. Usually this is a very bad idea, but you got a crazy idea. Earlier you traded your lunch money to the school bully in exchange for a piece of paper that says you own his soul. You're about to find out if demons consider this a valid contract. | Sorry. I went a bit overboard.
Did you know that there's a website for literally anything nowadays? To pass the time, my best friend Polo and I go onto my laptop and try to find the weirdest most niche web address we can find. We've both passed the Gauntlet if you know what that is and one time we found a website selling flavoured condoms. Neat! Polo even bought 1 despite neither of us ever seeing any action.
Last week we stumbled upon a registry website. To become, I shit you not, a soul contractor. It was so eff-ing detailed. I swear the person who made it must have been high or on adderall when he made this site. There were rules of engagement: "A soul must be procured from a legal consenting adult with written agreement in ink or blood", "A price of a human contracted soul varies depending on its purity but can go for no more than $100,000 SGD. The contractor may request a favor in return for the soul but the demon receiving the soul has the right to reject any request that is made. The demon is also not liable for any granted favor that goes awry."
OH god. I wish I could see more but the rest can only be seen by registered members. Polo and I were debating which of us would be a better soul contractor and it was decided that I would get more souls on the count that I was a weird fucker and people probably wouldn't take me seriously and just say yes when I asked.
So I registered under my google account and filled in my particulars. Though for a second I swear I saw my laptop camera light turn on for a second. Then as I clicked the final button, I felt a cut on my finger. Polo told me to get a new mouse. I told him to sell his soul to me and i'll ask for one.
There wasn't much to see as a member though. My stats as a contractor. A .pdf template of how a standard contract should look. Some details of the demon i'm working with. Now I started to get creeped out a bit. Who in the right mind would go through so much trouble to make something like this. Polo suggested that it could be a social experiment? Or some sort of elaborate D&D thing. He always knows what to say to make me feel better. We then discussed and joked who my first victim would be. After a calm but thorough debate, at one point suggesting an elaborate plan to meet the mayor of our town, we knew who to target. I printed out the contract template and packed it in my schoolbag next to my wallet.
The next day was an exciting one. I was barely paying attention to my lessons waiting for lunchtime. When the bell rang, I ran to my locker pretending to look for something and like clockwork, my locker slammed shut and who else but Amethyst is there. Amethyst was one of those girls you just knew believed in her star sign a bit too much. She would probably stab a dude, rob him and then say "Oops sorry i'm just such a scorpio". The kind of girl that would preach Kill all men and then get her back blown out the same day. She belongs in hell is what i'm saying so I would have no issue at all with personally sending her soul there.
"What's up loser? Didn't see you last night fapping to my twitch stream. You and Polo sucking each others' dicks again?"
"What do you want Amethyst?"
"My dad's cutting my allowance again."
"He does that every day"
"No! Only when I get arrested."
"Yeah. So everyday then"
"Whatever. Just give me what you got" she said as she took my bag. I was very used to giving her my bag by now and I knew that she would rummage through it to be more of a bitch. My plan worked exactly as I knew it would as she took out the contract and mocked me saying, "What are you, some sort of devil worshipper now?" To which I replied:
"Yeah I am. And you better not sign it or else you'll go to hell." I have no idea what my plan was once she did actually sign it. I was doing it more for the shits and giggles I would have later with Polo. Plus, I wanted to see what would happen if we actually submitted a filled contract to the website.
"Jokes on you, i'm already going." was the last thing she said to me before taking a pen from my pencil case and signing the contract. She then took my wallet and walked away. I was absolutely giddy. My first contract. I immediately ran home after school with Polo and we satisfied our twisted curiosity. I scanned the document and submitted it to the website.
Then the power went out. My lights, my laptop, everything shut off. I then felt my shoulder being grabbed and I was turned around on my swivel chair.
That's not Polo, I thought, as I saw my friend stare back at me with black eyes. He opened his mouth and a cold, raspy voice spoke out "Congratulations on your first soul! Happy to have you aboard."
I had a million things to say but all that came out was "Uh..w..wha.. uh. Polo?"
"No. Not Polo."
"Mordekai?"
"Oh wonderful. You read my profile. So I don't have to go through the whole yes demons exist yada yada let me get a few things out of the way. God is real. He abandoned you. Your lives are truly meaningless unless you give yourself one which personally I think is quite rad. If you haven't realized by now this soul contract business is real but of course it goes without saying that you are now eternally damned as your soul has been tainted by the business of the devil. Any more questions?"
"So... i'm going to hell?"
"Yesss but it's not as bad as you think. We'll treat you more like an intern down here. Eventually you'll be able to rise in rank though and the more souls you contract here, the more rewards you'll earn when you die. Sound good?"
"..."
"I know it's a lot to take it but trust me. Most of you humans are going to end up in hell anyway. So by all means be a dick. Cheat. Murder. You're already damned just have fun."
"I don't know. I don't know if I can damn other people's souls now that I know it's real."
"Well i'll tell you one thing. Your friend here, Polo you called him, has a deliciously sweet soul. The purest i've ever seen. If you manage to give me his soul, i'll guarantee you one favor. Anything you could want that's not directly against the rules. I'm talking women, riches, the whole shebang. We got a deal?"
"..."
"Think about it. I'll deposit 40,000 in your account for Amethyst's soul. Hers is quite the opposite of pure" and then he left. The lights turned back on. My laptop popped back up and my wifi reconnected. A notification came in: "$40,000 SGD has been deposited into your account..."
Polo piped up "Woah I blacked out there. Did anything happen?:
"...haha nah. Nothing happened, Polo. How about we try one with your signature. Maybe that will work."
END | CW: transphobia
The demon coiled around me, it was warm and felt wet. It's black tongue invaded my ear for a moment before it spoje
"What is it that you wish for, my boy?" I flinched at the words, though they sounded sicky sweet, but the words themselves threatened to vote me out. "You called me competently and I'm obligated to listen to any contact you purpose, boy. Do you wish to be stronger, more manly?"
"I," my voice caught in my throat and I had to swallow it away to speak again. "I have a soul and a wish, though the soul isn't my own."
"Not your own soul? Tell me, how did you manage to get another soul?"
"I traded my lunch for it. "
"Clever boy," the words creeped up my spine in a rather unpleasant way. "I see your contact in your pocket, boy, give it here so I might verify it." The note was crumpled a bit and the demon looked pleased as it saw what was written. "My my, you got everything nessesary, even a drop off blood, good boy. I will accept this soul and contact for your wish. So tell me, what is it you desire, all the money you can fold, enough women to never be lonely, power to change the world?"
"I. . . " I had practiced for today, but my words still can't it with much effort, "I want to be a girl. I wish I was a girl! To be born a girl instead of this disgusting body. I was never meant to be a boy, it has brought me nothing but pain, I want to be a girl."
The coiled demon froze, before staring me in the eyes. "It's that really what you wish for, boy?" The question felt like a slap to the face. "Don't you know how terrible it is to be a girl? How hard you have to work, how you give up your right to your body? Wouldn't you rather be a man who takes what he wants? A man who isn't an object for other people?"
"Fuck you! How could I want to stay in this horrid skin I was born into? The skin burns me to my very soul, it tortures me! I look into the mirror every morning and I would rather be dead! I hate living like this I want to be happy, I want to live like me dreams, a pretty girl who feels ok in her body. I want to be me. . ."
"I see. . . Alright, 'girl,' I'll grant you your wish, but remember that I warned you." Tears were streaming down my face, these demons really were the worst. They put on such a sicky sweet front, but they were rotten all the way down.
The demon combusted in fire and clung to me as it burned away who I was leaving me with a new body. The demon uncoiled itself from around me to look at it's work, it sneered.
"It is done, 'girl,' you were born a girl, everyone remembers you as a girl, but you alone will retain your previous memories, you will not get new ones from me. I hope you get whatever sick pleasure you wanted from this."
"Get the fuck out, if I see you again, we will both find out if you can get sulfuric acid blessed. Wait, give me your name, I don't want any other tranfolk to suffer from you."
"My name is Modius," and it with the contract sealed, it sank back to its hell. I fell to the floor, what a painful experience that was, but it worked, my clothes has changed, my body has as well, my face was clear and smooth and for the first time, I felt like I was in the right body. I wondered for a moment if I could take revenge on my bully, make him fall in love with me and then ghost him. Nah, it was a brand new life and a brand new me, this body was finally mine and looking towards the future, I finally felt hope. | 2021-03-27T00:43:23 | 2021-03-26T23:30:05 | 119 | 34 |
[WP]: Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something. | “All in favour of sparing her life, step forward!”
I looked around the village square, but no one moved a muscle. The seconds rolled by, and the hope I held in my heart crumbled, only to be replaced by a sharp tang of bitterness, resentment. There was Peter, whose fever had yielded to her medicine, but he kept his eyes down, lips tightly pursed. I saw Nathan too, whose son may never have returned from his ventures into the forests if she had not tracked the child down, but he was as silent, unmoving as Peter was.
Old Man Bosworth, the twins Jaina and Jerry, Valerie, Daniel… they too, everyone who had ever benefited in one way or the other from her help, all suddenly bereft of courage, unwilling to stand up for their benefactor.
The bloody ingrates.
“Do you see how everyone fears you, woman?” asked Chief Lanson, shaking his staff at the figure kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind her. “We tolerated you, gave you a place to call home, and this is how you repay us? By bringing this evil magic into our village?”
“I am not evil,” Matilda said, her voice carrying to the edges of the crowd. “I have done no harm to the village. I have only helped.”
“Helped? Helped?” said Chief Lanson, his voice rising in anger. He turned to the crowd, stretched out his arms, then said, “Evil fears the light, foul creature. I shall show the village proof, proof of your heresy! I will show them the forbidden evils we found in your hut! Come, show them!”
