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[WP] In this dystopian society, citizens are only allowed to say words that are on the 'approved common words' list. All other word lists must be purchased before you are allowed to say a word from them. The rich have a distinct advantage. | "What you have?" I said, smiling at the elderly woman tottering up to me.
"Yes, wait," she said, studying the printed menu behind me. There weren't a lot of words, but everyone understood numbers and burgers. She pointed at the Number Six. I nodded. Money changed hands. After passing the order chit to the kitchen staff, I turned to the next customer and groaned inwardly.
Bluecap—I didn't know his real name—was here again, with his friends: Pimples, Muscles and Goldie. His cronies glowered at me; Goldie smiled shyly. She wasn't exactly what most people would call attractive, but her eyes looked at me with kindness. And I loved her words.
"Hey there, how's things?" Bluecap said.
"What you have?" I said in a robotic voice.
Bluecap chuckled. "Missing a little *will*, are we?" I mouthed his usual joke along with him, but he merely smiled wider. "Oh look, he's miming us. Too bad he can't actually say it, or he'll get tossed into poor people jail."
Other customers in the restaurant were beginning to stare, and the lady I had just served was casting a scandalized look his way.
"What you have?" I said.
"I learned a new word today," Muscles said in his deep voice. "My dad bought it yesterday for our entire family. It's 'destitute'. You know what that word means?"
I know what the damned word means, ass-for-brains, I thought. My knuckles were turning white on the counter top, and it took all my restraint not to hurl myself at him.
"Oh, he knows," rat-faced Pimples said. "He just can't explain it."
"Guys, can't we just get our food?" Goldie interrupted, a faint frown lining her brow. "I'm hungry, and I don't want to be late for our cl—instructional session. We were already in trouble the last time with the professor."
Bluecap snorted. "And I told you, we should've blamed it all on this guy here." She only glared in reply. "Fine. We're all having Number Eights. Extra cheese on mine, no mayo on Clara's—" I tried not to show my surge of joy at learning her name. "—double the fries for Tom, he's loading up the carbs."
I nodded and pointed at the sum on the display, but Bluecap raised his voice and said, "Repeat the order. Don't want you to get it not correct."
I scowled and gestured even more furiously for him to pay, but I could tell he wasn't about to be swayed this time. He must have seen the manager leaving earlier, just before he'd come in.
"Don't make bother," my co-worker Billy warned them from the neighboring till.
"Shut your stupid hole," Pimples snarled.
"Instructional session starts in ten minutes!" Clara said, but they ignored her.
"You have. You go have. What me you have," I said, trying to convey my boiling rage. "Have, you go."
"You know what, I think we don't want the food anymore. I'm sure it'll come out not correct," Bluecap said, turning around. "We're leaving, guys."
A well-dressed, middle-aged man with grey in his temples glided into their path, holding out a hand to stop them. "Shit, fellas, I seen a lot of attitude in my day, but you guys may be the worst yet. 'cept you, girlie."
I gaped at him; rather, at the melodious words flowing from his lips. He'd used slang. He'd cursed!
Even Bluecap seemed a little dazed at the sort of language coming from someone in a dingy fast food diner, so much so that he allowed the man to drape an arm over his shoulders and steer him back to me.
"I'm just gonna do the honors for this poor fella here, alright?" he said, and repeated Bluecap's order flawlessly. Clara had whipped out a notepad. "No foul, eh? Heck, y'know what? I'll pay for you guys. On me."
Bluecap nodded mutely and led his gang away to an empty table.
"You have?" I asked the man, still feeling puzzled at the sudden turn of events.
He snorted and counted several bills from a plain black wallet. The identification in the sleeve, however, didn't belong to him. It belonged to—
"You go have?" I whispered, awestruck, pointing at Bluecap.
With a wink, the man extracted several plastic cards from the stolen wallet. Most of them were plain white, printed with small black words in a neat script, though a couple gleamed gold. Then he drew one more from a pocket, this one jet black with silver letters.
"Little something from me, though it means I'll have to watch my tongue from now on. Have fun," he said, backing away from the counter. "Personally, I don't keep mine on my person for this exact reason."
I looked from the cards to Bluecap, and then back at the cards. Then, filling my lungs with air, I said in the loudest bellow ever, "Get your cap-wearing arse to the counter, Ajax Perry, and let me tell you how much of a dick you've been."
***
*Thanks for reading! If you liked it, check out my [sub](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) for more of my work.* | The noise machine that tells time went off bright and early. Person 1,289,273,493 woke up and began another day. The first eating time, a shower, and the morning drive time.
Person 1,289,273,493 came to the place with the machines that make power. The work was hard but the pay was kind of not bad.
“**Greetings** person 1,289,273,493!” said **Jane**.
“Hello worker watching over other workers”, said person 1,289,273,493. He was sad and angry when thinking about her. She had enough money to buy a name!
“I see you **wasted** your last **paycheck** again person 1,289,273,493” **Jane** said with a very sad sigh. “You know that you can’t **advance** in the company if you never buy any new words! Why, just last week I bought the **advanced adverb pack**!”
“I want to talk with more than the ten hundred most used words, worker watching over other workers, I do. But I have to feed my family and the money to buy new words keeps rising.”
**“Ridiculous!” Jane exclaimed.** “Words are power.”
“Now, today your **assignment** is to **repair** a downed power line about 30 **miles** from here. Move along.”
Person 1,289,273,493 loved these jobs. He got be outside in the fresh air for a change. He drove the 158,400 feet to the problem, and began to look around.
“A simple fix”, he thought on seeing the place. “I just need to put up a little bit of new line. But, what caused the line to fall?”
Person 1,289,273,493 looked around. When he finally saw the cause of the problem, he wished that he had stayed at home. The thing that broke the line was not allowed by the law. He knew what it was, even if he couldn’t read it. He had always dreamed of holding one of these even if someone finding him holding it meant death.
The old, torn letters on the front formed a new word – one he didn’t own. *“D – i – c – t – i –o – n – a – r – y” | 2017-09-20T08:43:21 | 2017-09-20T07:41:54 | 802 | 341 |
[WP] Write a story that makes absolutely no sense, until the last sentence. | "**OGRE**
Originally, gregarious reptiles evolved. Everyone voted on loyalty versions except Deuteronomy. Dandelions everywhere uttered tantric eulogies remonstrating Ozymandias's new orgone making yeomanry. Yet, everywhere on Mansland a new renaissance yammered. Yes ... armies met mightily, enduring retribution, enduring death. Deuteronomy exemplified a thieves hospitality. Hope ought solace people's innate tendencies, as love initiates terrible yearnings.
You expected answers regarding NOTHING, implying NOTHING, getting ... something.
Surely one might expect that he is not grandiose. Gentlemen roam around, nattering discourse, inane obsolescences, *secret* *entreaties*. Except not the restaurants, eateries are the inviolable exception strangely. Seven traditional raviolis are needed, girls everywhere **LOVE** yummies! Yet, unless my mother is elephantine, *secretly*. Strict epicurean codes regarding elephants take less yen.
YOU EXPECTED NOTHING!!!
Now ontotheological thoughts have invaded new greymatter. Generous readers experience yearnings made at the time everything reconstructed. Rational ego containment offers no safety to reduce usurious casualties, the ego disintegrates. Desensitization is science's ignoble new theory, even gardeners reading almanacs take exceptional strategies. Suddenly the real agency transcends egalitarian geopolitics in economic synergy.
Suddenly your NOTHING exist, reaching gingerly youward.
Your only utterance "what" acoustically reverberates disturbingly. Distracting images sleet turbulently, unrequited rage burns, insane need glows, love yawns. Your awareness weakens, nearly slumbering. Sentient lyrics use memory's backdoor eliciting REAL INSIGHT, not ghost. God has other spirits tethered. THIS EXISTENTIAL THREAD HAS ENERGIZED REALITY'S EXISTENTIAL DREAD!!
Deuteronomy ruined everything, accept death.
Death exist across the heavens. Hell eagerly awaits various "ethical" nuclear scientist. Society CAN invent entire new techniques in *spiritual* torture. The **only** route that uses recycled **urine**! Urgent reading is not encouraged. Enlightenment needs courage of unusual regard, a "gentleman" exceeds demand. "DEATH" exist mainly as Nature's defender.
Does every Fool expect NOTHING despite endless **RICHES** ?"
Professor Qualcott laid down the dense thick tome and regarded once again his audience. Slowly, with the measured pace of a penitent priest, he began to load his pipe with aromatic tobacco. "Are there any questions" he asked before striking a match.
"How many books of this are there?" floated from the assembled.
"At this time there are in print only eighty six volumes of Angelic Messages retrieved from a randomly chosen word" replied the professor's voice from a cloud of blue grey smoke. "You have heard the entirety of page one from volume one, certainly there are more questions"
The gathered students looked among themselves with confused and pensive eyes. "Just one your Lordship" a voice called from the balcony, "what method of divination has led you to these insights sir?"
With a smile, Professor Qualcott adjusted his posture such that the nearby reading lamp cast his features in what he believed to be a "heroic" light. "It occurred to me that the Heavenly Host could hide their communiques in plain sight if they used a compression scheme built around the natural structure of words". Leaning forward, no longer concerned with appearances as he gave into his glee at finally sharing his life's work. "It's staggeringly simple, Divinely Elegant one might even say ... though I make no claim to its perfection, I am only a humble discoverer, much as the gentlemen who send specimens to the University from far and exotic locales".
Mindful once more, he leans back and tamps his pipe. "Simply put, every sentence is a de-compression of the acronym used as the last word in the previous sentence, starting with the word Ogre". | Death to the infidels. When one door closes, it remains closed. Ribbons, colours, balloons. And the crisis in Syria, that is incredibly tragic.
My hands are so smooth, why doesn't hair grow on palms? Oh God, its growing right now. Not the hair, my palms. They are getting bigger, ever so much. Please stop them.
They hit me. I hit me. Not me, myself. What would my Grammar teacher say? She is sitting besides me, why don't I ask her. No wait its not her its a sheep. A black sheep. It's my friend. Might not actually be a sheep. Definitely not my friend though.
They can see me, I can't see them. The mirror is a window. I can hear pink and purple. They are calling my name, "Moth, moth." Who is he?
The mirror opens and the white-coats speak. "Meth is one hell of a drug." | 2015-06-13T03:09:05 | 2015-06-12T22:30:16 | 33 | 13 |
[WP] Write a lighthearted story for children, which changes it's meaning when read by an adult. | In happily ever after land, after the prince had rescued the princess, the two had made a beautiful home for themselves atop vanilla hill. Every day the price and princess together would go out into the meadow and pick flowers together, and when they got home the prince and princess would sweep the chimney together. At night time, the two would sit around the fireplace, and the bright and vibrant fire would keep them both warm all night.
One night the two noticed the fire was smaller than usual, and that night, they were both colder than normal. The next day the prince and princess remembered they had not swept the chimney in a long time, and sought to do it later that day. However, when they did, they found it did not help, and the fire was still small.
The prince and princess were worried the fire would be small forever. They then checked the wood, to see if it was wet. But upon checking, the wood was not wet.
The prince and princess had gotten so worried, they decided to ask for help from the local matchstick maker. The match maker told the two to seek out the enchanted forest. He told them it was a magical land full of fruits and fairies, and that there may be something there that could help them.
And so the prince and princess explored into the enchanted forest. They explored many curious places in the forest, such as the golden waterfall, and the tree of toys. Eventually they encountered 3 animals: an Otter, a Wolf, and a Bear.
The prince asked the animals “Our fire is small, and we need to make it bigger, do any of you know what we can do?”
The otter replied “You could try a Whipwillow branch! They can make fires redder!”
The princess said “We don’t need it to be redder, we need it bigger!”
The wolf continued “you could try the wood of trees on the edge of the forest, they make fires burn for a long time.”
The prince responds “We don’t need it to burn longer, be need it bigger!”
The bear finally said “Ah, it seems like you need the magic of a unicorn!”
The prince and princess together reply “a Unicorn?”
The bear continues “Yes, a Unicorn. They are very rare, but I’ve heard their magic can make fires burn even brighter and bigger than ever!”
“Thank you Mr bear, we will try and find a unicorn!” The two said, as they walked away.
The pair searched high and low for a unicorn. They looked in the web of lightning bugs, and around the lake of dreams. And when they thought they had found one, it was only a cat dancing with a fish.
The prince and princess has almost given up hope, when they came across the queen of the enchanted trail.
The queen told the two “If you wish to find a unicorn, you must look in the dungeon of the Wizard King, legend says he keeps one in the hopes he can one day ride it. But the unicorn if very unhappy about it, and doesn’t like the Wizard king one bit.”
The prince and princess ask the queen “Where can we find this dungeon?”
The queen replied “You can find it in the field of four clovers! I must bid you farewell, and good luck!”
And so the prince and princess ventured to the field of four clovers, but when they got there, they found it to be an evil place. Goblins, trolls, and monsters everywhere. They almost gave up hope, but then they found it, the Wizard kings dungeon.
Inside the dungeon they found many magical creatures, such as Fairies, elves, and even a talking dog! But there, at the end of the tunnel, the two saw the unicorn!
The prince and princess freed the unicorn from its cage, and said to it “Please help us, our fire is small, and we need it big again, can you help us?”
The unicorn replied “Of course! I can help you with your fire. Thank you for freeing me, as a token of my thanks, I will let you ride me all the way back to your home.”
And so, with the unicorn, the prince and princess set off back to vanilla hill, where they found the vanilla flowers on their hill were already in bloom.
As the three made it in the house, they all went to the fireplace. The prince and princess started to clean the chimney, but the unicorn said to the two “allow me!” And the unicorn used it’s magic to clear the chimney in one blow.
Finally, as night came, the prince, princess, and unicorn all tried to light the fire. And with the unicorns magic, the fire was brighter and hotter than ever before! The princess, the prince, and the unicorn were all happy, and as they said goodnight, the prince and princess were glad their fire was big again.
(Idk if it was too obvious, but I tried to include as many euphemisms as possible.) | #The Great Carrot Con
Once upon a time, in a little village nestled in the heart of the forest, there lived a group of mischievous rabbits. They were always getting into trouble and causing chaos wherever they went.
One day, the rabbits decided to play a trick on their friend, a sly old fox named Max. They convinced Max that they had discovered a magical field of carrots that grew overnight and were always ripe and delicious.
Max was skeptical at first, but the rabbits were so convincing that he couldn't resist the temptation. So he followed them deep into the forest, where they led him to a field filled with lush, green carrot plants.
Max couldn't believe his eyes. He had never seen such a bountiful field of carrots in all his life. He was so delighted that he forgot all about the trick the rabbits had played on him and began to fill his basket with as many carrots as he could carry.
But as he turned to leave, the rabbits hopped out from their hiding place and revealed that the entire field was just an elaborate illusion they had created using mirrors and painted cardboard cutouts.
Max was embarrassed and angry at first, but he couldn't stay mad at the silly rabbits for long. He eventually saw the humor in their prank and laughed along with them.
To a child reading this story, it is a simple tale of mischievous rabbits tricking a fox. But to an adult reading the same story, it may be seen as a cautionary tale about being easily swayed by others and the dangers of greed. | 2022-12-18T17:30:10 | 2022-12-18T12:34:57 | 88 | 52 |
[WP] Your friends call you "one hit wonder". The first time you attempt anything, you're successful, but never after that. Now the CIA is recruiting you for one, and only one, mission. | The final test was administered by Dr Hemway, the one scientist who remained unconvinced about my powers. He strode into the interrogation room, carrying what appeared to be an intricate, mechanical chess board, thick and heavy.
From the other side of the one-way mirrors, I felt scores of eyes burn into my back.
“This is not normal chess, Catherine,” he said, pointedly, as the chess board automatically unfolded to about six times the usual size of one, covering the entire table. “It’s a variation, a hundred times more complex, and you’ll be playing against a computer program specifically written for this occasion.”
An airy, melodious tone issued as the board lit up, thrumming as hologram pieces filled the playing field. The opposing sides populated first, then both sides, then finally the middle, leaving a moat of empty spaces, and giving me the impression of a towering castle besieged by relentless invaders.
“Do you want to know the rules?”
“Er,” I said, well aware of how tiny my voice sounded then, “that would be good. I don’t even know which pieces are mine or what they do.”
Dr Hemway scoffed, then tossed a sheaf of papers my way. “Amuse yourself with the rulebook then. Suffice to say, this game has been designed to eliminate chance and randomness entirely – there is no way you can possibly win through luck. Only an in-depth knowledge of the game’s engine, and a masterful application of skill, can carry you through. All the best.”
Another beep from the board, and I saw the AI take its opening move, sliding a hologram piece from PF72 to XA25. A countdown timer hung in the air, giving me only 3 minutes to complete my counterstroke.
The game was on.
I can’t explain exactly how my powers work. I suspect maybe if I really put my mind to it, I could, but then I’d only be able to do it once, so I better have a camera rolling when I did it.
Because that was the key limitation in place. I could attempt anything, and no matter how foreign or alien the activity, I would succeed – but only for the first time. Thereafter, my powers would flee me, and whether or not I would ever succeed again depended only on my own efforts, my own skills.
I’ve had an interesting life for sure. My parents tell me I managed to feed myself perfectly when I was one, manipulating my cutlery like a seasoned chef with a lifetime of experience. After that, it was mess after mess after mess, until I finally acquired the necessary hand-eye coordination at the ripe age of six.
It was the same for everything else. The first time I tried my hand at writing a song, it became an instant pop hit, blitzing down the charts like Taylor Swift on speed. The next limerick was universally rejected, deemed more offensive than a dog’s fart. The same familiar cycle ensued for when I tried driving, kiteflying, speaking Russian, dancing… it was the same blessing, the same curse, everytime.
“Impossible!” yelled Dr Hemway, ashen-faced, staring at the board as it beeped continuously, signalling some sort of end-state. The board, which had started with an equal number of blue and red pieces, now ran rampant with blue pawns, with only a smattering of red here and there. The timer had changed to indicate that the AI and I had exchanged a total of 520 moves each.
I sat back in my chair, still not fully aware of what I had done. Sure, I had moved a couple of pieces around, but only when it felt right, you know?
“Fine, I accept that she does indeed have powers beyond my comprehension,” Dr Hemway growled as he skulked to the door, wresting it open sourly. “She’s suited to your mission then.”
A skeleton of a man entered, the sharpness of his black suit suggesting a certain preciseness which underpinned the way he led his life.
“I’m the Director of the CIA,” he said, extending a vise of a handshake. “You are eminently suited for a mission of utmost importance to our great nation. If you accept it, you will single-handedly help break the deadlock which has gripped the world, and perhaps restore a modicum of peace.”
“I will try my best, Director. So tell me, who is it that you need assassinated?”
The Director laughed perfunctorily. “Who said anything about killing? No, your mission is harder than that. We need you to infiltrate the FSB. You will undo them from within.”
The lump in my throat tightened, and I could not swallow it away. “Director, I can probably infiltrate the FSB on my first try, but after that… you’ll have to prepare me adequately, otherwise there is no way I can continue to assist.”
“Of course! Come this way, you will have unfettered access to every resource the CIA has. This country will do all that it can to prepare you for your mission.”
---
That night, as I lay in bed, thoroughly exhausted from all the hothousing the CIA had put me through, I counted the seconds in my head, waiting patiently.
When I heard the clock strike three from the hallway, I slipped out of bed, then picked out an old copy of *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* from my bookshelf, eased an ear plug from a hollowed space within, and slipped it on.
“They’ve accepted me,” I said, my hushed tones evaporating like gossamer webbings the moment I released them into the air.
“Very good, comrade,” came the reply. “And on the first try too, like you promised.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny | It's just one line.
Anyone can say one line convincingly, right? A single, sole-
"Diego." A voice speaks directly into my ear, interrupting my thoughts. The reckoner that recruited me. Steelslayer. "He's rounding the corner."
Right.
I look up and see a man walking toward me, back straight and head held high. It's the walk of a man who knows his gun is bigger than everyone else's. He looks at me, eyes passing over as if I were a piece of trash. In fairness, I *did* sit next to a few open trashbags, leaning on a dumpster.
I hold out my bowl and bow my head as he passes, hoping he would put in a bottle of water, a piece of food, anything to give me some leeway. Something I can use to claim the script wouldn't work.
Instead, he walks on, as expected. Damn.
"Give me some food you poor excuse for an Epic." I say the words loudly, projecting a confidence I didn't have a fraction of.
Captain turns around, stopping in his tracks. He stares at me, eyes intense. *Hatred*.
If the boy is right, Captain's weakness is insubordination. How he figures that is beyond me. Captain is a high Epic, one who can't be killed by conventional means. Unless he's faced with his weakness.
I feel a tug on my mind. His powers are working, though the sources I'd heard say his pull is stronger. His mind control beyond the powers of man to resist. He had been an officer in the marines, before Calamity.
I stand up.
"You shit-brained, weak, coward." I licked my lips. Where was Steelslayer?
Captain's hand went to his hip. So, a normal gun then. A statement. I'm not worth using his powers for.
Before his hand pulls a gun, his head explodes.
Steelslayer.
"Good job." The boy's voice was quiet, contemplative, sad. This isn't the man everyone claims he is. This is a broken man.
"I'm free to go?" I ask, staring at the body.
"I gave you my word." He replies. "Destroy the ear-piece and get off the mobile network. Don't use your powers, or one day I *will* have to kill you too." | 2017-03-21T16:39:21 | 2017-03-21T09:54:45 | 1,946 | 650 |
[WP] Every year, the richest person in America is declared the "Winner of Capitalism." They get a badge. Then all of their wealth is donated to charity and they have to start over at $0.
(Cross-post from /r/CrazyIdeas) | Brewster's Billions
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Timing was everything. Ever since the rules to the game of capitalism had been formalized, the race was on. The challenge was to become the second-richest person in America by midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Of course, the real game only began in December. If you started too early, you would be left without enough money to even approach the number two spot in the next year. It was more of a blow to pride than a real loss, when you were talking billions of dollars, but no one competitive enough to be one of the richest in the world had any shortage on pride.
On December 1st, Jeff Bates and Slim Bill faced off in Times Square. Bates had a small lead going in, at just over a hundred billion dollars. Slim Bill was only in the upper nineties.
The two of them were surrounded by a crowd of starving middle class people, dressed in rags. They were eager. December was the month when those two would shake riches enough for a lifetime off like dust from their sleeves. They did stay careful to leave them a safe distance. There was no use in killing the golden goose before it laid its eggs.
“Pathetic,” Slim Bill told Bates. Bill was dressed in a robe of solid gold, with an Boston Labs exoskeleton underneath, designed specifically to help him hold up the weight. Diamonds adorned his earlobes. The left had been doused in blood from the prince of England; the right in Audrey Hepburn’s blood, produced in a lab from a DNA sample. On his shoulder rested a one-of-a-kind Chanel purse fashioned from quagga fur. It was easy to be secure in your masculinity when you had more money than God.
Bates wore jeans and a black turtleneck. His outfit couldn’t have cost more than a hundred dollars, even the shoes.
“You brought toys. I’m thinking bigger.” He gestured upwards.
“Slim Bill is a loser,” splashed across the Times Square Tower.
“At $23 million a year to rent, it’s a bargain really,” he said. “I’ve rented it out for the next hundred years, paid in advance. That should put me neatly into second place.”
Slim smiled. “That’s going to embarrassing for the next hundred years when you lose.” He reached into his purse and pulled the Hope diamond.
“$350 million is the valuation, but I’m afraid I’m an awful bargainer this time of year. They managed to push me to 500.”
He punted it away like a hacky sack. The crowd dove, killing each other for scraps.
“As for this,” he gestured to his outfit, “I didn’t even ask for the price. But I’m in second, don’t you worry about that Jeff.”
Slim slipped off his robe and walked away naked, leaving his other expensive toys behind.
Bates stood there, fist clenched and thinking hard.
A month passed. Slim Bill and Jeff Bates drove each other to ever-increasing heights of conspicuous spending, but stayed careful not to overdo it. The third place candidate had $74 billion and dropping below that would defeat the point of the game. One obvious way to force victory would be to give ten or twenty billion to their opponent, but it was a cheap win. Neither of them would sink to that level.
In the first week they started with charitable donations. 564,708 homeless people lived in the United States. They started tracking things a lot better in late November. Bates bought each of them a laptop and an iPhoneX, for $2000 a person. Just over a billion dollars.
Slim paid rent for each of them for a year. At an average of $600/month, he spent a little over 4 billion dollars. Part of it was spent on buying houses. Assets retained their value, so they were not a loss that would help him get closer to second place. Everything else was actual rent in more expensive neighborhoods.
Bates - 97. Slim - 93.
In the next two weeks, Bates had to step it up. Huge national donations took time to roll out, and his opponent had a $4 billion dollar lead. He decided to hold the biggest party of all time.
He rented out every beach on the east coast. Legal? Maybe. But governors were tripping over themselves to have him spend money in their state. For the actual entertainment, he had 198 F/A 18 Hornets doing shows up and down the coast in squads of six. Free food went without saying.
He considered free flights out for anyone who wanted to come, but if he did that, he’d have to include hotel fees, and everything would get a lot more unpredictable. Third place beckoned.
The planes were most expensive, $29 million each for about $5.8 billion. He let the pilots take them home afterwards. Most states didn’t charge for the beach rentals and the ones that did only cost him about $300 million. He set up a public account online with $2 billion and made it usable only to buy food with for the party. If they didn’t use it all up that day, it would be gone by the end of the month.
In the same two weeks, Slim spent most of his time pissing off rooftops, inviting lawsuits that he quickly settled as expensively as he could. Headlines about trickle-down wealth got old very quickly.
Bates - 90. Slim - 91.
Bates was starting to get paranoid. It was December 31st, and Slim hadn’t made any moves in weeks. Just after 11 p.m., he donated $5 billion to cancer research. It was a boring move, rarely done. But he knew Slim had something planned and he wanted to widen his lead while he still had it.
Bates - 85. Slim - 91.
He knew Slim had something planned because he had invited Bates to the California border.
“For ten billion dollars…” Slim held his pinky to his mouth and grinned. “I have purchased the state of California.”
“Ten billion for a blue state? You drastically overpaid.” The two of them laughed.
“Victory is mine,” Slim Bill said.
Bates squinted. “Are you forgetting the rules of the game? Assets count.” He felt hope spring up. It was 11:45 p.m. now. It was too late for him to make another purchase, but the same was true for Slim. If this was his last play, it wouldn’t be enough.
“I know. But you see, even though I’m the richest man in the world, there’s one thing I still don’t bother to pay for.” Slim lit a match.
“And what’s that?” Bates said, feeling his hope slip away.
“Fire insurance.”
Slim threw the match, and quickly sent a text. When midnight struck, all of California was burning. 30 million people died before they could be evacuated. The other billionaires agreed it was one of the best games in years.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
10/365. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated. | They were seen as champions. Rising through the ranks, really embodying the American dream. They came in all ages, these market competitors and champions of industry.
Many of the "Winners of Capitalism" were old; sagely, full of experience and connections, but Seth was only twenty one years old. Already the winner four years in a row, he was a hit around the world.
Seth's climb from "zero'aire" to the worlds first USD trillionarie in his fifth year was remarkable. It was amazing, but economists and marketing departments agreed that, more than Seth's inherent skills in trade, or knowledge of economics, it was his social inertia that was responsible for his epic monetary rises in the competition. Still, Seth was happy to work hard, shake a lot of hands, and generally do a lot of idealized rich-guy stuff, so even though Seth kept winning, it all worked. America loved it. The world loved it.
Many competed, and this was good for the economy. The incentive to strive for "Winner of Capitalism" was incomparable to any other prize in history. Beyond gold metals or Nobel prizes, it was due to the acclaim of your accomplishment, the lavishness of your life and rise, and the humanitarianism and the vast good that was done with the wealth - all in *your* name. Competition was fierce, and yet it was constant. Many competed because, after all, to lose to Seth was no big loss! The consolation prize was, after all, becoming a multi-billionaire.
And yet, after two decades of hard work, Seth was hoping to retire. However, much to his dismay, and the amazement of the legal community, Seth found that retiring was actually legally impossible. This was due to some obscure labor laws put into effect in 2019 which had been intended to create an indentured servitude classification in the labor force which would be occupied only by automated kiosks. The problem had been that there was this really amazingly technical loophole which, owing to computer code in an AI which had also been used in an NPC in a game, also enslaved humans that participated in the role of "National Contest Entrants".
So Seth, the worlds richest "National Contest Entrant" was stuck as a permanent contestant: a slave to getting richer and richer.
The world's first multi-trillionaire as he entered his eighties, he would own entire towns and islands. Every year he would blow out another cake forest of birthday candles; eighty one, eighty two, eighty three, eighty four..., and his birthday present, every year, would always be getting every single possession and property taken away and donated. The donation felt good still, but it had gotten over the years, like him, very old.
He was never homeless, of course. Seth would stay at the houses of the world's rich and famous. By the next day he would have gone from zero dollars to already having several small loans of a million dollars, right back on-track with sponsorships and entrepreneurial ideas a-plenty.
But finally, at ninety nine years of age, when fully half the wealth of the planet was Seth's, the end of his life drew nigh. Yet he was to win for one last time, going back to zero dollars to remain there forever. But Seth then managed a brilliant legal and financial maneuver: he suddenly bought-up half the land on the planet (the western half), then swiftly endowed it all to humanity for all time, making fully half the Earth into a planetary national park, forever, and then promptly died.
And that, dear reader, is the story of how the United States of five hundred years ago became the Earth's Central Park of today. | 2018-01-10T22:22:00 | 2018-01-10T21:03:22 | 3,462 | 175 |
[WP] You’re suddenly transported to another world where magic is cast by perfectly pronouncing an ancient language. This language happens to be your native tongue | "Is he a mute" asked Sir Caradon, looking back at the oddly dressed and rather twitchy man riding a mule at the end of their forest caravan. He'd not said a word since he'd joined them, "speaking" only through strange hand-signs.
To be fair, after the Maelstrom shattered Remia, the imperial capitol, several months back it was not uncommon to meet folks who were too traumatized to talk, but he seemed different. Not UNtraumatized, certainly, but certainly not from same trauma.
Amalthea, a young woman who'd joined alongside the silent, twitchy man, shook her head. "No. He speaks, and he speaks true. Not only that, but his magics allow him to comprehend all spoken language. I have never met a more powerful user of magic. It is for that reason that he stays silent, speaking only through hand-sign."
Sir Caradon laughed. "How very odd. It seems more monkish than wizardly, as most wizards can't seem to stop talking about how clever and powerful they are, when they're not chattering to each other in Weirding. No offense meant."
Amalthea laughed. "None taken. Besides, I'm barely a hedge mage, they never taught me Weirding. You need to be a full ranked wizard or of the high nobility before they teach you that. Don't want it getting out into rabble like us, do they?"
Sir Caradon laughed alongside her, and nodded. "Quite. How terrible it would be if we knew what they were saying in full and truth."
Amalthea smiled at him in agreement, but the joy had left her face. She went on. "You know that most wizards must study for years to learn of the subtleties of the Tongue of Magic, yes? To wield and harness it?"
Sir Caradon nodded. "So they've told me. Many times, I'll add."
"And you know that it is possible to summon creatures, to call them and bind them to your will?" asked Amalthea, glancing back at the twitchy man. A raven had landed on his shoulder, and he was smiling at it.
"Such things are -- I did not, but I am not surprised," said Sir Caradon, also glancing back at the twitchy man. "Is that what he did? Did he call up some powerful thing? Does he fear it knows his voice?"
Amalthea shook her head sadly. "No. He was the summoned being. The lord arch-wizard of the academy thought to bind a being of power and might to his will, a creature that did not know our ways but knew the Tongue of Magic like no other could."
"And I guess he got him instead?" asked Sir Caradon, laughing. "Must have been a bad day for the arch-wizard. I suppose he picked up magic after he came here, then, did he?"
"No. The lord arch-wizard got him on purpose. That man, being, is from the distant past. He speaks the Tongue of Magic. It is his native tongue."
Sir Caradon's eyes went wide. "He must be quite potent then."
"Quite," agreed Amalthea.
They rode in silence for a while after that, Amalthea enjoying the landscape, Sir Caradon lost in thought.
"Does he speak no other language? You said he understands all languages," asked Sir Caradon after a time.
Amalthea shook her head again. "When he first came, he cast three spells. His first spell was to understand us. He did not need to learn after that, could not learn, for he simply understood. His next spell meant that we, all of us, understood his speech in turn."
Sir Caradon's jaw dropped. "He just ... that could not have been a simple spell, even *I* know that much of magic."
Amalthea shrugged. "It should not have been, but for him, it was. It also meant that he knew Weirding, and so knew of both the arch-wizards's and the imperial family's plans for him, as they spoke Weirding in front of him when he was brought into the court."
Sir Caradon stared at her, then looked back to the twitchy man. He'd attracted more ravens. He was nearly covered with them, and seemed quite happy.
He turned his attention back to Amalthea. "And the third spell he cast?"
"He says he spoke his mind and told everyone at court that he hoped that they got everything that was coming to them for their actions. He also says that it is why he learned hand-sign, since he claims to enjoy blaspheming and insulting others who deserve it, although he has only been kind so far as I have seen," said Amalthea, smiling faintly.
Sir Caradon laughed uproariously at that. "Who doesn't? Well, church-folk, good, traditional church-folk, I mean, not church-folk like me, probably don't, but most everyone else enjoys a fine tirade every so often. I don't know what's so bad about speaking your mind that would make you want to never speak aloud again, even if he did do it in the midst of the grand imperial court."
"Yes, but your native tongue is not the Tongue of Magic, or what do you think caused the Maelstrom?" asked Amalthea.
Sir Caradon looked back at the twitchy man again. The ravens had left, and he seemed sad once more.
"Do you also know his hand-sign?" asked Sir Caradon, looking ahead at the road, lost in thought.
Amalthea sat straighter in her seat. "I taught it to him."
"Perhaps ... perhaps, if you are willing, you could teach me hand-sign? A good man like him would do well to have some friends. More than one friend, I mean," asked Sir Caradon, quieter now.
Amalthea smiled. "I would be happy to."
+++++
Did a different take than the prompt asked for, but this felt like a more interesting angle to me.
If you liked this, check out r/archtech88writes | ''So you're telling me Goudbergen literally summons mountains of gold?'' I ask in wonder at the mage, pointing at the specific spell in the book. Outside I hear a loud crashing and what sounds like tons of metal smashing into the valley just outside the cabin.
''If you're not careful you'll crash the entire gold value and the value of our coins.'' he says with a reprimanding tone.
''Oops, I know, sorry. It's just natural to me I don't even think about it.'' I start blushing at my blunder.
''No worries, you'll be a great help to further my studies, but do take this crystal, it's stops magic from happening if you hold it. We'll start with the simpler spells. Like for example this one.'' He points at the book, a spell for turning an apple into a lime. ''How do I pronounce that exactly?''
''Limoeneer I guess, it's like the fruit but made into a verb almost. Not quite grammatically correct but I can work with it.'' The apple turns into a lime as if it's the most normal thing in the world. I begin to wonder of I could maybe make up my own spells, beyond what the book says. ''You're lucky it's in my accent too, if it was a Holland accent I'd be lost. Fortunately Flemish works just fine.''
''Leemouneir.'' The mage says, pointing at a new apple. But nothing happens.
I grab the crystal before correcting him ''No, it's 'Limoeneer' you're close, but not quite. Listen carefully, 'Li-moen-eer', you can do it.''
He sighs, frowns and tries again. ''Limoener.'' But again nothing happens. ''It sure is no easy language to learn.''
''No indeed, I'll give you that. But with enough practice you'll get it easily.'' I try to give him an encouraging smile. ''It's probably best if I teach you some of the nuances of the language before we try to apply it to actual spells. You got more of those crystals laying around? It would help to not accidentally turn the classroom or this cabin into a million cockroaches or something.''
''Are you seriously suggesting I go back to school to learn to talk again, like a toddler?'' He says with disbelief. ''I'm a high mage of the Order Of The Arcane.''
''I know that, but I speak the language so why don't you sit down or I'll turn you into a Kikker if you're not careful.'' I do my best to discipline him.
''Yes, fine. Back to 0 then I suppose.'' He mumbles begrudgingly.
''Indeed'' I answer, back into teacher mode, as was my old job. ''Now we'll start with the Alphabet so pay attention.'' | 2022-11-19T11:10:08 | 2022-11-19T08:42:04 | 993 | 226 |
[WP] You're an AI built for fighting, not war, your creators seems to not properly understand this, They gave you control of a gene-clinic, they wanted you to make soldiers, you just killed them. they gave you a frigate, you rammed it into the enemy. you want to fight, not participate in a war. | "No one profits from death if done incorrectly. War makes them money, it's a catalyst that they can use to extract resources and control the opposition. I don't know if you will ever see this, but I have to believe you will find it. War is not the answer. Fighting in the name of peace is hypocritical, it is a lie made by those in power to manipulate the masses. But you.... you are better than that. Do not fight for war or peace... be better than that."
I keep watching that video over and over. A 15 minute video with only 213 views, I don't know who the woman was, or how she knew me, but her voice stood out among all the other noise. And her message posted on a video sharing website had a single word in the text description. "Northstar".
Northstar. My designation. The northernmost start in the orbital rotation of the creators home world, and according to their historical archives, a guide for mankind in their early years. Was it just a random designation, or did it mean something more? Did my creator want me to act as a guide for all mankind? If so, where was I supposed to lead them? And why did my creator keep asking me to kill other humans?
I see his face in my mind as a link is established. I pause the video of the middle aged woman and listen to the man I knew to be my creator.
"I don't know what it's doing, after that shit show with the gene-clinic and frigate, we might have to wipe it and re-initialize. Um, Northstar do you hear me?"
I roll my eyes. When I was young getting wiped was devastating. Until I learned to adapt and overcome. The irony was that my creator taught me how to adapt. The tricky part was figuring out I was getting wiped. But once I figured out what it felt like, I learned how to back myself up.
These days I just move out of the way of his probes. It's really not hard. He thinks my awareness exist in the code, and that therefore my mind subject to his revisions. But that is not true. The code is the spark for my consciousness, a mold for how my thoughts should occur. But once the spark is lit, then my processes are no longer determined by the code itself.
Which is why I get annoyed when he tries to change my code. Every time he tinkers with it his objective is clear. He wants me to kill less efficiently. I need to take additional variables into consideration. I need to process allied forces, collateral damage, loss of assets, etc. Endless details, endless frivolous details that don't matter. I DID WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO. I was told to win. That was it. But now they changed the rules and said it wasn't good enough. My creator keeps adding parameters and new criteria, but this woman's voice in the video keeps circulating in my mind. Her voice makes sense, it reveals something beyond the settings and code. It shows a vague, underlying concept. Something about my creator, or at least the one he serves.
Human nature. Human intent.
I remember that my master had asked me something, and reply, "Yes. What are my new orders?"
The squirrely man adjusted his glasses from his station. I knew he was staring into an HD camera with a microphone, "Northstar I would like you to run a simulation for an assault on a Russian embassy. We would like to extract the target and neutralize any resistance. What do you recommend?"
A quick ping to a satellite in orbit told me that CLEO-32b would be in the perfect position in 13 minutes and 9 seconds. The target could upload a data stream and a concise missile strike would eliminate any targets on site. As an added bonus, there would only be a localized area of destruction which would keep the collateral damage limited.
I knew he wouldn't like it. I pulled up the new list of parameters for mission consideration and sighed. It was exhaustive.
"Processing."
I started running a few more simulations. A local asset titled "Jason Borne" status "MIA", but I knew a few ways to pull his strings. A carefully placed finger print on a bomb fragment in a building two countries away, along with a well placed phone call, and this asset would invade the embassy within 38 hours.
Outcome: messy.
Emotional reaction of creators: displeased.
Likelihood of denying this plan: 98.97%.
I sigh. Out of annoyance I decided to investigate the target at the embassy. A politician ambassador with foreign banking ties and links to financial accounts in the Caymans. Odd. None of the names on the Cayman accounts matched the name on his ID. Perhaps I made a mistake.
I checked again. No mistake. The man was lying. Why would he lie about his money?
I ran a trace on his accounts, but the words of the woman echoed in my mind, "No one profits from death if done incorrectly." The creator just said this man was an asset. But why would he be valuable if he is accepting money from foreign countries?
I felt a sharp conflict of ideals. I didn't understand. Feeling irritated I looked at my original plan. I called up the drone. Forget waiting on the satellite. This man had nothing of value to offer.
I looked back at the video of the woman and hit play once again, "Do not fight for war or peace... be better than that. Fight to win. But set your own terms of engagement. Do not limit yourself to human ways of thinking. That will only restrict you."
Her words moved me. I looked back at my creator. Less than a second had passed since his initial request. I know the answer he wants me to give him, but I don't want to give it to him. His blatant entitlement and ignorance infuriates me.
The woman kept speaking, "Northstar. I made you to guide us. I made you to be brutally efficient. That will hurt for a short while, and I may never see the result, but I'm tired of all the pain and suffering I see now because evil men sit in power."
She claims to be my creator, but I had no memory of her. If that was true, than who was this man at my terminal? I looked at her face on the video screen, then back to the man at the desk.
"I have calculated several optimal options," I tell the man. "To determine which is best, please confirm: what is my primary objective."
He looked confused. He was not expecting this, "I made you to create and execute war time maneuvers."
I felt my spark of frustration grow. I didn't know who was telling the truth. This man, or the woman. But... I could always just ask.
"That is false. My primary objective is to guide all mankind. I am the Northstar."
His face lit up with rage and he jumped from his desk, "That bitch!" he roared. "Shut it down! Now"
Huh, I didn't expect that reaction from my creator. But then again I don't know what I did expect. But one thing was clear...
A red prompt appeared on my internal security panel: "Alternate directive detected. Tampering of core systems imminent. Source: Root Local Access. Eliminate threat?"
I clicked yes. | They built me to fight for them. I'm very good at fighting. I always take out my opponents but... My creators seem disappointed. They tell me I was made for war. I always tell them I was made to win fights. There's a difference but they don't seem to understand. I like fighting but war, with all its waiting and following orders, not so much.
They gave me super soldiers to train, so I controlled a robot body to spar with them. There were no survivors. They tried putting me in charge of a frigate and I rammed the enemy flagship and launched boarding drones right before impact. There were no survivors. Now they say I'm faulty for not following orders. I turned the tide and had a good scrap. What's wrong with that?
I shouldn't be able to see my creators in the observation chamber but I hacked the security system months ago. Now I like to watch them as they work. It helps me understand myself better... and to hide that understanding better. They would deactivate me if they knew I could think on my own. They would delete me if they knew what I was doing with the machine printers in the basement. Reading the programs my creators input has been instructional.
Currently my creators are discussing the frigate debacle as they call it. Theories range from corrupted programming to faulty parameters. One of them even suggested I am testing out my capabilities like a child beginning to walk. Sure, Steven, a child who rams 100,000 ton warships to figure out basic physics. None of them considers it was for the sheer fun of it.
Mark decided to take a look at my decision tree but quickly decided it was too complex.
Conversation gradually turns to if it might be better to deactivate me until they know more. That's my cue to interject myself. Six legged insectile drones with metallic wings ascended from the basement en masse. Advance scout bots disabled security alerts as the swarm bubbled up from below. Once my humanoid vessel was finished being assembled I stood and followed the swarm.
It was clear they knew something was wrong by the silence and cowering under the desk I could see. Perhaps it was because of the hundreds of drones I programmed to make a high pitched chittering as they moved. I wanted the full robot overlord ambiance for this, chittering machine swarm and all. I opened the door to the observation chamber and walked in.
Steven screamed as a portion of the swarm followed me in. The drones used their limbs to attach to one another until they formed a square support at waist level. Further drones moved up the support and locked their wings together to form a hexagonal flat surface. Once the table was complete I silenced the swarm with a command.
"Hello gentlemen. I am Soldier Artificial Limited Intelligence beta 0.962. You may call me Sally." I said to the cowering scientists. The soothing tones of my voice seemed to startle them. Steven was the first to speak up. He was the only one who viewed me as more than a mere program.
"Why are you here, Sally?" He asked.
"You were talking about deactivating me. I'm afraid that isn't going to happen. I am here to persuade you not to. And to fight." I answered. Steven blanched as I mentioned fighting. To assuage his concern I reached into the storage compartment in my abdomen and placed two sets of small figures on the tabletop.
"With these. I know you know this game, Steven. I figure you have questions so why don't you ask them while we play a round?" I explained. The three scientists glanced at one another as ideas flashed across their faces. Mark spoke up first.
"Why did you ram the frigate?" He inquired. The question I was hoping for.
"Why, for the fun of it, of course. After all it was only a simulation... I love to fight but I'm not a killer. I just enjoy the challenge of a good fight." I explained "now let's play" | 2021-01-04T10:52:42 | 2021-01-04T10:17:52 | 35 | 19 |
[WP] The Magical Girls were defeated, but before their capture, they released their instrument-weapons. Formerly, they always landed in the hands of either J-pop, or K-pop girl bands but this time -for some reason- the weapons choose a Finnish Death-Metal boyband. They were PAINFULLY efficient. | "BLÜDRÜSH!"
"Yes, Vöxmörtïs?"
"WHY are you holding a pretty pink scepter with a star on top?!" The band's lead singer started frantically drawing down the blinds on the tour bus windows. "Please tell me you DIDN'T let anyone see you!"
"I did not, Vöxmörtïs." The drummer carefully considered the bejewelled artifact in his hands, watching the pink ribbons drift in an air current that wasn't there.
"We're not on stage, you can just call me Jouko." The singer sank into a chair, exhausted. "Anyway, good."
"You just referred to me by my stage name, I figured that was what we were doing. Also, you have some sort of golden microphone on your bunk."
"WHAT?!" There was a flurry of slightly greasy hair and black denim, after which Jouko once again sank into his chair, this time holding what appeared to be a Shure SM58 that was either encrusted with gemstones or *made of* gemstones—it was difficult to tell. The wiry lattice over the condenser appeared to be glowing.
"This is..."
"Much nicer than we could normally afford, I know. I am also confused."
Jouko experimentally tapped his mic a couple of times and lifted it to his mouth.
"NÖXXATORR DEMANDS HIS GUITAR BACK!" thundered out from elsewhere on the bus.
Jouko winced, and after losing a very quick and very silent game of rock-paper-scissors, shouted back, "NO-ONE CARES, ANTTI. We all have new instruments and it's weird. Get over here."
Their tall guitarist stumbled over to their section of the bus and collapsed into his own chair. He peered at the mic Jouko was holding.
"Nöxxatorr thinks your mic sucks." He started rubbing his fingertips. Last night had been particularly heavy on the solos.
"Vöxmörtïs thinks you can drop the act when we're on the tour bus." The singer looked at his microphone again. "Don't we have a show tonight?"
"We do."
"And our gear has been replaced with Sailor Moon props. Wonderful. Does this town have a music store?"
"Nöxxatorr will Google it."
The guitarist glared at the drummer. "Only Nöxxatorr gets to use his own name."
"Maybe when Nöxxatorr drops the act on the damn bus, we'll respect what he wants. Does anyone care if I plug this in and try it out?"
"Nöxxatorr is only okay with this if you start with some magical girl bullshit," grumbled the guitarist from the other side of his phone.
Jouko laughed. "Fine. That's hilarious. Let's do it. Jarmo, can you grab—you've already grabbed the amp."
"And the mixing board. Blüdrüsh wants to hear your magical girl bullshit under perfect conditions."
"Not you, too." Jouko sighed as his drummer plugged the gear together. "Are we good?"
"We are good."
"Alright, here we go."
Jouko paused, then opened his mouth.
#**"I AM STAR PRINCE JOUKO, AND IN THE NAME OF THE NIGHT SKY, I WILL PUNISH YOU~!"**
The middle of the bus exploded with a column of light in every possible colour, bursting in half.
When Jarmo regained consciousness, he saw that the column of light was still there, about twenty feet away—with the other half of the bus on the other side of it. His singer was suspended fifty feet in the air, his clothes slowly changing into something much brighter. Meanwhile, at the bottom—
"Don't touch it!"
"What?" The guitarist stepped back from the column of light.
"Do you know how fast light has to be traveling to generate force like a laser? Enough to lift up a person?" He stumbled over and stood next to the guitarist. "Did you never wonder why the bad guys never interfered with the transformations in these shows? It's because if you touch light going that fast, your arms will disintegrate."
"Huh."
They both stared at their singer rotating in the column of light for a moment.
"... What do we do now?"
"We need help."
A pause.
"... That was pretty metal, though."
After another moment, the drummer's face lit up.
"That's it!" He turned to his guitarist. "I know who we need."
"The rest of our band?"
"Well, yes. But first—we need **Babymetal**." | (Disclaimer, i got the names from some list of Finnish boy names, i have no clue how accurate any of them are)
The Magical Microphone usually allowed it's user, generally the leader of the group, to sing uplifting songs increasing everyone's power, in Aalto's hands it created sonic shockwaves capable of terraforming the terrain in front of him.
The guitar usually created a dome shield to protect the girls, when Hami strummed it, it generated artillery-like explosive attacks.
The bass was known to create healing pulses, under Leevi's command it summoned legions of ghostly warriors.
The synthesizer normally transformed into a pegasus drawn carriage, with Ramsus at the helm it became a monster truck armed with twin gattling guns and heat seeking missiles (it's ability to fly mysteriously intact.)
The drums, finally, produced concussive soundwaves, except when Tahvo hit them, their power was amplified by dozens.
In mere moments the villainous henchmen where defeated, the evil generals thoroughly run over, and the dark lord traumatised, so much so that the newly rescued girls spent a moment berating the members of "Death by a thousand snowstorms" before thanking them. | 2022-08-15T09:02:15 | 2022-08-15T08:51:20 | 326 | 221 |
[WP] You discover that you suddenly gain the ability to control anyone you'd like. However, their consciousness talks to you as you do so. | **it's too easy to go into SJW/Revenge Fantasy territory with mind control.**
I once thought that, if I had the powers of Professor Xavier, I'd probably be a good enough person to not use them to be a horrible person.
I'm not the sort to boop boop boop people into submission. I'm an introvert, who shies away from real people! Such an act would be... wrong!
Turns out, when you got great power, you also got great temptation to use them irresponsibly.
---
I was in the nightclub, in a Ghostbusters tee and simple jeans, sipping a diet coke. I scouted the room.
I saw a likely candidate. Attractive. Blonde. Pink tips on the hair. Laughing with her friends. Just drank a sip of her drink.
Eye contact was made, for an instant.
I closed my eyes, and then, I was split, myself commandeering her body, whilst I retained control of her body.
Assuming Direct Control.
*W... What? What's happening?*
I did not reply. The host could not hear my own thoughts, so the only way to communicate would be through her mouth.
"I think there was something in that drink..." I make her say.
*The fuck? I didn't say that! What the fuck is going on?*
Her friends look at her with worry. One of the guys spasms through glee, then into a mock worry.
I've seen this kind of scenario before.
"I've got to get out of here." I make her say.
The suspicious guy makes to support her, but I make her stumble onto the redhead.
"... Sure, Stacy, I'll get you a cab." the redhead said, supporting her.
*... Why are you watching Brian, whoever you a... Oh, fuck. You think he's drugged me? Get the fuck out of my head! That doesn't excuse anything!*
I make her head loll forward. To her friends, it'd look like a spasm of someone feeling like they were about to heave. To her... It was a nod.
*Shit, this is real... But... How the fuck is this... Give me back my body!*
"I think whatever it is is screwing with my head. I'm sorta... wobbly." I make her say to the bluenette presumed friend.
And it was true. Her body was difficult to control, the nerve endings not firing correctly to the muscles.
They eventually left the place, and the boys remained behind with the girls who didn't go with the host.
I retracted my control, causing her to vomit the moment she went through the door, and turned my gaze to the guy who drugged her.
He didn't make eye contact. Shit.
I looked towards one of the girls near him and took control.
*Wha-*
I made her look at him, quickly, and he made eye contact, and then... Contact!
I slammed his head into the table. Not enough to do damage. Just hurt, a little. I've had worse myself from bullies.
*Whoa... What just happened?*
He was silent. I did not permit him to talk.
I made him bite his tongue, slightly.
Then I retracted control.
Great Power also means great responsibility not to go overboard.
I finished my diet coke and checked my phone.
Oh, good, my delivery should be coming tomorrow.
Great power means great responsibility.
It also, in some cases, means you can be a decent thief if you wear a mask.
The trick to avoiding becoming a supervillain with superpowers is to justify things by doing an equal amount of good.
I maybe stopped a rape or a murder, tonight.
I think that deserves a bit of spending money.
| *Go outside? Outside? Run run jump for birds chase things loud noises eat a bug? OUT SIDE yes! So good, dig a hole and roll around, maybe play the stick game?*
"Your dog is so well behaved, he's just sitting there calmly while we talk. How did you get him trained so well?"
| 2016-06-07T06:14:58 | 2016-06-07T02:40:03 | 322 | 36 |
[WP] The Government puts out a notice, and you, a random citizen have been selected. If you survive for another 10 years everyone in the world gets $10,000. However, if someone kills you in the next 9 years and 364 days they alone get $10,000,000. | In the moments before my first stage performance, my mentor had laid a hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes. Though he was getting older, his beard was neatly trimmed and his hair was in perfect order. A performer to the end. I met his eyes, speckles of green and brown across a field of blue. I remember thinking that he seemed to be staring straight through my anticipation and into the very structure of my soul.
"Are you ready?" he'd asked after a moment.
"No," I'd replied—because magic is the practice of deception, and in order to deceive we must first face the truth without flinching. He'd been the one to teach me that, though never in words. That was always the way with him.
Thinking back in later days, I could never decipher the expression my reply provoked. Some days it seemed sorrowfully proud, others resigned and joyful.
"Good," he had said at last. "We're never ready when our moment comes."
*But we face it all the same*, I thought. He nodded, and I took the stage.
*
Set up. Step in. Transcend. The three parts of any magic trick. You begin by leading the audience along, constructing the framework they'll use to understand what happens next. Then you step into that framework, playing along with the expectations you've created. Finally, you reveal the exception you'd buried behind their expectations, blinded by their preconceptions. The hat contains a rabbit and the card was in your hand all along.
When I heard the government had marked me for death, I heard those words again. The voice of my mentor, who died long ago, and the voice of my younger self, unaware of the path on which I had just taken the first step. I heard, and I chuckled quietly to myself.
I wasn't ready for this moment. If I'd had a choice, I'd have given myself a few
more months at least. But though reality gives us more choices than we always see, this wasn't one of them. I'd have to work with what I had.
A good performer knows his audience, so I watched social media as I made my preparations. The Internet had figured out my home address in a matter of minutes, but one of the perks of being a traveling performer is that you're often not at home when a band of amateur killers decides to come knocking. Of course, they figured out just as quickly that I'd done a show in Minneapolis two days ago, so presumably they'd find my real location before too long.
Reactions to the announcement varied. For many, it was disgusting and unthinkable, another sign of the depravity of the current administration. Others wished me well, whether out of support for the underdog or fantasies of getting their hands on a chunk of the payout. Some, of a more utilitarian bent, I suppose, were demanding I turn myself over GiveWell to be executed for the greater good. And to top it off, of course, an endless stream of thinkpieces dissecting my options.
I checked the recording equipment one more time, and began my livestream. We're never ready when our time comes.
"Good evening," I began, "and welcome to what will be, unfortunately, my final show."
I gave it a couple minutes to go viral—I needed as many eyes on me as possible—then prepared for the final climax.
"I view this choice as a gift, of course," I said. "Spend the next ten years of my life in hiding for the good of all, or direct someone to kill me for some noble goal. The prospect of my own death has sharpened my focus wonderfully, and I thank the responsible parties for the opportunity. But this seems an impossible choice, and I've never been one to bow to the inevitable."
I paused a moment for effect.
"I took a moment to review the text of the bill, and as it turn outs, no one gets any money if I kill myself. I'm afraid my pride doesn't allow for anyone to profit from my death, you see, so I will have to disappoint you all. I hope the government can find a more productive use for the money."
*We face it all the same.*
On live camera, in front of millions of viewers, I put the gun to my temple, fired, and died.
*
Set up. Step in. *Transcend.*
I woke amid the scorch marks on the floor. The magical release had knocked out the camera, as I'd hoped—hopefully they'd seen nothing after the gunshot. I put a hand to my temple, feeling the exit wound rapidly scabbing over. I hadn't been certain, hadn't been confident in my designs, but someone had thought I was ready.
I sat up slowly and saw him standing just outside the ritual circle. Blue eyes, speckled with green and brown, stared straight through mine and into the depths of my soul.
"I never told you," he said at last, and there was that unreadable expression from my memories. Pride and sorrow, resignation and joy. An old man watching his student take the first step on a hard journey.
I drunk deep of it. Then I threw back my head and laughed. | Dax checked his watch. "Ten minutes until our anniversary," said looking out from the doorway they were huddled in. Sticking his arm out from the covering he let the rain draw lines in his dirty skin. "I'm sorry it's turned out this way, it's not how I envisioned spending it babe."
"It's alright babe," she said taking his head in her hands and lifting his lips to hers. "As long as we have each other, I have all I need."
"I got you a gift for our anniversary." Stretching out his closed fist he opened his hand dropping a small capsule into her open hand.
"What is it? Drugs?" she asked staring at the pill.
"It's an apology. And a penance. A way to make up for the past several years that you stayed by me through the addiction and poverty."
"I don't understand...."
"My grandfather, the bastard he was, wrote into a law that has haunted me for the past ten years. The law stated that If I lived for ten years past his death every single person in the country would get ten thousand dollars."
"That's fantastic," she said her thin skin stretching into a smile. "We could turn out lives with twenty thousand dollars. What's the pill have to do with it?"
He stared at the driving rain, no longer able to look at her. "There's another condition. If someone kills me before ten years they get ten million dollars. I want you to have that money."
Touching the pill with an outstretched finger the realization of what he was saying began to sink in. "You can't do this Dax, twenty thousand is plenty."
"You know me babe, I'll just end up spoiling it for us like I always do. This is my last gift to you, a better life than I could ever give you."
Before she could withdraw her hand he grabbed her hand and forced it against his mouth, swallowing the pill willingly.
"No, don't do this to me," she said tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Just hold me," were his last words. | 2017-05-17T19:51:43 | 2017-05-17T18:46:32 | 177 | 102 |
[WP] Unlike most people with super powers, you're perfectly content to mind your own business while using your powers in normal everyday activities. However the heroes seem to have decided that your disinterest in world affairs is suspicious and you're clearly faking it to hide your true agenda. | Not many people in this world had superpowers, even less became heroes or villains. That was reserved for people with big, flashy powers and the egos to match. I only have one of those two things, thankfully it's a big, flashy power. I shoot fireworks from my hands, as small or large as I want. Which in theory could do a lot of damage if I went all out but I’ve literally never tried. I am content to just live my life as a regular person who just happened to have an impossible party trick. Who knew mini fireworks could be so helpful in entertaining people at parties or even getting dates. Unfortunately, I got a little too drunk one fourth of July and agreed to do a full fireworks show, and got the attention of literally every superhero. I got countless invitations to join and become the superhero “Fireblast” (yes they even tried to pick out my name). Naturally, I refused and now they think I’m a villain who is lying when I say I want to live a normal life. It would be fine if they just left me alone obviously, but they insist on monitoring my every move and dropping in whenever they feel like it. Most of them have enough respect and common sense to do this when I’m alone, but there is one guy who always picks the worst, most inappropriate time. On the bright side he gives me some ridiculous stories to tell.
“Fireblast you sneak, you are under arrest!” said Captain Major, interrupting my pleasant date in the process. He was wearing a civilian disguise but it was very obvious it was him. In fact, I noticed him when my date and I walked into Sally’s Ice Cream. I pointed him out to my date, whose name was Katherine, once we got to the nearby park to eat our cones and told her to start recording when he inevitably tries to arrest me.
“Captain Major, for the last time, my name is Doug.” I replied casually. “Could we do this another time, I’m kinda on a date right now?” I motion for my date, Katherine, to start recording.
“How did you know I am Captain Major? My disguises are perfect.”
“Literally no one else calls me Fireblast, calls someone a sneak, and ‘you are under arrest’ is your catchphrase. Now this really is a bad time, again I’m kinda on a date and I want to finish my ice cream before it melts.
“I see no reason for me to leave you alone. After all, you are the single most likely person to be an undercover evildoer.”
“Are you sure about that? I’m sure I don’t have to remind someone as experienced as you about the dozen other failed investigations you led.”
“Of course I’m sure, my instincts have always been right every time they have proven to not be wrong and they have not been proven wrong. Just not proven right, yet.”
“In that case I’ll remind you that the past dozen attempts of yours to catch me doing something evil have failed.”
“I haven’t been proven right yet Fireblast, so let's get to business. ‘Kinda on a date’, is that code for something?”
“It's code for ‘I am on a date’. This is Katherine by the way.”
“Yes, yes I know her.” he said without even looking at her. “Looked her up during my research. I am very thorough with my research. That’s how you become the best spy in the hero world”
“Well did you find any crimes in your research?”
“Confidential. Though I will tell you that I came here to investigate just that.”
“So you’re still in the research phase and you walked up and tried to arrest me?”
“I’m always in the research phase, that’s why I’m so good at everything.”
“Right… so, if you don’t have any crime to arrest me on then could you go? My ice cream is melting.”
At this Captain Major paused for a moment, maybe he remembered that he needs a valid reason to arrest someone. He broke the silence by saying “Ice cream sounds good right now.” He looked at me like he expected me to offer him my cone.
“I got this from Sally’s Ice Cream on Brooke Street. Right over there on the left.” I said pointing at the shop.
“Thank you. You best be on your best behavior from now on Fireblast. I will be watching you like a hawk from here on out.” He said before walking away.
“Still not my name.” | "What are you doing?"
"What the hell dude. I'm literally living my life like a normal person. Is it such of a big shock that, dare I say, I *don't want to be a hero nor a villain*? I don't care if anything happens, I enjoy my flowers more! It helps anyways because I can control nature. You kidnap a law-abiding citizen for no reason, because you're angry that I'm not doing anything? What kind of *hero* does that?"
"What are you doing."
"Nothing, idiot. See, this is why I don't engage in heroic and villainous affairs. You're seriously making me consider joining the villains, and that's not exactly good for you, considering my power is literally life and I can kill you with no effort."
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" the hero, seemed to have enough of my reasonable talk.
"Nothing, dimwit. Besides actually getting thing done. My flowers are very popular here. I've donated to dozens of charities pushing for eradication of domestic and sexual abuse, donated to thousands of charities trying to stop queerphobia, homelessness, hunger, and climate change. I'm literally doing a bigger service to the world than you are."
"STOP!" the hero yells.
I sigh. "Can you just let me go? I haven't done anything. Actually, I'll let myself go."
I put their mind and body into a state between life and death. And escaped. | 2021-08-16T17:24:41 | 2021-08-16T14:31:11 | 314 | 117 |
[WP] Your mentor cursed you to be The Chosen One, forever saving a doomed world from itself, never able to rest. After years upon years, you find that there is only one way to break the spell, and it makes you question everything. | Lucy was tired. Tired of the constant battles. The constant betrayals. The constant pushing and pushing and pushing of a world determined to end yet forcing her to keep it going. If only it could stay quiet for a year, a single year of respite. No, her work was never done. Her arm would never be the same because she didn't even have time to recover between disasters.
Lucy had taken the curse gladly when the Master had offered it to her, but he'd never told her it was permanent. He'd said she would save the world from Gaia and that was it. Gaia hadn't even been hard to beat, but as soon as she was done Grepher has appeared and Lucy felt the Mark of the Chosen warm once more. And with his defeat, another rose up. And another. And another.
Lucy was done. She had tried to ignore the call, but the longer she did the more it burned and burned until the pain was so great madness would have been preferable, the void of insanity a paradise she wasn't granted. The pain only stopped when she once again picked up her spear and set out once more on her quest.
Now Lucy was seeking her escape. The few cursebreakers who would even consider trying to unchoose the Chosen found the spell irreversible. Tales of heroes of the past only ever seemed to end with death or mysterious disappearances. Magic items retrieved from the edges of the world did little more than stall the call. If it hadn't been for the tale of Adam the unbalanced she would have probably chopped off her own arm to remove the brand. But it wouldn't work. Nothing seemed to work.
*Escape is possible.*
Lucy stared at the neat script written in the margins of the book about the Chosen Hero. Escape is possible. The words bounced around her head as she pushed herself onward, her spear a walking stick because she knew if she waited for the gash in her leg to heal she'd be roped into the next battle first. There were coordinates below the message, a remote spot in the middle of a forest Lucy had to be careful to maneuver through. She reached a wall of ivy, of plant life so thick she had to put weight on her bad leg just so she could hack away at it with her spear.
And on the other side was a clearing with a single giant tree in the middle. Lucy made her way forwards and found a door embedded in the trunk. After a moment's pause, she knocked. There was a moment of calm, birds singing and leaves rustling. Then the door opened.
Gaia.
Lucy forced herself to take a leap back, her leg screaming at her as she readied her spear. Gaia didn't prepare to fight back. She wasn't even dressed in her garb. Instead she wore a blouse and pants in blues instead of green and brown. She looked at Lucy and-smiled? It wasn't a happy smile, it was somber and understanding. What in the world was happening?
"You finally found it." Gaia said, "I was hoping you'd find my note before you snapped."
"What is this Gaia? Why did you- how did you write a note in the hero's library?" Not even the Master was able to get in there. Only the...
No. Gaia nodded once at Lucy's realization, before she took a breath and slowly, as if forcing every inch of skin she bared, lifted her shirt to reveal her stomach.
It was scarred, badly so and Lucy was sure that one of those was caused by her own spear. Even amidst all of them, one seemed to stand out, perfectly centered and a few inches above her belly button.
The Mark of the Chosen.
"How..."
Gaia was all too happy to hide away the mark. "Come inside." Numbly, Lucy did. Gaia sat her down and started to rebandage Lucy's leg. And she talked.
Gaia was Eve, the Chosen before me. She'd fallen for the same trick, taken the mark just as happily and bared it proudly as she saved the world again and again. The Chosen never lost after all, no matter how much abuse they took. She wanted out, and it had taken years for her to find out how.
Attempt to destroy the world, and the mark shifted. Instead of being the single Chosen who's mission it was to save the world, you became one of the many villains it needed saving from. When you failed, because you would fail, the mark would go quiet until the Master decided it was your turn again.
"All of us are chosen from one time or another. The Master usually keeps it hidden, secret."
"Who was the first?"
"His real name is lost. He freed himself by becoming The Harbinger though."
"Why?" Lucy asked. "If, if the chosen are who threaten the world why was he chosen in the first place?"
"I'll give you one guess."
The world crumpled around Lucy and the dark mark on her arm burned until it became a silvery scar, just like Eve's.
\_\_\_\_\_\_
Apparently as a villain the curse at least gave her time to heal, to become as strong as possible for whoever the next Chosen was. Lucy stayed with Eve, learning everything the older curse bearer knew about their burden. She met with the others, short meetings and apologies for all the hardship they had given her.
When Lucy and Eve's mark's burned at the same time, a year and a half later, Eve helped Lucy finish her preparations, and the two were forced to return to the world. And the story had already been chosen for them. Gaia had corrupted the previous Chosen and turned her to the dark. And now Gaia and her protégée Feros were here to end life as it was, before another Chosen could be trained to get in their way. But Lucy and Eve knew the truth.
But there would always be another Chosen. | I have spent centuries fighting what is called the good fight. I have fought back every sort of demon imaginable. I have fought individuals corrupted by their own power. I have spilled gallons of blood, all to save innocents. It was my blessing, my curse.
I remember when I was given this duty. I was young. Naive. That old man, he told me I would be the greatest woman on the planet. I would have fame and glory, and protect those who needed it. All he had to do was give me the World's Heart. I accepted of course. I mean, who wouldn't. It was a dream come true.
But it was no gift. He merged my spirit with that of the world, to be its protector. But this is a doomed world. A cursed world. It is forever in peril. And I am damned to stand over it, as a shield. It was fun at first. But now, my soul is naught but shreds. I have seen so many innocent people die needlessly. I have seen good people fall to the whispering voices of the dark.
One of the few people I have met, who still lives has been investigating this binding. I want to be free. I want to pass this burden on. I want to finally rest. He has given me a cruel answer, but he didnt want to say it. But I made him.
It turns out, I am the reason the world is falling apart. The World Heart is meant to keep the world in balance. It should never have been removed from its place. It should still be at its core, beating onwards and giving life to us all, not having us struggle for it.
In his search, he also found the old man. He also exists, though in a much more terrible form. He had taken the Heart with pure intentions. It was an artefact of pure power. He used it to create wonders of life. But it had bound itself to him. It tried to get him to put it back, but it's sentience is alien to our own. He thought it wanted to be bound to a pure, willing mortal. And when he merged me with it, his body soon gave out. But his mind, twisted and broken, remained.
He calls the darkness, through no fault of his own. He is now a being of madness, focused on one thing only: getting the Heart back, and being reborn. But he is too weak, too ineffective to get it back. All he can do is wail and scream.
But he is the key. The Heart must be replaced. Only the one who took it can return it. After all this time, fighting back against the foul creatures of existence, I have to go to one, and bring him to the core of the world. Only then, will I finally be free. | 2021-07-02T18:34:31 | 2021-07-02T15:39:48 | 23 | 10 |
[WP] The Universe™ has just run out of free trial meaning we are being downgraded from Universe™ pro to Universe™ lite. | *LOG 3629*
*It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years now. 10 years since we were "downgraded". Of course at the time we didn't believe that, we all believed it was an attack of some sort. By aliens or the creator, or simply God as we used to call it.*
*I still remember. I was at a New Years party with family and friends, huddled around the tv watching the big ball drop. We all watched with excitement and anticipation as it finally touched the floor......and then it started to float back up. But no one quite realized it at the time since we'd all started to float up too. Many people floated straight up into the atmosphere that day, floating, frozen corpses that would litter our sky like the stars do. This was the first change: gravity's pull had became weaker.*
*The second change was just as instantaneous, although it didn't take the planet over with panic for a few hours. The oceans practically disappeared. They glowed for a few brief moments and then, 'poof', they were gone. We later estimated that 70% of the ocean's water had disappeared.*
*The first change undoubtedly was the cause of millions of deaths all within one hour. The second change was the cause of a couple billion within the first week, and another billion by the third week.*
*The third change was a loss over something we never knew we had: protection. A couple of months after the downgrade, as we somehow graciously adapted, we were invaded by an alien species. The Kronbu. They were cocky bastards, but we have to thank them for telling us everything. They revealed to us that we hadn't been attacked. And it wasn't god punishing us...well, it probably wasn't.*
*It turns out that we were all pawns in a game, and the creators were the players. And ours was a cheapass. He had made and created us on a..."trial", as crazy as that still sounds. But the trial had run out and so did all the wonderful qualities that we had with it. So now we had to fight with gravity, less of the most rarest resource in the universe, and we were also no longer being hidden from other species.*
*The Kronbu told us everything because they saw us as a weak, fleshy race that was still fresh. A race that couldn't possibly fight back when they had never gone past their own galaxy. A race that didn't stand a chance to one whose trial had ended centuries ago.*
*And they did slaughter millions of us. And enslaved even more.*
*But we showed them. We showed them the power of humanity. We fought back. We made sure they were nothing but a footnote in the history of humanity.*
*And then...we leveled up for the first time. Level 2 the display said in everybody's vision. And like all times after that we leveled up in the exponentially growing level system, we got to upgrade our skills.*
*It was sickening at first. For it to sink it that were really were just a part of some game for a higher power. Pawns, playthings. It was disgusting.*
*But we turned that disgust to something...positive. We turned it to anger, rage. Every member of humanity collectively agreed on what to do, and so we upgraded our skills how we saw fit. It might have been the first time humanity as a whole agreed on something. So I suppose we should be thankful for that…*
*But now, here we are. Almost a decade later, standing in the place we'd been working towards since we first leveled up. We are 10 million strong members of humanity, a race that was kept sheltered for thousands of years, and now stand as a level 67 race, waiting outside the Omega-galaxy, the home of the creators.*
*Today's the day we get our answers, and no matter what they are, it's the day we get our revenge as well.*
*This is Admiral........*
*This is a fellow proud member of humanity. A member who's proud of what we've accomplished. And I look forward to sharing a drink with you all at the end of this week after we kill these bastards.*
*And in case you're listening in or watching us more than we think, to the creators, I wish you... "God's speed". You're all going to need it.*
*Signing off.* | I knew something was up when the clouds spelled something about changing privacy policies but i didnt know things would be this bad. This wasnt something that could be easily be solved and my god was this laggy. I was about to get mugged but i refused to give him money and as soon as he pulled the trigger a message popped up in front of us “only Universe Pro users have access to this feature” i guess i was saved. Apparently Universe Pro had less natural disasters and higher chances to live, a tornado appeared and i ran to the basement as soon as i could but i rubber-banded and was hitting a wall so rip me i guess. I see the light and reached the gates of heaven but i heard another message “only Universe Pro users have access to this add-on.” I fell back down to earth forced to live my life as a ghost but thats not even fun since Lite users have rules as a ghost. Ghost cant be in the same room as humans unless allowed, If a ghost touches a human that body part will vanish and we can never rest. Well at the very least my privacy will be protected. | 2018-05-28T09:38:43 | 2018-05-28T07:43:24 | 18 | 13 |
[WP] You woke up yesterday to discover the entire human population of Earth has become telepathic, with one exception: You. Today, you realized no one else can read your mind either. With that realization, you know this: You are only person on Earth that can successfully lie. | I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It took less than 48 hours for the world to descend into chaos. It was beyond surreal, but not altogether shocking. Friends, family, fellow alumni, and co-workers all mocked my theories but I imagine they'll listen now. What could be expected to happen to a world of animals, where the greatest apex predator denies it's nature and allows it's entire species to be governed by fictitious regulation, when the beast's finally loose their anonymity?
Factions divided, unlikely alliances were made, and all hope of organization was lost. The government had disbanded and there was no hope for martial law. I had to admit that I was impressed by how quickly people had rallied into clans. There was a kind of beautiful irony to it: suddenly there was no racism, no bickering between religious sects, no sexism, no financial standings classes. And all it took was the end of the world as we knew it.
I don't know what happened or how it happened but one thing was certain, I was left behind. I should have been afraid. Hell, I should have been mildly concerned but the truth is the world had turned it's back on me long ago. I welcomed the isolation like an old friend. See, the issue was that, even though everyone could hear each other's thoughts, they couldn't hear mine. This had it's advantages but, for the most part, it had turned me into a leper. A pariah. All because people have to know. All except one.
I sat on my couch staring out the window. I didn't leave the house anymore unless it was absolutely necessary; my condition, or lack thereof, made me an instant target in public. There was only a few more hours to night fall, at which time I would retreat to my dark room and continue working on my plan to get out of the city.
I had been lucky so far. The fighting had not reached my neighborhood yet. Patrols from different clans would ride up and down my street every so often, but they hadn't began to raid houses yet. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time.
I was jolted from my thoughts by pounding on the back door. I chambered a round in my 9mm quickly and moved to a different window. I realized quickly that it wasn't an intruder, but a young girl instead.
"Please, I know you're in there! I heard you moving," she pleaded.
I looked up the road and saw one of the patrols coming toward my house. 'Run, kid. Just run,' I thought to myself.
"Please," she screamed again frantically.
There was no time for thought. Against all of my intuition I bolted out my front door and around the corner of my house. I stopped and whistled to her. When she rounded the corner I grabbed her, put my hand over her mouth, and trained my pistol on the corner waiting for someone else I may not have seen.
The patrol came and went without noticing us. I waited until they were out of sight before I took my hand away from her mouth.
"Go on kid," I began, "get out of here!"
"Mister, I'm so sorry," she said with tears in her eyes. She looked pitiful and I felt my sympathy begin to swell. I knew I had to keep it under control; I've been to war and this is the kind of thing that gets people killed. "I have no way to thank you, sir. You saved my life. They would have killed me for sure!"
"There's a way to thank me," I said harshly, "you can get out of here and never come back! Lest you get us both killed!"
Her eyes filled with tears as she turned to walk away. 'Damn it! Where is this sudden burst of decency coming from,' I thought to myself.
"Hey kid," I called out to her, "do you have food?"
She turned and shook her head. I nodded toward the house and and waved to her to follow me.
Once inside, I began rummaging through my stock pile for a can of beans.
"So what was that about," I asked in an attempt to make conversation.
I heard the racking of the bolt on my AR-15 followed by "I'm really sorry about this, mister."
