Split (1)

train · 353k rows

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EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	It started steadily, primordial soup heavily, thunder lightening zapping, none to see. Then came the fishes, ocean riches, passing some time, successes and glitches. On to the shore, looking for more, wasted and hungry, hoping to score. More glitches and twitches and finally us, species of fuckers who fucked the place up. Shits getting hot, too hot for 2120, get me out of here now, ya got some space money?
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The Short, impossibly broad Alien stared up toward Eminem, his snub face portraying what humans would detect as arrogance, "well, humanoid? Are you going to explain your short, uneventful history to us or not? You've got five minutes to sway us Farriquark to not blow up your planet with the Plasma Reducer Canon. So, begin." Eminem looked on, dejected, pissed off. The Aliens were a morally perfect being, destroying us because the greed and evil that mankind possesses was "dangerous to the universe" according to the Farriquark. Shady looked down, his brow scrunched in deep thought, Mic groped firmly in his white-knuckled fist. A twinkle in his eye glowed, he raised the Mic to his lips... Yo, people, listen up. I Guess it's happenin, The Freaks across the Galactic neighbourhood been snoopin round some, Well, merry christmas, you found us, living alone, mindin' our business, Tryin'a correct our planet's sickness from the pollution of oily slickness, You see, billions of years ago we formed an atmosphere with plants, Then evolution happened, till you have Shady's ass in pants, You had Cleopatra, Stonehenge, Jiroft then China Oh, by the way, Cleo's kid, Caesarion, didn't come out her vagina Cuniform gave writing, Egyptian papyrus citin' all the fightin' our species had from simply slightin', Philosophy, science, reading and math, The pillars of reasoning tryin'a save our greedy ass, But despite all our knowledge, like, hello!? We know what's right, there's a little light, flashing bright, every night in every fuckin' bum's plight, And so we destroy and fight, givin' rise to hate and spite, Wreckin' everything in sight, until we get our little green notes kept tight, Stackin' em up till we die hollow alright, human beings ain't done nothin' right I guess, what I'm saying is, we are a pile of shit, Despite knowin' how to fly to outer space in our cockpit, We've killed animals, destroyed our home, killed each other for the hell-of-it. We are a bunch of immoral bums, Fuck! I somehow hate the one I'm meant to call mum But no matter how bad we might seem to be, Through wars and death and life's atrocities We still come together, one humanity, Risin', fighting' for a chance to be like you, and succeed Stan drops the Mic and walks out, the Aliens pulverised and reduced to liquid waste by his rap for humanity. He had saved the world with his medium of anger-induced rhyme. WTF.	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The universe burst from the big bang Strange particles fused and became the frame Time sprang and space couldn't stay the same Deny the past but the facts still run the game Now let me state In different states matter arose In different chains proteins have grown In different states you can fuck a goat But evolution is where all have grown Life started as a single cell An amoeba with a reason to prevail In hell no energy to divide Met a bitch named Mito to put inside Right? So when that chick came the brakes fell off Two cells ate one like stroganoff No strokin off, need atp So those two cells became 4 in 3 Billion years. Now we have billions of ears Listenin on while I glisten on this track paid for dvds and mtv. Marshall	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Look, it went down like this slime comin' out of the primordial pit started in the ocean, then we grew some legs Homo-erectus comin' home with swag tribal at first, a couple of spears then came fire, then clothes, then wheels before you knew it, we were gettin' real smart science and math, culture and art made up some Gods, so we could sleep at night son killed everybody who didn't believe in the right one now we here and not much has changed learned how to smile, learned how to shave we did some bad things... mostly to the Jews but we're still all learnin' how to chill and be cool So, alien dude, don't kill us please I just gave you our history, in a cold 16	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	"You want me to do what?" The question didn’t come as a surprise to me, this wasn't how I expected my day to go either. Far from being one of the 'coffee and paperwork' days I usually go through. "Mr. Mathers..." "First off, you said aliens, right? Are these the 'jump out of your chest and bite your face off' aliens, or are they more...chill?" As I explained the situation once again, I marveled at sheer absurdity of my job. Usually, I was phoning celebrities to ask for their attendance at large events, to sing at the super bowl or similar events. Funnily enough, very