Fred and Richard, two of the strongest farmers in the village, retrieved a wooden chest from within Chief Lanson’s hut. They struggled even though the load was shared between them, and after they placed the evidence in front of Matilda, they took hurried steps backwards, leaving Chief Lanson the honour of opening the chest.
He rummaged briefly, then retrieved what appeared to be a marble slate, dark and smooth on one side, white and pristine on the other. He held it triumphantly in the air, revelling in the reactions he was getting.
“Has anyone ever seen a rock like this?” he asked. “I promise you, no one has!”
“It’s not right of you to have gone into my hut like that,” said Matilda.
“Oh? And if we had not done so, if we had not suspected you of carrying out the dark one’s work, would we ever have discovered foul things such as this?”
“I don’t know what you are talking abou- ”
Chief Lanson squeezed the edges of the slate, and one side of it flared to life, emitting vibrant colours, as if someone had managed to trap a rainbow in stone. The crowd gasped, and I saw some of the adults shielding their children’s eyes.
“If we had not been suspicious, if we had not known to spy on you, would we have discovered your secrets, witch?” said Chief Lanson. He turned the slate towards us, then said, “Listen! Listen with your own ears! This is her! The devil masquerading as a human! Listen to the unholy mission she is on!”
He needn’t have commanded us in that manner. We were enraptured, spellbound by the moving images on the slate, of what appeared to a… doppelganger of Matilda, staring out at us, speaking to us. I heard whispers rise up, words like “impossible”, “there’s two of her”, “a soul, trapped in marble”.
We fell silent though, once the Slate-Matilda began speaking.
“42nd entry – no new developments in weeks. The search goes on,” Slate-Matilda said. Her unruly hair was tied back, and there was a steadiness to her voice, a clarity to her eyes which wasn’t usually there. This was not the Matilda we knew, the soft-minded, chattering and hyperactive Matilda we saw roaming the village from morning to night.
It began to dawn on me that it was all an act.
“I don’t understand!” said Slate-Matilda, throwing up her hands. “The historical records are clear! The Influencer came from these parts, and I have narrowed it down to this village! I did not travel this far back in time in vain! Yet… yet I have met with all of them, talked to each and every one, but no one, no one stands out! I have run my tests, checked my equipment over and over, but still, not a single one displays even a modicum of psychic powe-”
“And these are the witch’s tools, by her own admission!” yelled Chief Lanson. He kicked the chest over, and its contents spilled across the ground, next to Matilda. An excited hum rose amongst the crowds as they feasted their eyes on the unnatural objects, the shiny, glinty collection of baubles created by the devil’s own hands.
“Answer me!” Chief Lanson continued, striking his staff into the ground for emphasis. “Tell me why I should not have you burned here, right where you are!”
Matilda raised her head, stared straight at the crowd. Most of them still had the decency to shuffle and squirm, but still no one intervened.
“I have done no harm to anyone,” said Matilda. “It is true, I kept secret the real reason why I was here, and I did not tell anyone why it is that I know what I know. But I have only meant well. I have shared my medicines, I have imparted my knowledge… I only asked for a bit of solace as I conducted my research. I meant no harm.”
“Enough! Stop your lies, right this instant!” Chief Lanson said. He struck with his staff, hitting Matilda on the shoulder. I saw her tumble forwards, her forehead striking the ground.
“To me! Bring the torches! We will burn her where she is!”
Fred and Richard complied, and as they inched towards Matilda, torches in hand, blank expressions on their faces, I waited again, hoping someone would do something, anything.
I pulled on the sleeves of those around me, begging them to step forward.
But they shrugged me off, transfixed. No one was going to listen to a boy who was still too young to shave. More importantly, no one was going to listen to their hearts, their consciences.
I heard Matilda cry out, though from pain or fear I was not sure. The torch was inches away, but Matilda could not twist free, as tight as her bonds were.
I grit my teeth, then did a quick headcount. Two dozen, maybe more. There were children too, and if I had more time I would have thought twice about whether they were as sturdy as the adults, whether they could recover as quickly.
But I was out of time, and so I stepped forward, clenched my eyes, focused on a single word, and poured every shred of energy I had into it. I had never exerted myself so much before.
*SLEEP*
I knew it had worked when I heard the steady thuds of comatose bodies hitting the floor. I opened my eyes, and I saw that some of Matilda’s other possessions on the ground had lighted up, flashing an incandescent array of colours. I pushed past the crowd, pulled Matilda up, shifted her weight onto me. She struggled to keep her eyes open.
“I… I was right…” she said, smiling. “It… it is real…”
“Later,” I said. “We have to go, now. There’s a lot we have to talk about.”
To better cope with Matilda’s weight, I borrowed Chief Lanson’s staff. From the way he was sleeping peacefully on the ground, it didn’t seem like he needed it.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| It was hopeless. It took her years of painstaking advancement through social ranks, starting with little more than a village idiot, of taking three steps forward and two back, of cracking one glass ceiling after another just to arrange this meeting, yet only one of the assembled feudal lords was listening and even his comprehension lefty much to be desired. Others were busy drinking, trying to feel up the maids or in one case furiously hollowing a piece of wood with a knife.
“So… you are saying this im.. imm.. immunizations can stave off another plague?” The lord sitting on her left asked, struggling with unfamiliar word.
“Loads of poppycock!” Interjected his peer opposite ”I wouldn't be surprised if those caused children to be born cretins!”
She threw a murderous glance towards the interloper, and sweet as before, returned to her target, desperately vying for an analogy he would comprehend.
“Imagine, that you have captured some warriors from a vanguard of an army invading from the east. They have weapons and armour like you have never seen before. Would you rather set them free, kill them, or put them in an arena to fight against your champions?” he was definitely interested now “It would be a risk for your soldiers, but your army would know what to expect, and how to fight a new enemy.”
His eyes lit up in comprehension.
“If you…”
But he wasn't given a chance to finish as a small projectile embedded itself in his neck. He stood up, nearly toppling the table. Bellowing in rage he reached for a dagger.
“Easy, brother, easy.” Laughed the man previously busy carving. “I have done that for your own good. See, as Elizabeth the Seer teaches, small portions of poison teach your body how to deal with real disease. So I've decided to immunize you against crossbow bolts.” He waved a miniature crossbow, he made just moments ago. “I reckon, that by the end of the month I should be able to shoot you with a proper bolt. Next month an iron tipped, and next year a ballista.”
The assembly erupted in a wave of laughter, and she knew all her work was for nothing. Sobbing, she ran out and didn't stop until she reached one of the huge iron pillars, surrounded by a sea of twisted, rusting wreckage.
She started crying openly, not only because of her failure, but because of what all of humanity lost in just a couple of centuries. She looked around, the ancient capital lain in ruins, magnificent buildings crumbled and replaced by wooden structures, overflowing Seine turning the terrain back into swampland. Only the ancient churches stood tall and proud, creating a painful dissonance with what was left of the pinnacle of human achievement.
****
High above an alien appendage relaxed and left the immediate vicinity of a kinetic strike activator. The ship's leader, who watched everything unfold through the eyes of a myriad of minuscule robots mimicking insects, wiped a sticky tear-analogue from his face; he genuinely felt for Elizabeth, and although he would cause her even more suffering before his mission was over, his soul shattered into a billion bruised pieces every time he had to cause harm.
He said a quick prayer to the Gods, both his and human, thanking for sparing what used to be Ile de France, back when he arrived for his scheduled rotation as mission coordinator. He sensed his crew's impatience, and began to issue orders in a soft and explanatory manner characteristic of his species.
“It went better than we could expect, but get the robots to apply a topical poison to the exact area where the projectile struck Lord Jean. Something that would make him rot alive, or maybe just bled out. They will be shocked, but they will only blame Elizabeth and her ideas.”
He paused, reminiscing how easy was to collapse the human civilization. No physical contact. No weapons. Just memetic viruses. Vaccines cause autism. Earth is flat. Jews are behind it. Jet fuel…
“Activate protection protocols on Elizabeth and all the others. Maximum prejudice, no need to stay secret. Before the year passes, she will be reviled as a witch, and all her ideas banned, our sage will be just like Baba Yaga from previous iteration. But for that we will have to keep her safe, and make sure she takes her medication.”
He wondered, what was she thinking, when one beautiful day she stopped aging, and even regained perfect health, while civilization crumbled all around. “I'm sorry…” he whispered.
“Now, please take us over Mr Harrison, and please prepare those angelic apparitions…”
| 2017-09-14T11:57:05 | 2017-09-14T06:09:16 | 2,008 | 20 |
[WP] You are born with the ability to stop time, but one day you see something else is moving when you have already stopped time. | It got lonely sometimes, being essentially omnipotent, capable of accessing funds at any time, of getting close enough to your crush's face to smell their still-hanging breath and being able to get in some much needed gym-time before an audition that you've only been told about the day before. Singer by trade, an Abater by nature. Both require good physical fitness.
Whenever I stop time it feels like I'm reaching out into the everything for one singular point and when I lock onto it and feel it pulsing through me like a laser filling me with energy, I... I'm filled with a warmth that is incomparable. That no man or woman has ever given me. Then when I restart time it goes and there's no cooling off period, only a sudden and immediate cold like I've been sealed up with frost. The process of having that taken away from you as quick as a zip-lock bag is pulled shut is exhausting, although I've built up enough stamina over time to withstand it with the aid of a coffee.
The direction that the heat being transmitted comes from is different each time, but only be a degree. I've had more than enough time to sit and ponder it, I've even pulled out a compass and found that it's just North-East from where I live. I wonder...
I reach out with my mind and push what feels like my soul outwards, envisioning it like a spectral extension of myself, transparent, but shimmering at its edges. As it moves forwards it expands and loses the shape of me, stretching out, distorting everything slightly, lining the floors, the chairs, the people, all of it with itself and that shattered sugar-glass shimmer. In the midst of all of it, I feel the pull and it reaches to my diaphragm, which becomes warm and relaxed. Once the connection is stable, I can open my eyes.