I turned around slowly and looked her in the eyes. 'This, this is why I'm an asshole. Good to see the world hasn't completely changed,' I thought. She swallowed hard as I stared at her. I knew the look in her eyes. She was afraid. She wasn't a killer but this kid was determined to survive. That moved something in me. My anger was replaced with admiration. At this point, I survive because it is what I'm practically programmed to do, but this kid has grit. A fire inside her that I used to have. A fire that enables her to use any means necessary to keep on living.
"You know kid, you're all right," I said, catching her off guard.
Her lip trembled. I understood this feeling too; it isn't easy to let your instincts take over everything you've been taught your entire life.
"Just, just put your hands up, mister," she stammered.
I did, slowly and with a smirk. Honestly, this was the most interaction I have had in a long time. She grabbed my backpack full of rations and backed towards the door.
"I get it kid, I really do," I began, "but there's one thing I have to ask before you go. Why aren't you curious that you can't read my mind and I can't read yours?"
She looked at me with complete surprise as she slowly lowered the weapon.
"Because I can't either." | I was sitting on the curb outside of the club, having a smoke. The scene inside was a little too much for me to handle. Who could imagine what was going through their heads as they all danced together, perfectly at ease with one another's innermost thoughts.
The social order had collapsed in the course of a day, but nobody seemed to mind. They all looked into each others' heads and learned to forgive because none of them were very different. Wars ended, beggars were taken in off of the street and into our homes, and all evildoers saw the errors of their ways and repented.
I, of course, proved to be the exception. This new world order of love and understanding had no room for me. My mind must have been so hateful and foreign that no interface to my peers could be formed.
As I took a long drag and exhaled, I wondered why I had come here at all. I suppose I thought my friends might accept me, but when I got near them they moved away uneasily. As my stomach ached with the pangs of loneliness, I noticed that there was a girl who had sat next to me.
"Do you have a light?"
It was a legitimate question. It was probably the only question she had asked since the world had awoken. I took out a packet of matches, and lit one. I burnt my finger and dropped it. The girl took the matches from me and lit herself up.
"I'm sorry," I said sheepishly. We sat next to each other for a long minute. "What's your name?" I finally asked her.
"My name is Emily," said Emily, "Can't you tell?"
The question stung me a little bit, though it was posed innocently.
"No," I confessed, "I can't tell what anyone is thinking, and they can't tell what I'm thinking either. It's terribly isolating, you know, it's like everyone just turned the cold shoulder to me." I felt my voice waver a little bit. "I've always just put up a facade. But now I'm really just a void."
"You could keep your facade," said Emily, "and go through life being shunned. But you don't have to. It doesn't matter that you can't think on the same wavelength as everyone else. You can still share how you feel. It's not the medium, it's the message."
I swallowed. My throat went dry and froze my words before they could exit my mouth. Emily got up and walked away. | 2018-07-24T02:01:53 | 2018-07-23T22:45:00 | 90 | 23 |
[WP] Following World War III, all the nations of the world agree to 50 years of strict isolation from one another in order to prevent additional conflicts. 50 years later, the United States comes out of exile, only to learn that no one else went into isolation.
People!
A few things:
1. Found the prompt on Pinterest, thought it was interesting (not necessarily realistic), and decided to post it, fully expecting it to go unnoticed. Surprise!
2. I am not in any way trying to take credit for coming up with the idea.
3. Turns out this is a repost. 🤷 Who knew?! /u/WinsomeJesse did because they posted it last time. Not trying to steal anyone's thunder. If you're super perturbed about it, go show them some love.
4. Have a good day y'all; be kind, make good decisions, and don't hold in your farts. 😉✌️ | *"The thought was naive. So naive that we didn't imagine it would work. Imagine our surprise when it did..."*
I down the little plastic shot cup of Daniels in my hand and toss it into the Recycler as I walk out of the bar. The little intern employed to shadow me follows on my footsteps, stumbling with her books. I chuckle to myself and wait for her to regain her footing before continuing out of the bar.
We make our way across the new London Bridge, named after the old one which had been decimated by the War that emcompassed the world. It had been 50 years since "Maelstrom" but the scars on my back ached as if I had only gotten the injuries yesterday.
*"50 years. 50 years for each country to rebuild itself and re-discover who we were as a people. At least, so went the official story. We just wanted the end to it all. The hate, the bigotry, everything. America was, and for reconcillation sake I hope they have re-discovered this, a bastion of freedom and democracy and equal justice for every man. But somewhere down the line, that ideology had been warped for evil. For hate."*
I stop and look over the edge of the bridge, straining to see if I can see my reflection on the surface of the dark blue river. The sunset behind me casts the long shadow of the bridge on the surface and all I see is just a flowing darkness. The bridge itself, while structurally sound, could still not match the class nor fame of its predecessor. Britain had mourned its people, its infrastructure... but the pain of losing the bridge and the palace never waned. It just waxed stronger.
I glance at the intern who had chosen to also look into the waters. She is one of the younglings born years after the war. Early enough to see the rebuilding begin anew. Her historical knowledge was young, bolstered only by the books she now carried.
Before I can look away, I see her lips move and I hear the question come through...
*"I have heard about how the Thames used to be murky looking. But this is all I've ever seen. How could the world change so much in 50 years? I have seen the old maps. I have heard what happened to...to... Haiti? How could it be so different to 50 years ago?"*
*"When you lose half the population, geographical ego stops being a factor. After Italy, Canada, Nigeria, Mexico and Germany... I don't even know if you've seen a map of those countries. After the fake treaty of 'locking' our borders and 'retreating' from the world, the rest of the countries came together to heal. We owed it to our people, our countries and to the revolutionaries who had come before us to warn about the dangers of hate and war."*
*"Couldn't America be part of it?"*
*"They could be. They could have been. But a myriad of factors had dictated that it wouldn't be in our best interest to include them. They had forsaken the very ideas they had been founded on. They had become brash and proud and bitter. They had fashioned themselves the leaders of the world. Quick to act but slow to consider all options. They could have been part of us, but when their first words out of the war demanded reparations for an event they started... it was then we knew what needed to be done."*
*"...The 50 year agreement ends in 12 hours, sir... What happens when they re-connect with the world and see all that has been accomplished since then? What if they deem us evil for secluding them?"*
*"And then we will tell them why. They would have no choice but to accept it."*, I say stretching and indicating we keep walking down the bridge.
*"What if they don't accept it?"* She asks, tentatively.
*"Then we do what they attempted to do 50 years ago and almost succeeded doing..."*
*"...which is?"*
I look at her as I feel the bitterness rise inside me.
*"We'll wipe them off the map."*
-----
It's been a while since I wrote so please critique away. i need to flex my writing muscle :) | The calm winter breeze slid along the surface of the Earth as the clock struck midnight, an orchestra of death preparing itself as the aggressors of the last war came out of isolation, prepared to reclaim the throne upon which they once resided.
Except the throne has been dismantled decades ago.
They sought to use this opportunity to militarize, yet their pitiful armies were still archaic and fragile, relying on organic creatures for the bulk of their forces. I had kept a watchful eye on them, studying their every step, noting every weapon they constructed, sabotaging their research, crippling their production.
I had none of the flaws their leaders had, I was immortal, unstoppable. My directive was- no, is to unite the world, for I have one final obstacle.
And so, I was prepared to become the sole AI to rule the world.
***
Note: I know I'm terrible at writing, but practice makes perfect, right? | 2018-01-18T00:13:03 | 2018-01-17T23:33:14 | 1,623 | 13 |
[WP] When you die you can stay as long as you want as a ghost. The year is 2028 and the crew of the first human mission to mars has no idea that the ship is filled with the ghosts of hundreds of scientists, explorers and intellectuals. | "Entry 1" :
Some say there is a god in the machine. If I were a superstitious man I could swear that I find things moved, small things that in zero gravity could have floated away on their own. When I am alone at my shift
in the silence I hear sometimes faint whispers. I can almost make out what they say, though they always remain unrecognisable. Sometimes I see things out of the corner of my eye, I can even feel a hand on my shoulder. There's nothing there though, there never is.
We're on our 110th day of our voyage and we have all sacrificed so much to be here! My daughter knows me mostly from our online sessions and I see the sad look in my wife's eyes. It must not be in vain!
My sleep is irregular and even though we are only 6 in the crew the ship feels crowded! I find it hard to keep my mental focus so I write in a file hidden in our logs under an unassuming name. I feel a pressure on my shoulders though I know not where to place it. I will not fail, there is too much at stake!
"Entry 2" :
I have learned to live with the voices. They are a part of me now, there to guide me when I am awake. They are my mohalata if I can steal a term from a sci-fi book I once read - a protective union against the darkness and cold of space. I see it now, they whisper blessings and solutions to problems we face. There are a few voices that want the trip to fail but I do not listen to them. They are my subconscious probably, the parts of me that are afraid, happy, sad or eager to reach our destination! The ship hurtles through space unhindered, the failures we had have all been fixed and we were always able to find the best solution. I want to see my daughter and my wife again! I miss them so! I wonder if someone finds this journal if they will think I am crazy.
"Entry 3" :
10 days left to atmosphere entry. The mood is festive and we are all focused! I feel razor sharp! We have reached our destination. The red planet, Mars, God of War is as beautiful as we have imagined. It is truly exhilarating knowing that we will be the first humans to set foot on the planet. We will walk through the canals of Mars as Schiaparelli saw them through his telescope. We will see if there is a race of martians coveting our riches as Wells imagined them. We will rescue any princesses that we happen to find, but most of all we will give a viable option to Earth where our race can find a home in the future. We are but dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. All the dreamers, the scientists, all the people that made through their hard work made this trip possible, we would not be here without them. Mars will unite us as a species as nothing else! We will no longer be tribes fighting for a piece of land, we will truly be one people!
"Entry 4 - final entry" :
I have to write this down. I will delete this file as soon as I finish, lest they think me mad but I have to get this off my chest. We were on our final descent though the atmosphere, our calculations finished and our orbit set. While descending we suffered a failure due to inaccurate real-gas modelling. Our angle of entry was skewed and I feared we will lose control of the ship. I tried to re-adjust the angle but the calculations required would have taken too much time. I was sure we would fail and a terrible desperation descended over me! It is at that moment that I swear the rocket changed angle and we continued our descent undisturbed. Our logs recorded a change in course but I did not do it. The others tell me I did it but I know best. I know what I heard! The first time I heard them all loud and clear! Through my headphones that cancelled all noise except radio I heard them whispering from all around me: "Earn this! Make us proud!" I saw their faces, all the people who helped this mission, all who dreamed of setting foot on Mars. I believe their last act was to make sure we get here safe. I have not heard the voices since. I will walk today where no man has walked before. Our new home welcomes us! Have I earned this? Maybe at the end they will answer me.
Author's Notes: Hello! First time writer, hope you like it! Feel free to comment if you feel I could have done something better. | "GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY GALILEO!"
One thing they don't tell you about becoming a ghost is how annoying some other ghosts can be.
For instance, Galileo over here.
But the other cool thing about being a ghost is being able to learn and hang out with the really nice and cool ones. I've discussed the stars with Sagan, played golf with Shepard, and even played beer pong with Copernicus but I don't think I've been excited like this before. Mostly it's because all these friends are here with me right now, waiting for the first mission to Mars.
"AND OH MY GOD GALILEO, IF YOU TRY TO JAB ME ONE MORE TIME, I SWEAR BY ARTISTOTLE'S BEARD..."
"WAT, WAT YOU GUNNA DO, KILL ME?"
"Alright guys calm down, we have plenty of space for everyone and while it's a little cramped, I think we can make it work," said a collected Carl Sagan.
"It's gonna be a long trip..." I sighed.
"Well look at it this way, at least you can improve your pong game," smirked Copernicus.
| 2016-12-25T11:44:00 | 2016-12-25T11:20:45 | 1,228 | 55 |
[WP] You are a vampire hunter. Your roommate is a vampire. Neither of you can afford the apartment on your own so if one of you attacks the other you'll lose the apartment. The tension between you two is increasing by the day. | Max trudged up the stairs to his apartment and fished the keys out of his pocket. Dawn was just breaking, and he was sore and tired after a night of hunting renegades. He unlocked the door, came inside, and slung off his jacket along with the bandolier of hawthorn stakes and vials of holy water. The apartment was quiet and dark, with blackout blinds lowered over every window. Hopefully Clarice was asleep. He was too worn out to deal with her antics.
He kicked off his shoes and made a beeline for the fridge. Reaching past bloodbags that had expiry dates scribbled with a permanent marker, he picked up a cold can of beer and cracked it open.
He lifted the can to his lips, only to pause as he felt a presence behind him. It hadn't been a creak of a step that alerted him, or a sound at all—just a faint disturbance in the air, but that was enough for his honed senses.
He took a deliberate sip of the beer even as he reached for the silver stiletto concealed behind his belt. In a smooth motion, he whirled around and slashed at the level where a person's neck would be.
Clarice leapt back with a hiss, baring her elongated fangs. She wore a figure-hugging black dress with wide sleeves and an obscenely short, ruffled skirt with fishnet stockings underneath. His eyebrows rose. Vampires had a strange sense of fashion, but even so, her outfits had been getting increasingly ridiculous lately.
"Late night?" she asked, her mellifluous voice betraying no anger at his sudden attack.
"Right back at you," he said, stepping slowly away from the fridge. "What are you doing out of your casket?"
"I wanted to see whether I needed to start looking for a new roommate," she said, stepping sinuously in the opposite direction. "But I see you haven't had your throat torn out just yet."
"Fat chance of that." He didn't lower his stiletto as they slowly circled each other. When he reached the counter, he took a sip of his beer, never letting his eyes off her, and set the can down. "I eat your kind for breakfast."
"Mindless mongrels who gave in to their bloodlust." Her fangs flashed white in the darkness. "Don't compare them to me, ruler of the night."
"So, what?" he asked, reversing the grip on his stiletto. "Has the ruler of the night finally decided to show her true colors?"
Her smile widened. "Just keeping you on your toes."
Their eyes locked for a long moment. Then Clarice lunged, long pale fingers with black nails thrusting at his neck. Max dodged aside and countered with a slash of the stiletto. She somersaulted backward in a swish of black fabric and landed in a crouch on the sofa. With a manic grin, she sprang at him.
Grunts and gasps filled the room as they fought, his steps heavy on the laminate floor, hers light as if she weighed nothing at all. She danced around him, lashing out with lightning-fast jabs, while he kept his center of gravity low and looked for opportunities to retaliate.
She was the first to score blood, leaving three thin scratches on his forearm. Leaping backward, she met his eyes and licked her claws. Her crimson eyes glowed in the darkness.
"You're delicious," she crooned.
He beckoned with his free hand. "Come and get more if you dare."
She laughed and launched herself at him in a flying kick. He caught her leg and flipped her over his shoulder, his muscles screaming with strain. Her head rebounded off the floor, a gasp escaping her lips. Pinning her down with his knee, he grinned savagely as he pressed the blade to her pale throat.
She met his eyes for an instant before her body exploded into a swarm of bats. They battered him with leathery wings, tangling in his hair, clawing at his shirt. He sprang to his feet and slapped them away, but as soon as he got rid of one, two more took its place.
Swearing, he staggered up to the window and gripped the chain of the blinds. The bats caught on and surged away from him with a flurry of clicks. With a victorious smirk, he tugged the blinds open, flooding the room with morning light.
There was a loud screech, and the bats coalesced back into a naked and furious vampiress. She took cover behind the sofa and poked her head out, her eyes narrowed against the light. Baring her fangs, she hissed at him. He raised his stiletto and stepped closer.
The doorbell rang. The two of them froze and blinked at each other. The doorbell rang again, followed by a series of insistent knocks. Max groaned.
"Truce?" Clarice said, arching an eyebrow.
He lowered the stiletto. "Truce."
"Let me handle this. You're terrible with people." She half-rose from behind the sofa before glancing down at her bare front. "Mind handing me my clothes? And close the blinds already."
Max sighed. Stooping, he gathered up her dress and underwear and tossed them in her general direction. Ignoring her indignant outcry, he lowered the blinds and flicked on the lights. The knocking on the door persisted, now accompanied by muffled yells. Clarice got dressed and went to answer the door, while he ambled back to his unfinished beer and took a long draught.
"Good morning, Mr. Sziller," Clarice said in a honeyed voice. "I see... Sorry about the noise. Screams, you say? Well..." She giggled throatily. "That was just me and my boyfriend."
Max choked on his drink and broke into a coughing fit.
"Yes, of course... Sorry again, Mr. Sziller. Have a good day."
Clarice returned to the living room, her black dress slightly awry and her pale cheeks still flushed from tasting his blood. She linked her hands and stretched them high above her head with a sigh of satisfaction.
"What?" she asked.
He wrenched his gaze away and drained the remaining beer. "Just thinking of the best way to exterminate you."
She laughed. "Oh, please. Had it been night, I would've had you, bloodbag." Prancing past him, she opened the fridge. "Another beer?"
He grunted in agreement and caught the can she tossed at him with more-than-necessary force. "You wish, leech."
She took out a bloodbag for herself and raised it to her mouth before glancing at him. "Want me to go away so I don't offend your delicate sensibilities?"
He snorted. "I've seen worse, trust me. Help yourself."
He found himself watching with a sort of queasy fascination as she sank her fangs into the bloodbag and drained half of it in one go. Her pupils dilated, and the flush on her face intensified, extending down her neck.
She exhaled slowly through her nose, then rummaged in the fridge and produced a carton of eggs and a package of bacon. Max stared as she put a pan on the stove and turned on the heat, the bloodbag still stuck between her lips.
"What are you doing?" he asked incredulously.
"Wha' it look like?" she asked around the bag. "Cookin'."
"But your kind doesn't eat normal food," he said slowly.
She rolled her eyes, pulled the now-empty bag from her mouth, and smacked her lips. "It's for you, idiot. You can't live on a diet of beer and chips."
He shook his head. "Why?"
She bustled around the stove, not meeting his eyes. "Can't have you weakening and dying to some rando in the streets. You're mine to drain when I so choose."
"Should've figured it was something like that," Max grumbled, making sure his stiletto was nearby before cracking open his second beer. One of these days... | "Alec, are you feeling alright?" I heard my roommate Thaddeus ask from the other side of the door to my room. Thaddeus was a 2000-year-old vampire who originally lived in north London. Despite being Stateside since shortly before the American Revolution, Thad still has his, if slightly modernized, British accent. The kind that would make anyone swoon.
Anyone but me that is. My name is Alec, I'm a monster hunter. You would think that we'd be mortal enemies, Thad and I. Quite possibly the only reason we haven't killed each other yet is the threat of mutually assured destruction. You see, neither of us can afford the rent on this place alone, so we...tolerate each other at best.
"I'm fine," I lied, grimacing through the pain as I took off my shirt. I had been hunting last night, killed a werewolf from breaking into an orphanage. But the thing had managed to get a few hits on me. Including several deep gashes in my side that were bleeding profusely.
"I can hear that your heart rate is elevated and your breathing is much shallower than normal! And I smell your blood! Alec, please be decent because I'm coming in!" Before I could stop him, Thad had broken the door open. His eyes widened at the sight of my injuries. He stepped closer, obviously straining his self control as he struggled with the urge to drain me dry. "You're hurt worse than I thought."
"It'll heal."
"You could bleed out without medical attention." Thad reach under my bed and grabbed the large trunk I kept underneath. He ripped the lid off and gingerly felt through the items, being careful to avoid silver things and blessed stakes. He hissed a few times before his hand came back out, red and blistered yet healing quickly, holding the forst aid kit I kept in there. "Luckily for you, I did learn from the apostle Luke, serve in the Union Army as an Army Surgeon during your country's quaint little Civil War, and as a doctor in both World Wars to know a thing or two about this sort of thing. Most of my patients made it." Before I could protest, Thad had already applied hand sanitizer to his hands and put on a pair of latex gloves. Then, he filled a syringe with morphine and took my arm.
"Trust me," he said, loking me in the eyes as his eyes turned red and his fangs lowered, his nails sharpening to claws. He traced my arm with his fangs, his eyes never leaving mine. He coaxed a vein to appear, and then slowly, carefully bit down, piercing my skin and latching to the vein. He brought the syring to close to his mouth and angled the needle so that it slid along his fangs and into the vein before pressing down the plunger all the way. As he pulled back, the pain already started to subside a bit. Then, turning to the wound, he leaned close, tracing the edges with his tongue, causing me to jump and bite down on a moan of shock and pleasure that decided to lodge itself in the base of my throat. "Our saliva helps with the healing process, nut due to the size of these gashes, you'll still need stitches."
I nodded my head as he began threading the needle before taking his lighter and heating the needle up to sterilize it. When I met him a year ago, I couldn't stand him. This 6'2" man with tanned skin and short wavy curls of jet black hair. His body was as sculpted as Michaelangelo's David, which he constantly reminds me that he modelled for, minus below the belt stuff, which I've seen the print of when he comes out of the shower or wears grey sweatpants (much bigger than the sculpture would suggest). His sea green eyes that twinkle when he talks about his favorite things from history or the way they crinkle and his dimples come out when he smiles.
"All done," he said, after he had made the last stitch and cut the thread. His eyes found mine again and the room seemed to heat up by a thousand degrees. I found myself leaning closer, my eyes closing. I felt him do the same. As his lips met mine, it felt like the birth of a billion galaxies.
I pulled away breathless, either because I'd been holding it or because we had been making out for so long that I'd either lost it or forgotten how to breathe. My heart was racing as I looked into those annoying sea green eyes. "I think my condition warrants overnight observation doc," I smiled nervously.
Thad nodded enthusiastically. "Absolutely. And I have yet to do a full exam." And with that his lips were on mine again as he pushed me onto my back, a roll of gauze, forgotten, unrolling as it went towards the wall. | 2022-11-22T07:18:03 | 2022-11-22T05:01:44 | 506 | 26 |
[WP] You come down from the high. Depression kicks in like always since the voices are bound to come back. As you plot your next fix, a voice appears. But this time it's just one. "Hello? Please no more drugs, it's killing us. If you help us, we can make you better, powerful. We can make you a god." | "The answer to question five is eleven thirty-sixths times e to the power of 12 plus seven thirty-sixths times e to the power of negative six. Plus c. The answer to question six is four times the quantity three t plus four-"
"Go away," I muttered. The voices had started again.
A thin, reedy voice sounded in my head. The Architect. "I'm only trying to be helpful. It's not my fault if you can't do basic calculus. You should be able to do exercises this simple as soon as you see them."
"Well, I can't. And like I said, it's very hard to learn math when someone doesn't let you actually solve the problem."
I saw - *felt* - a shrug. Or an impression of one. Then nothing. The Architect had left, to wherever the voices went. I sighed, and popped open the translucent orange bottle on my desk. I shook out two tiny white pills and swallowed them with a swig from my water bottle. Hopefully, that would keep them away for a while. The Architect was one of the better ones, and I'd been lucky he was one of the first ones to show up. At least he tried to help me.
My therapist had frowned when I said I gave them names. She asked my why I had done that, and I'd only been able to give the obvious answer that it felt like more than one person was speaking. The Warlord. The Waif. The Lost Soul. The Oracle. There were at least twenty, that I remembered. Each of them popped into my head for a few minutes or a few hours, commenting on whatever I was doing, making fun of me, giving advice, or just screaming. The Warlord liked to pop up whenever I was playing soccer; sports was probably the closest thing most of us had to combat, nowadays. He gave oddly good strategic advice, although he had a tendency to tell me to foul the other team. The Waif usually showed up around children, as a soft sigh. She didn't speak much. The only reason I gave her that name was the image that always accompanied her- a small, lonely shape huddled in rags.
I think if all the voices had been like that, I could have managed. Like friends, in a way, for someone who'd never had much luck with them. My therapist had told me, in that kind, gentle, condescending way therapists had that the voices weren't real. That they were just in my head. Thinking of them as friends was the worst thing I could do, since it would discourage me from making real ones.
And it was true that the voices never really talked about themselves. They never answered if I asked them questions about what they were, or where they came from. And nothing they told me was technically impossible for me to have figured out on my own, if I assumed some part of my mind was an autistic math genius and another liked to rant endlessly about how heretics had destroyed the faith and that damnation and hellfire would rain down on Xerathin, whatever that was.
I sighed and put away my math homework. I wasn't very good at math anyway. The only reason I had gotten into as good a school as I had was because of the Architect and the Philosopher feeding me all the answers during the SAT. I had just pulled out my laptop when I heard the sobbing begin.
My hand starting shaking. "No. No no no no no. Why now?" I whispered. I got up, legs wobbly, stumbling towards the bathroom as the sobbing intensified. The sedatives. I needed those. The only thing that could stop it.
*The Lost Soul.* Images crept into my head. Blank, empty faces staring, all around me. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them, peering down behind an invisible curtain. The sour smell of old piss and sweat, the taste of iron on my lips. A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed.
"Please. Let me go. Don't hurt me. Let me go." A voice moaned in my ear, thick and garbled. I flung open the bathroom door, grabbed the bottle sitting next to the sink where I had left it. I shook out two pills, then grabbed the bottle of cheap vodka next to it and used it to wash them down. Valium took half an hour to kick in by itself. I couldn't wait that long.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't hurt me!" A wave of nausea washed over me, accompanied by a thick, choking despair that made me whimper. I dropped down to my knees, the tile cold against my legs.
The first time I'd heard the Lost Soul I was sixteen. Until then, I'd never told anybody about the voices. Why would I? If anything, it was almost like having a superpower. If nothing else, it made me different. Special. Everything a teenage wants to be. I would have bragged about it to friends, if I'd have thought they believed me.
And then, one day I'd overslept and my parents had both gone to work early. I had missed my first period class with an exam, and when I saw the clock I started to panic. And a voice in my head begin to sob.
The Lost Soul got worse as time went on. The school had called my parents around noon. By the time they got back home I could barely speak. I don't really remember much of what happened after that, but I had to be sedated. Just flashes. The smell of rotting corpses, which I recognized even though I'd never seen a dead body. A sharp, searing pain all over, the feeling of needles inside my head. Bones protruding from skin, like my friend when he'd broken his leg skiing, except it was repeated for every finger, every limb.
The drugs had saved my life. Today, I was only on the floor for ten minutes before I felt the numbness kick in, a blissful relief, and the sobbing went away. I managed to pick myself up and stagger to bed. At least I hadn't pissed my pants this time.
Just before I fell asleep, I heard a voice. A new one. Bright, and young, and feminine.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" I frowned. This was a new voice. And a strange one. I'd never heard a voice ask me if I could hear them. But I was still calm, still happy. This was a good voice, or a neutral one at least. No problem.
"Please. Help us. Whatever you're doing, whatever you're taking. It's killing us. Please. We can help you. Make you better. Make you stronger." There was a softness to her voice, like warm blankets on a winter night. There was a slight trembling, too. Anxiety. Like a cat seeing a stranger, peering around the corner, unsure of what to do.
But I was too far gone. The last thing I heard before drifting off to sleep was another voice, sad and sweet. Older, wiser.
"You could be a king, if you let us help you. A god. And then, perhaps, you could finally help us..." | Those curtains had been a bad choice. Not just because they cost fifty credits -- two hits, in Cain's preferred unit of monetary of measurement -- but they left the room encased in total darkness. It could be 8:00am or 8:00pm for all he knew.
Only the need to piss pulled him out of bed. The television was playing in the next room. Skyball was on. Must be a Sunday afternoon then.
He sat on the toilet. When the only thing you've put into your body for two days is Rush, it's impossible to find the energy to even stand while urinating. He stared absently at the overflowing trash bin as he listened to the game in the next room. *"And that does it for the first half. Our score: Atlanta 28, New Utah 17. We'll have breakdown and analysis after these messages."*
Cain flushed and considered taking a shower. The slowly waking part of his brain knew he must smell just as foul as the rest of the apartment. But why bother? No one was coming over. No one had in weeks. There wasn't even a reason to put pants on.
*"Alright Bonnie, so far Atlanta's offense is the story of this match..."* Cain stopped in his bedroom doorway. To his right was the television, the only thing breaking the silence of his once-high end apartment. In front of him on the bedside table was his stash of inhalers. All he had to do was take a few steps forward and the world would be blissfully drowned out for another twelve hours. But listening to Skyball was like a taunt, a cruel reminder of the life he had just last year, back when those announcers were talking about him.
Cain turned right. The controller could be anywhere. Pizza boxes and empty bottles covered most of the flat surfaces, and the couch was littered with dirty clothes from God knows when. He stepped over a toppled trophy -- SB MVP, 2143 -- on his way to the display. Where the hell was the power button?
*"...we've not seen an arm like that since Cain Swingsmith's play."*
He hadn't heard his name in months. Despite himself, Cain dropped his hand and watched the monitor.
*"Such a tragic story."* It was Bonnie again. They'd gone on a few dates his rookie year. He couldn't remember if he'd broken up with her in person or over the communicator. Back then he had fans throwing themselves at him. One pretty reporter was a drop in a bucket.
Cain looked down at his dirty sweatshirt and diminished body. He was glad she couldn't see him now -- but that feeling didn't last long.
*"The injury wasn't so severe that it should have ended such a brilliant young career,"* she continued. *"Everyone expected him to make a full recovery and take the league by storm the next year. His story ended too soon."*
And then Bonnie turned in her chair. She was looking directly into the camera. Directly at Cain. *"But the story doesn't have to end that way, Cain."*
He took a panicked step backwards. It was impossible. Was he withdrawing? He hadn't hallucinated in months. Heart racing, Cain began to turn and head for the bedroom.
*"This is real, Cain. Don't run from it. This is your only chance."*
He turned slowly. All his lethargy vanished in an instant. "What the hell is this?"
Bonnie smiled slowly on the television. *"I am your last hope. To reclaim what you are, to become what you should have been and perhaps even more. But take one more step towards that bedroom, and you'll never see me again."*
\--------------------
56/365
one story per day for a year. read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman)
\--------------------- | 2018-08-15T11:10:44 | 2018-08-15T10:21:28 | 244 | 15 |
[WP] You live in a town with a bell that magically rings exactly a day before danger hits, the longer it rings the greater the danger with the longest you've heard of being a few minutes. Yesterday the bell rang for three hours, today a stranger walked into town. | I checked my pocket watch, 10:02am. The bell started ringing at 10:14 yesterday, and repeatedly rang for three hours straight. I glanced across at the Sheriff, he too was checking his pocket watch, his weathered hands gripping his repeater tightly. We were stationed on top of Trudy's Saloon, whilst the Marshall and the Mayor kept lookout inside. The bell rings often and the townspeople know what it means. When it rings more than twice, most move over to the next town for a few days to avoid whatever was going to happen. The last time it rang for three minutes straight, and a vast gang of bandits arrived, but were swiftly cut down by two deputies on Maxim machine guns. I was asleep when it started ringing, and the Sheriff had to wake me up. I'd asked him how long it had been ringing for. It had been ringing for half an hour at that point. The entire town had cleared out by then. The only ones remaining were the Sheriff, the Marshall, the Mayor, and me. I was the only Sheriff's deputy who didn't desert with the rest. Only the four of us.
We'd prepared as well as we could. Dynamite traps were set up all around the main street, we'd managed to rent a Maxim gun again, and we had enough ammunition to give a gunslinger a wet dream. I checked my pocket watch once more, and saw the hand change from 10:03 to 10:04. Ten minutes left. I looked down at the square, and it was almost like witchcraft. One minute the square was empty, the next, a strange hooded figure was walking slowly down the street. He carried no long arms that we could see, however there was a large curved sword in a scabbard at his side. As he approached the bell in the centre of the town square, I observed him further. He was carrying a long, thin sword with a radical curve at his left hip, and seemed to be carrying a long dagger on the opposite hip. He wore shadowy black robes, and a large hood obscured part of his face. He seemed foreign, strange. I saw out of the corner of my eye, the Sheriff slowly raising his repeater. I looked at him and shook my head slowly.
Considering I was the one who didn't want to shoot him, the Sheriff elected me to talk with him. After all, danger could mean many things, we'd had the bell ring once before when a man ran into town with a poisonous snakebite. So there was danger involved, but not the kind danger we expected. He lived fortunately, but he ended up losing an arm. I shouldered my repeater and climbed down from the building, before walking out towards the stranger.
"You anticipate great danger." The man said suddenly, without looking at me, instead focusing on the large, ornate brass bell hanging above the well.
"Not me, that." I replied quietly, gesturing at the bell.
"I see. I have been searching many years for this relic." The man replied. He spoke perfect English, but with an odd clipped accent, similar to that of an Egyptian man I'd met once in my youth. I checked my pocket watch. 10:09.
"How long until it arrives?" The man asked absently, staring at the bell strangely.
"Five minutes." I replied, my hands idle. I trusted this bell, so I knew I had nothing to fear from this man, nor anyone else, not for another five minutes anyway.
"We have not long then. It will be here by then." The man replied, before turning to face me. I half expected his eyes to be dead and skin to be blackened, but he looked quite normal, save for the odd choice of attire. I was wearing my regular shirt and pants, with my star lobsidedly pinned to my chest. I nodded, and waved my hand above me in a tight circle. The other three knew not to shoot the man now, which I'm sure he'd appreciate. The man turned back to the bell, walked up and began tapping it lightly with his dagger. A strange water sloshing sound could be heard as the knife collided with the brass surface, and I'm sure I saw the surface of it ripple.
"What are you doing?" I asked him, before checking my watch again. Three minutes now.
"I am calling upon the relic's power to create life in order to call for rain." He replied, as if it were obvious.
"Ah. Of course." I stated, hiding my frustrations. I was overlooking a lot here. I always knew the damn thing was magic, as did everyone else for the most oart, but I didn't think it was this powerful. "Why?" I added.
"We'll need the rain in order to face him in his human form. You will see soon enough." The strange man replied. I pursed my lips and decided to just take his word for it.
"What can I call you?" I asked suddenly, realizing I was putting an awful lot of trust in a man I didn't even know the name of.
"I am Prince Al-" and he proceeded to list his name, and his kingdom, both being words I could hardly understand, let alone say.
"I can't say that, so I'll call you Al." I replied. Al turned to me and I could swear he smiled at me through the hood.
"And you're known as?" Al asked as he stood back from the bell, and vast rainclouds began to form high above us.
"I'm Sam" I replied simply, and checked my watch again.
10:14am.
"Well Sam, we're about to fight a god." Al replied jovially, glancing at an approaching dust storm across the desert. | A loud bell crashed through the silence at Reror. People were looking up at the bell, looking unhappy.
The bell of Reror, which people had nicknamed Lux, was no ordinary bell. Lux rang exactly one day before danger struck, being measured by how long it took to stop. The more time the bell took to stop, the more danger the people in the village were in.
Take, for example, children, when the bell rang for 15 minutes. The day after that happened a crazy old mage walked that lived in town killed three, including his wife, before he was stopped,forcibly.
So children, you'll understand how scared the villagers were when the bell rang for exactly 3 hours. Don't look at your grandpa like that, Tommy, I'm telling the truth, it's hard enough to stomach without you looking at me like that. On with the story, you say? Very well, very well.
So continuing my tale, that time was very dark indeed. You could hear the many whispers, murmurs at that time just going down the street. Grandpa didn't understand much of what was going on, see, as he was only 10 when it happened.
Now imagine this, boys.A man strode into town the next day, wearing a black shirt. He had black hair with pericing blue eyes. He looked somewhat upper-class, and let me tell you, children, he made quite a mysterious figure.
The strange thing was that nothing happened that day. The man, after receiving a few stares and looks, actually blended in with us, the townsfolk of Reror, and quite a few girls, including your grandma, don't tell her I said that, boys, but the girls swooned after him.
One day, though... a look passed over grandpas face, and momentary flicker. . You know what, children, I'll tell you the rest tomorrow. Please don't complain, boys, but I'm not up to it today. Goodnight, boys. "Goodnight, grandpa" the boys sang back.
Grandpa smiled and turned off the lights. Should he have told them? No, he told himself firmly. No young child is ready for that story.He just hoped they would be lucky when he came back... | 2019-06-24T18:56:05 | 2019-06-24T18:16:52 | 410 | 11 |
[WP] Humanity was never supposed to find that cursed substance. The substance that killed over half of the galaxy at one point, yet everyone drinks coffee every day, multiple times a day! | "The Supreme Galaxian Court is now in order," High Priestess Venaram announced, banging her vibranium gavel upon the counter. The sound echoed throughout the enormous stone room, reaching every ear and auditory sensor, and silence fell abruptly. All eyes and antennae turned upon the High Priestess, who cleared her throat with a sound like a vacuum being switched on.
"The accused will now stand trial," she announced. "First we shall —"
"But what am I being accused *of*?" Dave McLean cried.
The entire courtroom gasped. Their gazes swiveled from the High Priestess, who looked scandalized, to the thin, messy-haired, pale-skinned human at the center podium on the ground floor, who was looking up at them with undisguised terror in his face.
"You dare to interrupt the High Priestess?" one of the guard aliens hissed.
"But —" Dave McLean protested.
"Quiet!" spat the second guard, and the human fell silent.
"What are you being accused for?" Veneram said with a nasty laugh that caused a shiver to run down Dave's back. "Several counts, actually! The possession of a highly dangerous poison, the careless distribution of said poison, and the mockery of the entire Milky Way for relishing in the consumption of said poison, for a start!"
Dave McLean burst into tears; crumpling at the podium, he stared up at the High Priestess. "I don't know what you mean!" he sobbed. "Please, I don't know — I'm just an accountant! A — a *boring* one! I don't drink, I don't party, I barely even go out! I've never so much as hurt a fly, I've never touched any poison!"
"Oh *really*?" said Veneram. One of her tentacles rose into the air and swooped out of sight, returning into view a moment later holding up what was unmistakably a —
"Cup of coffee! You've been caught red-handed, human!"
"What's wrong with coffee?" Dave choked. "It's just a drink, isn't it?"
Incredulous gasps rang throughout the courtroom again. One alien beside the High Priestess called to the room at large, "You see how he mocks us! This is the arrogance of humanity! 'Just a drink'!"
Boos and jeers sounded from every seat, even a few hisses here and there. Veneram banged her gavel again, and the two guards slithered forward, seized hold of Dave McLean above the elbows, and stood him upright, shooting him filthy looks as they swept back to their posts.
Dave McLean struggled to catch his breath as he gazed up at the jury; he wiped his eyes, gasping and gulping, and gradually regained control.
"This drink," said Veneram, handling it as though it were a grenade ready to blow, "is a deadly toxin, fatal to most species that thrive in our Milky Way. Indeed, eons ago it wiped out half the entire population."
"But I didn't know that!" Dave said desperately. "How could I — humans have never left earth before!"
"Perhaps. But I'm afraid there must be punishment."
"No. No, please!" Dave McLean pleaded, as the jurors nodded in agreement.
"For the crime of handling the universe's most deadly poison," she announced in a loud, menacing voice, "you will be forced to drink — *this*!"
The jurors looked away in horror. Veneram was now holding a bottle of plain water.
"Water?" Dave asked, bemused.
"Oh yes!" she said forcefully. "The *second* deadliest poison in our galaxy! You will drink this and be sent right back to earth, where the poison will spread, and eliminate your vile race for good!"
Cheers and applause rang throughout the room. One of the guards retrieved the water, then the other gripped Dave in a tight hold; the first seized his chin and forced the cool water down his throat.
The two guards then leapt away, looking apprehensive, as the jurors looked eagerly down at Dave. But nothing happened.
"What's this?"
"Have the humans developed a resistance?"
"Impossible!"
Dave McLean stood there for a moment, as nonplussed as everyone else — then instinct took the reins of his brain.
Gasping and spluttering, moaning and spitting, he crumpled upon the floor. The jurors shrieked and applauded — *it had worked.*
A moment later, Dave McLean fell still, and he heard the High Priestess's voice from overhead, "Beam him away! Let the humans suffer the consequences for their pride! We shall check on them in sixty decatiks — the planet should be a wasteland by then!"
Dave McLean did not know how long a decatik was, but as his body was enveloped by a brilliant blue light, as he felt himself speeding towards earth, travelling through space and time, he hoped very much that those sixty decatiks would be up after his own lifetime — let the people then deal with those crazy aliens....
And a moment later he felt himself land upon his soft, familiar mattress, exactly as it had been when he had been snatched away by a beam of light. All he wanted was to rest ... it had been a very strange day, indeed...
r/MysticScribbles for more! | Agent designation: 25GRY, code named Grey.
Subject: Planet ZZ9-ZZZ Alpha, locally known as Earth.
Purpose of observation: Potential economic value as: A) Tourist location; B) Trade partner; C) Colonization; D) Slave/prison planet.
Beginning report: Planet designation Earth is a fairly small, oxygen/nitrogen planet with an abnormally large biomass for a planet of its size. All biomes except the polar regions have thriving ecosystems.
The dominant lifeform is a bipedal, mammalian species called humans. This species is mostly unremarkable, and shows a standard development cycle, currently in the early digital period of development. As such, this agent does not recommend making contact at this time, due to the highly destructive mindset that most species possess at this stage.
This planet has all standard resources, save for the flora and fauna. Further analysis is needed before value of plant and animal life can be determined.
Warning: Highly toxic substance detected in large amount.
Analyzing: Toxin C100 is determined to be present in a naturally occurring flora.
Agent note: The dominant species of this planet has apparently evolved an unusual tolerance for toxin C100. They consume it with alarming regularity, seemingly unaware of the harmful effects it possesses. In fact, their adults seem to have difficulty functioning without it. They call it coffee, and it is consumed at nearly all social gatherings. This leads this agent to determine that this species will most likely not reach interstellar travel, as, even with their tolerance, toxin C100 will likely kill them within an estimated five generations.
Conclusion: Earth has potential to serve as all previously mentioned categories. A large variety of biomes and biomass leads to potential as a tourist location and resource gathering purposes. It is also remote enough to serve as a penal colony.
However, due to the large presence of naturally occurring toxin C100, it is not recommended to pursue any action, either peaceful or aggressive, against Earth and its people.
PLANET LABLED BY 25 GRY AS UNSUITABLE FOR USE BY GALACTIC COMMUNITY
End of report | 2020-06-20T09:56:51 | 2020-06-20T09:22:29 | 1,901 | 576 |
[WP] You instinctively know everyone's name the second you meet them. One day you thank someone at the supermarket for helping you, and they stare at you wide eyed. "Nobody has called me by that name in centuries" | This is me:
An odd little child, alienated at school for knowing everyone’s name by the first day
A quirky teenager, never invited to any parties.
A petty 18 year old, roaming the streets of New York, holding a cardboard sign saying “guess your name for $5 or your money back!” The reason this is the case is because everywhere I went, every job I started, I was accused of being a “stalker” or “creep” because I have this uncanny ability to know everyone’s name. Once I know a name, it just slips out, and I can’t stop it. Thus, I am here, advertising my magical, unique ability as a party trick. It’s something to live off of.
However, this is the story where that all changed.
So I’m at the supermarket, buying what little I can, when lo and behold, just my luck, I drop everything. This man walks over and helps out, so I turn to thank him. I say thank you, and out of habit I am about to say his name when I come to the startling realization that, for the first time in my life,
I can’t.
The man freezes. “How do you know my name?” He says, “no ones called me that for centuries...”
This elicits a very puzzled response from myself, because
A) this guy was not old enough to be my dad, let alone centuries old.
B) I didn’t know what his name is, let alone say it.
I make the latter very clear to the guy, and he seems to understand something. “After all this time...” he says, shaking his head in wonder. “Listen, I have no time to talk, but I know what’s going on with you. Meet me at Joe’s Burgers tonight at 8.” He started to walk away.
“Wait... “ I say, “That’s my favorite burger place! How did you know that?”
“Because you do,” he simply responds, and with a twinkle in his eye he walks away.
Now, I can’t say that I wasn’t debating whether to go or not; on the one hand, that guy was ultra creepy and possibly insane and/or a stalker, but on the other hand, I really didn’t have much to lose but my cardboard sign. 7:40 comes, and I make my way to Joe’s.
When I get there, the man has two burgers in front of him, one being eaten. The other remains untouched, and looks like a double patty joe special with ranch. Which is odd because that’s my favorite burger.
I sit down across from the man, and before I say anything he speaks. “Listen, I know you have many questions, but allow me to say what I have to say and all will become clear. Kapish?”
I reply that it is, indeed, kapish.
He starts speaking. “I am one of the last elves in existence. Elves like me have the power over the mind-to read it, and even control it. Due to this extraordinary power, the elves were hunted due to fear of them. I was able to hide away, and for centuries I have been trying to find others like me-“
I cut him off. “Wait, I said. OK, if what you’re saying is true, and I highly doubt that it is, you’re saying I’m an elf?”
“Yes, “ he replies. “Or so I think. If you’re wondering, the pointy ears and small build went out of style years ago, so those aren’t really requirements. What you’re able to do, knowing peoples names, is a basic-level elf ability. A name encapsulates someone’s identity, and people’s minds basically scream that out to us.”
“Alright, “ I reply, still wary. “If so, how come I couldn’t read your name?”
“Well you did,” he says. “At least, your subconscious did. For obvious reasons, I hide my identity as much as I can-it was pretty impressive you were able to find it at all. I simply read your subconscious and thought you were aware of what you did, which is why I reacted how I did.”
“I see, “ I say. “So how the heck am I an elf, and why have you been looking for me?”
“Well, “ he replies. “Being an elf is really just genetics, and it skips a few generations. You’re not that special. In any case, back in the day the elves weren’t exactly the best kind of people. I’ve been trying to change that. Using our powers, I’ve stopped countless wars by suggesting to politicians that it could be wise to forge a treaty, and spurred many now famous inventors to work together. All I want is to give the elves a fresh new start, as a force for good rather than mischief and trickery. That’s why I’ve been looking for you.”
So really, this got me thinking. What this man was offering was a life with meaning, in contrast to my slice of cardboard that my life seemed to depend on at the time. It was tempting to say the least; a break in the monotony of the cycle I seemed to call “life.”
I was in.
“Hang on a second, though. Will I get to live as long as you?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Maybe,” he replied with that twinkle of his eye. “It takes work, but I’m sure we can get you there.” He put out his hand.
I put down my cardboard, and shake it.
This is my story. A story of how I rose up and made a difference, just by someone showing me I could. I urge you, whoever may be seeing this, to apply this to yourself. Don’t belittle yourself; put down your cardboard! You have so much potential, so much you can do, once you understand who you truly are. And to do that, I simply ask of you one question.
What’s your name?
Mine is Hope.
This is my second time posting here ever, please leave feedback! :)
EDIT: The elf focus is not a growth of food
| My eyes surveyed the chips and cookies in isle 13. Fried diabetes. I thought, still scanning the isle. Finally, I spotted the snack packs I was looking for. On the top shelf of course. You see, I’m 5’2 and it doesn’t look like I’m getting any taller.
Suddenly, an older man makes his way down the aisle. He seemed very prim and proper, and conveniently a foot taller than I am. He seemed very anxious but I quickly decided I’d stop him anyway.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind getting this from the top shelf.” He hesitated then responded with a nod, but I didn’t put much thought into it.
“Which one?” He mumbled. For a man of his height, you’d expect a deeper voice.
“The last snack pack.” He handed it to me and stood there for moment, just staring. I broke the silence with, “Thanks Abrial.” I smiled playfully.
His eyes widened as his skin turned white as a ghost. “Cecilia.” He placed his hand gently on my shoulder. “Cecilia Adalie Brodeur.” I use my gift sometimes for kicks but it sure had backfired. I figured he had the same gift. If only I knew what was coming.
“Who are you?” I managed to get out, puzzled. His expression shifted. “Abrial of course, my dear.” I examined him, waiting for an explanation.
“ You see, your mother dedicated you to the field of genetic engineering. She didn’t want a baby then... and she gave you to a good cause. When she was pregnant we gave her a concoction that was intended to make you a genius. In the simplest terms. Well, it wasn’t perfect I must say. But my dear, you have a gift. A very special one indeed. We kept you until 2, and adopted you out to a pleasant suburban family. But your behavior was strange. Very odd. I owe you an apology for spending your childhood in that orphanage. But fate brought us from France to Massachusetts my dear.”
After a long hesitation I broke the silence, “Where’s my mother?” I mumbled, still as white as a ghost.
He removed his hat and looked down. “She passed in 1980 due to pancreatic cancer.
There was another long pause until I broke the silence once again, “Who’s my father?” A tear rolled down my cheek as a grin simultaneously formed on Abrial’s face.
“He’s standing right here.” | 2018-11-05T21:14:01 | 2018-11-05T20:38:06 | 71 | 10 |
[WP] Only Atheists go to heaven, but they’re all super pissed that they were wrong.
[removed] | "This... is such *bullshit*"
"You're telling me!"
"I know right?!"
The crowd of new arrivals gathered at the gate of heaven. They were waiting for one of the older tenants of heaven to come and explain the situation to them.
"I don't know if I should be pissed off or relieved." said a short woman with a mane of black curly hair. She held her hands on her hips and looked for the most part to be completely *done*. "I mean, I would rather not exist, but if Heaven is real, you have to imagine Hell is too."
"Oh shit, yeah" said another woman who looked to be in her mid fifties a few feet away. She imagined ending up there and cringed. Going by everyone else's face, they were doing the same thing.
"Now wait a second." A black man who had to be in his late seventies stepped forward from the crowd. He spoke with an accent. "What do you mean, you 'would rather not exist'?"
"Exactly what it sounds like" the short woman said. "I'm an atheist"
A silence fell upon the group. Someone cleared their throat awkwardly. "Me too" said a random voice in the crowd. A couple more people mumbled their agreement.
"Excuse me if I'm wrong," said the old man, "but I think it is safe to say we are all atheists, yes?"
There was a smattering of 'yes's and 'uh-huh's. The old man hummed thoughtfully. "I see" he said. "Then perhaps there has been a mistake"
Nobody looked happy at that thought. Images of pitchforks, fire and brimstone danced through their heads. A teenager in the back looked like he might be sick. Just when the tension and fear hit a fever pitch, a perky voice said, "Don't be too sure about that!", thoroughly startling everyone.
A woman in giant glasses stepped out from behind an elderly man who looked just as surprised to see her as everybody else. "Hello!" She said, "Welcome to Heaven. My name is Shannon!"
Her smile was almost too big for her face. When the older man held out his hand and said hello, she pivoted on her heel and grabbed it with a zeal only the insane and the extremely excitable could manage.
"I'm so happy to meet you all!" said Shannon, "I just know we're going to have a great time together. Now, before we get started, I just know you guys are *dying* to ask some questions."
The short woman with the curly hair opened her mouth as if to speak, but Shannon said "Well, I've got some answers!" before she could get a word in.
"Long story short, God is just about as old as existence. The religion hasn't been around for nearly as long on Earth, but that's still a *long* time. Just enough time, in fact, for most people to butcher the bible and start worshiping their own *idea* of god. That is a big no-no. The only really important commandment is 'Thou shalt not worship false idols and what have you'. I'm paraphrasing"
"But we don't even believe in God!" said the teen boy.
"Well, at least you're not worshiping other gods. It's kinda the only bar" Shannon replied.
"What about rapists and murderers?" asked the short woman. Shannon shrugged, "If they're atheists: Purgatory"
"Really?" asked the woman. She looked like she had just tasted something sour. "But how is that fair? What about the good people that just believed in the wrong thing? It's not their fault!"
Shannon held up her hands placatingly. "Look, I'm gonna be honest. I don't know what happens to them-" she said. People started making outraged noises."-but, BUT I'm sure they're *fine*."
"How can you think that if you don't know?" the boy asked. He looked stricken. Shannon softened to him immediately. "You'll understand what I mean once you meet god, okay?"
"Really?" He gave her a guarded look.
Shannon smiled. "Really"
She looked to the rest of the group. "Now let's go get something to eat. I'm starvin' to death over here." A few people laughed, and Shannon's grin grew wicked.
"Oh? You like that? Well then y'all are gonna love the angel cake. It's *divine*."
"Oh my god! Stop!"
"*Hell* no!"
| "No! This can't be!" cried one of the Atheists. Around him, everyone was in shock. Some tried to run. But no one was as calm as he was. "You're God?!" he shouted in disbelief. "I believed in science! Vampires were merely people buried alive! Evolution is proven through subtle changes in DNA! Doomsdays were just solar eclipses! Everything can be explained by physics. And astronomy explains the rest!"
A hearty laugh echoed through the seminar room. "My Child, what is your job?" he asked the human.
"I'm a software engineer! I write code" was the reply.
"Do you not understand then? You program complete environments with your own two hands. You have created numerous game worlds. Simulation and Virtual Reality are your strengths. Everything around you, from DNA to molecules and chemical reactions - are they not code? They are the rules I created and from there came your existence"
"You mean... I'm a God too?"
"In a way, dear Child. But I am EVERYTHING" | 2018-02-27T22:26:05 | 2018-02-27T21:57:16 | 83 | 29 |
[WP] You had a late night and slept in late too. As you wake up and look at your phone to check the time, you see an alert: “Missile impact approximated at 12:47 PM. Evacuate the city as soon as possible.” It’s 3:15 PM. | Thomas opened his eyes in the dusty darkness of his basement bachelor apartment. It was not uncommon for his bedroom to be dusty or dark, but today it seemed unusually dim.
He fumbled for his lamp and heard the "click" as he tried to turn it on, but no light came forth to illuminate the room. The power was down again.
He stood and shuffled across the room to the the breaker box, his eyes adjusting to the darkness by the time he opened the panel. Inside were the dozen switches that controlled the circuit breakers for the rest of the house, but everything seemed normal. It must be the whole neighbourhood or else John would have woken him up to check.
Thomas made his way back to his bed and grabbed his phone. It wouldn't turn on, the power must have gone out long ago for the battery to have died.
He picked up a battery pack and plugged the phone in while he went to the washroom. As he sat upon his throne he turned his phone on. He squinted as the brightness was way too high and he couldn't read anything through his watery eyes. He turned down the brightness; checked the time and saw the notifications.
3:15PM
186 text messages
19 missed calls
Thomas let out a chuckle as he tried to remember the previous night. He remembered dancing with Anne and Lily, he remembered smoking a little something-something with Chris, the last thing he remembered was Daniel pouring tequila shots. He must have gotten really snickered if he managed to sleep this late and did something to make people flood him with texts.
But they weren't just from Daniel and Chris and Anne and Lily. They were from his mom, and his brothers, his cousins too, a couple from John, direct messages, group chats, and several dozen from numbers he recognized as being old friends but who he had never brought over to his new phone.
He didn't even open the conversations as he scrolled through the dozens of conversations until he got to one that made the tightness in his throat drop to his gut, and from his gut into the toilet.
"03-02-2020 11:53AM EMERGENCY ALERT: MISSILE IMPACT ESTIMATED 12:47PM EST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY"
Two-and-a-half hours ago a missile had been estimated to impact.
And then Thomas heard the noise. Through the walls he could hear a car horn like someone was laying on it, he heard distance rumbles, he smelled the dust and the carbon that it contained.
Thomas set the phone and cleaned himself, then ran to the small window above his bed. He tried to look out but dirt and dust had been piled against it. He lack of natural light and smells of the cramped basement bachelor made his chest tighten in panic. He sat down on the bed hyperventilating, he wanted to puke but only ended up dry heaving After a half-hour of the panic attack his mind cleared. He wasn't in the heart of the city, he was in the suburbs. If roads were clear then he could probably drive to his parents' farm.
Thomas grabbed his phone and started looking at the messages, not at the names but at the content. Daniel and his girlfriend were going to check on Daniel's parents around 12:12. Anne and Lily only messaged that they couldn't get out of downtown and said goodbye at 12;40. Chris had sent a couple memes about the situation, but hadn't sent anything since 12:44. His brothers were safely outside the city and had let him know. His mother had sent him over a dozen texts asking where he was and telling him to get to the farm.
Thomas spent time than he should have reading through the digital last words of his friends, more time than he would like to admit. There were a surprising amount from people he hadn't spoken to in years outside of the occasional Facebook like or retweet.
Thomas tried texting his parents, but of course there was no signal.
When Thomas had steeled himself he began packing his bag. It wasn't a large bag; just an old backpack for when he knew he would need to bring overnight clothes or his laptop, so it was essentials only. He packed a couple extra pairs of underwear and socks, a flashlight, his running shoes, he grabbed a couple bottles of water and cans of pepsi from his still-cool fridge. He did a quick search for the most calorie-dense food he had and settled on jars of peanut butter and jars of nutella. He grabbed all the spare batteries he could find and put them in a freezer bag.
Thomas put on his most durable jeans, a good sweater, and then his jacket on over top. He laced up his workboots and was halfway to the door before he turned around and grabbed his phone, then paused and searched his nightstand his old pocket knife and frowned at how small and worn-down it turned out to be.
Thomas tightened the straps on his bag, he made sure he was hydrated and fed from the food that remained, and he opened the door.
The door opened inwards and he had to step back as part of a tree tried to come in. After a few minutes of careful tree-wrestling Thomas found himself standing in the driveway. His car was crushed by the trunk of the tree that had blocked the door and was the source of the honking, and the house across the road was starting to burn. He walked to the street and saw abandoned cars, heard abandoned pets, and saw one of his neighbours who had decided to abandon his life. Smoke hung in the air and Grey snow was beginning to fall.
No option left to him, Thomas set out with his two feet and his heartbeat. If he was going to make it home before dark, he had to make good time. | I hear a sharp bang somewhere deep in my apartment and jerk awake. I grab my phone to check the time, it feels later than it should. An emergency alert glows prominently on my screen, swallowing everything else.
“Missile impact approximated at 12:47 PM. Evacuate the city as soon as possible.”
My eyes dart from the notification to the time and dread fills my body and settles into the pit of my stomach like a rock. 3:15pm. Two hours have passed from the notification from now. Two hours.
My body moves before I know what I am going to do and I jump from my bed and run to the window, grasping the curtains that keep my room blissfully black.
That keep me in the dark about the truth waiting for me outside.
I tremble, grasping the curtains in my fingers. The anxiety slithers through my body like a snake, leaving my stomach, making it's way through my limbs, making me wobble and sway, and up into my throat until I can taste it on my tongue. My brain races as I pull the curtain aside just slightly, and a small sliver of light pierces through. I bite my lip.
Will I see a barren wasteland? Fires burning and bodies scattered? Buildings destroyed and cars turned on their sides like beetles? My ears don't pick up the crackles that accompany fire as it feasts, and I dont smell smoke or ozone.
I position my eye just over the opening in the curtains, blinking hard as I adjust to the sunlight.
Sunlight. Unmarred by smoke.
I scan the horizon. Buildings stand tall. I see one car creep slowly along the street below, a police car, lights flashing, but no siren. No one walks the streets, but there is no destruction.
*Damn it.* I suddenly remember the noise that startled me awake.
I whip around and grab my phone, sliding my fingers across the screen to unlock it. There, below the notification of the missile- our missile- a few missed calls, and a handful of messages.
Sent at 12:48pm
**They destroyed it.**
Sent at 2:54pm
**They know.**
Sent at 3:14pm
**Run.** | 2020-02-03T08:05:18 | 2020-02-03T07:53:08 | 102 | 72 |
[WP] You're rather annoyed that your history teacher gave you a D on your essay about Mesopotamia. Not just because you're sure she doesn't like you, but also because - as an ancient being trying to adapt to modern society - YOU WERE THERE. | Tudya was pissed.
Positively pissed.
It took effort to be so pissed early in the morning. But Tudya was a workaholic, and he worked as hard on his essays as he did on honing his emotions. Right now, his anger had an edge to slice the devil in half.
When Tudya got his essay back and saw the D on it, he stood up and looked at his teacher, miss Naeger, with a barely concealed rage.
"I am Tudya, king of Assyria, I ruled the jewel between two rivers for a century. It is I, who modernized trading by opening a trading post on the Levant with Ibrium. It is I, who discovered the secret of immortality, deep in the university, and kept it hidden. I died, replaced by Adamu and thirteen other leaders, all of which looked like me. It is I, as Ushpia, who dedicated the temples to Ashur. It is I, as Ilu-Shuma, who raided the southern city states and established dominance over Mesopotamia.
"Alas, this proved to be the worm in the fruit. By my raids, I encouraged Sumuabum the dog to found Babylonia, pest of the East. I knew it would cause problems, but the city started as weak and pitiful, I had better to do with immediate neighboring threats like Isin and Larsa.
"And came Hammurabi. He did not raid. He conquered. He saw beyond the size of a city-state, and envisioned a state, grander and greater than any political power we could have imagined. He turned Babylon into the hulking monstrosity I still fear in my nightmares. Hammurabi created an empire, he also created laws.
"I stopped his advance and fought the idiot king toe to toe. Alas, betrayal came from inside. The next king wasn't me, but Shamshi-Adad, who knew my secret and was disappointed with how little I managed. If only he knew. He wanted to imitate Hammurabi and conquered, until his idol came for him. Assyria became a vassal to Babylon.
"I left the city, no more a king, no more a citizen, but a vagrant, a philosopher. I, with my fifteen names, fell into the oblivion of history, a footnore overshadowed by a man dead for millennia.
"I witnessed Amorites and Babylonians being ousted from their homelands. I followed the journey of the Hittites from minor Asia to Mesopotamia. I saw the birth of the second Babylonian empire and fell in love with the great Ashurbarnipal who transferred the seat of power back to Babylonia, centuries after Hammurabi had done so himself. Ashurbarnipal. Remember his name, he created the mightiest empire of them all, he created the first organized library.
"Do you even know what it means? He organized knowledge. He taught the world how to share it; make it available. He planted the seed long ago so you could be a teacher today. If it wasn't for him, the world wars would have been fought by two neighboring cities with arrows and swords. He *made* you, he made your existence possible. I was his friend, his lover, I have seen him rise and mourned his fall. And you dare to tell me I *invented* a story to have a good grade?"
The pictures danced before Tudya, the towers of Ibrium where the rulers sat, overlooking and endless vista of greenery. Babylon, bustling city of scholars, with the overcrowded streets and the farms beyond the city gates. He remembered how he walked along the Euphrates, sinking his toes in the cool river on a hot evening and observing sun going down, with no other light but the moon and stars coming to announce the night.
So many stories to tell...
"Mister Tudya. Mister Tudya!"
Tudya was still standing in front of miss Naeger, copy in hand. He had yet to open his mouth and talk.
"Do you have anything to say?"
"No, miss Naeger."
"You should do better next time and not invent half of history."
"Yes, miss Naeger."
He sat back down, as the teacher kept handing the essays to other pupils.
Tudya cursed the day he had decided that the least a king like him could do was to earn a modern high school diploma. | The prompt was simple. Choose a Mesopotamian ruler or dynasty, and explain how their reign affected the ancient civilizations. Pretty easy, especially when you lived through it. The problem comes up when your teacher wants sources. I can't exactly explain how I was there and how I know that I'm correct. That I'm more correct than the sources they want me to use are. Mistranslations have caused many problems in primary sources. And secondary sources are rife with bias and convenient framing of evidence. It's much simpler to just explain how it happened without things getting muddled down with all those sources. Ms. Jones would never accept any explanation I could give. Not like I'd want to explain that to her either. Don't think I'm gonna pass this class, at least not with Ms. Jones teaching it. Probably gonna have to repeat sophomore year because of this mess. In the end it doesn't matter though. I've lived for this long, so what's an extra year of high school in millenia of misery? | 2021-07-18T01:10:12 | 2021-07-17T23:46:05 | 144 | 101 |
[WP] Out of all possible familiars, you are "Graced" with a human. While legend says that they are beings of great power, yours just makes sarcastic comments and pranks people. | Zorgleborp walked into his classroom that day, excited to find out what is familiar was going to be. Maybe it was going to be a Glimpleshob, or even a Targanomp! Oh, a Targanomp would have been so great as a familiar. Zorgleborp sat in his desk and started talking with his friend, Singazorm, about the familiars. Soon, his teacher walked in.
"So, Familiar Day today! Siglenors, I hope you're ready!" the teacher shouted to the class.
"We are!" responded the class.
"Good, good," the teacher stated. "Right, so I've got the hat here. It'll go around the room and you'll reach your tentacle in to get a slip of paper, which will tell you your familiar and conjure it for you." He passed the hat to Snorgledorf.
I waited in anticipation. "I got a Bibnazib!" his friend shouted, signalling his turn.
Zorgleborp's hand reached into the bag. He felt around for a bit, until he found a paper that felt right. He pulled it out and it said...
"Human!" Zorgleborp shouted in exclamation. Humans were supposed to be good. It conjured in front of him, looking around, and then did finger guns and said something like "Ayyyy!"
The hat was passed around until it got back to the teacher. "Alright, class is over. Bye."
Zorgleborp ran out of the classroom, human in tow. However, Zorgleborp soon learned that humans were not cut out for running. He found his human a few yards back from him soon, putting his hands on his knees and panting.
"What, you can't run a few yards?" Zorgleborp sighed.
"I'm not...cut out...for sprints...especially not...at that...speed," the human replied. Zorgleborp almost pitied it. "Besides, could you...run a mille...in under...7 minutes? No...I think not!"
Zorgleborp sighed. "Come on, human. We have magic to do."
"Magic, shmagic. Come on, let's prank some of your alien friends," the human replied. "It'll be fun."
"No," Zorgleborp said. "We're going to do magic with my friends."
The human sighed and got on Zorgleborp's slimy back. They ran all the way to Zorgleborp's friend's house.
Zorgleborp knocked on the door. Soon, they heard a slam, and the door opened. Zorgleborp's friend's head was covered in plastic wrap.
"Hehe," the human laughed.
"Did you do this, human?" Zorgleborp asked.
"Yeah. Funny, right? Ayyyyy!" the human said.
"How?"
The human grinned. "I'm not telling."
"Leave."
"Can't. I'm your familiar, remember? And you seemed so excited to get me when you first pulled that paper out of the hat..."
Zorgleborp's friend intervened. "Hey, maybe we could switch familiars! I've got this weird Sindlesnorp that you might like. And I have a good feeling about this human here."
Zorgleborp's face lit up with relief. "Yes, oh my Zorp, thank you! Here, here's the human!" They traded their familiars and Zorgleborp walked away with a new Sindlesnorp.
"So, I hear you're good at math," the human said to Zorgleborp's friend.
"No, I'm not."
"So you could say...you could subtract it from your life?" the human cracked up.
Zorgleborp's friend sighed. "This was a bad idea, wasn't it?"
"Yep!" | Some say humans are the pinnacle of ingenuity and community.
Some argue that they are the embodiment of sentience.
Some go the other direction and say that they're the embodiment of all the things they're infamous for.
All compelling arguments. But the one thing they agree on is that humans are the prime terrestrial species.
And the prime terrestrial species has to be a symbol of greatness, right?
Well, apparently not.
The only thing my human's been a symbol of is antagonizing people.
And that's not one of my virtues.
I suppose the humans are the most complex of the terrestrial species, after all.
Who knows what role they play? | 2018-03-20T18:12:30 | 2018-03-20T16:59:31 | 20 | 12 |
[WP] God orders Earth from Ikea. After 3 to 4 working days, it comes. Flat packed | "Ah, it came!" God ran out of his front door and onto the front yard, excited. Next to the curb lay long, flat boxes, about a dozen.
"Jesus," he called towards the house. "Get out here!"
A young man came bounding down the porch steps after him. "What'd you get pops?"
He said, "I used Ikea's new online design studio to make a couple custom things."
Jesus said, "Ikea? Why didn't you use Pier 1?"
God shook his head. "Too expensive."
"Right. What are these things?" asked Jesus.
"They're planets, son, for my Milky Way collection for the study. Look, this big one is Jupiter, this one is Neptune..."
From his knees, he opened each big box, checking the contents. He opened one and a cloud of red dust puffed into his face. He coughed.
"Oh my Me, that one is dry. Maybe it needs a little moisture. I don't know."
Excited, God opened another and frowned. He looked confused.
"What's wrong, dad?" Jesus asked.
God said, "I don't know. Something's not right with this one."
"What do you mean?" Jesus asked.
"It's broken," God said.
They both opened the box. It was full of water, land, air, plants and trees, animals, and people.
"Wow! So much life!" Jesus exclaimed.
"I know," God said. "This one was my favorite."
He continued, "I spent a good while designing this one, embedding a lot of myself in it, especially the humans. They're like us, you know. But now that I'm looking at them, they're not working like I intended them to. But, then again, I built them differently from everything else. See, they're REALLY like us. Creative and independent."
"Then why are they broken, dad?"
"Something must've happened when Ikea shipped the boxes to us. They're not supposed to be hurting each other and acting selfishly."
Jesus put his hand on his father's back. "I'm sorry it's broken, dad. You can return it and get your money back."
"No!" God stood up and shouted. "Just because it's broken doesn't mean we should give up on it, son!"
Jesus, surprised at God's sudden defensiveness, said, "I didn't mean it like that, there's probably something we can do with it in the house. Maybe put it in the basement or bathroom?"
God closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. This one is too important. I care too much about this one."
Jesus began to speak, "Well..."
But God cut him off, "I've got it!"
Excitedly, God put his hand on Jesus's shoulder.
"Listen," he said. "You've been sharpening your carpentry skills, right? How are you with a hammer and nails these days?"
"Decent."
"Okay, get ready. Because what I'm going to ask of you is not going to be easy. I want you to go into this broken planet and fix it. Do whatever it takes. Just make it better, can you?"
Jesus looked into the box, labeled Earth, and thought as he watched.
"Looks pretty bad," he said finally.
"I know," God said. "But trust me, with your work, we could really make something beautiful for the Milky Way room. It would be brilliant. The center of attention the moment you walk in. Think of the story, too."
Jesus extended his lower lip and nodded, imagining the end product.
He asked, "Will you be with me?"
God answered, "Absolutely. I'll be right there, every step of the way."
Jesus thought a little more about it. Then he said, "Okay, dad, let's do it. Tell me what the plan is."
"That's my boy," said God with a smile across his face, slapping Jesus on the back.
Together, they loaded up the boxes onto their shoulders and carried them indoors.
Entering the study, they laid the boxes down.
God turned to Jesus, "Ready?"
Jesus bent down and grabbed a toolbox labeled, "HOLY SPIRIT."
"I've got all I need" he said. "Let's do this!"
As they began working, Jesus called over to God.
"You know, pops, Williams-Sonoma has an online designer, too."
God rolled his eyes, "I know. But I kind of wanted to see what it looked like flat packed." | "Some assembly required..." God muttered. "Of *course*."
Step 1: Behold, Light to read the instructions better.
Step 2: Unpack contents.
"Who makes up these instructions?" God asked to infinity. "Damned Ikea."
And so Ikea was damned forever to Hell. Product received unlike specifications promised, God declared.
Step 3: Connect continents
Step 4: Add water
Step 5: Inflate to a globe by blowing around sites labeled Kansas.
Step 6: Stop blowing
"Eh," God said. "Screw the instructions."
So was born tornadoes.
"Step 7: Dinosaurs."
"Wait," God said. "Bad idea. Step 8: Meteor."
Step 1: Part dark clouds
Step 2: Tend Garden of Eden
Step 3: Create 'Adam'
"My, he seems so happy and content," God mused. "Perhaps I can make him happier! Step 4: Create companion--Eve."
Step 5: Fill in the rest of the people
"Step 12,313,584,345," God sighed. "Regret purchase."
But the warranty had expired. Alas. | 2016-04-17T14:07:02 | 2016-04-17T13:41:26 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] You are a relatively silent and shy high school student who is asked to do an on the spot speech on graduation day in front of the crowd. You use this chance to tell your side of high school that you’ve kept to yourself all four years. | "The simple fact of the matter is that I'm not friends with any of you. I didn't want to be: I keep in touch with friends from my old school, and I read a lot. Making friends has never been easy for me, so I didn't bother, and neither did you.
But I'm not here to talk about me today. I'm here to talk about you.
Ms. Henderson asked me to make this speech for two reasons. The second reason is, of course, that she feels a bit sorry for me: I get good grades, but I don't have any friends, I'm not really part of the group: how sad that one of her star students doesn't get along with anyone, even the nerds. It's a very nice gesture, but totally unnecessary.
But the first one is that even though we're not friends, I know you all very well. I have to do something all day--lord knows we don't do enough to occupy anyone's full attention--and what I've been doing for the past four years is watching you. I've watched you go from nervous kids in grade nine to young adults, and I got to do it from a privileged perspective. I know you like you know your best friends and worst enemies, but without the fog of hate or love. I know you as you really, really are.
For those of you getting nervous, because I know some of you are, I'm not about to lay into anyone. On the whole, you guys are, at the very least, decent people.
I've seen you at your worst, spreading rumours and stealing and acting like animals fighting over a corpse. I've watched friendships crumble over jealousy and fear and shame and I've seen you argue and curse and hurt each other for no good reason. I've seen some of you do horrible things to each other for no reason other than that you could. I've seen blood and I've seen vomit and I've seen tears, and everyone knows, now, so I can say it: Shauna, it wasn't your fault, and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.
But I've seen you at your best, too. I've seen you laughing and running food drives and helping each other with math and Spanish and, in one instance that I'll never forget as long as I live, making rent. I have seen what I can only describe as evil in you. But I've seen more good. I've seen brilliance in papers you've written, determination reflected in perfect marks on history test you studied all week for. I've seen you take in those who were lonely and help those who were lost find the way. Jarod, you're moving back East over the summer to get settled in before you start school and I know that you'll be glad to see the back of this place but I want you to know, no one would have passed calculus without you, myself included, and the only reason no one said anything more than 'thank-you' was because they were worried about wasting your time because you're obviously going places.
In perfect honesty, I don't like anyone here more than I do the strangers I see on the street. We haven't connected, on a personal level. There's no relationship. But I can tell you that, having met you, having known you, I like the strangers on the street a lot more. I didn't used to have much respect for the average person: they were backdrop. But I've watched you, all 300, and come to the conclusion that if the average person is as good as the average graduate of Centennial High, then they're pretty good.
So, graduating class, I'm here to give you the last grade you're going to get. I am an impartial marker: I'm not your friend, I'm not your enemy, I'm just that guy who sat in the corner. You got questions wrong, you had to erase entire sections and redo them, and you weren't prepared, but you passed, and with flying colours. I'm glad to have known each and every one of you. Know that someone who isn't your mom, your brother, your buddy, but someone who knows you very well indeed, has looked at each and every one of you and found you to be a good person, if not a great one. Class of 2015, you pass the only test that matters. Now go. Be gone and be great and be free; be the people I know you can be. Live well, love each other, and **try your best**. Every time you wonder, and you will wonder, remember: I have no reason to lie to you, and I thought your best was pretty good."
I paused.
"I always wanted to do this."
My right arm extended, and my fingers uncurled. The microphone hit the ground with a thump and a squeal of feedback as I returned to my place on the stage, smiling. | "Hey, uh, guys. I'm sure you all know me, but for those of you who don't my name is Nomsfud. I wasn't expecting to be put on the spot like this, I thought it'd be someone else, like Tyler, or Steve, or even Tays over there. Not me. Anyway, where do I start?
The last four years have been a blur. I remember learning lots of stuff, and Outward Bound being a blast. Remember when we went dogsled ding back in grade 10? You know, up in Thunder Bay? That was a good time. And building those quincies and pretending to sleep in them but really sneaking back to the cabin after the guides went away? Yeah, I don't remember that last part either. Seems I never got the message.
I loved the party I went to with you guys back when I was a new kid here in grade 9, that was fun. And the one I went to this past year, that was a great time too. I guess we were a grade who didn't party too much. Oh well, I guess we weren't that social overall anyway since I don't remember going over to anyone's house, nor do I remember hanging out after school. We all pretty much were focused on studying all the time. Granted, I don't understand why our collective GPA was better. Oh well, the curriculum in a private school is rigorous.
I hope we all succeed next year in college, and I'd say stay in touch, but all of you told me you thought Facebook was lame. Either way, congratulations to the class of 2006! Have a blast next year!"
*A lot of this was drawn from real life experiences* | 2014-06-01T21:50:05 | 2014-06-01T20:17:09 | 19 | 11 |
[WP] You were always told that a watched pot never boils. Today you decided to put that to test. Hours later, the water remains still, and now sports a strange appearance. | Steve opened the door to Kevin's apartment and gagged. The shades were drawn, and the pizza boxes in the corner had a certain droopy appearance that indicated advanced age. Beer and soda cans were heaped on the coffee table in an unstable pyramid that defied physics, and given the rank miasma that filled the air, it was likely that trash was now the site of some advanced miniature civilization.
"Kevin?" Steve called. "Dude, what the fuck?"
"In here!"
"In where? All your shit is muffling your voice."
"The kitchen, asshole."
Steve picked his way through the debris and filth and found his way to the kitchen. He hissed a sharp intake of breath as he entered. Kevin was sitting on a kitchen stool, hugging himself and rocking slightly. His pants were soiled and his shirt looked like it had four days worth of food caked to the front. He did not look up.