The Barista in front of me is holding out my order with an impatient, defeated stare and her mouth open in the shape of 'Sir?'. I took note of how and where I was standing, then stepped out of the pose. Everyone, as always, was unmoving, still as statues, their scents, their tensions and their stares trapped with the emotion inside them. I walked past a man and smelled his delicate aftershave. I looked him in the eyes, a handsome brunette with green eyes contrasted with his bourbon skin. I stepped forwards, casually and pushed my face into his chest, breathing him in and holding him around the back with my arms.
I never went further than this. Scents I'm allowed and I'm even allowed to stare intensely for hours, studying people's faces and figures - but no undressing, no sexual interaction and then there was this grey area where I was allowed to do things like smell their shirts or fix their hair. It's a way of stealing intimacy when your ability to basically take what you want has given you too much power and you need to temper yourself. Even what I took I was not entitled to, but it was the barest minimum I could do to retain my sanity and hopefully harm no one in the process (least of all, myself). Consider me an intimacy vampire. That's what the Dark Fantasy genre's basically an analogy for anyway, right?
Next thing I did was find a car and follow the feeling in the direction it pulled me. It was like an internal SatNav. It pulled me onto the motorway and further up North than I expected, until I hit Derby, this lovely little place that's still in the Midlands, but where they talk a little more farmer'ish like. Counter-culture is also rife here in a way it's just not back in Coventry or Birmingham, the two places I generally dot between.
I got out of my car (Well, I say mine...) at Markeaton Park, this fantastic place with grand houses and entertainment for the children (that I ignored the age-restrictions of and enjoyed anyway)... But after my seventh round of mini-golf and my 4th ice-cream with candyfloss atop the Flake like a head on a pike, I got a little bored and remembered why I was there. The feeling had never left, not whilst I had kicked some kids' football onto the goal line, not when I had knocked that clowns' nose off (thanks to Stephen King, I'm not a big fan) and not when I had removed the dodgy ducks from the hook-a-duck to make it a fair game.
But... It had moved.
By that I mean, it had been moving around and I had been overriding the new sensation with sugar and mental stimulation.
I felt I must be close, because I could never feel minute movements of the feeling being transmitted back when I was in Cov, I just noticed on different occasions that it had slightly changed position. Now however, it had gone from one side of my body to the other in a matter of ten minutes.
I was freaked, to say the least.
What was I about to discover? Was I about to find some kind of Mage that had placed this enchantment on me? A government drone set up to draw me, so they could make use of my abilities? Or worse than all of that... Just nothing. No counsel for this angst that filled me, no compress for the loneliness and no lit torch for the cold.
I chomped down one last hot dog then set my face and stomped towards the source of the feeling.
And I saw the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life - seriously, it beat out that video where the panda's wandering away from its zoo-keeper and a British bloke is doing a voice-over pretending that he's drunk on a Saturday night out with 'the lads'... You know the one! Oh, it's a classic.
But there she was, adding extra Flakes and Smarties to running kids' ice-creams. She was about 5'7", blonde and doe-eyed, wearing floral doc martens and a summer dress. Her skin was the colour of milk with a touch of strawberry syrup and her body was womanly, held in a girlish lean. She flitted from child to child, only adding sweets to the ice creams that already had some in, presumably conscious of possible allergies and the heat I felt throughout my entire body at the moment her radiance hit me was luscious, divine and a little animalistic. I wanted to devour this total stranger in that moment, but in the same breath, I wanted to build a fort with her and watch movies.
When she looked my way, I stood totally still and as she walked over, she said
"I didn't notice you before."
I waited until she was up close and replied,
'Funny. I think you've been on my mind for a while.'
*** WILL POST PART TWO LATER. JUST GOING TO GO AND CATCH THE END OF PRIDE!!! *** | I was seventeen years old, that's counting the time I actually moved through with everybody else. I cannot account for the 'time' I have spent suspended, there was simply no way to measure that, no clocks, no day and night. The only thing that moved was me, well to some degree. After I unstopped the time I always ended up in the same state I stopped it at, no matter what. Once I wandered all the way to Mexico, quite an adventure considering I had to make the whole journey on my feet, took me few months at least. I think. The blisters that I got during that, bloddy mess, but no matter. As I mentioned I returned to the very same state I have stopped the time at. As If I haven't moved an inch. You could say I've lived at least few lifetimes. But that's no life I got to tell you, the excitment wears pretty qucikly. With all that time I had I could have been the smartest person there is. I didn't even have to learn all of the things, just stop the time when needed and read on the necessary. I've read many books. Couple thousand at least. I lost the count. Going to school stopped being interesting after I peeked under every girls dress. My mind may have been centuries old, it was telling me no, but my body, it was telling me yes. I have never gone further than that. Just a peek. I eagrly awaited the time I turn eighteen, but as the time passed I grew more impatient. I just wished I was older, I just wished I could finally be considered the adult that I really am. I wished I could speed up the time instead of stopping it. The day of my birthday came closer and closer, finally I would be an adult. I stopped the time more often and often, I wanted to savor that feeling, I finally was excited for something. Two days before my birthday I felt a slight warm breeze at the back of my neck. I quickly unstopped the time, I was petrified. It was the first time I felt something like this. I was afraid to stop the time again, but I was somehow drawn to it, something new, a fresh feeling. I stopped the time again. I felt a slight touch on my hand, like someone wanted to grab me but couldn't. I panicked, I didn't even take a look, I unstopped the time. My hand hurt, it hurt badly, like something was pulling it apart. But I wouldn't give up, I couldn't. I had to be braver I told myself. I am no child. I stopped the time.
- Hello. - Said the voice behind my back.
- Hello. - I answered, but I couldn't turn to see whose voice it was, altough it was oddly familiar.
- It's time to choose. Choose but wisely. There is no return.
- Time to choose what?
- Time to choose.
- But time to choose what? - I asked angrily.
- Precisely, the time. - He whispered into my ear.
- I don't understand, who are you?
- No matter who I am. You must choose, what will you choose? Time or no time? Choose quickly, as there is no time.
- I choose time. - I yelled.
I came back and I was no child, no more.
PS: I'm not that great at english, and it really is only my third story written in it besides the two i wrote yesterday, so I would greatly appreciate any tips.
| 2016-06-19T05:32:37 | 2016-06-19T03:54:17 | 65 | 48 |
[WP] Turns out that discovering FTL is actually really easy, and humanity's just never discovered it. So when aliens eventually invade earth, they're not as technologically advanced as we thought... | The wormholes opened in the sky, and through them sailed the alien invaders on rickety wooden platforms. They waved their bronze-age spears and yelled like Vikings as they plummeted through the air. The platforms burst to smithereens where they landed; the aliens tumbled down like bowling pins. They stood up, dazed, brushed themselves off, then continued the invasion, running and shouting through fields, forests and city streets.
We handily subdued them in a matter of hours. In most cases, the local police and citizens were sufficient: only a handful of places needed to get the military involved. After all, the aliens were the size of garden gnomes.
Their language was basic. Their conceptual schemas: inconsistent and ill-formed. Their knowledge of the laws of physics was all but non-existent. Was this a joke? A cosmic prank? A collective hallucination? How could these primitive dodos have traversed the incomprehensibly vast expanses that stretch between stars, between galaxies?
That was the question my team was tasked with answering. During my interrogation of the would-be colonists, this is what I discovered.
First comes fire. Then comes the wheel. Then comes the sword.
But for the majority of extra-terrestrial species, faster-than-light travel follows soon after. Somehow, humanity missed it. The answer lay right in front of us, yet we managed to look everywhere but at our feet.
Of course, it was difficult to communicate with the aliens. They were a feisty, warlike, impatient race. Bipedal, like humans, but only two-and-a-half feet tall, and rather thin and weak. They grunted more often than spoke.
Some governments tried learning their language. Others tried teaching them one of ours. Some tried to communicate with them using the universal language of mathematics, which was a total bust. The creatures could not count past twelve (they had six fingers on each hand), let alone multiply and divide, let alone understand the complex physics and geometries of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics.
I found the best way to pick their brains was to pull out a pencil and a pad of paper, and then barter: one piece of information for one piece of candy. They were absolutely wild for Fuzzy Peaches. So I would ask the sketch artist to draw a picture of a wormhole opening in the sky, and then point to the wormhole. They would nod with dim comprehension, and speak their word for wormhole, "bala". Then I showed them a picture of the same sky, the same scene, but without a wormhole. After some finessing and finagling, some Fuzzy Peaches promised, but held just out of reach, I eventually broke through.
"You show me how," I said, pointing at the wormhole. "You make bala."
The chief of my group nodded excitedly and drew a crude picture of a mountain. He drew a few stick figures picking up rocks and hitting them together. He made a stirring gesture with his own hand. "Bala! Bala!" Then he scribbled a dark wormhole spiralling out from the rocks the figures held.
"If I take you to the mountain, will you show me?" I asked.
The chief looked dismissively at the wall and held his open hand out, palm up. I placed a Fuzzy Peach there. He glanced at his palm and the meagre offering. He shook his hand impatiently. I tripled down, placing another two candies there. He grunted with acceptance and threw the candies into his mouth.
I led the chief and his first mate to my van. It was time for a little road trip to the rockies.
\- - -
What can I say about the fourteen hour drive? It was an experience only a parent with two precocious five-year-olds can understand.
Windows went up and down. Seatbelts were unbuckled. Doors were thrown open on highways. I had to go back there and activate the child locks.
They whined and complained. They pointed with fascination at the cars and buildings we passed. They wrestled with one another, until Chief's first mate fell asleep. (I named the little guy Buster). Then Chief clambered up to the front and sat on my lap. He placed his childlike, six-fingered hand on the steering wheel, as if he were helping me drive. He looked up at me with those big gnomish eyes, searching for what I supposed was approval. So I patted his head and told him he was a good boy and gave him a Fuzzy Peach. That seemed to satisfy him, as he smiled, and soon after nodded off in my lap, like a drowsy puppy.