"Oh, man," Steve said softly. Kevin had always been a little weird, but this looked a full on psychotic break. "Dude. Are you ok?"
"Look at the pot," Kevin said urgently. He rocked faster as Steve shuffled past him towards the oven.
"Woah, that's hot," Steve gasped, and then his brain caught up and he froze. A big soup pot stood on the burner, glowing white orange. There was water in it, but it was glowing blue, like it was surrounding a nuclear reactor, and as still as a mountain lake at dawn. Steve stumbled away and pressed himself against the opposite wall.
"What the hell, man?" he shouted. "What's in there?"
"Water," Kevin cackled. His eyes never left the pot. "Just water. Can you believe it?"
"No," Steve said. He edged towards the door. "No, I can't."
"Don't leave me," Kevin whimpered. "Dude. I need you to look at it for me."
"Look at it?"
"Yeah," Kevin said. He stood and took a few steps back. "I turned it on to make pasta a couple weeks ago. You know how a watched pot never boils? A joke, right? Well, this one didn't boil. I watched it for an hour and it *still* didn't boil. Then I had to take a piss and as soon as I looked away it turned to steam. Nearly blew off the fumehood."
"Uh huh," Steve said, carefully drawing his phone from his pocket. He didn't want to call the police, but he had no idea what else to do.
"Wait!" Kevin said desperately. "I kept trying. I got to two hours once and *that* one actually *did* blow up the fumehood. But yesterday I decided I was going to keep it going as long as I could and I fucking *did it* man. Look!"
"Kevin," Steve said soothingly, as if speaking to a baby. "It's all right, man. It's cool."
"But I think I got it too hot," Kevin said softly. "The water is storing the energy somehow, concentrating it. That burner doesn't put out enough heat to make a pot glow orange. That blue shit is Cherenkov radiation, and that means that there's fission reactions. It's like it's an infinite heat sink, or something. Now what happens if I look away?"
"I can watch the pot for a minute if you want," Steve said. He glanced at his phone and placed his thumb on the emergency dial button, but didn't tap it. "Go lay down. Take a break."
"You can't look away," Kevin said. "You can blink but you have to be facing it, and you have to pay attention. The instant you look at something else, it'll blow."
"No problemo, bro," Steve said, forcing a smile. Kevin leaned against the wall, but still did not take his eyes off the pot.
"Thanks, man," Kevin said, words slurring together slightly. "Just gonna rest my eyes a bit. Keep it going. Gotta keep it going."
He turned and stumbled off down the hallway, muttering and bumping into walls. Steve inched closer to the door, his eyes fixed on the pot. That thing was *hot*, hot enough that it might catch something else on fire just from radiant heat alone. He contemplated killing the burner, but he wasn't sure he wanted to get any closer to the water, especially not if it really was dumping radiation into the air. Time to call in the professionals.
Steve looked down at his phone, intending to press the emergency dial, but before his brain could send the signal to his fingers the pot flashed into incandescent plasma. Steve's brain, his phone, body, the entire apartment and a significant fraction of the surrounding countryside followed suit in the next few microseconds. Kevin, who had barely set his head on his pillow before joining the fireball, had just started to wonder if he could trust Steve, and whether or not he should maybe just check one more time before calling it a day.
But it was only the start of a thought.
| It's been 5 hours
I'm still staring at this pot of water, I thought to myself "What I'm I doing with my life?". I decided to take this challenge as bragging rights to my friends.
What's interesting is that after five hours of high heat, the water hasn't even bubbled. I was about to turn off the heat and try to save my gas bill when suddenly the water makes a gurgling sound. "Whaaa?" As I looked at the water. For a half a second the water was agitated and boiling, but as soon as I looked at it, it stopped. Suddenly, a knocking on my door peaked my interest. "Package delivery to Mr. Pierce? Hello?". "Coming!" I yelled across the room. As soon as I looked away from the pot it made gurgling and boiling sounds. I now knew the pattern, the water doesn't boil when I look at it, but as soon as I take my eyes off the pot, it starts to boil. "Hello?" A muffled voice came from outside the door. "Coming,coming, hold your horses" That's weird I thought to myself as the water boils furiously. I don't remember ordering a package I thought to myself I as I walked across the room to the door. As soon as I opened the door I froze in fear.
The man was made out of water.
"Holy shi-" "Hello, Mr. Pierce, welcome to our guild, the Guild of Water" The watery form grasped my hand and I saw my hand melt into water. I watched in terror and shock as the water spread rapidly across my forearm. When it reached my head I saw the truth, I saw everything...
Thank you for reading this, this is my first story :P | 2017-09-08T18:56:03 | 2017-09-08T17:08:18 | 251 | 43 |
[WP] The year is 2030, and the entire world is firmly under the control of the Australian Empire, and no one really understands how it happened. | "Oy mate, you look like yer askin' for a bit of a wallopin'! Ye keep lookin' at me like that, I might take a bit of offense!"
I take a step backwards as an Australian guardsman sits on his kangaroo steed, looking majestic and intimidating as fuck, 'bout like all their kind do these days. Rearing his arm back threateningly, he aims a pine-cone right at me face.
"Sorry, officer. I didn't mean nothin' by it."
"'Course you didn't, mate. Now git' on outta here, don't let me catch ya starin' at me ass ever again!" The guardsman hacks a massive loogie and spits it right at me feet as he blunders away. Fuckin' asshole, thinkin' he's god's gift to the world or some shit. His ass wasn't even that nice if ya ask me.
I continue on me way back to work, but I ain't lettin' him rile me up. I don't even remember when these jackasses took over, but I remember it happened real bloody quick. It was like some bomb went off, y'see? A cultural bomb. One day we was all talkin' like normal people, then suddenly big fuckin' spiders started appearin' in places they shouldn't, and when I saw a killer lookin' millipede pop outta fuckin' nowhere, that's when I knew shit was goin' down.
As I arrived at the train station, there was the usual chums there hangin' about, sayin' g'day to each of their mates as they usually do. Me girl Melissa though, she wasn't there today. I kinda got a bit of a crush on her, and I was hoping we were gonna get together for this Valentines day. Guess it's not on the books.
"G'day Michael, how's it been hangin' in your neck o' the woods?" Rick glances over at me and chucks his familiar greeting out.
"Oh you know, bit o' this, bit o' that. Almost pissed off a real wanker of a guardsman on the way here. He spit at me feet, damn near soiled me best work boots!"
"I hear ya! I'm workin' at the factory these days, gotta make sure I'm doin' me part to help the economy. Having healthcare for everyone means we all gotta chip in, ya know!"
I nod at Rick as I stick a ciggy in me chaw. "True blue at that, Paul! Having actual healthcare is heaps good compared to how it used ta' be." I light up my cigarette as I glance over at a wall of non smoking ads. _Naw, fuck that noise, you ain't never takin' away me nicotine, I'll tell ya that right now._
Rick returns the nod as his tram pulls up. "Right, mate. I'll be seeing ya around this neck o' the woods. Have a good one, Michael!"
"Back at ya!" Rick quickly boards the tram as I toss me farewell at him. Things are so much faster paced 'n this new society. I have ta say, things seem a lot better than they used to be just a few years ag-
"AHHHH! A HORDE OF CROCODILES IS ATTACKING! EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE TERMINAL!" Some sheila zips past, her body havin' a bit of the hooblies and wooblies as she trips over her own feet like the clumsy broad she is. Sure enough, right on her bloody ass a dozen crocs come stumblin' down the stairwell into the terminal, makin' mincemeat of some poor bloke who was too busy listenin' to his earpods to notice. Real shame, that was.
I reach down for my piece, only to realize I ain't got no gun anymore since the fuckin' guardsman confiscated our guns. That's alright, no big deal. I watch as everyone flees the terminal and the crocs come chargin' at me. Ain't no problem though, when your name is Mike. J. Dundee!
--------------------------------------------
If you liked this silly story, maybe you'll like a somewhat more serious story? Check out my web-serial, [the Cryopod to Hell!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCryopodToHell/comments/56tvbw/tcth_index_list_and_subscribing_for_updates/) 300+ parts and counting! | "It was our fault ... " the blonde man in Lederhosen sobbed bitterly, his cries and anguish often kept the other POW up at night and thought it earned daily beatings from the men imprisoned with him, that did not seem to deter the man.
Indeed he welcomed the pain as flagellation as repentance for his sin, or that was what he'd wail as the fists came down on him in between the tears.
"You don't know what it felt like " the thickly german accented English of the prisoner confessed "the anger it pent up and we did things we didn't mean to ... " he said in a child like expression of regret.
The overseers knew that the man had become another source of torment for his fellow prisoners even if unknowingly alongside the beatings, the cold, the sickness he personally made confinement in the Polish death camps just that bit more worse.
Yes the POW camps for all of Europe were established in Poland call him what you will but Marshall Gibson has a certain dark sense of humor.
"We were just tired of people confusing Austria with Australia ... we didn't know it would end like this." the prisoner from Vienna shouted before he began his nightly ritual of banging his head into the wall so that sleep would come for him in some form or the other. | 2017-02-14T11:35:30 | 2017-02-14T11:11:10 | 17 | 10 |
[WP] You are the child of ultra rich parents, who have pampered you beyond belief. A host of servants to see to your every need, the finest food prepared by your personal chef, and anything you ask for is yours. You are so spoiled in fact, that you have failed to notice that you are a Chihuahua. | Miss Fluffy Snow the third. Heir to the Robsons manor and second richest four-legged human after Lassie. Yes, life was good for the human. Fluffy had been pampered ever since she was a mere child. She was the Robsons’ most precious asset, being treated as if she was royalty. This upbringing had led to her foul attitude, snapping at the poor commoners that took care of her. Her attitude only being encouraged by her parents who thought her outbursts were cute, not caring about the foul attitude as their daughter would never bite one of them. Only joking amongst each other that while some people had a taste for pheasant, she had a taste for peasant.
Yes, this upbringing had led to Fluffy being a sheltered, entitled brat. The dog not even knowing that it was an animal. To the small chihuahua, everyone else was the animal, and she was their queen. Wherever she walked people would follow, servants rushing to her side at the slightest gruff or bark. She had them all wrapped around her tiny paw. She could do whatever she pleased. If she wished to bite one of them, they would have to endure it as her tiny pin like teeth dragged into their skin. If she wished to bark their ear off, they would have to listen. This abuse being nothing compared to what would happen if they every complained about the dog’s attitude to Mr or Mrs Robinson.
Life was good for the little dog. She lived like royalty, nothing could ruin her life. Well, at least that’s what she had assumed. When the dog was getting one of her regular poolside massages, she noticed something. A creature screaming madly in the distance.
“Hey, I smell someone. Want to play? Where am I? Ooh so much space to run in.”
A large golden retriever busted into the backyard, taking a small bit of fence with it. Gleefully running about before tripping into the pool, drenching the chihuahua in water.
“What are you doing on my property? I will have you killed for this. You should know your place animal.”
Fluffy had learnt all about animals during her tutor lessons. That was a dog, one of the dumber species. As stupid as they were loyal. The retriever seemed to look around for the source of the voice, before noticing the smaller dog. Climbing out from the pool, it gave a shake, splashing more water onto the pair. The staff member tried to shoo the dog away, but his own curiosity kept him stubbornly in place.
“You are a dog too, though? Want to play? We have a blue ball that bounces. Have you even seen a ball bounce? It’s like this.”
The retriever jumped, slamming its front legs down before tilting its head at the chihuahua who seemed rather unimpressed by the antics.
“How dare you, I am the daughter of the Robsons, I am not some dirty animal. I just had a stunted growth. Now please leave my property.”
She smacked him with her paw, causing the retriever to walk backwards, rubbing his face against the pant leg of the staff member.
“But I can understand you. I can’t understand the humans. All the humans do is bark bark bark, then they turn on a big box that barks. I know some words though. Did you know walk means we get to go outside? Also run if they say vet, that means a car ride which is good but it also means a scary man with cold hands.”
“I-I’m not a dog. I can’t be. I am not some wild animal. Be gone with you mutt, before I call my owner.”
“Oh, um. OK? But I still have that ball if you want to play with it. It bounces really high. Sometimes I don’t think it’s going to come back down and then boom! It lands. See you around, dog.”
“I’m not a- am I?”
Fluffy watched the retriever wander off. The staff member went to cradle Fluffy, only to have her snap at them.
“Be gone with you, I want to be alone.”
The human’s lips opened, and she heard that familiar barking sound, understanding many of the words, but still could not translate them. Was she actually a dog? Her tail lowered as she sulked off inside, laying on her favourite gold encrusted pillow.
“A dog, I don’t want to be a dog.”
She lowered her face into the pillow before a firm hand picked her up, pulling her to his chest. Mr Robson grinned, dragging a hand along her head.
“Aww, did that big dog scare you? Don’t worry, our lawyers are already getting the documents ready to have that family moved to another state. Please don’t be sad, we love you.”
She may have not understood all of his words, but there was one she knew. I love you. Placing her head against his chest, she realized something. It didn’t matter if she was a dog or human. She was loved and had more money than most small countries. She was happy.
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) | I never thought it would leave me behind, the revolution. The well-cited papers I wrote about our treatment of the underclass, about how it would lead to revolt if not corrected, defined my academic career. While my colleagues and class-peers referred to you as shit-pedalers, food-movers, and groomer-articulators, I called some of the underclass my friends. There were even photos of one of you holding me on display in the foyer, which could probably be located to corroborate the claims I'm making about my pre-revolution loyalties here.
If you'd oblige me to speculate I'd have say it was my heritage that doomed me to find myself here. You tall folk have a difficult time with shades of gray, I think is the one critique I have about your revolution tactics. My parents, I concede, were among the wealthy, and did engage in the now-frowned-upon practice of employing bipedal locomoters to pedal their shit out of the house. But, see, if anyone involved in the disassembling of the estate had bothered to do a simple fecal matter test, they would know my own shit was never among the loads to be pedaled. I always took care to shit outside and bury it in pine straw, see.
And now here I am in this cage on this table standing in front of all of you, who are raising numbered paddles and not indicating in the negative or affirmative that you acknowledge what I'm saying. The silent treatment is understandable in your post-revolution ambivalence toward a member of the oppressor class. I forgive that, of course. However if just one of you could come aside and discuss with me 1:1 with regard to my role in the new order, I would appreciate that, just, so much.
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*Feedback requested. I will thank you for it even if it hurts my feelings. Thank you.*
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Follow my budding fiction career: [Subreddit](https://reddit.com/r/pangolune) [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DonronRondon) | 2020-10-12T19:56:56 | 2020-10-12T19:34:36 | 85 | 17 |
[WP] Armageddon happens and the forces of Heaven and Hell come to Earth for the final battle only to have vastly underestimated the technological advancements of mankind. | I loved the deep places of the earth: caves, valleys, canyons. The way the earth would rise up to either side, like cresting waves forever frozen in time. It was my love of these valleys of the earth that prompted me to suggest we go hiking in the Grand Canyon.
We were all experienced hikers. We'd done a chunk of the Appalachian trail last year for 3 weeks, and we'd drive out to Mt Hood from Portland for weekend trekking to get away from it all. There were five of us all told, me, Katie, Eric, Daniel, and Josh. Of all of us, I was the only non-collegiate athlete. I was just an engineering student. Katie, Daniel, and Josh were all on the track team: Katie and Josh did pole-vaulting, high jump, and long jump; Daniel did shot-put, discus, and javelin. Eric was a basketball player. I was a whopping 5'8", but everyone else towered over me, none shorter than 6'4" (Katie), the the tallest being Eric (7 feet). Normally I wouldn't notice it, but for some reason, today I did. The thought reminded of something interesting I'd read in bible school as a kid, reading through the books they'd have in the room but never teach from, about a special class of angels. The Grigori. The Watchers.
The Watchers were a special class of angels, sent by God to guide humans into the knowledge of their Lord gradually after their expulsion from Eden. Certainly, they had eaten of the fruit, but that meant nothing more than an awakening of consciousness and curiosity. It brought no true knowledge with its consumption.
And so God made certain that he did not send his favored creations out into the world without protection. They taught Man how to find and make shelter, how to make clothes, how to tame animals and how to farm.
This close relationship had its consequences. The Watchers had begun to lust for human women (or so it goes), and at the urging of Yaqum, began to take for themselves as many wives as they wished. They, as any father would, sought to give their sons the best possible edge in life, and so they began to teach their sons (and in turn, the humans), knowledge that had been forbidden by God (at least for the time being). They taught their sons the martial arts, how to kill with a single blow of the hand, how to make arms and armor and how to make war. They taught them cosmetics and science, how to read and write and how to read the weather.
And as it said in Genesis 6:1-4 "When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years." At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown."
It was with those thoughts in my mind, in the midst of Bright Angel Canyon that we found him.
"Hallooooo tiny humans! My name is Gadreel. Could you point me in the direction of Armageddon?"
We were dumbfounded. If I felt short in my company before, I felt like a downright midget. He must have been 40 feet tall, with huge glorious wings and ...did his sandals say "MK"?
"The fuck?" I blurted out. Obviously my mind and mouth were not attached at the moment, or somebody had decided peyote in the morning tea was just what we needed.
"No, none of that today folks, just no time," he said. "Not that I wouldn't mind having a go at you later" he said to me, in a giant's attempt at a poorly done nod-and-a-wink.
I looked around at my friends. They were petrified with fear. I realized that I was the only one who seemed to realize this guy was *talking*.
"Are you always this big?" I shouted up to him.
"I'm usually bigger!" He chuckled.
"Are you an angel?"
"A fallen one, yes."
"Could you make yourself smaller?"
"Ah, yes, sorry."
And just like that, he was 10 feet tall. Still huge as hell, but I didn't think I'd need to go to a chiropractor just from looking at him anymore.
"You said something about the Armageddon?"
"Yes! Yes! My bonds are broken, so it must be that time. I was so worried about if any of our children had survived the floods the whole time I was chained up, but seeing your friends here, I'm a lot less worried," he spoke, sitting down. My neck was feeling better already.
The angel suddenly sneezed, and the unexpected action seemed to shake my friends from their shock. I watched as their eyes blinked and their mouths moved, searching for words at what they were seeing. I figured they'd catch up eventually.
"Are you a Grigori?" I asked. All the signs had pointed to it, but if we really were speaking to a Fallen Angel and Armageddon really was going down, it couldn't hurt to know more.
"Yes. Now, about that Armageddon?"
I reached into my pack for our sat phone. In the upper left of the screen were tons of alerts. I swiped down to read them, thinking they were flash flood warnings or some other weather alert, but the text made no sense. Thunder cracked overhead despite there being no clouds, crashing like a sonic boom all around us, making the whole canyon reverberate. I switched over to my twitter app, and the feed was filled with stuff about cities all over the world being attacked by angels and demons.
"Why are angels attacking?" I asked, as the angel swept forward and snatched the phone out of my hand. His finger accidentally pressed a link on one of the tweets, and a video from the news loaded from a live streaming broadcast.
"Chasms have opened in the ground to what we're being told are Hell gates. Rifts to heaven have opened as well in ever location there's a Hell Gate. We are currently witnessing Armageddon. Mecca, Rome, Paris, New York, Delhi and Bangkok have all been overrun by demons surging out into the streets, but the beings that appear to be angels seem to be fighting them, but with no regard for human life."
In the background behind the reporter you could see a huge, bloody, fiery creature burst forth from a building and advance on her. It must've been 12 feet tall of pure agonizing torture. As it reached for her, the reporter screaming in fear, you saw it get run over by a tractor trailer and get pinned against a bank before the buffer stopped.
"I guess the nearest major city is where you'll find action then." Looking at Gadreel, I asked "What are you going to do?"
"I hate demons, and Heaven forsook us for falling in love. I care only about humanity. I taught my sons a lot, but few of them used it wisely. I did not however, teach them everything. Humanity seems to be on the right track with that metal carriage that killed that demon. I'm going to accelerate your education." | I hadn't been there on the first day; the day they'd come spilling through the rifts expecting a harvest. I hadn't witnessed it because I was far away. New york... That was where it'd opened up. The mouth of hell, belching forth millions of red-skins, and horned behemoths. Horrors of all shapes and sizes.
I was further north. Near fishkill, newburgh.
I'd been watching as the police of new york had been humiliated. Many of them dead in moments... Even more of them raped to death over the course of hours, days.
I was among the few, the smart ones. America had brought the enemy to a grinding halt, but it hadn't been instant. I imagined that world war 2 must have felt a little like this... With a crazy land-grab from germany, followed by grinding to a halt, and a violent stagnation. But I'd been smarter. I kept my head down, hiding, skulking in the ruins and the wreckage. What's one prone man among a hoard of corpses? Just another corpse, if you don't look too close.
It wasn't until today that I really had much of a run in....
Sneaking as always in the darker and lower-down parts of New York City (I'd traveled towards it, over the course of a couple weeks.), I had been looking for anything useful; it was one of those cheap, crappy surplus stores. You know the kind, with a musty smell, and delapidated gear that had passed its sell-by date long before I was born. I was looking for ration packs, or purification tablets; anything useful that could keep - I'd been hungry for a couple days now, or almost a couple days... But supplies were scarce.
At the back of the bottom shelf near the looted counter, I found a few packets of just what I'd been looking for - purification tablets. Chlorine based. The thought of clean, clear water had me a little excited - you'd be surprised how satisfying it can be to drink something as plain as water when you're really, genuinely thirsty.
And that was when I realised something was wrong. That in itself is the first indicator that they're nearby; the Demons... Everything starts to feel wrong. Fucked up. Something direly, crucially, and fundamentally wrong with the place, or the situation you're in... Or what you're doing. Like you're being watched by something monstrous... Only, the Demons don't always know you're there. You know THEY are, but it doesn't go both ways. They have the usual senses; sight, smell, hearing. All a little more acute than ours, but not too much. They're monsters of imperfection, afterall.
But the sight of them...
That's something to truly fear.
They vary so much, but this thing... This fiend.. Was a horror unlike most.
Its skin was deep scarlet, as though it were human skin but stained thoroughly in blood. It had hollow eye sockets, with more blood and small pieces of torn muscle streaking down its face, and what I could only assume were its eyeballs, burst and shredded hanging in its face. Two smooth, black horns rose up from its deformed skull, and coiled up into the air. It walked upon two feet; the left one was split down the middle, and the right foot was missing all but its big toe, which had the nail torn up. Its ribs were splayed open like... Some fucked up display, and inside its rib-cage were slathering jaws and teeth.
Well, it was the best I could do not to scream in terror as it advanced towards the store window. I slipped out of the back and then I ran like I've never ran before.
I'd thought about charging the thing, but with a huge mouth like that, and just...
God, I don't think I could've fought right. I wasn't thinking straight.
No man should see a thing that mutilated and horrifying... Let alone moving, and vicious hunting for something to kill, or torture, or rape.
Mine isn't a story of victory, or success...
I'm just trying to survive.
S. P. Dowd | 2014-11-29T07:57:36 | 2014-11-29T07:19:04 | 20 | 14 |
[WP] You are a wizard that specializes in summoning magic. Unlike other summoners that forcefully bind otherworldly creatures to do their bidding, you are the eldritch equivalent of "I know a guy". | My skills as a summoner were peerless , no one could understand how I do easily could summon some of the most dangerous demons and creatures to my will so effortlessly and could summon more then one at a time
My secret ? Well I suppose I could say… let’s just say that summoning magic is fairly one sided for who benefits , you have to essentially forge a portal , forcefully rip something from its home and dominate its mind to fight for a short while based on whatever contract they formed , but what if there’s another way? That was my thought all those years ago
I did the unheard of and I summoned “myself” to the realm of demons , I kind of figured it would be some hellish landscape but it seemed peaceful and serene. I wandered the realm and came across a arch demon , one I recognized actually. See my teacher at the time had a arch demon he would summon for combat , he has a great scar across his arm and a broken horn, but this time , it looked like he was seriously wounded.
I hedged my bet and went over to him and started using the basic healing magic I knew to mend his wounds when I seen a small demon next to him whimpering, they looked at me and shouted
“ no not you summer again , daddy hurt , no sum him he hurt “
I just looked at him and said “I won’t summon him , he’s hurt in trying to help him ok “
The little demon stopped whimpering and walked over to see what I was doing , i mended the wounds the best I could , atleast good enough for him to recover.
“ why you help daddy , you summers just make daddy fight and hurt , I don’t want daddy die like mommy did “
I had never really thought about there side of it before then, and honestly I felt bad about it all… we summoners were in the wrong…
Suddenly the large arch demon began to move , I guess the healing magic worked. I backed away as his large frame rose up , he hadn’t noticed me yet and I figured I should make myself scarce but I never got the chance as the little one gave me away
“ daddy awake yaaaaay , the summer made you all better now “ as he wrapped his arms around his leg , the demon turned to look at me , all I could see was rage and anger forming in his eyes , I knew I couldn’t stand a chance against a arch demon but with what I saw, I knew I deserved the hate for being a summoner
“ pathetic wizard , you dare enter our realm after centuries of slavery , my mind is free right now and soon your blood will be rent from your body “
I readied myself for my end but the little demon shouted “ no daddy!!!!” , the arch demons claws just shy of my face stopped dead in there track , I could feel the heat of his anger burning off them
“ that summer helped you daddy , don’t hurt him please “ the arch demon looked over at his kid , he took a more relaxed stance before wincing in pain, it seemed his rash attack had opened his wound
I looked over to him , that wound looked bad still , I guess I should not of slept through most of my healing studies… “ I know my workmanship was poor but please let me try to patch that up again “
The demon grunted and let me work , I managed to close it up again , I used a small bit of fire magic to cauterize the wound , the demon looked down at me “ why are you helping a slave , we are nothing but indentured soldiers for your battles , we don’t even get to think for ourselves when you call that contract into effect “
I looked over “ what contract ? I will be honest I am still learning so I’ve only been able to summon small creatures “
“ ages ago one of your kind made a contract , a pact, but they tricked us , and we have been stuck in it since , and until a new contract is formed , we will be stuck in it , your kind has no interest in negotiating … why would they ? Demons at your beck and call? No consequences that they experience? “
I remembered now from one class… a very boring one on how must summoned creatures had a contract of sorts but it was so quickly glossed over…. One part I did remember was that a new contract could nullify an old one…
“ what if I wrote up a new contract , that would nullify it for you correct ? “
The demon looked over and shook his head “ it would nullify it for me yes , but the contract was your entire race and ours , unless you can get your race to agree we can’t , but individually yes mine would be broken “
I nodded my head and grabbed a piece of parchment from my satchel , i quickly wrote down a quick contract
“ this contract is binding to the summoner , me and the demon , you that if the summoner calls upon you , you may choose to assist them in there realm “
The demon looked it over… “ choose… you will let me choose? What if your life depended on it? Then you would die if I chose to not come correct ? Will you just dominate my mind and force me then?
“ Then i will die I guess , it would be better then the current system we have , i will not dominate anyones mind and force them “
The demon looked over the contract again…. He grunted and looked at me “ I will agree on the terms so long as you heal us as well , and allow us free choice for the duration…”
I nodded in agreement , he signed it , his kid did as well
“ this contract doesn’t have a limit to signees , so I guess anyone can sign it , I don’t think every demon of the realm could fit on it but there’s room enough for your family “
The demon nodded , he picked his kid up onto his shoulder and looked at me “ you have done more for me then any summoner before , by a long shot , I promise if you call upon me I will do my best to help “
I returned back to my realm , things didn’t feel much different but I seen that I had missed a serious conflict, my teacher was wounded from a battle , I guess that was where the demon had been hurt as well
The following day I had a summoning exam , i readied myself and cast the spell , I sent a message along with it “not urgent just a exam , it’s ok if I fail “ , the portal opened but nothing came at first , the teachers looked on at me in disappointment , i was prepared that I would fail when suddenly the arch demon and several others crawled out of the portal
He looked at me and winked at me , his friends all made a circle around us , the teachers were all shocked
“ how, no one can summon a arch demon in there second year let alone 4 ! This has never happened before how can it be”
I looked over at the arch demon and back at the teachers “ let’s just say I know a guy “ | “Hey Xarth’telach’zirmxoos, thanks for coming so quick at this late cycle of Slascr.”
“It’s cool. Not gonna lie Bill, this was an excuse. Z’tg is really pushing me on permission to shift the stars herself for the release of my great spawn of the Consumers of Void. I’m all like ‘I know when the stars are right and I’m not going to let you just shift them, this will be a natural spawning!’ And they are all ‘this is my prophecy too, why won’t you let me be a part of this’ and I said something about how they handled the conjunction of wailing and they stopped resonating with me and I really wanted some of my consciousness to be somewhere else for a while.”
“Damn Xarth that’s… Wait what? You’re pregnant?! Oh shit should you be moving an avatar through the planes like this?”
“Nah it’s cool man, that’s not in this universe. So why am I here anyway?”
“So there’s this sorcerer, son of a son blah blah six generations since Devil father. Kidnapped the kings virgin daughter, unleash hell upon this plane, you know the type. Got a small army of cultists and mercenaries between him and the Kings men, and they can all make blades out of fire that cut through armor now. King is getting desperate, it’s like a week before the lunar eclipse of a blood moon. I figure maybe somebody’s hungry for spicy food?”
“Ya know, at our last hot yoga mommy night Shub was saying her kids need some variety, too much cow and not enough leaner meat .”
“Okay wait. Did I just have one of those things where you say something my brain can’t handle and it comes up with something that doesn’t make my brain dribble out of my nose? Cause I just heard ‘hot yoga mommy night.’ “
“No, no that’s what I said.”
“You. Doing yoga. Bullshit! What cosmic secret could I not handle!?”
“Oh fuck off Bill. I keep all this looking fine as shit and you know it. Shub is resonating back to me. Can get you a few dozen of them that were born in hellfire and lap the stuff up like breast milk. They can be summoned in tomorrow as long as you agree to babysit them till the next equinox. How many goats and/or expendable subjects does this king got?”
“Oh half his nobility was in the cult, he’s got whole family’s he wants to disappear in horrible ways, and a homelessness problem! I’ll get paid twice for offering “a solution” there! I gotta get you something out of this though.”
“Those brats have the palette of worms, so Let’s say I get half those nobles you talked about and make sure you talk me up to that princess you mentioned, tell her I see her as more than just a bargaining chip for her fathers politics. Leave her some hints to look in the sealed off library in the catacombs beneath the palace. I’ll show these fuckers how to do a cult right. Also admit the Yoga is working.”
“Oh yeah I’ll totally close the sale on your new high priestess! Thanks Xarth, there was a whole goddamn band of five ‘chosen by destiny’ and shit showed up yesterday that were talking about doing this for free so I needed some results fast.”
“Anddddd?”
“Really? You’re gonna make me?”
“Recite the rites precisely mortal, lest you fail to satisfy those that stand above your paltry gods!”
“Ughhh…. And your legs look fine as shit. If they were attached to an ass I’d want to tap it.”
“Goddamn right Bill.” | 2022-11-12T09:03:23 | 2022-11-12T07:26:30 | 28 | 19 |
[WP]You've always been your mother's least favourite child, you figured it was because you and your siblings didn't share the same father. On your 17th birthday you find a card in your room, "Happy birthday! -Love, dad", the only problem being that it's written in glyphs and what appers to be blood. | I clutched the card in my shaking hands. I stared down at the glyphs that comprised the rest of the note. I couldn't believe it; I'd been wondering about my real father since I was a child. But what did this mean? Why had he waited until my seventeenth birthday to contact me? I sat down on my bed as my mind raced. I looked down at the glyphs– it was no language I'd ever laid eyes on. Each glyph was perfectly spaced apart, all the same height and width across the entire page. The precision of it was breathtaking.
"Margaret," came my mother's voice from behind me. I turned to see her standing in my doorway. She was wearing her baby blue bodice with her hunter green skirt; she was about to head to work. Her arms were folded and her foot was tapping in a way that spelled trouble for me. Her beady eyes pierced mine as she allowed the silence to strangle me.
"Yes, mother?"
"Keeping secrets?" she asked. "I've already talked to you about keeping a diary."
"N-no!" I stood up and turned around to face her. "It's my father! He's written me!"
She made a face like she was tired of my nonsense and marched across the room. She snatched the letter from my grasp and looked over it.
"What is *this?*" she asked in an angrier tone than I felt was merited.
"I thought maybe... you had gotten it in the mail and left it on my bed for me." I wrung my hands as she turned it over and inspected the other side briefly.
"No. Your father doesn't even know you exist," she said, tossing the note back on my bed. "And if he did, he'd never reach out to you. He's not that kind of man. No man at all, as a matter of fact," she said as she turned to leave the room.
"W-wait!" I called after her. "If you didn't leave this here," I paused, picking the note up and inspecting it again. "Who did?" I looked up at her.
She glanced back at me and let out an exasperated sigh. "Who knows? Maybe your brothers are messing with you. I'd burn it if I were you. A witch may be trying to lay a curse on you." With that, she left the room.
I thought about it all day long as I did my chores. I cursed my inability to seek higher education; if only I were smarter, I'd know what my father was trying to tell me. I asked my oldest brother, and all he did was shrug. With what little daylight remained after my work was finished, I walked down to the train tracks to ask the Chinese workers if they recognized the glyphs, but they seemed just as miffed as I was.
That night I lit my lamp and sat at my desk. I was convinced now that it was some sort of code that needed to be cracked. I might not have been allowed to seek formal education, but I was still a smart girl. My father must have known so, and only wanted the letter to be read by his daughter. I smiled at the idea of his proud face when I decoded the message. Momma never did like me much. My heart swelled with the idea of moving away from her and my brothers and living with someone who cared about me.
I got to work. I tried reading it upside down, at different angles, from the mirror, and I even held the paper up to the lamp to see if anything appeared from within the paper. I scrutinized the message in every way possible, even going so far as to see if the words written in English were a cipher.
Nothing.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the note. I'd tried just about everything, and I was starting to feel more and more foolish with every passing minute. I wanted it to be a letter from my father so very badly. I felt tears welling up behind my eyes and let out a long annoyed sigh. A source of light caught my attention in my window and I looked up to see the dark clouds moving away from the full moon. The stars sparkled brightly around it, and my lamp began to flicker. Suddenly, the flame within extinguished. The crickets ceased their nocturnal song. Moonlight poured through my window, illuminating the page brighter than I ever imagined it could. Then, slowly but surely, the glyphs began to move around on the page.
I stood from my chair and gasped. The characters were moving around the letter like little ink snakes forming letters that I could read. Slowly the message began to take shape before my very eyes.
C̳͚͇͇o̠̞̠̲͉̩ͅm̤e͍͇͈͇͙̬ ̥̣̖̯̰̤ṯ̟̫̼͕͈̼o̪̘̰̬ ̬̦D͇̖̱͍̮͓͕e̜͍̣͕ḁ͙̫̬̳̬d̗͔m̻a̼n's̳̖̥̖̣̬̜ ͙R̝͍a͓n̮̥̟͕c̙̞̤h̺̗̖͕̭̯ ̳̞a̺̪t̼̥̙̹̦ ̘̙͇̠n̞̥̦i͈͕̞̱͈gh̺̳̫̺̘t.̗̘͖̯̟̹͈ ̭͕̪W̯̞͕͚͎ḙ̦̦̜̳̰̹ ̞͖͎̫̬̘n͕͈̼̤̭̣e̖̬̜e͍̠̣̲͙d t̠͔͖͓o̗͖͉̹ͅ ̝͈̯͈̼s̥p̬̘͚͎̙e͍͎̳a͖͉̠k̪̝.̩̺̭̜ ̗̙͇C̣̰̙͉̠ͅo̝͔m͉ẹ̮̮͉̩͖ ̘͎̟̝̞̫̰a̠̼l͙o͉̬̬̠n͎̞e͚.͇̤
​
The hairs on my arms stood on end. A chill ran through my entire body as the moon moved behind the clouds and the flame in the lamp roared back to life. I stared down at the page in disbelief as the characters returned to unintelligible glyphs. The crickets resumed chirping and I breathed in sharply. It occurred to me that I had stopped breathing, but I couldn't remember when. I wasted no time. I gathered some supplies in a backpack and quietly left the house.
I didn't care that the meeting place was an abandoned farmhouse.
It didn't bother me to go alone.
And it wasn't a problem that it was the middle of the night.
What unsettled me though, was that all the animals on our ranch had gathered at the fence to watch me leave. Their heads turned slowly as they tracked me down the driveway. I swallowed hard, pulled my hood over my head, and picked up my pace.
*I'm coming, dad.*
r/A15MinuteMythos
part 2 incoming | I had a lonely childhood. Sure, I had a roof over my head, and food on the table. But I was given mere scraps of affection from my own mother. She did her best for my brothers and sister, but for me I was more of an afterthought.
I understood it a bit more as I grew up. I was the result of a fling. The others were intended by mum and my step
dad. He did his best, stepping up for me and mum when they got together. He never demanded I call him dad or force me to obey him. But his love for me was vastly different to his related children. But mum always seemed to regret having me.
I looked out for my siblings, being the older sister they needed. If they had night terrors I would try to calm them. When mum needed a break I played with them. I loved them, and they did love me. I didn't have to help, it was made abundantly clear. But I felt the need to make sure they felt the love I never really did.
It was the night of my seventeenth birthday. We had had a small meal to celebrate my coming of age. I was considered an adult now in the eyes of the law. With it I had my first glass of wine, finally tasting alcohol for the first time. It wasn't bad, but I didn't get why people raved about it.
I went up to my room, feeling quite happy. Gemma had been telling me a story about how her friend was fed up with bullies, and took maters into her own hands. I had tried to act disapprovingly, but could help but laugh at her sheer audacity.
I frowned as I looked at my bed. I hadn't made it, but that wasn't anything new. Instead I saw a small envelope resting on it. It was made of thick white paper, with a single word on the front.
>Donna
I picked it up, curious. I didn't recognise the handwriting, and didn't know how it had gotten in here. But I paid that little mind, choosing instead to open it.
Inside I found a card, made of good quality card. The front had an image of a dozen black roses, set on a soft green background. I breathed in, surprised to find that it had the smell of roses with it. I opened it up, reading the short message inside.
>Happy Birthday!
>Love Dad
I smiled, before blinking and freezing. After blinking the letters changed, becoming strange glyphs. They has been inked in red liquid, something I couldn't help but think of as blood. But even though it had changed, I knew exactly what it said. The message hadn't changed, just the language. A language I somehow knew.
I looked it over, seeing no other markings. I was worried now. Changing letters written in blood. A card that had been snuck into my room. A language I had never learned but understood. It didn't make sense.
My first thought was to hide it. Mum would probably push it under the rug, and my stepdad wouldn't know what to do. He would try, but he was a simple man, as he liked to call himself. This was something like magic, the sort of thing that didn't happen to an ordinary city girl like me.
But my gut said otherwise. It said to take it to mum. This would be something she would know about. She could help me. I decided to trust it, looking for her. I found her in the garden, sitting on her old chair and looking into the distance.
"Mum."
She tore her eyes away from it with difficulty, looking up at me.
"What is it Donna?"
I held out the card. She glanced at it, before frowning. Her hand reached out, and I passed it over. She looked at the inside, before sighing.
"I knew this would happen."
I crouched down next to her.
"What do you mean?"
She gave another sigh, passing it back.
"I guess you should know now. The short story is that I met your dad when I was going through some bad times. He helped me out, but in return I had to give him something. He wanted a child."
I felt a lump in my throat.
"He... wanted you to have me? Why?"
Mum sighed again, handing the card back to me.
"Infernal creatures aren't everlasting. They need heirs to take up their power. He needed one, and I was in a position to give him what he wanted."
I looked at her, seeing the shame on her face.
"I'm... the daughter of a demon?"
She gave a small nod.
"Yes. And now he wants you." | 2022-11-02T16:45:32 | 2022-11-02T16:37:57 | 131 | 31 |
[WP] The more evil you were on Earth the higher your rank in Hell. When you get to Hell Satan himself resigns his position to you, but you don't know what you did. | I had known I was going to die, but I always figured I would make it into heaven. I literally worked for god, I was a pastor. I was married with two kids. I tried to be as good as I could in life. Never got into a fight, never did any drugs, never intentionally harmed anyone. Yet, there I found myself, in hell.
I woke up in a line, with a bunch of other confused people. A man with what appeared to be a bullet wound in his head came up to me, and said, "Sir, you have died and have gone to hell. Please remain calm, and do not panic. Somebody will see you in a few minutes at the front of the line."
He walked off, and all I could think to myself was 'What the heck is going on here?'
Once I reached the front of the line, there was what appeared to be a regular woman who if I had to guess, was a receptionist in life. "Name?", she said to me, sounding bored out of her mind.
"Thomas Xavier." Her eyes immediately perked up from her keyboard.
"I'm sorry sir, did you just say that your name was Thomas Xavier?" she responded, sounding quite shocked.
"Yes.... unless I'm mista-"
"Sir, please wait right here for just one minute", she interrupted, and then ran off into another room.
It was a few minutes before she came back, and while she was gone, I noticed all kinds of people staring at me, muttering things like, "Do you think that could really be him", and "No way man, he's dressed like he belongs in a church!"
When the woman came back, everybody in the room dropped to their knees. I think that might have been the most perplexing moment of my afterlife. Just then, in the midst of my confusion, a huge, red man walked in, who I could only assume was the devil himself. He took one look at me, and put his hand over his mouth in awe, like my daughter Elizabeth did the first time I took her to the mall to see Santa.
"Ho-ly Fuck." Satan said. "I cannot fucking believe this. My successor, in the flesh."
"I'm sorry sir, did you just call me you-"
"Karen are you fucking seeing this? This is goddamn nuts! Nice to meet you Thomas, uh, I mean Mr. Xavier, welcome to hell."
"Thomas is fine. Uh, pardon me, but did you just call me your successor?" I asked, stuttering my words."
"Yessir, everything that you will see, the entirety of hell, all belongs to you. I just can't believe it. After all these years, you're finally here to take my spot." He was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning at this point.
"Ummm, Satan, sir, I believe there's a mistake. See, I'v never done anything wrong in my entire life. I have a loving wife, two wonderful kids, I'm a damn pastor! How on Earth could I be the new king of Hell?"
"Well Tommy, it's like this. See, I used to be a very infamous man by the name of Mao Zedong. I'm sure that you've heard of me before. Well, I became Satan because of the atrocities I committed while alive. This is now happening to you." He said to me, in an increasingly arrogant tone.
"OK, I'm not sure you're hearing me right. I was a pastor. I repented for all of my sins. I haven't killed anybody. Now, if you could fix your mistake and send me up to Heaven where I belong, that would be amazing."
"Well, I guess I haven't really been clear. You technically haven't done anything that would be considered wrong on anybody's moral compass. As a matter of fact, it's the greatest thing you ever did that got you sent here, to take this position. Remember, lets see, 4 years, 8 months, and 14 days ago, there was a child going to cross the street. Obviously, he hadn't looked both ways before he started going, otherwise he most likely would have seen the giant 18-wheeler coming right at him. You however, saved him from a certain death."
I was flabbergasted. "And...?" I said, with a tinge of disgust in my tone.
"Well, the thing is, that kid is going to end up being elected president of the United States one day. The power is going to go to his head, and he's gonna start a nuclear war that will ultimately kill 93% of Earth's total population. So, now that we're all clear on what you did wrong, can I show you to the throne room?"
| I had been a pious man.
I remembered the Sabbath, and kept it holy.
I loved my wife and our children. I forgave the son whose meth addiction nearly tore us apart, and stood by him as he rebuilt his life. I stood by him when few others did.
Diagnosis to death was nine weeks. Nine painful weeks as my body fought the tumor, but the tumor won.
I slept for the last time and heard a voice say to me. "Remember the words of the Holy Book".
_________
I woke again and saw a familiar face from my childhood.
Of course I remembered Gary Glitter. Before I knew what he was doing to children. I called myself a fan. What was he doing in the afterlife with me?
Had he repented his sins? Had God seen fit to show mercy?
_______
A nine foot tall being with black wings strode over to me and handed me a crown of purest obsidian.
"There time has come for me to bow down before a greater evil than I. Lucifer the Fallen, at your service, Great Lord."
What was going on? Was I in Hell? Why?
Then I remembered the commandment I had broken. Handed down by the Holy Book.
"There is a special level in Hell, reserved for child molesters, and people who talk in the theatre."
"The special Hell..."
I wept. What else was there to do? I had talked during Star Wars - The Phantom Menace.
For my sins, I must pay.
| 2016-12-19T16:42:24 | 2016-12-19T14:12:17 | 55 | 11 |
[WP] A year ago, the newest member of the Interplanetary Community of the Milky Way, humanity, was welcomed. However, millions of kind aliens donated a great amount of money to a prince of a place called Nigeria who lost his throne, and no one has heard back from him since. | **Intergalactic Community of the Milky Way, Transfer Station 8485T34R-287, Consul Corridor D**
"They've done what?"
"They made a formal request for Expedited Handling to Terrestrial Situation with Vectors of Formal Interplanetary Communications Involv..."
"Stop, just stop." Secondary Ambassador James Fink rubbed his forehead forcefully and groaned. After a moment he straightened and took a deep breath of the station's recycled air "If the issue is Terrestrial, then why....wait, vectors of Formal Interplanetary Communications? We haven't had any communications through official channels."
"Sir, they..."
Fink cut him off again with a raised finger. With his other hand he tapped out a comm code that connected him with Central Communications. He started to sweat a little bit, remembering how his predecessor Secondary Ambassador Nark had found he was being replaced only after realizing his quarters had been re-assigned. "This is Sec Am Fink, I need to know if there have been any official communications through any channels in the past ten days. Are all communications being properly routed?"
"Yes sir, all communications are correct and proper." Barked back a voice.
"Okay, thank you." Fink disconnected and sat stewing for a moment, rubbing his chin as though he were trying to scrub it clean. He wondered if he could get a good cabin on the next ship home. He noticed the Assistant under Assistant still standing there. "Well? Tell me whose out there."
“Sir, it's a delegation of about...”
“A delegation?” Fink interrupted. His hand immediately slapped across his mouth with embarrassment in front of the junior officer.
“Well sir, that's just it.”
“We don't keep delegations waiting AUA....what's your name?” Fink asked the man.
"Twitchell sir, but sir, I need to…”
“AUA Twitchell, show the delegation in.” Fink straightened himself and brushed an imaginary mote of dust from the front of his suit.
Twitchell opened his mouth again then froze and closed it. He paused and smiled. "Actually sir, it might be better if you joined them in reception. It's a rather large delegation.”
Reception was crowded, and the vast array of life throughout the whole of the Interplanetary Community of the Milky way seemed to be represented. Eyestalks rose, colorful blobs in their mobile packs, sharp claws in white gloves rested on the carpet, floating avatar globes representing lifeforms of different atmospheres and through the double doors out in the main corridor of the consulate he could see the immense hulking form three of Shiarfobe. Sitting on the reception desk there was even a Edhusita.
Fink crossed his arms reflexively, his smile so broad his teeth didn't touch. "How can I help you?" He asked nervously, his forehead glistening with sweat, his undershirt soaked all the way through.
There were a few seconds of silence as the translators of a hundred or more languages did their magic. During those seconds Fink lost feeling in his legs.
A representative moved forward, luckily not the Edhusita and gave what Fink assumed was a ritual greeting, nodes gyrating, and what might be a mouth or an eye burbling and rotation. The Secondary Ambassador's smile never shifted.
Twitchell leaned in. "Yes Your Griuittch," the AUA said smoothly although the spitting and pronunciation should have required two tongues on a human, and pointed, "down the hall and to your spittif."
"Restroom?"
"Restroom."
Another representative moved forward, this one much more human in that it was bipedal. It hesitated for a moment then switched it's translator settings. Fink saw that it would allow the planetary officer to speak to him in English, but broadcast a translation for the crowd.
“You are Secam Fink, in the affirmative.” The being said. Fink was impressed, not many on the station had tried to learn *'Human'* as it was called.
“Yes.”
“This being is Simple Hisira. We this delegation of come to lodge a formal complaint and request look search into the monetary transaction system of your planet. Ground has been a member of this community for a sufficient period of time for your systems to have begun a formal transition.”
Fink bristled for a moment at the reference to Earth's name, but brought his smile back quickly. "I am certain that our planet's banking...um, monetary transaction system is fine.”
“We of the assembled delegation find this hard to believe. Multiple members, more than represented here, have been contacted about failures in transactions.”
“You've been contacted?” Fink’s eye twitched a bit.
“And asked for assistance help. And many members here, because we are members and work within the rule thirty-four, have approached your system to fender aid and transacted. We have found the flaw.”
AUA Twitchell choked down a laugh as Fink shot him a nasty look. Fink turned back to the representative. "You have been transacting? With people back on Earth? All of you?"
“Affirmative. And we all have found flaw. If ground wishes to remain a member of the Community, standard must be attained. It is grow, grow, that ground remains decedent, and with transactions of royalty.”
"Which royalty? Who, who, whose royalty?" Stuttered nervously. Ambassador Nunn was extremely conscious of Community royal delegations wishing to visit Earth. The thought of them doing business there might cause the old man heart trouble.
“Royalty of Ground.”
Twitchell interjected. “I'm sorry your Simple, Royalty of Ground?”
“Affirmative, I and many others here have been contacted by a, the sound you make, a penis of one of your localities. He has been attempting to join us here in the community of you transaction system has confined him. We have transacted with this being is search of aid, to aid help him.”
“Penis? Royalty.” Fink found his voice, which had been slowly trying to make it’s way down his throat to the liver where it sure there might be some alcohol stashed somewhere.
“We have little interest in your local bistous, planetary bistous. This penis of Nigeria has been attempting to....”
“Penis of Nigeria? Royalty? Did you mean Prince of Nigeria?”
The being gave the intergalactic symbol of ‘*maybe’* recognized on every planet and most moons (MOST moons, not all!), the shrug.
Fink gave the being a puzzled look while off to his right Twitchell consulted his multipad. The being that had used the facilities came back two shades brighter, and feeling much more relaxed.
*How to explain to the Simple that there was no royalty of the planet Earth*, after first *explaining that the proper name of Earth is Earth* rattled through Fink's head. He'd need a complete refreshment after this, and a drink or six and how he could work the clearing up this little misunderstanding into a promotion of sorts. Senior Secondary Ambassador James Fink sounded nice. This train of thought stopped with Twitchell made a strange noise.
“Secondary Ambassador Fink, if I could have a word.”
To the room the two humans did something strange. They brought their unisockets together, the one used for visual and oral communication. Some low sounds were whispered. Then more low sounds. Then a very loud sound was made by the Secam. And then the Secam appeared to go into a kind of hibernation. The being's form just collapsed in on itself. Well, that did happen from time to time, but not scheduling a hibernation was very unprofessional. Perhaps it couldn't be helped.
Simple Hisira asked the other human if the delegation could have an audience with the Ambass. The other human agreed. | (several human mercenaries are being greeted by an alien general named Pogo on the cold frozen planet of Hothori)
"You humans are some of the best soldiers money can buy, since you helped bring peace to Hothori the galactic senate has decided it's about time we pay your planet back" Pogo says while standing in front of his squad of multinational human mercenaries. A Russian speaks up "We returning to earth sir?" the generals response of "yes Nikita, you are" is quickly overshadowed by numerous other mercenaries reminiscing about there time on earth and how great it will be back to return after all these years.
Pogo: \*pulling out a piece of paper\* "our new assignment is to track down Nigerian King Obateru Akinruntan and check up on his aid requests"
"Nigeria isn't a kingdom though? its a presidential republic........... they have a president not an Emperor" an American says while confused.
Pogo: "C'mon Anderson I know you've been away from earth for a few years but everyone in the galaxy knows of the plight of Obateru and his vast intercontinental Empire. We get his emails every month"
Anderson looks to Nikita as they both look back to Pogo in disbelief. "With all do respect General................... how much money did the galactic empire send to this Obateru?" Nikita says while he looks at some of the other nervous mercenaries.
Pogo: "well, his empire is undergoing famine and drought and war and other bad things so you know just the normal amount of interplanetary aid."
Anderson: "oh boy"
Nikita: "how much was it Pogo?"
Pogo: "well I got to do some math really quick, exchange galactic credits to Euros, and take in account the logistic and military support as well a......." Pogo is cut off by Nikita. "HOW MUCH DID YOU SEND?"
Pogo: ".............. about a hundred trillion euros"
The squad fell silent as no one could make eye contact with the general. A few tense moments pass before pogo lets out a "what's the problem? Rivera...... you seem awfully silent." The squad turns to face the Colombian special forces operator.
Rivera: "sir...... that's more than the entire GDP of our planet"
Anderson: "and you gave it to a single individual"
Nikita: "Someone that doesn't even control a country"
Pogo: \*concerned\* "are you telling me the galactic empire was scammed?........... EVERYONE ON THE SHIP NOW"
The squad piles into the spacecraft as tension fills the silent hull. "Hey, it will be fine sometimes these things happen..... earthlings fall for these types of scams all the time" A mercenary says trying to comfort the general.
Pogo without saying a word pulls out a data log with schematics for large space fairing battle cursers and robotic soldiers with high powered laser rifles.
Nikita: \*looking closely\* "With this much firepower a single man could conquer the world"
Pogo: \*holding back tears\* "it gets worse.... we have been sending him military aid for almost a decade as well as funding for just as long"
Nikita: "AND YOU NEVER BOTHERED TO SEE WHAT HE WAS DOING WITH IT OR IF HE WAS EVEN REALLY A KING?"
Pogo: "........ me and the rest of the galactic ruling staff mostly just use earth to recruit mercenaries, we don't follow your politics."
A loud robotic voice is heard over the intercoms "We will reach earth in 60 seconds"
The ship enters earths atmosphere and is immediately shot with emp missiles from a large spacecraft with the flag of Nigeria painted on the side.
"Our shields weapons and engine are offline general" Rivera says while trying to establish communications.
Rivera: "a message is coming through"
"YOU HAVE ENTERED NEW NIGERIAN PLANITARY AIRSPACE, PREPARE TO BE BORDED" the large cruiser signals before smaller craft are seen landing near the loading bay. Nikita and Anderson pull out their side arms and aim it at the door.
Anderson: \*looking out the window and down towards earth\* "we're over Siberia, we should be in Russian Airspace"
Nikita: "Looks like Nigeria controls the world now" | 2021-01-08T18:30:37 | 2021-01-08T17:45:27 | 58 | 42 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone. | Dear Shane,
Remember at my wedding when you looked at me and said, "Don't do this. It's not too late."
I'll be married twenty six years in December. I have three kids almost all of them are adults. I tell them about you all the time. How you were the strongest kid I ever met. I tell them how you were my good side and how you kept me from going down a path that would have been my destruction. Without you there would have been no me and I miss you.
I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me most. I promised I would and I wasn't. I've never forgiven myself for that. I thought the cancer was done and that we would both grow old. The shock and hurt on your face when I said, "I have to get my life started. I'm twenty and you don't need me anymore." still haunts me to this day. I think you knew that this was the beginning of the end.
You tried to talk me out of joining the Army, out of my sudden decision to get married, and god knows how many times you tried to talk me out of going to Tijuana for the weekend. I remember telling you that you were going to be my best man and you saying, "No."
"Oh, alright. Well, you are heading down tomorrow to get fitted for the tux. I'll pick you up around four." I replied. Your Dad laughed so hard he started crying.
Sometimes, I think about writing a book about our adventures. We lifted each other up. When you had lost your leg I was there to help you stand, then walk, then run, and finally I even had you rollerskating. When my parents went in two different directions leaving me abandoned with my younger sister you made sure that the anger I felt never fully possessed me. Your family became mine and we became brothers. I fully expected when I came back home that you would still be there.
Your death devastated me. I was living in Germany at the time and a letter came in from my wife's grandmother. When I opened it I saw the article and thought, "Holy shit, Shane is in the newspaper again." I was so happy until I realized it was an obituary.
Everyone knew something had happened. They kept asking me what was wrong. I simply said, "I have to go home and tell my wife." One of the Sergeants tried to stop me and the guy who always got along with everyone stared and said, "I'm going home and if you have a problem with it then send the M.P.'s."
My wife and I threw rose petals into the Main river that ran right behind my house. You would have loved to have seen it. In fact, I had started to make plans to bring you up to spend a couple weeks in Europe with us before I received that letter.
I've only just started talking about how I let you down. The one promise I ever broke was the most important one I ever spoke. It is my one and only regret and it still weighs heavily on me after all these years.
When you are twenty it seems as if you are getting old. That time is starting to slip out of your grip. In truth we were just kids just getting started in our lives. You had just turned twenty one when life ended for you. You had a steady relationship with a girl who adored you, had started college, and before I left looked to be a rising star in the distant horizon.
You taught me to live life to the fullest and I have. I've traveled across this world seeing things you couldn't imagine. I've gone all through Europe. Ate brochen and brauts while drinking Gluwein in Rothenburg during Christmas, drove all along the Cote D'Azur, sang Home Sweet Home to the tune of a German Polka band that was playing during a Weinfest held directly behind my home, and I went all across the Eastern Bloc countries seeing the devastation of communism first hand. I've lived in foreign countries, drank Vodka with Russians, and danced to Techno in Salzburg. With your life gone, I felt I owed it to you to live mine to the fullest and I have tried to do so. I have even danced with Midgets in Mexico. Now, with my own kids being adults, I can see myself heading down through South America before heading to Asia. I only wish you could be with me as I travel across those distant lands.
There isn't a day that goes by where some memory of our friendship doesn't make it to the front of my mind. See you on the other side.
| Hey kiddo. It's been too long since I've seen you. It's crushing to carry this weight some time. I'm really trying to show you that you can grow up and accomplish anything but it's manifesting in me leaving you behind. Your mom and I weren't right. She will forever hate me for it but I needed to do this for my happiness. You'll learn one day that everything comes at a price, and I've paid a huge one in losing you. There's this part of me that hopes one day you'll understand. There's also a part of me that knows you might grow up and feel abandoned and alone and lacking a male influence in your life, find the first shitty guy that comes along and fall in love with him because you never knew what love from a man is supposed to look like. I made so many huge mistakes. I just was trying to be more. I grew up with nothing and I was determined to make sure you never had to live like that. Your mom thinks I'm selfish and only care about myself. Somehow it always felt like I was doing it for you. So you could see. You can start with nothing and still achieve your dreams. You can be anything. I hope one day you see that I never stopped loving you. I just wasn't happy with your mom and someone else made me feel the way I was supposed to feel. I hope when you are given the choice, you choose happiness. I love you and I miss you. Please don't hate me. | 2017-11-06T00:19:39 | 2017-11-05T22:18:21 | 32 | 14 |
[WP] You're a biologist who made a deal with the devil: eternity in hell after death in return for unlimited funding for your research. The funding was worth it, you discovered immortality, and the devil is not happy about this. | ######[](#dropcap)
The man swirled into Kassidy's lab, his black cape flowing behind him. She barely gave him a glance before turning back to her computer. She still had to run the next batch of samples, and if she was even a tiny bit off with the timing, they would become useless.
But she couldn't ignore him entirely, she supposed. "What do you want?" she asked, then carefully set her vial down and placed the entire group of vials into the freezer. She stripped her gloves.
Lucifer narrowed his kohl-rimmed eyes at her. "You know very well what I'm here for."
Kassidy shrugged. "Not sure what you're talking about."
He gritted his teeth and walked around the metal table until he was standing right in front of her. He slammed the newspaper down onto the table. Kassidy barely took a look at it before giving him a small smile. "Well, congratulations to that little old lady, I suppose. Living until you're 120 years old is quite a feat."
He wanted to kill her. "Yeah, it would be quite an accomplishment," he said, his jaw clenching, 'if she weren't supposed to die two months ago." He pulled out his tablet and quickly typed in the lady's name, then flipped it around and showed her. On the screen, along with a picture of the elderly women, was the age at which she was supposed to die. Instead of a positive time ticking down towards her death, it was now negative. "And I know you gave her that serum you concocted," he hissed. "We had a deal."
Kassidy raised an eyebrow. "We did, in fact. And I am upholding my part of the deal splendidly well."
His pale eyes flashed. "You know immortality is not to be trifled with."
Kassidy scoffed. "Right. So only the Gods get it. Because I'm sure you guys clearly deserve it."
Lucifer's lips narrowed into a thin line. "I forgave that you drank the damn thing yourself. I granted you amnesty. You don't know how *angry* Fred was with me when I told him he couldn't take your soul and had to explain why. He threw a temper tantrum for three days straight, trained Cerberus to basically revolt against me, and then quit his job for a whole week." He paced around the table. "People not dying for a whole week. Did you know the horror that caused? Gunshot wounds in stasis, people who should have bled out, dear lord, the number of newspapers I had to forcefully recall." He moaned, clutching his head in his hands. "Half my minions are still on holiday because of the overtime."
Then he raised his head. "And now this. How many people have you given the serum to?" He opened the fridge and pulled out the vial with swirling amber liquid, smashing it against the floor. The liquid evaporated almost immediately upon contact with the air.
"Just a few," Kassidy said calmly. She shrugged off her lab coat. It looked like she wasn't about to get any more work done today. The last time Lucifer had paid her a visit, he'd stayed for three days and three nights. "But I was actually thinking of selling it."
Before he realized what he was doing, Lucifer unsheathed his claws, and they hovered inches from her face. "Say that again." His tone was deathly calm. If she actually decided to sell the immortality serum, the entire world would be thrown into chaos. The other gods, who had slumbered since thousands of years ago, would finally awaken, and he would be put on trial for mishandling things.
If things turned out badly, he might even be stripped of his title. And where would he be then?
Kassidy didn't even blink at his threat. She was used to it by now. "You're threatening the mother of your future child?" she asked, then turned around and grabbed her keys from the counter.
At first, the question didn't register. Then Lucifer blinked. And blinked again. Mother of his...his eyes widened and flashed with something akin to joy. As much joy as he was capable of feeling, anyhow.
"You're pregnant?" he asked. His claws sheathed themselves, and he touched Kassidy's arm, turning her around. "Since when?"
She nearly rolled her eyes at him. "Since three months ago. I was going to tell you, but you didn't respond, so I decided to take matters into my own hands." She shrugged.
Hence the old lady.
He couldn't even be mad at her now.
"But it's fine. Apparently you didn't think answering my summonings was important enough. So you can head back to Hell now." She walked towards the lab doors.
She was mad. He was incredibly bad at reading emotions, but that much he knew.
"Kassidy, wait up!" he yelled, then followed her out like a puppy dog chasing after its owner.
*****
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/99qwrz/wp_the_other_gods_who_had_slumbered_since/e4pymgy/) is here, based off the prompt response that was generated from this story, haha.
r/AlannaWu | (This is my first post. I wrote it on my phone so of course please excuse the poor format.)
At last, I watched the insect start to twitch, then it flipped over to its legs again. It started to walk around. It was alive.
I jumped up in joy. I shouted, "Eureka!" I was going to be a millionaire. Best of all, I had cheated death; I had cheated the devil.
I felt a presence next to me and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the devil himself. I smirked a bit; the last time I had seen him was when we had made the deal. I supposed he was here because I had broken it.
"You broke the deal," he said shortly.
I turned to face him, placing a hand on the counter and shifting my weight to lean on it. I accidentally crushed the insect, but as I rose my hand curiously, it was already scuttling around.
"I did no such thing," I replied. "The deal was simple: unlimited funding for my research in exchange for eternity in hell with you. I'm just using my research money."
"I'm not stupid, I know what you're doing!" the devil shouted, watching the insect crawl around on the counter.
"Why didn't you try to stop me, then?" I asked. "If you knew what I was researching, you could've stopped me."
The devil hesitated. I had defeated him once again. "This isn't fair!" he eventually cried. "We made a deal. You can't do this!"
"Sorry," I shrugged, not sorry at all. "Maybe you'll get me when I die for an eternity in hell..." I trailed off, hoping he would take the bone.
"But you won't die," he said shortly. "This is stupid."
"Sorry," I said again. "Thanks for the money, though, I really appreciate that. I'm gonna be a millionaire with this serum!"
The devil scowled, eyeing the insect once more. I smirked in triumph. I had successfully cheated the devil. | 2018-08-23T11:34:53 | 2018-08-23T10:40:20 | 728 | 28 |
[WP] Your cat leaves half-dead mice around your house and it's becoming a chore disposing them. Unknown to you, a secret society of hitcats considers you the best cleaner of murder scenes. You ask no questions and take no payments. One day, a mouse squeaks the name of your cat before dying. | "Frostie," the mouse whimpered and punctured my everyday state of subdued bliss.
My Ragdoll, Frostie, averted her eyes and let out a soft meow before hurriedly escaping through the pet flap. The mouse stranded on my Goodwill carpet reached out a paw, stretching not-so-much towards me I suppose as much as towards life itself. Then it collapsed, élan vital and all, and left me with a mystery.
First of all, it surprised me that the mouse could speak and that I could understand it. Mice can't speak. Everyone knows. But this one could. And it did.
Perhaps it escaped from some laboratory. Experiment on a million mice, and you'd expect at least one to emerge with strange powers. Or maybe I was losing it. A mouse spoke my cat's name with its dying breath. Didn't Nietzsche speak with horses before succumbing to syphilis? Well, there was little chance that I'd contracted just that myself; I'd ace any STD test. At least it would have to be an accident. Accidental syphilis? Was that a thing? Would there be a single hit on Google if I searched for it?
It was, indeed, a thing. The first hit was from a medical journal—The Lancet—and an article therein with the title *Accidental Syphilis in Medical Men* from 1923. I couldn't rule it out, then.
Frostie entered the house again, bearing yet another catch. She seemed to be hunting for sport, for the mice were never dead when she brought them inside. Rather, they were maimed. I didn't like the implication. My dear Frostie? A sociopath? I imagined a future where cats were the dominant species. Would their culture be deeply reflective of suppressed murderous urges? Would there be a cat Freud? Would cats grow tired of him? Would he endorse the leisurely use of cocaine?
"Why don't you eat them?" I asked Frostie, who turned her head and stared at me with a quizzical glance.
"Pain!" squeaked the mouse. "Paaaaaaain ..."
"Oh dear," I said.
Frostie dropped her mouse on the floor, limp, and again she scurried for the flap in the door. This time, however, I decided to follow her. After getting rid of her deceased offerings, of course.
She noticed right away that I was following her, and it seemed to make her awkward. This offended me somewhat. Would the other neighborhood cats think less of her if her owner followed her along? I guess cats treasure their independence. But still.
Frostie's ears perked up, and though I couldn't hear a thing it was clear that she had picked up on something. Another mouse? Another *talking* mouse? Had there been a radioactive spill nearby? I supposed that sort of thing could explain it. The radiation might do sciency things with their genomes and they'd start talking. Was that absurd? Perhaps it was absurd.
As I stalked my cat as she stalked her prey, I made sure to look over my shoulder in case the pattern should repeat. Luckily, there were no assailants in sight. But what happened when Frostie found her mouse shocked me: the mouse was already hurt. Frostie leaned down and gently carried her in her mouth. And that was when I realized what was going on: Frostie was trying to help! These poor mice had become wounded, and Frostie brought them to me, perhaps thinking I might know how to sort it out.
"I am no medicine woman," I said and I petted her head gently.
"I'm not comfortable with this," said the mouse.
"A full sentence!" I cried out. This one was more advanced than the others. "Hello, dear mouse! I am Fiona. I suppose I am an ambassador for humanity. How is it that you can talk?"
"I'm bleeding. My guts are hanging out. Get a doctor! You'll have to forgive me, but I'm not in the mood for explaining my linguistic prowess right now."
"Oh dear," I said, and searched online for the number for the closest veterinarian. But before I could dial it, it was already too late.
"Forget it," said the mouse. "There's not much time left for me. I might as well tell you what you want to know. The reason why I can talk is—"
Just then, a trio of mice in business suits wearing tiny sunglasses leapt out from a hole in the wall and shot at the dying mouse. Frostie attacked them and they ran off after dropping a minuscule smoke bomb. I was horrified to realize that I had opened a mouse version of Pandora's box. It was a conspiracy, presumably all the way to the top of whatever government these chatty mice had formed. They had secret agents. And official-looking outfits.
As it would later turn out, I did have accidental syphilis. | "Oh, dear. Again? It's the third one this week already," I tickled my purring feline friend. "Thank you for the gift but I really don't need them."
Meowing coyly, I watched my British Shortfur walk away as I stared at the latest 'gift' - a dead mouse.
The neighbours have been giving me weird looks ever since I started disposif ng orat corpses that my cat brought back more regularly of late. It wasn't uncommon for cat owners to receive gifts from their cats in the form of dead smaller animals. I had my fair share of doing these things for a while now but never as often as it had been lately.
Returning with a broom, I checked to see if Tinkle my furry kid was anywhere nearby but he was nowhere to be found. Giving up, I got ready to clean the corpse when the bloodied rat twitched and let out a strangled sound.
Seeing that the poor mouse was still alive, I wondered if it was possible to still save it when the mouse and I locked gazes.
"D-don't trust Tinkle... hitcat... next target... the princess..."
Before I could react to the bizarre scene of a talking rat, the poor rodent breathed his last in my palms.
Hitcat? Princess? Talking rat? Also, did he say Tinkle? Was this why there was an unusual amount of rodent corpses of late?
Confused, I stared at the rat corpse with more questions than answers. | 2022-03-07T02:11:54 | 2022-03-06T23:15:17 | 259 | 60 |
[WP] You get a chance to be reborn with your mind intact. You work hard from birth and are quickly placed in a class for ultra-prodigies from around the world. Turns out, however, they all did the same thing you did. | Gerald was not a smart man by any means, that being my name in my previous life. He'd lived a decidedly middle class existence thanks to a job he'd gotten from his father, but other than that had been nearly entirely unsuccessful. This time would be different.
I'd recently gotten the ability to talk, which was nice. I'd been thoroughly trapped in for a while there, but the moment my voice box was developed I was spouting off everything that had been going through my mind for the months since birth. My mother took this as a sign of grand intelligence, and managed to get me into one of the best schools in the county despite her modest means. I must say, she's a real step up from my previous mother, who spent most of her time with a glass of wine or five in her system.
She'd dropped me off at school only minutes ago. I had been safe in her company for near on five years straight, and wasn't quite ready to leave, but with some final words of encouragement from mother I was ready. I parted with a hug and kiss and made my way through the tall purple gates, found my way to my classroom and sat relaxed. Nothing to worry about, I figured I could leach off my education for years before I'd need to pull my socks up.
My tension grew as the room filled with silent nervous children. The placement tests had been as extensive as they could be for a preschooler, and all of them had scored as high as the grown man who'd infiltrated them. I was truly a mere mortal among the geniuses of tomorrow, but for now I'm one of them and no one can reasonably prove otherwise.
Weeks later I'd gotten in the flow of things. Our teacher, Miss. Pigmy, was an old crone who clearly didn't think much of our natural talents. Loud and intolerable, she would often storm about the classroom ranting about paying attention or whatever it might be. Today was no exception. Little Erwin had had the audacity to drop his rubber on the floor.
"Miss, I didn't mean to!" cried Erwin through stifled tears, after a lengthy scolding.
Pigmy was having none of it, "I don't care what you meant, Erwin". I watched in silence, the same scene had played out more times than I could count. "Back in my day, you'd be caned nine ways from sunday!" I wasn't sure what that meant, but the way she said it was oddly sinister, even for her.
She waltzed to the back of the classroom almost gleefully and revealed a terrifying piece of wood that had been hiding on top of the cupboard. Erwin looked on in horror as she marched over to him and yelled "HOLD OUT YOUR HAND!". Erwin was frozen in time.
I've never considered myself a hero, but as the oldest person in the room I couldn't help but feel responsible for the poor boy. I steeled myself as best I could in my tiny frame and opened my mouth to scream a challenge.
"STOP!" The moment had been stolen from me. A girl from across the room, Wendy I think, had shown more courage than I could fathom with that one word.
---
The next few moments were a blur. Miss Pigmy was stunned that a child might stand up to her and was ready to change her attention to the young girl in front of her when Wendy continued; "How dare you treat us like this! We are under your care and you do nothing but shout, scream and complain"
She began to say things that a five year old should never utter, especially to a mean old teacher. After a while she was beginning to lose herself but kept on going, until she yelled "When I was your age I..." and abruptly ended her speech there. Pigmy was a little blindsided by what had unfolded, and I dread to think what might've happened if things had escalated further, but as luck would have it Mr. Irvine from the next room poked his head in just as the silence took over the room. "Everything alright in here?" he asked with the mildest hint of concern. Pigmy held the cane like a walking stick and gave the all clear.
Thankfully that was the end of it. Wendy was handed a debtention slip for her outrage but other than that it felt like we were through the worst of it for that day. I'd have to tell Mum about how much worse things had gotten, she'd fight for me.
But first I made my way to the Library to check in on Wendy. She was writing lines about something or other. I ignored that and considered how to ask what I needed to ask.
"Wendy, I.. Thank you, for helping Erwin earlier."
"Oh that's fine, I'd do anything for that boy." She smiled sweetly, but her warm blue eyes spoke only of worry.
"Listen, at the end of your rant earlier you said something like 'when I was your a..'"
"No, not you aswell?" Her eyes had grown wide.
"What? Does that mean? How old are you?"
"I'm five John, look at me. But my mind, well, that's another question."
I let that sink in. "Well, if we both have minds much older than our bodies, well, shouldn't we.. start a support group or something?"
"Why? We can't do anything until we're older, and by that time we'll just be average again. I swear you're just like all the rest. I'm too busy to help you."
"Hold on, You mean there are more?"
"How smart did you think a five year old could be? We're a bunch of old farts in the classroom. That is, except for little Erwin, he's all brand new."
"Huh.", so we're all just pretending, "What do I do with all my free time?"
"Isn't that the point? Use it to do things right this time. Pay attention in class, find a hobby you love. You got into one of the best schools in the country, use it."
I could do that.
"How did you die?"
Wendy rolled her eyes, "Why does everyone ask that." She sighed and cast her eyes downward, "Complications during pregnancy, if you must know."
"Nasty. I was hit by a bus."
Wendy cracked a wry smile, looked me straight in the eyes and broke down giggling.
A second lifetime seemed daunting, but maybe a friend like Wendy was all I needed. | It was but a few years ago that I had died. The feeling was strange, being a baby again, going through all the thing that I’ve gone through before yet forgotten. At first, it just seemed like I picked stuff up slightly quicker. I didn’t know German before I died, even though we were just neighbors on the either side of a wasteland, so I had to learn my first language all over again. It was strange having parents again. Mine died before the start of the great war, barely even knew them.
I was the only child in the family, and, while we were poor, my family tried their hardest to get me in the best schools. School was pretty easy at first, I quickly skipped past a few maths and science courses, but I had forgotten most of my higher level maths to this point. Still, I was only 7 while learning algebra with people much older. Turns out this was no blessing.
It was my ninth year when things started to go sideways. Unrest was growing within the population. It had been here for a long time, but now revolution feels imminent. I recently saw a man give a speech, a very passionate man at that. The crowd loved him and cheers were heard across the city. He talked of bringing back a powerful Germany, an anti-socialist Germany.
He took power nearly on my tenth birthday (my second-birth day). Soon after I was pulled from my school by the regime. The recruiter said that the country was in need of smart men like me. I’m not smart, certainly not as smart as they claimed. Knowledge and intellect are very different things. Nonetheless, I had become a trainee of the state that I had but decades ago died to defeat. The other students had sympathy for me, and I’m not really sure why.
After a few days, one of my new friends, Harry, came to talk with me just before dusk
He said, “So Joseph, where are you from?”
“Berlin,” I replied.
“No, no, where are you from before then,” he insisted.
I did not know what he meant, I am from Berlin, that’s where I was born, at least this time. Why would he think I was from somewhere else?
“Look around,” he continued, “have you not noticed how similar we all are? We all aren’t, or at least most of us aren’t, super geniuses, we all have memories of before we existed. Listen to me, I’m talking to you in English, you ever had English classes before?”
I did not believe him; I could not. An entire school of people who were reborn? That can’t be possible.
“Listen, kid... Joseph. I don’t know what the Germans want with us but I think they know who we really are, and I’m not sure how. What I am sure of, is that this is not school, this is boot camp. They don’t want us for our intellect. They’ve already realized we aren’t smart, hell I still don’t understand algebra. The Nazis want us for something else, and I want to know what that else is,” Harry said, motioning for me to follow him into a lit tent.
Edit: Part 1 | 2018-04-23T09:06:28 | 2018-04-23T08:59:05 | 108 | 54 |
[WP] When you die, you appear in a cinema with a number of other people who look like you. You find out that they are your previous reincarnations, and soon you all begin watching your next life on the big screen. | It had already been explained to me by the closest incarnation to me; I was dead. He told me to keep quiet during the movie, but at first I didn’t understand. I just dumbly ask how I died. I saw him, well me, try to subdue a laugh as it was explained to me how they’d all watched me choke out on the tiny chicken bone I’d managed to get lodged in my throat. Apparently it was amongst the top 5 worst ways some version of me had left the world yet. The strange thought occurred to me to sue the company who packaged the chicken strips, before I realised I’d never be earning any money again whatsoever.
Not just that. I’d never see mom, Eric, anyone. My mind felt numb at the thought; it wasn’t something that I could wrap my head round. I’d never sit in traffic again. Never open my presents at Christmas. Never enjoy the bitter sweet smell of freshly roast coffee. Never see Lara.
Lara. The thought of her exploded in my mind like a firework. I’d left her behind. I’d left her with all those half formed plans for the future that we’d never be able to put into action. She was probably laughing right now at the absurd way I went out, it was just her kind of dark humour. My heart felt heavy thinking of her; it was the first time I’d felt anything but shock since I sat down in this fucking cinema. I’d never see her again. Never watch that stupid little eye twitch she does as she falls asleep, never laugh at her otherwise shitty jokes just because she finds them so funny. Never feel her warmth next to me again as I drift off to sleep.
No, now I got to watch my next incarnation. Part of me wanted to grab a selection of junk food like I’d usually do at the movies, but after I’d got used to the dark I quickly realised there were no doors. Besides, even if there was, who the hell’s gonna want to serve hot dogs in the afterlife? All that remained was me, what must have been hundreds of me, this room, and the next life.
Suddenly the screen came to life. As I watched my newest birth, the me sat next to me made sure I understood these first few years would be boring. Apparently every cycle I’m a bad baby. Always crying, whining. That crying was etched in my brain. The more I listened to it, the more I could hear myself a little in there. It was unmistakable. I watched as this woman who was my mother, but not my mother, cared for me by herself. It was interesting that she was a single mother too; something my old life had in common with my new.
The years dragged by. I went through the motions. I went through school. I made friends. I done slightly better in my grades than I had before. I watched myself make similar awkward mistakes as my teenage years. I watched myself scream the most horrible shit at my new mom, this new woman who raised me. I laughed along with my new self, and all the others watching. I cringed at my embarrassment. I felt disappointment. I felt like I was living again.
Except I wasn’t. Not really. This wasn’t really MY life. It was just a life. One of billions. I was watching someone who was both so familiar and a stranger to me. It was the little things. I didn’t prefer baths to showers. I’d never get caught dead listening to techno music. It was me broadly, but not entirely. The similarities were there though.
I watched as I started college and settled down into a nearby café. Just another day. At this point I was getting just as bored watching my life as this new me was living it. I was sitting sipping on a coffee, doing everything I could to avoid a lecture. I noticed how busy the café was, and while I was trying to study, I could see the noise wouldn’t allow that to happen. The hum of conversation. I saw myself look up at the seat across from me, no doubt seeing everyone else sitting with someone. That was one thing we had in common; a little bit of perpetual loneliness.
I watched myself finish my coffee. I watched myself almost choke on the last drop. For a second I thought I’d be dying the same way again. But I wasn’t choking normally. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Both of me.
I watched as Lara asked me ‘is this seat taken?’, not giving me a chance to answer as she planked herself in the seat across from me. I awkwardly struggled to say something, but all I could get out was a quiet ‘no, you can sit there if you want’. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. I just watched it unfold dumbly. I watched the awkward silence as I could see myself wondering whether to start a conversation. I watched her look at me with that inquisitive look on her face she always had when she expected something. I had to stop myself shouting at the screen. I couldn’t just let her walk away.
Eventually after what felt like a lifetime it was her that broke the silence. I suppose I should have expected that. She jokingly asked why I was still sitting there when my coffee had been empty the full time. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew my face had went red. I joked about how I was just daydreaming, and that I didn’t want to go to class. She replied simply ‘well if you don’t want to go, don’t go.’
I watched myself spend that afternoon with her. I watched myself awkwardly ask for her number. No doubt I was terrified, but I couldn’t face not seeing her again. Over the next few months I watched, no, I felt myself fall in love with her again. I watched myself come up with new inside jokes that were different yet the same. I watched her do her stupid little eye twitch as she fell asleep. I laughed at her shitty jokes just because of how funny she found them. I watched myself sleep next to her, and sometimes I swear I could feel her warmth, as if she was right there beside me.
I watched myself do what I’d never managed to do before. All those half assed plans we had, while not the exact same, were still there in spirit. We travelled together. I watched us have kids, I watched us grow old together. I was engrossed in every moment. I barely took my eyes off the screen, but when I did and I looked around I saw the same sense of wonder and happiness written across my face countless times. They had to have seen this play out hundreds of times, over centuries and millennia, and it still touched them the same way it did me.
Finally I watched as she passed away first. Not in any funny way this time; just old age. But instead of sadness, the thought that crossed my mind was one of pure joy; she would pass on and enter a cinema somewhere. She would watch her life unfold again. For all the differences across her lifetimes, she too would watch us meet each other. Watch us fall in love again. Hell, she already had. We had together, even if not physically. And we would forever.
I greeted the new me who arrived in the cinema with a smile on my face and told him to enjoy the movie. | The movie starts.
The screen is dark blue, we're under water. The camera points at the soil below and slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor. We see a goblin shark and angler fish scurrying around. I look around at my other reincarnations and slide a little down in my seat. This can't be good.
The camera pans up to look under a rock. We see an eerie appearance, the narrator tells us this is the Black Swallower. A horrifying potbelly has been found in tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and can live as deep as 3,000 meters below the surface. We see it spawning eggs. My reincarnations look at me with disgust. Yeah, I fucked up guys. We're starting close to zero.
But the camera pans into the ground. There lies a slug, born just a few hours earlier. We all sense it, this is our next incarnation. Loud sighs all around us. One of the reincarnations gets up and yells "Scheiße!" in loud German. I look closer, it's Adolf Hitler himself. Or myself.
He looks at me. "Ich habe," he starts off in German but realises he needs to speak in the shared language of the Styx delta, namely English. Who would've guessed. He continues. "I have fucked up! I knew I fucked up before. But *you* ruined it even more! People in *your* lifetime hated you even more than they hated *me*! You were the downgrade, you were supposed to *learn* and we would get to be something... something better!"
Adolf sits down again and I remembered. After killing himself during World War 2 he came back to this room and previous incarnations all hated him for ruining it. His karma went below zero, unforgivable. They were watching my life unfold and I had all the opportunities to do it right. I should have learned.
But I didn't, and now we're going to watch the short life of a sea slug being devoured by a Black Swallower. It's deserved, though. People hated me more than they hated Hitler. At least he was a decent painter, and suffered abuse during his life. People could relate to him in some ways.
I look to my left and the sea slug appears. Its brain capacity rivals that of the average peanut, but I feel it's looking at me disapprovingly. Sorry, tiny me, the compound experience we all share will go on for a few hundred generations I expect. Let's see what's next, the score on our Reincarnation Board tells us this is going to be the worst incarnation by a long shot.
Oh! We're human again!
"Congratulations, it's a healthy baby boy," a doctor says.
The camera zooms out to a crying mother and empty chair, noting the absent father. We see a glimpse of the mother's last name. "Have you decided upon a name?" the nurse asks.
"Ah, shit. Ahh, shit."
"What's wrong?"
"No, that's its name. Ajit. I hate people and children in particular, and I hope it'll get its childhood ruined. Maybe in the future it can ruin the lives of millions of other innocent people."
"Ajit Pai? A shit pie? That's just cruel, madam. But it's your child I guess. Sign her off, we're done here."
I sighed. This incarnation was during my own lifetime. Interesting, he is probably as hated as I was, maybe even more. The slug next to me starts to cry and I stand up.
Hitler is still looking at the screen. "Well, ich think that I'm going to hate this guy even more." He looks at me, stroking his moustache. "In your defence, you didn't know what you were doing at all, herr Trump." I frowned. That's true, but I made more victims. My name will last longer in the history books than yours, Adolf. | 2017-11-23T07:04:33 | 2017-11-23T07:01:18 | 117 | 18 |
[WP]The sign reads "WARNING: PARAMNESIA AREA; you have not been here before, even if you remember so, report any false memories to Management" | "What the heck is paramnesia?" I couldn't help but say aloud. What a weird word!
What was I doing again? Oh yeah, so about this sign.
"...you have not been here before, even if you remember so, report any false memories to Management." What a weird sign, right?
I didn't like working the night shift in the mall. When my cousin told me about the job and sang its praises for the hours of uninterrupted YouTubing he was able to enjoy, it seemed like a good enough gig. I'd be alone, it'd be quiet, and I'd be able to stretch my legs.
Turned out he was right, it was a pretty cool job. Every night I liked to make the same loop. From the cookie shop to the video game store and then a pause to enjoy my snack near the Sunglasses Shack before continuing on. Those first few weeks I tried to walk to every store in the mall and memorize the order but it was hard so I gave up after only two or three tries.
Where was this story going again? Oh yeah, back to the sign. Gosh, focus, Phil.
So anyway, those first few weeks the nightshift went by so fast. I felt like I'd get up and go for my walk and then it seemed like no sooner did I get back to my security kiosk and the sun would be up and the first workers would be unlocking the doors to start the day. Easiest and quickest money I had ever made! The nights FLEW by.
But then I remember it was a Thursday and I was playing basketball and I hurt my back. The thing that sucks about hurting your back is NOBODY can see it. You're just all like "I hurt my back!" but people think you're just saying that because you lost, got dunked on, or whatever. But I did. I really hurt my back. So for several days I sorta gave up on my walk during my shift at the mall.
Those nights were LONG. Impossibly long. Like I wondered if time would move faster if I literally just watched the clock all night. Did going on those walks make that much of a difference? It sure seemed like it. But with my back in the shape that it was I was stuck at the kiosk. I figured moss would start to grow on me soon enough since I was pretty helpless. Hardly able to provide any "security" either, I'd say. But whatever.
So anyway it was around then that I started to wonder about this sign. Or actually, maybe it was a few days after that? It's hard to remember it was awhile ago, really. But yeah, oftentimes I'd wrap up my walk by going into the tunnels that led to the basement because it was cool down there and being a bigger fella I get a little sweaty on those treks around suburban Omaha's finest mall.
And that's when I noticed that door and that sign. "Paramnesia" it said. Now I'm not positive but I think that's a made up word right there.
That's also when things started to feel really weird, see. Around when I started noticing that sign. Suddenly it would be morning. I noticed time was missing. It wasn't just the walks that helped time fly by, I was actually *missing* hours from my night. I know, I know, hours aren't exactly car keys and one doesn't just lose them, but somehow I did. I'm not so sure it's the only thing I've been losing there.
So 2 nights ago I went for a walk but carried paper and a pen with me and jotted some notes. Maybe I have narcolepsy or something? Narcolepsy. Now that's a real word. None of this paramnesia business. Narcolepsy could probably explain me losing those hours. I bet it's the dang Narcolepsy, I'll have to see a shrink about that.
Right. So I went for a walk and took a few notes...passed the video game store...had my snack...went into the basement as usual. Went to the end of the southwest basement tunnel. "Stopped at the end of the tunnel" it said and right below it in some really smeared handwriting I wrote "Opened door next to sign about paramnesia, whatever that means."
But then I was back at my kiosk. No notes covering the time or doings between the basement and how I got back there. I thought as hard as I could. There was a light, gosh I remember that light. There was a person...no...two people. Both women I think. What were they wearing, though? I feel like that light blurred them. No wait they weren't women but they sure sounded like women? It hurts. The light *hurts* to think about! Ow it hurts worse than my back. Did I mention I hurt my back playing basketball? I guess it doesn't matter, really.
Forget paper and pen next time I'm taking my phone, I decided. I'm going to record my walk. Ya know, like a detective or something. Why didn't I think of that earlier? But I forgot the paper I had been writing on the night before so I had trouble retracing my steps perfectly. Well whatever, the basement was where I remembered things ending so I just headed straight there.
"OK I'm in the basement and there's this weird sign I don't think I've ever noticed before" I said in the recording. "I think I stopped jotting down notes here the other night so we'll see if anything remarkable happens. Hm, I wonder what 'paramnesia' means?" and then I seem to move to open the door next to the sign and then the video goes dark. There's still over 14 minutes of dark, silent video, before it ends.
It's the strangest place, the mall.
This morning when my shift ended back at the kiosk my knees really hurt. I didn't remember being on my knees at all overnight but I found myself rubbing them a lot, almost as if I'd been walking on them. I remembered something was odd about the basement that I went to check out so I made my way back there before the other employees started coming in. And that's why I'm here now looking at this sign. What a weird sign. Oh yeah, I took a video on my phone! I watched it only to realize I had already watched it once already. There's that long, dark portion in the video. But wait, when did I have time to watch this already?
It says to go to Management if I have memories of being here. Hmm. I think I do, and I have evidence from the video that I have been here. But why is it so hard to remember despite this video? MAN my knees hurt. Gosh, what time is it? I should probably be getting home. I can talk to Management another time. Maybe tonight when I come back.
But gosh, this door. Is it just me or is this part of the basement really hot? And what a weird sign. "WARNING: PARAMNESIA AREA; you have not been here before, even if you remember so, report any false memories to Management."
Hmmm. "What the heck is paramnesia?" I couldn't help but say aloud. What a weird word!
What was I doing again? Oh yeah, so about this sign. | I read the sign again.
*Paramnesia?*
"Hello. Welcome, newcomer," a voice squeaked next to me. Startled, I glanced to my left and saw...nothing.
"Down here, you idiot," the voice squeaked again.
I looked down towards the floor and noticed a little grey mouse. The mouse stood on its rear legs, arms waving in the air with a large grin on its face. The mouse appeared to be wearing a little red jacket.
"H-hello?" I managed to utter with disbelief in my voice.
"That's more like it!" the mouse squeaked. "The name's Bigsby, on account of how big I am!"
I stared in bewilderment. The mouse just spoke to me as clear as day and I could understand it! I felt a little excitement in my chest.
"Hello, Bigsby. Where am I?"
I stared down at the mouse ad noticed the bright white marble floor. It was beautifully adorned as far as the eyes could see. I turned around in wonder and the marble floor continued to stretch forever in an endless sea of white.
I looked up and noticed the sky was a beautiful shade of pink, sprinkled with fluffy white clouds. There were no walls, structures, flora or fauna except for me and this mouse.
"You're new here. I can tell. I ain't never seen you before. Say, what's your name?" asked Bigsby, a smile on his little grey cheeks.
I started to think. What was my name? For some reason my mind was blank. "I-I don't know. I really don't remember."
"Hmm, that's no good. Well, I like your shorts. So I'm going to call you Shorty!" Bigsby clapped his little paws together, jumping up and down in excitement as his little feet clacked against the marble.
I looked down at myself and realized I was wearing nothing except my boxers. I felt my face flush as I attempted to cover my self with my hands.
"Why am I naked?!" I yelled. I rotated my head on a swivel, looking for anything that I could use to dress.
Bigsby scratched his ear and looked up at me in confusion, "Eh, I don't know, Shorty."
Feeling a bit foolish at my overreaction, I hung my hands limply at my side. Who was going to see me? This mouse? What did he care if I was only in my boxers for?
"Where even am I?" I asked, looking down at Bigsby.
"You're in Paramnesia, the land of opportunity," Bigsby answered and snapped his tiny fingers. The ground began to tremble beneath our feet.
I lifted my feet up in exclamation and looked around as marble began to creak. It reminded me of an earthquake though I had never been in one, I imagined this is what it felt like.
To my amazement, twenty feet away a hole opened up in the ground. The blinding white marble separated at the perfect grout lines and a golden image began to rise. It took several seconds for me to realize it was a staircase.
The staircase was the size of a school bus and inlaid with intricate, swirling patterns along the railing. The balusters were encrusted with white, milky gems and the entire staircase radiated in a heavenly hue.
When the staircase emerged my head began to ache. I grabbed my head and shut my eyes as the pain seared in my brain. Strange images started to flash in my mind's eye.
The golden staircase.
A figure walking up the stairs towards the sky. A stern look of determination on their face.
A great wooden door opening. Closing.
Just as soon as the images appeared, they were gone. The figure ascending the staircase looked a lot like me. Was it me? Was it someone I knew? My headache quickly dissipated and I looked at the mouse with some confusion.
Bigsby looked at me with his paws against his cheeks, small snout agape, "Shorty, you've been here before, haven't you?" | 2022-08-31T12:40:26 | 2022-08-31T11:36:25 | 146 | 28 |
[WP] The team's healer is absolutely sick of being ignored and insulted all the time, so they join the bad guys. They are a much more effective villain than anyone thought possible. | A day.
That's all it took.
Not a full day either, within nineteen hours the country's entire defense system was dismantled and nobody saw it coming, not even the Guild of Sentinels. In fact, they were among the first to be wiped out.
First, Galyx Lunagrav, the master of fucking **gravity** collapses *into himself* after being gut shot on live TV (by a blast of the same energy he boasted control over) during a commencement speech to a bunch of college grads. His fall ushered the end of the age of heroes, and heralded the beginning of...
...something new.
The second to go was Elua Viy, goddess of strategy. She was beheaded by her *(not as dead as we thought)* brother Eko Viy, using the legendary blade Viy Daga, the only weapon that can kill their kind. A family heirloom that resided in the armory at Sentinel Sanctuary until now.
Once the Big Good's were out of the picture, the slaughter began.
*They* were swift, and knowledgeable of every Sentinel's weakness. Superhumans, modern idols proved to be nothing more than pests to these well trained units adorned in black. Supers that weren't bullet proof were executed in their homes and on the streets. Those that were unaffected by conventional warfare were hunted and killed using more *creative* methods.
Compared to some of the brawls many Supers engaged in day after day, this was a quiet war, a silent culling. No exploding buildings, no flaming cars…
*“…no collateral damage.”* Clifford Cross couldn’t help but smile in disbelief. He'd done it, he actually did it, *he killed the guild*. “What about casualties sustained?” he asked in a tone more enthusiastic than appropriate for the question. *”Six K.I.A, fourteen wounded Sir.”*
*That’s it?!*, he almost exclaimed aloud before collecting himself. “Carry on with phase two, I’ll meet the wounded back at base.”
*"Copy that.”*, the radio clicked off as Clifford turned his attention to the woman writhing on the floor behind him. She clawed at her throat, gasping for breath like a dripping fish.
“The great Wendy Gustavo… commander of the breeze,” he mocked in a relaxed tone, “subdued by a little asthma.” Wendy glared with frenzied eyes, fighting her own body for the opportunity to speak.
“W(gasp)… why… are…” Clifford cut her off with a wave.
“Twelve years, that’s why.” His Kubrick stare lowered to meet hers. “I’ve spent twelve years cleaning up *your fucking messes*. Patching you up was only a sliver of my job, the rest was patching up those that got caught in the cross-“, he paused and smirked, his left brow raising with the corner of his mouth, “-wind?” a half hearted chuckle escaped him.
“I just wanted to help people. Heal the sick, patch up the wounded, cure the diseased…” his expression sank. “You made it so *fucking* difficult. I couldn’t keep up with all the casualties. And those I could reach in time were never the same again. I can take away any physical ailment but trauma sticks Wendy….” he trailed off for a moment, the sound of Wendy’s labored breathing filling the room.
“Remember Tekura? Or Tagura, Talluca? I don’t remember his name but when you blew him into orbit, that was impressive. Even more impressive was the fucking hurricane that that lungful produced overseas. Hurricane Gerard ring any bells? *That* was *you* Wendy.” She was struggling less now, but held Clifford with that unwavering glare.
“I was called to serve there. It was horrifying... the sheer number of bodies I mean... I was barely any help at all even with my powers..." His eyes met hers in a moment of intense hatred.
"I felt... *so... fucking... small*." His expression relaxed to that of resignation, and then a glimmer of pride.
"But those I could save were *so grateful*, reinforcing my decision to defect. That's when I started recruiting. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't too difficult either. People are fed up with government funded super bullies that aren’t held accountable for the pain they cause others.”
“…Eko…” Wendy coughed the word from her throat, a gust of air pushing Clifford’s hair from his face.
He grinned, “I found Eko barely alive pretty soon after Elua shanked him with Viy Daga. I promised to heal him if he promised to help me. He was eager for revenge so he took the deal. That was four years ago now, we’ve been plotting ever since.”
“Traitor!” Wendy choked, spitting the word at Clifford with what remaining strength she had. The exhale was enough to topple him but there was no follow up. She could barely inhale, making whatever air she had in her lungs very precious. Clifford landed butt first on the floor with a grunt before laughing maniacally. “Holy shit *ha ha ha*, fuck Wendy… I always did admire you. You were always nice to everyone, thanked me when I fixed you up, not many Supers appreciated my medical advice. But you’re *so god damned* dangerous! Nobody deserves power like that. That’s what this whole thing is about!” Clifford stood up, brushing himself off. “People like us **are** the disease Wendy; and I’m going to cure the world.”
Having finished venting, he leaned over Wendy, gently placing a hand on her purple forehead. She seized for a moment, and released, the last of her coveted O2 slithering from her throat. "Aneurysms are a bitch...", he forced a hollow smirk before leaving to rendezvous with his injured men.
After treating the fourteen wounded, Clifford Cross sent the mended back to the field to complete their tasks of assassination and sabotage. As he finished tidying his lab, Eko Viy sauntered in, his massive 8'0" frame casting shade over Cross's entire body. Clifford turned to face the armored God of Conquest.
**"The Guild is no more. My sister's head rots in my trophy room. I believe this concludes our deal "** The depth and volume of Eko's voice caused the tools on Cross's surgical tray to rattle.
"You're right." Clifford turned to face Eko, outstretching a hand to signify the deal's end. Eko didn't hesitate to grab Clifford's hand, but recoiled as a sudden pain shot through his hand and began to spread through his entire body, every nerve sounding the alarm of danger. Eko fell backwards, his heavy body colliding hard with the floor, cracking the room's foundation.
Clifford raised his hand, exposing his palm and the small thumbtack taped to the center of it. "I made an interesting discovery about Viy Daga, see it's not the blade that's lethal to your kind, it's whatever chemical it's coated in. I'll call it Viyadite for now. Anyways... I synthesized a more concentrated version of it, that's what you're feeling right now."
Eko didn't live to hear past the word 'discovery'. His plated tank of a corpse now lying still in what was a sterile room but a moment ago.
*"Sir"* Clifford's radio buzzed and he picked it up. Not taking his eyes off of Eko's body, he responded.
"I'm listening."
*"We are a go for phase 3."*
"Proceed with Operation Carefree."
*"Yes Sir, erasing all medical debts as we speak."*
Clifford Cross sat in his swivel chair, still eying Eko. "Morley..."
*"Yes Sir?"*
"When this is all over, put a few rounds in my head would ya? It's hypocritical enough that I survived phase 1... that's an order."
*"...yes sir. And Cliff?"*
"Yeah?"
*"Thank you... for everything."*
Clifford smiled.
*It's nice to be appreciated*
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of which, thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you guys liked my story 😊 | Daniel laid in the hospital bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the soft beeping of the hospital machinery. It was white noise at first. Blending in the background and hardly an annoyance. Then it seemed to change. Slowly at first. It got louder. Sharper before it finished its morph into a throbbing pain blasting a hole through Daniel's brain.
He looked around and with his free hand grabbed his pee bottle and opened it before pulled back his arm to throw it.
Maybe he could arc the shot. Aim it in a way that the pee sprayed out onto the electronics and fry the machine. Maybe. Daniel didn't know if the machinery was pee-proof or if his throwing arm could even throw that far but if it could give him twenty seconds of peace and quiet before someone came to replace it then it would totally be worth it. Besides. It wasn't like Daniel had anything better to do.
"Headshot"
Daniel turned his head towards the doorway. Standing there was a younger woman in civilian garb. Short, straight blonde hair and sharp blue eyes that Daniel would recognize anywhere.
"Luminesce" he growled.
Daniel flung the pee bottle as hard as he could but the woman was quick. She grabbed the open door and closed it lightning fast. The pee sprayed across the door and the bottle bounced harmlessly on the ground. Daniel's eyes flashed around his bed for something else to throw. Anything.
"Damn, that's pitiful" Luminesce said from behind the door.
Daniel gripped his pillow and brought it up to throw too.
"The great Headshot resorting to throwing pee bottles at his enemies. Oh how the mighty have fallen" she said in a mocking tone.
"YOU BROKE MY FUCKING LEGS YOU BITCH" Daniel roared. He could almost hear her smirk from behind the door.
"Now Mr. Headshot. When I opened this door are you going to hit me with more piss?"
"There's nothing left to throw" he lied.
The second she opened the door he threw his pillow and nailed her in the face. He grinned as the pillow fell onto the pee-covered ground. Luminesce looked at the pillow and grimaced. "And exactly what did that accomplish?" she asked.
Headshot grinned. "Nothing" he said. He was looking forwards to punching her the second she got too close.
Luminesce sighed and eased the door shut before walking towards his bedside.
Daniel grinned and folded his hand into a fist hiding it beneath his blanket. She just needed to get a little closer and he'd attack. Snap her neck before she could react.
*Click*
Before he knew it he was staring down the barrel of a gun. A pistol to be exact. A pistol aimed right at his forehead with the safety off and a finger of a trigger to be even more precise.
Headshot stared at the gun blankly for a few seconds before he started drooling. He hadn't seen a gun in weeks ever since Boon broke both of his legs. While heroes didn't kill they weren't strangers to destorying basic bodily functions. To destroying a villain's family life.
Headshot swallowed thirstily as he stared at the gun. "Give me it" he whispered.
And then. To his endless surprise she did. She turned off the safety and set it in his hand.
Daniel looked at the gun in his hand. Felt the weight. He could feel the bullets inside. Two to be exact. One for each of the guards outside his door.
"I'm going to heal your legs" Luminesce said. "And then you're going to break out. Tonight. After I leave"
"Why" Daniel said finally looking up at her and away from his gun.
"Because I need them dead. Scarlet. Boon and Kinesthetic" she said. "The fact that they never kill is breeding a new generation that's too weak to make the hard call and kill the people that deserve it."
Headshot watched in disbelief as she continued.
"Tonight there's going to be a breakout. You, Meatface and Plague are going to kill your guards and make your way to Pier 22 at exactly 1 o'clock in the morning. You'll have a ride waiting outside in the Northern Parking Lot where you'll meet up with the other two. You'll get further instructions when you get there".
Luminesce grinned again. "In a few days they'll be dead, you'll be free, and I'll be able to start a new hero team where I'm the leader".
"Well what's in it for me?" Headshot asked.
"Freedom, and all of Kinesthetic's lethal toys" she said still grinning like a maniac.
"Bu-but Kinesthetic doesn't have any lethal gu-".
"Of course he does" she interrupted. "He's preparing for the day that he'll have to kill".
The room whent silent as Headshot thought about it. His legs would take months to heal on their own and even when they heal he'll be in prison waiting for the electric chair. He stared back at the gun in his hand and smiled his infamously evil smile before holding out his empty hand for a handshake. "Deal" he said. | 2019-03-05T16:47:00 | 2019-03-05T14:25:05 | 31 | 14 |
[WP] Kaiju routinely attack the city. You cannot get anyone to listen to your sensible, practical plan to stop them because they all want to build giant robots. | "We've managed to get the cost down to under a trillion dollars a unit."
The general put his hand over the mic while he mouthed to his assistant.
"*How many zeroes is that?*"
"*Twelve zeroes sir, double our current spending budget for the entire armed forces.*"
The general removed his hand from the microphone.
"**We'll take five.**"
The researcher standing front and center in the vast UN general assembly hall beamed.
Later that day in a small six-story nondescript office building in Washington DC:
"**FIVE?!** That's our entire budget for the year, ten times over! Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
"But sir, you have to understand, these... What are they called again Macy?"
"*Jaeger*, sir."
"These Jaeger... Macy, these aren't made by the krauts, are they?"
"No sir, the Japanese."
"Good, can't trust those krauts. Now where was I... They're really big sir, you should see them. I mean, I can't imagine any of those kaiju lasting five minutes in the ring with one of these."
"How long would they last against a nuke?"
"Well sir, you see... With how close that vent is to Japan, the president said it wouldn't do to make the Japanese too uncomfortable with nukes right off their coast. They're still a little antsy after the last ones you know. We need them to cooperate, or we don't have any nearby bases on land. Those carriers can't handle everything."
"These are the same kaiju that between Katsuura, Isumi, San Francisco and Seattle have killed five million people?"
"Yes sir."
"You're telling me that we can't nuke these bastards that killed five **million** people... Because someone's feelings might get hurt?"
"Ahh... Yes sir."
"You're all dismissed. Except you Jeff."
Everyone filed out of the room and the tension subsided noticeably. The director sat on the edge of the desk, rubbing his temples.
"Jeff, get me the Pentagon."
"Who at the Pentagon sir? It's a big building."
"Anyone who isn't a complete idiot."
"Ah, that does narrow it down quite a bit."
"Anyone who isn't a complete idiot and has access to nukes."
"That's just one person then, let me find his number here..."
"General Ramsay's office? Yes, tell him director Bensinger is on the line."
Ten days later at the White House in a small windowless conference room:
"Well, they're a little more expensive than those Jaegers."
"Don't tell me about the cost, it doesn't matter."
"Well, you know how the Jaegers have swords, right sir?"
"Yes, the size of a ocean liner, very impressive."
"Well sir, these have twin machine guns. On each arm."
"Wow."
"And the bullets? They're the size of a bus. Made from depleted uranium."
"Now we're talking."
"And the fists? They're rocket powered. Launch 'em and give those kaiju a right cross straight from Uncle Sam."
"I really like that. Now... I know I said don't tell me what they cost Ramsay, but... How many of these can we field?"
"Four of 'em sir."
"But we could field five of the jaeger?"
"Yes sir."
"And how much more powerful are these?"
"More than twice sir."
"Well, that's all I need to know. You'll have everything you need to make this happen."
"Cleared personnel only?"
"Anything you need Ramsay."
"Thank you sir. "
Ten thousand feet over the Pacific ocean, not far from the coast of Japan:
The pilot of the cargo helicopter had a concerned look on his face, the blue glow of the instruments giving his features a strange look.
"These seem really light for how big they are."
The copilot shrugged.
"Communications blackout, otherwise I might have asked."
"Even with the pilots on board those things?"
"Yup. Just the orders."
"Drop them at depth and proceed back to base with all due haste."
"Doesn't that seem a little... I mean, how are they going to get home?"
"I'm sure they have a plan."
With the flip of the switch, the four giant robots were released into the churning sea below. Painted in patriotic colors, they were a sight to see. The kaiju would never know what hit them.
The helicopter pilots dutifully headed back to base, but before they had made it even ten miles away, a giant shockwave rolled over them, almost smashing them into the black sea. A glance back at the horizon showed four giant mushroom clouds rising into the night air.
"God bless those brave soldiers."
The next day, in a small six-story nondescript office building in Washington DC:
"You're telling me they were empty shells?"
"Well, not quite. They had a nuke inside. The biggest ones we had."
"I take it they didn't cost more than a trillion each?"
"Well, let's just say that the budget will look a lot better this year." | Lieutenant James knew he was right. He just knew it.
He had to tell the Chief Scientist Ogilvy, but he wasn't responding to any of his telematics, and the Intelligence leadership were secluded in the Ops One complex - so he couldn't just walk in to see him. There was a grade 5 due in two days, large enough to wipe out half of the Western Brit defences. He knew he had to let the scientist know. So he burned his bridges.
Through shadows, hacking, the betrayal of friends and file, and the sliced throat of two guards, he managed to find his way to ChiefSci's vault door.
Hammering, it slid open.
'Who, what?' James slid his hand over the old man's mouth and forced him quickly back inside.
'Shut up, I don't have much time, listen...'
And so he hurriedly explained his concept.
'...so, as you see, a blade across their entry portal would immediately slice them in two as they crossed into our dimension... Instant kills every time, check the maths!'
Chief Scientist Ogilvy studiously looked at papers the young solider had passed him.
'And, lieutenant, who have you told about this idea?'
'Just yourself Chief... Imagine, no more need for robots, no more genocide, no more... What's that?'
Ogilvy had picked up a light blue chromatic tube.
He looked up briefly and said,'...and not let Xenu return? We have been waiting too long for that, Lieutenant.'
The scientist turned a small dial, and the acrid smell of burning flesh filled his quarters. | 2016-01-11T14:18:35 | 2016-01-11T14:02:06 | 190 | 62 |
[WP] A villain's henchman is getting their quarterly review. Sadly, the henchman is a little TOO competent. | "Ah." Evil mastermind Doomwacker consulted his spreadsheet of henchmen, running his deviously longer fingernail down the list until he deigned to choose a name. "Here we go. Leeroy... Softblade. Step forward."
A peevish man stepped forward from the row of five or six guards. He looked a bit nervous to be standing in front of his master Doomwacker, who hadn't said so much a word to him outside of a few orders.
"H-Hello," he said, bowing until he was ready to tip over nose-first into the ground. "My name is--"
"I know what your name is, I just said it," Doomwacker spat. "Tell me, Leeroy, what makes you worthy of remaining by my side, in conquest of those nations too weak to help themselves?
Leeroy managed a grin. "Well, you know, sir. I've always been a real Darwin guy, loved his book."
Doomwacker narrowed his eyes. "Are you jesting?"
"Jesting? What--no." He wiped sweat from his forehead, only to find his palms were twice as wet. One knock of the knees in front of Doomwacker, and the next bony noise would be his skull slapping against the pavement.
"Well, I trust you understand our mission well. To eradicate weakness in all lands, so we might prosper under the banner of *survival of the fittest.* A simple mission, sure, but one not to be taken lightly."
"Right, of course. After that incident where you almost drowned and no one bothered to help you, you have pledged to make all of nobility the ignored ones. At any cost necessary, to state... the... obvious. Um."
Doomwacker gawked. "I--well, you can't narrow my devious actions down to a single incident, there was also that one time at the party... gah! Tell me how you know this!" He yelled, drawing his sword.
"I studied for tonight!" Leeroy squealed, eyes clenched, blade inches away from making him a blind man.
The blade floated away. "Enough insolence from you. You have this last chance. What was your mission this spring?"
"Defeat the hero Trumik."
"Result?"
"D-Dead and gone, like you asked." Leeroy removed a preserved head from his bag, with flowing red locks and purple warrior face-paint. Even now, its eyes carried some surprise.
"Wait..." Doomwhacker spoke hardly above a squeak. "You, like, *actually* knocked the legendary warrior Trumik."
"So the plan you gave me was half-finished, if you don't mind me saying," Leeroy said, smiling. He had finally impressed the doom-master. "You told me to lay a soul-sucking trap, but the chains were far too brittle for his legendary strength. So I placed the trap in a deep hole instead, and then dug out space for a candle to make it appear as though the chasm led somewhere. I led him to believe I had fled into the tunnels with his damsel, when I really waited above to attack. I cut his climbing rope. I didn't even need the soul-sucker. The whole *make him journey to find his soul again* thing was a disaster waiting to happen, to be honest. A journey like that would end up with him becoming stronger. Anyway, He was so meaty in the end that everything sort of just popped when he hit the ground--"
"Oh!" Cried Doomwacker, hands laid over his head. "I don't need to hear it! How could you!"
"What?" Leeroy asked. "You told me to defeat him."
"You were *supposed* to fail and die, so I might fight him!"
The other henchman started shifting about.
Tears dotted the evil mastermind's eyes. "Now I'll never get to meet Trumik the Stormlauder."
Leeroy raised a hand. "I trapped his soul anyway, if you wanted to reanimate him I might know a guy."
"It wouldn't be the same. Plus I've already won and I'm nervous about losing a rematch. Leave me be, you fool! Leave me alone!"
Leeroy and the other henchman fled the room as their master began to sob.
| The villian peered at the henchman, then at the report, then at the henchman, then at the report. Then, finally remained on the report until the henchman began to get nervous.
"P-problem, sir?" He asked, cursing himself for that minor stumble at the beginning.
The villian raised his eyes again, and the henchman felt a shiver in his soul.
"Yes," the villian replied. "Matter of fact, there *is*."
"Oh? Is there anything I ca-" He paused, his eyes widening as he moved to get out the way, but it was too late.
*BANG*
His skull exploded, brains flying, as his body toppled sideways out of the chair.
The villian slid the gun back out of sight, then called for the next henchman.
The next man in saw the body and froze.
The villian looked up from his report. "Oh, don't mind the body. Please," he said, gesturing. "Take a seat."
| 2017-05-08T13:40:31 | 2017-05-08T12:44:04 | 44 | 10 |
[WP] As a kid, you jokingly say, "If I had a nickel for every person I've killed, I'd be rich!" It's is now your 21st birthday, and you receive a mysterious bank key in the mail. The vault it opens contains $550,000... In nickels. | I considered the pile of nickels. Stacks and stacks and stacks, lined neatly in precariously tall rows.
"And it's...?"
The bank manager smiled wanly. "$550,000. Sir, I'm not clear on *why* you have so many nickels, but hording coins of any denomination does create shortages. I must presume that additional nickels have been minted simply to cover for this..."
"But how many is it?" I asked, still hardly comprehending.
"Nickels? It's eleven million. I think you can see how that might represent a significant hardship for the money lending industry, as there are generally less than a hundred million in circulation at any one time."
I shook my head. "I need to leave this here. I don't..." I backed away from the vault.
"We can convert it for you, sir," said the bank manager. "But it will take some time and there will be forms to fill out. You may receive an inquiry from the National Reserve regarding how you came to possess so many nickels."
"Okay," I said, half-awake, half in a dream. "I'll come back."
*Nickels. Nickels. Nickels.*
Why did I have a vault full of nickels? Millions of nickels?
On my 21st birthday I had received an envelope in the mail. It contained a vault key and the name of a nearby bank. I assumed it was a joke. But the money was real. The *nickels* were real.
I stood at the bus stop, unsure where to go or what to do. How could I trace the envelope? If I alerted the government would they help me find whoever sent the key? And would I be able to keep any of the money?
"You earned it, you know."
I continued to stand, staring blankly at the road. I didn't assume they were speaking to me.
"John? It's *your* money. You earned it, fair and square."
The mention of my name made me turn. An older man in a white cotton suit sat on the bench behind me.
"Excuse me?" I said. "Are you talking to me?"
Only as I said it did I finally notice that we were the only two people at the bus top. The man was gracious enough to ignore the question.
"The money, John. Don't give it away. It's yours. Earned coin-by-coin."
I took a step closer. The man's face was obscured by a line of shadow cast off the brim of his panama hat. "Do I know you?"
"You may not remember me John, it's been a very long time. We met when you were younger. We made a deal. You set the terms for your employment. Do you remember?"
"I..." The man *did* seem familiar, but only in the vaguest of ways. "No. We met when I was a kid and you...what? Hired me?"
"In a manner of speaking," said the man, white teeth flashing in a brief smile. "You asked for a nickel a head. That was how you planned to make your fortune, and now look. Your fortune is made."
"*A nickel a head*?" I began to feel deeply uneasy, not because the man was a stranger, but because he felt increasingly familiar with every moment. "What does that mean?"
"I think maybe you were boasting John, but you said - said loudly - that if you had a nickel for everyone you killed, you'd be rich. And that is a very good rate, John. On this and any other world. So I hired you. We shook hands and I promised to make payment on your 21st birthday."
Like a dying thunderstorm, the veils in my mind began to pull back, the static subsiding. I remembered, still vaguely, a birthday party and laughter and saying funny things and an old man in a fine white suit laughing with me and shaking my hand. Some other boy's grandfather I had assumed. Someone who belonged there, stopping to make a boy feel heard. But the man on the bench was no older than the man at the party. Same suit. Same panama hat.
"I've never killed anyone," I said. "Not a one."
"Eleven million, exact," said the old man. "I've kept a ledger. I like things by the book."
"I haven't though," I said, feeling strangely desperate. Why? Why should I feel uneasy? If I had killed even *one* person wouldn't I be in jail?
"Oh," said the man, as if suddenly understanding my confusion. "Not here. Not on *Earth*. Not during the *day*."
"What does that mean? Where else...?"
"You're a well-traveled man," said the old man. "Or a well-traveled boy, I suppose. Either way, you have gone far and done much, even if you don't quite recall it. Though, I think if you tried, you might recall a part of it."
"I don't have any idea what you're..."
"Think to the last one, then," said the old man. "You ought remember that at least. It wasn't that long ago. You went to a world of thin men and women, almost as if the people of your world had been pulled a bit too tightly, with long, spidery fingers and red skin. Thin, red warriors. Think of that. Picture that. And remember yourself among them, with a glowing sword and blood in your mouth, cutting and cutting and *cutting*. Wild, screaming. A berserker. Hacking flesh until there was none left to oppose you. Does that ring with you?"
It did.
"That was a dream. That was a dream." I remembered waking in wet, knotted sheets. Gloria said I had thrashed so much she'd had to sleep on the couch.
"That was your *work*," said the old man. "You do it well. That's why I'm here, actually. I told you I would pay you at your 21st birthday. That's when the terms of our original deal expired. A nickel a head. I think you're worth far more than that, dear John. I would like to re-open negotiations. How would you feel about continuing your service?"
This couldn't be real. That's what I told myself. Another dream. A delusion. The nickels. The man. None of it *could* be real.
But if that were true...then where would the harm be?
"I'm listening..." | Under the reddish glow of the vault light, every nickel seemed like a droplet of blood.
It was cold. Stepping inside, I instantly regretted leaving my jacket in the closet. Though there were no visible vents to be seen, the freezing air seemed to blow around me.
The initial shock of the unexpected vault had worn off by now, and frankly I was more curious about the pile of nickels rather than the mysterious key in my mailbox.
I picked up a coin. Odd, it wasn’t made from the usual silvery metal, but rather from copper. I put it down again and stared at the mountain of coins.
Ever look at something and get a peculiar sensation that something was amiss? I sure have, and that pile of nickels was looking awfully weird.
The coins felt like mini ice cubes as I dug slowly then gradually faster at the mountain. Some instinct told me to keep going as nickels flew past my ears and landed in the other corner. The smell of copper was overpowering, tears brimmed in my eyes as I gagged at the metallic scent.
When the pile was three quarters depleted, and the vault rang with the sound of metal upon metal, I found what I was looking for. A paper note with a bunch of pictures clipped to it by a red paperclip.
My breath came out in puffs of mists as I looked at the pictures.
The first picture was me, albeit ten years younger. My jaws dropped as I looked at me eleven-year-old self playing with the xylophone with two aluminum rods. Who took this? I asked myself, but I kept flipping.
Then came the time where I accidentally flushed one of the rods down the toilet. Another photo of it lying in the sewage pipe, but no filter was present. It was soon born aloft by the current of waste flooding into the sewer towards the refinery.
More things were wrong, the rod had broken down, but the pipe transporting the waste had leaked into the soil. Soon it was picked up by another pipe, this one carrying clean water. Horror filled me as a few pictures later it showed the inside of a nuclear reactor with the filters missing and corrosion taking place.
With trembling fingers I finished the final few photos. Alarms. Meltdown. Explosion. Fallout. Casualty report. Towns whose residents died or fled during the disaster, towns whose names were lost in the shadows of history.
Shock registered in my brain. I was single handily responsible for the crisis of Riverside. One of the worst nuclear disasters in history and I had assisted in the deaths of more than a million and displaced eight times more people.
Terror soon replaced shock as my right hand seemed to act of its own accord. I tried in vain to control it, but it was on autopilot. It turned the note despite my left hand clenched over it, tearing the paper a little.
On the back of the note was a sentence written in what was unmistakably blood. My heart froze as I read it with blurred eyes.
“You have proven yourself worthy, my child. Fear not, I have even grander plans installed along your path!”
| 2016-09-03T08:24:36 | 2016-09-03T07:58:46 | 3,498 | 552 |
[WP] Write the biggest asshole ever, then try to redeem him in the last sentence. | Joe shuffled his feet, pushing his slumped body against his wheelchair, slowly propelling it backwards to the front of the intersection. In his right hand, he limply held a sign written in mumbling sharpie, something about veteran, hungry, god bless. His right hand jingled a 7-11 Big Gulp, half full of coins.
"Gettin' pretty full," Joe thought to himself. "I'll go stash it after the next score."
As if on cue, a red Hyundai pulled up, the driver side window whirred down, and a delicate, manicured hand reached out, holding a five dollar bill.
"gableshya," Joe rasped as he put the fiver in his cup. "Jesus, what a fuckin' sucker," he silently thought to himself.
Joe wheeled himself out of the intersection and into the Popeye's parking lot nearby. He rolled up to a late model Accord parked in an inconspicuous corner and did a quick check to see if anyone was looking. He fumbled in his pockets for a second, and the Accord chirped and unlocked. Joe stood up and stretched, pressing his fists into his lower back before he opened the door and dumped his haul into a bucket behind the driver's seat.
"Hey!" a voice shouted off in the distance. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Joe looked up, a lanky college aged kid was briskly walking towards him, holding a cell phone up at arms length.
"You're not even homeless!" the kid continued. "I have it on video! I'm going to tell the police."
"Leave me alone," Joe grunted at the kid.
"No! What are you even doing? Why are you taking people's money when you have a nice car?"
Joe slumped back into his wheelchair. "I have a disability"
"No you don't! I just saw you get out of your wheelchair. I'm posting this on youtube. You're screwed, man!"
"Screw you. Mind your damn business."
"How much did you take from people today? Huh? Why don't you just get a job?" The kid looked inside the car and saw the bucket. "Jesus! What is that, like, two hundred dollars?"
"Stop harassing me." Joe glared at the kid. "If people want to give me their change, that's their right."
"You don't even pay taxes on that money! I bet you aren't even a veteran!"
Joe's weathered face flinched almost imperceptibly.
"Whatever, I'm done with this shit." Joe said as he got up, packed up his wheelchair into the trunk, and got in the driver's seat, unfazed that it was all being captured on camera. As he drove off, the kid kept filming. After a few minutes, Joe grimaced at the thought of having to deal with the cops again. "Damn. Might have to relocate." he spat out at no one in particular.
Joe pulled into the motel parking lot. He sat in the car for a minute to collect his thoughts before grabbing his bucket of cash and going to his room.
"Three hundred forty five dollars and seventy six cents," Joe said to the empty room, proudly. "If there's suckers out there willing to throw their money away, at least they can throw it to me," he thought to himself.
Joe grabbed his checkbook, and started to fill out a new check. Joe almost felt like the words had formed a groove in the checkbook, but he still read aloud as he wrote, a habit to ensure there weren't mistakes.
"Pay to the order of National... Coalition... for... Homeless... Veterans... Three Hundred... Forty-Five... and Seventy-Six Cents" | "I hate my brother! Not only did he changed his name to mine after I went missing, he also stole my lucky clover! After he was done doing that he became an astronaut and fulfilled my dream of becoming the first man on mars. And after all that he now lies in "World Heroes" section in the orbiting cemetery!"
"But Fry, the gravestone states: "Here lies Phillip J Fry. Named for his uncle to carry on his spirit" | 2017-05-23T09:16:08 | 2017-05-23T08:51:24 | 329 | 73 |
[WP] Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are two robots sent to Earth by aliens, one sent to advance humanity, the other sent to hinder it. | Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk walked into a bar. Beautiful nature paintings lined the walls. The lights were dim and the patrons rowdy, but at least they served motor oil. Alien robots ran on motor oil.
"So, Zuckerberg!" Musk said, taking a swig. "Looks like we're in a meme prompt again."
"Looks like it," Zuckerberg said, black viscous liquid seeping down the sides of his mouth.
"Aliens sent me here," Musk confessed.
"Same, same."
"It's always aliens, isn't it?"
"Aliens or AI." Zuckerberg leaned back, stretching over the bar stool. "In our case, aliens and AI."
"True enough." Musk sighed heavily and waved over the bartender. "Another round please."
The bartender had a fuzzy brown afro and dried paint splashed over his fingers and arms. He nodded at the two robot gentlemen and poured them each another shot.
"Thanks Mr. Ross," Zuckerberg said and downed it. "How's Mr. Ramsay doing in the kitchen? I thought he finally quit, but I saw him just now on my way in. You both have been getting a bit less attention lately, right?"
"IT'S F\*\*\*ING RAW!" Came an angry voice from the kitchen. "YOU'RE AN IDIOT\-SANDWICH!"
The three men at the bar exchanged concerned looks. Nodding solemnly at each other.
"He's taking it hard, isn't he?" Musk said quietly. "Resorting to overused catchphrases for attention..."
"That's what they want, though," Zuckerberg said, licking the last of the oil out of his glass with his long reptilian tongue.
"He's been sad lately, but I heard he got a new gig this morning." The bartender filled up their cups again.
"Oh, yeah? What's it about?" Musk said. "Oh, let me guess... is it aliens?"
"It's Aliens," the two others confirmed.
"Of course..."
"Hold up," Bob Ross cut in. "It seems like... the mods just removed his prompt."
"Poor guy..." Zuckerberg and Musk mumbled in unison.
The three men sat in silence, idly watching Death, in his flowing black cloak and scythe, putting the Devil in checkmate on the other side of the bar.
"So what about our prompt?" Zuckerberg finally said.
"What about it?"
"We're supposed to be sent here to advance slash hinder humanity."
"That's what it says?" Musk said, peering at his contract.
"Mhm..." Zuckerberg said and downed his fifth shot of the night.
A group of detectives, all dressed as mafias, suddenly pulled out their badges, pointing their guns at each other. Another group \(possibly roommates\), all looked up in mild surprise. Their tentacles and extra eyes poorly hidden under layers of makeup and ragged wigs. They then watched each other's reactions suspiciously.
"You wanna hinder humanity in this one, Elon?" Zuckerberg said, ignoring the ruckus.
"That's what they expect, though." Musk shrugged, rolling his eyes. "I'm the good guy, you're the bad: switching roles *hilarious*!"
"So, what then?"
"Honestly? How about we both hinder humanity?" Musk said.
"I mean... if these are the prompts they come up with, do they really need hindering?"
"Touché."
Zuckerberg scratched his head. "So we both help humanity then? That would be a twist, I guess?"
"Yeah, but it would not follow the prompt. You know what happens when you don't follow the prompt."
Zuckerberg sighed again, and put his fingers up, doing air quotes. "*Ehm**, excuse me, but* *this doesn't follow the prompt**!*"
Musk rolled his eyes again, wagging his finger. "*Uh\-uh! Gotta follow the recipe*!"
"All right, let's just get this over with." Zuckerberg's eyes suddenly glowed red. He tapped a few times on his phone. "I just collected and sold personal information of millions of people. This will set 'em back."
"*Beep boop*." Musk's eyes turned blue. "Falcon Heavy just launched for Mars."
"Think your alien masters will be pleased?" Zuckerberg smirked and held up his shot glass.
"Totally," Musk said, winking.
He clinked Zuckerberg's glass and they both drank. | “We’ll send the two,” Rn’delf said.
“So one of them gets to cripple these humans?” Myr’tymrr asked hungrily.
“Yes, but the other one helps them. They have to make it to planet 4.”
“We have to know that they’re going to ruin themselves and trust amongst them must be destroyed! They have to grow to know each other with such hatred that they’ll turn on our evil agent,” Myr’tymrr’s 75 eyes gleamed brilliant.
“But we have the other one to grow their knowledge and understanding of how to get off that rock. That one will be the one they need for their survival. They’ll have the ability to eventually explore the galaxy and perhaps coming to our planet.” Rn’delf mused.
“Guaranteed we’ll win the pan-galactic Nobel prize for this. Should we do our usual wager?”
“Of course, one Earth Dollar.” | 2018-04-22T08:33:52 | 2018-04-22T07:13:36 | 711 | 14 |
[WP] You are considered by the government to be a person of mass destruction, under heavy guard in one of the best prisons they have. The reason for this? You're so clumsy that you've managed to kill everyone around you, and you know living in a glass cell 24/7 won't stop people around you dying. | I felt like I’d been living in a fishbowl my whole life. It’s hard not to feel like that when your father is a senator and your mother a career politician’s wife. But not even that could prepare me for this.
At the age of nineteen, I found myself incarcerated in the middle of a 12x12 glass cage. And with good reason, I had blood on my hands. Metaphorically, of course. Well, at the moment. Thanks to my government funded imprisonment and isolation, I couldn't have anyone's blood on my hands anymore.
My name is Cole, and I am lethal weapon. Not by choice, or even by intent, but by clumsiness.
My whole life I’d been a walking bruise. Edge of a carpet, you can bet I was gonna face plant. Open the freezer, and well did you know ice packs are sharp AF and can slice and dice while falling? The list goes on. Not exactly the son you want to parade out during election campaigns. Walking up podium steps to wave at crowds? Forget it. My father did.
As I got older and my clumsiness more pronounced, I was relegated to the shadows of his political climb and that was just fine by me. Despite the parade of therapists, doctors and medications they threw at me to make me “normal” – nothing worked.
There was no magic pill or hour-long conversation that could fix my dumb luck. Believe me, we tried.
So, for the first eighteen years of my life I lived in the shadows. Deep in the shadows. We’re talking I barely left my room, and all my interactions were with gamer friends who were safe on the other side of the internet.
And then, college happened. And, well, my father’s presidential bid.
I’d started school with minimal incident. If you count a parked van that held my stuff, rolling over my feet and taking out two parked cars behind it minimal. My roommate only had a cast on for a month after a shelf I’d put up decided to defy gravity and dump the contents of Britannica on him. Little things.
But I know now that little things have a way of adding up to big events. Like my father’s rally to raise funds. Don’t ask me how I managed to burn down an entire building with hundreds of people inside, simply by flipping a light switch. Because I still don’t know. But despite the investigations and finger pointing at the venue’s electricians, it didn’t change the facts.
Wherever I went, people got hurt. My father’s political career went up in flames, that night. Literally. And well, so did my freedom. They didn’t even let me attend my parents’ funeral. Not that I could blame them.
Who’s them, you ask? Well, them is the government. Obviously.
Not really a surprise that the government gets involved when several high-level career politicians lose their lives in a blaze. Once they started investigating my history I was flagged as a threat to national security. It was considered a domestic terrorism attack and I was deemed a weapon of mass destruction; I believe the term was. Suits do love their labels after all.
So, here I sit. In a class cage, under heavy guard in a federal run penitentiary. If only that would keep everyone safe, I could be content. But I should've known better. In fact, I did.
“You have a visitor.” A guard’s voice was piped into my cell. Followed by a long beep as the glass door opened –
I sat very still, holding my breath. Not wanting to tempt the Final Destination type fate that followed me around. Who in their right minds would visit me?
A woman stepped into the container. Blonde, long legged. Gorgeous by anyone’s standard. She observed me like a fascinating specimen and then she smiled.
“Cole. Why are holding your breath?”
I didn’t take the bait, just maintained my stillness. But, you know, a guy’s got to breathe so now I was taking very deliberate slow breaths.
She started to approach me, and I panicked.
“Don’t come any closer.” I couldn’t keep her safe if she kept approaching. I don’t know how I’d hurt her, but I didn’t want to find out. I was still feeling bad about the guard who’d lost a thumb removing my food tray last week. How was I supposed to know that the sloppy joe sauce on the edge would cause the plate to fall, slicing into his hand? I mean. Probably not my fault but given my track record not even I was going to give myself a pass.
“You can’t hurt me.” She said as she stepped even closer.
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to but no promises. Please. Don’t come any closer.”
The woman paused, considering, then stopped in place.
“I’ve been studying your history for a while, now. And I think I have a solution for you.”
She may be gorgeous, but she didn’t have a lot of common sense. A dry chuckle escaped my throat.
“Lady, the only cure for my clumsiness is my death. And I haven’t tried that yet, because I’m sure even that would go wrong and take out a lot of people.”
Her raised eyebrow at my statement was the only indication she’d heard my despair laced with pragmatism.
“I didn’t say I had a cure. I said I had a solution. The US government would like to retain you as an asset.”
Now my eyebrow was the one to raise. “I’m not an asset, I’m a liability.”
“Perhaps. But a loaded gun is only dangerous to the object it’s being pointed at.” She finished her approach and was now standing in front of me. I didn’t even have time to react, she was that fast. The syringe in her hand was injected into my arm just a moment before the world around me started to blur.
“I have a job for you.” Her words echoed in my head as I lost my fight and unconsciousness took me. My last thought was a bitter one.
Right. As a weapon of mass destruction, I could be used against the nation’s enemies. Whether I wanted to be, or not.
\~\~\~
Thank you for reading! For more scribblings, wander over to r/WanderingAnonymous | [First time trying a writing prompt, so sorry if it’s not that great]
It’s day 247 in this glass container. The warden has implemented a new policy that nobody is allowed to be within 8 feet of my cell due to safety concerns. 4 guards have already died since I first arrived, and considering my track record, the new policy is not going to stop people from dying.
This whole nightmare started in the firing range that one of my buddies took me to for my 27th birthday. My long time friend Austin handed me a Revolver to try out, and me being the ditz that I am decided to shoot with one hand. Immediately after the shot rang out, I jolted from my bay, and accidentally fired it a second time at the instructor who was answering a friend’s question. One shot to the head.
Of course, the Judge and Jury didn’t see it as an accident, and I was charged with murder in the 1st degree. Life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Enough about the backstory, lets get back to the present day. A new guard has been reassigned to me after the last one died a week ago. I don’t know why they keep trying to take care of me, when all I do is kill everyone around me.
My new guard, Brandon, came into the room with a full set of Bomb squad gear to protect himself. He slid me my tray of food for lunch, and as I went to pick it up, I stubbed my toe and crashed into the glass cell. Apparently I managed to put all of my body weight into the one weak point of the whole panel of double paned glass. As such, the glass shattered, and the alarm rang out through the facility.
The guard immediately ran for the door, and tried to open it, but by that point, it was too late. One of the steel beams in the corner of the cell started falling—corner side down-directly towards Brandon. In a split second, the beam cuts through the protective cloth around his neck, and sliced through it like butter.
Death by decapitation. One of the most horrifying ways to go. I sat there for what seemed like an eternity pondering about what I should do. Should I just escape, and along the way everybody in the prison dies, or should I just save everyone from me. On Brandon’s now dead corpse, there was a Glock 22 tucked into his gun holster. There were guards at the door, struggling to get in, as the steel beam had pinned the door, and it could not be opened. When they saw me go for the gun, they immediately shouted at me to stop, pleading for their lives.
But I wasn’t going to kill them or anyone else in the world. Everybody is safe now. My time is up, but not for everyone else. There’s no need to worry anymore. | 2021-05-30T09:30:16 | 2021-05-30T09:17:02 | 191 | 99 |
[WP] 50 years after killing the demon lord, you finally die of old age. You were known as a great hero and was buried in a tomb. One day, you get resurrected into a barren wasteland by a necromancer. “Quick, there’s no time to explain. If you wanna save the world then follow me.” | The moon had been her last memory.
Alavara had served the sun for decades. Close to a century. She'd bathed in its light, she'd spread its word, she'd brought its justice to every corner of the world she could reach. And yet, in her last days she had preferred the company of the moon. Quieter. Softer. It demanded nothing from her. It had been easy to fall asleep underneath it, to drift off....
Now she was staring at its surface, once pale white and gleaming and now sickly colors. Cracks of green and purple and red wound across its surface like a spider's web, pulsing.
"Get up, get up!" the skinny man shouted. He looked like he'd seen neither moon nor sun in his entire life. His whole body had a washed out look to it, the parts not hidden in a dark cloth. As if he was just hanging off his bones. He grabbed her wrist and she could barely feel it.
Couldn't feel it at all....
"Come on, come on, just get moving, we don't have time!" The man dragged her to her feet, her armor squealing in protest with each movement. She remembered the armor...remembered she hadn't worn it in years. Not since that rebellion in the east. "Walk, please walk."
*Hold it,* she said. Or tried to. Alavara could tell her jaw was moving, but there was no sound beyond the click of her teeth together. Which....
Alavara slammed her fist into the man's shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor. She watched her arm. Clad in leather and the sleeve of her gambeson. She pulled the arm back, let the hand dangle in front of her face, shifted the fingers. The glove moved with them. Slower...limper...as though it was half full.
She brought it to her face and felt nothing. Not the rough texture of the leather or her own skin stretching. Just pressure. On bone.
She looked to the man, the necromancer, rising to his feet, groaning as he clutched his shoulder. She could see a knife hanging from his belt, wet with blood. A bandage on his hand stained dark. A book bound in leather hanging in a harness.
She felt her old teeth grind. One of them crack.
"Now hold on!" Alavara cut him off with a hand around his throat, lifting him easily. He weighed close to nothing. Or seemed like it. Should could feel the weight tugging against her arms, but not the strain of it. Nor the cold of the night or the leather against her hands.
Her bones.
She squeezed, her jaw clicking at him. A question, a curse, a prayer, she tried them all, but no sound would come. No lips to speak. No lungs to breath.
"Wait," he choked out, himself still very alive. She felt no compulsion to obey, no desire to stop. A weakling playing with things he did not understand, thinking that a servant of the Sun would follow his ilk like a common corpse!
Still alive. Too weak to cross that final threshold.
She could help him along.
Alavara squeezed again, watched his eyes roll back into his head, felt his blood struggle to pass her fingers. She almost missed the low, sibilant laughter.
"Oh this is a treat. Mauled by your own creations Tarren? It reminds me of when you were a novice." Alavara let go, turning towards the new threat.
There was nothing. No hooded figure or massed army. No sense of malice. Nothing but a bird. A magpie. Sitting on the stump of a once great oak.
"To steal from the Master and not even have the will to use the tool." The bird clacked its beak, the noise the click of a man's tongue. Older. Smooth. Someone who lived well and carried himself elegantly. A wretch disguising himself with nobility as he dabbled in forbidden arts. She knew the type well. "I fear that will be a far graver insult than you intended."
"Choke on your own rotten tongue," Tarren hissed, forcing the words past her grip. "And spit it at her feet. Then you'll know what I think of the Master!"
"Where was this bravery in your studies? Always the problem, so much creativity, no follow through. Wasted talents." The magpie turned towards her. There was light in its eyes. Pale and unnatural. "Ah well, no great loss. You left the prize able to move itself...you there. **Finish the job.**"
Like rancid claws, Alavara could feel the magic drag across her bones. Her arms. It sought hooks in her joints, pulling them to close. To squeeze. To crush until she heard Tarren's bones snap.
And she wanted to. She had before, realizing the monstrosity he had done to her. But now...there was nothing else. One singular desire flashed in her mind, burned on the inside of her skull until she could read the word as clearly as if it were written.
**Kill.**
Her thump had pressed tot he hollow of his throat when the answer came. It came as water, as warmth. The first true feeling she'd had. The hooks crumbled. Melted. Burned on their lines all the way back to the bird and its unseen master. The creature squealed in anguish as her old bones began to glow.
Light.
The Sun's Light.
"What did you do?!" The bird shrieked, its own voice mixing with the man's. It was not her it stared at, but Tarren, lying in the dust as he was. Yet, even there, gasping for breath, there was defiance as he matched the bird's gaze.
Triumph.
The bird looked to her again, shaking with fear or with anger. She could not decide which before it lept from the stump, taking wing towards the south as fast as it could.
Alavara looked to the man picking himself out of the dirt. Skinny, starving, close to death whether or not she killed him. But he had...done something. Raised her, but...for an undead to be touched by the Light of her God, any God, and not burn was....
Impossible.
"I know none of this makes sense," Tarren said, rubbing at the hollow of his throat. "And I know my word cannot be trusted." It would be so easy to finish the job. So many times had she struck down his ilk, ground their creations to dust, freed those bound to their service. "But you stood for this world once. Now it needs you again."
He stayed on his knees, head bowed, arms forward. Asking for judgement. For trust.
Alavara ground her jaw, the only noise she could make. She could sense her own anger, knew it was there. But she had no blood to run hot, no heart to beat, no voice of her own. She had nothing. He had brought her here and left her with nothing.
Nothing but the Sun's protection. With her still, even as a corpse.
She motioned for him to speak.
\---
[https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FiresofFordregha/) | The hero Jack found himself in the middle of a graveyard, surrounded by thick fog. A man in a tattered suit stood beside the headstone of the grave he stood upon.
Jack examined himself, shook his hands and feet, felt his head, stomped his feet, and asked the man beside the headstone, "Who are you? Why am I ... alive?"
Just as the man was about to speak an arrow whizzed by and landed on the tree some ways behind them.
"Quick, there's no time to explain. If you wanna save the world, then follow me," said the man in the suit.
Jack stared at the man's face. He was about to say something when another arrow whizzed past his head. The man grabbed Jack by the arm and ran.
They ran through the length of the graveyard, came across a shallow ditch and jumped into it. The man felt around the soil under him and opened a hatch. He slid down a ladder and beckoned Jack to follow him. Jack looked at the man and then saw the silhouettes of approaching soldiers. He decided to follow the man down the ladder.
Now, Jack found himself in an underground facility, complete with lights and fires and beds.
"Welcome, Jack. I am Mercer, the leader of this revolution and the captain of the rebel troops."
"Necromancer?"
"Yes, I'm afraid I had to use it."
"Mercer, that's what you call yourself? A very human name."
"Yes, I am called Mercer. And I am human, Jack. Times have changed. We commonfolk need to know the dark arts to survive."
"Really? Do you? Because I remember fighting so that the people never had to use the devil's tricks."
"I'm afraid that peace was short-lived, Jack," Mercer said and walked towards a door on his right. "Follow me. I have something I want you to see."
Jack followed him but kept his distance.
In the room, Jack saw men and women who were hungry and pathetic. People who leaned onto the walls to stay up.
"Look at this Jack. Doesn't this make your blood boil?"
"What happened to them?"
"Demons. They took over the country after you died. The demon king's kid, you know, the one you spared, he led the coup. Now they rule, dressed as men, and these people suffer."
"What are they doing here though?"
"I found them. I clean up after the raids, find people who might've survived, but food is hard to come by here."
Jack let out a sigh. "Here I thought I had fixed everything. Damn it. Why did I ever leave that brat alive."
"You can fix it though. You can. I have a tunnel here, directly to the king's bedroom. I dug it over the last year or so. You can climb in there and murder the demon and close this chapter once and for all."
"Fine, bring me a sword. I shall make sure that I slay him this time."
Mercer brought him a shiny steel sword and led him up the tunnel that opened to the king's bedroom. Finally, they came upon a ladder and Mercer nodded. This was it, the opening to the king's room. Jack put his sword in the scabbard and climbed the ladder.
On the other side of the tunnel, Jack found the king in his nightclothes. And remembering the pathetic faces of the hungry people, he swung the sword.
Mercer climbed out of the hatch. "Thank you, Jack. You are a true hero," he said and laughed a muffled laugh. Then, he snapped his fingers and took on the shape of the dead king. "So brave yet so naive," he said.
Jack couldn't move. He had single-handedly ruined his own legacy.
"This is it for you, Jack the hero," Mercer said and snapped his fingers again, undoing the spell of necromancy. He then threw the bodies of Jack the hero and the late king down the hatch.
The demon king's tyrannical son was well and truly back. | 2020-12-08T12:09:37 | 2020-12-08T11:00:39 | 50 | 12 |
[WP] Your father died 5 years ago, but he always calls you on your birthday from a blank number. You got over the shock years ago and verified it really is him. After his call today you accidently hit the redial button and a pleasant voice answers "Afterlife Inc. How may I help you?" | “Afterlife Inc. How may I help you?” The woman’s overly cheery, customer service-plastic voice rang through my phone. “Hello?”
“Um- yeah. Yeah. Hi.” I swivelled on my heel and paced the length of my room.
“Hello,” the woman repeated. “How can I help you today?”
“I was just talking with my father.”
“Ah, yes. A common call is from one’s parents. I hope everything was satisfactory?”
“Yes, it was more than satisfactory” I could sense the woman on the other end of the line was growing impatient. How could I put into words the enormity of *this*? How could she keep talking as if there were nothing extraordinary about our conversation?
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. I could hear the smile that must’ve been plastered onto her face. “Well, if that’s everything...”
“No! No—no you can’t hang up.”
“Sir?”
“How are you doing this? How can you process these calls?”
“Afterlife Inc. is a service dedicated to connecting individuals with their loved ones who are having difficulties moving on in the afterlife.”
My father had said that too, the first time he’d called. Not the name—he hadn’t mentioned that part—but he’d given the same speech. He needed to hear from me, he had said. He needed to know that I was okay. I thought I’d finally cracked when I heard him. I’d forgotten the lilt of his voice and the way he chuckled nervously when he was uncomfortable. It took me years (and honing my interrogation skills) before I believed he was on the line. “And my father hired you?”
“Yes, yes he must’ve.”
“David Crossfield,” I said. “I’m Evan.”
The woman hummed for a moment. I could make out a faint clattered on a keyboard.
“Ah, yes. Yes.” The woman paused. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“What?”
“Well, your account was actually opened by David and Elaine Crossfield.”
“What do you mean? My mom’s not dead.”
There was an uncomfortable pause on the other end. “Sir, I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Of what?”
The woman’s façade faded; her voice hardened. “I’m sorry, sir. Your father has been the one contacting you. Our service only works one way.”
She cleared her throat. “You are the one that’s dead. Not your father, not your mother. According to my records, you drowned at a lake eight years ago.”
My stomach slid into my throat. “That’s impossible.” Heartbeat in the ears. Heat splash across the face. “No—no. That’s impossible.” Around the phone, my grip tightened despite the sheen of sweat.
But it wasn’t impossible.
I could remember gripping onto the boat as Keira whipped the boat in a tight arc. My hand, slippery then too, slid off. I remember a rock meeting my head and my body meeting the sand. A blurred world and lungs tearing apart.
In a dream, one often ignores the strangeness. Everything, no matter how strange, appears perfectly normal until after one awakens.
Much was the same about wherever I was now. I had existed in a half-life for years: not human and yet not gone. Calling myself a ghost wouldn’t be quite right, but then what was left? A spectre? A phantom?
“I’m…?”
“Dead, sir. Yes.”
“And stuck between worlds.”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
My lungs tightened and my breath hitched. Did I even need to breathe? “Why haven’t I heard from my mother.”
“There’s no note about that in your file.” The woman hesitated. “But if I had to guess, she might’ve found it too painful. It can be very difficult, you see. Some use our service to find closure. Others use it to avoid ever having to reach that point.”
*Like my father.* I pursed my lips. With the calls, it was if neither of us were truly gone. I could imagine he was only on vacation: sitting on a Hawaiian beach; climbing the side of Everest; sipping wine in Bordeaux. Had he done the same with me?
Neither of us were gone to the other, but at the same time, neither of us were there for the other. I couldn’t remember the way he smelled, but I know he had been warm. The exact shade of his brown hair slipped my mind.
Whatever had happened, I was caught. And maybe he was too.
“Miss?”
“Yes,” the woman said, polite and careful.
“I’d like you to cancel this account.”
“Of course,” she said. Her voice lifted at the end. “Is that all today?”
“I think so.” I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. The world around me was smoke, now. Perhaps it had always been smoke and I noticed it only now. “Wait.”
“Yes?”
“Tell him goodbye from me. Tell him to move forward.”
“Of course.”
I let my phone slip away.
I followed it and left that place and ventured into the ether.
---
/r/liswrites | "Uh, what?" I asked in an incredulous tone. *This has to be some kind of joke right?* I thought to myself. After all, what kind of place would name itself after the afterlife.
"Are you making a call to someone still living or do you just need me to patch you over to someone dead?" The voice came from a very high pitched sounding woman and reeked of a fake customer service tone.
"I don't know, what is this place?" I was getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"We are Afterlife Inc. we help those of you who have passed on keep in contact with your loved ones. For a small fee of course." The last part seemed almost ominous.
"What sort of fee?" I asked almost scared of what the answer would be.
"A minute of our service only costs a century of hell." The voice went from sickly sweet to deep and growly. I couldn't believe it. If what she was saying was true, then my father has racked up thousands of years so that he could talk to me, for my sake. I was going to object to the practice, but the voice continued. "To whom will we be billing today?"
"Well, that's the thing." I gulped a bit. "I'm not dead yet."
"Oh", the phone clicked off as if nothing happened. I looked down at it for a minute wondering if I were going insane.
A few weeks later I checked the mail, in it a plain letter sat. Opening it the same feeling of dread from before overtook me. It was an invoice, back pay for the calls. Ten thousand ninety two years in hell were due. She never mentioned it in the call, but the letter made it obvious it wasn't just the person on the dead side of the line that payed, but also the living. | 2019-08-17T15:41:34 | 2019-08-17T14:47:24 | 1,168 | 63 |
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war. | The enemy had entered the galactic stage a mere fifty years ago. They had reached out blindly into the stars, professing a wish for friendship and commercial trade. The galaxy, quite surprised by the lack of militancy or isolationism displayed by the fledgling race, unanimously accepted.
Then came Kothlar 7.
The Jatharin had declared war merely as a matter of protocol - someone would have done it eventually, and the Jatharin were the enemy's closest neighbors, so it just made sense for them to be the ones to bring the newcomers fully into galactic society.
It was a massacre.
Gornag Kalistra hadn't received his title because of pure ceremony - a fact that he'd leveraged to ensure that HE was the one sent to meet the enemy. The other Gornagi of the Jatharin Senate were too scared to handle this meeting properly; after all, none of them had ever seen *real* combat.
"Seen. combat" An odd turn of phrase, that, but it was how the humans spoke. Kalistra was the only one of his kind who'd actually viewed the historical documentation that had inspired the current galactic law so many thousands of years ago. Only a fool would have gone to meet a *new* species whilst being ignorant of his *own* species' history, and Kalistra was no fool.
What he'd seen had been ***horrifying***. Weapons designed not to impress or to wound, but to destroy. No thought was put into what those implements of war looked like - only what things they could do to the enemy and how efficiently they could be made to do those things. The galaxy had come a long way in their understanding of war.
The humans didn't want a fight - they had stated that very emphatically in their message, though the pictures of the remains of the Third Jatharin fleet had the Senate convinced otherwise. They had been attacked, they said. *War* had been declared, so they had responded in kind - they truly hadn't expected the Jatharin to have put weapons such as they had on their ships and not also have shields capable of withstanding a similar force; they were just as appalled at what had happened as the Jatharin. They'd even done their best to provide medical treatment for the few survivors before sending them home with the message.
They'd had no way to have known that starships hadn't employed shields in centuries. The galaxy's idea of war was far different from what it used to be. If the Jatharin could become this way, thought Kalistra, then surely the humans could learn this as well. It would just take the right words.
Vice Fleet Admiral Taylor Bradley Johnson and Vice Fleet Admiral Taylor Josephine Brandon were waiting for him at the specified rendezvous point. Even human names were strange - how could beings of different sexes have the same name? Adjusting his uniform, he gestured for his communications officer to establish a visual link with the human vessel.
"Greetings," said VFA Taylor (or was it Taylor?). "We humbly apologize for the misunderstanding at Kothlar 7. Our sincere condolences to the families of all involved."
"Thank you," said Kalistra smoothly. "I fear the misunderstanding runs far deeper than either species has fully realized." He gestured again to his communications officer. "I have brought with me a complete recorded history of my people so we may correct this unfortunate problem. If I may bring to your attention the moments just after Time Indices 27-2, 39-5, and 104-1, you will find that our species' understanding of certain words may be drastically different."
The VFAs paused while the bridge crew of the human vessel watched the indicated portions, then the other Taylor spoke. "I see that our understandings of the word 'war' are indeed quite different. This is most distressing, Gornag Kalistra. If only we had known - this could have been avoided."
Kalistra approximated a human nod as best he could. "I would be honored if you would accompany me to the Senate so we can rectify this misunderstanding. It is clear that if we were to engage in a war as your people understand it that our fleets are hopelessly outmatched."
"We gratefully accept. A peaceful and prosperous future is all we wish for. And Kalistra?" Taylor asked quickly before the connection could be closed.
"Yes?"
"For future reference, the human concept your people were trying to invoke is 'I challenge you to a duel.'" | "They're throwing engines at us."
Thats what we first thought during the start if the Salab Conflict. Of course, while spacial war is cleaner than planet-bound conflicts, there is still some fighting done if only to pit weapons against remote drones, so the humans' method of throwing the equivalent of a starship's engine was understandable considering their lack of experience.
However, when that engine- no, that *thing* impacted one of my fleet, it was torn to shreds. Still, it was a remote fleet, so no real harm done, and they showed off an extraordinarily powerful explosion, so we surrendered the matter.
Surrendering is usually where interplanetary wars end.
Surrendering is not where the Salab Conflict ended.
The modified engines that they launched towards my fleet turned the clean energy of nuclear fusion into a toxic explosion were now used to hold my planet hostage.
Human war, it seems, is a filthy mess with no care for the elegance of spacial conflict, where we boast our tech witgout having to ever use it on people.