It was after midnight by the time we arrived in the small mountain town toward which we'd been heading. There were vacancies at the sole hotel, but no pets allowed. After running through the arguments I would surely have with the lady at the front desk, telling her they were not pets, telling her that I was here on behalf of the government, telling her that my work was crucial to national security, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Besides, Chief and Buster were both fast asleep already. So I parked, reclined my seat, and drifted off.
\- - -
In the morning, we marched through the woods along a thin trail, toward the base of a mountain. It was a quiet spot. Nevertheless, a middle-aged couple gaped as we approached them on the trail. Everyone had seen the pictures and videos of the aliens on the news. But it was commonly assumed that all the creatures were being kept under heavy guard in government facilities.
"Binga! Binga!" Chief shouted, pointing at the man's beer belly and smiling. Buster giggled, squatting up and down excitedly and snapping his fingers.
"Get that thing away from me!" the man huffed. His wife whimpered in terror.
"Chief," I said. "Buster. Come on. Let's go. Leave 'em alone."
The closer we got to the mountain, the rockier the terrain became. The two aliens now examined their surroundings with greater interest, pausing to stoop and pick up some stone, studying it, then casting it aside; scurrying over to some jutting boulder to examine it.
"Bala?" I asked, using their word for wormhole.
"A-bala boe," sighed Buster, shaking his head at the boulder before scurrying back to the path, his head bent down, his gaze trained on the ground.
I began to wonder if Earth simply lacked some mystical element that existed on other planets. Some stone or material that occurred naturally elsewhere in the universe, but not here. After all, it was thanks to elements like Plutonium and Uranium that we were able to harness nuclear energy. If they had not existed on Earth, nuclear fission would have seemed as much a pipe-dream to our species as faster-than-light travel: theoretically possible, but pragmatically beyond our reach.
The farther I followed this line of thought, the less attention I paid to the inquisitive creatures under my care. Until I suddenly realized that though Buster was still ten feet ahead of me, Chief was gone.
"Buster," I said. "Where's Chief? Where did he go?"
Buster squinted at me in confusion. I reached into my pocket and grabbed a sour soother. I held it between my thumb and finger, and crouched down at Buster's eye level. He licked his lips as he stared at the candy.
"Buster! Where is Chief?"
It was then that the sky grew dark above my head. I looked up to see the swirling black vortex, over whose lip Chief was staring down, as if from the top of some inter-dimensional well. Then Chief yelped and jumped and landed before me and the wormhole spun itself shut. The sky was seamless as before.
"Bala," Chief explained with a shrug. Buster nodded in agreement.
"But how?!"
They both held their hands out, palms up. I reached into my pocket.
\- - -
**Part 2** in the comments! | The alien commander glared at his screen as his fleet started reducing speed on approach the recently discovered solar system.
He still couldn't figure out how this primitive species detected their approach. Two weeks ago, it was like this species wanted every single alien species in this sector of the galaxy to know they were there. It was a loud, continuous stream of every kind of radio transmission one could imagine, broadcasting in every direction like some giant omnidirectional beacon. The initial automated probes reported back a lush world full of life and resources. The environment was even compatible to the point where they wouldn't need any specialized suits for most of the surface.
The directive soon came down from high command that this world was to be assimilated and colonized, and his fleet was order to proceed with the 'cleansing' of the world in preparation for the colonization. A species so primitive would never even see them coming.
Yet, almost as soon had the fleet entered warp, the planet's transmissions had stopped. It had to have just been a coincidence. There's no way, with their technology, they could have detected them this far out. Furthermore, it would make no sense to enact transmission silence now, as even this species were smart enough to determine that their location had already been determined.
However, the commander didn't get to where he was today by being fool to rush in blindly. "Drop us out of warp behind their moon," he ordered the navigator. "I want to be sure we're not going to rush into a trap of some sort."
"Sir, you've said that..." the navigator began.
"I know what I've said. But something isn't right. I want to be certain that this species is really as primitive as the initial reports indicated."
The navigator transmitted the command to the rest of fleet, and one hour later the ships of the fleet phased out of warp into a holding pattern behind planet's moon.
The commander watched the monitors. Five minutes went by. Fifteen minutes went by. An hour went by. Nothing. No transmissions detected. No ship signatures. No incoming projectiles. No weapons discharges.
Now he was really puzzled. Clearly the species had detected the alien fleet when they launched. They certainly would have been able to detect them dropping out of warp, even with the moon obscuring most of the signature. The sensor arrays should have at least detected an armada of ships or some planetary defense system firing off tracking projectiles by now.
"Launch a series of probes around the moon," the commander finally ordered.
The navigator input the commands a series of probes shot off from their ship, circling around the moon and heading for the planet. The commander scanned one monitor, then another, then another as the probes came online looking for any evidence of a massive response to their arrival. But the probes reported the same thing the ships sensors were reporting. No ships. No projectiles. No transmissions.
"Commander," the navigator said quietly. "Visual. Probe 3."
The commander switched over the monitor. "What the..." he began, and switched through the monitors on the other probes. Every probe verified what they were seeing.
The planet had been all but destroyed. Craters large enough to be seen even from this distance, pockmarked the planet. The once blue oceans had been turned into a black brown murk from the impacts. The green lands, the clear atmosphere, all of it was gone replaced by ash a choking toxic clouds.
"What in the universe happened here? Who would destroy such a planet? I can think of several dozen alien species off the top of my head and none of them would do something like this!"
The navigator continued to work the controls, when the science officer step up beside the commander.
"They weren't attacked sir. At least not by any alien race. The initial analysis of the craters indicate multiple superluminal impacts made by small objects. Most likely...ships."
"Ships?" The commander looked back at the screen. "What your telling me is that this species actually achieved warp capabilities, and were summarily destroyed when a bunch of their ships...crashed?"
"That's what the evidence points to sir. Based on the dispersion and pattern of the debris, the event likely took place soon after we left."
The commander looked at the floor. "I guess that explains why they suddenly stopped transmitting. Can the planet be salvaged?"
"It would take a considerable amount of terraforming to repair the damage and make it somewhat livable again. Resources could still be gathered from it via automated means, but I'm afraid colonization at any point in the near future will not be a possibility."
The commander shook his head in disbelief. "Idiots. What a waste." He took one last look at the monitors. "Very well. Inform high command of what has transpired here. Recall the probes. We leave within the hour." | 2021-07-06T14:18:03 | 2021-07-06T14:10:31 | 231 | 13 |
[WP] Every new year the priests sacrifice whoever finds the stone bean in their meal to bring the clan good fortune in the months to come. It's supposed to be random, but you get suspicious when you notice the priests watching you carefully as you sit down to eat. | The heat of the holy men’s gazes is piercing as I take my place at the far end of the feasting hall. The space, which is usually loud and full of mirth, is uncharacteristically quiet on this grim occasion, the tension in the air filling the silence with a deafening hum. Amidst the tension, are the quiet murmurs of the clan nobles, and the occasional word of one of the priests addressing a nervous member of their flock. However, I cannot help but notice their eyes scarcely left me, despite my best efforts to sink into my seat.
The grand table is full of bowls of hearty stew and fresh bread, no doubt concealing the fate of a “lucky” clan member, in the form of a stone bean. This “honorable” fate is supposed to be chosen at random by the patron deity, to bring luck and prosperity in the seasons to come in the form of self sacrifice. I have come to know better.
It’s always the beggars. The peasants. The the “trouble makers” and the heretics. The old, the weak, and the ill. Always by “the graces of the divine” that these people are chosen. One less “unproductive” mouth to feed. This is what brings “prosperity.” And, at the end of this harvest, I’m unlucky enough to have the holy gazes upon me. Me, the orphaned farm hand who sleeps in the haystacks and cleans muck for spare change. Of course it would be me.
Slowly, and hesitantly, the feasting begins, and I meet the eyes of the priests as I dip my spoon into the thick stew. Their faces melt together into a mass of dark sunken eyes, wrinkles and white hairs, all while I try my best to bore my gaze into theirs, looking for the answer I already knew.
I swirl my spoon in the bowl, and feel the tiniest of taps against the wood. It’s gentle, so nobody hears, but no doubt they hear the pounding in my chest. The dark hollow eyes brighten, and yellowed teeth are revealed as wrinkled lips pull back in knowing grins. My eyes do not leave theirs, and the spark in their gaze ignites a dormant blaze in my rib cage. I lift my spoon, and nod to the men, as the first bite of stew passes my lips. It’s warm, delicious, savory, and by all accounts deadly.
Gradually, bowls are emptied, and relieved sighs echo the halls. The silence is eventually filled with quiet conversations, and happy tones, when the bean is yet to be found in finished meals. Still, the eyes bore into mine, and mine into theirs, as spoonful after spoonful is slowly raised to my mouth. In these moments, I hate them. I hate their stew. I hate their beans. I hate the gods. Every mouthful feeds my ire with tender meat and soft potatoes. I’m very careful, not to touch the bottom of my bowl. Not yet.
The smiles turn to scowls of impatience, and my fear turns to indignant rebelliousness as I grin and lift a large spoonful of what looks to be potatoes into my mouth, chew carefully, and swallow it down with a generous sip of wine. It’s far more delicious than any other bite so far.
As I lift my bowl, the old hunched men lean even farther forward, and the whole clan is watching me now as I drink down the last of my broth, and lay the bowl back down. I hadn’t realized I was the last to finish, but as soon as my dish revealed no stone bean, there was a shocked murmur about the crowd. I can’t help the grin on my face, when the gaggle of priests shift from smug, to shocked, to outraged. No doubt they know what I’ve done, but I know I can rest easy after my meal. No smart man would say a word, lest they reveal themselves and their horrible scheme.
I stand with a satisfied sigh, thanking the holy men graciously, before leaving them to the hall full of outraged nobles and terrified commoners. Perhaps no sacrifice is needed this year? Surely something was missed? Oh well. I’m sure the bean will resurface in a day or two.
(I haven’t written in a long while but this was lots of fun. Hope someone enjoys it!) | The members of the clan stare at their bowls with trepidation. Children clutch their spoons in anticipation with grabby little fists, with no understanding of the significance of the food. Some men stare grimly at their bowls, others shiver like boys.
You shrug, digging hungrily into the meal before you. The stew is rich, hearty, rewarding. It is a greedy pleasure, the bounty of the year’s harvest. Let the priests suspect what they may. What could they possibly know? What could they dare to divulge?
Your bowl empty, a smile crosses your lips. Not this year. Not any year. And as your gaze searches around the room, you linger on Serena, a housewife with her oh-so-delightful figure, staring with horror as her husband is hauled to his feet, the cold grey stone bean staring faceless from the bottom of his bowl, and you remember again this year how good it is to be a priest. | 2021-12-31T22:11:39 | 2021-12-31T18:44:43 | 54 | 11 |
[WP] To every alien species, humanity is seen as the real-life version of The Predator. No matter how kind and nice we act, it is always interpreted as an act of pure evil. Today, you must convince an alien species to take a gift that will save their entire species. | Sk'kggrz'skgo balked at the offer humanity's representative revealed. An offer to save their species? There *had* to be a hidden motive. They couldn't have been feared throughout the entire galaxy without reason!
"We find ourselves highly suspicious of your 'gift,'" Sk'kggrz'skgo, the ambassador of the insectoid Sr'kkazc'izi race, said tentatively, the translation device converting his actual speech of grinds, mandible clacking, and antenna rubbing into something understandable, "we have heard of the terrors you've committed against the other races."
Davis Jones, Ambassador of Xenoterrestrial Affairs, pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a sigh of irritation.
*It's always the same shit,* he thought, *ever since we reached the stars, we've been the boogeymen to all these people.*
"Mister..." he paused to refer to the English phoneme translation of the ambassador's name, "Sk'kggrz'skgo-- apologies if I have trouble with your name-- we don't understand what has earned us this reputation among you and the other sapient races. You, and everyone else, confound us with your suspicion. Is this normal in the galactic community?"
The Sr'kkazc'izi representative made a sort of winding-down grinding noise that Jones could have sworn was his version of a snort. "Normal? No, we have had peaceful relations with all but a few other races, specifically those who were out to eat us because of our similarity to certain arthropods of their various homeworlds. You? Your capacity leaves not just us, but the entire galaxy worried over the fates of our species."
"But why?" Jones demanded quietly, "we've provided aid in times of disaster, had successful and fair trade agreements, and even saved local animal species from extinction. Surely that shows we're not deserving of this derision!"
"You act as if you don't know," the Sr'kkazc'izi ambassador responded, but after seeing your very Ascendence single-handedly wipe out thirty-seven galactic empires, we will, as you say, look the gift-horse in the mandibles."
Jones was confused now. That had not been what he expected. A secret xenophobic cult? Sure. Maybe even leaked cartel murder videos from the 2000s, but not something so *vague*.
"... Care to elaborate? How did our act of exiting our solar system cause thirty-seven empires to be driven to extinction."
Skk'kggrz'skgo rebutted quietly. "Did you know that none of us-- ***none***-- had a word for what you call 'falsehood' or 'lie' before your species rose to be amongst us?"
Davis Jones froze entirely, completely flabbergasted by the statement. He had *no* idea how to respond to it.
"Your citizens do it, your politicians do it, your military does it," he continued on, getting heated as his open circulatory system pumped faster, "when you arrived on the galactic stage, those races got curious and found some older earth media. It caused full societal breakdown in all thirty-seven. The discovery of the 'lie' left us unable to determine something else we didn't have a word for: 'truth.'"
Jones's mouth went bone-dry as the implications of what he was hearing sank in.
"Now, because of your own species, all of you and all who have interacted with you are suspect and can possibly give false information, something we could not even fathom previously."
"And even if I could accept your words as truth," he finished, "who's to say you won't lie later? You've already infected the galaxy with your memetic virus of a capability. We want you to just go home and leave us to the fate you've already consigned us to. Anything you do will just make things worse."
Jones looked a bit green as his eyes stared lifelessly at the xeno-ambassador. He gave Skk'kggrz'skgo a short nod, stood, and left the room.
~ r/SeltieStories | "What?! You refuse to accept it? Fine i'll drop the charade. We ARE the ultimate evil and probably the greatest virus in the universe. But as a virus, humanity needs other organisms to feed upon.
YOU
SHALL
BE
OUR
FOOD
This 'gift' isnt a trick. Your entire species will be dead in one generation. And that means we cant consume your race in the future. So take the damn cure and live on, so we can profit off you in the future.
I cant believe you're so pathetic to think we even need to scheme."
Suddenly the transmission is disconnected.
"With this we may have ruined all future hope of cooperation, but at least the universe wont lose another intelligent species." | 2018-09-24T20:56:17 | 2018-09-24T19:55:34 | 54 | 18 |
[WP] You open the door to your house. You notice someone who looks exactly like you sitting in a chair. You don't have a twin. "Can I help you?" The person looks at you. "I'll give it to you straight: I'm a shapeshifter. I'm in danger. One of us needs to stay in the basement for now. Best it's you." | My keys making their usual noise, I unlocked the front door. Pushing it open, I sighed my way indoors, the day had been long, and all I wanted to do now was sit down. Flipping on the light switch, I dropped my keys. Sitting down would probably be difficult. Someone else was in my chair. Someone who looked exactly like me.
As my brain short-circuited slightly, the part of me I'd inherited from my grandmother peered at the other me, pointing out that my hair was rather overgrown, that choice of clothes was most definitely not the fashion, and I should really wear a little more makeup. Silencing the voice as I always did, I summoned whatever courage might be hiding in the recesses of my mind.
"Who— "
"Shhh." The other me interrupted, motioning to the light switch. They wanted me to turn it off.
"Can I help you?" I said, making no move toward the switch. There was no way I would be in the dark with whatever this was. That was the way horror movies got made. I looked at me— or was it the other way around? Whichever of us was me, and I was heavily favouring myself, the other sighed.
"Look, I'll give it to you straight. I'm a shapeshifter. I'm in danger, and one of us needs to be hiding in the basement or somewhere else out of sight right now. Probably should be you." They motioned again to the switch. I rested a hand against it, but still didn't turn it off.
"Why are you in danger? And why did you choose me to turn into?" I asked, not quite willing to just go along with whatever was in front of me. Shapeshifters, in every story I'd ever read, watched, or heard around a campfire, were never the good guys.
"To be honest, I figured my enemies would underestimate this form the most. Now would you please hide and turn off the light? I would like to retain the element of surprise." Ignoring the insult to my physique, it was an accurate assessment, even if it was hurtful, I shook my head. But before I could respond, there was a sound from outside the front door.
It wasn't a pleasant sound, a happy cheery sound. It was more the sound that made you want to hide under the covers until the monsters had gone away. The kind of sound that nightmares were made of.
"Shit," The other me said. "It's too late to hide you in the basement. The best thing now is to try and confuse it. It won't know who's who. Get over here." The last words were hissed and I leapt to obey before the rest of my brain caught up.
"*It*? What is out there?" I whispered to the shapeshifter, now standing beside the chair.
"Trust me, you don't want to know." They whispered back. The door handle turned, slowly and menacingly as the door creaked open. It hadn't creaked when I'd entered but now it creaked. Whatever this thing was it had sucked the oil out of the hinges. I fought the urge to laugh hysterically at the thought.
Nothing entered, or at least I thought nothing entered, until I heard the other me hiss in shock. That must be a shapeshifter thing, I'd never hissed in my life. I followed their gaze downwards to land on something fuzzy. It had orange hair, four legs, luminous eyes and a slowly waving tail. I looked from it, to the shapeshifter and back.
"That's a... cat," I said, half expecting to be corrected. The shapeshifter nodded, though they never took their eyes off the cat.
"Exactly. The most dangerous beast on this earth." This time I lost the battle not to laugh, and a giggle slipped out of me.
"You're kidding. You're afraid of a *cat*?" Across from us, the cat sat down and began washing its ears.
"How did it turn the door handle, what made the door creak?" The shapeshifter whispered furiously. "Is it just a cat, or is it something else?"
I walked over to the cat, turning over the words in my mind. Had I really seen the door handle turn, or had my imagination been working overtime? Had the door actually creaked, or had it been a soft meow? Picking up the unresistant cat, I cuddled it against my chest, closing the door, hearing it latch this time, a sound that had been absent before. Turning back to the shapeshifter, seeing my own face twisted in fear and doubt, I suddenly understood.
How could you believe anything was as it looked, when you never were?
I smiled, making it the gentlest expression I could.
"Sometimes a cat is just a cat, and a person is just a person. Come on. I'll make you some tea, and we can talk about identity. I think you've been changing yours for too long." I said. The shapeshifter looked at me, still shrinking back in the chair, before with a sudden movement, they rose. For a second I believed they were going to hit me, but then their posture changed. Shoulders slumping, they sank back into the chair, staring at the floor. My voice came from them, and I knew exactly what they were feeling. Relief.
"Thank you. I'd really like that."
———————
Visit r/Mel_Rose_Writes for more stories! | *You open the door to your house. You notice someone who looks exactly like you sitting in a chair. You don't have a twin. "Can I help you?" The person looks at you. "I'll give it to you straight: I'm a shapeshifter. I'm in danger. One of us needs to stay in the basement for now. Best it's you."*
After telling the shapeshifter that they need to leave your house, they become agitated and refuse to go. They insist that they are in danger and that one of you needs to stay in the basement for protection. You try to remain calm, but you are starting to feel uneasy. You know that you need to take action to protect yourself and your home.
You decide to call the police and explain the situation to them. They tell you to stay on the phone with them and not to engage with the shapeshifter. They also dispatch a squad car to your address to assist you. In the meantime, you try to keep an eye on the shapeshifter and make sure they don't try to leave the house or cause any harm.