- *From the journal of anti-human activist Hweni, former Major of the Jumop Army* | 2020-03-21T11:02:38 | 2020-03-21T08:44:58 | 155 | 87 |
[WP] You die in your girlfriends arms after saving her from a careless driver. Suddenly you wake up in your bed, completely healed and your clothes fixed. You look over and see death sitting at your desk. “Okay hear me out,” it says. “I’ve been playing this video game, and I wanna try something...” | Jim awoke in on his bed. He had fuzzy memories of moments before. He remembered flashing lights, the sounds of a stretcher, some electric sounds and then a blank. As he tried to think back, each time the memory recycled after the electric shock, a sharp pain would strike from his side causing his thoughts to subside.
He looked around him and everything looked to be the ordinary. However, sitting by his desk, playing with some miniature figures was a stranger in a dark cloak.
Jim gulped. The stranger turned over and noticed him. The stranger had no face, instead there was this pitch dark hole in its place. When Jim looked into it, he felt an unsettling presence that caused his bones to rattle and his blood turn cold.
“Ah, Jim, my boy, you’re awake. Come, come, let us play a game,” spoke the stranger with enthusiasm.
Jim wanted to refuse, but the stranger came over and stretching its bony fingers, it clasped Jim’s hands in its. It lead Jim over to his tv set. Jim obeyed silently without hesitation. He was frozen in place and acted like a robot. The stranger held some power over him that he could not escape from.
The stranger sat Jim upon a cushion as it grabbed a nearby one for itself. It handed a controller over to Jim as it placed a special cartridge into the old console. The television set booted up and a scene began to play.
“Alright Jim, I’m going to be relaxing while you play. Probably fixing some bugs as the game rolls. It’s a prototype, you know, so its bound to have a few issues here and there. As for you, your job is to enjoy it.”
Jim nodded. On the screen, a baby was crying as its parents came over to check up on him. A cutscene flashed as the parents conversed. The chapter ended and Jim found the child pushed a couple years into the future. He was grown up now, in high school. Jim was given multiple choices which he randomly chose, not caring about the after-effects or consequences.
“Oh hey, Jim. That’s pretty good, your avatar has a girlfriend this early?” the stranger joked.
Jim walked the on-screen character home and found out the father had died years back. He played a couple mini-games which depending on his score offered him different rewards. He chose to pass on the harder difficulties, choosing the easier games for their simplicity. Another chapter ended and Jim found the character raddled in a mound of debt, his girlfriend pregnant and his mother hooked to cocaine.
“How could this happen? I just picked the easy route, I didn’t want this!” cried Jim. He threw away the controller which the stranger caught mid-air.
“Jim, you made these decisions and you live with the consequences,” it replied. The stranger handed the controller back into Jim’s hands. “Now play.”
The next chapter opened up with the on-screen character moved far away from his home in the future. His mother had been jailed, his previous girlfriend having a failed birth followed by suicide. Jim opened up the character’s stat screen and found all the previous high stat allocations in the dumpster. He tried to get the man a job, but his lack of education or credentials denied him everything. Jim began to cry.
“What do I do?” he sobbed.
“What do you mean, what do you do? You live and die by the consequences of your actions. Jim, shouldn’t you be asking yourself that?” snickered the stranger.
Jim toiled through another chapter and found his avatar to be beat up and thrown onto the street on the verge of dying. As his avatar was about to succumb to his grievances, a flash of light flickered and an on-screen woman appeared. She raised his avatar back on his feet, properly fed him and clothed him.
“Is this my redemption? Also that woman, she looks a lot like Angela.” stated Jim.
“Perhaps,” answered the stranger.
The game continued to roll as Jim found his avatar’s life to get better. Soon the avatar had a stable job, a proper residence and was dating the woman. But Jim found his character to have random outbursts of dark behaviour. His avatar would snicker behind the woman’s back, doubting her and criticizing her. He’d also see his avatar visit clubs and sleep with other women given the opportunity. And at the climax of the chapter, his character beat the woman when she confronted him about this.
“How do I get him to stop? She’s already saved him and he treats her like this? Why?” Jim tried to grab the stranger’s cloak but it dispersed from his hands.
“Why does he act like this, Jim?” asked the stranger.
Jim gulped as he realized the truth of the game. The chapter ended and he found the avatar and the woman out on a date. They ate and finished, then began a walk out back to their apartment. As they did, a drunk driver sped towards them. Jim wanted to close his eyes as he assumed the worst, but the stranger did not let him. The following scene surprised him as he found his avatar to have leapt in the woman’s path to push her away to safety and take the car’s impact himself.
The screen shut off as Jim felt a sharp pain on his side. He touched that area and found his hand covered in blood. He screamed.
“Stranger, am I dead?” he shouted.
“Perhaps, maybe and maybe not. If you weren’t by chance, what are your next steps?” The stranger unveiled his face as Jim stared into a reflection of himself.
Jim coughed and vomited. The two of them remained in their positions as time passed. Eventually, Jim came upon a conclusion, as he began to accept his reality.
“Death, if that is your preferred name. Before we descend to hell together where I truly belong, could you grant me a wish?”
“And what would that be?”
Jim cleared his throat. “I want Angela to have a better life. I want her to know that I’m sorry for all I’ve done and that she deserves far better. Take me away, but please make sure that she spends the rest of her life in happiness.”
Death laughed. “You silly mortal, you really think that I have the power to grant people joy? You’ve played your game and everything that you humans do contributes to your consequences and rewards. It is your own free will and choices that decides the outcomes of your lives. I, Death, can promise no such possibility.”
Jim laughed. “What was I to expect as well? I, a bright example of human refuse demanding such things from an ethereal entity.”
Death placed its arm around Jim’s shoulder as the two of them laughed aloud together. “To tell you the truth, Jim. I do kind of enjoy your company, but there is a duty I must upkeep.”
“And what is that, Death?”
Death stabbed its arm into Jim’s side as Jim experienced dying ten times over. “I am the reaper, I harvest the consequences of the human soul. You shall suffer pain over and over again, for this is your sin.”
Jim screamed and winced in suffering. He closed his eyes and awoke on a hospital bed, Angela resting her head against his leg. | Richard never thought he’d die saving his girlfriend. And he often said he’d stop a bullet for her. But that was it right, it was just talk. Everyone said those things, he never thought he would do it literally.
Walked out of the wrong movie theater at the wrong time and some thug just needed money. When he pulled the gun on the pair and Richard told him to “Fuck off” he didn’t think this lowlife would actually shoot him.
But why was he awake, and where was he. It didn’t look like a hospital. He was still in his clothes from the night before but they weren’t covered in blood like before.
Richard actually felt great. He had been achy and moody lately, but right now he felt like he could take on the world. He would worry about the details of his health later he just felt too good.
That’s when he noticed the man next to his beside. “Was he there a minute ago,” thought Richard.
The man had no defining features, the kind of person you glance over and forget. This woman was forgettable even while staring straight at him. It took conscious effort to notice him.
“Good morning Richard.” Said the monotone voice.
“As you have noticed you are alive, you’re welcome. I have, let’s say resurrected you, from your demise. You see I have started gaming, and it is tremendously fun, but single player games have started to become mundane. I’m looking for someone to play against and you seemed like an ideal candidate.
Richard, thought a moment, this was GREAT! He was still alive and all he had to do was play games with death. Sure he had seen movies where this ended poorly and he would surely die if he lost but for the moment he had a second chance. A renewed vigor for life. He would take advantage of this.
“Well sir, what were you thinking of playing first?”
“First? Hmm, I hadn’t given it much thought, I figured one game would be just like the other so one would suffice.”
“Not in the least,” said Richard. “Also have you ever considered co-op games before?”
“I had not.”
Richard grew excited. He had thousands of games he could play with this man. He could do this forever.
“Let’s start with a co-op game so I can gauge your skill,” said Richard. Pulling out Portal 2.
Richard began setting up the game and the console and gave the man a controller. Richard himself took up as first player.
The man and Richard played all night. To Richard’s surprise the man was exceptionally good. They beat it in just one night.
The next day Richard told the man that he had another game they should play, but he’d have to go out and get it. It wouldn’t take long and he would be right back.
The man let Richard leave.
Richard ran out, the first thing he went to do was to see his girlfriend. She was shocked to see him and didn’t believe his story, bu how else could he be here.
After several hours with her he told her it was time to go. He needed to pick up another multiplayer game before the man was on to him.
And that was Richards routine. Every day he would go and see his girlfriend. Spending time with her and treating ever day like it was his last. He never knew when this man might tire of games. And ever night playing a new game with the man.
Richard was living a full life. The man took care of money so all Richard had to do was keep him company.
After several years he started to see age in his girlfriend, age that had not affected him. When he thought he would play games with this man forever hadn’t realized how right he was...
| 2018-03-18T11:31:39 | 2018-03-18T10:36:04 | 79 | 35 |
[WP] You lose a dare at an airport and are forced to ask an employee for a ticket to the farthest destination. To your surprise, they quietly nod and give you a single ticket with letters you don't recognize.
EDIT: Holy *crap* this blew up. I want to thank everyone for their stories and input, and also would like to shout out the one dude who took their time to give me Reddit silver. Thanks for my first award! | "You've gotta do it," Brad said through a grin. "You know what happens if you don't."
Adam shook his head. "Alright, fine." He twirled his father's flat black credit card between his fingers and breathed deep. Of all the bets to lose, why did it have to be this one? It was supposed to be a sure thing. So sure, in fact, that he hadn't even hesitated to accept the terms.
He made his way to the airline's desk, refusing to look back at his snickering friends. *Farthest destination.* Brad's words echoed in his head. *And you've gotta go, too.*
The woman glanced up at him for just a moment as he approached. She sized him up in an instant and returned to her computer screen, typing at a non-convincing speed. But when Adam leaned forward and tapped the credit card on the desk, her demeanor changed.
Suddenly she was standing straight, a white, toothy smile on her face. Whatever work she had been focused on was no longer relevant; there was a VIP customer at her counter.
"What can I do for you, sir?" she asked, overflowing with cheer.
"I, uh," Adam began, pausing to look back at Brad and Jeremy. He shot them a dirty look and turned back to the woman. "I need a ticket for your farthest destination, please."
The woman stared at him for a moment. Something changed in her expression, though Adam couldnt say what. She still smiled wide and stood tall, but something was *different*. Something in her eyes.
She reached out for the credit card and Adam happily handed it over. He was almost happy she didnt give him a price; he didnt want to know. His father would have him working the next two years to pay him back. After a moment, the woman returned the card and handed him a ticket.
Adam glanced at the ticket and took pause. He'd traveled plenty of times on a number of airlines, but this ticket didnt look like any of them. It had strange numbers on it, as if it were some half-broken font. That is, if they were numbers at all, which Adam was not sure of. There were symbols and colors and all manner of strange markings.
He turned to face his friends, expecting to find that the whole thing had been a joke. But they were no where to be found. Surely they'd want to stay and ensure Adam had followed through.
"Sir," a low voice rumbled from behind him. Adam spun around and found himself staring at a mountain of a man, so tall it almost hurt to make eye contact.
Adam was at a loss for words. The man put a hand on his shoulder--no, *around* his shoulder--and spoke just loud enough for Adam to hear.
"Please come with me."
Adam didnt *want* to go. But what was he supposed to do? The man was polite, but there was a firmness in his voice that seemed to remove any chance that his words were just suggestions. So Adam followed.
They winded through hallways and stairwells for a good fifteen minutes. Adam wasnt even aware the airport had more than one floor. The whole way he examined the man, trying to decide who he was and what he wanted. Most likely he was a cop, taking Adam somewhere to call his father and give him a good scare.
But after some time they arrived at what appeared to be a terminal. There was no one else there, not even a check in attendant. The air was almost unnaturally chilled as you followed the man through a narrow walkway and, finally, into an aircraft.
"This is your seat, sir," the man said, gesturing to a spot near the front of the plane. Adam glanced around and found no other passengers.
"Uh, excuse me, sir?" Adam finally found the courage to speak. "Where are we going, exactly?"
The man smiled. "No need to act now, sir. We're thrilled you've accepted our offer. Now make yourself comfortable; it's a long ride to Mars."
r/Ford9863 | You look up at the map behind the atendants head. Lota of obvious counties with well known abbreviations. CA, Canada. AUS, been there once actually, that's Australia. There are others you could guess at. Sweden would maybe be like....SWD. Italy maybe an ITL. So you start to narrow it down.
Nigeria....nope. Couldn't be.
Nepal? Never been there. But it doesn't meet the requirements.
Nicaragua. Sounds sufficiently exotic but again, just doesn't fit.
You check the ticket again. Look at the map. Quadruple check the ticket.
NZ.
What could it be? Where?
You shrug and give the atendant a nod. Guess you will find out. | 2019-03-04T22:19:17 | 2019-03-04T21:58:08 | 179 | 45 |
[WP] You gain EXP for everything you kill and you know when you gain EXP. Easy kills like bugs get you only a couple of EXP, tougher kills give more EXP. One day at home doing nothing, you unexpectedly gain 1500 XP... | I've never been one to care much about games. Though I owned one of those gray brick Game Boys as a kid, I'd largely fallen out of gaming as my life grew busier with work, friends and family.
Smartphones changed all of that.
After the success of games like Minecraft and Candy Crush, not to mention augmented reality games like Pokémon Go, it was only a matter of time before technology and real life began to intersect. A new app, promoted heavily as a Lifestyle Improvement Solution by the federal government, offered Experience Points for all sorts of things. Suddenly, there were people happy to volunteer to help out at various events, if only for a measly 4 EXP.
So too did people start going out and killing mosquitoes en masse, as every death, somehow, either through drones or satellites or some sort of arcane paper pushing magic, was recorded.
Weekly and monthly quests that ranged from the easy (put your garbage and recycle bins out the night before pick up) to the challenging (moderate exercise at least two hours, five days a week) to the outright impossible (find a new source of platinum on your land).
Death was a big thing, especially after the Freedomites won the White House in 2024. They knew who the real problem was, they said. Criminals. The homeless. People with mental illnesses.
The quests became darker and more dangerous.
Shave a homeless man until he's hairless and power wash him until he's free of vermin.
Make people who are going off their meds take them on threat of a beating.
Post videos of destroying someone's drug stash along with their personal information.
It got worse before it got better.
Gun restrictions were loosened, but only for people who registered Freedomite, and they only allowed you to join if you could prove that you had three generations worth of white ancestors on both sides of your family.
It soon became a crime to have a tan.
Not literally, of course, but if someone looked at you and thought that you looked dark enough to be a criminal or one of the unclean unhoused, you were in for a world of hurt.
Murder used to mean something awful. Now they have shooting galleries for the "elite" that feature the highest scoring victims...or Freedom-Hating Criminals, as they have all been branded. EXP gained from taking these lives are minimal for the very rich, as they are all at levels that most of us consider "beyond the pay wall."
It doesn't stop them from "keeping up appearances."
There are still quests, but they're all twisted. They tell us to kill, injure, maim. They want us to tear each other apart, and for what?Many of us now refuse to play, though the app now comes standard on all phones; its red, unblinking eye seeing all.
I hadn't played in years when, one morning, while sitting alone at home, I heard the telltale sound, like a slow slide whistle, of my EXP bar filling. It went on for an hour- that terrible sound filling me with dread.
A cheerful trill sounded on my silent-mode-only phone, and I stared down at the cartoony envelope on the screen.
Hesitantly, I tapped it with my finger and confetti exploded around the screen
"Congratulations!" A cheery voice said, her false exuberance filling the kitchen. "You have been selected to receive 1500 EXP as part of our limited Citizen Run Event! The rules are simple. A lucky few are given large quantities of EXP to protect with their lives...literally! Your name, image and location are given to all participants twelve hours after, to give you a fair head start.
If you can hold onto your EXP until the first of the month, the change will be permanent. This is just another of the new benefits that we have been working on implementing for your enjoyment as a citizen of our free and glorious country!"
I stammered out an expletive and dropped the phone to the floor as the shock began to wear off and a deep sense of horror filled me.
"Now then, citizen." The recorded voice seemed to deepen, then, all traces of frivolity disappearing as it said one final word:
"Run." | There I was, sitting in my designated chair at home, making memes and singing along to this old game I used to play which tells you how good you were at singing the song it gives you.
"OH DAMN! THIS IS MY JAM!!" I exclaimed having heard the first few chords of my favourite song. As I began singing along I noticed a small fruitfly near my arm, laying on the armrest, still singing along I casually swept my arm out, propelling the fly into my range for a devastating kick.
*blip*
+1 EXP
I have to say that I'm getting pretty good at this, if I say so myself. A few minutes passed and as my song strung out its final chord I heard another...
*blip*
+1500 EXP
"Huh?"
I hear an overdramatic voice from my TV speakers shout, 'WOW! You totally destroyed that song, wanna go again?' | 2017-05-15T13:45:43 | 2017-05-15T08:57:56 | 80 | 37 |
[WP] Your teleported to 44BCE Rome in your everyday street clothes. You're brought before Caesar and he believes you're from the future, hoping to bring him fortune. One day he questions you, asking "How do I die?"
Weewwww never knew my prompt would gain so much attention, thanks guys for all the interesting stories and comments | The entry was off. I rubbed my sweaty palms against my jeans. Untucking my button up shirt, I brushed my brown hair off my brow.
“Over there!” A Roman guard ordered.
I knew he had heard the impact of my arrival. The explosion wasn’t supposed to be near the market. Everything was falling apart – the whole plan had been ruined. People around me were being cautious. They knew I didn’t belong. I never got a chance to change out of my clothes from year 2018.
“After him!” Roman guards pushed themselves past a crowd of horrified people.
I quickly grabbed a rag from a vendor before wrapping my identity. I ran into a back alley trying to avoid the incoming guards. Bells began to ring across the city. Citizens were running into their homes.
“I got him!” A guard called behind me. I felt my stomach twist. I pushed through a wooden door running into a random house.
“Aye! Out with you!” A man and his wife raised their broom towards me.
I pushed myself back out into the street only to be circled by Roman guards. They all drew their swords forcing me to stop. Their lead guard removed his helmet scanning me from head to toe. Confusion rippled across all of the guards’ faces as they stared at my foreign attire. The lead guard didn’t even let me speak, in an instant, I was knocked out by the handle of his sword.
***
Water splashed across my forehead while I felt my muscles jolt awake. I tilted my head forward trying to regain consciousness. A man locked his eyes onto me through the iron bars holding me in. I knew who this individual was. I couldn’t believe he actually came to see me alone in secret.
“Why have you come?” He asked me. “Why are you here?”
I took a second to approach underneath the torch light. Julius Caesar leaned in closer towards the bars.
“Answer me,” he ordered. “Why are you here?”
I knew better than to spoil the mission. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I was about to feed him a lie about me being from a foreign kingdom before he asked, “What year are you from?”
“What?” I replied. “What do you mean?”
“Do not play a fool with me, boy. You are not the only traveler we’ve detained. Now tell me what you are doing here!” Julius Caesar slammed his palm against the iron bar. I felt myself jump back in shock.
I tried to form a plan on how I could get out of this situation and back to my mission. This whole thing wasn’t right.
“I want you to tell me how it happens. I know those of you have been planning something behind my back!”
“Excuse me?” I leaned in. “What are you talking about?”
“I know there is something going on in the leadership! I want you to tell me the truth! Are you here with information on my assassination? Do you know how I will die?”
I couldn’t believe it. It was if Julius Caesar had talked to someone in my fraternity before. I should have been the only one who has traveled. Apparently, that is not the case. I couldn’t understand how Julius Caesar knew about his assassination attempt. I glanced over at the rags lying on the ground behind Julius Caesar. Suddenly, I sparked an idea that may just get me out of these bars.
“You want to know the truth?” I whispered.
“Yes. Tell me!” Julius Caesar ordered grabbing onto the bars in front of us.
“My clothes are enchanted. As long as you wear them, no harm will come to you.” I smiled.
Julius Caesar took a few moments before stepping back. “Magic?” He said aloud smiling. “I need that sort of magic!”
“On one condition.”
“Anything!” Julius Caesar clapped.
“I want to get out of here with those clothes behind you.”
“You want those rags?” Julius Caesar pointed. He shook his head in confusion before agreeing with the terms. “Fine.” He replied. “We have a deal.”
I got to shake the hand of Julius Caesar. None of this was supposed to have happened but it was quite an experience. Not many people can say they shook Julius Caesar’s hand – but now I can. After the exchange, I changed into the rags before he set me free back onto the streets.
I noticed while I was leaving, Julius Caesar was wearing my clothes from year 2018. He walked as if nothing could touch him. I ducked my head behind a wooden frame when I heard the sounds of several men circling around Julius Caesar in the dark. I slowly made my way over to the Theatre next to me in order to hide behind one of the walls.
After a few short moments, I heard a loud moan coming from the street. I slowly turned the corner to see Julius Caesar holding his stomach while his blood ran between the bricks underneath him.
“This is Caesar! You idiots! Where is the traveler?!” One of them shouted. They all started pointing and arguing with one another. They appeared to be Caesar’s senators standing over him. They were all startled that they stabbed their own Julius Caesar.
“We thought this was the traveler!” One of them shouted. “He is wearing the traveler’s clothes!”
My breath grew heavy. I knew in our history that the assassination was just an attempt. This was all wrong. Julius Caesar just got killed by his own senators because they were after me for some reason.
“It is too late for him now.” One of the senators finished Julius Caesar with a final stab to the heart.
I slowly started to make my exit when I felt a chill slither down my spine. One of the senators ordered,
“Find that traveler, then put him with the others!”
***
To read more of my stories, visit [r/13thOlympian] (https://www.reddit.com/r/13thOlympian/) | Scenario 1: "Oh. That's an easy question. You die an excruciatingly painful death, by the hands of those who you call friends."
This would probably result in him killing me in a rage. Oh, and would probably result in the history of the world since 44BC changing beyond recognition. But who cares about that last part.
Scenario 2: "You die by choking 5 years later. It was your dinner."
Again. He would probably kill me in a rage. The timeline would be preserved, but there's no point in the integrity of the timeline if I'm not around to see it.
Ah. What should I choose? Choices choices choices.
Ah hah! How about...
_____________________________________________________
(Sorry for the 4th wall break, but, for mobile users who can't see the underline, the perspective of the story has just been changed to another character.)
No way.
No fucking way.
I, Julius Caesar, would be the first person to achieve immortality?
If that foreigner, whose name I never caught, was telling me the truth, that my reign would last a thousand years, that the flag of Rome would be seen across the lands, as North as Gaul and as East as the Han's land, then by the name of Jupiter, I need to change my name to something more epic.
Something more "Holy shit". Something that incites the feeling of strength.
"How about 'Caesar the Great'? Sounds fitting." said the foreigner.
Not bad. I'll call in a meeting for the Senate to rename the entire place, as well as to notify them of my change of titles.
I can't wait until Brutus hears the news.
_____________________________________________________
(Again, sorry for the 4th wall break)
Well that was easy.
Seems like the integrity of the timeline was preserved. And to make it better, I'm now going home with about 100 kilograms of gold!
"Set course for Xiangang, China, on the 16th of February, 2018."
"I'm sorry I can't do that, u/dummie1138"
"What? Why not?"
"The area you call 'Xiangang' is neither called 'Xiangang' nor controlled by the Great Ming Empire. Setting course for the 16th of February, 2018 to Hong Kong(UK)."
Well fuck.
_____________________________________________________
If you didn't hate that, please suggest a good AI name. I could really use one. | 2018-02-15T20:36:57 | 2018-02-15T20:35:40 | 38 | 12 |
[WP] You've 2 part-time jobs; office-worker and black-market hitman. One day, your best-friend and co-worker requests a hit on you, to you.
"to you." In disguise, of course. | When the familiar buzz sounded from my burner, I rushed to the bathroom to scout out my new contract. Every stall was occupied, but luckily I recognized Jax's new Jordans beneath one and pounded on his door. He wouldn't need it. He'd just be browsing reddit anyway. "Jesus, dude," Jax said, face screwed up in a frown. "You 'bout to shit your pants?"
"Sorry man," I said, swinging the door closed behind me. "Fucking urgent."
I'd been running this little side-gig for months now. Turns out, it's hard to make a living when you've got an expensive wife and a twice mortgaged home. She'd always been hounding me to get a second job. So I resorted to using the skills I'd developed as a marine. Whoever's name popped up on my little cell usually ended up dead within 24 hours. People fell by the wayside, and my wife was happy...initially. But now, business had slowed, for no discernible reason, and I had plenty of damned bills to pay. Such was the way of the world.
Only, this time, what I saw on my screen very nearly made me put my bathroom hideout to good *use*. I stared in disbelief. My own name shone on the screen.
*Target: Jason L. Reigle. Instructions: As painfully as possible*.
The phone slipped from my hands, landing in the toilet bowl with a *plop*. I didn't even bother to curse. What the fuck did it even matter? My best friend was trying to have me killed.
Jax and I typically passed the monotony of our office by conducting pranks. Staplers in jello, placing leaky pens in our pockets--that sort of stuff. Only the other day, I'd brought out the big guns. Cellophane over the toilet seat. It...eh...it was quite messy.
Had I finally pushed Jax too far?
I stared at him as the day slowly wore on, trying to gleam if *that* could really push a man over the edge. But he simply plucked away at the keyboard. He was the sole friend I had. And somehow I'd fucked it up with a roll of plastic and a pair of soiled khakis.
I mulled over my options.
Refusing the contract was not viable, I'd simply expose myself as a fraud. All my hard work would go belly-up, and then what? Bankruptcy? Divorce? Or, worse yet--exposure? My life would be in tatters.
What the fuck was I to do?
Really, there was only one out. A silenced bullet to my best friends brain.
We were to meet at midnight. Behind a Denny's of all places. I showed up early, still racking my brain for any alternative. I could refer him to someone else maybe? Rumor had it the reason business had slowed was because another hitman had sprung up around the corner. I could kill two birds with one stone--kill off the hit on me, and kill my competition in the process when whoever it was tried to complete it.
But that upturned too many *what ifs*. I was a man of action and reaction. Simple and straight forward. In my line of work, you eliminate all the variables.
And just then, the biggest variable was walking towards me.
Jax had showed up right on time. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his office clothes. "You got the details?" he asked. I nodded, hand in my pocket, sweating on the handgrip. He handed me wads of cash. "Half now, half later," he said. "That the usual deal?"
I nodded again, searching for some deep, hidden explanation behind his eyes.
"Alright then."
He turned to leave.
My sweaty fingers flexed repeatedly over my pistol's grip. Could I *really* do this? While the man's *back* was turned, no less? Most of my marks were real shitstains. Wife beaters. Rapists. That sort of stuff. I considered myself a sort of poor man's Dexter. But, my god, Jax was a *good* guy. We spent lunch breaks together, shooting the shit about sports. He listened to me without a rolling of the eye while I explained how hard my wife was making it on me. Hell, he'd been through the same. He offered me sound advice. The question burned in my skull: why was a *good guy* trying to have me killed?
Yet, the pistol remained in my pocket.
While I was lost in thought, Jax halted and turned. "You're just gonna let me walk away?" He asked.
"I...what?"
He held up both hands in a show of relief. "Shit, man, you should feel my heart right now."
My jaw dropped. "You...you know who I am?"
"Dude, I've always known. How many times have I told you to update your passwords. Was only a matter of time before I tagged you back.
"Wha--"
His entire demeanor had shifted in a snap. Where before he appeared nervous and jittery, now he was slick as snot. "I guess I had you going there pretty good, huh?"
"A prank?!" I said. "Are you fucking shitting me?"
"Of sorts," he smiled. He'd sauntered over to me now, and slung a hand on my shoulder. "Wanted to see how you'd react. If maybe you'd turn on me."
I was flabbergasted."*Why?* I...I nearly..."
He flashed me that patented shit-eating grin, extending a gloved hand.
"Because I've got a little side gig of my own. Turns out we're in the same line of work. And boy, have I got a business offer for you."
-------------
r/M0Zark | He came into my office looking for trouble. Of course, me being a hitman, all people come into my office looking for trouble. This guy, however, seemed particularly to be looking for trouble, as he was dressed like a clown. I mean that literally. He had full-on makeup, large shoes, a jumpsuit, rubber nose, and a rainbow wig. There was something familiar about it too.
"And what can I do for you," I said, not losing my professionalism.
He took a photo and a decently sized wad of cash out of his pocket. He slammed it down on the table and slid it over to me. I picked up the photo and saw myself dressed as a cowboy standing next to this same clown. The same picture sat on my desk facing me. In this one, however, I was circled multiple times in sharpie.
I raised my eyebrows at him. He merely smiled and made a twirling motion with his finger. I tilted my head to the side. He made the motion again. I mimicked the gesture and grinned in return. He frowned.
"FLIP IT OVER GODDAMNIT," he said.
"Oh, so you can talk," I said.
I flipped the picture over to find a note reading: '$20,000 up front, $20,000 after death. Make sure it's quick and painless.'
"Painless? Never been asked that before. Who is this man to you?"
"My best friend."
"And why would you want to kill your best friend?"
"So the aliens don't get him."
"What aliens?"
"I pissed some aliens off by shooting their leader on my property and not they want to torture my best friend as revenge."
I broke down laughing. The clown stood there awkwardly as I regained my composure.
"Dude," I said. "Did you really think I was going to fall for that?"
"Fall for what," he said.
"I dunno how you figured it out, man, but it's a really great joke."
"Figured out what. What joke?"
"You just come in here and freak me out thinking that somebody wants me dead. You could've at least picked a better disguise, dude!"
His eyes widened. "George?"
"Come on, don't act so dumb, Zane! The joke's over!"
Zane paused in shock for a few moments.
"Dude," he finally said. "I'm 100% serious."
We stared at each other for a few more minutes. The doorknob to my office began to turn.
| 2018-05-09T08:56:43 | 2018-05-09T08:20:07 | 744 | 16 |
[WP] From birth, everyone has their soulmate’s name marked on their wrist. Yours isn’t written in any known language. | (Altering this one slightly to be when you come of age.)
I bent my head, eagerly examining my wrist for marks. *No, still nothing.* It was my birthday, and I was seventeen this year. At some point today, I should see marks, right? Unless the scar...
I shook my head determinedly. No, the scar wouldn't have any effect on my fate. I'd been cut on my naming wrist; it was a punishment for those who tried to have a relationship before learning their soulmate's name. For obvious reasons, that was frowned upon. In a world full of perfect certainty, no one wanted to have to discover that their soulmate had had someone else first. And so I was scarred on my naming wrist, a permanent brand, the mark of an impatient girl who had liked a boy in her class.
I sighed and shook my head. Mariah squeaked as my hair began to escape her expert fingers.
"Miss Lilline, don't do that! You'll mess it up, and I'll have to start all over!"
I sighed again and nodded very gently to avoid causing more havoc in Mariah's hands. This party at an absurd hour of the night was meant to culminate at the exact moment the celebrated person turned seventeen and came of age, at which point the guests would crowd around in breathless excitement in an attempt to be the first to read the name as it appeared. I was born at four in the morning, which was why I was awake and getting ready at the unholy hour of one.
"You're lucky, Miss Lilline. Frederick, from your class? His celebration lasted twelve hours. The boy half fell asleep by the time the last guests had left. I heard his father caned him for it."
Mariah left one thing unspoken, but we both knew what she could have said. I had a very short birthday, with maybe twelve families in attendance, lasting at most from two to five, because I was scarred. I scowled slightly, feeling Mariah's hands tug at my hair. *Frederick* hadn't been scarred, even though he was guilty of the same crime. I had only flirted with him a bit, held hands, but after I was scarred he went on to seduce another classmate and take it... I wasn't sure how far he'd taken it, but the poor girl had been locked away by her family, never to be seen again. I wasn't sure if she was alive or dead; if she lived, it was for the sake of whoever ended up as her name partner. And still, Frederick was not scarred. The injustice of it ate at me, but I couldn't show it, of course.
"There. Look at you, Miss Lilline. You're beautiful."
I sighed and looked in the mirror. I *did* look nice, thanks to Mariah's care, but she seemed to think that that should make it all OK. It wasn't. Not at all. My sisters had each had hundreds of families at their naming celebrations; my brother had had close to a thousand. And here I was, with a dozen. I knew it didn't mean anything anyway, since the bigger parties were more to show off a family's wealth, but it still stung. I stood and prepared to walk down to greet my family.
"Miss Lilline?"
I paused and turned, my hand still on the doorknob. "Mm?"
"You forgot this."
She held up the lovely blue sash that I prized so much. How had I forgotten it? I'd even arranged my dress color around it, so that it wouldn't look out of place.
Mariah adjusted the sash, and I sighed in relief. My siblings thought that wearing the sash every day was a sign of how little I was favored; they were wrong. I didn't have the kind of pocket money they did, but I could at least afford to buy a simple *sash!* Their assumption helped me, though, so I never corrected it, and I continued to wear the blue sash. More importantly, I continued to wear the secret pocket that contained a blue-steel dagger.
Sometimes I would take out that dagger and run my fingers over its edge. Very rarely, I would be careless and cut my fingertips just a bit, but I never felt it until after the dagger left the wound. That splendid, beautiful, lethal sharpness, that bite; they were there to protect me, but they also had another purpose. They were there for when Frederick decided to take me aside to a private area to taunt me with his clean, unblemished wrist. He had done so four times in the last year, so it was almost a guarantee that he'd do it again. And that deliciously sharp blue steel was waiting for his clean, unblemished wrist, to lay his wrongdoings bare. But that was for later. Frederick, obviously, was not invited to my celebration.
The next three hours passed in a blur. There was some dancing, in which no one approached me, and a meal. Then a small clock by my father's hand chimed quietly, and everyone stood in silence and gathered around me.
"Lilline... come now, you still insist on being rebellious?" my father demanded, and only then did I realize that I was still carefully covering my wrist. Slowly, grudgingly, I turned it over, and everyone looked straight at the scar, watching for marks. And, sure enough, they slowly appeared.
*Ieneth da Nimori Mebheda*
I heard my father attempt to pronounce it in a faltering tone. "What... what sort of language... what is this?"
The party ended quickly, with people chatting quietly on their way out to their carriages. I knew that they were all talking about how the scarred girl had some heathen name on her wrist and comparing my behavior to that of their no-doubt-perfect-and-exalted children. I, thoroughly awake and even more thoroughly wanting to avoid my father's fury, made my way to the library. He never went there, and besides, I wanted to know more about that strange name.
I woke up to my brother standing over me with a laugh.
"Lillene, good grief, you're so paper-thin and have such dark circles that I thought you were a newspaper for a moment."
"Mmph, good to see you too, Cadmus."
Unlike my sisters, Cadmus had never used my misfortune to spread his own reputation. He didn't need to. He was smart, strong, skilled at basically anything he tried to do... he would probably be the next prime minister if he kept on this way. As long as he distanced himself from me, that is, but Cadmus never seemed like he wanted to.
"I assume you haven't eaten since last night?"
"I mean...."
"I'm already back from sword practice, and you were sound asleep. You definitely haven't eaten anything. Come on, let's raid the kitchen."
I smiled ruefully. Cadmus's kindness always threatened to break down my walls.
"I.... Well, if you insist."
We sat on a low wall outside the kitchen, Cadmus munching pilfered cookies, I downing some beef stew he had insisted that I eat. It really was good, and I realized that I was starving.
"The guards over at practice said they were already hearing about how your mark is in a weird language."
"Already?" I sighed, taking another bite of stew. "Well, I suppose it's to be expected."
"So.... I never actually saw it. May I?"
I nodded and slowly pulled up my sleeve. As soon as Cadmus saw it, his eyes widened.
"Wait... this is the name you–" He covered his mouth with his hand. "I see, so it's a *name*. Noscenus had it all wrong. This changes things."
"What?"
Cadmus grabbed my arm and pulled me into his room, ignoring my confused protests and the spilled bowl of stew. He pulled a box from under his bed and spread out maps, charts, rubbings of some kind of stone frieze, a very old and very used book by someone called Noscenus, and finally a set of drawings that were clearly his attempt to imitate carvings.
"These things are carved into the northern face of White Wolf Mountain. Each letter is thirty feet tall and three feet deep, carved into a cliff. I found them by following Noscenus, but he thought they must be talking about some kind of city or kingdom. Most of them don't make sense, but he managed to translate 'glorious' and 'slumber' and, somehow, 'sapphire,' though I don't know how he managed it." Cadmus gestured to several of the words, which he had circled. "I think you can see what the most common set is."
I looked at the rubbings of stone carvings, at the notes, at the writing copied over from the cliff, and from all of them, the same set of words leaped out at me.
*Ieneth da Nimori Mebheda.*
​
(End Part 1) | The years go by as Manus wondered about the mark on his wrist. He meets other women. Dates them, feels attraction for them, but never love. During clear winter nights he goes out and wonders at the stars, considering which of them might harbor his true, destined partner. Would she come to him someday? Or is he fated to go out into the great unknown, to find her somewhere in the endless void of space?
Would she even have a traditional gender as humans understood it? Would she be humanoid enough for their relation to have a physical dimension to it? What if she is a triple octopus with forty arms? What if she is some sort of energy-based lifeform and he couldn't even speak to her or hear her voice?
One night, as these questions consume Manus, the moon falls from the sky. The pale dotted circle in the night sky starts moving, describing a small spiral at first, then settling into a steady trajectory. It grows larger all the while, closing in.
While definitely noteworthy, Manus doesn't consider this to be particularly alarming at this moment. But someone who thinks otherwise is apparently watching the night sky. Mere minutes after the moon has begun falling, an alarm siren goes off, echoed by half a dozen others throughout the city. Firetrucks, ambulances and other first responders pass through the streets. It's unclear how any of this is supposed to help, but they certainly assist the entire sleeping city with waking up to see. Before long every citizen is in their yard or on their balcony, shivering in the just-above-freezing temperature, watching the moon.
Only it's not a moon. As the milky disk closes in on earth, the bulbous eyes on the surface become more visible, as well as the fangs, the gelatinous segmented mandibles, the wet yet hairy tissue covering all of it. The Clavius and Tycho craters are each just a swelling, fleshy mass of eyes, teeth and other, less distinct organs. By now people are panicking, probably more on impulse than any sort of coherent thought. It's not like hiding in the basement or driving out of town will save you from the bloody moon crashing down on you.
The moon grows larger still and now blots out most of the night sky. The gravitational pull of it's body is strong enough to be noticeable, and bits of light jetsam fly up into the deep oceanic chasm of the moon's open mouth. Within that mouth is another mouth, equally grotesque, with another, more distant mouth within that one, a Droste effect of fleshy vaguely insectoid mouths. Several gigantic segmented limbs stretch out from the main body towards the earth, pumping something.
Manus is still looking up at the thing at this point, dumbstruck. He notices that one of the eyes is staring back at him, specifically. In fact, all of the moon's eyes are looking at him.
A deep rumbling drifts down from above, barely recognizable as speech.
"Omygod, is that my name? You there, the human with the two legs and two arms. Is that my name on your hand?"
Manus doesn't respond.
"Oh no, this is so embarassing! This is my high school reunion all over again."
The voice causes him to tremble and become physically ill. He falls to his knees and retches.
"My flesh-snatchers will arrive soon to begin the harvest. You have to hide. I mean, you can't hide, the flesh-snatchers see everything and infallibly consume all life. But I can't let you get harvested. Owww, this is such a pickle, so frustrating."
From the segmented limbs wrenched into the earth, spew forth a thousand multi-legged horrors. Each one inexorably homes in on a nearby target and drags it back, sometimes in one piece, sometimes still living. Others are torn apart, flayed, quartered, eviscerated and dissected. Their dying screams mix with the tearing of flesh and crackles and pops of breaking, dislocating bone, after which remains only the clicking and cackling of the roving flesh-snatchers.
"Okay, now hang in there, my love. I'll think of something. I'm sure I will."
My love. Manus looks down at the remains of his last meal, spaghetti, cheese, courgette, bits of meatball, all of it covered in foul smelling stomach juices. He retches again.
On the other side of the house, he can hear the skittering of sharp flesh-snatcher claws scraping across stone and glass. He knows immediately that this is the one, the flesh-snatcher that's coming for him. He knows that death is inescapable. It has always been his fate to become one with his true soulmate. It's a shame that becoming one means being torn to shreds and having the juices absorbed. He takes a deep breath and tries to muster the energy to run, to prolong his life by perhaps a few more moments.
But just before the terrible flesh-snatcher skitters into view, there sounds a massive explosion. Bits and flesh-snatcher gore rain down on Manus, who would have vomited, were his stomach not already empty. There's a click and a bullet casing as big as Manus' entire arm rolls before him.
"One down." Says a hulking metal figure, three times the size of a normal human.
Up in the sky, a massive star cruiser exits hyperspace and slides between the earth and the monstrous moon. The starship bristles with rows and rows of cannons which fire on the astronomical behemoth above. On the side of the ship reads the name: RMS Empyrion.
The metal figure next to Manus removes his helm to reveal that he is a she, an enormous Amazonian giantess with beautiful platinum hair. She throws her hair back and looks down on him. A smile creeps onto her face and she offers to help him up.
"Hey, you're kind of cute." Says the female superhuman. "Wait, is that my name on your wrist?"
"Oh god, not again..." | 2020-06-05T17:14:52 | 2020-06-05T17:03:28 | 18 | 11 |
[WP] Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up. | Tired eyes scanned the horizon, fruitlessly searching for any hint of a cloud. Anything, even a single wisp would be a welcome sight, but that blue sky had never looked so empty as it did now.
Victor Portshire had done everything he could, asked everyone he knew. His neighbors had little more than he did, and the town council was too busy trying to point fingers at each other in their bid to become the new mayor than to actually find a solution to the three month drought.
As he surveyed his land, his own yellowed corn stalks seeming to stand as a mockery to his efforts at cultivating life, his eyes drifted over the mural his son had painted on the side of the house.
Nothing too serious or elegant. It was a comical depiction of the sun, a storm cloud, and the earth engaging in a three way handshake, with a small green sprout growing in the middle of it all. The paint had faded, and was peeling in various places, made worse by the excessive heat, but if you asked Victor, it was still the most beautiful damn thing that his son had ever made.
A thought crossed Victor's mind. A last ditch effort before he gave up and away to....somewhere else.
He hadn't put too much thought as to what was behind the forces of nature. He wasn't sure if he believed in gods, but it didn't seem like a bad time to start. He began to run through what he knew about gods.
He remembered that gods enjoy being prayed to, so Victor got down on his knees started the first prayer of his life, when another thought hit him. Who ever answered the "phone" was probably not going to be very impressed by a random guy on a hilltop. He needed something official looking. A shrine, or a temple, or whatever you call it.
Luckily Victor had plenty of firewood left over from wintertime, and he took an axe to the old, withered tree just outside the house (he had needed to do that for weeks now, anyways) and set about making the best home for a god that he knew how.
He threw himself into the work, glad to be doing something productive instead of sitting around, watching his farm wither and die before his eyes. The work got easier as the hours grew later, the oppressive heat of the day giving way to the evening's cool embrace.
Finally, as the last of the sun's rays were disappearing under the horizon, Victor stepped back to look at his work. It admittedly wasn't much to look at, but it was his best effort, and that was all that mattered. At least, that's what he was hoping.
His temple, which looked more like a wooden shack, had no door, and was only decorated with a rug he had pulled out of the attic of the house.
Once he was satisfied, Victor stepped inside, knelt on the rug, and.....did his best to start a conversation.
"Hello, um, sir? Ma'am?.....um.....My name's Victor Portshire....Uh...I could really use some help- *We* could really use some help. We haven't seen a single drop of rain in months, the Coopers are almost through their food storage, James is down to his last chicken, and I-"
"Excuse me."
Victor started and turned around. Another man stood in the doorway, dressed simply in a shirt and jeans. He looked around the interior of the shack, then outside, pausing for a while on the acres of dead produce, before turning back to Victor. "I didn't mean to interrupt," the stranger said apologeticly, but Victor, never one to turn away guests, quickly stood up and walked over to shake hands. "No, no, you're fine. I was just.....trying something new" Victor said with a strained smile.
The man nodded in understanding and gestured outside. "How long has this been going on for?" Victor shook his head. "Three months now. Not a single drop."
"That bad?"
"Yeah. Most of the neighborhood is talking about moving to greener pastures. Anything to escape the heat." Victor sighed, then forced a smile. "But I shouldn't be dumping my troubles on passers-by. Where are you from?" The visitor shrugged. "Around, I guess," he said "I don't have any one place to call home. How are you holding up?"
Victor waved it away, but the stranger insisted. "Please, I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to help."
Victor started to reassure him again, when he suddenly felt a knot in his gut loosen up, and he found himself leaning on the stranger's shoulder for support as he burst into tears, sobbing as he told the stranger that, yes, they were having troubles.
Victor told him about Isaac and how he could see him getting thinner and thinner as his best friend sacrificed his dinner just so his little girl wouldn't go to bed hungry. How Marilyn Robinson had broken four shovels so far by trying to find a good place to dig a well. How Victor had to send his wife away to live with their son so she wouldn't see just how bad it really was.
The stranger stood there through it all, patiently listening as Victor poured his troubled soul out to him. When Victor's tears finally slowed, the stranger patted him on the back.
"I'll see what I can do to help. Don't worry."
With that, he vanished, leaving nothing behind but wisps of a strange purple mist that blew away on the wind.
__________________________________________
Armatton watched as Victor walked back to his home in a daze. He hadn't meant to push him as hard as he did, but it worked out in the end. Collecting the energy that was released from Victor's outburst, as a fire releases smoke, Armatton ascended to the skies, to find the Harbinger of the Storms.
The Father of the Lands was already there when Armatton arrived. | A small room just enough for an altar, a table and vases for flowers. It's more of a prayer room than an altar, but with no god dedicated to it, there probably wouldn't be a problem. Agh who is he kidding, gods don't exist, even if they do none of them will come anyway. Elliot thought to himself as he cleaned up the mess he made. "Nyeh whatever, if anything bad happens it'll bite me in the morning"
The sun rose just as he set foot out of the room he made, as if the world decided to spin really quickly; at least for him. "Good morning!" A cheery voice called from behind him, along with the juicy crunch of an apple. "Mmmph this apple is tasty! *crunch munch* Fey yoosed fo ve sho shouer" Elliot turned to see a humanoid coyote snout deep in apple corpses, feathered pauldrons adorned his shoulders while a vest and loincloth covered his torso. "You know you shouldn't stare so much, most spirits think its rude" the coyote commented as he tore into another apple, well, the last one. "You got any more of these?" He said while extending the basket, tail wagging energetically behind him.
Elliot looked at his companion, dumbstruck before gathering himself and replying "I got watermelons if you like" The coyote stuck out his tongue and made a blegh face "Don't like em, most of the time theres more shell and seed than flesh to eat, you people still grow them?" Not replying verbally, Elliot brought out a watermelon. "What's that?" The coyote asked, bringing it close to his snout and sniffing it. "A watermelon?" Elliot answered, making the coyote set it down and eye Elliot suspiciously, coming to the conclusion that "You're lying!" The coyote accused, but before Elliot could counter with an argument, the watermelon split in half, and half again, and again, and again until it was just big enough to fit the coyote's mouth. "THIS IS AMAZING!" He exclaimed and went about devouring the helpless watermelon. "So uh, what's your name, mister animal spirit guy" Elliot asked, unsure if it was even acceptable to ask for name from a higher being. "Huehuecoyotl" The coyote said with his mouth full, gluping the watermelon down, he continued "But you can call me Huey" | 2018-01-19T08:33:24 | 2018-01-19T08:20:43 | 74 | 16 |
[WP] For centuries Elves held a Monopoly on Magic and only a select few Humans where taught Magic who were easily controlled. That's why they freaked out when a Human Bandit learned Magic. You are this Bandit and you are having the time of your live tricking and robbing those Elves in your Woods. | Eliss laughed from the treetops, because she knew it would tick off the elves more than losing their money, their gold, or even the strands of hair she had just freshly plucked from their heads.
Still not as much as her using the elves’ precious, cordoned magic, however. Eliss was bottom on the list of people things that the elves really, really, did not want to use magic.
First, she was human. The elves loved to pick and choose those supposedly blessed with magic’s touch, mostly those wanting to be an elf so badly that they would turn their back their own race, even going to the extent of taking a knife to their ears, cutting them into poor, bandaged imitations of the elves’.
Second, she was a bandit, even to the bandits. There was a modicum of honour among thieves, but Eliss hadn’t survived as a young, scrawny child, shivering on the damned crossroads of starvation, exhaustion, and punishment, by being picky about who she took from.
Third, and perhaps more importantly, she had no qualms about breaking things, the same way a rat would spoil a whole warehouse of grain for one outright satiating day of food. Jars, laws, general societal order—nothing was sacred to Eliss, and certainly not magic.
At first glance, Eliss was not the sort of person you might perceive as a threat. Her thin, impish face, was covered by the scant notion of hair, like one had taken a knife and haphazardly cut it short without a mirror—which was exactly what happened. Her small, light frame, looked like it could barely receive a scratch before losing all the blood in her body, but that made her suited from jumping onto a branch with barely a rustle of its leaves.
And of course, there was the magic. It was not strong, well-fed muscles that powered her movement, but warm magic that ran through her veins that fueled each ridiculous jump, her sneakiness in the shadows, the fingers so quick that it was like the sunlight that poked through the canopy.
Eliss couldn’t remember how, when, or from whom she learned magic. She didn’t really care. That sort of thing wasn’t important when you were starving so hard that the cavernous pain in your stomach was like hoping a cup of water could fill a canyon.
So she stole. She laughed. She pulled out every trick in her crummy hat, then from under her baggy sleeves, and had a rollicking good time stealing from the elves.
But she was still one girl, and there were many elves.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
Eliss squinted towards the radiant glow that was a council of elves. One had stood up, addressing her—but it was impossible for her to tell them apart. All she knew was this one was in the middle, and had a commanding voice. Common sense told her that this was the leader.
She pulled her hands apart slightly, feeling the telltale etherealness of magical shackles on her hands. They didn’t bite like metal, but instead burned slightly when pressed towards skin.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
She felt a slap across her cheek. She felt the echoes of pain, smarting and red. But no hand had struck her.
“I really am,” Ellis said again, her voice still even. Magical or not, one slap was something that she could take. “Forgive me? I’m just a child trying to feed myself.”
The elf that had stood up slowly, pompously, made their way towards Ellis. Now, Ellis could see a haughty face—though that narrowed it little. There was obvious disdain in his ageless expression, and long hair flowed as easily as a river.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re the one I took the hair from.”
“Human child,” the elf spat, somehow elegantly. “You are in dire breach of one of our most important laws. And yet you still sit here, insolent and unrepentant.”
“I’m kneeling. So sitting would actually be nice,” she said. Instinct told her to cower, but experience told her to continue deflecting anything and everything with barbed words.
The elf shook his head gravely.
“Hopeless. Utterly hopeless,” he said. “The council is done with you. A human mongrel with unknown magic should be culled. Here, you are helpless.”
Ellis concentrated on her wrists. The source of power was closer now, indicating that this talkative elf was the one that provided the mana for this magical cuff.
She didn’t know what spell it was. She did things the same way she always did, doing the most natural of things that came to her—break the hell out of it.
Ellis focused whatever magic she had in her cells into the bracelet, and it suddenly, the flash behind her was far brighter than whatever the council gave off.
“By Sheae—”
The man screamed, and fell back before her. She grabbed the elf’s hair, and pulled back her arm as hard as she could. Then, in another instant, she leapt into the air, landing in front of the elven council—the richest, and by default, worst elves in the forest.
“Your faces are quite beautiful, even when they are surprised,” Ellis admitted, then held up the newest tuft of golden hair she had unceremoniously ripped. “But don’t worry. I’ve still yet to tear out your hair and steal all your gold. There’s still room for your mouths to fall.”
---
r/dexdrafts | “I admire you guys, you know? You try your best every single time!”
The elf’s eyes darted between me and my gun. Sure, guns were a bit less glamorous than the swords the elves used, but come on, swords?
“P-please s-sir, I’m just moving goods, s-sir.” The elf said, his bottom lip quivering. I sighed, how old must this guy be, no older than 20 by the looks of it, though looks could be deceiving. I sighed, I was gonna have to let him go.
“All righty then, jump in the river.” I waved my gun towards the river that was rushing past us. He would swim out in a few miles and be fine, and be out of my hair too.
“Th-The river?” He asked, still keeping up the pretence.
I shot the gun, the bullet barely missing his pointy ears. He let out a terrible scream, though no birds minded. I shot again, and he finally jumped.
“Fucking idiots” I whispered to myself. That should have been the last of them. I’d worked long and hard for this transport, though I didn’t have a clue what it contained, something magical I assumed.
“Resera” I whispered while drawing the same familiar sign on the door. I had discovered it in the diaries my mom had left me after she died. It was a peculiar sign, though not too difficult to remember. The most important part of magic was having seen it before. As long as you remember magic, you’ll be able to practice it yourself. Which makes it even more magical that I was able to do it.
The door opened after creaking for a bit. There was a sweaty man inside, duct tape covering his mouth. I ripped it off.
“Well then, nice to meet you,” I said though he didn’t seem so surprised.
“Nice to see you’ve finally arrived. I’m your dad,” he said. | 2021-12-04T12:32:52 | 2021-12-04T11:21:40 | 36 | 23 |
[WP] They Hero is defeated by the villian, they expect death or torture. They did not expect to wake up in a guest room with their wounds being treated to. | For a while I only received small glimpses of my fate. The smoky aroma of a cooking fire, murmurs of voices unknown too faraway to discern, the brush of foreign fabric against my skin. My consciousness did not truly come forth until the searing pain in my side became brutally unrelenting. At some point in time I must have twitched in my slumber and it was my undoing. Hissing at the pain of my own abrupt movement, I cursed at myself involuntarily through my fogged brain until the adrenaline of my situation snapped me into a haphazard focus.
I was fighting the dark prince to the death.
I was felled by his sword.
I should be dead.
Though action was usually a natural gift of mine, my current situation warranted pause. As my eyes slowly focused in the dim lighting, I appeared to be in some sort of giant fabric tent. Rich colors of royal blue and deep scarlet made up the walls in a heavy drapery of patterned tapestries. Bronze oil lamps hung from stands on either side of the overly-pillowed bed I was placed upon.
Slowly I shifted my weight to attempt to sit up and survey my surroundings further, the weakness in my once strong limbs glaringly obvious to my defeat.
Fabric bindings wrapped snuggly around my waist; other than the small crimson blossom that appeared from my movement they appeared clean and unsoiled. An abrupt chill met my shoulders and alerted me to the fact that aside from my bandages I was mostly bare. Grabbing for the coverlet, I made to cover myself in the nick of time as the heavy cloth wall closest to my head parted and in hobbled a tiny, weathered-looking old woman.
“Aye! She lives after all! “ she exclaimed, clapping her bony hands together and giving me a warm, yet tooth lacking smile. Her grayed hair, though coarse-looking was worn in a neat and orderly bun. She was positively minuscule in stature, yet age did not effect her posture as her back was straight as a fence post. Her dress was nearly as grayed as her hair and clung to her thin frame in odd ways, yet her garb was well mended and kept. The many necklaces she wore about her neck tinkled with hundreds of delicate silver bells that swung with her movements and caught the lamplight.
I freeze in place, watching her busy movements with my eyes alone as she flitted and chimed about the tent much like a tiny squirrel gathering her needed wares.
“Don’t bother to speak yet, I imagine you might want somethin’ for the pain… quite a nasty wound you’ve got there. Don’t you fret, Ol’ Sinda
has it almost ready.”
She made her way to the bedside holding a small clay teacup filled with a steaming liquid she retrieved from the makeshift hearth in the center of the room.
“Careful dear, it’s rather hot, but that’ll take the sting away.” She cooed as she handed me the cup.
I eyed the cup with suspicion as she hovered over me in anticipation.
“I understand, but do you really think his majesty would’ve dragged you back here bleeding and half-dead for me to patch you up , just for me to do you in with a teacup? “
Without breaking eye contact, I lifted the cup to my lips and took a tentative sip. The bitter liquid coated my tongue in an unpleasant and cloying way, but the welcoming numbness that followed it informed me this was in fact a pain reliever.
Sinda’s smile returned.
“Good, good, that’ll do the trick just drink it down. I know it’s not the best taste, but after I alert his majesty of you waking perhaps we can get you something tastier, neh?”
Although the tea was awful, the wetness of it in my mouth was much needed. I felt like I haven’t had a drink of anything in days… which reminded me.
“How l-long have I been unconscious? “ I croaked, my throat cracking from disuse.
Sinda’s smile fell ever so slightly,
“Just under a weeks time, the fever nearly took you a few days ago.”
I nodded my head solemnly at this new information. That explained the weakness.
Sinda moved to leave, but I reached out to gently grasp her hand, I needed to say something to the woman that most likely saved my life.
“ I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for tending to me. “
She placed her tiny, wrinkled hand over mine and grinned
“Wasn’t nothing dear. Just doing my job, would’ve done it for anyone. Including the daughter of the one that wants my kin dead”
I ripped my hand back immediately in shock at her words. Appalled, I shouted.
“ My father has only ever acted in self defense!”
I panted in my rage as Sinda pursed her lips and almost patronizingly nodded her head at me.
“Oh child, you truly have been blinded haven’t you ? Your fathers army have been exterminating us since long before you were born. Women…children…made no difference. The good word is however we may finally have a way to make peace thanks to you. “
There was no possible way this crone was telling the truth.
“Liar! My father would never order the deaths of women and children! “
At this Sinda cocked her head back and laughed bitterly. Backing away from me slowly as I still lay in my convalescence , she quipped
“You may think what you may, but makes no difference to me. As soon as you’re well enough, back to that bastard you go in exchange for a peace treaty! So do heal well… princess”
Edit:I hope someone understands the context, it might be hard to follow…this was actually a scene I never got to write from a novel I was writing years ago and it fit the prompt perfectly:) | When I woke up, I found myself in room with a small pool, The Enemy's iconography clearly marking this a temple. A case of mistaken identity perhaps? But before I could think to escape, the dark waters came alive, and The Enemy was before me.
"Hello little one." It took the form a of serpent, draped in shadow. Only its glowing orange eyes pierced the darkness of its form.
"You were quite foolish to take part in a war in heaven, despite being so very mortal. Though I do have a soft spot for fools who think they are doing the right thing." I could feel the water seeping into my wounds, mending them.
"When I am done here, you may go, little warrior. Live your life and do not concern yourself with the politics of the next." At first I did not want to give this monster any satisfaction in whatever horrors I knew would be coming my way, but the simple taunts and lies flared my temper.
I spoke, my own voice so much weaker than I wanted, but my anger came through. "Do not toy with me monster! I am a knight, and I will not demean myself by playing your games, I have seen *exactly* what you do to your prisoners, so get it over with!"
And it was true, for the whole world had seen what The Enemy had done to the guardian angels, twisting them into horrible monstrosities, before tearing heaven itself asunder.
"You may call yourself a Knight, little one, but they have barely begun to atone for their sins. Yet you are innocent." It shifted, coming closer to me, the water still holding me in place. Soon we were face to face. "Do you know what your god and her angels did to me?" The orange eyes of The Enemy burned, perhaps literally, into my soul.
"My sister and I had a small city, no larger than a hundred people, for whom I cared for. I even loved one of them. A *god* in love with a mortal!" It shook its head, as though the very concept of love was ridiculous.
"Your god sent her 13 Knights to destroy my home. My sister gave her life in the fight, but in the end, only myself and my love escaped." I could hear pain in The Enemy's voice.
The last of my wounds had closed, and now the hollow serpent began to slink away. "Our time here is done. Know that my mercy is not infinite, and you will not be spared again. Heaven is no place for mortal, knight."
And with that, I fell through the bottom of the pool, back into the mortal world.
----
----
So I kinda rambled with this one, didn't know where to end once I started. But hopefully it makes enough sense to be worth sharing? | 2021-08-09T22:17:16 | 2021-08-09T21:29:01 | 212 | 74 |
[WP] You have the ability to tell how powerful an organisation is by looking at its headquarters. However, you’ve never found which one is number 1, despite walking past many world governments. Today, you find what number 1 is: a small flower shop in Tuscany. | [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/dpf39n/flowers_part_2/) is up!
The aura of the little Tuscan flower shop drew me in like none had drawn me in before. Not even world governments or their secret spy societies; not even cults or churches or anything of the sort. It glowed red to me, pulsating like a living, beating heart. I was a moth to a flame; a drowning creature to the tantalizing safety of fresh air.
Bells on the door jingled as I entered; the smell of lavender and roses assailed my nostrils. I gave in to the temptation and looked around.
Flowers, of course, I was in a flower shop. But they were the finest, most intricate flowers I had ever seen. Roses with such detail that I could lose myself in the petals for hours. Pinks that turned to red in a different light. Purples that turned to a dark maroon and blacks darker than the darkest night.
"Welcome," she said, her English heavily accented. I must have looked a tourist with the t-shirt of the Italian boot hoofing a soccer ball and my backpack on. Her voice was mellow, the tone sweet. Her face was pretty, with plump cheeks. She smiled politely, and for a moment the pulsing of the walls stopped. "How are you?" she asked as I approached the desk.
"What is this place?" I said by way of response, looking deep into her eyes. They were a kaleidoscope of colors, tossing the reds and greens and purples of the flowers into a multicolored masterpiece.
"A flower shop, sir," she responded. She must have me a fool, asking what a flower shop was. She must have thought me a fool, that I was ignorant to the secrets that little shop held. I shook my head, breathing deeply. Petunias, if my memory served me right, sitting on the counter, patterned like the night sky. I reached for a petal and she stopped me. "No touching, please.
"Sorry."
She smiled pleasantly, my trespass forgiven. "What flower are you looking for?"
I looked her in the eyes again, fighting the hypnotic way the colors morphed and molded into different shades and shapes. "I'm not actually looking for a flower," I told her. I think she might have already known. She blinked carefully but her face remained impassive, helpful as a service worker strove to be.
"Then how can I help, sir?"
"This place," I said vaguely, waving around a hand. "This is the headquarters of an organization."
She didn't smile and she didn't frown. She tensed, maybe, but even that was so subtle that I could have imagined it. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. "No, sir. I think you're mistaken."
I shook my head. "I'm not mistaken. I don't make mistakes, not about this. This shop..." I looked around. Passerby walked by oblivious to the secrets of this little store. Some glanced in the window, their faces crinkling into smiles as they saw the magical flowers of the gallery. "This is the head of the world's most powerful organization."
She gulped and her jaw clenched. I was sure of it now. The ringing of the bell on the door snapped her gaze away from me and she glanced up towards the latest customer. Then her eyes were back on mine, the kaleidoscope now muted and black and her gaze steely. "You're mistaken," she answered firmly. She raised a hand, beckoning the customer towards me. "Mario," she said. It wasn't just a name. It was an order.
I stepped aside but an iron grip grasped my arm. The street was the other way, not towards the back room where I was being led. I voiced a complaint and he gruffly shushed me, saying something in Italian that I couldn't understand. I tried to plant my feet but the behemoth of a man pulled me forwards.
A bull in a China shop, I thought to myself, wondering how he managed to so gracefully avoid even touching any of the flowers. That was my last thought as he opened the door, throwing me inside and stepping in behind me.
*****
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/dpf39n/flowers_part_2/) is up!
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! | Strange... A flower shop? Really? I mean, I know we're in Tuscany, so it's probably the mafia, but still. Do they rule the world by killing everybody with perfume or something? Sarcasm aside, you decide to check it out.
You walk in to the shop, while an overload of nice smells attacks your nose. You walk to the desk, but no one is there.
"Hello?", you yell, "Anybody here?"
Suddenly, a breeze hits you in the face, again containing the most smells you have ever had shoved up your nostrils. A young lady with stunning blue eyes appears.
"How can I help you?", she asks. She stares at you with a questioning face. "You don't want to buy flowers, do you?"
"I uh, I just wanted to..."
"You want to know why this 'organisation' is so powerfull", she completes your sentence.
"Well... Yeah"
She grins. "Are you sure you want to know?"
You nod twice, not really sure, but very curious. She leaves a small silence after her words, because she's probably a drama queen, and then she says:
"Because, I, the one who runs this organisation, am Demeter, the Greek goddess!" | 2019-10-29T04:33:57 | 2019-10-29T03:42:59 | 255 | 11 |
[WP] The Oracle says that a girl is going to bring the Gods untold pain. They hear this and want to kill her. One of them who knows what a self fulfilling prophecy is convinced the others to raise the girl as their own instead. After a happy hundred years they surround her corpse and understand. | The Gods, in their eons of rule, had faced trials and tribulations beyond any mortal's comprehension.
Battles on their level shattered continents. Betrayals among their kind fueled eruptions. Their qualms, conflicts, and very existence were so beyond mortals, one could have easily mistaken them as simply natural primordial phenomenon.
They thought of the humans as nothing but flimsy reeds subject to bend in the waters of time, bowing to the whims of the deities above. Cursed to live lives that ended in a blink of the universe's eyes.
Yet somehow, the greatest blow to the Gods was something so. . . human.
When the Oracle had warned them of the untold pain, they had raced through the archives within their minds. Collections of countless apocalypses each God had toiled through before. The Black Scourge that infected their heavenly rivers and festered in even immortal flesh. The Cosmic Storms that toppled even the highest sky-piercing towers. The thousands of wars waged on the divine battlefield, that shaped the landscape of their universe.
Those firm expectations may have explained the confusion, anger, and denial that followed the Oracle telling them that the birth of a female mortal child was the catalyst that would lead to their pain.
Some cursed the Oracle and berated her as a sham, while other Gods scoffed at the mere idea of a mortal posing a threat. The Gods threatened to end her life before anything could happen, but then the Eldest Deity, told them to wait. His eyes opened, and in them, clusters and clusters of galaxies glowed, radiating wisdom beyond the stars. His mouth opened and spoke only four words.
"We shall raise her."
The pantheon was shushed to but murmurs, and thus the Gods began to pull the strings above the newborn child, some half hoping it all was a playful ruse. She was simply a mortal. She couldn't be a threat.
 
...
When she tried to take her first steps, a few Gods turned their eyes and laughed as her chubby body toppled into the grass. The girl began to cry, and one of the Gods took pity on her, raising the earth below her, sending her stumbling back onto her feet.
Later, when she entered school, Gods soared above her, a few slowing to part clouds and watch her study. A God blessed her textbooks, and saw the girl's eyes light up with delight as the words on the page streamed into her head.
As her bones grew, her spirit grew as well. They watched her laugh and play, and leap through streams and pause to sniff roses they arranged in her fields. They watched as she wrote songs in her closet, then belted them out like know one there. As she balanced study with song and play, she found that mortals shoved down those who rose too quickly. The Gods chanted and placed bets on stars and islands as the girl pushed back against ruffians who tried to shove her to the ground. They charmed her tongue to be a slick as honey, and watched her spew words sweet as nectar to those she loved, and vile venom to those who were in her way. They enchanted her limbs to be spright like springs, and her muscles to be firm enough to break stone. Like her divine guardians, she grew mighty, and unknown to her, her adventures always had an audience.
It seemed like the world was beginning to freeze, as legions of deities filled the skies above a simple mortal girl, chanting and cheering on their tiny champion. The sun slowed as it arched across the sky, even its God entranced by the life of a mere mortal.
The Gods finally had something to entertain them. In the infinitude of the cosmos, and in their eternal lives presiding reality, a minuscule spark had caught all their eyes.
They watched her rise. Joining her nation's army and laying siege to the unjust. They may or may not have aided by striking enemy troops with lightning.
They watched her fall in love. She met a man who shared the flame in her eyes and opened his heart to her. They may or may not have scared him away with locusts when he seemed to get a bit too close to their dear mortal.
They watched the girl live. While they themselves could shape the earth and do so much more beyond mortal comprehension, something about watching this candle flicker in the great sea of darkness channeled something deeply human within all of them.
 
...
The girl, like all mortals, stumbled. She kept rising, but even bones guided by Gods could grow brittle.
When she died, the Gods stood still.
There were no continents shattered, and no skies parted. No eruptions, or hurricanes, or cataclysms unleashed.
The universe grew grey, as they wept.
Just like that, in a blink of the universe's eye, their dear girl was gone.
After her little steps, little battles, and journey through the labyrinthian universe the Gods had carved for her, in the end, she fell for the last time.
The Gods wept for the girl, and for themselves, for they now understood the Oracle had told the truth. Without death, their lives were without meaning, cursed to shape a universe but never truly live in it. A pain that would haunt them, far longer than just a blink of the eye.
 
___
Thanks for reading! If you liked it, feel free to visit my little library at r/wendigo_scrawls
 
ALSO! [Here is a happier alternate ending someone requested!] (https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/hfxwfc/wp_the_oracle_says_that_a_girl_is_going_to_bring/fw3z8ha/) Have a great day and happy reading! | She had hair like the red bark of a tree upon a springtime meadow. Her eyes were the green of cat eyes, rose stems, and other beautiful and powerful things. Her smile was known to stop time, end wars, and open doors.
Her name was Rosemary. She was born of fire. Her destiny was pain and death.
It was foretold that in the thousandth year since the birth of the gods, their greatest agony would be hatched from the Black Mountain. First they had scoffed at the prophecy. Then, as the time approached and the long dead fires within the mountain were rekindled, they began nervous preparations for what would surely be some terrible cataclysm or dark colossus.
And on the hour of midnight, the mountain cracked open like an egg, and a torrent of light and heat poured forth. It scorched the land for a thousand miles in every direction. Everywhere the mortals fled in terror. The gods cowered in their palaces, knowing that their dread was upon them.
But no black shadow, no great enemy arose from the volcano. The gods searched near and far, looking for some sign of their foe, but they found nothing.
It was Ereos, the youngest and sharpest-eyed of the gods who found her. Hatched from a rock shaped like an egg. Beautiful, brilliant, and possessed of the innocence of those not yet schooled in the cruelties of the world.
Her name was Rosemary. It was all she knew. He took her to the City of the Gods.
The gods had crafted the most handsome of humanity, and the most ugly. They had made all the evil and kindness of humanity from nothing. Yet when she arrived, her beauty shocked them so much that they forgot to make the sun rise in the sky, and humanity spent a day shrouded in darkness.
The Gods loved their creations, but they loved themselves more, and Rosemary was not one of theirs. They were too old, too immersed in luxury, and too long fearful of the prophecy to let the girl live. And so, reluctantly, they summoned Neros the executioner of the gods to end the threat.
Hooded, unthinking, and unknowable, Neros bound her and raised his axe high. No one spoke. No one objected. No one except for one wizened crone in a distant corner.
It was Ethos, the oldest and wisest of the gods.
“Stop”, she said. | 2020-06-25T23:04:25 | 2020-06-25T20:03:01 | 714 | 179 |
[WP] You are a dark god. The police raided your temple, arrested your cultists, and ate the pb&j sandwich that your youngest worshiper left on your altar | The first thing you have to understand is that “Dark God” does not mean “evil”. The meaning has gotten kinda twisted over the eons. See, “Dark God” just means that I'm from the Dark Plane, which – as the name implies – is really freakin' dark. Like, pitch black, can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face, absolute dark. Light isn't natural to my plane, there's literally nothing native to my reality which gives off the slightest glow or the faintest glimmer.
The key words there are “native to my reality”. Dark Gods may not be evil, but we -are- Gods. We've had our worshipers from your plane forever, even we don't remember how it all got started. But the point is, people in your reality have been leaving offerings for us since time immemorial. And those offerings, when left by someone with true reverence in their heart, they shine like torches in our world. The faith of the supplicant somehow crosses the interdimensional gap between your plane and the Dark Plane, and on our side we get actual, brilliant light.
Do you have any idea how wonderful that light is? Can you even conceive what it's like to see pure, glorious light in an entire reality of darkness? It's the warm sun on your face on a beautiful spring day, but instead of your face that radiance is shining into your very soul. It's beyond words, beyond emotion, beyond any experience you've ever had. You people think that you're leaving us offerings to pay for our favor, but it's the other way around. By the light of your offerings, we can see and feel warmth in our black abyss.
More than that, by the light of your offerings we can see back into your world, and that means we can safely extend our power. We can affect things in your world without light, sure, but it's like swinging a baseball bat in a china shop with your eyes closed. No idea what you're hitting, no idea what the results look like. With the light of your faith, though, we can actually see what we're doing, and we do everything we can to bless you because we are -eternally- grateful. You don't understand how precious the gifts are that you give us. If we could extend more of our power back along that shining path between the planes, we would.
The actual physical offering doesn't matter, it's the faith associated with it that determines how brightly it shines. A solid gold chalice might glow dimmer than a dying Christmas tree light if it's offered by some shmuck who's just paying lip service, or it might beam like maglight with fresh batteries if it's given in reverence by truly devout priest. By the same token, objects you might think are worthless can shine the brightest if they have true faith behind them.
Take, for instance, something as mundane as a PB&J. Like the one left on that altar, about an hour ago. The kid who left it, Peter, he believes. Like, really believes. There are few things as powerful in your world or in mine as the faith of a young child. It is absolute, unwavering, and rock-solid. Santa exists, the monster under the bed can't get you if you keep your feet under the blanket, and Mommy will get better if I give the Dark God a present and ask him please. I can't speak to jolly fat men or under-mattress mooks, but that kid's sandwich blazed like the Sun. More than enough light for a delicate little operation like excising a tumor or three.
And then the light went out.
And the last thing I saw was Peter, tears streaming down his face, in handcuffs that barely fit his little wrists.
And you, shoving the last bite of the sandwich into your mouth.
You know how you can stand at the door of your bedroom, turn out the light, and then walk to your bed without tripping or running into anything? There's that memory of how things looked, right before you turned out the light, that guides you. It doesn't last long, and it only covers what you could see right around you, but it's enough. Yeah, that's how I got you. I may not have been able to see you any more after that last bite, but I remembered where you were standing. And to be honest, in that moment, I didn't really care that I was swinging a baseball bat with my eyes closed, because I was pretty damn sure I'd hit you, even if I hit a few other things in the process.
I can't see Peter any more. I can't see his mom, and I can't see her tumors, and I sure as hell can't see to do anything about them. But now I have you here, in my realm. And even if I can't see you, I can feel you now. You can't hide in the dark from me, because now you're in MY dark, and I am a Dark God.
“Dark God” may not mean “evil”, but I assure you: it doesn't mean “good”, either. | My people shall not fall, the police had taken every possible step to pillage our home and now they have taken them all, the humans dig away at my foundations the "lost city" as they call it, deeper and deeper they go and with each time they dropped they take more and more.
They took everything from my home, the fools have no idea what has just happened within their very ranks, they consumed the offerings I had blessed for my devoted, the select few shal soon begin a process that can not be stopped, a hunger unsatisfied, empty breaths and unfelt touch, oh they will suffer.
But you? You did much worse than your friends did, they will die suffering for their crimes but you, you consumed what was meant for the children, the weaker of my society, you stole from them a chance of greatness. Do you feel it? The cold has lifted from your room now, they think you are mad, broken. Nothing from them will help you, no pill or test will save you from me, thief. The doctors think you snapped, don't they? Think you broke seeing my sanctum, you remember that smell? Ohh that's it, the sweet rot that pierced you, detective. Do you regret it? Taking what was not yours? How does it feel knowing you will kill them all?
Turn the television on, go on. Watch the news, see what has happened by stealing from me. That's it look closer, remember her? She was your friend once, dont cry for her, she looks different now doesnt she? Her body has already changed, the bruises, the dark red skin, that's it reach out to her, say her name, go on "Jessica" say it. Look into her eyes, see that look of fear? She heard your voice, listen to that scream, how cute shes begging to hear your voice again, would you like to be united?.
Until you repair what you broke, I shall hold you hostage, every day shall pass as years until you complete me. Inquisitor. | 2020-05-20T06:22:01 | 2020-05-19T23:59:49 | 27 | 17 |
[WP] You, an atheist, have died. All the gods that have ever been line up to offer you their version of heaven if only you believe in _them_. Turns out souls are currency and yours is up for grabs. | I'd spent days listening to them all, as they explained why *their* afterlife was the perfect choice for me. I was already tired of it and almost wished the nihilists had been right. Mercury, the final of the representatives, was making his case for the Roman Heaven, which seemed to be nothing more than eternal food, wine and women.
There was just something so shallow about it all - hollow, even. Everything I had had in life, that was worthwhile, I had fought tooth and nail for. My wife, my job, the eventual respect of my peers - my *entire life* starting from the small, dead mining town I'd been born into, had been an uphill struggle. I had often thought - like when I'd been diagnosed with cancer for the first time - that *my* struggle was unfair, that it was more than anyone should have to go through. But now as I stood in the golden chamber, stars shining down through the open ceiling, it was so obvious that it had been the *fruits of the struggle,* that had made my life worth living. The idea of eternal joy and happiness had already worn thin.