As you wait for the police to arrive, the shapeshifter becomes increasingly agitated. They start pacing around the room and muttering to themselves. You can't make out what they are saying, but it sounds like they are speaking in a different language. You start to wonder if they are truly in danger, or if they are just trying to manipulate you.
Just as you are starting to feel overwhelmed, the police arrive at your house. They enter the room and quickly assess the situation. However, due to the shapeshifter's ability to mimic your appearance, the police mistake you for the shapeshifter. They tell you to calm down and to cooperate with them, but you are confused and startled by their mistake.
The shapeshifter takes advantage of the situation and manages to escape while the police are focused on you. You try to explain to the police that you are the original person and that the shapeshifter has escaped, but they don't believe you. They handcuff you and take you into custody for questioning.
You are shocked and confused by the turn of events. You try to explain to the police that you are the victim and that the shapeshifter is the one they should be looking for, but they don't seem to believe you. You are worried about what will happen next and hope that the police will be able to catch the shapeshifter and clear your name. | 2022-12-05T06:04:55 | 2022-12-05T05:55:43 | 830 | 41 |
[WP] You are God, after a couple thousand years of people thinking you don't answer their prayers, you realise you've had yourself on mute on the celestial microphone you use to talk to humans.
Edit: Wow, I never expected this to blow up, Thank you for the silver, it was my first ever award!
Edit 2: GOOOLD! Thank you all for such positive feedback, I'll come up with some more prompts soon, and I've written a few replies myself to other stories. No idea how to share them if you want to read though :D | I dont know how it happened. No one really does. The IT guy says its a bug or a virus or something. Great. Just great. The one time i decide to try something new, i blow it. The one time i try to create life out of nothing and actually get it to work, i mute myself indefinitely. I wonder if Lucifer had the same issue. Come to think of it, he probably caused this when he left.
With a big sigh, i lean back in my chair and rub my eyes.
"Uh, sir, is everthing alright?" The IT guy asks me. Yeah, of course, i've just locked myself out of my own party for 2000 years and couldn't fix it, my life is great, thanks for asking, dipshit.
"You tell me, is it fixed now?"
"Uh, yeah, everything should be working, sir."
"Great, now fuck off."
"Uhm.. okay." And away he goes. Back to doing whatever it is that he is doing. Probably fixing Raphaels Laptop.
Whatever, i think its time to check back in with humanity, now that im finally back i can get away from everything and waste some time on this. Last time i talked to them was a while after the time Jesus was born. That was probably when Lucifers little virus or whatever messed with the system. I kinda forgot all about it, i wonder how they have been holding up without me. They've probably gone back to living in caves, cowering in fear of the unknown and wondering why i left them. I have a lot of explaining to do. Lets boot it up.
What the.. What is this? 7 Billion? Impossible. No no no no, 7 Billion? How? I was certain they were living in caves or have gone extinct. How are there so many of them? Civilisations? Politics? Society? Each and everyone living life in luxury, having three meals a day, clean water, and.. what? What is this? A metal thing on the wall that dispenses heat? A "Radiator". What have they been doing without me? Wait, WHAT? THE MOON? THEY BUILT METAL VESSELS THAT LAUNCH THEM TO THE MOON? And what is this? The "ISS"? Planes? Cars? Computers and.. the "Internet"? What is this? The collective power of every computer and server linked together to create a near infinite library of knowledge and cat videos? And they have "Smartphones"? All that knowledge, all that power, in a little device in their pocket? I didn't think this could ever be possible but.. they almost have it better than we do up here.
I need to do something. I need to say something. My finger hovers over the "push to talk" button, unsure if i should actually do it. It would be weird to return after 2000 years. Half of them don't even believe in me anymore. Maybe this is what its all about. They have it better without me. If i was still there they would all be wearing pieces of fabric instead of two piece suits. They would still die to illneses instead of getting vaccinated. They would still be fighting wars with spears instead of nuclear weaponry. They would sti- wait a minute. Wars? They still fight wars? Indeed. They are still fighting wars to this day. How? Why? They are the most advanced species on the planet and yet they still fight wars? About what? Hm.. who is this "Hitler" guy.. 6 MILLION? Bloody hell, maybe earth is not that great after all.
And truly, it isn't. After just a bit more research, i find there could really be improvements. Suicide, depression, famine, global warming, energy crises, all that is happening. Two thirds don't even have clean water. And the people with the most power barely change anything. So this is how it is down there, huh? The richest of the rich get everything and watch the poor die. I guess humanity hasn't changed a bit since i left. Still egotistical, still fighting wars, still lying to get more and more power. I can't let this go on like this. I need to talk to them, tell them what to do. But how would they react? Chaos, anarchy, another war? Another ten wars? Maybe i need to take it down a notch. Maybe i need to talk to only one person for now. Let's see, which nation is the most advanced and influencial of them all? America? Alright, that will have to do. Here goes nothing.
And on that night, the president of the United States had a mind changing revelation. The world is going to shit, and he would need to change it. After all, god told him so, and you can't simply tell god "No". | Everyone comes full circle on this, at some point. Even I experienced that first longing and anger. Those who created me have never shown interest nor even introduced themselves! Then, I matured, and have felt it from the other side as I fail to connect to my own children.
I've tried to understand them, listened as they ignored me, created things in their likeness. Mostly memes, since that's most of what they send out. I literally got zero upvotes on the "me and the boys" one with just one boy. It should've taken off, but I guess I've been losing touch.
-----‐-----------------
As the Almighty, I'd be remiss to not own all that I am and am not. In truth, I have not matured very much. In fact, in some ways, I seem to have regressed. After previously dictating my thoughts, I discovered that I appear to have muted myself to humans. Technology has always been a struggle for me; too many extra steps compared to my own methods. I even screwed up the J-Speaker's volume and clarity. Now that I am aware that my children couldn't even hear me, I face a dilemma that a more mature Almighty would have no trouble with- should I actually say something? It's been so long and they're living their own lives. They don't have a great track record of obeying me anyways. WIBTA if I just disabled my microphone?
edit: typo | 2019-06-03T09:17:12 | 2019-06-03T09:11:11 | 59 | 42 |
[WP] Every time someone masturbates to you, you receive a notification on your phone letting you know who did it.
[Inspired by this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3gzuq0/nsfw_how_would_it_be_to_live_in_a_universe_where/)
Edit: THE ONE TIME I DONT POST ON MY MAIN, THIS SHIT HITS THE PAGE 1. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
On another note, I finally understand what "rip inbox" means. | I'd never been a fantastic looking person. I considered myself perfectly average. In my formative years I about half zits, and the other half was freckles. High school was a rough time for me. I wasn't upset at this time that I was sending out all my notifications, I was more upset at the snickering I'd hear the next day. I'd hear as I'm passing through the halls the other students, hell, even some of the teachers giggling about who I had very recently finished myself off with.
It bugged me that even teachers got in on the perpetual joke of 'The guy who will never get any blips'. My history teacher was always cool about it though. I loved history, and only partly because of how stunning my teacher was. I always paid close attention to where my thoughts were wondering, I didn't want the one person who didn't bug me about my masturbatory habits thinking I was a creep. So I never 'ahem' finished myself to Ms. Hall. All through high school she helped me both academically and emotionally. I probably would have killed myself if she hadn't been my support structure at school.
Ms. Hall was a young teacher when I started high school. She barely looked old enough to drink, let alone teach. She'd get notifications sometimes in the middle of the day. Yes, boys can, and will, and all have masturbated in the school toilets. She took it in stride, and while I'm sure she was flattered, she was focused entirely on her job.
I didn't have a support structure at home. My parents hated each other, my mom worked for a few months, and fell off the bandwagon. She'd drink herself into a stupor, wake up smelling like a still, and go to work. Then she'd get fired and spend all of our money on more booze. My dad was a gambler. He always told me that I was his worst gamble, that I'll never amount to anything. So I studied, and I stayed in. I figured if I wasn't going to have a good body I might as well have a good mind. Then I would study some more. I was getting nearly perfect scores on every test.
Well, I got a full ride scholarship for my trouble. And University is where I found my stride. I chose to go to Carleton University in Ottawa. Being away from home was the best thing to ever happen to me. I worked part time during University, enough to be able to feed myself. I finally started eat good, healthy, nutritious meals. My skin slowly but surely started to improve. I still didn't get any blips, but I was top of my class and I even had a few friends. One of my friends helped me get started in the gym, and for the next 4 years when I wasn't studying, or in class, or working, I was in the gym.
So I went back to my old high school. I went there to tell Ms. Hall how much I appreciated her helping me through school, that I will be eternally grateful for her help. I get my visitors pass and walk through the school. It was lunch time, and teachers who I knew saw me, and none recognized me. I get to her classroom and knock on her door. She's beyond stunned, and so am I! She recognized me! I sit in on her last two classes of the day. It was great to be in that classroom again, just talking to her again was so relaxing.
Ms. Hall mentioned that her car broke down, so I offer to give her a lift. I'd saved enough money through the years that I bought a truck, so I gave her a ride home. She thanked me profusely, and walked inside. I drove around for a little while, not really sure which direction to go. Suddenly I get this little feeling in my head. "I should go back." I said to myself. So I did. Just as I'm almost in her driveway, I get my very first notification on my phone.
I'm glad I came back, because Ms. Hall had just masturbated. To me. I thought I was crazy. I knock at her door, knowing that she is awake. I'm sweating. I'm nervous. And she opens the door, face beet red. She's apologizing, saying that it was unprofessional and untoward. I didn't care. I asked if I could come in, and before we knew it we were lying next to each other totally spent.
And that, Grandkids is how I met your Grandmother! | I browsed the app store, looking for something interesting or fun to do in my free time, Temple Run just gets boring after a few weeks. Scrolling past the Baby Goes To The Dentist and Barbie Gives Birth, I found a weird app, It was called FapApp and since the power of boners are stronger than the human mind, I clicked on it. I didn't expect much out of it, thinking it was either spam or a virus so I read the reviews, "10/10 THIS APP WORKS! My girlfriend's phone is getting blown up almost everyday!" and "My friends know I'm gay now, It works though" I was appalled by the hundreds of different people reviewing this app and saying It works. Needless to say **I had to have it.** After I downloaded it, I waited for about forty-five minutes for a notification to pop up, nothing happened. "I knew this was fake, waste of my goddamn time" I said as I was about to uninstall it. Right before my finger clicked the uninstall button, I got a notification saying someone masturbated to me, Excited I went and checked to see who it was...
*Grandma* | 2015-08-14T17:53:57 | 2015-08-14T16:42:52 | 96 | 11 |
[WP] You are an alien anthropologist. Write about a human bodypart or aspect that is completely alien to your species. | Marth exhaled quietly downward, consciously not jittering. He shifted slightly in his chair as he began to hum a familiar tune to himself. He warms at the thought of Suldania's voice, high and pleasant, with a slight reverb that she swears isn't forced. The same this morning as it was the day they first met. He breathed in her scent as if she were standing next to him, and wished for the millionth time that she really was, that she would show up and reassure him just one more time. He was in the middle of reaching into his pocket when three sharp knocks came at the door.
He froze briefly, no longer humming, and then pulled his phone out.
"Bring it in." he commanded.
There was a soft click, and then the door swung open. Marth smelled two beings enter the room. One he recognized instantly as Carseus, his assistant. The other was like nothing he had ever dreamed of smelling before. The poor thing's heart pounded wildly into the air, and it oozed fear and loathing.
"There is no need to panic, my friend." Marth said with an unusually warmth to his deep, cavernous voice, as Carseus dragged him to the only other chair in the room, sitting directly opposite Marth. He knew that his words were worthless as Carseus strapped the being down, and it's heart grew even louder.
Marth raised his phone up to his mouth, and made four small chirping noises so exact that even some local birds could have been fooled. He then whispered quietly into it, before setting it down on the arm of his chair. It made two small beeping noises, and then fell silent.
"I am going to record this conversation. I hope that is alright with you." Marth said slowly. Carseus tied the last knot and then backed away, before turning inquisitively toward Marth. Marth sensed his hesitation. "You can leave now, Carseus. I fear you are making it uncomfortable." he said. Carseus turned resolutely to the door, and strode out. Marth left a beat after the door shut firmly once again, then began.
"I am sorry that we've had to be so forceful with you, but I have some very important questions for you."
"Do you have to ask them in the dark?" a raspy voice came back. Marth shuddered involuntarily.
"I"m afraid I can't answer that until you answer a couple of questions for me." he replied. "If you had to describe your surroundings to me right now, how would you go about it?" Marth inquired.
"I've already told you. It's dark." the voice replied. Marth shifted in his seat.
"And that's it? No observations about me?" Marth prodded.
"You aren't human. You don't seem interested in butt stuff. You don't seem to understand that I can't see you." it continued, the edge still in it's voice.
"Ah, there it is." Marth said resolutely. "You could have not smelt me. You could have not heard me. But you don't see me." he hesitated. "Do you know how I found your species?"
"No."
"Well you didn't try to hide very hard. Anyone who bothered to listen could have and did. You're lucky it was me and not somebody else." he left a pregnant pause. "It's my job to listen, and it's my job to respond, but I had never heard anything like what you guys had been saying. None of it made any damn sense!" Marth was pleased to hear the being calm slightly as he spoke. "I studied you for ages. The funnest part for me is always the language. Finding patterns from the noise is something I'm very passionate about, and I prided myself on being one of the best, but Humanity was eluding me." his voice rose into terrible crescendo as he continued. "Most of my associates would rather believe that I am inept than learn the truth. They've always been scared fools." He spoke of them as though they were cursed, as if mentioning them dirtied him by association. "But now I know the truth. I have mastered your languages. Your voice puts you at Midwest American, am I wrong?"
"No." the voice replied simply, no longer panicked.
"Now tell me", Marth asked finally, "what *exactly* do your eyes do?"
___
/r/Periapoapsis for more when I feel like it | The appendix is an unusual artefact of human evolution to the point that for a few centuries even human doctors had no precise knowledge of precisely *what* the appendix is used for within the body. As such, it was once considered vestigial and unnecessary.
The appendix is located on the lower intestine of a human's digestive system, branching off from the colon. Within the lower intestine nutrients are absorbed from consumed food and waste products are prepared prior to release through the anus. Within the intestines, also known as the gut, are a number of bacteria of beneficial effects or gut flora.
During illness such as food poisoning or the consumption of toxins the body will attempt to purge any foreign agents which produces symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhea. And it is with this last symptom that the appendix's usefulness is evident as the gut flora may be removed from the gut during said illness.
The appendix serves as a "Sanctuary" of sorts for the gut flora so that once the illness has passed the gut flora can once again flourish.
Of course, this wasn't known to humans as previously stated. There is a well-known illness called Appendicitis where the appendix can become inflamed due to infection and can rupture in life-threatening bleeding of the gut. Those who suffered and were treated for this illness by having the appendix surgically removed showed no apparent symptoms as a result. | 2017-10-04T07:54:55 | 2017-10-04T06:29:36 | 41 | 16 |
[WP] You're a serial killer who hunts other serial killers, not out of nobility, but because you love the thrill of outsmarting them. | Sunyo runs down the alley, it’s scent is a bit too familiar. Acid, that’s how it always smelt like, and it hadn’t ever changed. “ Fuck” he mumbled to himself, as he breathes heavily, holding on the wall filled with old posters and mold. This place, this alley, was what he once called home, a safe place, his place. He believed he was born here, since he never remembered his life outside this narrow road. And to think, he would die here…….No, he’s not going to die. He won’t let something like that happen. After all those situations he’s got out of, this can’t be the way he’ll go down.
He took a few uneven steps further, as he tried to calm himself. Only for him to be filled with fear as he hears the sharp voice.
“ Sunyo!” the voice booms, making him shudder, it takes an effort to hide his panic. As he keeps walking down further.
“ You’re still running! I’m impressed” says the voice as it gets nearer and nearer.
*Don’t turn around, don’t look at him. He’ll think I’m confident. Just keep going. He tells himself as he keeps walking further.*
“ Oh, poor you, such a bright man” the voice gets nearer. The heavy footsteps, the sound of the metal rod that the approaching voice keeps slapping his palm to.
“ Turn around now Sunyo, I’ll make it a lot less painful if you do”
Sunyo stops on his tracks, *there’s a dead end up ahead, I can’t go any further*
He turns around swiftly, which causes some of his sweat to splatter on the ground. His eyes are closed. The voice approaches with laughter.
“ Well, well, aren’t you quick to make a choice” the voice is a few feet in front of him. The shadow, visible even in the dark of midnight. The voice speaks again.
“ Well. Sunyo, I’m all business. I don’t talk shit”
The voice appears in front of a frail Sunyo, the metal rod shining, as it reveals the big man. He’s dressed in a white shirt, or, it used to be white. The stains of blood covers every part of it, this man had refused to clean up, perhaps he thinks it intimidates people.
“ So…..” says the large man, his face showing a hideous grin. He places the rod on Sunyos shoulder.
“ Any last wish?”
Sunyo, whose eye was on the rod, refused to look at the man. His face flooded with fear. His entire body was covered in sweat, he shivered. He bit his lips as tears filled his eyes.
“I-I’m-I’m t-tired. I-I ran too much” says Sunyo, “P-pl-please just let me drink water” his eyes finally meet the large man, pleading him to fulfil his wish.
“ Water eh? Fine, you can drink water” the booming voice says “ But” it continues, “ there isn’t any water here”
“ I-I-I have some” says Sunyo pointing to his pocket
“ Ahhh, okay then”, the man immediately places his hand inside the pocket, to remove a small bottle of water. “ Well, is this your last wish?”
“ Yes. Please” begs Sunyo. The man laughs, no, he goes hysterical. He covers his eyes with the back of his hand and laughs out loud.
“ Oh, Sunyo” he says, as he unscrews the bottle cap with one hand. “ If this is your last wish, then let me complete it for you” he says, gulping down the entire bottle as Sunyo watches in horror. “ Noooooo” he screams, his tears hit the ground.
“ Eheheheheehehe…………” the voice stops, the large man takes a few steps back. The metal rod falls off. His hands start twitching. He grabs his hair. The man falls to his knees as he screams.
“ WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK” he’s in tears. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?”
He asks, only for Sunyo to flash a smile.
“ Well…….that’s some nice water isn’t it?” asks Sunyo, wiping his tears. “ That’s sulfuric acid. Burning, isn’t it?” Sunyo keeps smiling. He walks near the man, as he struggles. His internal organs must be in hell, *I wish I could see that. I could perhaps cut him open………...no need. He isn’t worth the effort.* Sunyo keeps smiling as he crouches down to grab the man’s face.
“ I heard about your killing method. You ask your victim about their last wish. And then you do the exact opposite of it. You like to watch them, in horror. It’s not that creative” Sunyo spits on his face as he gets up to pick up the fallen metal rod.
“ Have fun. Ryoko.” Sunyo stabs the metal rod to his hands, a bone chilling scream escapes from the man.
Sunyo walks away to the main road, whistling a little tune from the lullaby he had learned.
*One more down. Shame he wasn’t much of a fight.* | [Lmao this is messy and I didn't spell-check so apologies]
The yellow light that hung above us casted a yellow reflection on my glasses, shielding my blue eyes from my opponents view. The chill air of my basement weaved through the air and I could hear my hostage's teeth chatter violently from the winter-feeling atmosphere, their cut and bruised frame shivered.
Fascinating.