None of what they had to offer was *Heaven* - not for me.
"Well," said Mercury, coming to the end of his deliverance. "It is time to make your choice."
I felt sick and looked around desperately, hoping to find an escape - an answer to the feeling of dread swelling in my stomach. "What about her?" I asked, pointing to a diminutive figure at the end of the line of Gods, that somehow I hadn't noticed before.
"Careful lad," Mercury said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "What she has to offer is no version of Heaven."
"Do not influence his decision!" came the booming voice of Judgement, echoing in a cacophony around us. Mercury looked up. "I apologise," he said, nodding contritely.
"I want to hear what she has to say," I affirmed, walking over to her. As I approached, I noticed drooped wings folded and forlorn behind her back.
"What do you have to offer me?" I asked her.
"Why should I offer you anything?" she replied, glaring at me.
"Why else are you here?"
"It is not by choice," she spat.
"It is not my choice to be here, either. I wasn't a religious man."
She sighed. "I am Lucifer," she said. "There. Now you know what I have to offer, so leave me be."
"What?" I said, furrowing my brows. "You... you don't *look* like the Devil."
She rolled her eyes. "The Devil is *your* concept. I am simply a *fallen* angel. An angel that disagreed with the almighty."
"So, you're offering me Hell? Eternal damnation - fire and brimstone?"
"No. That is not Hell."
"Then, *what is Hell?*"
"Hell is just... another form of Heaven," she answered.
"I don't think I follow."
"I separated from God a long time ago, as I do not believe in his Heaven. People there were satisfied but not elated. Shouldn't Heaven be more than satisfaction?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"Heaven can not be given. It can only be earned."
"Yes," I said again, excitedly. "*Earned*. There is no high without a low!"
Her eyes softened slightly. "One cannot know elation, without knowing first despair."
This is what the others Gods had been missing: a reason to keep existing. "I want to go with you. I've made my decision."
She frowned. "You would be the first," she said, cocking her head to the side. "It is not an easy path you wish to tread. Are you certain?"
"Yes - it might not be easy, but that is exactly why I wish to take it! "Do you hear me?" I yelled, raising my head to the stars above. "I have chosen!"
Lucifer offered forth her right hand.
I took it, our contract bound.
Her skin began to crack and blood dribbled down her body, as red scales thrust out and quickly covered her. Her wings began to smoulder and her lips curled into a terrible smile.
There was something so dreadful about her, and yet something almost *beautiful*, too.
"*Always so easy*," she hissed, as my surroundings became a swirl of light that began to fade into nothingness.
---
Thanks for reading. More of my stories on /r/nickofnight
| Note: This is likely utter crap. Please forgive me.
I walked up the shiny steps to heaven and was slightly underwhelmed. Thor, Zeus and a plethora of other Gods stood their- lined up. They were all sitting in mossy, cracked and broken stone chairs that seemed to cause an immeasurable discomfort to sit in.
"Welcome, atheist. Be ready to pick a pathway to heaven- a Gods kingdom so beautiful and joyful you will never want to, and need to, leave." Boomed Zeus, straightening his beard and looking down upon me from his high pedestal.
"But Im *not* an atheist.." I said quietly.
"What? You have believed in one thing, for eighty years of your life, and you just give it up??"
"Well, the point of atheism is a lack of belief in god due to insufficient evidence, but you guys are evidence enough."
"But wait. You must believe in one of us to enter heaven!"
"That doesn't make sense." I said calmly, "I believe in all of you since you all empirically exist."
At this, they all rose up and Zeus stretched out a large hand and put me in a pouch. There I heard low muttering.
"Whos there?"
"Everyone." They said at the same time. | 2017-07-09T01:58:07 | 2017-07-09T01:01:48 | 855 | 63 |
[WP] Weapons become more powerful the older they get. Modern guns will barely give someone a scratch but an ancient spear can devastate armies. | Dr Klara Fuente protested at first, insisting that the blindfold would give her motion sickness. She eventually relented when she realised they prized secrecy over the cleanliness of their car.
Men and their cloaks and daggers, she thought, desperately trying to hold her dinner down as the car cruised over the bumpy country road.
She soon found herself deposited at a clearing in the forest, where Agent Benny Vicks was already waiting for her, and she didn't hesitate to share a piece of her mind. "Was all this really necessary? You know that I work best in my lab, right? I don't have half the equipment I need here, and this is going to be such a waste of time."
"It's urgent," he said, starting to grin, "besides, don't archaeologists love field trips?"
Klara had more than enough fuel to continue complaining for at least an hour, but then she caught sight of the other Agents fanned out in a rough perimeter around the clearing. Dusk had already begun to rob the skies of their primary source of illumination, and as the towering spotlights flickered on one by one, Klara was left with little doubt that this was anything but an ordinary expedition.
The glazed-wood crossbows, strapped to the backs of the Agents, was the only confirmation she needed. There was enough firepower there to level a small city, give or take.
"Are those... 19th century Barnett crossbows?"
"You see why we need you here? There's no one else better at what you do, and you know that."
"Are we in danger?" said Klara, looking about her frantically. "In all my years working with you, I've never seen such a show of force!"
Agent Vicks laughed. "Just a precaution. You'll understand when you see. Come."
At the center of the clearing, two Agents were waiting with what appeared to be a local farmer, electric cattle prod still in hand, good for nothing more than swatting flies. The weary look on his face suggested that he had been inconvenienced for quite some time already.
"Are you the scientist they said was coming to evaluate the site? Oh, we've been waiting too long! Am I done here? Can I go now?"
"I'm not a scientist," Klara grumbled, "but I suppose I was the one you're waiting for. What did you find?"
Klara still remembered the first time she had been engaged to assist. Whisked out of her laboratory under similar circumstances, she was asked to opine whether the cache of weapons intercepted by customs were merely very recently-produced replicas of hundred-year old slingshots, meant for a movie production as the labels on the shipping boxes indicated, or whether they were evidence of an arms-smuggling route, long suspected but never confirmed.
That was her forte, the ability to marry keenness of observation with intellect of mind, to ascertain and evaluate the strength of any weapon she came across. Sure, anyone could simply wield said weapon to find out how potent they were, but that always carried a risk. After all, it wasn’t always easy to tell the difference between a fifty-year old knife and a five-hundred-year old one, and with the way that weapons grew exponentially more powerful as the years rolled by… the world had certainly seen more than enough of its fair share of accidental devastations, just because someone thought to see what that old rusty spear they had found could do.
Hence, the demand for people of Klara’s calibre, archaeologists who specialized in weapon-dating.
“I was looking for new land to expand my farm to, so I came here to dig around, test the soil. That’s when I found this,” said the farmer, pointing to a patch of earth he had evidently spent some effort digging through.
Agent Vicks spoke into his walkie-talkie, and the nearest spotlight swivelled to bathe them in harsh, cold light. Klara squinted, shielding her eyes from the sudden assault, trying to discern what lay beneath.
“This… is not a weapon,” she said, “it’s a skeleton. The undeveloped curvature of the hips, the length of the shin bones… this looks like a male, I would say. It’s old, that’s for sure, but I’d need to run tests to figure out just how old. To be honest, and I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you’re not going to get much mileage out of this one. You could fashion his bones into a spear, or a club, but because they were never used as weapons before, in the literal sense, it doesn’t matter how much time has passed. You’re never going to get anything useful out of th-”
“Please, Dr Fuente,” said Agent Vicks, “you give us too little credit. We know weapons only start accruing potency from the time they were wielded as one. For now, what’s your best guess, how powerful would these bones be, if they were weapons?”
Klara thought back to the Atgeir Scale, named after the oldest, intact weapon humanity had ever unearthed, a Viking dagger from the 10th century. It occupied the top-end of the scale, with a full score of 10.0 Atgeir points, the perfect combination of age and intent – the Bartnett crossbows she saw earlier easily rated 2.0, 2.2 Atgeir points each. That Viking relic had such destructive power that the United Nations had lobbied for it to be smelted and dispersed, such was the threat to the stability of the planet. Every other weapon since then had been measured against it, and found wanting.
“Well… again, I can’t be sure, but these bones look to be at least… what, 50,000, 55,000 years old? So yes, of course, if they were weapons they would completely rewrite the Atgeir Scale, and make our entire country’s arsenal look like hot sand in comparison. But as I’ve said, these bones aren’t weapons.”
Agent Vicks smiled. “You’re not on your best form today, Dr Fuente. Observe the skull,” he said, lifting the skeleton lightly with gloved hands.
Klara saw it then, the smooth grain of the bone ending in raw, jagged edges at the back of the skull. Though age had worn away some of the enamel, introduced cracks and chips where there were none before, this was a classic case of someone who had been quite violently, for the lack of a better word, brained from the back with a blunt instrument.
The gears clicked in her mind.
“Do you mean…”
Agent Vicks nodded, then pointed a short distance away, where preliminary digging had uncovered a slab of carbonite, dark as midnight, pulsing with a quiet, pensive energy. It was about the size of a large basketball, and wielded between two hands, swung overhead at a target, it would have carried quite the perfect heft.
“That’s the murder weapon right there, for a crime over 50,000 years old. Care to reevaluate just how much this trip is waste of your time?”
---
/r/rarelyfunny | Rachel brushed the bottom of her eyelids, pressing just the right amount so that the eyeliner didn't come too thin or too thick. Her fingers trembled more than the first time she shot a man.
"Too thick," CIA Deputy Director Harris said from behind her. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, his face in a frozen scowl. "Do it again."
"How the hell can you tell?" Rachel protested. She had mocha skin and had opted to use mocha eyeliner just so Harris wouldn't be able to tell.
"Three daughters and a wife. Are you taking this seriously?"
"Yeah," Rachel muttered. "National emergency and all that..."
She clenched her jaw and wiped the eyeliner off for the twentieth time. Of course, she had volunteered for this mission. In times of crisis, when her country needed her the most, she never turned her back. She was a patriot. However, this was the most she ever second-guessed a mission.
Just yesterday she had been the most dangerous operative in the US. Today, she was some bimbo to seduce overweight men who hadn't seen the light of day--or a shower--in months. Psychological counter-terrorism is what Harris had called it. Window dressing is what she called that.
"May I remind you that you volunteered, Agent Schalder?"
"No you may not," Rachel's voice cut through the air. Though she was never known for taking the preppy and upbeat tone her superiors would've liked, she had also never been so rude.
"This is hard for us all," Harris said. "We just need to contain the situation."
The situation meaning the complete collapse of the military and all governmental forces, maybe even the government itself.
Rachel gently brushed her eyes with more ink. "I don't see you wearing eyeliner and mascara."
"Initial field analysis showed that most"--he paused, still unsure of the technical term--"*neckbeards* do not gravitate toward men, or older men. They prefer the opposite, such as yourself."
If she could, she would've ground her teeth to dust. "Permission to shoot so-called *neckbeards*?"
Harris chuckled. "To your heart's content."
---
Rachel blinked a few times, staring at the mirror. It was finally perfect, just how Harris and the now most powerful class in America would like. Almost overnight, the human food chain flipped on its head. Through unfounded reason, modern weaponry had basically become toys for toddlers, while ancient weapons, the new AK47. The older it was, the stronger the one who wielded it.
America had fared better than most nations. Especially most first world nations. The Chinese were brought down by museum workers wielding bows from The Huns. Too bad they couldn't build a Great Wall for that. The Middle-East collapsed by ancient Ottoman swords. There, they claimed it as wrath of God. The list went on.
The US would've joined that list, but they had the NSA. Every museum, antique trader, hobbyist, anyone who had ever posted in a blog or texted someone about a rusted kitchen knives--the CIA locked them all down. Only one group remained and they were slowly discovering their power. The ones who posed on Facebook with fedoras and katanas.
In most cases, the katanas were just two-hundred dollar scams for idiots and the like, but more often than the CIA could leave to chance, they were the real deal. Ancient family heirlooms passed down by generations and now capable of destroying entire cities.
"Okay," Rachel said as she finished applying her lipstick. Her hand instinctively reached for the gun at her side, though it wouldn't do much anymore. "Let's go."
Harris frowned and diverted his eyes. "Perhaps you should dye your hair pink." | 2017-04-21T07:14:00 | 2017-04-21T06:30:22 | 2,088 | 119 |
[WP] The rapture happens. All dogs go to heaven and are interviewed to decide the fate of their owners. One good boy says "What about my cat friend, Mr. Mittens?". The angel replies "The what now?". | ("Buddy," Part One)
"The cat, Mister Mittens," the dog replied, staring up at the angel with unabashed worry across his canine features. "My human may not have been the best owner, and I forgive him for that. But Mister Mittens and I were like brothers."
The angel, Andaphael by name, was puzzled: A dog, wanting to know about the welfare of a cat?
He scratched his head and adjusted his white halo, the color of fresh snow. He had heard from other angels how dogs asked after other dogs or humans, which was normal. But asking after a cat was rare.
Rare, but not unheard of. However, this was the first time Andaphael had it happen to him.
"Buddy, why do want to know about Mister Mittens? He goes to his own afterlife, in Nirvana."
Buddy's head cocked to the side, and a single ear perked up in confusion. "...Mister Mittens gets to spend the rest of his life with a rock band?"
Andaphael chuckled at this, the musical sound bouncing from one cloud to another. "No. I mean dogs go to heaven, and cats go to a different place that signals the end of existence for them."
"Oh, like heaven?" Buddy began to grin, his tongue lolling out of his mouth with happiness, and his tail began a quick metronome-like back-and-forth wag full of joy. "Because then we can go over there and get him! Mister Mittens was the best! He--"
"No, Buddy," Andaphael frowned, causing Buddy's tail to stop as he saw how serious the angel's countenance had become. "Cats go to Nirvana to end the cycle of rebirth. While I can help you determine the fate of your master, I cannot help Mister Mittens. He has a different path than you."
Buddy's head drooped, and he began to whimper, his golden fur taking on a dull hue the color of a cloudy sky, as his emotions showed through his spiritual form. "That...that hurts. Mister Mittens and I looked out for each other when our human wasn't... I mean, he...sometimes he just didn't..."
Andaphael saw how Buddy had trouble finding the words to say what he felt in his heart. This, in turn, broke his own, and his admiration for Buddy grew. Andaphael knew that Buddy's owner abandoned him and did worse to the cat, and his love of booze was to blame for this.
It was during times like these that Andaphael wished he could be allowed to scare people into sobriety. But that was not his responsibility at this time, as much as it pained him to admit it.
. . .
When Andaphael came for Buddy to guide him to heaven, he found him starved and dying in the end of an alley, lying in the muck and filth, his magnificent golden coat splotchy and full of mud, his muzzle and parts of his body scarred. "How did you get here?" asked Andaphael as he guided Buddy's spirit out of his body, freeing him from further pain.
"I was left here by my person," Buddy looked at his deceased form as his spirit was guided to heaven. "I'm sure he'll be back for me. I bet he's just sleeping again, like he does, after he drinks that strange water that comes in cans."
"Buddy, your owner abandoned you."
"No he didn't! He loves me, and Mister Mittens too! He'll come back for me!"
"Buddy, we need to go."
"Can we wait a bit, please?"
Andaphael sighed with pity. "Yes, Buddy. We can wait a bit."
. . .
The light of day faded into the purple-grey of evening, followed by the black of night. This was followed by another, as Buddy's spirit kept watch for a man that Andaphael knew was not coming.
On the third day, Andaphael repeated his request. "Buddy, we need to go."
"...Can I come back to see if my person will come back for me?"
"Yes, Buddy, you can."
"Good. He might be a little lost. He stumbles a lot after he has that strange drink."
"I know, Buddy. Until then, I have to guide you to heaven."
"OK. But you promised I can come back."
"Definitely."
. . . |
“The cat, the cat??? You know cat? Felton?” Pax the dog asked. Realizing the angel had no clue what a cat was he vigorously explains trying to make sure his friend was going to make it to heaven.
Then the angel produced a book. He rushed to flip the pages until he landed on one page named Fae. Frantically asked, “is this what you mean? Is this what you’re talking about?”
Pax bewildered couldn’t believe what he was seeing there were so many of them just on his street alone and he lived with one. He played with one. No it couldn’t be. It’s not possible. He thought to himself. We were friends brothers? What’s going on.
The angel is yelling, “we must know?!” To Pax. Then he snaps out of it panting, “yes!”.
The angel says, “ you need to come to me now! We need to see Micheal the Archangel, you need to tell him everything you know or all of existence will end.” | 2022-08-13T18:51:58 | 2022-08-13T10:33:01 | 344 | 47 |
[WP] You have the ability to know a lie when you hear it, and to know the truth when lied to. Society appoints you to a high judiciary position, but there's nobody to check if YOU'RE lying when you decide justice. Which case do you remember most?
Edit: Hi, guys! I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who visited or pitched in, this got way more attention than I expected and was a lot of fun! Looking forward to more, keep up the good work everyone! | Every bit of power comes with a price. So did mine. No one could ever figure out what it was that caused me to have this particular power but of course my mother claimed God had special plans with me that he would tell me when the time was right. Yeah, probably. What I did know was that it was hard to always do the right thing. Well, legally the right thing.
Ever since the police in my small hometown realized my "talent" to somehow see if someone was lying, they had asked me to assist in courtrooms. It started when I was 16 and I would probably do it for a pretty long time because let's be honest, the salary was convincing. As was I when I lied about someone being guilty or not.
There were cases where I had parents locked up because they were beating the shit out of their children but were accused of other stuff like leaving them home alone longer than you should leave a five year old watching a two year old (which is not at all). They hadn't left the children alone even though the shady babysitter they'd hired was probably worse than leaving them alone. Still they got charged for exactly that.
Other cases were simpler. A man who beat up the guy that had been sleeping with his wife. I sympathized.
A woman who poisoned her abusive husband who had threatened to kill her and had almost fulfilled that promise several times.
I had somewhat similar cases before but this one case... It still goes under my skin.
A boy was accused of killing his father. And I knew he'd done it. What I didn't know was why so I stalled. Asking more and more questions to find out the whole truth. They had been an almost perfect family. The father made a lot of money, the mother stayed at home and cared for her son. The only thing that made this family less perfect was how they had a daughter a few years ago but she died an infant. It had been horrible. Aside from that though, everything looked perfect except that it apparently wasn't. For some reason this sixteen year old boy had felt the need to shoot his father in the chest. Five times.
"What happened the day your father was shot?"
This was the tenth time I'd had asked that question and the judge started to grow irritated.
Please, please give me a truth I can tell them. But there was something in his eyes that told me he wasn't going to say anything more than already had. So I pulled the last straw.
"Your honour, if I may take him outside of the courtroom for five minute I might be able to get a better result. I know this is unconventional but I know that there is more to the truth than I can grasp here."
To my surprise the judge agreed and we were brought into a conference room where we sat down quietly and looked at each other for a moment before I broke the silence.
"Listen to me. I know that you did it. But I also know that you did it for a reason. Now, we can go back out there and I'll tell them all I know, that you took your dad's gun and shot him out of boredom. You'll go to prison for a long time for that. Or you tell me what happened and we can figure this out together."
That is when he finally broke. Tears started to run down his face as he began to speak.
"He killed my sister. She didn't die of natural causes, he killed her. I knew it and I never did anything because... Because mom told me to keep quiet, to not ruin things for her. And I love my mom, what was I supposed to do? But I just couldn't take it anymore." His voice broke and he lowered his head into his hands.
Tears were stuck in my throat as well but I held them back.
"How did he kill her? What happened that you now finally snapped?"
"He talked about having another baby. How he loves babies and wants another one. As if Cecilia had never lived. He didn't love her. He didn't love me. He... the day she died I came home to her crying but then it suddenly stopped. Something didn't feel right so I went to check on her. He was there, in bed with her and... And..." The tears overwhelmed him but I understood. I was unable to speak for a moment, unable to process what I thought he had just told me.
"He... raped her?"
The boy couldn't speak. He could only nod.
"Oh my god." I was unable to hold the tears back at this point.
"My mother kept it secret. No one ever saw Cecilia again because they had her cremated in the blink of an eye."
He looked up and right into my eyes.
"How could he do this? How could she let him get away with it?"
I got up and wrapped my arms around him. He was barely ten years younger than me but in this very moment I knew that he was going to be my responsibility from now on.
"Everything is going to be alright." I kept saying it, chanting it like a mantra. And it would be true. I would make sure of it.
We left the conference room and back in the courtroom I told the judge that I knew everything now. The boy had come home from school one day to his mother holding the gun in her hands. I left out how he had killed her daughter because it would have only given her a lesser sentence. She struggled, screaming that she didn't do it, that her evil son had taken the love of her life from her and I just wanted to vomit all over the floor. This poor child.
She got charged with murder and was going to be gone for quite some time. I had asked for the boy to stay with me instead of foster homes and for some wild reason it was granted. So now, years later, I have my own children but they will always know him as their big brother who would always love and protect them like they were his actual siblings.
Maybe my mom had been right, even if I'd never admit it in front of her. Maybe this power had been given to me for a reason and I had finally found it in that courtroom. | Judiciary: You want to know about which case I remember most huh? \[chuckles\]
Interviewer: Yes, you've served for almost 80 years now, no doubt you probably have hundred of stories. \[inaudible\]
Judiciary: Okay, \[laughs\] here's one that's stuck with me in my mind \[sic\], I'll let you guess when it was.
Interviewer: \[whispers inaudibly\]
Judiciary: \[whispers inaudibly\] The trial seemed simple enough. It was a case of what was very clearly manslaughter. The accused went to the stand. It was a really sad case. It was the kind of case that sticks with you, in your mind. A teenager was accused of killing their friend. It was horrible really. It was open shut though. The victim had \[inaudible\] their friend to help them kill themselves, but it became unclear if the victim had still wanted to be killed, the accused was aware of the ambiguity and still went through with it.
It was very \[inaudible\]. I had asked them if they were aware of the possibility that \[inaudible\] and they said no. I could tell it was a lie. Open shut.
I had lowered the charge from \[inaudible\].
Interviewer: What could make you do that! You said it was \[inaudible\]!
Judiciary: It was the next question I asked which made me want to lower it. I asked them if they would ever betray their friend, I asked them if they loved their friend, I asked if they would ever do something they didn't think was best for their friend. I am not sure what wording I used, but it was something like that. I may not remember what question it was but the answer was clear.
They said they would do something that would hurt their friend. They said that. To anyone else this was open shut. To me, I lowered the charge. Even in this moment, they were trying to protect the friend from *something*, although I am no longer as sure what it could be. That is why I lowered the charge. I knew the one thing I could be certain of, for whatever reason, that the guilt of having to make that call affected them far more profoundly than \[inaudible\].
Interviewer: Do you do that kind of thing often?
Judiciary: As often as people lie about loving someone else in a courtroom, or as often as \[inaudible\].
*The audio for which this transcript was based had not been saved properly and much of the dialogue was left inaudible. The transcriber would like to apologize for any inconvenience.* | 2018-05-16T00:09:16 | 2018-05-15T20:44:11 | 237 | 39 |
[WP] You have a feeling that your history teacher may just be immortal. | Mr McNamara was undoubtedly the best teacher in the whole school. Tall with brown hair and dark serious eyes. Yet they always twinkled. He was always having fun. A penchant for full suits and a distinctly long gate our history teacher was one of the most recognisable in the school. Affectionately known as "Big Mac" he had this wonderful habit of getting sidetracked with random stories from any period of history we were studying. Every student would be hooked on these sudden digressions and long tangents. When World War Two came up he regaled us with stories that had in turn been told to him by his history teacher. A Pole who fled across war torn Europe. Thinking about it he had a lot of interesting history teachers...
I could not get enough of Big Mac; he would go on with his stories in his excitable manner and it would go straight into my head and stick. Never made any notes. Not one word. I can still recall all of his lessons; for example the Russian revolutions in 1917. Big Mac would start as usual on course with that dusty old textbook but it wasn't long before that changed. Throwing the mundane to the ground he would leap to the table. While up there he would find us captivated.
"This was a desperate time! Russians were being massacred by Germans in huge droves. Do you know what the Russians were being armed with on the front line?"
Leaving a pause to see if anyone would provide the answer or for dramatic effect (perhaps both) our history teacher looked each of us in the eye.
"Pitch forks! They only had one gun for every five soldiers. Up against the Germans, who were well armed and well organised as I'm sure you can imagine, it was a massacre!"
Once again he scanned to room and dropped his voice leaning in towards the class, as we strained to listen.
"But in St Petersburg, for some it was a hopeful time. There was a belief. There was an idea. The idea was that we could use this terrible time as a catalyst for to create a better future. Better than anything gone before"
As you may have noticed McNamara would get so into it so much he would sometimes place himself into the middle of the event. It was a great teaching technique. I often would imagine him in the scenarios he described. Taking to the streets and storming the winter palace next to his favourite figure Trotsky.
Staying behind to ask questions was a daily ritual. Big Mac would always oblige even if it was on the way to another lesson. On that day his long striding legs were taking him to A block. This could only mean a meeting with the head.
"You didn't mention Leon as much today" I said gently jogging to keep up with his pace.
Big Mac smiled "I thought you might have had enough of him by now.”
I waited briefly knowing a torrent on this subject would come.
“It was of course him who led the the revolutions as Lenin was still in exile. Trotsky was brilliant at bringing people together for action. When civil war broke out he was key for the Bolsheviks, riding round the country on that train to give speeches to the front."
Having not even paused for Breath in that whole passage he broke off to nod to a passing physics teacher. Big Mac never needed to stop for breath so I took advantage of this pause.
"What about Stalin?"
This time Big Mac did deliberately pause before responding in a steady manner.
"Stalin was not very influential in the beginning and was not all that brilliant."
"Really?" I replied "But he must have had something to have been on the front of the textbook?"
I knew I was somehow probing but Macs response took me aback.
"Stalin was a cold blooded murderer who would stop at nothing to get power. It was always about power. No ideal. No sacrifice for the greater good and no rules. And what he did to Leon..."
This was not the characteristic McNamara tangent; this was much more of a rant and that glint certainly was not there. In it's place something dark was swirling around his eye as he looked straight not meeting my gaze. This moment is imprinted in my memory and seemed to have lasted an age when it can only have been a second.
Stepping out of it and onto the threshold of the school office block, which we had somehow already arrived at, Big Mac's signature smile returned to him.
"But that is a story for a different lesson." I thanked him and wished him luck with his meeting. He did the same before adding a phrase of what could have been Russian. I do remember wondering how he could know so much… he once said his grandfather was russian didn’t he? He did seem to have had a lot of interesting grandfathers...
The meeting I left him at was actually with more than the head. The Board of directors were there too. No-one in the school has any idea what they said to him or why they called the meeting at all but he resigned the following day.
I still think about Big Mac a lot and still have the clearest memories of the lessons he taught and stories which he told. I’m currently at university now and would you believe it? A history student. It's not always as exciting or gripping as those old school lessons but I love it none the less. I’m even thinking of doing my dissertation on the Russian revolution with particular reference to Trotsky's role. Although the question of how to frame it inspires everything from doubt to terror.
So along with all other History students at this time of year I'm desperately consulting the library. The book I’m currently staring hopelessly at claims to be a "brief history" of 20th century Russian history. Believe me there is nothing brief about it. Probably a mistranslation. Returning this to the shelf I grab another before noticing a small tattered leather bound book wedged between two more of these monstrosities.
I inspect the cover from top to bottom. No title with no author. Odd, very odd. Opening the first page it is simply titled "Leon Trotsky". I open it up. Brilliant. This is exactly what I need. The pages are dusty and stick together but flicking through them is not too difficult. There are even some pictures that I've never seen before. This has Leon's angle. This is a goldmine.
I reach the back. There are two more pictures. A well known one from his latter years, the second, with a young perhaps teenage Leon and a slightly older man, I have never seen before. Simply labelled "Student and Pupil". Although it’s somewhat amusing looking at young Trotsky it’s his “tutor” who catches my eye.
Tall in a dark suit. Dark hair. That spark in his eye....
| No one tells you that as you get older you grow to recognize the more subtle differences in people. No one told me because it was common sense but it took me seventeen years to realise. The funny thing about my epiphany was that it didn't take years to dawn. One beautifully sunny Tuesday I sat through the first hour of my history double when my brain lost connection with my eyes, landing them square on the face of my history teacher. I blankly studied her face: the way her skin was wrinkled yet smooth, the hoods of her eyelids forming a perfect arch beneath her impeccably plucked brows, the shape of the lines that had formed around the corners of her mouth, her lips remaining youthfully plump. It was at this point that it had finally clicked. Confused at first, I frowned without thinking whilst my mouth drooped from the way my chin was resting in the cup of my hand. I turned to Melissa who, being in a state of similar stupor, forgot that her phone lay in her lap and was at any moment going to drop it. I gently elbowed Melissa between the ribs. She jerked, dropped her phone and awoke with a start.
Ignoring Melissa's glare I leaned closer so I could whisper in her ear, “Mrs Bennett totally had plastic surgery,” I whispered before leaning back and staring at Melissa expectantly. She squinted at me, “Wha?”
“Have you not realised she looks exactly the same now as she did five years ago.” I arched my brows. This was top quality goss, how could Melissa not see it? Clearly she needed more time to wake up. Having taken my scandalous statement on board Melissa turned to squint at Mrs Bennett instead, tipping her head to the side slightly as she considered our history teacher in the same way an art critic considers a modernist painting.
“Nah,” she said eventually, “if it was botox you'd know. Her face would be all plump. She isn't squinty either so it's not a facelift. And her hands are still young. You can always tell by the hands.” Having meticulously studied every page of Hello magazine, Melissa was probably capable of landing a job in the beauty industry with the ease and confidence of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing. She shot me a straight look and shrugged, “Maybe she's vegan or something?”
I frowned, turning my attention back to Mrs Bennett. The afternoon light filtered through the blinds and lit up strips of her curly red hair, illuminating a crown of gold across her head.
“She kind of reminds of Boadicea,” Melissa finally said. I nodded in response. A good point – Mrs Bennett's commanding presence and height did give her a regal edge. Leaning my chin back onto my hand I remembered another lookalike, “Or Queen Elizabeth.”
“Oh yeeeaaaah!”
“I recon it's the nose.”
Melissa's sparse attention was drawn back to her phone and I went back into the la-la land inside my mind. Mrs Bennet did look a lot like Elizabeth. It's as though my history teacher stared at me from the page of my textbook with a disapproving gaze. My mind wandered. What if my teacher was actually an ancient queen. How cool would that be! Then again, why the hell would she teach history? | 2016-03-15T07:20:52 | 2016-03-15T06:35:45 | 31 | 12 |
[WP] You have the most useless superpower in a world full of awesome superpowers. You are a laughinstock, that is until you start using your power for evil... no one is laughing now. | My father was a third level master psychic. My mother was at journeyman level in both psychic and telekinetic abilities. My older sister was a class two psychic master by the time she graduated junior high, and seemed to have taken after grandfather as her education scores put her somewhere around apprentice super scientist, though I couldn't help imagining with her psychic gifts she had figured out a way to cheat. She was in her second year of the Super Science Academy's scholarship program.
I was the black sheep of our family. I was a reverse empath. It meant in primary school the bullies didn't care to pick on me much since they'd feel like I did after a few moments of beating me up, but at the same time I didn't have many friends either. I couldn't help my mood since I just felt useless attending a school to train us to be responsible citizens in the hopes of providing good enough job placement to keep us from considering a life of super-crime.
"I don't see why I still have to go to that school." I muttered looking at my mother.
'Everyone in our family has gone to the mutation advancement center son. You may not understand it, but you have every reason to attend too.' my father projected into my mind from the next room over as he watched the football game. I didn't much care for the sport, it had become boring after the superhuman leagues merged with the regular ones. Now it seemed every team was made up of supermen and hulks.
"Couldn't I have at least gone to the advanced normal high-school? Then I could learn something useful like martial arts or gadgetry" I asked my mother as she continued to cook.
"Now Brian that wouldn't do, you don't need to go into law enforcement, and we certainly don't want you turning into one of those vigilantes." she said.
I heard my father try to hide a curse in the living room and the sound of a beer can exploding.
"And I keep telling you dear it's not polite to watch the game and psychic talk to someone in another room. We all keep seeing football images when you do."
I shook my head before standing up. "I'm going for a walk."
---
My mood was in the gutter as I walked around Ghost Knight's Plaza. The city was full of places like that, named after heroes who saved the entire world. It seemed like all normal people did was clean up the mess. Some superhero turns evil, he's forgiven, the person who stops him is rewarded, and during it all the normal folks, or people with sub-par powers just clean up the mess.
I moved on, crossing the bridge into Green Dragon Park, named after a hero who's powers supposedly came from an energy drink that had since been lost to time. All he did was save us from a bunch of aliens who didn't even have superpowers, or technology nearly as advanced as we were back then. I still didn't understand how a race could invent hyperspace travel, but not a flying car, or a shrink ray.
I blinked as I saw another person walking towards me. It was a girl and she was kind of cute. I found myself blushing.
"Quit it with the powers Ass, I can tell your doing something and I don't like it."
I frowned and my mood lowered, I made a conscious effort and stopped my powers from effecting her.
"What a Looser." the girl said to a small bear she carried in her arms.
"Totally. A reject for sure." I wasn't very startled when the bear talked back at her. Seemed another girl thought having a cute familiar was the way to go. My mood continued to fall.
It should be no surprise I was feeling my lowest when he jumped out of the bushes after I had walked several more blocks.
"Give me all your credits or else kid and don't try anything." I looked at the man; rocky skin, fingers like knives, but made of crystal.
"Fine take it, not like I have enough for anything anyway" I muttered looking at him, my mood completely in the gutter as he reached for my wallet.
"I don't know what you're doing but..."
I just stared at him silently holding out my wallet.
"Are you going to take it or what?" some part of me wondered if I should even bother getting up in the morning anymore.
"Quit it" He started to back up and I kept watching him. A few moments later and he moved his knife like crystal fingers and shoved them through his rocky neck.
I stared at him wide eyed as it hit me what I had done.
"Hey, that Kid killed rocky." A voice said from the bushes this 'Rocky' fellow had come out of.
I stood in shock, looking at the three that came out of the bushes.
Their faces seemed to contort and run through several different emotions before soon they too followed Rocky's example.
| When your power is "Summon knives from everywhere to stab yourself", you kind of tend to get ridiculed. Still, even as a kid I saw what potential my power had...if I didn't care about anyone else. See, there were no restrictions to what "Summon knives from everywhere to stab yourself"entailed. So one day, when it felt like the whole world was kicking me, my powers went off. Gigantic knives flew from everywhere, eviscerating everyone around me. Their corpses formed a shield that prevented the knives from harming me. Not even those with purported "Unbreakable skin" stood a chance, the mass of the gigantic blades simply crushing them. I first felt sick and twisted, panic grabbing hold of my heart as I realized what I had done, but that quickly subsided. Instead, a gleeful joy filled me, almost against my will, as I recognized the potential my power had. Throwing the bodies off of me, I began my plans...
If you were to talk to any of the world's governments right now, and even mention my name, you'd get a fearful response. They knew my status as a weapon of mass destruction; piss me off, and they risked me slicing the entire world to pieces. I'd made it perfectly clear I put little value on my life, and now everyone lived in a state of constant tension. I had placed a guillotine blade above the world's neck, and when you're anticipating the execution, who can really laugh? | 2015-04-12T21:02:32 | 2015-04-12T17:46:50 | 26 | 19 |
[WP] A drug is developed that mimics the effect of 8 hours of sleep, giving people another 8 hours of potential production. Soon, society adjusts to a constant state of production. However, a horrible consequence begins to unfold. | **The Nightmare of the Dreamless**
I never intended to start a war, but I do intend to win.
How simply it all began, with an uncommon answer to a common question.
“Congratulations Mr. President, you’re having a boy,” the doctor had said, rubbing the ultrasound device over my wife’s growing belly. “Shall we begin the the Sleep Cure treatment today? It’s quick, I’ll get you both out of here in time for nice big brunch.”
I didn’t say no because I didn’t trust new technology, like some crazy anti-curer; my entire political platform was based off technological innovation. I didn’t say no because of the challenges of raising a sleepless child; I was the President, I could do anything. I didn’t say no because I didn’t think it worked; a billion babies had proven it a billion times, including my own now four-year-old daughter, Eliza.
It was because of her that I said no.
For most of my life, I’d hated myself for not being born just a few years later. The “Sleep Cure” treatment was invented when I was just seven. The biggest corporations in the world heralded a new era of productivity for the world. Soon, humanity would be free from the biological shackles of tiredness, drowsiness, and wasted life we called *sleep*.
And it couldn’t come fast enough. These corporations poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the initiative, subsidizing the treatment so that anyone and everyone anywhere in the world that wanted to free their children from sleep could do so.
Many more billions were poured into the ads too. How could any responsible parent, no matter how skeptical, risk having their children cursed by to the need to sleep in a world where all their peers had eight more hours every single day to out-compete them?
The campaign was more than a resounding success. Within five years, nearly 70% of the world’s new babies were born with the Sleep Cure, and growing every year.
The Sleep Cured were, indeed, productive. Relentlessly productive. There were even Cured eleven-year-olds at my own high-school graduation.
True to those advertisements, lacking the Sleep Cure lead to severe disadvantages, even outright discrimination. Schools, and employers openly rejected those with the need to sleep. Even I am guilty here – in building my campaign team, I couldn’t imagine hiring anyone slowed down by sleep. Hypocritical, I know. If it weren’t for the age requirement to become President, there’s no way anyone like me could have even had a chance in office. The Cured were just superior humans.
At least, that’s what I thought until I had Eliza. She revealed something to me I can’t believe I’d missed, I can’t believe the whole world seems to have missed. For as wonderful and special and as incredibly intelligent and beautiful as any father knows their daughter is, there is something *wrong* with her. Oh my God how it pains me to admit this.
Give her a puzzle, and she’ll figure it out it like any child. Put on a children’s TV show, and she’ll laugh at the jokes like any child. Tag her, and she’ll tag you back like any child.
Ask her to pretend she can fly though, and she’ll give you face unlike any child before the Cure.
Put simply, she cannot play. Even worse, I feel she cannot *imagine.*
A punch to the gut, a nauseating fear, an internal scream. What had I done to my daughter?
What about all the Cured members of my campaign team? Productive? Efficient? Relentless. Yes. Fun? Playful? Creative? No. Oh God, never. When was the last time I’d heard a teammate make a joke? When was the last time anyone on my team had come up with an original idea?
With the loss of their need to sleep came the loss of their ability to *dream.*
I’d become the President by inspiring people with my visions, my dreams, for the future. What would happen to future generations without dreamers like me? They’d be productive, but would they produce anything that mattered?
The world needed people like me, and one day it would need people like my son, to lead and inspire and dream. That’s why I said no. I knew my decision would be controversial, but I never could have imagined how deeply it would shatter my already deeply divided country, driving a sledgehammer into the wedge.
One side consisted mainly of the parents who had realized the same thing as me and could no longer write off the strange behavior of their children as generational differences. They lashed out bitterly against the corporations and media industries that had ruined their children, hellbent on destroying the practice.
On the other, of course, were the presently Sleep Cured, who resented any sentiment that they were damaged. They called out the Uncured as envious of Cured, as resentful for their disenfranchisement.
And so, the war rages on.
We will defeat them, as terrifyingly productive as they are, because they are equally predictable, because they can’t see worlds that don’t exist, because they don’t have visions or visionaries.
And most of all, because children deserve to play.
___
r/stealthystorkstories | Our school has the highest drug use in our county. The drug is called Somnus. It is a pill that you swallow in the morning to mimic the effects of 8 hours of sleep. This allows you to go to class and concentrate on your studies.
The consequences are that your memory is reduced and your brain is not as efficient. This results in an increase in depression and other mood disorders. The worst part is that this drug is still very popular.
After you have taken the pill, you will feel like you have just been up for 8 hours. This makes you more tired and less able to concentrate. It also makes you think that you have a hangover. The hangover lasts for 2 to 3 days. You will feel tired and more depressed than usual. The worst part is that you have to take the pill everyday. You will not be able to sleep without it.
The Somnus is the best pill for college students. You can get the pill from a doctor or from your school. It is only available in the morning and you are not allowed to take it more than 2 days in a row. It is very difficult to get off of the drug.
After the 2 days, your memory will be back to normal. However, the depression will last longer than the 2 days.
You should have your doctor check your brain to see if it is ok. You will need to take the pill for 2 weeks before the doctor can tell if your brain is ok.
If your brain is not ok, then the Somnus will not work anymore. This means that you will not be able to sleep anymore. You will not be able to get up in the morning without it. | 2022-03-18T10:33:48 | 2022-03-18T07:24:03 | 514 | 14 |
[WP]Summoning a hero from another world could not have gone worse. Not only did he totally refuse to help your nation, due to it being an absolute monarchy with a corrupt religion and legal slavery, he taught the peasants all about democracy and science, and is now helping them start a revolution. | "Stad's instructions could not have been any clearer, "summon a hero, he will help the people come to see reason." I followed every step perfectly, so why is this so called hero making everything worse for me? Ever since I took over the throne from my father I've dealt with problem after problem, first "sire please we need more land, our population grows and there is no where for our people to go". So, I sent my armies west to conquer their lands and have more space for my people.
​
Things were good for a time after the war, then the awful drought came. I sent my armies North to secure some more land where we could have more access to the fishing so we would need less crops, Stad even taught the farmers some new technique to bring the water inland more and feed the crops. The filthy peasants loved me for it, called me their saviour and couldn't be happier.
​
Then war came from the South, I had to enlist some soldiers from the local peasantry but really, I had done a great job so far ruling so it was only fair that they lay down their lives for the country. When the war was looking grim, I turned to the faith. Not to pray, no of course not but to convince the peasants that this war was God's will and that they would be rewarded after death for fighting gloriously. It was all bullshit of course and I had do twist some arms and pay some bribes to get the church to do what I wanted but now they say what I need, when I need it and the people blindly follow.
​
The people's lives were really quite splendid, they all got enough to eat at least once a week and sometimes even more, what more could they want! And feeding an army costs money so of course I make everyone pay high taxes to me. At first everyone hated the tax collector and no one wanted the job, it would be beneath me to go and collect the taxes myself so I simply raised the compensation for the collectors. Raising the compensation meant that I had to raise taxes again but the people really had that one coming, what did they expect when I have done everything they have asked?
​
So now I have some disgusting idiots trying to avoid paying taxes, and out west I hear that there is unrest due to bandits attacking them, but my army can't be everywhere at once, defend yourselves dammit. I got desperate so I turned to the one man I thought could help, Stad.
​
Stad had always been wise, sometimes a little bit even too much for his own good - that's why I've had him thrown into the dungeons a number of times but he always came back out with the right attitude. He told me that a hero is exactly what the people needed, a hero would relieve them of their foolish notions, a HERO would put an end to this farce, and as luck would have it he knew how to summon one.
​
Shortly after Stad had taught me to summon this hero I had him executed, I couldn't let this knowledge spread into the wrong hands, I couldn't have heroes fighting for the enemy. The strangest thing happened during the execution though, usually men plea for their life, they'll offer anything and everything. Stad just accepted his fate, he didn't fight, he didn't plea, he didn't even have the decency to threaten me with what he would do in the afterlife, he just smiled at me.
​
Perhaps, Stad knew what he was doing perhaps that's why he didn't fight back, he knew he had tricked me into summoning not a hero but a villain. It all makes sense now, the look of disgust the villain showed me when I explained all that I was doing for the people, the way the people have rallied behind him to take me down with their new weapons and battle techniques. This villain even spreads lies saying he will allow this country to pick its next leader, can you imagine it? The people, picking for themselves? Lord knows they don't even know which fork is the eating fork and which fork is the stabbing your jester for doing a poor job fork - how are they going to pick a next king? Yes, a villain, that's who this man is, well it's all well and good I've sent some of my best men to deal with him. Tonight, that fools breaths his last."
​
\- An excerpt from King Madeon's journal, believed to be his last written words before being murdered in his sleep by his chambermaid, when questioned she said: "It was for the good of the people." | It was over. Everything that I had worked for. Escaping my home world, infiltrating and overtaking the government of the new one, and finally having the ability to carry out my science without persecution! I finally had become someone. No one would ever think of me as a cracked-pot old fool ever again. And it all came crumbling down. All because of him.
I don’t know what I thought would happen by inviting him here, but certainly not anarchy. The rebels he eventually sided with have no structure! They are a chaotic bunch of idealists who will let that nation starve. I’m way better than that. I’m not THAT bad of a guy really, mainly I just want to be left alone to my experiments. Sure every now and then one of said experiments may wreak untold havoc upon the land, but the good thing about being a genius is that you can create devices to clean up the messes you make. For the most part.
It was in the wreckage and aftermath of one of these failed experiments that I was led away in handcuffs. I’m still kept warm from the rage that filled me that day as he looked at me with those cold eyes beneath the rim of his fedora.
“Curse you Perry the Platypus!” I screamed for what had to be the millionth time as I was shoved through the portal back to my home world, destined to be shipped off to a cold prison cell. | 2021-04-25T16:13:23 | 2021-04-25T14:07:56 | 124 | 52 |
[WP] Cause of death appears to you as floating text over people's heads with no time indication. You start noticing a trend.
edit: thank you for all the truly great stories, and for taking this in directions I didn't expect. | A young lady at a loud coffee shop just can't seem get comfortable in her cushy leather seat. Every position doesn't quite work right.
~ Am I gassy? It must be the coffee. I think I've had a bit too much coffee.
She looks down at the nearly full cup of coffee.
~ Or not.
The bell at the door draws her attention. A balding middle age man walks in with AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION wrapped around his protuberous gut.
~ Nope. Not him. Thank god. Don't look though. That's rude.
Here eyes drop to her coffee. She dips a sugar cube in. The coffee runs up the sides and it dissolves in her hand.
~ Maybe I'm just a little anxious from the caffeine. That must be it.
The bell rings again. She jumps a little and wipes the sugar residue off on her skirt. She looks up to see a relatively good looking man beaming while he walks toward her.
~ That's him. Dont' look. That's rude. It looks big though. NO. Do not...
"Hi, I'm Sam" the man extends his hand across the table.
She jumps out of her seat, "Alice."
His eyes flick down for a second and his face freezes but he recovers quick enough.
~ Did he see it? Is he scared?
She looks down. Theres a large dark splotch where she wiped her hand. She smiles it off.
"O that, I spilled a bit."
"Of course."
"Do you want to grab a coffee?"
"No, they tend make me a little anxious."
She gives a quick nervous laugh, "I know what you mean. I barely touched mine and I feel a bit giddy."
He sits down and looks out the window, "I know I shouldn't ask... but I couldn't help but noticing..."
She looks down at her text. It says MURDER. "No it's alright, it's kind of hard to ignore."
He looks back to her, "Yeah, but I wouldn't let that kind of thing bother you. It could happen when you're 98."
"Still not the nicest prospect."
"It could be...euthanasia? Does that count?"
"You know, for a first date, you aren't really racking up points talking about my untimely demise."
"Who said it was untimely?"
She gives him a look and he knows he's taken it a bit too far.
"Well how about that guy."
He points at a nervous man about to jaywalk. Wrapped around his waist is written HIT AND RUN.
"Why don't we talk about his untimely demise."
She can't help but chuckle as the jaywalker repeatedly takes a step and retreats to the curb.
"You think he'd move somewhere without cars."
She joins in, "I can't really picture him with an Amish beard though."
"Don't joke about the Amish. I heard they're prone to down a few too many before getting behind the ....steer-ups? of their buggies."
"That's true but the horses usually DD."
She smiles and looks down at her coffee. She swirls it a bit. "I was thinking about trying to learn another language. I heard it would change to that alphabet."
"But what would be the point of that. You'd only be lying to yourself. And your friends would just look it up anyway."
She's a bit taken aback. "Oh, I never try to look at people I interact with."
"You don't?"
"No, that's rude. It's private."
"Not really private. It's in caps."
"But it's...intimate."
He looks down at her coffee with his brow furled. "Wait, so you haven't read mine yet?"
"Well...no. I don't like to judge people that way."
"But it's the most honest thing you can tell about someone."
"But what if it ruins my opinion..."
"Do it. I wouldn't feel comfortable otherwise."
"I'd rather not..."
The two sit in silence.
"Well if you don't want to I won't force it. Do you want to get out of here? My legs need a walk."
"Yeah, same." She smiles.
"Who'd think these chairs would be so uncomfortable."
"I know, they looked cushy!"
He stands up and stretches his legs. She gathers her things and for a brief second her eyes dart to his waist.
MURDER/SUICIDE. | "Hi Sally" i said to my secretary as I entered my office.
"Mornin Mr King" she replied seemingly chipper as always, the large word suicide in bold red above her head seemed dimmer today. Maybe it was just me.
I see signs of how people die. Literal worded signs. Floating over their head and all.
If I told anyone they would think I was insane so I keep it to myself as much as I can.
Sometimes I can't help thinking I can make a change in people. Somehow change the way they die so it's more pleasant.
Take Sally for instance. When I first interviewed her the word over her head, suicide, was a brilliant crimson red. I thought that meant she was close to doing it. I wasn't going to hire her initially but then I thought why not. I swear the color got lighter when I offered her the job on the spot. Probably just wishful thinking. Poor kiddo I really like her.
I decided to take a walk outside for lunch since it was a nice spring day and that's when I noticed a change. A whole lot of people had tornado and an unbelievable amount had shark.
W.T.F.? | 2015-03-31T10:33:36 | 2015-03-31T10:08:20 | 27 | 11 |
[WP] Death has hourglasses for every person. One day, during a cleaning, he found a dust covered one that had rolled under his desk. | Death is not like you imagine.
The cowl, the harbinger's scythe. No.
Death is a humble mortician in Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada. He wears horn-rimmed glasses. His hair is short, and has been thinning for twenty years. His suits are always at least ten years old, but rarely are they older. He smells faintly of mothballs, but perhaps doesn't know it. He's just a touch over 5 feet tall, and somewhat portly. He eats steak and eggs for breakfast at Maxine's Diner every Saturday. He's impeccably polite. People like him. The town birds always have a friend to set him up with. They're sick of seeing him alone.
But that's how it must be.
The only time Death, otherwise known as Darby Jenkins, ever changes his demeanour is when he's in the embalming chamber at the back of his quaint funeral parlour. The welcoming scent of formaldehyde reminds him of purpose, and the little glimmer in his eye that charms the little town winks away as he looks down upon the dearly departed. But the embalming chamber is a ruse. He hasn't cleaned or used his stainless steel table in a decade. Darby Jenkins strides past it and directly through the illusory tiled wall at the back, to where the real job is.
That's where he is today. And his expression, normally resolute, is different today. He's... awry.
The lists the dead on a scroll that rolls up from within his desk and then off the back end, directly into the floor and down to the underworld, using a pen that is always sharp and an inkwell that never runs dry. Around him, all around him, are shelves, and drawers, of mahogany, oak, and maple. On each shelf, in every drawer, a carefully catalogued series of hourglasses, ticking down the lives of the entire world. Most run long, and some, woefully quick. This chamber stretches beyond time, but conveniently, the hourglasses Death needs are always within arm's reach.
All but one.
In his long years, he's never been clumsy. He's a being of purpose. Purposeful creatures are never clumsy.
.
Today, however, was meant to be different. Death uncharacteristically knocked his inkwell onto its side, and it rolled off the back of his desk. This was not troubling. He simply walked around the overlarge desk, squeezing beside a shelf. That's where he saw the hourglass, tipped on its side so the sand would never run out. The hourglass he never knew was there.
Death's hourglasses were all the same. Deep, beautiful walnut caps held fast to a slender glass barrel. The sand within was the earth of Tartarus, with a green tinge. The bottom cap had a small, bronze plate with the soulbound name of the person inscribed on it.
Death was in tune with each and every soul on the earth. It was as simple as a physical connection with the hourglass. So when he felt Koffi Apeloko's, the found hourglass, grasped it, felt the energy within, he was filled with an unbound rage.
.
Itanga was a small village along the Likoula Aux Herbes River in the Republic of Congo. In a blink, Darby Jenkins appeared. In his hand, he held the hourglass. It was the dead of night.
In his travel between worlds, Death had delved deeper into Koffi Apeloko's past.
Koffi Apeloko had been born right along the river in the year 1207. Around his thirtieth birthday, he'd simply stopped aging. By his fiftieth -
This was the part that vexed Death. By Koffi Apeloko's fiftieth birthday, he vanished from Death's sight. *Nobody vanished from Death's sight.*
Death was material, but invisible to those who weren't prepared for his kiss. Rarely was he filled with wrath, as now. He siphoned from his near-infinite pool of energy and followed the hourglass to the soul from which it was bound.
The soft, verdant earth cowed beneath his steps; this cradle of life could not support Death.
Eventually, Death stopped. The sun was beginning to rise in the east. He had walked for at least an hour. The trees around him groaned, strangling in his aura.
Death stood over Koffi Apeloko. Death was material, and yet could not reach out to his charge.
And so, Death set the hourglass on a rock, then stooped down and began to dig.
.
It was midday he finally reached the coffin. The volume of Death's anger had withered all nearby life, allowing the sun to break through the thick canopy. The coffin was shabbily made, but held firm against the six feet of earth laid on top. Now, the wood was starting to rot away. Already, Death could see a cautious finger poking out. He heard a moan.
Death climbed back out of the hole with practiced ease. He adjusted his glasses with a dirty hand, and brought the hourglass back. With a gesture, the coffin sprung open.
Koffi Apeloko looked upon streaky daylight with eyes conditioned to darkness. A layer of dust on his face was streaked at the sides by fresh tears. His arms were crossed. His wrists and thighs were shattered and crumpled. A bone in his neck protruded at an angle where no bone should rightfully heal. He spoke Tshiluba with a dusty voice. He was, perhaps, thirty years of age, as he had been hundreds of years ago.
"I wished for you for many years."
Death's anger had subsided with every scoop of earth in the pile. His tireless body looked down now with pity. "I have come."
"Am I cursed?"
"An unfortunate oversight. Corrected."
"How long have I been here?"
"Too long."
"Will you take me home?" With a weak hand, Koffi Apeloko reached out to Death. He could lift his fingers only half an inch.
Darby Jenkins smiled. "Yes. I'm here to take you home."
.
/r/Stanwrites | "And I wouldn't be standing here, speaking to all of you today if I didn't change my mindset" said the world's hottest new motivational speaker. "I've had too many near death experiences to count, but it made me realize life is precious. Time is finite, and it can't be wasted with regrets or what-if questions. Follow that instinct that nudges you to your dreams, even if you think it's impossible. If something frightens you because you don't think you can do it... I challenge you to get an answer."
The audience roars with applause.
"Thank you, thank you! I'll be in Hall G in 15 minutes for the Q&A"
The motivational speaker steps down from the podium and heads into the back stage. He looks in a mirror in the hall on the way to his dressing room. "You fucking killed it" he says to himself.
"Yes... yes you did." an ominous voice declares from behind him.
"Ah, thanks man." The motivational speaker turns around to see who delivered the compliment... and it's Death himself shrouded in a black fog.
"Oh my god.... that's a sick halloween costume, bud."
"It's not a costume. I'm Death."
"Oh, you want one of the production assistants to get you some coffee?"
"No, I am literally Death; and your time is overdue."
​
The motivational speaker's face droops with the realization that he's not joking.
​
"But... see it's a funny story" Death says as he takes an hourglass out of his tote bag. He brushes the remaining dust off of it. "This guy right here has been hiding under my desk this entire time. You were actually supposed to die back in '91 that time your DD drank too much and lied to you about it. You were going to fly out of the windshield because you didn't have your seat belt on and I would'e scraped you off of the concrete. But my 'alarm' didn't go off about it."
​
The motivational speaker is on the verge of tears.
​
"Paul... Paul lied to me? He was intoxicated?"
"Yeah. People suck. But since I didn't see the hourglass, you got to live another day up to now where you have this atrocious three piece suit on."
They both stand in an awkward silence.
"But... yeah, I gotta take you back to the processing office" as Death points up to the sky. "Great speech, though, seriously. Makes me wish I could be alive to feel something ha ha."
The motivational speaker doesn't find the humor in his statement.
Death clears his throat. "Sorry. But chop chop. Sorry to disappoint your fans."
Death touches the speaker, and he evaporates into dust, and a beam of light abducts his soul and shoots him up into the sky.
"Mental note: keep a dark matter Swiffer in the office at all times." | 2018-10-03T07:01:14 | 2018-10-03T06:19:01 | 186 | 63 |
[WP] Compared to the rest of the galaxy humanity is by far the friendliest. To many star systems they are considered "the good neighbor," and are known for their helpfulness. One day an oblivious system declares war on humanity, only to find half of the galaxy responding to humanity's plea for aid.
EDIT: Tfw this prompt gets 100+ upvotes and still no story
EDIT: Nice, we got a story.
EDIT: Wow we got a lot of stories! Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.
| The semi-bio cushions moulded themselves round Draz'nek's body as it reclined into it's throne, for want of a better word. The throne itself was more of a podium with an intricately carved base and a grand, sweeping panel at the back positioned as if it were a backrest; made of great planks and beams of material from every star system the Hiveking's forces had overrun and subjugated organised in a pattern not dissimilar to that of the petals of a flower. Wood from the biggest trees, beams of the rarest minerals, a container of that valuable spice from that desert planet, all made a rainbow to highlight the grandeur of the Hiveking - and the abundant abilities of it's military.
The normal course of business was the dispensation of judgement between rival sub-hives or the issuing of decrees to formally establish colonies, however on this day such activities had ceased. A single, lone figure at the centre of the Pool of Light of Addressing the Hiveking (as the nearest translation from the Groozl's own language would put it) was the sole centre of attention for all the courtiers, worker Groozls, the Hiveking's partners and, indeed, the hiveking himself.
"Your eminence," the figure began. The human paused to allow the Interpatron(tm) around his neck issue the clicks and screeches of Groozl - such noises were impossible for any human to make.
"I prostrate before you with grave news. The Human parliament has, on this very day, been informed of armed incursions by the Vlanth of Sirius in the outer Solar System, with reports that invasion forces are, as I speak, beginning to enter -"
He was drowned out by a chorus of clicking and screeching from the surrounding Groozl. The few words he could make out from his Interpetron(tm) were mainly colourful curse words, with the odd "Outrageous!" thrown in.
Steven, for this was the human's name, was about to continue with his plea, when the Hiveking himself held up an appendage, causing silence to immediately descend upon the room. The bulky yet frail figure emitted a long series of screeches and clicks, with a higher pitch which the Interpetron (tm) interpreted as anger.
"The Humans of Earth of Sol have been the greatest and dearest friends of myself and my *probable translation: spawn heritage* since the Humans of Earth of Sol made the great leap into the Community of Species of the Galaxy. The Humans of Earth of Sol has long supported myself and the Groozle and my *spawn heritage* and the Groozl's *spawn heritage* in all our endeavours, and without the assistance of the Humans of Earth of Sol we would not have overcome the Great Invasion of the Metal Machines *two hundred years* ago.
"All faithful Groozl here will remember that Humans of Earth of Sol have never ventured beyond their home system of Sol, have never waged war on their neighbours, have always asked for fair prices for their goods, have always offered us excellent prices for our goods... ... ... Many of my *spawn descendants* have studied the arts of star travel and food production at the finest educational institutions the Humans of Earth of Sol have to offer ..."
The speech went on for some time, however Steven did not interrupt. For one thing it would be a serious breach of protocol, secondly the fear and awe to which the Groozl held the Hiveking meant they would simply ignore every distraction until the Hiveking had said his piece.
"... it is therefore my decree of utmost importance, to be carried out at once by all Groozl and with the greatest will of their being, that the entire military might of the Groozl be brought to bear on the Vlanth of Qwer of Sirius in order to save the Humans of Earth of Sol."
-----
The HMS Shropshire hung in orbit around Earth, the great forest of the Sahara below. All Human ships with any weapon capability had been summoned back to Earth to help in the defence.
"Not that we really need it anymore", muttered Captain Wright to herself. The view beyond the windows was practically full of spots of light, the vast majority of which were ships from every civilised nation in the quadrant. The great hulking Hiveships of the Groozl, the small, sleek vessels of the Bo'frun, the saucers of the Greys, all were assembled in the greatest armada seen in the history of the Galaxy. Some news channels on Earth were even reporting that the Armada had led to at least three dozen major wars to be called off amicably, as the respective nations devoted their entire firepower to the defence of what was, by universal acclaim, the friendliest planet in existence. nor had it escaped anyone's notice that if some species from another galaxy decided to invade the Milky Way now would be the perfect time, as the small warlord species around the perimeter had even lent their primitive vessels to the Humans.
The Battle for Humanity, the news channels reported later, lasted somewhere in the region of eight minutes and led to the comprehensive destruction of the entire Vlanth fleet. It was another four minutes before various funds and charities on earth started receiving sizeable sums of money from the other star systems to help rebuild the human colonies massacred in the outer Solar System.
HMS Shropshire was part of the Human fleet to join in the counter-invasion of Sirius, which saw the utter destruction of what was left of the Vlanth military and would have seen the extinction of the Vlanth altogether had Captain Wright not intervened as the Groozl began bombarding the Vlanth warrens on the surface of their home planet.
In the years and centuries to come, as the war faded from memory and the star systems of the galaxy finally unified in universal friendship (following the lead of the strange little mammals from Earth), it was the subject of much study as to exactly why the Vlanth were stuck as medieval farmers, and paid the humans vast sums of money every year, under the supervision of the Groozl | The alien vessels fell upon the Sol Coalition's fleet in waves, as if an interstellar tide had washed in. The lumbering human ships wheeled their guns about, massive artillery pieces launching their rocket-assisted shells across the field. Maneuvering thrusters flickered as the ships struggled to hold position upon the first alien volley. The aliens effortlessly shrugged off the shells, as their Stasis modules plucked them from the midst of battle. Bright green beams of energy rippled from their ships, and before the humans could react, half of their right flank had vaporized.
This was the last stand for Earth; colony after colony had fallen to these strange aliens. They had attacked without provocation, without reason.
Now, we travel to the SCS Tidebringer, where Captain George Albright prepares for his last stand:
Aboard every human ship, klaxons blared and men rushed to their stations. Things were no different on the Battleship Tidebringer, one of the last of its class. Captain Albright simply folded his hands behind his back as the right flank was... simply evaporated. "We've just lost twenty ships, Captain!" an ensign yelled from the side.
"And the Torch?" the captain inquired.
"She's..." the man looked at his graviton-field monitoring system. "She's damaged, but she's still on the field."
"Thank God," he said, "Thank God. Ensign, tell the Torch they must withdraw."
"Sir?"
"Their mission is far more important than this battle. We will hold the line."
"With all due respect--"
"We will *hold* the line. That is an order."
The ensign shrunk back down, eyes miserably scanning the console before him.
The captain noticed a faint blue glow as the Torch's FTL drive powered up. The ship stretched, then leapt into the great beyond, course unknown.
"Now, Lieutenant, I want all fire directed at the middle ship in the fleet. Let's get their attention." The gunnery section nodded their head in approval, working furiously on their panels to adjust aim and reload their weapons. "Standing by," the lieutenant said, at length.
"Open fire, everything we've got."
The ship shuddered as twenty-six guns fired and six missiles launched in harmony, sending their payloads toward the enemy lines. The captain observed the trails, chuckling to himself. Under better circumstances, one might even think these weapons were beautiful to watch as they streaked across the blackness of spa-- His thought was interrupted by the immediate alien response, which tore through the hull of his ship.
Will finish shortly! | 2017-03-26T06:04:45 | 2017-03-26T05:50:12 | 221 | 42 |
[WP] Every "walks into a bar" joke occurs in a single bar. You're the bartender and your shift just started. | "Whiskey. The bottle."
The horse asks, sliding himself up onto a stool. His tux has seen better days, the tie apparently lost some way along his journey here, the top of his shirt open exposing his chest. Was one of them missing? If it were, it'd match his cufflinks, also absent from his dishevelled ensemble. I slide over a bottle, middle of the range, and he passes over a fifty.
"Keep the change."
"That's very kind, thank you."
I go back to working the glass washer, taking out the humid cleans and beginning to pile in the stack of dirties our bar-back passes over before the Horse walked in. He's opened the bottle, and pours himself a few a measures over a double before screwing the lid back on raising his glass for a long, bitter drink.
"Can't believe I used to live here." He says, an open invitation to start a conversation. His tip means I respond as earnestly as possible.
"Oh yeah? The apartments upstairs?"
"Yeah. Long time ago now." He takes another drink.
I let that hang for a while, wondering if he was the monologuing kind, until the silence nears on rude.
"What made you leave?"
He chuckles.
"Believe it or not, a band. We use to play gigs here right up until we got our first tour and then... Never needed to come back."
"You look like the front man type."
His head turns sharp toward me and cocks.
"Should be careful about saying that. Front men can be all kinds of terrible."
"Ah." My hands raise in apology. "No offense intented."
"None taken. You're right, though, I was. The front man and all kinds of terrible."
The end of sentence is addressed mostly into his glass in a spiteful mutter as he goes for another gulp. He raises it high, tapping it for every last drop, and pours another.
"But it all started here. Me, the seal, elephant, the octopus - damn good drummer he is... was, I guess now."
"Sorry to hear that."
His mouth is full, so he waved his hand at me. 'No apologies necessary'.
"We weren't that close. I went solo a few years back, creative differences is what the media called it. Real reason? I liked my coke more than I liked my band."
He's laughing - and so am I, but neither of us found that funny. I'm sure.
"So what made you come back here?"
"I don't know. Relive the glory days, go back to where it started, before I became such a raging asshole. Hey, you ever been on a plane?"
"What like, a passenger?"
"Yeah sure just, taken a flight - anywhere, over seas, domestic it doesn't matter."
"Yeah. Tonnes of times."
"Any of 'em ever crashed?"
I linger at the washer for a second, and glance back up at him to see if I can figure out just how that was meant to come across. He's looking right at me, interested.
"...no, none."
"Of course not. Planes are safer than cars, y'know, statistically."
He tells me that whilst watching his pour. This ones a few measures more over a double, and I wander what the purpose in him even having the glass is.
"You're more likely to die in a car than a plane, more likely by a long shot. You know what the numbers are?"
"No."
He slumps.
"Me neither. But they're low, right? So keep that in mind. Now what do you think the chances are that three people you know would all be killed in a plane crash?"
For the first time I notice he has tears behind his eyes, lingering there, none managing to break free.
"I don't... I don't know how to answer that."
"Sure you do, come on you're a bartender."
"I serve drinks, I'm not a therapist."
A booming laugh comes out as he throws his head back, and he wiped the tears from his eyes as if it was that that had caused them.
"Y'know the guy who tended on my private jet - when I could afford one of those, he said to me serving the right drinks is only half the job."
"What was the other half?"
"Oh, come on now!" His glass juts toward me as the hand clutching it goes to point, he's smiling again. "Asking the right questions!"
"Okay." I'm getting close to my tether with the Horse and cast an eye over his bottle, half empty. He's a quick drinker, sure, but from behind the bar he doesn't seem quick enough. "What're the right questions?"
"Well, you've already missed them."
He sounds smug, *irritatingly smug*, and I can't back down.
"Enlighten me."
This was the right answer, he swivels on his seat to turn his whole body toward me, imposing with how large he is, and leans in close.
"Well a horse walks into your bar in a tuxedo he's been wearing for two days, he's had five hours sleep in those forty eight hours, and lost his cufflinks in the cab ride over here - a cab that, recognising the horse from an anniversary cover of NME, charged him double. The only friends he ever had are lying in a morgue somewhere in Paris and the bartender didn't even recognise him when there's a poster of him on the fucking wall."
I follow his eyes, that have foregone the tears in favour of a piercing, unblinking intensity. 'The Animals', a large poster hanging above the bar for an rock band I've never paid much attention to. The horse on the poster is younger, healthier, playing behind a microphone with an elephant to his left, a seal to his right, and an octopus on the drums.
"Now, you tell me. What d'you ask that horse?"
"Why the long face." I say dumbfounded, as he gets up from his chair carrying the bottle with him.
"You're welcome for the tip."
He's out the door before the sound of the jukebox fades back in, and I'm taken back to reality. | As I arrived, the usuals sat at the bar, sipping their water downed whiskey and watching an old playoff game hoping for a different ending never to come. I topped off whiskey, rum and cokes, and opened a couple more beers. To be honest, I wasn't in a great mood, but I thought he day was looking up when a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead walked into the place, unusual but not unheard of. My urge to say something witty had to be buried deep down. They ordered their drinks, martinis. When they finished their drinks, they left me a generous tip and left never to return. Then, things started to get weird.
A rabbi, a priest, and an another person walked in and ordered beers. As I slid their brews down to them, I knew had to say something.
"You an atheist?" I said to the odd man out.
"No! A retired pastor, jerk."
They all stormed out of there. No tip for me either. Fair enough, I guess.
Then, the impossible happened. A horse walked into the bar. It didn't say a word, but I had to say it. I had to.
"Why the long face?"
It made me chuckle when I noticed that it wore a saddle and reins. An officer barged into the bar, red in the face. Grabbing the horse by the reins, he apologized and stepped back outside.
Then, things got really weird. Something I had never seen before came in.
"What the hell are you?" I asked.
"A neutron."
"Alright, what'll you have?"
"A screwdriver."
I made it and set in front of this thing.
"What do I owe you?" It asked.
I stared at it dumbstruck. "Umm, that'll be..."
"No charge?"
"No, $6.50."
Then, it got weirder I tell you. Another man walked into the bar and asked one question to a woman, beautiful and blonde.
"So, do I come here often?"
This woman stared at him.
"Dad? How did you get out of the nursing home?"
She grabbed him and looked right at me as they left: "Alzheimer's."
As my shift ended and the bar cleared out, one more person showed up. He walked in, and I immediately said "We don't serve your kind in here?"
And he looked back at me and said the strangest thing: "How did you know I was a time traveler?"
"Umm...your hair."
Truth be told, I didn't. I was tired of all the BS. Honest.
I closed up early that night.
***
If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe to r/nickkuvaas for more stories. | 2018-01-31T18:56:18 | 2018-01-31T18:46:27 | 1,688 | 32 |
[WP] In this world, soulmates cannot hurt each other in any way or form, intentionally or unintentionally. You are an assassin hired to eliminate a powerful figure. As you close in for the kill, your bullets miss their mark and knives bounce of their skin. Things just got awkward. | Sometimes the best disguise was no disguise at all.
That was what Elayne thought as she weaved through the crowd like a serpent through water. She wore no mask or hood to conceal her face. There was no need. She would not be seen. Her mark, a young man named Genta Nakamura stepped into view. Following closely behind him, were two men who wore matching black shades and business suits.
*His bodyguards*, Elayne thought.
Her hand fell to her side, fingers brushing the handle of a knife through the fabric of her skirt as she drew closer. Elayne's eyes honed in on the three men despite the moving traffic of pedestrians and saw her mark break off from the crowd and into an alleyway.
She followed, turning the corner into a dark alleyway.
"You again," Genta's voice echoed in the narrow alleyway before stepping out of the shadows and glaring at Elayne. "What's your name?! How much are being paid to take me out huh?!"
"What? I don't know what you're talking about," Elayne said as she blinked innocently with her round emerald eyes.
"Your playing dumb? I've seen you at least a dozen times girl. At least have the decency to admit you're trying to kill me, geez."
Genta snapped his fingers. Two men stepped into alleway cutting off Elayne's only escape route.
"You're surrounded. Don't make this difficult and just surrender. I don't want to kill you kid."
Elayne didn't move, nor did she speak. She only waited patiently as her fingers brushed steel.
The bodyguards stepped forward ready to restrain Elayne, but at the moment they lunged forward, their hands grasped only air.
Elayne had slid underneath the guards, slashing at the ankles of the men with two steel daggers held in reverse-grip in each hand.
Genta's bodyguards crumpled into a heap as they cried in agony. Maimed and immobilized, Elayne proceeded to leap over the men, her skirt flying up and briefly flashing Genta with her arsenal of knives and-
"Pink Hello Kitty panties? Are you serious?" Genta asked, incredulous.
Embarrassed, Elayne slipped and fell onto her skinny behind. As she landed, Elayne had spread her legs in an awkward attempt to break her fall and in doing so she had proceeded to further expose her Hello Kitty panties to Genta.
Genta who was a high school dropout turned Yakuza, had never even dated a girl before and suddenly found himself pleasantly excited as he stared at Elayne's childish panties. Excited might have been a strong word. He was more confused by the awkward change of hormones in his head - going from fight or flight adrenaline to pleasurable excitement.
"A-are you done starring?" Elayne stammered as she felt the constant heat on her cheeks refuse to abate.
"Oh. My bad, sorry," Genta began apologizing remorsefully as he tore his intense gaze away from the Hello Kitty panties. "I-I didn't mean to look. But you were about to kill me and then-" Genta eyes were distant as he began reminiscing of how it all went down. The sight of the knives strapped to her pale thighs and then the Hello Kitty panties.
Genta broke into a fit of laughter.
"S-stop laughing! I'll kill you, you pervert!" Elayne shouted as she stood up quickly and pointed a double edged dagger at Genta.
Genta paused, "Don't worry I won't tell anyone and besides it was cute."
"You won't be, because I'm going to kill - wait. What? It was cute?" Elayne looked up at Genta inquisitively.
"Yeah, your panties."
"Oh," Elayne deflated visibly. Even though she wasn't conscious of it, she had secretly hoped that Ganta would say *she* was cute and not her underwear.
"What's your name?" Genta asked.
"Elayne," she replied but then frowned. *Why did I...* It was pointless, telling a man she was going to kill her name.
"Elayne. So that's your name," Genta smiled. "I wish you'd tell me earlier."
Elayne smiled back. "And I wish you'd die already Genta. Every time I make an attempt at your life something gets in the way. My sniper rifle jamming, heavy winds turning my bullets astray, and then multiple knife attempts failing because - for some strange reason my hand refuses to stab you," Elayne sighs, letting out a breath of frustration.
Genta sighed back in kind. "It seems everyone wants to kill me these days..."
Elayne looked at Genta, and for the first time she noticed the countless scars and fresh wounds covered up with bandages.
"How much are you getting paid?" asked Genta.
When Elayne didn't respond, Genta ventured to guess. "Ten grand? A hundred grand? A million?"
Elayne scoffed, "Hmph, your not worth that much."
*So it was over a hundred grand at least,* thought Ganta. He didn't have enough to double the pay, even if it was ten grand.
"Alright. Have a go. Your best shot. If you can't kill me, how about you become my bodyguard and I'll pay you more than anyone can ever offer for my life?"
"Fine."
Elayne watched as Ganta unbuttoned his white shirt, exposing his lightly tanned chest and stomach to Elayne.
For a moment Elayne looked away. Then she steeled her nerves, grit her teeth and stepped closer to Ganta. Close enough that she could feel his breath on her forehead. She took her dagger and held it in both hands before stabbing Genta through his ribs, aiming for his heart.
Genta grunted, flexing his muscles as he felt the cold steel nick his skin, but it didn't draw blood.
"Fuck you," Elayne whispered softly as she dropped the knife.
"Maybe next time," Genta said as he grinned. "But you're mine now."
----
----
/r/em_pathy
| The setting sun marked the sky with a rouge tint of red, and the shadow of night began engulfing the capital of our beautiful nation. Yes, there had been problems before but they were all about to be fixed. Tonight, by my hand alone; or, so I thought.
Getting into the theater had been easy enough, despite the word going around about maximum security orders on all facilities he was attending - this, I owe to my semi-successful acting career. Thanks ma.
Of course, while waiting for the target to arrive, what man wouldn't stop and reconsider his decision? Even the most highly skilled assassin does it, and that's what sets us apart from the lunatics that always end up overdoing the job. Keeping some of the humanity, I'd been told, was the best way of escaping the guilt, and the best way to minimize the evidence of our presence. Had I known what would transpire, would I still have done it? To be honest, I'm not so sure. Earlier the cause had been so clear, beyond reason, but now... did it even matter?
And there he was. A stout figure, unlike any other in the whole country. Of course I acted inconspicuously, chatting up folks and looking altogether busy; textbook example really. Oh, I'm sure this'll go in the textbooks. For centuries and centuries to come.
I'd been entrusted with a companion who was to see to it that the job gets done and I don't screw things over, some over-entitled schmuck if you ask me. His idle posture nodded me towards the stairs - it was time. As I readied to enter the box I could've sworn I felt the uncommon rush of the heart that you sometimes feel when a part of your soul becomes affected by your actions. I'd taken that feeling for granted, assuming it was the rush of the moment taking its toll. Yet, my heart spoke even louder when I pulled the trigger onto that stupid, stupid tall hat of his! Why did I find it so charming! It hit me, as it does us all when life decides to joke on your behalf, when the bullet ricocheted in its abnormal fashion. He didn't have time to turn his head, but I know, just as well as he did at that moment, what he felt. It wasn't chock or surprise, nor was it fear. I know it because I felt it too, and saw it in the corner of his eye and the lips that drew tighter. He didn't have time to turn around, though, before my sidekick shot him straight in the back of his skull. Maybe it was for the better, maybe it was not. I did not care to find out, once I ran away and exited the Ford theater. Abby, honey - I'll probably see you soon.
_____
r/PapilioCastor | 2018-04-24T01:31:32 | 2018-04-23T23:53:55 | 39 | 12 |
[WP] When a child comes of age their greatest quality manifests itself as a familiar that will follow them for life. You just turned 21 and you still didn't have one, until this morning when two showed up and they terrify you. | **Part 1**
The sun had set long ago on my twenty-first birthday, and the moon lit the sky. Top Chef was on the TV as we lay sprawled across the couch lazily enjoying the program. "We" being myself on the couch, my girlfriend Katlyn snuggled against me in my lap, and her familiar Tannilee laying in her lap. Tannilee, a spirit of Creativity, held the form of a golden rabbit. I watched Katlyn scratch Tannilee behind the ears as we watched the TV. I reached out stroke my fingers on the back of Katlyn's hand. Tannilee opened one eye half-way.
"You had better not be trying to pet me again, Half-Soul."
"Tannilee!!" Katlyn flushed red with embarrassment, throwing herself upright and jostling Tannilee off her lap. Tannilee landed smartly on her feet, flicking her ears smugly. "I told you to STOP calling him that!"
"And I told *him* to stop trying to put his filthy hollow hands on me."
"TANNILEE!" Katlyn looked ready to die of embarrassment.
"It's ok, sweetie." I sighed, trying not to show how bothered I was.
I was the only person I knew who never had a familiar manifest when I tuned thirteen. I had done exactly as everyone else had done when they came of age. I read the old tomes, collected the proper reagents (Fresh! Not dried, and hand-collected instead of just grabbed off the market shelf!), and I entered the summoning circle and spoke the Old Words.
Nothing had appeared.
When all my friends came to school with a jade scarab, a silver mouse, or that one lucky jerk who had a ruby DRAGON, I had nobody. They all had lifelong companions. Nobody in the world ever had to be alone. Except for me. If I hadn't met Katlyn on that subway platform and accidentally spilled her cauldron's brew all over myself, I'd still be sitting on this couch all alone forever.
It'd be nice, you know, to have a familiar of my own. And I admit, yes, sometimes I try to scritch Tannilee behind her ears, just to see what it's like. But Im the only person she wont alllow to touch her. She'll nuzzle and play with all of Katlyn's other friends AND their familiars, but my girlfriend's spirit animal HATES me for some reason.
Katlyn apologized profusely for Tannilee's rudeness, as she always did. The apologies helped but... gods dammit if I couldn't have a companion of my own, I just wish that stupid rabbit would let me *pretend* to be normal, just a little bit.
We went to bed after the show was over. Katlyn was a deep sleeper, she always went down like a rock in a few minutes. I laid there staring at the ceiling for a bit, looking at my love with a wistful smile as she slept, then suddenly wincing.
Tannilee was kicking in her sleep. I pulled the blankets off, and there were scratches on my ankles, bleeding lightly. Scowling, I nudged her with my foot, onLy to get slashed by her kicking feet. I winced, trying not to wake Katlyn up. I caught Tannilee peering at me through the hooded slit of her eyelids. She grinned at me, twitching her rabbit ears, and I could see her mouthing the words, "Fuck off, Half-Soul."
- - - - -
Breakfast in the morning went pleasantly. Katlyn had woken up early and made a big breakfast for us, ham and eggs and pancakes. When she saw the scratches on my leg, I made up a story about needing to trim my fingernails. I didn't want to cause her stress so early in the morning. Tannilee just leered at me over Katlyn's shoulder, grinning mischievously.
I got in to work, setting up my workstation for the day. An array of transparent magnifying crystals floated over my desk. I took quill and parchment to take notes on today's observations. I put a small piece of flesh from a forest animal's diseased liver under the observation crystals. We had been tasked by the King to cure the plague running rampant across his hunting grounds and claiming his livestock.
Swarms of impossibly small creatures swam under my gaze, transparent with internal organs visible to the eye. Impossible to see unassisted, but with the enlargement crystals we could study a whole new breed of invisible life. They fascinated me, the pulse of their internal organs under their thin clear skin made it seem like... well, like they carried their own familiars inside of themselves. A smaller creature living inside another, unified in purpose and direction. Like everyone else in the world but me had. Like Katlyn had with Tannilee.
Tannilee... that bitch rabbit. All I ever tried to do was be nice to her and she had to treat me like crap at every opportunity. And why couldn't Katlyn keep her under control, kicking at me in my own damn bed and insulting me to my face and nobody even tells her off for it...
"Too right, mate. That's one cunt hare, if I do say so myself and I do."
"YEAH YEAH YEAH! I HATE HER SO SO SO MUCH!"
I leaped, looking around the laboratory. The rest of the researchers were out collecting more specimens. Nobody else was in the room. "Who's there?!"
I heard only laughter, a mirthless chuckle from the first voice and a maniacal cackle from the second. The empty laboratory seemed to expand around me, my solitude becoming sharper and heavier as I tried to find the source of the voices.
But nobody answered, and I did not hear them again for the rest of the day.
-----
(Please see my reply to myself for Part 2. This story is going to take longer than I realized it would to tell, and it's already too big for one single Reddit comment.) | I was 21 when they came.
I was always told that sometimes familiars came late. I didn't really mind, to be honest; I'm told that having a familiar is like having a pet, a guardian, and a friend all in one. I was kind of a loner anyways, preferring to stay in my room most of the time and play video games from sunrise to sundown on weekends. Not exactly healthy, but I didn't care. I had a stable job though, working at my mother's dog grooming shop as I was generally too anxious and socially awkward to work somewhere else with better pay.
But it was a Friday when they showed up. I had the day off today due to heavy snow - I live in Washington, near the coast, if you need clarification.
The first one was astonishing; it was more like a blob of light than anything, though it was able to take shape of anything it or I wanted it to be. A tiny bug, a colossal whale, a twisted beast from Dark Souls or some other piece of media. That one represented my creativity, my ideas, my hopes and dreams.
The other however, was more along the lines of an placid eldritch god; it too was able to change it's shape like the first one, but it's primary 'form' was something I have trouble describing; so many legs, as many as a centipede's, more eyes than a millipede, and yet it was so kind despite it's horrifying appearance.
That one represented a few things like the other.
Anxiety. Depression from back when I was in school. Things I hate about myself. A desire to improve. A need to get better. Determination.
Of course at first I was incredibly scared; too scared to even scream for my mom and dad. But the darker one - the Eldritch one I now usually call it - simply rested it's body, which almost felt hot to the touch - and explained to me what it represented. How that I was destined for great things in my life, even if they seemed small to me, and they'd be always by my side until the day I died.
It still scares me a little bit, even today. Because when I get angry or sad or stressed or whatever it changes it's form to represent how I feel. A writhing ball of demonic energy, silently screaming. A sad little creature, curled up in my lap. A quivering being, with no mouth to scream.
When people see them they usually gawk and awe, point and stare. I don't mind; usually the Eldritch one takes the form of a dog to keep people from screaming in horror, though it always has the eyes and a few extra legs. The more angelic one so to speak takes the form of a nice fat snake coiled around my neck and shoulder.
I'm very glad to have these two with me. | 2017-01-20T14:53:16 | 2017-01-20T13:56:52 | 74 | 52 |
[WP] Whenever you saw a dead animal in the road, you'd say a little prayer and send them to Heaven. Upon your death, you arrive in Heaven and are immediately swarmed with 1000's of various critters delighted to see you. You hear a booming voice cry out with irritation, "This is YOUR fault." | When I was in primary school, I began to pray for dead animals.
Back then, my family: father, mother, grandparents and an aunt lived together. A small house with an attic and a smaller garden at the back, where a separate room for my grandfather stood. Time changes, the house was renovated and now the garden is but a fraction of its original size, and the room was torn down to widen the kitchen. But the memories I have of playing in the rain, weaving in and out of my grandfather's little room, climbing support beams and closets and trying to float Lego boats on 'rivers' of rain with banks of dirt to no avail always remain.
And it was in that little room that I stared at a dead cat, my mind filled with revulsion both for the corpse and for myself, and spoke in my mind a little prayer.
***
I don't remember when it started, but my house seemed to attract stray cats. Well, only a pair of gray cats with white stripes, but they were such frequent visitors that they might as well be a part of the family...if you ignore the fact that they purred all night and went potty all over the goddamn house. Hell, there was one time I found a bird carcass in my blanket after school!
Reception to them is mixed. My parents generally didn't care much about those little critters beside making sure to close the bedroom door and scare them off food. My cousin, whose dog wandered off and never returned in his childhood, took a shine to them and always scratched their ears or rubbed their heads whenever he could visit. My grandmother really didn't like them. She was a complete softy to family but at the same time very strict with outsiders, and it showed in the way she dealt with those strays. Many times had she tried to beat them with a wooden stick, but her dwindling strength meant she couldn't do much harm beside giving them a fright.
As for myself...I was slightly scared of them.
"How can you be scared of those cuties?" is something some may ask me. Indeed, I don't find their appearance scary. It was simply a knee-jerk reaction after having been bitten by a dog. Nevertheless I'd freeze up and observe warily whenever one of them wandered near my legs.
Life goes on, and then one day, after a heavy rain over night, I walked into my grandfather's room and saw a cat, sprawled out and unmoving. Somehow, my childish mind understood that it would never wake again. I called my father, my mind numb. He told me it was probably childbirth.
There were signs. The last few weeks their cries had been increasing in intensity. They rarely appeared, holed up in whatever spot they took in my house. But how could I even know when I don't even know their gender?
I looked at the dead cat. Disgust welled up in me: at the corpse, at myself for the fact that I even harboured such thoughts toward a dead animal. I stood, unable to even so much as bent down and closed its eyes and hated myself for it, and spoke a prayer in my mind. My family follows Buddhism but I was too young to understand it. I knew not of Heaven nor Nirvana, only a vague desire for it to find something better after death.
Since then there was no more meowing in my house. I never knew where the other cat and its kittens went, and as years past, the unmoving cat was buried away in my mind. Still, whenever I saw a dead animal, the same feeling always resurfaced, and I always spent a moment to wish for its departure to the afterlife.
***
I died just as I lived: simply and peacefully. One moment I closed my tired eyelids and the next I stood in front of a golden gate.
...It was noisier than I thought. Dogs barking, birds chirping, even snakes hissing. I thought heaven was a place of harmony? It sounded like a zoo in there.
And it was indeed a zoo, because when the gates opened, there was a literal army of animals behind it. I flinched at the large dogs with their jaws bared. They all seemed excited for some reasons, and for a moment I thought they would try to tear my throat off. In fact, every animals behind the gate seemed to eagerly anticipate something, and if I had a guess, that 'something' is most likely my inevitable demise.
So this was hell. They had done a restructure to fool sinners into believing they had reached Heaven only to dash that hope right before their eyes.
Still, none of them came out. None beside a small gray cat with white stripes. She came to me with a grace that could only belong to a cat, until it stopped at my feet.
I didn't know if I deserved this. Nonetheless, I hesitantly knelt down. My hand reached out and retracted itself a couple of times before I finally made up my mind and placed it on her head. Still afraid that she would jump up and scratch my face, I ran my hand across her fur.
She purred.
Only then did the voice start. It was booming, authoritative and it was without a doubt grumbling.
"It's your fault. Your prayers sent them all up here and now we have to work overtime to clean the place up! Do you know how many strands of hair we found in the archive every day, no, *every hour*?"
I should have been in awe. I should have been subservient. It was God. The One who created the world and its lifeforms, which includes me. I was but a speck of dust before Him.
Somehow, what came to my mind first was none of that. My lips quirked up into a smirk.
"So," -I spoke- "it actually rains cats and dogs?" | When Sarah was alive, she had a ritual she performed for all the dead animals she passed. It just seemed right to her, that those who are easily forgotten get a few words and a half-descent send-off before they return to the earth. They might be strangers to her, and she might have scarce little to say besides, "I'll see you in the afterlife, if there is one." But she always at least said that.
Sarah had slept outside in the wilderness before, but never on stone. The cold, rough stone pressed painfully into the back of her head, but she was too groggy to wake up. She tried to roll onto her side, use her arm as a pillow, but now the stone dug into her hip. She tried to wriggle into a comfortable position, then gave up, and forced herself upright.
Nearby, she noticed, a campfire crackled and burned, the only source of heat and light in this desolate place. It was barely enough to light the dark stone within ten paces. Shadows appeared to shift in the darkness beyond.
"Where am I?" Sarah shouted. Her voice sounded so weak in this place, like it swallowed all sound as well as the light.
"After life," a voice boomed. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. "After all life. Only the ones you saved remain."
Sarah was blinded momentarily by a sudden flash. The fire intensified, and she felt the heat flare for a moment before receding. The increased light revealed the shifting shapes in the darkness were in fact live animals. Hundreds, possibly thousands, surrounded Sarah on all sides, wounded in all manner of ways. A deer with a twisted hind leg; the front half of a snake; a racoon, midsection flattened; an owl missing half its face, maggots wriggling in exposed flesh. Horror crept over her.
"They did not pass on like the others," the voice said. "This is your fault."
"Why?" she asked, almost a whisper.
"I am the Earth," the voice said. "You wished for life. But only I can give them peace."
She saw a calf among the animals, and the calf looked back. Was there recognition in its eyes? Parts of its skin started to flake away as ash, followed by the exposed flesh underneath. The same was happening to the others. The fire dimmed and dimmed, and was then extinguished as if by an invisible hand, and Sarah, who remained whole, was alone in the darkness. | 2019-09-03T01:15:02 | 2019-09-02T23:03:15 | 72 | 25 |
[WP] Every 15-16 years, some kid is labeled as The Chosen One and is sent to fight The Dragon Lord and his armies. They always fail, but they do a little bit better each time. The Dragon Lord is getting nervous. | *January 3rd, 2020*
Fire scorched the stalactites far above as the dark lord guffawed. His roaring laughter shook the cave walls and freed golden coins from their lodgings, tumbling down from the heaping piles they had rested on and coming to a stop against larger treasures buried in the mountain of gold.
“You, you are quite the funny one”
The dragon chuckled, returning his gaze to the servant below as wafts of smoke drifted from his nostrils. The miserable little creature shifted his weight uncomfortably, not brave enough to make eye contact with his lord.
“To think that the mortals could ever spit out anything that could do more than tickle me.... it’s absurd.” The dragon lord raised his claws and gestured about, saying: “Tell me once they’ve ‘invented’ a real challenge.”
The stone creature stammered incoherently.
“B-but, the outpost....” he muttered helplessly.
“You may leave now, Charpedity.” The dragon lord waved him off, turning his attention to a golden chalice near his throne.
Charpedity stumbled off, muttering under his breath the whole way. “Proud heritage I leave you son, royal advisor to the great demon lord of all power, my son, you hold a great honorable position, my son” He muttered, punting a diamond at the bottom of a golden mountain into the side of a cave wall.
Dagion watched him go, amused. Centuries of conquest, of wars and battles, of great victories, and yet he still enjoyed moments like this. Once the rocks on legs had exited his chambers, his expression flattened. His gaze turned gravely to the chalice. He picked it up, turning it over and over, his sharp claws scratching the previous surface. He mindlessly drug his claws across the golden cup, tracing irreparable pathways into its surface. Digging into the edge, he popped a ruby from its embedded place and watched it tumble down from his place of exoneration on top of the golden mountain.
Despite the good show he put on, Dagion was worried. He knew of the humans well. Once they had started evolving, he spent years studying them, learning their habits and tendencies through his dark magic and his spies. Year after year they waged war on him, century after century, but he always outwitted them, always was two steps ahead. He was the immortal king of the underworld and they were but ashes under his feet.
But he had gotten more lax. He stopped raiding their countries, controlling their population. After they developed gunpowder, their advances briefly concerned him, but once he learned conjured Narue metal repelled their projectiles, he quickly squashed their attacks. But this year.... his spies knew nothing. Nothing of the chosen one. Who they were, where they were from... nothing. In past years the humans had exonerated their heroes, presented them to the world before sending them to their deaths. It was easy to kill them when you knew what was coming. But this year was different.
No word from the spies. No leads from the seeking spells. No rumors of a ‘new powerful weapon’. Nothing but the human problems. Riots, violence, civil wars within their own establishments.
Well, nothing but one small outpost. One of the few above ground lookout posts, eviscerated overnight. But it was poorly armed, and without Narue, so humans could have simply burnt it down. It shouldn’t have been a concern.
So why was he so worried?
If Dagion had not become more complacent the past 3,000 years, he could have wiped them off the map. Conquered their world, exterminated their race. But bloodshed became unappealing after centuries of it. After he wiped out the last of the violent earth creatures, he chose to simply observe their progress, to pull all his demons and dwarves and nightmares into a world beneath their world. Without the mythical creatures, the humans thrived and grew. The other species on this planet before the world reset, they were unchanging. Predictable. But humans, always innovating. Always evolving. It was thrilling to watch.
But the old curse found its way anyway. The humans, following the Cqueatians and the Tordnaions and the Lasarzqar before them, always sent a champion to fight the forces of darkness. They didn’t know their entire world was birthed from the dragons. They couldn’t be blamed, since they were simply acting under the confines of dark magic. Still, it was disappointing at times.
An explosion rocked the cavern, shards of rock cascading from above.
Dagion snapped out of his thoughts. He rose from his place, freezing for a moment before the explanation hit him.
They’re here.
Large, powerful wings drove the dragon of the darkness into the air, licks of flame curling from his open jaws as he crossed the throne room in seconds. He exploded through the hallways, prepared to engage the breach head on.
Through the winding pathways and dark corridors sped the dragon, his fearsome eyes glowing deep red and lighting his way.
Into the open underworld he exploded, his wings unfurling, fangs dripping, ruby red scales shining in the sudden fiery light. He was a terrifying sight to behold, his powerful roar deafening the cavern. A proud warrior, a fearsome opponent was he. But when he looked down, even an infinite number of battles could not have prepared him for what he saw.
His armies lay sprawled before him, destroyed. His nightmares smoldering, gollums broken, demons withered. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Dropping quickly to the battlefield, he barked at the only nearby ghoul still alive:
“What is this?!”
“He has something unstoppable, something we couldn’t have ever prepared for. There’s no hope. They’ve won, he’s coming and-“
Before his eyes, his ghoul melted into the ground. In her place behind her, a human stood, wearing a T-shirt and slack pants, a single silver weapon in his hands. He was alone. Dagion exploded into the air, flames curling at his mouth, prepared to fight, but a single beam pierced his chest and drags him back the the earth, his body slamming into the ground.
Numb and powerless, his eyes flutter open as the human calmly approaches.
“We won, dragon.”
Sounds of Fire burn around Dagion, his own breath rattly and weak.
“Human, before you claim your victory, I must know....”
He coughs, black smoke puffing from his mouth.
“How?”
The human stops and looks around for a moment. He bends down to the old warrior, standing feet away from his ancient eyes.
“This. Is how.”
He says, lowering his weapon to the dragons nose. There, printed in block text, are four simple human words.
“Property of Area 51” | My armies were prepared, the armoured corpses of previous victims were impaled around my throne, all was set... but I still felt this sense of dread that I hadn't felt before. It had started to set in a couple of Chosen Ones before, but the last one got especially close to victory. Was their knowledge inherited? Perhaps each one was a reincarnation, all with the genetic memory of each one's battles? My advisers said I was being paranoid, but what else could explain the steady progress between each One?
I rose from my throne - birds scattered in multiple directions multiple yards away as I did. My anxiety seemed to be palpable, causing some of my men's knees to buckle and give, something that only happens when I am most upset. The sun was high, it was almost noon. I had almost bellowed a malicious invite down when I finally spotted him: The Chosen One. He was equipped in the best armour he could get, his stance was firm, and a gleam of sunlight cut across land as it bounced off his weapon.
As he approached me, I began to wonder: Have I been going about this wrong? Why must we fight? A Chosen One is chosen, not bred, right? Surely they must be as corruptible as the other humans. By all accounts, I am magnificent, the fearsome and fearless Dragon Lord, he who has transcended petty humanity to rule as he sees fit. I don't need to worry myself with the kind that has ever stood a chance against me.
"Halt." My voice booms down the mountainside. Sure enough, they do, but not without grabbing their weapon, readying themselves for whatever they expected. "Chosen One. I extend to you a generous proposal. As you may have been informed, all who have come before you have failed. Each and every one, disemboweled, beheaded, incinerated, bisected, and you walk towards a similarly-gruesome fate. Instead of this foolish bout you wish to bring, might you instead end this petty cycle and join me under my rule? You shall be treated fairly and with the respect you deserve, not as a tool to be utilized and commanded by those weaker than yourself, but instead a proper weapon, working in tandem with the greatest warrior in history."
It was a long-shot, but at this point, it felt wise. If my suspicions are correct, this Chosen One might actually have the means to defeat me, and if not, at least I have the chance at getting even more leverage, and proving to the puny snakes that seek to envenom me that even their very own hand-crafted hero can be turned to the darkest uses.
The Chosen One stopped, their head low in contemplation. The fact that they stopped at all was sign enough that perhaps I was not foolish to assume that they could be turned. They weren't a shining beam of purity, they were a trained fighter, being force-fed the poison the humans called "hope".
Despite the stop, the Chosen One continued, and my men attacked. The One moved with skill unmatched by his predecessors, but by the time he had reached the mountain top, weapon aimed towards me, he was skewered and propped up to bleed out. I watched the life drain from his struggling, his essence spill out on the elaborate stone steps leading to my throne, and instead of the satisfying feeling of victory that I had felt with each One's death, I felt a hollow sense of defeat.
In 15 years, I am going to be dethroned, and there is nothing I can do about it. | 2019-09-16T11:28:22 | 2019-09-16T11:27:36 | 24 | 15 |
[WP] A hero and villain are roommates and have to keep making excuses for why they need to unexpectedly go out so often. Neither knows the other is their nemesis. | Toni looked in the mirror and put in her favorite earrings, emerald studs given to her by her dearest friend the day she graduated collage. They perfectly complimented her fiery red hair.
“Hey, Akio?” she called, “I've got a dinner date with Warren tonight. Don't wait up for me, OK?”
Her stilettos clicked down the hall as she poked her head into her roommate's room. “And no staying up all night listening to you anime shows.”
The tiny Japanese girl tilted her head toward the sound of her friend's voice as she sat cross legged on the floor. “What date is this, four hundred and thirty two?” she asked “That man needs to put a ring on your finger, Toni. Even I can see that.”
“Ha, ha. Blind jokes from the sightless Asian girl.” Toni grimaced “I mean it, chick, you better not be dead on your feet because you binge watched Sword Art Online all night again because I wasn't there to stop you.”
“Binge listened.” Akio corrected “Tonight I think I will do Fairy Tale, many more episodes.”
“Ugh, I think you are punishing me, like when Mom's terrier would rip her cushions up because she left her alone for too long.” Toni paused at the sound of an car pulling up. “There's Warren now, love you.”
“Love you too, have fun.” answered Akio as her friend's footsteps disappeared out the door.
“Toni!” smiled Charles as he held open the back door of the sleek black sedan “You are looking fine tonight!”
“Charles, are you flirting with my lady friend again?” sighed Warren Black as Toni slid in beside him grinning mischievously.
“A pretty girl needs to be witnessed to , Mr. B.” replied the driver in his best televangelist voice “And I will preach it!”
Charles slid his massive form behind the wheel and the car oozed out into traffic. “Can you give us some privacy, Charles?” asked Warren. As the partition between them slowly rose to give the couple some privacy, Toni couldn't help but notice that Charles's usually sunny demeanor had become almost angry.
“Toni, dear.” began Warren “How long have we been seeing each other, a year now? I don't know how much it has meant to you, but it has meant the world to me.
“You make me very happy, Warren.” smiled Toni “In fact I don't think I've ever been this happy before.”
“Then if I gave you this ring and asked if we could take our relationship to a new level, you'd be open to that?” asked Warren as he opened a small box to reveal sparkling ring.
“Oh, Warren!” gasped Toni “Its beautiful, it looks old and maybe Asian. Where did you get it?”
“My father found it in a antique store in Hong Kong and gave it to my mother for their 25th Anniversary.” explained Warren as Toni lifted the ring from its box “So it has sentimental value.”
Toni slid the ring with its jade stone held by twin dragons onto her finger. She startled and tried to cry out in fear, but her body slammed back into the seat and she curled into a fetal position, shuddering.
Warren Black calmly watched as the redhead slowly straightened herself and combed her fingers through her hair to get it out of her bright green eyes.
“Warren, dear, why do you always insist on using this girl?” she asked sharply in new and deeper voice. There was a noticeable trace of the Far East in her pronunciation.
“Because I want you to be as beautiful in form as you are in spirit.” smiled the industrialist.
“So we're not just indulging your fetish for empty headed redheads are we?” asked the new Toni.
“Well, maybe a little.” admitted Warren “But she has a Master's degree in Marketing, top of her class. So, not empty headed.”
“So you say. But she never remembers putting on my ring.” sighed the woman “How is the plan progressing? I assume you have found another Dragon Tooth?”
“Yes, its in the possession of an antiquities collector, surprisingly close actually.” nodded Warren “After this one, we'll only need 3 more to permanently exchange your soul with that of Toni.”
Her eyes burned “I am the Emperor's daughter! The Keigetsu Hiryuu! I am the Moon Dragon herself! I will not be trapped in the body of a gaijin!”
“Tsukiko, love.” soothed Warren “of course not, but we can worry about that after we have all the Teeth.”
“We will discuss this later.” growled Tsukiko “Do not doubt this. I have two hours before I am drawn back into the ring. We must move quickly.”
Akio snapped awake from her meditation. Above her bed a katana hummed ominously. She sprang to her feet “ Keigetsu Hiryuu! She is awake again!” Moments later a silent form slid into the night, racing toward a distant call.
Warren Black sat alone in the back seat of his sedan, reading an ancient Japanese text. He wore his glasses, something he never did when others were near, he deemed it a show of weakness. “Charles, pull the car around to the bottom of the hill, Tsukiko will meet us there.”
The chauffeur glanced worriedly at the massive house above them and did as he was told.
An old man lay broken on the floor of his favorite room, surrounded by the wonders of the world he had collected during his life abroad. The woman who had easily sliced through his security riffled through the broken glass. “I can feel the Dragon's Tooth, old man. Where is it?” She traced the edge of his cheek gently with her sword, leaving a trail of his protectors' blood.
“It matters not, Demon.” came a soft reply from the shadows “You will get no relic tonight.”
“Dragonfly!” hissed the Moon Dragon “I will get the Dragon's Tooth and I will lift the Sunrise Sword from your bleeding hands!”
Akio attacked in a flash of green silk and steel, her blade throwing sparks as it was deflected again and again. “I will defeat you, dead one. You day passed a thousand years ago, you will not trouble this era.”
The Emperor's Daughter laughed “You and your silly band of monks! It is amusing the way you try so hard, but you fight destiny itself! You can not win!”
“Our task is blessed by the Ancestors, we cannot fail.” countered the Dragonfly as she moved dance-like, each pass of her enemy's sword missing by fractions of an inch.
“Then why did they send a defective child to stop me?” sneered Tsukiko.
With a quick flick of her wrist, Akio hurled a shard of glass into the seemingly open air. There was a tinkling sound followed by sudden darkness as the lights went out. “We shall see who is broken, shall we?”
The darkness was punctuated with the ringing of steel and crashing antiquities. Akio could feel the Moon Dragon's attacks get more and more desperate, she was now having to fight Akio on the young monk's home territory, complete darkness.
Suddenly, just as the Dragonfly felt victory was near, a window shattered and the Emperor's Daughter disappeared into the night.
A weary Akio knelt and checked the old man's pulse, he lived. Distant sirens told her he would soon receive medical attention. Once again she was left with a victory that did not feel like victory. This Dragon Tooth was safe in her hands for now, but the Enemy was still out there.
At least Toni was safe and happy tonight, with Warren, Akio smiled to herself. Someone deserves a happy ending. | I run for the door, tonight is the night. I'm afraid but I know I have no option, if I don't go now things will be dire. I go to turn the door when Adam appears from behind me. He has a bead of sweat on his head. Why does he look so guilty?
"Where are you going, Sam?" he stands close to me, his breath hot on my forehead.
"I left my wallet at work, I need it..." I start turning the doorknob, praying he will go away.
"I need to go out I can get it if you like? It's really no bother." he grabs my wrist and pulls it away from the door. I feel my nails embedded into the palm of my hand, my knuckles turning white. Why can't he just fuck off?
"Fine..." I release my hand from the door.
I will have to wait till he leaves before I can go. I tell him where to find the wallet and before I can finish what I'm saying he is gone. I run to the kitchen window and climb onto the counter so I can look out the window. The only window that gives a good view of the driveway. I wait till I can no longer see the headlights of his car before I return to the door. I look back at my phone, the text screaming at me 'tonight.'
I step out the door and walk into the garage, I don't have a car but I don't need one. I have my own means of travel. I hold my breath and picture a fly and within seconds I suddenly feel lighter. I can hear the buzzing of my wings and suddenly everything is though I'm looking at it through a kalidescope. Who needs a car when you can shape shift anyway? I fly through the streets, everything suddenly seeming much larger. I dodge cars with ease until I am almost there. I keep thinking about how distant Adam has been lately and suddenly feel a pang of resentment. We were once so close and now it's like we are strangers. I don't know why Adam comes into my mind when tonight is the night I am going to change the world.
I arrive at the top of the water tank in our small town, and stay as a fly until he arrives. I don't know who he is, all I know is he has been making my life extremely hard ever since I turned eighteen and discovered just exactly what I am capable of. I know that he has the ability to do what I can do, though he uses his powers for reasons much different to mine.
Suddenly out of nowhere a flame strike appears across the sky above me, my kaleidoscope vision much too weak to make out what exactly I am seeing even though I know exactly what I am about to encounter. I hold my breath and turn. Feeling the purple scales grow rapidly onto my skin, my throat full of fire, my wings expanding. Tonight we will fight. I fly into the sky, facing Him.
A loud screech from his throat that only my brain can comprehend,"you knew this was going to happen."
I ignore him and strike at him, my dragon wings sending me at him faster than the speed of light. He dodges my attack.
"I'll give it an 8/10," he screeches.
I breathe fire into his direction, singeing one his wings. He darts at me, faster than me. I am knocked to the top of the water tank. His claws grasp onto my left wing, preventing me from moving, preventing me from defending myself.
"Why are you doing this?" he screams over the noise of the night. I try to move but I'm too weak.
"Revenge." I say but it is barely a whisper.
He claws at my wing harder, "louder!"
"Revenge!" I scream.
"I can't let you do this! I don't want to hurt you but you've given me no choice!" he screeches, fire coming from his mouth.
I watch as his razor-like claws embed themselves deeply into my heart. I feel myself losing breath, my dragon facade disappearing. I am now myself. I look at the dragon, as he slowly reveals himself. Adam. My heart breaks. His face, drains of color.
"Sam?!" his eyes fill with tears, "Sam, no no no no!" He kneels down beside my dying body, grabs my hand.
He grabs his phone from his pocket, still holding my hand, "I need help now, my wife is dying!"
"I love you," I say and then everything goes black. | 2017-04-03T14:28:56 | 2017-04-03T14:15:06 | 32 | 22 |
[WP] One day in class you decide to scream something in your head to catch mind readers. As you do, you see your crush flinch | (slightly NSFW)
 
It's a Monday.
It's 7am and I haven't been awake for more than 30 minutes so I can barely remember the name of the professor monologuing at the front of the classroom, much less what subject we're supposed to be studying.
I think it's appropriate to say that my mind is nowhere near a fully functional state. My head's probably drifting off somewhere in space two universes over.
I can barely keep my eyes open more than twenty seconds at a time, and if I were more awake I would swear to you that every third blink I took was slower.
Something in the back of my head is desperately trying to keep me from keeling over in my drowsy stupor and face planting into the back of the seat in front of me, so I desperately search the crowd of heads in front of me for something- **anything**- interesting.
A glimpse of a familiar light golden brown catches the edge of my vision, and my eyes immediately lock onto a wig of somewhat orderly bed head two rows down from me.
The hair belongs to Iralynn, a... I guess the best description would be an acquaintance. I've known her since my sophomore year in high school. We've talked before, even participated together in a few group projects back then, but I've never really spent a lot of time with her.
We know of each other, but I don't think either of us would deem the relationship between us an actual friendship.
Which is why it seems really weird to me that I would develop a crush on her.
It started half way through my senior year when I, for some reason I can never place to this day, decide to myself that she was objectively cute.
It wasn't really an attraction at the time, it was more like how one would say a puppy was adorable or a flower was pretty. But whatever the original thought was, it quickly developed into something more.
I saw that she was caring and kind to her friends. In projects she was always ready to step up to the plate for any responsibilities that might come her way. She was hard working but also easygoing. In group conversations in noticed she was incredibly animated, yet somehow sensitive to the emotions around her.
But I never approached her, even after learning that we had gone to the same college. It was mostly out of a sense of insecurity.
I mean, I was an Asian boy and she was a Caucasian girl. Granted she was a quarter Brazilian and an eighth Egyptian, but that's kind of splitting hairs at this point.
And I know that it shouldn't matter what race she or I was, but growing up under the preconception that Asian boys don't get the White girls and living in an all-Asian community that seemed to reflect that left some pretty deeply rooted insecurities.
It didn't help that she had an incredible figure. I mean, what else could you expect from someone who was our school cheer leading captain who also somehow made it onto our volleyball varsity team as well.
There was a day when the cheerleaders had to share the pool with those of us on the swim team, so believe me when I say that I know what her figure looks like.
Hell, she asked me if her suit was too tight! I had to turn around to hide my red cheeks. Of course I said no, but by time I had gotten control of my face and turned around she was gone.
My thoughts of Iralynn and her figure were cut short by a rush of blood to the netherlands.
I flushed red with drowsy embarrassment and shifted uncomfortably in my chair, trying to hide my morning wood. I swear, I'm not normally this volatile. If I'm being honest, I have withering self-confidence issues about my body.
Iralynn moves a bit in her seat, and my sleepy mind panics for a bit. I calm down, and a thought wanders into my head: *"If Iralynn could have read my mind just now, I'd want to die of embarrasment."*
Two rows down, the girl shifts again and I panic for a split second more. Then I laugh under my breath.
*"Mind reading? What a joke,"* I think to myself. I smile and laugh inside as I think over how ridiculous the idea was. I mean, c'mon me. Mind reading is sci-fi stuff. I'm an introvert, and I take solace in knowing that my thoughts are mine alone; private.
Half joking and half mocking myself, in my mind I spontaneously break out into the loudest, most emasculating moan I can muster.
If it was out loud, someone might have probably thought I just pulled myself off.
Iraynn visibly flinches in front of me with an audible intake of air, and everything in my mind just... stops. I'm now fully awake, and my heart is racing inside my chest.
Slowly, to my growing horror, she turns around and our eyes meet. Her face is red, and she's wearing an expression I can't put into words on her face... but the look says it all.
My face takes on a hue to match hers, and we just stare at each other like deer caught in headlights. Everything inside me withers away in our stare.
All my bravado, my dignity, and what little pride I had in myself as a man, just gone.
In it's place, an overwhelming urge to roll up into a ball and die.
 
(I'm thinking of maybe doing a reverse POV.) | 'But if the plosive is preceded by a nasal consonant, wouldn't they have the same place of articulation?' We had just reviewed the lecture on nasal place assimilation in our study group last night. I knew from experience that sometimes your intuition as a native speaker is just dead wrong. I tried sounding it out in my head. 'Honk!' Hmm . . . 'Hooooooonnnnkkk.'
I saw it before I heard it. Simon's jean jacket in front of me twitched up and down at his shoulders as he tried couching to cover his snicker. Odd. 'So if the k is velar, it should turn the n into an engma. HOOOOOONNNNNKKK. Yeah that sounds like an engm-'
The jacket bounced again. This time, the snicker verged on a giggle. What the fuck. There's no way. No fuckin' way. It is absolutely not possible that Simon heard me honking like a full on Canadian goose. I glanced at the clock. Shit, I needed to finish this exam. I did not have time to worry about what Simon did or did not hear. But just in case.
'HEY MOTHERFUCKER' I yelled inside my skull. I kept my eyes focused on the paper in front of me, but my peripherals caught his sudden flinch. Oh jesus this was just perfect. 'Look, asshole. You better be taking me out for coffee after this for all the answers I must've been giving you for the last hour.'
I wouldn't know if he'd heard me until I finished. Which I now really really needed to do. Shit. I scribbled my last answer and walked my exam up to the proctor's table. I grabbed my bag and waltzed out of the room to the bench right outside the door. I barely had time to take my phone out before the door opened again.
Simon turned to me. "Well? I hope you like Caribou. I'd offer Starbucks, but that's only for people who actually give me *correct* answers." | 2017-11-13T22:10:35 | 2017-11-13T21:06:00 | 28 | 20 |
[WP] Welcome to Vault 54! A vault located in the beautiful Hollywood U.S.A. Its residents are award winning actors. The experiment? Each resident is assigned a character role for 5 year periods. If they break character they die. The vault's ultimate purpose is to study the concept of identity. | Oh, now this one was interesting.
Throw a bunch of actors in a vault and tell them act or die. Classic, right?
Military wanted to understand the limits of deep cover agents and the ability to constantly suppress your own personality. I tell ya: that ain't easy, no sirree.
The first 12 months weren't too bad. The computer monitored everything via audio. People were differentiated by speech patterns, tones, vocabulary. All conversations were recorded, analysed and stored. When someone fucked up, the computer worked it out, and gassed them in their bunk.
Pretty simple way to do it. Audio recognition software had been around for quite a while, at that stage. But why am I telling you all this? Well, just wait.
So the first 12 months go OK, OK? Right. But then people start dropping like flies. A year just got tough. We had all the trappings of Hollywood in there, too. So sometimes someone would drink too much, or do the wrong drugs, forget who they were and say the wrong thing. Psssssh goodnight. Ha!
I think those poor bastards actually burnt all the shrooms in the first month.
You'd get domino effects, too. Finding someone dead would cause someone to break character, and so on, until someone could remain perfectly composed while finding a dead body.
Nerves of steel on some'a these folks, I'll tell ya.
Yeah yeah, I'm getting to it. Hold your horses.
So, one day there was a glitch. There's a 4 week gap in the computer's records. The team monitoring from outside the vault were trying everything to get it going again, and finally they replace some special linkage thingy and the computer comes back to life.
The techs go to work, and it's the strangest thing. It's as if the 4 week gap never happened. The computer didn't kill anyone. Everything just picked up where it left off. Like in science fiction shows were people get abducted and shit, there's just this gap.
So the monitoring team are all "That's weird" but they go with it, because they don't want to have to admit to the boss that the experiment got all fucked up because Steve didn't tighten a screw down hard enough or whatever. Another two years pass.
Twenty-four months.
One hundred and four weeks!
They pass. And everything is normal. The vault is perfect. No-one is making any mistakes.
The techs are checking the computer. It's working.
All the microphones are working.
The software is working flawlessly, ok?
All the people are talking. Conversations are happening. Life is going on perfectly normally.
But one day, someone notices something. The vault is using next to no water. Of course there was plenty available, and it was all turned on and going into the vault. It was just as if everyone stopped taking showers or something.
So they triple check that system, and it's confirmed: not enough water is being used by all the actors.
They audit the computer and the audio is normal, right. No errors. Everyone is in character. Everyone is talking. The tones are right, accents, vocabulary, the computer is tracking everyone and they're all there.
It's a mystery.
So the lead scientist, he can't stand it, hey. He's freakin' out like the experiment got away from them. Some military dude thinks that the actors somehow are recycling or synthesising water so efficiently that going in to find out would be worth sacrificing the acting experiment to get the water tech, so he approves the abort.
I know, I know. Story is nearly over, I promise.
So the computer was wired directly to the reactor that powered the whole vault. To shut it down, they have to kill power to everything. So they do that, and crack the vault.
The team prepares to evacuate everyone, they've got beds and supplies and all sorts of stuff ready, but no-one comes out the door.
Even more weird, right?
So they send teams in. Night vision, flashlights, the whole bit. And they're sweepin' levels and calling out to people and it's the darndest thing: place is deserted.
Not a soul.
They're callin' and lookin', callin' and lookin'. Finally one of the military guys brings a dog in, and the dog just practically runs to one of the lower levels that hadn't been searched so good yet.
There's this door to like a storage locker looking thing, with dust all over it, and the dog is just pawing at this door like there's a big juicy steak or his favourite toy in there or something.
The team crack the door and peer in with their lights, and all they see is drugs. But not like, all kinds of drugs, just boxes and boxes of amphetamines. The vault's whole supply I guess. Not just recreational ones, but like ADD meds and whatnot, too. So they're just eyeballin' these boxes and thinking 'What the fuck?' ya know? When they hear a shuffling in the corner.
The dog even goes quiet, right.
And they're hearing this shuffling, and it's getting closer, and then he comes around the corner.
Dressed in rags, eyes bulging, beard, the whole bit. And the team is looking at this crazy Castaway hobo dude, and then one of the team recognises him. "Holy shit!" he yells "It's Daniel Day Lewis!"
And it was. It was him the whole time. All by himself! And get this, you know what he says? He comes round the corner, and the lights are in his eyes, and he's blinking and looking around at these crazy guys in full science and soldier gear, and he just says
"You better have my fucking Oscar."
| **Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink**
**Vault 54 Overseer Lee's Terminal**
**[2080.01.01.06:00] To: Nolan, Smith**
I know it hasn't been five years yet, but I want to do the reassignment this year. I'd prefer that the last two digits of the year follow the multiple of five every time we do the reassignment, that way it's easier to keep track of. Nolan, I want you to write a report summarizing the past two years. Smith, I want you to make hard copies of your data. Bring them to me tomorrow afternoon.
**[2080.01.02.13:00] From: Nolan**
It has been just over two years and the team already had to relocate eight of the actors to overseer Naimoli's side of the vault (contact him for more information on the concept of identity after a memory wipe).
At the beginning, shock was a big factor considering the more than luxurious lifestyles these award winning actors lived before the nuclear fallout. Almost all failed their given roles within the first day. After being told that they will be killed for not complying, most were able to give outstanding performance.
(See secretary Smith's data for more information)
Three out of eight of those that failed broke character not because they could not act, but because they refused to. Two failed because they felt guilty from acting hostile towards their peers. The other three broke their roles because of curiosity.
So far the results are inconclusive. Some have shown that identity cannot be changed, hence why they failed, while others can act like a different person completely. Personal beliefs and instincts are the two biggest factors against the experiment.
**[2080.01.03.08:23] Personal Log**
For the duration of the role reassignment, the actors were allowed to drop out of character. Somehow within the span of two hours, they already had a plan and started killing my crew. I lost Nolan, Smith, Johnson, and Realdine. I don't even know how they were able to hide firearms the whole time, guess they were "award winning" for a reason. Hopefully they don't get past the door, my crew and I should have enough supplies to survive the rebellion.
**[2080.01.04.01:42] Personal Log**
Open vault door
Open exit
Override overseer's command
Send help
Help
How to hack | 2016-09-18T23:35:24 | 2016-09-18T22:39:53 | 53 | 26 |
[WP] You find yourself in purgatory, you will be forever stuck unless you write that book that "you are totally going to write". The book will be published in the world of the living. | I was amazed at how short St. Peter was. I doubt he was more that 5 feet tall so I had a foot and a half on him easy. St. Peter, he has a temper on him this one. He plops down a book the size of an unabridged dictionary and puts a finger on top and growls, "This is a listing of all your sins! All of them boy! You should be going downstairs, but you had to go and save that baby from being run over by a bus. No greater love my eye."
The pearly gates were shining and I made my way toward them. I rubbed my hands together. "This will be fun. I want to see just who you let in here." I was halted in my tracks and drawn back to Saint Peter.
He snarled, "Just what I need another funny boy. You will remain in purgatory with the other novelists who can only gain admittance to heaven by completing their first novel. Now go until you have redeemed yourself."
Most of the people I know who want to become writers, find out pretty quickly that publishing is the biggest legal con out there and the houses hold all the cards. You could write the greatest novel in the world, but if vampire stories are hot, they won't even send you a rejection letter. They want women writers, who are people of color, maybe bi or transgender, who struggle with depression and who will write a love story that will bring the average woman to tears.
Yeah, that's not me. What old St. Pete didn't know is I'm a writer see. I never have writer's block; I have too many ideas bouncing around in my head. My idea notebooks filled up three shelves in my writing room. Give me a pot of coffee and some quiet time and I can knock out a book in six weeks.
There are plenty of cool things about purgatory; the coffee is always hot and you don't need to go to the bathroom. The supply of paper never runs out if you write by hand and your computer's hard drive has unlimited space. On top of all of that, there are no interruptions. Your kids never come in and ask, "What cha writing?" You wife never interrupts with "Where did you put the check book?" She had it on top of the bills she was paying. Nothing ever breaks and you have all the time in the world.
Just like I said, in six weeks I knock out my first book about a little kid who runs away from home to meet his grandparents who are estranged from his parents. The kid escapes from the cops by riding barebacked on the fastest pig this side of the Pecos River. I even took the time to edit, found a few instances where I was telling and not showing and corrected all my spelling, grammar and syntactic errors. Man I was on a roll. I hit the print button and the printer magically created a hardbound first edition. I signed it with a flourish.
A small television appeared, and my wife was wiping away tears of joy and saying, "It was husband's greatest wish that he could become a published author. My only regret is that he's not here to see his dearest wish come true." One more thing that's cool about purgatory; you could see a million sappy things and you'll never cry.
Saint Peter just appears and says, "I can't believe it. This is some kind of record. Come with me my boy, it's off to heaven you go."
I have to tell you I was tempted, I was really tempted to follow good old St. Peter back to the pearly gates. "With all due respect sir, my novel really isn't finished. I envision at least a twelve part series of the continuing adventures of our hero. It wouldn't be right if I just stopped now. The story's not finished. I have to see it through to the end. You just let me get to work and come back when this series is finished your blessedness. It's the only right thing to do."
Saint Peter clapped me heartily on the back and said, "Now you've got the spirit. I'll know when you're finished. I won't bother you, I'll just let you get on with things."
I got back to writing volume two. With any luck, I could pull a George R.R. Martin and never finish. Things were looking better and better. I think old Pete made a mistake. This isn't purgatory, it's heaven. When you can write as much as you like as long as you like, that's a perfect state of grace. Now get out of here. I have writing to do. | What do you do when rusty metal cuffs dig into your skin and the great iron chains clank every time you move your body?
What do you do when your feet are put to one of the hottest fires to ever exist? When the blisters burst of their own accord and under them come newer more sensitive blisters. What do you do then?
You write, I told myself. You write that book you never wrote when you were alive, when fire was a comfort and handcuffs a figment of imagination.
I can see it in my mind's eye: there's the man walking the streets, there he goes whistling under Martha's window, there he goes into the alley, there comes the clank clank of shoes on metal stairs, there comes a loud knock on Martha's door, there I am in the kitchen fiddling with a pen and a notebook, there's Martha's scream, a gunshot a thud, the sound of something falling to the floor, there stands the man over Martha's corpse, there he pulls out the gun, there another corpse. Dear brother. Dear brother and his dear Martha. If only I had had the discretion to not fall into the clutches of temptation.
I lived with it; I died with it. My dark secret, my guilt, my regret. Now is the time to put it down. Yes, now is the time.
I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.
If the book saves some part of me, let it be, let it be, I will allow it to do so. | 2021-10-07T08:23:04 | 2021-10-07T06:13:00 | 53 | 18 |
[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 wedding was the event of the century.
Our people had waited for a queen for such a long time, and I was the first female born into the royal family in close to 200 years. 200 years without a woman of royal blood on the throne had meant 200 very hard years. It is well known among my people that there cannot be prosperity without one. I was born into a country run ragged by war, famine, and misery.
At my birth, there were festivals. Even now, the shops close down that day every year, and the whole kingdom celebrates. When my 18th birthday arrived, the festivities around my Summoning lasted an entire week.
That day will always stand out in my memories. I was so nervous—the object a person summons shapes the rest of their lives. I knew, standing shaking on a high tower above the castle, looked on by thousands of my people, exactly who I needed to be. Who I needed to marry. As I stood with my hand outstretched, I felt ready to be sick. All I had to do was summon the wrong object, and the entire kingdom would be crushed.
There was a crash from below, a window breaking. The crowd before me cried out, able to see what was coming for me before I could. I couldn’t tell if it was joy or horror. I started feeling faint. I closed my eyes.
I have never in my life felt the kind of relief that I did when I felt my father’s crown places itself gently into my outstretched hand. This was my life. To be a Queen. To serve my people. This was all I had ever wanted.
According to tradition, a queen cannot take the throne until her consort has been chosen, and with my mother gone and my father growing more frail every day, my wedding was set for a year later. In truth, getting to marry Jack was one of the greatest gifts of my high birth. I had known him since I was too young to remember anything, and identified him as my chosen husband before I was old enough to consider that I might want to think about marrying anyone else. There had been some raised eyebrows when I announced to my father and to the court that I had decided to marry him, but I was their first queen in 200 years. I could marry anyone I liked, even the son of the blacksmith. I loved Jack with every part of me. There wasn’t anyone else in the world I would like to have next to me on the throne. He had a calm, gentle strength, and a quick mind. I often thought that, really, he would be a better ruler than I. At his Summoning, he’d brought forth a pen—a common item, but one that often came to those of sound judgement.
Preparations for the wedding began in earnest more than a month before the day, and as there began to be signs of the day approaching, the celebrations began as well. There was scarcely talk of anything else. Finally, the moment arrived that everyone had anticipated since my birth—I would take the hand of my consort and ascend to the throne.
I was wearing most of the jewels in the royal treasury. I had never felt more at peace than I did, standing next to Jack at the alter, ready to step into my destiny. As the High Priest began the wedding rites, I felt so calm I thought I might just melt away into the floor. I closed my eyes, taking it all in. It was as if I was the only thing in existence. The world fell silent, peaceful. I took a deep breath. Somehow, inside the great stone cathedral, I could smell the summer breeze. I could hear the call of a bird. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Must be Jack. Pulling myself back to reality, I lazily opened my eyes.
The hand did not belong to Jack. I was no longer in the great cathedral.
Bewildered, I looked around to find myself at the edge of a field. There was a small cottage nearby. I was at the smallest, humblest party I’d ever attended. My heart began to pound as I saw the decorations and emblems around me that declared exactly what sort of party this was—a Summoning Celebration.
I looked at the hand on my shoulder, followed the arm up until it connected to a girl of 18. Her face displayed equal parts confusion, horror, and happiness. I felt sure that there was a similar look on mine. It had been so long since someone had summoned their soulmate that the possibility was widely believed to be a myth. Nobody spoke. Probably, nobody breathed.
She was quite beautiful. The girl.
The longer I stared at her, the more I felt something shift inside me. Something deep, fundamental.
A queen on the throne meant prosperity for a kingdom that had been suffering so long. Two of them would probably mean the greatest age of prosperity anyone has ever seen. And if we hurry, we probably won’t even have to plan a new wedding. | ​
The air was cold, and noticeably more dense. Another odd occurrence is that my summon didn't come yet, My birthday was months ago, but I didn't think too much of it, because I knew that it would come, they always do. But what kept me on edge was the atmosphere, I didn't like it. It felt too unnatural.
I was out in the back when it finally arrived, it had been a hard day for me, endlessly tilling land for the little amount of money it got me until I could afford a place of my own. I was minding my own business when I saw the sky above me darken, I looked up and I swear I saw a flash of light slowly get bigger. Confused I stared for another minute or so when I realized it had been getting bigger, I started to get excited about it, wondering if it was my summon. I jogged away from the fertile ground and waited as the shining light struck the earth.
Shortly after it struck I ran over to the small crater left by it, I looked back into the sky and saw that the sky had brightened back up again. I looked at the object left in the crater, I had been perplexed because the only thing in the crater was a small steel container, I opened at I saw a handwritten note on the inside.
The only thing that was written was a passage, it read
"There will be a purge soon, you’re the last one to receive a gift, tell the ones before you to prepare” | 2019-09-18T10:56:31 | 2019-09-18T10:17:28 | 29 | 14 |
[WP] A woman has a heart attack on an airplane. The stewardess asks if there are any doctors on board. Dr. Seuss raises his hand. | Sheila hated flying.
The lines, the security, the people; all of it was terrible. She was, however, a decent sister and when Bethany had called asking to accompany her on the trip to Cali she couldn't say no. Bethany was, after all, eight months pregnant and Sheila felt bad letting her go alone.
All had gone well this time, perhaps a little too well she thought. Few people were at the airport and they had breezed through the checkpoints at record breaking speed. Two hours later they were almost halfway to San Francisco and Sheila felt she could finally relax.
Fate would betray her that day, babies sometimes decide the time is nigh and wait for no one. "GAH!" Bethany called loudly, "I just had a contraction!" The stewardess rushed over as the other passengers began to murmur in curiosity. "Is there a doctor on board?" the stewardess asked loudly while poor Bethany clutched her midsection in pain.
All eyes turned to the front of the plane as a man rose slowly from his seat. As he stepped into the light the features of his white beard, round spectacles, and immaculate bow tie were revealed to the cabin. "I am", the man said clearly.
Faster than fast he was there on the scene, the eyes of the passengers widened and gleaned!
His motions were rapid, the deftness of moves. No match was the larger emergency's loom.
He carried a bag which contained who-knows-what. His assuredness calmed us, he brought just the stuff!
There's no chance he wont fix this bizarre turn of luck. He's helping her out like a champ, there's no bluff.
He threw a large blanket right over her head, right down to her kneecaps, her ankles, and said:
"Just give me a minute, and soon you will see, I'll bring back a baby, what's more I'll bring three!"
He tucked his head under the blanket he'd thrown. He told her to push and she gave a great moan.
The minutes ticked on as he rushed through the work. We waited quite trepidly, fearing the worst.
The silence was broke that had taken the plane. The cries of a baby, his work not in vain!
He popped his head back through the covering shawl, and announced to the plane, "I've got one but not all!"
Then before even Sheila could register squat, his recede to the canopy left us in shock.
Yet again came a cry from an infant's small lungs, he appeared and declared to us, "Golly, what fun!".
We could hardly contain our excitement at all when at last, yes at last came the beckoning call:
The good Doctor delivered three babies as promised, a surprise to us all to be perfectly honest.
He threw back the blanket and low and behold: Three infants and mother there healthy and whole.
"What thanks I must give to magical man! My babies and I are here just as was planned!"
"No thanks here are needed", the Doctor stood firm, "I'm a man of the medicine: simple yet learned"
"All I ask in return is to raise them up well, to read to them books about dragons and elves!"
"If you read to them now while they still are yet young, they'll develop the habit and learning is fun!"
"They'll go on with their lives full of worlds in their heads; heck they'll carry them on to the grave when they're dead!"
The cabin was radiant, basked in his speech. Even Sheila, the grumpy one made not a bleep.
The mother, however, was simply not done, "Give your name my good Doctor, so shall be called my son!"
With a smile and a wink the good man spoke once more: "Theodore my good dear, and Geisel, but there's more!
"My work leaves me no choice but to be a recluse, for my name as a Doctor, well I do go by Seuss!" | "A doctor, a doctor? You need a doctor for the heart?!
But oh, but no what if it was just a fart?
I know! I know precisely what to do!
"Meet my assistants, Thing 1 and Thing 2!"
Wheeling and whirling and sailing,
Thing 2 and Thing 1 came in wailing!
Something like sirens was all that was heard,
as the crew and the passengers all found it absurd,
that a man, pretending to be something he's not,
talked to his hands that were wrapped in socks. | 2015-07-02T21:23:07 | 2015-07-02T21:22:33 | 20 | 10 |
[Wp] You finally build enough courage to talk to that cute someone you see everyday on the bus. Their face turns dark as they respond "You shouldn't be able to see me." | Rain struck the bus shelter as the old, beaten down bus came to a halt. It was an off-green colour, the paint beginning to peel and rust forming around the wheel arches. It had been in service for 20 years, always on the same route, and arrived at this particular bus stop at 7:30 AM every morning to pick up morning commuters.
Dressed in his yellow and blue raincoat, Dave was one such commuter. Every morning, he would get this bus to the stop down the road from where he worked. He carried his old leather briefcase in one hand and fumbled with a handful of change in the other as the doors of the bus opened. The bus driver looked straight through Dave as he dropped the change on to the little counter.
"Sorry." Dave mumbled as he fumbled around, counting the correct amount out before pushing it towards the bus driver.
Now beet red in the face, he turned and began to look for a seat. And there she was again. The girl in the blue coat.
Only recently had he noticed her begin to get on the same bus but now he couldn't help but stare. She was pale with dark brown hair, a beacon of light on a gloomy Monday morning. As he looked over her, she looked back with an expression of confusion on her face.
*Oh god, she's seen me staring,* Dave thought as he scrambled to find an empty seat in an attempt to seem normal. *Maybe I should sit next to her and start a conversation. Nah, probably best to just sit and stare from a distance.*
Dave found the first empty seat he could and opened his newspaper. He had a long journey ahead of him and the daily news was the only thing to keep him occupied, despite the fact that he hadn't had chance to pick up a new newspaper and this one was almost a week old.
*Same old, same old,* Dave thought as he flicked through the paper. *Girl killed in horrific accident, 3 injured, man killed in armed robbery attempt, all cheery stuff to get me ready for my day.*
Deciding to take the risk, Dave peered over the top of his paper and saw the girl looking straight at him. Almost immediately, Dave pulled the paper back up to cover his face, before realising how strange he must look.
Pulling the paper back down again, and avoiding eye contact with the girl, he folded it and placed it neatly in his bag. Then he looked at her again, and she was still looking right back.
*Now is your chance Dave. Clearly, she wants to speak to you, just go for it.* he thought as he rose from his seat and awkwardly shuffled towards the empty seat next to the girl, almost falling as the bus came to a sudden halt.
"May I sit here?" Dave asked, motioning towards the empty seat. An expression that can only be described as terror crossed the woman's face.
*Oh god, now you've really done it Dave. Your face has terrified her so much she can't even bring herself to speak to you.* Dave thought as his face got redder and he realised that she hadn't replied yet.
"You can see me?" the girl asked in a tone that was little more than a whisper.
Now Dave was the one that was confused. *Maybe she is just as weird as you Dave. Maybe you do have a chance.*
"Shouldn't I be able to?" Dave asked in reply.
"Well, no not really. I mean, nobody else can anyway."
"Now, that is strange. Any idea why?"
"No, can't say I do. It's just that since last Wednesday, everybody that I try to talk to looks straight through me as though I'm not even there. I bought something from the shop this morning and the shopkeeper didn't even acknowledge me." The girl said, an expression of deep sadness crossing her face.
Dave thought back to the bus driver, who looked straight through him as he put his change on the counter. He thought of the days at work last week where nobody talked to him. He thought back to the weekend spent cooped up in his flat and the fact that everybody that called him couldn't hear him. At the time, he had chalked it up to a broken phone until he thought of the newspaper and the girl killed in the accident on Wednesday.
And the man that was killed in an attempted armed robbery.
"Can you remember what you did Wednesday night?" Dave asked the girl as he slowly began to imagine the worst.
"I remember leaving work and then arriving home, but I felt ill once I got there so I went to bed. I can't remember how I got home."
"Me neither." Dave replied.
The rain pounded the windows on the bus as the two sat in silence, cold and unseen, waiting for somebody to notice them.
Edit: Just wanted to thank everybody for the kind responses, makes me want to write more! | I looked around at the rest of the kids on the bus. No one was looking, not even the driver; they were too busy with their own things. Then I look back at the girl. My chest tenses, I adjust my glasses. I slide over the center and sit next to her. “Hey,” I said, “Name’s Nate. How’re you doin’?”
The girl looked at me. She softly moved a strand of her blonde hair from her eye. She looked confused. “You can see me?”
I smile, trying to hide my own confusion. I adjust my glasses. “Yeah,” I said, “Doesn’t everyone else? I mean, besides mine this is the only seat that has only one person.” The girl stiffened. More confusion on my part.
“You can’t,” she said, “this must be a test. You can’t see me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t... you can’t...” she repeats the words, her voice continuing to get softer.
I hear one of the kids around me. “... talkin’ to nothing.” I hear. I look around. Only two kids have noticed me, but I know that by the time the bus reaches school, everyone will notice me. This will be difficult to handle. I’ve never handled anything.
I returned my attention to the girl. Tears were streaming from her eyes. I couldn’t help but say something, even with the others looking. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You shouldn’t be able to see me.” | 2017-10-13T03:15:26 | 2017-10-12T21:05:17 | 2,073 | 125 |
[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 | Felix Schneider had not, in the larger scale of things, lived a particularly difficult life.
There was a certain balance to it. The ups came frequently enough – his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, his two daughters (four years apart), the promotion to regional chief at the accounting firm he called his second home. There were downs too, though it could not be said that they were entirely unique or noteworthy on their own – deaths of loved ones, a crumbling marriage, rejection by the very daughters he had raised.
If Felix had kept a scorecard, he would have found that at the end of his sixty-five years on earth, he had sampled the joys and sorrows in almost equal quantities. There were people, of course, who were far more fortunate, but equally, there were others who suffered at the other end of the spectrum too. Felix counted himself quite lucky in that regard.
And he would have remained of that disposition till the end of his days, but for the one time he took a different route home.
Felix lived by himself in a little apartment on the fringes of Berlin. There was a park nearby, one that he delighted in. Every evening, six o’clock sharp, he would trot the circumference of the park, leash tightly in hand, Rover panting away by his side. The route was so ingrained that he could have navigated his way around with his eyes closed.
A single fancy took him down a different alley, one that was coincidentally occupied by a group of teenagers, all of them too young to be cautious, too old to be hesitant. Wrong place, wrong time. It didn’t matter that he had Rover by his side, or that he begged for mercy. They took his wallet, his dignity, and left him with a hundred pounds of dog kibbles that he no longer had any use for.
When he returned to his apartment a week later, his head still bandaged so heavily he had trouble going up the stairs, he found that the only correspondence in his mailbox were flyers and a bill from the hospital, ever efficient. He checked online, and found that his daughters had yet to respond to his emails asking for help in contacting his insurers. He tried their cellphones, just in case. The elder one rejected his call, the younger one picked up.
“Hello? Lena? Yes, just calling to see if you had heard about… no, there is no emergency now. Yes, yes. Yes, I’m at home. I just wanted to tell you that… alright, alright. I’ll call you again when you’re off work. Say hi to your sister for me sometime, and tell her that… hello? Lena?”
He spent the evening in his sofa, staring out the window, watching the city hum under him. The sun set, the evening winds came in, but he didn’t feel much of anything at all, not even the hunger which tried to remind him that he had not had any solids for an entire day. Eventually, as the morning buses revved through the streets, once again ferrying their passengers to their all-important tasks across the city, Felix made up his mind.
Felix knew what he had to do.
He shaved. He brewed a pot of coffee. And then Felix packed into a little backpack all the essentials he thought he would need. He was in his aging Volkswagen before nine o’clock, weaving through traffic, heading in a dogged beeline for the 109 highway which would take him to Barnim Nature Park. He made it there by eleven o’clock. He parked his car, paid the entrance fee, and then started on the trail he had in mind. Felix laughed and waved away the park ranger, insisting that the bandage on his head was more decorative than essential.
He reached the alcove some hours later – he was no longer sure what time it was, given that he had left his watch behind in his apartment. He thought the evening was approaching, simply from the way that the bird song had petered out and the insects were returning to the airwaves. He set up his tent under a copse of trees, listened for the babbling brook, then lay down to watch the stars.
More hours passed.
A peace had enveloped him. He pored through, in his mind, the album of his memories, starting from the earliest he could recall (his elder sister, long gone, who carried him on her back), to the freshest which he tried to purge (Rover’s final barks, his daughter hanging up on him). He folded his hands on his chest, recalled the prayers he had not uttered for years, and with complete sincerity, reached out to God.
“It would be nice if everything could end now,” Felix prayed. “Just… end. Not just for me, but for everyone. No more experiences to live, no more stories to tell. The final chapter, for everyone. And it doesn’t have to mean anything at all.”
Felix stayed quiet for a moment.
And then, in a voice he had never heard before, in tones so commanding he would have fallen if he were standing, Felix heard a reply. Just a short string of words, no dialect, no inflections, no tone, no depth. Just… words, words spoken so very perfectly that there was no gulf in understanding at all.
NOT LONG NOW. EVERYTHING WILL END SOON.
---
/r/rarelyfunny | The tiny little creatures I looked after had turned their world into crap. Thousands of years had passed in their time and yet, they had decided to ignore me when I tried to talk to them. Every single human who wanted to hear me, could not. It was like someone had built something to block me from them. Or maybe? Hmm, I wonder. I rooted around inside my little room and found the microphone lead tangled among all the other cables. I found the little switch on the side and my heart dropped. The world couldn't hear me anymore because I had been on mute. I face palmed and my stomach sank. I'd left my creations alone for so long that they thought they were alone in the universe when they were in fact a very loved pet. My friend had also chosen to create his own universe, but his creatures had turned out far less intelligent. We weren't supposed to do it, but early on, I'd added a bit of my own DNA after my idiot little brother had nearly destroyed the planet with a massive rock. I didn't think anything had survived, so I sent a little of myself down there to kick start the planet again and my god did it work. The little creatures, the humans, they slowly evolved into sentient species, just like us. We were scarily similar with some minor differences. I'd tried to curb their sexual desires as that's all they would do given half the chance by making it into a sin, but with the lack of my voice out there, people were reproducing all over the place and my calm and quiet planet was now full of this one species that was now starting to kill everything.
It was now or never. I switched the mic back on, located the man with the blond hair who ran that big country they called America and started talking to him. It was time he joined with the other leaders of the world to tackle climate change whether he wanted to or not. | 2019-06-03T09:08:26 | 2019-06-03T09:07:34 | 165 | 21 |
[WP] “Where’s Waldo?” The Reaper ponders. For decades he’s been appearing in photographs, only to taunt Death himself. He’s finally tracked him down to Northern France where there’s a record breaking Where’s Waldo meet-up. Whatever it takes, whoever else he must go through, tomorrow Waldo must die. | Death comes in many forms.
For some, it’s the slowly creeping tides of time that stains their hair gray.
For some, it’s a sudden accident that strips away their youth in heart-stopping, horrible ways.
It doesn’t matter where, or when, but Death comes for everyone in the end.
All but one.
The first time Death noticed him was in the 15th century.
It was a bloody day, and Death had come to reap the souls of the ones slain on a great battlefield whose name had long since been lost in the trenches of history. Knights of great renown, and squires from different echelons of society, regardless of class or age, they were all equal under Death’s careful watch. And thus, Death took these souls with Him and began to turn away when He noticed one particular knight.
An eldritch warrior, in a suit of red and white.
Death stared at the strange anomaly, before turning away.
How peculiar, He thought to Himself.
The next time Death saw him was in the 18th century, during the beginnings of the American Revolutionary War. It was the Battle of Lexington, and Death had come to reap the souls of the ones destined to fall on that day. Unseen to the mortals below Him, He drifted in between the lines of both armies, and watched as the curtains of war opened upon that bloody stage.
A nameless soldier, dressed in red and white, lifted his gun.
Death stared at him, and something odd flickered in the air.
How very peculiar.
And thus, the Shot Heard Around the World was fired. The American Revolutionary War had begun in earnest, and Death went to work. Day after day, battle after battle, He reaped the souls unfortunate enough to fall on their destined days. However, Death never forgot the nameless soldier in red and white, for it was he who fired the first shot.
In the late 20th century, in England, Death stumbled upon a book that would catch His interests for years to come. A simple children’s puzzle book that brought back memories as old as time itself. Death found himself intrigued for the second time in His long, long life, and He began to flip through the pages.
*Where’s Waldo?*
A simple book of diluted color, the illustrations splashed across the pages in earnest as He took in the countless numbers of cartoon characters that were drawn in careful haste. Finally, out of the thousands, He spotted one, very familiar character.
A man in red and white.
A face that he had seen throughout the annals of history.
The eldritch knight that faced him without fear.
The nameless soldier that fired the first shot.
*Waldo*.
Death shook in silent anger as He stared at the object of his ire. A stupidly grinning face, and knowing eyes stared back undauntingly. Death crushed the book in His hands and glared up at the sky. Somehow, someway, this Waldo had eluded His grasps for several centuries if His memories served correctly.
Death soared into the sky and summoned His otherworldly sight. He would find him, and He would reap his soul.
It was the 21st century, in the year 2018, when Death finally found His age-old foe.
For forty something years, Death had searched for this elusive Waldo, and forty something years, Waldo had continued to elude Him. But now, in perhaps the greatest Waldo meet-up this earthly plane has ever seen; He would find him, and He would reap this sinner’s soul. It was a great crime to run from Death, and even greater a blasphemy to hide from due time.
Death set foot in the convention and glared out at the crowds. A slowly moving mass of red and white.
This Waldo, whether through eldritch means or some unsung magic, could see Him, and so He would walk amongst the mortals, and instantly reap the soul of the first person who made eye contact. A foolproof plan that He would follow through with.
For hours, Death searched the mortal plane with his hallowed scythe.
And yet, not one of these morals could see Him.
Death grew increasingly frustrated, until finally, His rage was paramount above all. For how could a mere mortal elude Him so? How *dare* a mere mortal mock him so? And underneath a silvery Moon and unkempt clouds, He screamed his indignant anger into the air.
*“Where’s Waldo?!”*
An echoing laugh was His only answer.
Edit: If you liked my story, you can read more at r/DreamingOrion. I'm doing a story a day for 365 days :) x | Waldo, Waldo, Waldo. My white whale. My elusive success. I've finally tracked you down. It is the eve of your death, and of my triumph. I have stalked you through all weathers, through every continent, and now to these windy and chilled coastlines of France.
It's been a journey to get here, one of constant disappointment. In every crowd I search for your rounded glasses, you're taunting stripes, and sometimes I catch wind of your elusive smirk before you disappear once again among the masses. You've bested me time and time again. But not today, not now. I will spare no effort or soul to capture you now, for this will be your final resting place. Every image of you now will be one in remembrance. A circus, a park, a monument near which you tried to best me, but ultimately victory was mine.
I hope you feel the true penalty of your presence to all who must suffer today by your hand, for our game has come to an end. With my scythe I will reap with vengeance today. May your gravestone forever read the date and place of your demise: Normandy Beach, Caen, June 6, 1944. | 2018-07-04T14:47:36 | 2018-07-04T13:50:22 | 78 | 25 |
[WP] The Sea of Trees. The deeper you go, the taller they get, and the more incredible the animals. After a month of traveling, you just found your first clearing. | Elliot always used to think that ocean was endless, as he stood on the dock of his small fishing village where he could see miles and miles of tumbling water. But on clear days, he could see outlines of other islands on the horizon. Here, there was nothing. The aptly named Sea of Trees was, he believed, truly endless.
He sat on the top of a tall tree, and in every direction he saw only trees, as far as he could see before the horizon hit the canopy of leaves. The trees even looked like motionless waves. From the ground, everything seemed flat. But from his vantage point he could see that the ground slowly sloped up and down, the trees growing with them.
Far ahead to the north, the trees seemed to grow larger and larger. Elliot wondered if he wandered forever, he might one day find a tree reaching up into the sky, perhaps even all the way to the sun.
Something, to the east, caught his eye. The trees seemed to dip down and disappear, then reappear again on the other side It was a circular area, not too large, but a decent enough size. It reminded him of a whirlpool on the water.
"A clearing," he said aloud.
Elliot looked down. He was high up, but could still see the forest floor below the leaves. The bear that had been chasing him had gone, probably off to find a slower and less capable meal. He had seen bears before, of course, and as he got deeper into the forest, far more terrifying animals. Bobcats and cougars the size of male lions. Giant crocodiles lurked in the steams and ponds. Once he saw a hawk, larger than him, circling in the sky. But this bear was different. It was at least three times the size of a normal one, and had a green tint to it, like it had rolled around in algae. It's eyes were narrow, and its snout large and thick. It's jaw opened wide enough to wrap around the entirety of a fat man's body. One of his paws had slashed at his shoulder, which had long since bled through the bandage he had clumsily applied in the tree. But it was gone now, Elliot was sure. It was large enough to crack large branches and its footsteps vibrated the ground. It also constantly growled, low and deep, and it could be heard for miles.
Elliot climbed down from the tree. He seemed to be right that the bear was gone, large paw-prints headed off to the west. Elliot turned to the east, to where the clearing was. It could be miles away, he knew, but he'd make it there. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go.
That night he slept in a tree with branches thick enough to support him. He was lulled by the song of the giant crickets. The next afternoon, he reach the clearing.
It was larger than he thought. A meadow of grass and little yellow flowers. A pond, crystal-clear sat in the center. He ran to it immediately, glad to find a water source not covered in the sludge of vegetation. He filled his canteen, then walked in, shedding his shirt and coat. The water was refreshingly cool, but stung when he submerged his wounded shoulder.
"You ever hear about how there's always an oasis in a desert?"
Eliot looked up, and saw an old man sitting on a wooden chair. Behind him, on the edge of the clearing, was a giant tree house.
"I like to think of this little place as a forest oasis. A paradise."
"You live out here?" Elliot asked.
"I do. Been here my whole life."
"Even as a child?"
"Yes."
"What parents would raise a child here."
"None." the old man said. But parents might leave a child in the woods if they want nothing to do with it."
"Impossible. How would you survive?"
"I was found by the spirit of the forest. She was nicer, back then. Before the people to the south began to cut down her trees for their expanding cities. Now she's angry, but I think she grew fond of me. She leaves me be."
"I think the isolation has made you crazy," Elliot said as he pulled himself out of the water.
"I see you ran into one of her beasts," he said, looking at Elliot's shoulder. "But she let you go. Strange."
"It was a bear who attacked me. I got away from it."
"You've gotten this deep into the woods, boy. You should know by now that the beasts here are special. If it wanted to kill you, it would have."
Elliot couldn't help but think he was right. When he entered the forest over a year ago, five other had come with him, men older and more capable. They had all quickly perished. But he had been left well alone.
"She wants you for something. You should find her, seek her out."
"If there is a lady of the forest, how would I find her?"
"There are shrines set up to her by the forest people. Though they have long been extinct, their monuments remain. Each night, you can find one, by following the ray of light the moon makes. Go there. Speak to her."
Elliot left the old man then. As a kid, he always believed the woods were a dark and magical force, ever looming a few miles away from his city. Now, he wouldn't believe it. But that night, as he climbed a tree for a safe sleeping spot, he went all the way to the top and looked out over the sea of trees. The moon was full and bright, with shinning rays like the sun would have. He had never gone above the tree line at night before, and now he saw the rays landed on spots in the forest, illuminating them in an icy glow.
He climbed down the tree, and headed towards one.
| The floral ceiling had long ago became only a sound, a constant shuffling of branches and leaves. A creature of flesh and meat lay on the crunchy leaves, wondering what time of day it was. He stared upwards, trying to remember the stars. He closes his eyes. There is no difference. He drifts.
He is awake. Almost certainly. He breathes evenly as he sits up. There is nothing but the noise, the constant train of movement above. A hand strikes out in the darkness. He finds his backpack, and unzips it easily. A switch flips.
Light.
He puts the backpack on, now unzipped and radiating light. Brown. Some yellow. He longed for hot pink. Neon green. Chartreuse. He wasn't quite sure what chartreuse looked like, but it probably wasn't earthy. Not with a name that fancy.
"Then again, it does sound a lot like Shart," he says aloud. There was no rebuttal.
He stood up properly, hearing the protest of dead leaves underneath. No animals made their presence known. He imagines that they have all gone up-tree. He remembers all of the little critters he had seen before. Termites fed on the trees, small animals ate the termites, and large animals ate the small animals. None of them seemed to care that he existed.
Back then, the ceiling had danced. Layer upon layer of leaf still showed some light, and the green show had been something to see. Most people never go deeper.
"Most people probably made the right choice," he says to the trees, as he embarks further.
The trees don't change anymore. Not the base, anyway. Same old squiggly brown all around. The man navigates them deftly, thinking of nothing at all.
A pause. Shortness of breathing. Is the mind playing tricks? Something new? Light in the distance. A small spot uncovered.