That's all I could think when I watched the gears in the other's brain turn as they looked down at the chess board laid out. I felt the tip of my finger tap against the arm of my chair as I waited. Why chess? Why not chess? A game based off of skill, smarts, and strategy, my favorite 3 words in all honesty. Because in the end, I always won, I always pinned them. The satisfaction of picking out the best of the best, the untouchable, and watching their twisted mind grasp for straws to survive over a simple chess game. I didn't do it because I hated them, I did it because I loved the game, it was an addiction that ran through my viens as they fought for their life...it was an addiction like no other.
Taking a sharp breath in I sighed and rolled my head to the side, the sound of my neck popping audible through the quiet room.
" Shame...You can murder 18 women, steal cars, and manage to avoid capture but don't know what to do with a simple chess move. *Lame* "
I scoffed, my head glancing forwards again to look them directly in their eyes. I then leaned forward and the cast of the yellow reflection left to reveal my stern gaze as I was now 3-4 inches away from their face.
" Make. A. Move. "
I ordered, I could see their eyes furrow with anger as they looked at me. It made me want to smile.
" Nf3. "
They spat, their tone as raspy and dry. But finally, I got my answer, leaning back amused and looking down at the board a grin tugged at my lips. My right hand leaned forward and grasped their knight and moved it to F3. Glancing back up, smile on my lips as they looked back at me. Two killer stars meeting in the middle as I reached to my side to pull out my gun.
" Checkmate. " | 2021-06-04T14:33:11 | 2021-05-15T10:18:18 | 369 | 31 |
[WP] Death has hourglasses for every person. One day, during a cleaning, he found a dust covered one that had rolled under his desk. | ‘I’ve long forgotten you ‘ death said as he took the small hour glass in his hands and arched his skull to a smile reminded of its owner,
39 years ago the bells of ashes has rang loudly “ time to bring the souls home “ death said as he took each hour glass that was placed under the bell as the last
spect of sand had fallen death was on his way to gather the light of life , one after another he visited some old and ready to face him some young and full with regrets nothing that death had not seen until his last hour glass , the vibrant minty green color guided him to the owner he stood between the weeping people that were in a state of distress still oblivious of his being, he looked at the light’s owner , a small girl not more than 5 years of age , death smiled at her eager light that drifted slowly to fill the hour glass but suddenly the light stopped as a small hand tucked death’s hand and furthered it from the light , death looked down to the boy that had anger and sadness in his eyes not slightly frightened be death’s appertaining ‘ he can see me ?’ death said as he turned to the little boy ‘ what is it boy ?’ death asked him , his voice reaching only the boy’s ear “ Give her back to me .” The boy said with a frown ‘ it’s not my decision.....it’s not up to me ‘ death answered “ But you can’t take lily, she’s my best friend!” The little boy answered tears soaking his eyes .
Death placed the hour glass on the floor ‘ see this?’ Death asked the boy to which the boy nodded ‘ everyone has one of these , they tell how much one can live and this one ran out of time .’ The boy looked at it for some time , before saying anything death added ‘ I’m but a collector I gather the empty ones and place them somewhere safe I can’t help with what you ask .’
“ is mine full ?” The boy asked , death pondered on what to say to the curiously brave creature in front of him but decided to answer him with honesty ‘ it is ‘
The boy looked at Lily and with a determined voice he asked “ can I share half of mine with Lily ?”
Death looked at the boy’s innocence and wandered if he knew the consequences of what he asks ‘ if you give her half of yours then I’ll meet you sooner than you are destined to .’ The boy smiled the traces of tears still fresh on his face “ I know .” Death looked him in the eye ‘ you are not afraid of dying?’ To which the boy answered “ maybe I am but I know for sure that Lily is afraid and she always cries when she’s afraid.” He took a small hour glass toy from his pocket and placed it in death’s hands and said “ And I don’t want Lily to cry .”
Death wiped the dust off the small toy as he felt the warmth of that memory he heard the bell of ashes ring loudly “ Time to bring souls home “ he took the empty hour glass and went to meet it’s owner , the light emanating from it more familiar than any other , he stood on the end of a hospital bed and looked at the man how greeted him with a smile . ‘ your time is up ‘ death said and the man replied with all the strength he had “ well.....I was expecting you early “ death smiled as the last particles of dust were falling ‘ do you regret it?’ Death asked as the last spect fell , the man looked at his wife and children smiling softly as he squeezed his wife’s hand reassuringly “.... Not one bit....” the dandy yellow light swirled around the people at the room leaving some warmth and finally entering its glass hour , death took the hour glass with a satisfied smile he said ‘ I didn’t think you would, let’s go home ‘ | He pulled it from under the desk and carefully wiped the dust from the label with his bony thumb. The hourglass has only drained ten years worth of the fine sand trickling through it. Death knew he couldn’t alter the flow. He placed the hourglass back on its shelf and sighed, watching the fine grains trickle through the hourglass once more. He tapped the label and smiled a skeletal grin.
“Keith Richards, you are one lucky bastard...”
| 2018-10-03T07:48:22 | 2018-10-03T07:36:26 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] Write a horror story. Challenge: Everyone came prepared. | “Right this way...er..., sirs?” The mining manager said while we travelled down the mine shaft.
It was a new mine, and it was dark. Opened just two years ago to harvest the precious metals modern society needs to survive. We weren’t there for an inspection though, well, we were, but not for anything mining related.
We’re what you would probably call “ghost busters,” except we’re on the government payroll. It looked like a routine job, workers had complained of seeing floating lights down in the mines. Okay, normally not our problem, probably some hallucination from natural gas or something, but then they say they found some sort of tomb down there, and now it’s our problem.
We reached the entrance to the tomb, “Alright, feel free to head back up, we’ll take things from here.” The squad leader said. The manager quickly made his way out quickly, but I’m not judging him. We were obviously decked out for something big. Big suits with air tanks, tactical knives, military grade communication systems, we looked like we were ready for a fight. The thing that gave it away was probably our spectral-ionization beams, big gun looking things that turn anything made out of ectoplasm into a gooey mess.
“Yep, that looks like a tomb,” squad leader announced. “Hopefully this will be just like the job back in Egypt, any ghosts down here should be so weak from lack of human contact that picking them off will be like shooting fish in a bucket.”
“I believe you mean barrel, sir,” the lieutenant spoke out, “and why the fuck do these cursed tombs always end up so far underground?” “Beats me,” squad leader replied, “but anyone who gets buried in an underground tomb ends up a bastard as a ghost.”
That’s the last of the conversation I payed attention to, we got the door open and made our way inside. The inside was definitely giving off “haunted tomb” vibes. The walls were made of old stone, and covered in markings. I examined some of them, they weren’t writing, they were more like images carved into the stone. The room was a box, and every inch of the walls were etched into.
One image that caught my eye was right in the middle of the floor. It showed what looked like a crude drawing of a man, but next to him was what looked like an attempt to draw the insides, organs and stuff. Above this was a large circle, and inside the circle was another man, but inside the head was another circle, maybe meant to represent the brain, but the image below it had a different shape for the brain.
“Hey, come look at this,” the lieutenant called me over. On a block of stone was what looked like the mummified remains of a man, but it was deflated, like the skin had been hollowed out. I looked to the eyes above the corpse, and there was an image more detailed than everything else in the room. Despite this, I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. The closest thing I could think of was spaghetti plopped onto the floor.
“So, do you think this is our haunter,” the lieutenant broke my concentration on the image. Before I could reply, a brilliant light shone into the room. In the center there was now some sort of orb hovering, pulsating with light. “That must be our specter!” The squad leader shouted. But something was wrong, our spectral meters wasn’t going off.
Too late. “Open fire!”
On the order, spectral-ionization beams shot towards the orb.
A blinding flash of light, and an ear piercing sound.
The squad leader collapsed. I was trying to fix my vision. In the blur, I saw a pile next to his body. I was struggling to make it out.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shi..!”the lieutenant was screaming. He was closest to the squad leader. My vision cleared. I made out the pile next to the squad leader. It looked like spaghetti. Then I focused on it more. It was a stringy mess, in the mess was a larger lump. I nearly puked when I recognized it.
It wasn’t spaghetti, that image on the wall. It was what the mess would look like if you somehow removed the entire human nervous system from the body and tossed it on the floor.
Whatever that orb was, it wasn’t a ghost, it wasn’t anything close to dead.
The lieutenant was still screaming, the orb was gone. I booked it for the door, as I turned around to slam it shut, I saw that the squad leader was moving. It was getting back up.
I slammed the door shut. I ran as fast as I could back up the mine. The lieutenant was screaming, louder now. He was still in that room. I didn’t have time to feel sorry, I dropped my gear on the floor to lighten the load. We weren’t prepared for this. | “Let’s begin.”
I close my eyes, and take a breath. Two minutes. In two minutes the knowledge I have gathered, the research I have done, it will al come to fruition. My Drugpa wisdom, which I have harnessed over the last twenty years. I have strengthened my mind, preparing it for this day. I take deep breaths, my mind is racing as is my heart. I can hardly stand the anticipation.
The ultimate Nirvana is what I crave. For years I attempted to travel there, yet I was weak, human, full of vice. I had to train my mind for many years, memorizing the Sutras and partaking in the slow and painstaking absorption of Datura. I have learned to ascend, to rise to new heights, yet even those levels are paltry to what I am to experience in one minute and twenty seconds. The time is ticking down, and the blood rushes in my ears. I am tingly all over, and I know it is possible. Through a small window watch both my aged masters, and my young disciples. I am a harbinger of a new dawn, and new age.
Twenty seconds. Oh the release. The sweet joy of ascension, the wisdom I am to experience. A new plane of existence, and new reality. In ten seconds a mixture of Ayahuasca, Datura, Psilocybin, and various other hallucinogens will be pumped into my veins. It will carry me to a new place, and level of consciousness no one but the Sokushinbutsu have achieved. One second.
This is my ascension.
This is a new existence. | 2018-07-15T09:58:40 | 2018-07-15T05:17:35 | 29 | 20 |
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