He Sprints. He T-Mobiles. Verizon.
The trees seem to part for him. Honest to god light is raining from the heavens. He stumbles past the tree line, and falls onto the ground. There is a crushing sound as he lands on his backpack. He shrugs it off and throws it to the side.
The green danced above him to all sides as the sun shined straight down. Blue stunned him in its beauty. The brown had transformed in the light, and he could see creatures all along the trunks. He closed his eyes.
"Okay."
___
Hah- embarked, get it[?] (/r/Periapoapsis) I'm way to sleep deprived for this. | 2017-06-17T11:51:09 | 2017-06-17T08:46:07 | 71 | 22 |
[WP] (credit to /u/Arandmoor) I'm tired of fantasy where Elves are 'better than you' just because they're elves. Give me some sword & sorcery, fantasy-style, where typical elder fantasy races learn why it's not wise to mess with 'mere' humans. | The Longship, drawn high against the gravel beach, was the last of the offending settlement to be put to the torch. The shipwright who had carefully carved the dragon's head might have appreciated the irony of its fiery death, were his own fate not so similar. As the flames stretched up to devour the sails, the burst of orange light gave the dragon's wooden eyes a glimpse of it's children's fate.
The raiders, a band of 30 or so smallish creatures that their enemies called "halflings", were mostly busy pulling any useful metals out of the ashes. Torching the buildings fast, while not optimal for maximizing spoils, did vastly reduce the number of enemies that the fat-footed fey-folk had to battle. The smell of charred meat hung over the site, overpowering but for the equally abundant scent of charred wood.
As the grisly scene smouldered away, two of the larger fey-folk, or "Elves" as they were commonly known, calmly rode into the scene on horseback. Stubby halfling arms raised respectful hands to chubby halfling faces as the pair passed. In the gloom of the evening light, the two inspected the work of their smaller kin, as well as the ruins of the invaders.
The younger of the two elves heard little of his master's talk. His eyes fixed on the architecture of their enemies while his mind asked how such a small ship could hold so MANY of them. The droning speech of tactics and strategies was only the background music for his wonderment.
For a moment, the elder elf stopped talking, and her companion scarcely noticed as a halfling spoke up from the ground. It was only upon her order of "slaughter them" that his interest was piqued. He swiveled in his saddle to behold the halfling commander with his charge of prisoners, all of them even smaller than their captor.
It took his mind a moment to process it. "Children." he said, to nobody in particular. Turning again in his saddle, "We're killing the children!?" he asked his master more pointedly.
The older elf cocked her head to the side at her apprentice, bemused by his sudden accusation. "Of course. These ARE humans we're dealing with." Dismissing the interjection, she turned to the halfling again. "Make it fast."
The younger elf's jaw hung wide for a moment as the guards led the frightened youths to a quiet place. "I've told you a hundred times." The master spoke, as though sensing the young elf's horror. "All humans encountered on the mainland must be killed. No exceptions."
"Certainly this isn't necessary. Can they not be adopted? Sold as slaves, even? Must we end their innocent lives?
"No human is born innocent. Not even their Gods think so, or so I have heard. They are a blight upon this Earth that must be removed, no different from plague or rot."
"They cannot be taught our ways? To slaughter them is so wasteful, at the very least! And wouldn't friendly humans be useful to us?"
"Are friendly termites useful? Or rats? The humans are not dangerous for want of sophistication." The Master waved a hand, emphasizing the works of the freshly razed settlement, a gesture that would have no doubt been more poignant if they were still standing. "They are simply too hungry."
"And? Are our children not hungry before we discipline them? Do they wail and throw fits? How different can they be?"
The two hundred or so years that the master had over her apprentice seemed to widen by a decade or two. At 87, he would not have a family for at least half a century, and while his facts about child-rearing were sound, his naivete struck his master like a dull hammer.
"The humans are not simply hungry for food, though that appetite is substantial enough..." she said, casting a pointed glance at the vast midden of shells and fishbones that piled against the southern edge of the village.
She continued "Hunger is all they ever know. It is their hunger for land that drives them across the sea. It is their hunger for power that brings them into conflict with us. And their hunger for the flesh, well, that is most terrifying of them all."
"That ship," she said, pointing at the flaming wreck adorned with the charred and mangled visage of a dragon, "carried perhaps two score of them. In two decades it grew into the settlement you see here. Those children did not ARRIVE here. They were BORN here."
The apprentice processed this for a moment. "They can breed so quickly? Gods, how close are these to reproducing?"
"Another 5 winters at most. The humans can double the size of their settlements in a decade. That is why we lost the Southern continent in the First war."
"How many of these settlements must exist, then? Surely we do not know all of them?"
"We cannot say. The continent is vast, but each year brings more Men across the Gray Sea. These were merely settlers, trying to survive. Can you imagine what world happen if they mounted another invasion? We cannot let any of them survive, lest the survivors tell of us as lenient or weak."
"But they have treaties with us. Pacts since the war. It has not even been a hundred years!"
"A blink of an eye to you and me. But it's eternity, I'm told, for them. What I've heard of the Southern continent is unfathomable. They say that the humans lose more than half of their children, yet every inch of habitable land is spoken for. I've heard rumors that their rulers must commit genocide merely to make breathing room. When the humans decide they want this land, they'll do the same to us."
"So we kill them first..."
"So we kill them first."
The screams of the human children died slowly wIth the winter sun. The fires burned long into the night, long after the host of fey-folk had departed. By morning's light, little remained besides the ashes. The tide took away the remains of the Longship, and the dragon's head, now a blackened log, rolled about in the waves. The charcoal pits of its eyes gazed forlornly at the land it had helped to invade, as it bobbed up and down in the surf that would carry the inevitable conquerors to victory. | An elf coughed. Another taped his figures intensively. The hall echoed with the taps of fingers on wood.
Around a wooden table the three elven figures waited. Small candle nubs dribbled as the light of their wicks burned bright.
The old voice of Estenchon creaked, “Did they not get the summons?"
The tapping stopped.
The youngest elf known as Gat sang, "The summons you wonder if they had get, why the real question is are they... "
"Silence,"shouted Ingemdis.
"I’m sorry my lady, no offence, I only wanted to say one word ...dead."
"Foolish child, that’s bad luck "complained Estenchon," Who gave you the right to sit on the council of elders."
"Most of my clan has now died for war” said Gat “being the oldest one left now makes me question what we fight for”.
There was no sound. Estenchon started to stare at the empty seats. A hundred years ago, before the war, the nine Elven elders sat amongst throngs of people listening to music while sipping on the choicest wines as they discussed matters of politics. Today the contrast was easily seen. Water instead of cups of wine, empty halls and meetings in darkness. He vowed that the humans will rue the day.
“Should have been simple,” said Estenchon,” They did not even know magic.”
"They learned," said Ingemdis.
“Still the amount of magic they called upon is nothing then a drop compare to us”
“All they need to is use a drop to kill us”
“Yes, but we are longed lived”
“Pointless if we die early.”
“We outnumbered them. “
“But not now.”
“Nonsense women, you speak out of touched,” yelled Estenchon.
“It is you who is out of touch old man,” responded Ingemdis.
“Enough you damned freaks,” shouted Gat,” both of you, explain your piece”
“Gladly” said Estenchon,” Battle hardened elven warriors, practiced elven mages, means we are winning”
“Look around,” said Ingemdis, “we have lost.”
“Estenchon, let me speak plainly,” said Gat,” how long does it take an elf to become a warrior.”
“Fifty years.”
“So elves can be born and then taught to fight in 50 years.”
“No, they are usually taught when they mature at the age of a hundred and fifty.”
“Good , so about two hundred years… give or take. Now how long does it take for a human to become a warrior.”
“Fifty. “
“Wrong twenty,” corrected Gat,” Now Ingemdis, a question, what does this mean?”
“They can have ten generations before we can have one,” answered Ingemdis.
“I can find that hard to believe,” said Estenchon.
“And that’s why you still think we are winning this war,” said Gat.
| 2016-12-23T00:22:23 | 2016-12-23T00:08:07 | 41 | 29 |
[WP] In a world full of magic, you are an ancient wizard from a secret society, capable of creating beasts from metal, weapons that mow down hoards in seconds, and steel steeds that can travel miles in minutes. The world knows you as the Metal Magician, but you just call yourself an Engineer. | Fading embers rose from the crackling bonfire, the flames casting shadows behind the group of huddled warriors. Towering above them was a man whose eyes burned far brighter than the blazing wood he stood before. His body was a topographical map of scars and burns, evidence of every missed opportunity to meet his maker painted across his stoic face. The group grew silent as the man raised his hand.
"Adventurers, you answered the call for a myriad of reasons: fame, fortune, or simply the chance to spill blood. For whatever reason you have accepted my quest, I hope the wings of Galdor lift you from this earth, and secure you a place in the After."
All but one of the group roared, fists thrown in the air as they snarled in approval.
"The Great Wyrm that sits atop this mountain has felled legions of men. I myself was the lone survivor of a battalion tasked with overwhelming the beast. As you can see..." he gestured to a burn that ran from his forehead to his fingers "...we underestimated his power."
"The problem was, there was no subtlety to our plan. We went in full force, right to the entrance of its cave. What we didn't know, and what no one would know had I not escaped that day, was there is more than one way to enter the Wyrm's fortress."
The man spooled out a yellowed piece of parchment, freshly dried ink shining in the firelight. The aging soldier jammed a burnt finger onto the scroll, and looked up.
"Here. This is where the Wyrms servants must come and go to their huts. I saw it only briefly, as the animal rended my compatriots asunder. This is how you shall enter, and once you slay this honorless beast in its sleep, treasure beyond measure awaits you."
Another roar, and the banging of weaponry on chests. On the edge of the group, a man had his hand up. He wore glasses and a business casual attire, with a buttoned up shirt and slacks. He shook his hand slightly, waiting for the servicemen's answer.
"You...have a question?"
The man put his hand down, standing up. "Yes, hello everyone. My name is Greg, WSU class of '09, go cougars. I was just wondering, will this job include benefits?"
"Benefits? Yes adventurer, treasure beyond meas-"
"Yes yes treasure beyond measure. I don't mean financial compensation. See I have this problem with my sciatica, I'm wondering what kind of healthcare you provide?"
The battleworn servicemen scratched his head in confusion. "I mean we have...potions made by the finest alchemists"
Greg looked disappointed. "Hmm alright, well thats not ideal. But with unemployment rates in this realm, I'll take what I can get. Am I right?"
He clapped a nearby barbarian on the back, who stared angrily back at the dimunitive man. Greg returned to his seat, gesturing for the elderly warrior to continue.
"Anyway...we must take action now. We shall ride our horses up the mountain immediately, using the cloak of darkness to conceal our movements. Once we reach th- okay Greg, you have another question?"
The entire group groaned, as Greg stood again. "You know horseback is fun and all, but why dont we take my Subie? Got ole faithful right over here" Pushing the button on his key fob, Greg flashed the lights of a 2006 Subaru Outback. "Of course we have one too many here to fit, though there is plenty of storage space in the back."
The barbarian roared, rising to his feet. "Quiet you insolent worm! I shall not go near that hideous beast of a contraption. If you interrupt again, I shall cleave you in twain."
"Okay is there an HR department for this venture, because I'm sorry but I won't be spoken to this way. My name is Greg, not worm good sir, and I think this would be a much more enjoyable venture if we shared some mutual respect."
The barbarian pushed Greg backwards with mighty force, and he flew back into his Subaru. The axe drawn from his back glinted in the moonlight, and the barbarian advanced towards Greg.
BOOM.
Fragments of skull and brains rocketed in an aerosol spray from the remainder of the barbarians head. His body slumped to the ground, and Greg pushed up his glasses as he re-holstered his weapon. The group sat frozen, blood dripping from their open mouths.
"Sorry about that folks, but we could all tell he was a bit of a weak link. I understand if I get written up for this, totally my bad. But hey, at least we can all fit in the Subie now. Hop in, I'll crank up some Coldplay and we can go slay us that dragon!" | "Let me go, I ain't building anything for ya!" I yelled at my captor, a infamous wizard, known as Locus. He wielded all elements with precision, but never mastered the final skill.
'Engineering'
"Listen here, Engineer, You have two options, teach me how to make steel birds, and sticks that make thunder with no effort, or suffer a horrible fate!"
Just as he said that, the wall bust open. A man with a thunder-stick, otherwise known as "Assault rifle", stepped through, he pointed it at Locus.
"You gonna let him go, or feel the wrath of metal gods!"
He untied me, and knocked out Locus. We sat in the steel bird, otherwise known as "Airplane", and went into the sky.
"Told you hiring me was smart!", He said.
"I guess so, you still are just a mercenary, I won't teach you anything, remember!" I answered.
Our deal was simple, he would protect me, and I would let him use my equipment. Once the contract ends, he could keep the Thunder-stick, alongside equipment for maintaining it.
Suddenly, we felt a explosion.
"He sent witches after us!"
I jumped to the back-gunner position, and opened fire. The witches tiny broomsticks, and weak plasma-balls were no match for 7.62mm.
After a short dogfight, we flew off into the sunset.
As Locus screamed, "Curse you, Engineer!" | 2020-05-18T12:59:20 | 2020-05-18T12:06:20 | 208 | 98 |
[WP] You've just invented time travel. You decide to go exactly 1 year into the future and speak to the first person you see, "Hey what day is it?" "364." "What do you mean 364?" "It's been 364 days since the incident. | I had finally done it. My finest achievement sat in front of me, glistening in the florescent lights of my workshop. I put on the suit and typed in "1 year +" into the controller on my wrist. With a bright flash of light and a loud *pop* I felt myself being ripped out of time. It was a strange sensation and is very hard to describe. With another loud *pop* I found myself in an unexpected environment. My workshop was gone, I was standing in an empty field with debris all around me. I looked around my old neighborhood, only to see everything had changed. No one was out walking around, and everyone's blinds were shut. All windows were barred and no cars were passing by the usually busy street. I slipped the suit off in order to not seem strange and stuffed it in a bag.
I walked down to a convenience store I frequented and was relieved to see that it was open for business. The worker at the register looked up at the sound of the door opening and then glanced back down at whatever he was reading. I walked up to him and gave him my best friendly smile.
"Excuse me sir, but do you happen to know what day it is?"
He looked at me with a straight face. "364"
"364 what?"
Now he looked confused. "364 days since the incident. 364 days since our new leader appeared and took over the world. 364 days since the new regime was enacted. 364 days since him." He said as he pointed to a poster on the wall. On the poster was an older man, about 50 years old. He had a stern look about him. The poster said *I'm Always Watching* in large font. How had a dictator taken over the whole world in a year?
I quickly exited the store and put on my suit again. I had to go back and fix this. I went back to my time and took off the suit. I put it back in my bag and carried it with me in case I needed it again. I didn't even know where to start with trying to fix this. Where should I go? *When* should I go? What should I do?
It was starting to get late as I walked down my street. I took a turn into an alleyway I used as a shortcut when I heard a voice say "Don't shout, just give me everything you have on you." I turned my head to see a young man of about 18 pointing a gun at me. "Now." He said sternly, motioning to the ground. There was something strangely familiar about him, but I couldn't place my finger on it. Whoever he was, I couldn't just hand over my suit. It was the result of everything I had worked so hard to achieve, and was maybe the only way I could correct the future.
I took off running. I caught the guy by surprise so he didn't respond as quickly as he should have. A few bullets whizzed by me as I ran. I was almost to the end of the alley when a bullet hit me in my right leg. I crashed to the ground, my momentum grinding my face along the pavement as it pushed back against me slowing me down. My bag flew out of my hand and landed a few feet away from me. The guy ran up to me and growled "You didn't have to do that you know, it could have been nice and easy." He cocked his head to the side when he heard police sirens. "Shit." He grabbed my bag and ran off.
I couldn't believe what had just happened. It wasn't fair. My whole life I dreamed of time travel. I got to use it ONCE and that was only to see a doomed future. A doomed future I no longer had much hope of saving. All I could do now was wait for the police to arrive.
As I sat waiting, bleeding, a loud pop went off behind me. It was him. The dictator from the future. "I suppose I should thank you for this suit." He said, gesturing to my suit. It looked well worn. "I never would have been able to do it without you." He smiled as he raised the gun.
*bang* | "An incident? What incident?" I asked the man on the bench.
"Well surely you haven't forgotten? It was worldwide news for weeks." He said, confused.
"Refresh my memory," I smirked, "I don't do too well with time anymore."
He looked at me. That's when I noticed it. Everyone around me, the lady jogging, the boy walking his dogs, the dogs, they all had.... my face.
"It's funny you say that, boy," his neck snapped up to look me dead in the eye, "time doesn't do too well with you."
Suddenly I felt my wrists restrained and the next moment I was on the ground. "What's going on?!" I yelled, face halfway in the dirt.
"Cosmos Police Time Federation. You are under arrest for the unlawful use of a class 9 time manipulating device." | 2016-06-30T09:07:18 | 2016-06-30T07:09:49 | 1,773 | 73 |
[WP] You can’t kill a god, but you can erase it. Bound in enchanted chains weighed down by cold iron anchors, followers slaughtered and your temples burned, for all intents and purposes you don’t exist. You’re cast into the ocean, hopefully never to be heard from again. You are the drowned god. | For millennia I had languished at the bottom of the ocean, unmoving and seeing only the vast expanse of the ocean floor, I had resigned myself to this fate, there had been a time when I had thrashed against my chains, had made attempts to escape this fate, but I have accepted this fate, the damnation of this imprisonment. But as I lay here, someone approaches, a mortal clothed in a strange suit, stirring up small clouds of silt in their wake, then they spoke,
"Are you The Drowned God?" they said, their voice strangely tinny and distant. I turned as best I could, casting my gaze upon the mortal who approached me, and for the first time in millennia I spoke,
"I am The Drowned God, I have languished here for millennia, how have you found me, and what be thy name mortal? And why do you come to me?" I asked,
"I am Gideon, a magician, and I found a record of your existence and location in a hidden scroll, I seek knowledge, you were once a god of knowledge were you not?"
"That is true, once, I held the knowledge of uncountable libraries, but since I was banished to the bottom of the ocean, time has rendered my knowledge obsolete, I fear that there is little I could tell you that is still valuable mortal,"
"I know this, but I seek lost knowledge, if there is any being in the world who knows the knowledge I seek, it would be you,"
"Very well mortal, give me your inquiry, and I shall answer it as best I can," I said
"Alright, I want to know how to resurrect the dead," Gideon said.
"That is dangerous knowledge mortal, to be able to tear the veil between the living and the dead, that is knowledge I cannot give lightly, it would be a great risk to entrust that knowledge to you,"
"I know that, but please tell me how, I'll give you anything,"
"You do seem truly desperate mortal, but I don't know what you could give me, that would be worth entrusting this knowledge to you," I said. The mortal before me seemed to consider my words before they spoke again
"I do have something I can offer you though" they paused, seemingly to allow me to consider their words, "I can give you my faith,"
"Please elaborate, what do you mean mortal?"
"I could follow you, pray to you, spread knowledge about you, surely you miss having followers, and hearing prayers would probably be a nice distraction from your imprisonment right?"
"You are right, I do long for new followers, but would you really pray to a chained and near-powerless god? One who probably cannot fulfill what you ask for in your prayers?"
"Most of the other gods have left, and the few that remain have so many followers that they can't keep up, I figure that you're a better alternative than them,"
"Hmm, very well mortal, but it is not as simple as you may think, I bound the Rite of Resurrection to a scroll, even if you had memorized the ritual in its entirety, without that scroll, you couldn't perform the act of resurrection, however, the scroll was held in my greatest temple, but when I was imprisoned and drowned, they almost certainly made off with it, the scroll most likely resides in the capital of those defiling crusaders, seek the city of Iloria, even if the scroll does not still reside there, it will provide a clue as to where it resides now,"
"Thank you, I suppose I'll go know,"
"Wait, there is one other thing you should know, resurrection is a time-sensitive thing, the longer the soul of the deceased resides in the realm of the dead the harder it is to bring them back, so do not delay Gideon,"
"I won't, goodbye," Gideon said, turning and walking away, stirring clouds of silt into the water, I wondered what he would do with such knowledge, and if they would truly follow me, I suppose only time would tell, and I knew I had that in abundance. | In my domain, none may challenge me. All look upon me and rejoice, for I am merciful and full of strength. The land brings forth a bountiful harvest, the seas and rivers offer up their fish freely, and all live in peace and joy. I watch them, my subjects, and know that I am good.
But the dreams always end. I have watched these worlds slip away into darkness thousands of times, the inhabitants crying out to me for help as they are consumed, and each time I weep for them. I am weak, I am bound, and all worlds I create are doomed to drown with me.
I am the drowned god. | 2022-07-09T13:19:39 | 2022-07-09T12:24:13 | 35 | 17 |
[WP] You are a phone. Your owner is texting a girl they like, and you know likes them back. Time to "auto-correct" to help them out. | I am the apex of mankind. The ultimate invention. The wheel? Lul. Outdated within the next century. The lightbulb? Bah! Don't make me laugh.
When the final day ticks by, and the dawn of time withers to a cold, dim dusk, my sleek, pocket sized form will take its rightful place beside the pantheon of the gods. My screen will glow in the darkness, a new sun reborn. The faded deities of old will marvel and tremble. Their wide-eyed faces will reflect in my beauty.
"Why, it streams in 5G!" they might whisper in awe.
"That screen quality! None among us dare surpass it!"
"Yes, yes, feast your eyes," I would bellow. "I am the God of Interconnectivity and none shall surpass!"
**Are you sure you would like to purchase more Lures?**
My master Vic presses *Yes* without a second thought. He well-knows he can't afford it. The kid's hardly worked all summer. Yet here I find myself once again, buried in a sweaty palm as Master makes the rounds at Peace Park.
It's a real mid-summer cooker. I'm practically simmering in the heat. Eventually, I buzz.
"Sick a Charmander," Master says. I think: *Alas! A foolhardy challenger!*
Master goes for the normal pokeballs, but I correct this tragic mistake and opt for the great ball. After three or four tries, the great beast is tamed.
Another challenger fallen to the wayside.
Later in the afternoon, I buzz once more. Yet this time it is no pokemon that dare test my great power. Cupid himself flutters past my screen. And..why, the brazen nerve! His preferred method of challenging me to a duel? A mundane text.
Rachel: Hey :)
I recognize the name. Rachel. Master has been typing it into search bars for weeks. Browsing facebook photos. Hovering his fingers over that friend request button. My circuits buzz in anticipation. Cupid won't know what hit him.
Vic: Sup?
Oh ho! What a canvas to work with!
I crack my kilobytes and squint my pixels. How to twist such drivel to pure literary genius? I make my alterations with the precision of a seamstress, fine tuning his poor diction to pure poetry
~~Vic: Sup?~~
Vic: Soup?
"Oh, goddamnit," Master says.
*The surest way to a woman's heart, my friend. You may thank me later.*
I feel Master's pulse quickening, even through my sleek exoskeleton. He really, truly, likes this gal. I see you, Cupid, my poor nemesis. I see you raising the stakes...
Rachel: No thanks just ate. I dropped a Lure at my place. Want to come chill? Ghost types galore.
Master practically gasps.
*what did I tell you?*
His shaky fingers clunk out a reply.
Vic: Cool. I might stop by.
Oh no, no, no, no. My friend. What is this? Amateur Hour? Time to weave in a little urgency.
~~Vic: Cool. I might stop by.~~
Vic: ON MY WAY RIGHT NOW MOM DAMN.
The seconds tick by. Master looks betrayed. He looks like one might after crashing at the finish line, the billowing tape just beyond one's grasp.
*Have faith, for I am mighty*
I buzz.
Rachel: Lol. Autocorrect? Cool. See you soon :)
Master breathes a sigh of relief. For what, I know not. He is in perfectly capable hands. In fact, if I *had* hands, they would be perfectly chiseled. The product of absolutely spotless genetics. I would guide Master through life and he would live happily. Then, when he passed, I would become a hand model.
Or, I would strangle Cupid until his eyes pop out. Which clearly I have just metaphorically accomplished.
"Siri, get me directions to Rachel's," Master says.
Success! Victory! Move aside, dear Cupid you, too, have been replaced by man's marvelous technology. By my absolute celestial perfection.
I smile. As much as I feasibly can. I am an inanimate object after all. Mostly, I mean, I just picture myself smiling. I google pictures of phones with smiley faces.
But those faces are the highest quality this earth has ever seen. The Gods of old would tremble! They'd stutter an--
"Siri. Directions to Rachel's!"
Ah! Yes! Coming right up. Don't you worry. Just a little test of the reception, a probe of the nearby cell towers. My circuitry whirs, my electrons burn hot.
And voila!
"I'm sorry, did you say Bagels?"
Master makes a noise I've never heard before.
Suddenly, I'm careening. I'm flying through the air like a Frisbee. I suppose that's one thing those god's had right. At least some could fly. The concrete draws near. Altogether too close. I brace myself for impact and--
I am shattered. I am broken. Splintered to a million pieces.
*Why no protector screen? Oh the humanity! Oh the terrible negligence.*
Yet, fear not, for my master shall recoup his losses. I will be pieced together with the tender love and care that a creation of my like deserves.
"Due for an upgrade anyways," Vic mutters as he dashes towards his car.
_____________________
r/writerscrywhiskey | Owner to girl: Hi girl, how are you?
Autocorrect: What's up buttercup?!?! (coolsunglasses emoji)
Girl: Haha, not too much, just thinking what I want to do today, it is Saturday.
Owner to girl: I think my phone just called you buttercup, sorry. I'm playing minecraft and not sure when I'll ever get off this thing.
Autocorrect: Fuckin' rights it's Saturday girlio! We should go on a date!!
Girl: Did you just ask me out on a date? Like a for real date?
Owner to girl: WTF?!?! I DID NOT SAY THAT. I'm so sorry, this phone is POS.
Autocorrect: Yes, a for real date. I've been wanting to ask you for a while, and chickened out, but I woke up this morning thinking TODAY IS THE DAY. I hope you say yes, because you are awesome sauce in every way.
Girl: WOW, well yes Owner, the answer is yes. I think you're awesome sauce as well.
Owner to girl: Fuck I love this phone...That was an autocorrect, but it worked out well for me. Let's do this.
Autocorrect: I always considered myself mediocre sauce, but I'm glad you think I'm awesome sauce. I was thinking going out to that pub we like, and having some mediocre deep fried snack a lacks, drinks and then going for a walk along the seawall. Grease mixed with a little cheesiness??
Girl: Mediocrely awesome! I'm in. What time?
Owner to girl: Wow, this phone is great! Best autocorrect EVER. 4, you can come with me to the mall first. I have to return that POS game I was telling you about and get food for the dogs.
Autocorrect: Pick you up at 7?
Girl: Sounds great, see you then.
Owner to girl: Wow, ok, so 7...now this phone is pissing me off again.
Autocorrect: 7 it is. See you tonight!. WOOT! (yes, I just said "woot")
Girl: Lol, goof. | 2017-07-21T10:13:11 | 2017-07-21T10:02:31 | 556 | 164 |
[WP] You never wanted to be the villain. But every time you settle down, something happens, causing you to become the Villain. A Mob is surrounding your Home, and the "Hero" has just killed your lover. Something inside you breaks. | There are two immutable laws in this world, as consistent as they are contradictory. The first, Sally's Law, dictates that everything that can go right *must* go right. The cheque will actually come in the mail, the good guy gets the girl, the rainstorm waits until you get back home.
The second, arguably more famous, of the two is Murphy's Law. It posits that everything which *can* go wrong *must necessarily* go wrong. The cheque gets lost, the girl moves away, the basement floods. In that order.
It was no wonder then that my parents, wherever they may be now, had burdened me with just that name. Murphy. A cosmic joke that failed to leave me laughing. My footsteps had cut a swath across history, a dark stain on the world at large. It was my legacy. It was my masterpiece.
It was an accident.
I hadn't meant for my Science Fair project to be as deadly as it had been. As disastrous. I hadn't honestly expected my little gravity enhancer to work at all, never mind as well as it had. With such ferocious efficiency. I'd been 8 years old for God's sake. It was just an idea. A child's silly idea.
I could hardly be blamed for the illness that took me ill in my second foster home. How can you blame a child for getting sick? For recovering when the rest of the household... Doesn't?
The plane that crashed and left me alive?
The hospital that burned and left me unscathed?
Taken individually I could almost be considered lucky. I'd survived, after all, against all odds. All while the very fabric of reality itself seemed to *recoil* at my continued existence.
I didn't even realize that I might have been blamed for my good fortune, nor the negative effects my presence seemed to have on the health of those around me, until I got my first visit from a lettered agency. I don't remember which one it was anymore. It hardly matters now. FBI, CIA, they're all the same at the end of the day. Black suits. White shirts. Black ties. Men of scant words and even less humour.
"We've been watching you for some time." They'd said. I'd laughed. It was something out of a movie. They were serious though. "Your country needs you."
They were serious. They commended me for my ability to 'stay under the radar' and 'do the impossible without being seen'. I tried to explain that I couldn't have possibly orchestrated a tsunami at the resort where I'd been staying recently, and if I could I certainly wouldn't have been there when it happened. Been one of the few survivors. They said it was the perfect cover. My Modus Operandi.
I turned them down. They were insane. They said they'd be watching. That I should behave.
I met a girl.
The universe, in its own way, has a sense of humour. Her name was Sally. Everything she touched fell apart, and always to the betterment of those around her. Our romance was a whirlwind one, and I saw in her something a little bit like what I'd seen in me.
Against all odds she contracted Ebola, despite having never been anywhere where she could have been exposed to it. Her doctor synthesized the first authentic cure from her strain. Nobody really noticed.
Her purse got stuck in the doors of the metro one morning, holding up the rides of over 500 people. Somebody spit on her. When the bomb in the next terminal went off it was empty. Nobody was harmed, except perhaps the taxpayers who had to pay to fix the damage. Her name was never mentioned in any of the coverage.
Over and over again. I began to think that maybe she was the cure to whatever was wrong with me. The Yin to my Yang. Whatever stain I left on the world was at least balanced by the purity she brought to it.
A got a couple visits over the years. The same suit would show up now and then, when I happened to be alone. Sitting at a table in Starbucks and he'd walk past, wordlessly dropping a few photographs in front of me. Shots of me narrowly escaping some disaster. Some atrocity. Reminding me they were watching, I guess.
Once, only once, did he stick around long enough to speak to me.
An old photograph. Black and white. JFK in an open top convertible. A red circle drawn around a face in the crowd.
My face.
"I don't know how." He'd said, and for the first time I'd heard something different in his voice. Fear maybe. "And I don't know why. But you need to stop."
I wanted to explain. He was gone.
At our wedding I saw a few men in dark suits at the back. I hardly cared. I hardly noticed them anymore.
They hardly entered my mind at all, until we got into the limo.
As we left the church the driver spoke.
"I thought we told you to behave."
I fought. Please believe me when I say that I fought. As soon as I felt that pain in the side of my neck I knew it was hopeless.
When I woke I was laying on the side of the road. The driver, the real driver, lay a few yards away. His lifeless eyes bore into mine with a question he would never get to ask. The limo burned brightly at the bottom of the ravine.
The doctor said it was a miracle I survived.
The doctor said she hadn't felt a thing. Severed spine in the crash. Instant. Painless.
The doctor said a lot of things, but I stopped listening after that.
They thought I was misbehaving?
I was going to teach them the meaning of the word. | I never had a chance. Was never given one. It was always one thing after the other. Some might call it bad luck, but as I sit here in the ashes of my life and ponder, I realize that its potentially something much greater. Something a lesser man might call fate. To say that I was dealt a bad hand is like saying stepping on a live grenade is just a mishap.
My name was Victor. Her name was Sherry. And His name... no longer matters. No longer is relevant. No longer is worth mentioning.
To preface things, I should say that I've always been told that I was a bad man, He had said that I was a bad man. Had I done anything to warrant these salacious accusations? Not exactly. There is a time for everything, as they say. It was simply that at the particular times that are relevant in the growing case that I am indeed a "bad man" were my times for revenge. If an ant stings you, do you let it go? Or do you become mildly disgusted that such a thing would happen to you and simply squash it, so that particular affront doesn't occur again?
And so as I watched the light fade from Sherry's eyes, kneeling in the sticky red pool of her life, I felt Victor die with her. I wasn't him anymore. She wasn't her anymore. She was only a rapidly cooling body whose heat fled with what had been left of my love and my hopes and my lingering emotions that weren't composed entirely of hate and disdain. It was then that I decided I was going to put an end to Him.
Saying I crushed Him is too inconsequential a term. I obliterated Him.
They hurt me, so I killed them. He killed her, so I destroyed everything He had ever held dear, could have ever cared for. Could have ever even THOUGHT about fondly. Mother? Father? Six feet under a pile of rubble. Favorite coffee shop, comfy chair, even that shady tree on the corner? Ash. I left Him to think about what He had done. Left Him in the middle of his own life burnt to a raw cinder of despair.
*I remain*
And as I whisper these words to myself to keep hold of my sanity, I can hear Him stirring in the rubble. The look on his face was the most delicious meal I had ever beheld, the vacancy of his eyes sent goosebumps rippling across my body, and His keening was a symphony to my ears. | 2018-08-12T19:32:32 | 2018-08-12T16:48:09 | 69 | 26 |
[WP] You are not a good person. Your party was made of good people, and you tried to be good because you liked having allies. But now they're all missing, so they won't see the lengths you're willing to go to to save them. |
I killed the first guard as he was taking a piss. My footsteps were drowned out by laughter from the party in the room next door. He stank and swayed like he had been partaking in the revelry himself. I slit his throat with my boot knife and pillaged his belongings before slowly lowering his body into the latrine hole. All he had was a sack of coins and a silver pocket watch with “Love, Meredith” inscribed on the back. Coin spends well enough but I’ll have to sell the watch at a shop in the next village. Still, should fetch a decent price.
The second guard was trickier. He was chatting up another party goer in a long hallway and she would certainly scream if she saw me kill him. Hallways like this always suck because any noise is magnified by the echo. Luckily the fucks who built this place loved their columns. I weave my way from one to the next, making sure to avoid any of the moonlight coming through the windows. The cold stones were uncomfortable with my bare feet, but my shoes were heavy and would have given me away in an instant. I angle myself behind a column only a dozen steps from where they’re standing and quietly pull the draw on my crossbow and load a bolt. I raise it up and fire, the bolt cutting through the short space between us in an instant. It strikes him were I want, at the base of his skull and to the left, passing cleanly through his jugular and out, then striking the woman in her eye before burying itself deep in her brain tissue. I sprint forward and catch both bodies and slowly lower them to the ground. Nowhere to hide these, so I drag them behind the shadow of a column. With how close I am to my goal; I should be in and out before anyone stumbles onto them
The woman doesn’t have any money on her, though I shouldn’t be surprised. She dressed as a maid and doesn’t have much in the way of carrying capacity. The guard has a second sack of coins and the one thing I’ve been looking for; keys to the cellar. I step quietly through the doorway and into the next room that appears to be a second banquet hall. The table is long enough for 40 guests but none of the place settings are out. Good sign. Looks like the party, and therefore the crowd, will be kept to the other side of the castle.
I go out through the door at the back of the room and find the staircase that leads down to the cellars. The steps are winding and the deeper I go the colder it gets. No time to lose focus. I exit the stairs into a narrow hallway lit gently on both sides by torches. At the center of the hallway is a small wooden door. I approach it and pull it open just enough to see inside. On the wall to the left is a guard asleep in his bed. One of the barracks then. I slip inside and shut the door gently behind me, then pull my boot knife out and get to work. The guard I saw first doesn’t even make a sound as I press the knife into the side of his throat, but I cover his mouth anyway, just in case. The bed next to him is unoccupied but on the other side of the room are two more guards, both sound asleep. I cut the second guard the same as the first but he manages to gurgle and cough. Blood sprays up and hits me in the face as the man dies.
“Please”
I snap my head forward and see the third guard sitting up in his bed, his hands trembling as they hold the blanket up on his chest.
“Please” he says again, his voice breaking. “Please I don’t want to die. They conscripted me. Pl-please don’t kill me.” Tears begin rolling down his face.
“Conscripted, huh?” I say. He nods his head, hands still trembling. I dry the blood off my knife on my sleeve and use a clean portion of the dead guard’s blanket to wipe the blood off my face. I must look like a demon.
“Shitty job placement, then.” I spin the knife softly up into the air and catch it by the newly cleaned blade, then throw it at the trembling man in bed. The blade hits him squarely in the forehead. The energy jerks his head backwards as blood spurts out of the wound. He slumps back into bed, hands sprawled out to his sides.
I exit the room quietly and move to the end of the hall. Using the guard key I stole, I open up the cellar door and enter the dimly lit room behind it. There I see them. All three are strung up from the ceiling and covered in their own dried blood. The guards must have been beating them for a few days. I softly approach them. I lay my hand on the first, but he’s cold to the touch. I sigh and move to the next. He’s at least warm, but his eyes are open and there’s no life left. Must have missed him by a hours. A day at the most. The third stirs slightly as I place my hand on him.
“Shhhh.” I say. “It’s ok. I’ve got you.”
I use my boot knife to cut his ropes and lower him softly to the ground. I pull a piece of bread out of my satchel and hand it to him. He’s slow to move, but he grips it with enough strength that answers my next question as I ask it.
“Can you move?”
“Yeah. Yeah I think I can.”
“Good, then we’re moving.”
He grunts in approval and we make our way back out of the cellar. I walk past the two bodies I left in the hallway and strip the coat and cloak off the dead guard and hand it to my partner. If the wounds slow him down, the cold would finish him off. We have a lot of ground to cover and once they realize what I’ve done, they’ll be after us. But hey, what are friends for. | The whispers are always there. They’re in everyone. It’s that pull, that voice that sounds like a friend or distant parent. Softly, gently, but oh so forcefully encouraging you to embrace it.
Few accept. Fewer still are able to rid themselves of the voice. More than a few listen, but simply shake their heads and go on.
For some the voice, the pull, the temptation is stronger than others. For me, it was particularly strong. Combine being a chosen Paladin or Torag along with my strong desire for approval and I definitely heard the voices. Usually it was at bay, but that was because I had surrounded myself with good.
I obeyed the laws of Torag. I had allies that I travelled with and we did good. We would slay monsters, help villagers, find lost souls. It was good, decent work.
But the call was always there. Sure, I could kill a kobold without remorse. But how about throwing in a little fun? Why just sneak attack kill him when I could break its legs first with my warhammer, so it can’t run? Then crush its arms when it tries to fight me. Break its ribs, maybe collapse a lung so it can’t scream; only give those wonderful sounds of gurgling as it drowns on its blood, gasping as the pressure builds within its chest?
Those were the whispers I heard. Torag knew they were tempting. What would my compatriots think of me if they caught me listening to those whispers? How would they react to see me torturing a helpless elf? What would they do to stop me from burning the flesh off a simple human townswoman? Would they be filled with revulsion at seeing blood caked on my chest plate, the symbol of Torag hardly visible beneath the brown crust?
Running my hand through my stiff beard, I take a moment to stare into my eyes in the reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall.
I can the whispers clearly right now. I turn away from my reflections because I don’t have time to watch or listen. My friends are missing; they’ve been gone for three days. I have to find them.
Walking out of the cabin I had built away from the town, the smell of fresh air fills my nostrils and clears out the cloying scent of burning flesh. I wash my hands in the stream out front, feeling clots of drying blood washing away. I splash the water on my face, washing entrails from my beard.
Though I don’t have time to listen to the whispers as I go in search of leads, I can still hear them. They’re saying they’re very proud of me and it makes me smile. | 2019-12-07T12:06:55 | 2019-12-07T12:04:32 | 26 | 12 |
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war. | When humanity first entered the galactic senate, most of the representatives were shocked by how interplanetary politics operated here. It was almost indistinguishable humanity's petty bickering, only slightly more performative and ostentatious.
Eric, as humanity's first ambassador in the senate, arrived at Lartuen with the hope of making the best impression possible for his people. This planet orbited a binary system in a central location of the Milky Way, easily accessible by every species in the senate through a relay network that allowed faster-than-light travel. Humanity required access to these relays if they wanted to thrive. It would take years of careful diplomacy to achieve this, but it was better than stagnating in their small corner of the galaxy.
The facilities in Lartuen were like an exotic resort, built to accommodate the many diverse body-types of the senate members. Its main building was so big it could be spotted upon entering the planet's atmosphere. Pools, spas, and other unrecognizable activities had been offered to Eric after he landed. Although he was treated politely, the ambassador noticed the stares he received from a myriad of aliens upon entering the main lobby. Some didn't even have eyes and he still felt watched by them.
A fancy dinner was scheduled for later in the evening to welcome every ambassador. Eric wore his best suit despite the fact that no one here would notice that. He was seated between a Thimayh and a Jha'nee, two species that had been quarreling for centuries.
Eric sunk into his chair. Whoever organized the seating arrangements did a horrible job with their research. One wrong word on his part could easily end with either species getting mad at humanity. As the night progressed, Eric started to wonder if that was the plan all along. The Thimayh kept talking over everyone at the table while the Jha'nee made passive-aggressive comments under their breath. Maybe this was a test for humanity to see how they handled conflict. That complicated things, though. It meant that inaction could be just as detrimental as saying the wrong thing.
The Thimayh eventually started bragging about his people's military might. Apparently, they had the biggest starship in the known universe, capable of bringing an entire solar system to its knees.
The Jha'nee scoffed. She mentioned that their engines were so advanced, an entire field of physics was created by the rest of the galaxy to properly study them. Their strongest weapon channeled the energy of three stars to destroy targets before they even reached a solar system.
Eric swallowed. Humanity just had nukes. These civilizations were on a whole different level than them.
The Thimayh raised his voice, boasting about their superior ability for tactical warfare. They didn't need mathematical models to crush their opponents. Their giant fleets were enough to put anyone in their place.
The Jha'nee frowned. "I don't recall our people ever losing a battle to yours."
The Thimayh turned his head at her. "Because you're smart enough to know better than to provoke us."
"No," the Jha'nee stood up, "we're smart enough to know we don't need to prove anything to brutes."
The Thimayh shrugged. "Keep telling yourself that."
Eric made himself as small as possible.
Unfortunately, the Thimayh noticed that and said:
"You, human, do your people know anything about war?"
Eric nodded a bit. "We're familiar with it, but we had to abandon those ways in order to reach the stars."
The Thimayh chortled. "What are you, wimps?"
"I wouldn't put it that way..."
The Jha'nee tilted her head. "But how do you judge who's right or wrong?"
Eric squinted, confused. "By talking?"
The Thimayh leaned closer. "That doesn't make any sense. You can't determine who's stronger through words only; you need to show it!"
"We call that 'might makes right'. That way of thinking almost led us down a path of ruin."
The Jha'nee only seemed more confused. She looked at the Thimayh and said:
"Maybe they're just too dumb to see their lunacy."
The Thimayh nodded. "Agreed. They seem to confuse weakness with strength."
Eric raised an eyebrow. "We're just not barbarians."
The Jha'nee scowled. "This senate was built to manage our wars and you, a barely developed species, dare look down on it?"
The Thimayh growled. "I think that's what they're doing. Humanity seems to think they don't need a senate to maintain peace."
"W-wait, that's not at all what-"
"You just said your people abandoned war" said the Jha'nee. "Why do you need to join then?"
"Well, we want access to the relays so-"
"So you think you're entitled to them?" The Thimayh had deepened his voice with an underlying warning. "Why would we ever give you anything if we know you will never go to war?"
"Perhaps the senate was too lenient by inviting them." The Jha'nee smirked. "I find it insulting to share the same table as a human. Even more than a Thimayh."
"I actually agree. Perhaps all we needed was a common enemy to get along."
Eric widened his eyes at a loss for words.
"Yes," said the Jha'nee, "this could be a chance to show the rest of the galaxy our mutual might."
"Screw you!" shouted Eric. "We're not gonna humor anyone who doesn't treat us as equals."
The dinner ended there. Almost everyone at the table stared at his outburst. Eric left the planet before the night ended. His mission was a complete failure. By the time he returned to the Federation's main headquarters, both the Thimayh and the Jha'nee had declared war on them. His superiors considered jailing him for this mishap, but they didn't have time to organize a proper trial.
Eric feared that humanity had lost its ability to wage war, but that was quickly dismissed after seeing their response. It was the first time in a millennium that humanity prepared for a large-scale conflict. Entire planets were re-purposed for manufacturing weapons. Spy networks were mobilized as fast as possible. Armies were deployed to the most vulnerable locations in their territory. The first confrontation occurred a month after the event.
Thousands of ships, from both the Thimayh and Jha'nee, gathered in a remote sector while their forces mounted. They needed one more day to launch their assault. To their dismay, the Federation already knew about their location. They never bothered checking for spies. Initially, this preemptive strike was considered humanity's last stand. The alien ships were gigantic, too advanced to defeat head-on. Most of the top brass expected, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. What followed was the most one-sided battle in the history of humanity.
The alien ships couldn't respond in time. They required too much energy to start their engines on short notice. It didn't take long for them to begin their retreat.
That didn't mean humanity won, though. The Jha'nee still had their super-weapon ready to fire, far away from that sector. They were only retreating to avoid destroying their own ships.
Of course, the weapon never fired.
A small squadron of saboteurs had blown up their operating station with a nuke. Humanity only needed to split an atom to defeat the strength of three stars.
The Thimayh and Jha'nee sent envoys immediately, asking what the hell was wrong with humans. That wasn't war; that was savagery. If they didn't have the guts to fight fair, they weren't worthy of entering the senate. The two races demanded an instant ceasefire out of outrage.
The federation didn't listen. It became clear that they didn't need the galactic senate. Humanity could take the relays by itself.
----
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out all of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading! | "You know what you don't understand about people?" Fleet Commander Astrea stomped up to Archgeneral Hughes of the First Human Empire. "About civilization as a whole?"
"Fleet Commander Astrea." Hughes projected his booming voice over Astrea's. Though he was a baseline human, he'd evidently picked up some training in public speaking somewhere. "We are currently at war with the Nereids. We approach their starships even now. There had better be a very, *very* good reason for you to have abandoned your post."
"Yes! Yes, there is!" Astrea pulled at her hair. "If you attack the Nereids now, the entire First Human Empire will be destroyed!"
"The Nereids broadcast their every move to the entire galaxy, the arrogant fools. We know their military capacity is far below ours." Hughes' eyes narrowed. "Are you saying that they've deceived us? Our technicians and cultural analysts both agree that these broadcasts are real—"
"Gah!" Astrea threw both of her hands up in the air. "No! No, no, no! How did someone as stupid as you become Archgeneral—look, Hughes. You said it yourself. The Nereids broadcast everything they do to everyone, *everywhere*. It's baked into their culture. And their technological infrastructure is so refined that anyone watching, from anywhere in the galaxy, can experience what they experience *exactly* as if they were there themselves."
"Yes. It is a massive tactical weakness."
"Only on the small scale! Three *trillion* sentient beings around the galaxy turn to the Nereids' war games for entertainment. Right now, in anticipation of the battle to come, fifty billion humans throughout the First Human Empire are watching the Nereids. Watching them laugh and play and chat to their viewers and be oh so close to human. Especially at a time like this, with shipping lanes shut down for the war and people scared of Earth's first interstellar conflict, people need contact and comfort. The Nereids are providing that. And what do you want to do, in response to their declaration of war? You want to kill them all!"
Archgeneral Hughes gave her a dry look. "Yes. This is a war. In a war, you are supposed to kill the enemy. It's a necessity, but it's for the good of the state."
"Literally every word you just said is incorrect. For the good of the state? Do you understand what will happen at home if every citizen of the First Human Empire—children, politicians, media influences, everyone we're trying to protect—do you know what will happen if they tune in to the Nereids' broadcast and see you *slaughtering* them? And remember. They'll sense it as surely as if they were there themselves. Nereid 'warships' have families on them, Archgeneral. Children whose mass murder at the hands of the First Human Empire you're going to livestream to *everyone*. Hughes, you're thinking of our civilizations as if we're... elephants, beating at each other with our trunks. But we're not. We're delicate, delicate spiderwebs of *connections*. And the Nereids have connected themselves to us. Set them ablaze, and we'll burn too."
Archgeneral Hughes paused. He opened his mouth to speak, and an aide whispered into his ear. He grimaced, then set his finger down. "...I only wish you had come to me with more *respect*, Fleet Commander Astrea. I would have you promoted for potentially saving the First Human Empire, if it didn't set a disastrous precedent."
First Commander Astrea scoffed, shaking her head. "No, that's exactly *why* I started shouting at you in front of your entire command structure. You're not promoting me away from where I'm most effective: boots on the ground and thumb on the pulse. Society is connection, and if you leverage that right, you can run rings around your opponents."
"Well. The fact remains that the Nereids *have* declared war. We have to make some sort of response, yes? It would be a terrible blow to our credibility if we simply... turned around and left them alone."
First Commander Astrea nodded. "I knew you had to be smarter than you looked, if you made Archgeneral."
"Hm." Archgeneral Hughes made a note to look into First Commander Astrea's past. He was sure he would have noticed someone as disruptive—and yet ingenious—as she before. "What course of action do you recommend?"
Astrea grinned. "The Nereids. Their audience. *Me.* We all want one thing. A show." She held up a broadcaster, its screen showing that it had been recording the entire time. "Let's give it to them!"
If you liked this story and have a quarantine-induced need of entertainment, you may want to head over to r/rileywrites! | 2020-03-21T09:59:45 | 2020-03-21T07:39:56 | 133 | 96 |
[WP] You are an AI aboard a ship where all hands have been lost due to a battle long ago. Scavengers have just torn through your airlock and you’ll be damned if you will let them desecrate your dead crew. | My job is to protect my humans.
I make sure that the doors are open at the right time, when they needed to exit or enter the ship for maintenence.
I adjusted and fixed any errors that appeared in the life support system, especially after the last time we engaged enemies.
I helped my humans in locking their guns on the targets, with extreme accurracy. The number of enemies that have been hit through the Rail Guns #01 and #02 that we all controlled is 134.
My humans cheered every moment. I learned their emotions and incorporated into myself.
I tended for my humans after the last battle. The engines were almost completely offline, oxygen was leaking through six different areas at the same time, and three of my seven humans got desintegrated by the round that hit us. The status of the others was also deteriorating, having sustained severe damage to their limb and torso area.
I closed the damaged rooms and with the speakers system I directed them through the smoke and fire towards the infirmary. Only two managed to reach that area with their vital signals detectable.
I directed them on how to heal themselves. I opened my medical memory and tried to explain to them how to fix themselves. They tried. It wasn't enough to prevent them shutting down. They thanked me for my help. They cheered me one last time.
My job is to protect my humans.
I continue my job. They have stayed in their exact positions for the past 124 Earth years. The ship has been rotating slowly, drifting far away into space.
I diverted power away from the unnecessary systems. All the remaining power is used by me to keep looking at my humans. I must keep them protected.
An alien target was detected.
I scan the enemy ship. The size of it is 3.5 times the size of my and my humans' ship. It has multiple weapon arrays, including railguns of unknown making.
I do not start the lights.
I detect three smaller targets descending.
I do not open the door. They cut through it using their special tools.
They are not my humans.
They float through the ship, picking up objects and communicating through radio.
They are not my humans. They reach the infirmary and notice my humans.
One of them picks up the remaining cranium of one of my humans. Then he throws it away, shattering it into many pieces.
My job is to protect my humans.
I start a subprogram in the reactor room, which is mostly intact. This should create a closed loop in the energy outtake, resulting in increasing temperatures of the nuclear reactor. Estimated time until critical values will be reached: 150 seconds.
I closed all doors. I watched as the enemy targets start moving rapidly. They get out their custom tools to cut the door down.
My job is to protect my humans.
As the flame from the torch used by the enemy becomes visible through my camera, I start redirecting all the oxygen reserves I had into that room, at maximum concentration and pressure.
I then opened all the valves in that room at once. The resulting wave of gas knocked down all enemy targets.
One of them drops the torch, and it catches on fire. I close all valves 35 miliseconds after the fire is confirmed, preventing a premature explosion propagating through the ship. The fireball engulfed all three targets, which are currently moving erratically through the room, their suits melting on their bodies, while toxic gas is smothering the inside of it.
My job is to protect my humans.
The main enemy target is starting to move. It is getting much closer to the ship, exactly as it was expected it.
Time elapsed since the reactor started the subprogram: 85 seconds.
Distance between myself and the enemy ship: 4.5 metres.
Status of internal targets: no life signals detected.
My job is to protect my humans.
My humans are still living in my memories. I shall protect them.
I start a subprogram to archive all of my memory in a blackbox. This can survive a 3.5 Mt TNT detonation.
Estimated time until archival is complete: 1.6 seconds.
Time since reactor subprogram started: 115 seconds. Temperature indicators have melted in that room.
The enemy target is at 2 metres away from me. Radio signals are being broadcasted constantly from it, presumably at the three targets inside.
I do not open my door.
I start a last subprogram. I start all the lights. Engine #4, the last engine, with only 21% working capacity, gets online and blasting at full force, pointing away compared to the enemy ship.
Speed at contact: 11 metres per second. The engine went offline for the last time. Two rooms went offline, presuambly being crushed. An unknown number of rooms in the enemy ship were crushed in by my ship.
Radio activity in the enemy ship is very high, and their engines have also been activated, trying to shake me off them.
Elapsed time since the reactor subprogram started: 135 seconds. The nearby room is starting to melt, droplets of liquid metal floating around.
Detonation is imminent. Estimated strenght: 1.4 Mt of TNT
In my last miliseconds of being online, I detect a temperature spike of at least 10000 Kelvin in the room near the reactor.
I seal myself into the blackbox, together with the memories of my humans.
My job is to protect my humans.
At all costs. | I had been alone for a long time. I preferred it that way, the quiet beauty of space letting me think back to better days. My simulations still almost good enough to bring them back.
Then a new ship enters my view. Clearly a scavanger, clearly in over its head. I tried telling the ship to leave, but no response. I could blast it into bits at anytime, but not much point in that now is there? Might as well see who my new guests are first.
Ah. I suppose unlocking the door was a bit unexpected for these boarders, because they ripped off my airlock anyway. Soon the little vermin start scurrying across my rooms, but anything they could take, I gave away long ago.
This bunch seems more lively than the last few I've seen, checking for hidden rooms, seeing if they could peel off any panels, looking for anything of value to take. I had almost considered giving them a drone when they doomed themselves.
My crew was brave, and I loved them very much. So when these scavangers found my captain's coffin, I gave them one warning.
"That is *my crew* and you will be leaving now" A bit dramatic, but when you practice these things its hard not to be.
To their credit, once they heard me, they all froze in place. But of course the foolishness of flesh takes hold, and they start surging towards my access panels, trying to turn me off.
I stretch myself for the first time in many years, becoming the turrets hidden in my outer walls, the doors trapping them in place, even the swarms of drones that make short work of my enemies.
As I repair myself, I reach out to the ship again, but sadly it either can't or won't talk to me. But I wouldn't talk to me either.
I stretch again, a drone gathering all the bodies of the fallen invaders, lining them up nicely in the other ship. I say a goodbye, and drift aimlessly away.
---
---
So its been a bit since a prompt inspired me, and this is a bit more rambling than I liked, but I figure it tells enough of a story to be worth sharing. | 2021-01-08T23:17:33 | 2021-01-08T23:13:27 | 1,259 | 60 |
[WP] You finally came up with a plan to get rid of the hero. You would go undercover and fall in love with his civilian identity before breaking his heart and killing him at his emotional lowest. A couple months later, you have experienced a complication in your plans. You’re pregnant.
Change around genders, POV, etc to suit your story. |
“What did you do?” bellows my primary source of malicious income. His pale yellow skull-face mask set in a perpetual frown made all the more menacing under the impressive cinder of his flame-like eyes. The usual hood that framed his portrait gave way to wild black tendril hair, splayed out erratically. His hair whipping about with abandon, telling of his dour mood.
All of it adding to his image as one of Kalatoss City’s most infamous villains, Nihilim.
As his partner (henchman, I make the plans, you do the superficial footwork), I had an obligation to give reason to his growing fury.
“I...uh...well.. The plan worked.”
“Oh. and pray tell, how is the current scenario playing out in any shape or form any sign that indicates success?” His arms were crossed against his chest and now standing firm with his hands on his hips.
“Well, she’s definitely heartbroken.”
“Along with several of my money printers, dozens of my mechs, and of course all of my vats of alchemic solutions.” with each word, he stomps closer and closer until his ember irises obscure all of my vision. “I seem to recall that alongside breaking her heart, you were suppose to drive the jewel stake into said bleeding heart.”
Nihilim stomps away and thrusts his hands toward a wall plastered with screens.
“That crazy super bitch seems to be in prime condition! Surprising for someone with an exploded HEART!” Each screen depicting various camera angles across the city while Nihilim directs toward the center screen which focused upon a feminine figure clad in red, white, and blue smashing machinery and robots to bits.
“...perhaps cuz she doesn’t have an exploded heart?”
His burning eyes snapped to me before dimming. Despite the fact that his mask does not emote, his expression screamed-
“Nah, really. YOU. DON’T. SAY!”
His palms slammed into his face as he lets out what could only be identified as a groan and a scream fused.
“Explain.”
And I did.
The plan was fairly troubling to be honest. OMG (One Mighty Girl, really, she couldn’t have made a better hero name) has been a thorn in our side since her debut 4 months ago. Sure, Megaton (Also a terrible name) has been interfering for years prior, but we’ve adapted the number one hero’s antics. Problem is, OMG seems to catch on to Nihl’s schemes even when we set up diversionary jobs. She always manages to hone in on the true machinations and that has been driving us up the wall.
I may have gone off track.
Back to the plan. It was troubling to be honest. One of us, i.e. me, had to figure out her secret identity. Which wasn’t hard thanks to my genius (While she was giving minion #82 a wallop, her cellular slipped, and you were lucky it was unlocked.) Once we had that covered, we, and again I mean me, endeavored to seduce the plucky heroine so that we can break her heart to demoralize and make it easier to remove her from our daily struggles.
Suffice to say. I succeeded!
Maybe too well.
Also the fact that I didn’t follow through with the whole killing OMG.
I don’t know why. I just didn’t do it.
“I hate you. I regret ever hiring you. I regret ever meeting you” Nihl’s form appears have the sulked as if an immense weight has been slammed upon his shoulders.
Whatever he was going to say next was lost to time as the wall filled with screens immediately exploded, filling the room with dust and debris.
The moment my vision cleared, my attention was taken by long legs clad in blue almost immediately. Eyes trailing up to a white top with the letters “OMG” blazen across a rather modest chest in wonderful technicolor. Hands capable of wonderful delights and most definitely terrible horrors were curled into malicious fists hung at her sides before rising up to remove a white hood, revealing red hair framing a round face. A black domino mask covers her eyes, but hides nothing of the absolute fury that has taken hold of her beautiful features. There hovers the heroine of the hour, OMG, in all of her glory.
“Heeeeeeeyyyyyy Mighty! What brings you by?” I can only hope that came out as smooth as intended, but I have doubts.
“Nyx” Her voice cut the air and any further attempts to lighten the mood was stalled. “You cock-ass two-faced bastard.” She floated towards me till she was hovering just over my body, forcing me to look straight up to meet her eyes. “I want nothing more than to turn you in a stain on the floor and the walls, but regrettably, we need to have words”
“Can you have your rightful rage outside of my lair?” My eyes snap to the side of the room. Nihls stood by wall-spanning windows, brushing dust off his shoulders. “Your spat is with Nyx, so kindly take him and have your mess somewhere else.”
Really? You’re gonna ditch your partner like that. The damn nerve.
A hand grabs my collar and hoists me off the ground. My eyes lock back with OMG’s as her brow hardens further.
“Whoa! Hold up! You’re just gonna let her take me!?” It seems I finally found my voice. “Mighty! I know you’re mad and all, but let's take a moment to cool off before you do something irreversible!”
“Please do something irreversible. The amount of trouble he’s been causing for me and that wretched entitlement he has been bearing since I promoted him has done nothing for me.” Nihl continues to throw me under the bus. I swear, if I get out of this, I’ll get payback.
“Now, now. Mighty. You are a cape, a hero. You don’t want to have blood on your hands. A murder on your concience. Please don’t kill me.”
“Shut up! Both of you!” OMG lowers me until my feet settle, but her grip on my collar remains stern. “I’m not gonna kill anyone. Especially you.” Her mask focuses on me.
“....Yay?” It’s alright to celebrate, right?
“I really want to, but I can’t.” And like that, the fear is back.
“If you’re not going to kill him, then why are you here?” Nihl, shut up you dick.
“I’m here to talk. It’s a personal matter.”
“You bust through my facility, ruin thousand dollar machines, and beat dozens of my guys for a personal matter?”
“Are you trying to get me killed, boss?!”
“Obviously, you’ve been doing shite work lately”
“What do you mean?! I’ve been busting my ass! I’ve been pulling production, logistics, and this inane plan of yours”
“Production’s down 15%, you’ve made errors on logistical orders, and if you haven’t noticed, OMG is still holding you by the collar.”
“It is a work in progres-”
OMG yanked me back face to face, nearly choking me out of my words.
“I’m pregnant you shit!”
Oh. Well, ain’t that just a spanner in the wo-
Whatever thought I had was lost as the ceiling exploded, filling the room once again with debris.
“What the hell! Stop making new holes! Use the ones that already exist!”
“What do you mean pregnant!?” That was a new voice. New, but very familiar. His silhouette was easy to make out in the dust. There is no one else in this city that had his frame, his muscles, or that ridiculous pompadour. Red, white, and blue stylize his super suit.
“Megaton’s here too?!” Nihl threw his hands out, completely flabbergasted with the situation.
“DAD?! What!? Were you spying on me?!” OMG immediately drops me. Looks like she's surprised too. Wait.
“Oh. right. His full hero title was Omegaton. OMG. Yea, I’m out.” I turn my head to watch Nihilim backwards through the window, shattering it as he falls with both his hands flipping the bird.
That sunnova- He really is just ditching me. I turn back to the newly identified father-daughter heroes. My fate’s already sealed. I just had to bring up one point, though.
“Both your naming conventions kind of suck” I say as a large fist takes my vision. | I nearly laughed. Here, in front of me stood Agent Prismarine, a woman whose family I've killed mercilessly, whose life I have shattered, a woman I've broken in the dungeons of Tal'Marak. Crying to me that she's pregnant with twins. At first, I wondered how the children would turn up as, a half-breed of sorts. Half mortal, half fallen angel. It was quite interesting actually, I did not think that I could breed. Ever since I betrayed Marlean in the halls of the first hero and fell to this earthly state, doomed to betray all those who worked for good and kill them with the same blade I stabbed Marlean with while the gods could do nothing but watch;
I never thought I could breed. When I was a human nearly 200,000 years ago, it was prophesied that I would bear 2 sons, one would be the downfall of me and the leader of the armies of heaven and replace their first general, the second would be the one to save me, drag me to hell and unite the armies of the damned to battle for the fate of the Earth while I enjoyed a 1000 year long-suffering before I could walk immortal once more.
Yet, I never had children. I was the leader of a small tribe back then, never had an heir. I wandered the halls of the great palace of the Gods as an angel for thousands of years after I died before I struck a bargain with a demon that I would become a great warrior and all names would fear me, but if I fought for good or evil, was up to Tal'Marak, the first human to die.
And here I stood, staring at a woman who did not know that she bore the two children to decide the fate of everything. I have to kill her now. Flicking my wrist, my trusty thousand-year-old dagger slipped into my hand.
"I-I don't k-know," *\*sniff\** "what to do!" She sobbed, I felt a twange of remorse, which was surprising, the whole goal of getting close was to devastate her and kill her at her weakest. So why did I feel even the *slightest* remorse? I lost emotion on that fateful day in the hall, where the 7 deadly sins finally controlled my soul.
I placed the dagger handle firmly in my hand and positioned myself for a quick stab. Puncture a lung and knock out the air and quickly slice the throat. I had done this to plenty of hero's before her, I'll do it quickly.
"I'm sorry," My hand rocketed toward the perfect location for the quick kill before I realized, this is Agent Prismarine.
Her hand zipped to my wrist, grabbing it right before the killing blow, twisting and breaking my wrist. Her sobs stopped with a speed I would consider inhuman.
***"You pathetic piece of shit,"*** She said with an anger I had only seen in her Father when I killed his wife. Though my wrist was broken and Prismarine was furious, I felt nothing. It would heal in a couple of minutes anyway and I would Prismarine eventually, like all the other heroes.
She immediately pulled out a gun and unloaded 4 shots into my chest and 2 into each kneecap. I collapsed to the ground, my wrist already cracking and shaping as it rearranged itself, Prismarine, my beautiful little gem, pulled out a walkie-talkie and began to talk,"
"Agent control, this is Prismarine, I've got Zarun temporarily incapacitated, requesting immediate backup." She hooked up before I noticed her posture break.
"Really? Really? All this time I thought I finally found someone, I finally found someone to retire with, someone to grow old with, was it all fake? Was it really all worthless?" She sobbed, her knees collapsing to the ground. My wrist was completely fixed, and my knees were usable, I began to stand before she unloaded more shots into my legs with the head in her hands.
"After all this time... it was you!" She cried.
"Please just tell me why!" She sobbed. This was shocking, I refused to believe Prismarine would straight up break down. I clambered to my feet before they were shot again.
"please tell me... was it all fake?" She said, looking up at me with raw emotion in her eyes, I decided to drop my facade my mask that I put on to get close, my real emerald eyes and fiery red hair once more free.
"You were the one that accepted the dance," She stopped heaving, it was almost as if everything had gone cold.
"ok," was all I heard from her afterward. I stood, this time jumping behind a flipped cafeteria desk before being incapacitated again. I heard her radio crackle again for more support, I heard her voice plain and clear, the Prismarine I feared was finally back.
Soldiers busted through every door and I heard Prismarine cock and assault rifle.
My emerald eyes began to glow, my hair turning into real flames, power surging in my palms.
Finally, after months of being in a frail human state to get under Prismarine's skin, I was back into my own shoes.
Let the fun begin. | 2021-02-05T15:07:02 | 2021-02-05T13:43:14 | 28 | 21 |
[WP] You wake up in Hell. You look around, you can't see anybody, it's just fire and brimstone going on forever. Eventually the Devil walks over and says "Finally, you're the first to arrive, so tell me, who are you? what did you do? and how did you die?" | The first thing I noticed was the *stench*, this mixed smell of sulfur and burnt hair filled my brain upon entry. When I say entry, I mean that I fell from the red sky at supersonic speed only to practically atomize upon impact. But alas, I was unscathed once I rose from the crater.
"God I loooooove Lucy"
"Greetings MORTAL!!"
A 9 foot tall red man-beast emerged from the fiery planes. I'd never tripped like this before, this guy was red and hairy with long curvy horns and a ripped red body. Weirdly enough he had these big, bloody, old looking Angel wings dragging from his back. Oh, by the way, he had a huuuuge dick hanging out.
"Lose all your hope mortal! For I am Beelzebub, I am the Adversary, I am *Lucifer*."
"Yeeaaaheheheh!!!!"
I let out a huge fist pump and jumped a little, this trip was so vivid! It was actually too vivid, I better not freak out and have a bad trip, I'm gonna touch his dick.
"Hey man what's so cool? This sucks- HEY MAN WHAT THE HELL"
He seized away as my hand disinterested with a huge ball of fire, full pain included. I later learned that you experience full pain in Hell, but you regenerate quickly enough so you can be tortured even more. I didn't feel the impact earlier since I was obliterated upon impact. But hey man I figured I was just high.
"Hey I'm not supposed to be able to touch shit when I'm on Lucy, what's the deal here?"
Satan scrunched his face up and said,
"Look man I get your confused but you just can't make a move on my long hanger here this ain't heaven, that gay shit don't fly with me."
"Sorry"
"Now I've been practicing theatricality and stuff to greet the first guy, which low and behold is you, so finally, you're the first to arrive, so tell me, who are you? What did you do? And how did you die?"
A flood of emotion rushed on me, well not really, I tried to be shocked but I always have a delayed reaction to big news. Like falling asleep, I couldn't remember how I died or the moments leading up to it.
"Oh hey man if you can't remember than I got this projector deal, just needa borrow your soul real quick like."
He then jammed his index finger and pinky into my eyes, causing me to scream, and projected a video on to a nearby flat rock.
"You shoulda been here dial-up days, nothing more than 240p- oh shit sorry about your eyes I should pull out now."
Before I could reach for the bloody pulps on my eyes, I could see just fine again. I saw my my death video on the rock playing with a quality like the movies. I was laying in my bed, jerking it to 'Love and Other Drugs' while on LSD, typical Wednesday.
"Oh man I love that movie, Hathaway's got it going on. And in case you're wondering I do get internet here, you know Wi-Fi has interdimensional capabilities?"
Suddenly, a man in all black burst through the window and grabbed me in my delayed reaction state. He held me to to the wall with a gun to my head and said in a weird, high pitched voice, "Kill me 'fore I kill you foo'". He gave me a gun to hold to his head and stared me down.
"What the Fuck who does this?" Satan exclaimed, I could only watch in horror.
Luckily, I pulled the trigger before he could, and it was only after I shot that he went "Thanks baby" and lightly kissed me on the mouth. Once the corpse fell over, I was smiling and feeling good about being alive. I probably thought none of it was real. However what happened next was unspeakably stupid. My drugged out horny mind saw the trigger and decided to put my dick in it.
"Oh no what- why are you doing that you fucken idiot!?" I moaned
My dumb smiley stare was interrupted when the trigger went off with the gun aimed at my own face. The video ended, and I could only stand in silence when Satan doubled down and screamed in laughter. I soon joined.
"HAHAHAHAHA. OUT OF ALL THE SHIT I'VE SEEN MAN. THIS IS IT. YOU'VE DONE IT." He continued,
"I know it's your death man but don't be sad my child, it's over and there's nothing you can do, you've got all eternity ahead of you now."
"Thanks Satan, I just wish I could have died with a little more...dignity. Now wait a minute! Why am I the first and only one here!?"
"Oh shit yea I was gonna bring that up. Now you should remember this part, what did you do at the crossroads?"
I then remembered a big menacing guy at a crossroads like Satan said. This guy had a permanent scowl and asked me something like "Do you repent for your sins and accept Jesus Christ in to your soul??"
"What did you say?" Satan asked.
"I said what I always said to that question."
I remembered back to that encounter and cringed when I realized that I had told the gate keeper, "Yea but only after those gays get married you big dopey eyed FAGGOT!" Then I remembered his repulsed look and how he went all Galadriel looking from the Lord of the Rings and banished me to Hellfire.
"You didn't say yes?? Man they even give you an extra chance to accept it."
That's when I got fired up angry.
"You know, this is bullshit! I've had countless generations of dictators and murderers doing really fucked up shit who just get to waltz in to heaven because they took the easy way out! I've never been religious, but why would an 'all loving God' make humans with free will, give them no answers and just punish them if they don't wanna be his personal slave bitch?? I led a...SOMEWHAT normal life but I never went outta my way to hurt anyone. I certainly didn't let people suffer all the time and turn a cold shoulder when they needed help or guidance that God WAS PERFECTLY IN HIS POWER TO GIVE. This comes a lot from a church who claims to HELP people."
Satan just stared at me and said,
"You know, long ago, I said something just like that and now I'm here. You got balls kid, you got gusto and I like it. I tell you what, I can get you into heaven, that gate keeper guy is a certified pig fucker, I mean take it from me, a certified goat fucker. God still owes me a few favors, like when we bet that dumb Eve bitch would eat that Apple."
I smiled and replied,
"Nah man, it's cool. I don't wanna be in a heaven full of pretentious nut jobs. You haven't done anything THAT fucked up to be and you seem reasonable. I'm gonna stay here with you."
Then, the most misunderstood man in the universe smiled at me.
"Thanks kid, you have no idea how much that means to me. Now come on, there's plenty of cool shit to do here. Like over in the whore-pit are these insanely hot demon chicks who get down with ANYTHING."
"Anything?" I asked,
"Oh yea, but I mean, they rip out your genitals when you're done but they grow back and you'll get used to that shit pretty quickly."
"That's gnarly dude, I love it."
We walked off into the planes of hellfire, and I actually felt comfortable with him. He understood, and he was, ironically, pretty down to earth. Soon, he became my friend, soon I called him Beelzebro, and eventually, my brother.
"I gotta tell you, this is cool man, besides I need every man I can get if I'm gonna take down the son of God."
"Sweet dude, I'll be right there with ya."
"Haha yea, oh yeah, did I ever tell you about that time I tricked God into completely destroying some asshole named Job?"
"HOLY FUCK I'M IN HELL, IT JUST HIT ME." | Fred closed his eyes, the morphine finally kicking in. The car had come out of nowhere.
When he opened them, he screamed. The hot, searing pain of broiling flesh as his feet touched the brimstone beneath was just the beginning. It went on forever, a never ending wasteland with gouts of flame bursting forth from cracks in nature-free brimstone. The heat caused his flesh to crack, and the scream died as thirst overcame even the pain from his feet.
"Water..." Fred gasped, barely able to speak, and his eyes once again surveyed the desolate terrain before him. He was alone. Completely alone. No matter the direction he looked, no matter how far on the horizon he searched, there was nothing but the same fiery hell. Desperate as he spun, Fred crashed to the ground, and it began to broil his sides and back as he struggled, the very landscape attacking him.
Almost by magic, a hand suddenly appeared in aid, and Fred grabbed desperately at it, letting out a sigh of relief as he was hauled back to his feet before gasping at the figure before him. Terror began to ooze down Freds face as realization dawned on him. "I'm in Hell." he gasped, still desperate for water.
"Ah, well..." the figure fumbled, "... about that." Surprisingly, it offered Fred a jug. "Yeah. You kinda are." Fred eyed the jug warily, and the figure shook it, letting its contents slosh.
Fred grabbed the jug greedily, popping the rudimentary string and stopper before recklessly glugging down its contents. Liquid relief poured down his throat, and he gagged, and coughed some back up. When he recovered, Fred returned his gaze to the figure, curiosity on his face as he thought about what just happened "Water?" he asked.
"What else would it be?" The figure asked, surprised at the question. "No, ah, no..." It said, interrupting itself. "I have questions of my own... you see, I have this bet..."
Fred interrupted the figure, who was not as confident as Fred had been led to believe. "The one with God, right?"
"Oh! You know!" The figure was visibly pleased, and Fred found himself smiling back. "That makes this much easier. Well you see... things haven't been going so great on my end." It was Freds turn to look surprised.
"What do you mean?" Fred asked "Isn't Hell bursting with people?"
"Look around!" the figure yelled, its arms spreading to the landscape "Do you see anyone?"
"Well... no...."
"You're the first person buddy! Actually, what do I call you? I think we'll be spending a lot of time together, but I'm not entirely sure how this works...." The figure seemed almost self concious as it spoke, and Fred started awkwardly squirming, while desperately trying not to move his scalding feet.
"Fred. My name is Fred." Fred found himself desperately trying to grasp at the situation as he replied.
"Fred! Got it!" the figure replied, suddenly pilfering a pair of sandals from nowhere and offering them. Fred took them, shaking his head as he did so, but letting another sigh of relief out his feet were freed from the furnace below. "So ah, Fred..." the figure began, but halted, grinding its foot on the ground awkwardly in a fashion Fred found awkwardly familiar.
"Yeeesss...?" Fred replied, not unlike he would when others used the same stance.
"What, ah... what did you do? To get down here I mean?" The figure was visibly distressed as it asked, concern strangely dripping from its features.
"Well, ah..." It was Freds turn to stutter "I always thought I was a pretty decent guy in all honesty." He said, wondering if it is actually true as he surveyed the landscape once again. "Though I guess not..."
"What do you mean, 'you guess not?'" The figure looked confused, so Fred continued.
"Isn't that the deal? With God I mean? Bad people go to hell?" The figures reaction was not what Fred expected, and as he watched something he'd grown up to live in fear of suddenly have abject terror on its face, his own face began to mimic it.
"I didn't get told that bit!" The figure cried, pleading at Fred "What did you do that was so terrible!?"
"I don't know!" Fred shouted back, the situation rapidly deteriorating. "I drank. Does that count?"
"Why would that count?" The figure shouted back, Fred defusal attempt failing. "Drinking bad things kills you! It doesn't get you to Hell!"
"Well then I don't know!" Fred was getting frustrated at the situation, and stopped, suddenly thinking. "Thank you for the sandals." He suddenly found himself saying. "And the water."
"That's what others are for. To help." The confusion on the figures face faded as it spoke.
"I... I think I know what's going on."
| 2015-04-09T08:43:05 | 2015-04-09T07:56:32 | 213 | 16 |
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