few musicians wanted to perform for aliens. "...anyways, Mr. Mathers, it has been requested that our history as a species be presented to the...visitor, in a series of five or less songs. Minuets, to be specific. To be completely honest you were nearly last on the list of possibilities, but we've reached a point where we have to ask. Will you perform minuets about our world history for the aliens?" "Did you ever consider, I don’t know, a classical musician? Or a ballerina, or something? I don’t know if you realize, lady, but I'm not really performing minuets on a daily basis." "The instrumentalists asked were mainly concerned for the safety of their instruments. Apparently violins and slime don't get along." "Look, I'll figure something out," he eventually sighed. "Don’t get your hopes up too much, but I'll give it a try." "You only have one shot, Mr. Mathers. I'll see you this afternoon. Our world, and their world, are watching." ~~~ Three hours later, in the same oversized t-shirt, he stood in a slightly dingy boardroom across the table from the alien. As I, a few security guards, and a cameraman watched, he hiked up his jeans and sat at the small keyboard that had been hastily set up. The past few hours had been filled with consultations about the best and worst parts of human history, what should be conveyed or left out, as well as broad questions about the aliens' understanding of music or emotion. As Eminem began to play, all eyes were on the alien, hoping that extraterrestrial body language was similar enough to that of humans that we would be able to gauge the reaction. My heart was beating into my throat as this point, as the musical tale being told skimmed over geologic history, the beginning of life, and pre-human evolution in one short and slow minuet, the ancient civilizations and scientific findings wrapped up in another before modern history and wars. As the final notes of the fourth minuet rang out, we waited, palms sweaty and knees weak, with bated breath, for the last minuet. Looking calm and ready, he dropped his fingers to the keys once again. This minuet was the future. The aliens seemed to want to learn about us as a species, it was only fair that they see our drive to make advancements and to improve scientifically. We also hoped it would keep them from wiping us out, in case that was their intent. It was over. Eminem stood up slowly and joined us near the door. "Now what?" He whispered to the nearest security person. "Stay there," she responded. "We have to wait for a response or something." Finally, the alien spoke. Grunted. Made some unintelligible noises. The translation systems kicked in and a computerized male voice rang out. "That was much longer than five minutes."	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	Mr. Mathers walked up to the microphone and tapped it twice saying, "Is this thing on?" A few moments later a beat played over the speakers. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath and began, "Well, homo sapiens are hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovians, we outcompeted them for dominance a very long time ago. Hunter-gatherers became agrarian and eventually Sumerian and the first city states became prevalent nearly ten-thousand years ago." Fifteen seconds had passed and he took a deeper breath before saying, "We moved to cities and tamed the wilderness and each generation had some kids and our knowledge grew with iteration as the passage of time flowed. Priests mandated religion as a necessary fiction to teach morality to the simple man and live without doing work while the philosophers kept questioning and writing and lecturing though if you meet one today you'd think they were a jerk." Another breath and forty-seven seconds into the presentation, Mr. Mathers increased his tempo and said, "City-states turned to nation-states and armies formed as kings would state that the other men of the other tribe really had to go. Macedonians tried to rule the world till their leader died for reasons unknown. There was Darius, The Zhou Dynasty, Caesar and Xerxes each tried to rule the world and died mysteriously or alone. While the common man was sent to war, he'd fight and die and live through horror and those who had the luck to live never really came back home." One minute and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers said, "Rome split into two empires one fell to raiders and the other had a thousand years persist throughout the world. Mongolians crossed the wastes and plundered Europe for a taste of the riches and victories that they had longed for at home. Then Europeans got organized and the Catholic Church told them a lie and suddenly the mobilized to attack their savior's home. Each side thinking they were holy it's the same old story. The peasants fought while leaders stay a thousand miles from war. They brought back Algebra and science from the so-called savages from Africa and science in The West had finally found it's home." Two minutes and thirty seconds into his presentation, Mr. Mathers turned to the DJ and said, "Make this beat faster. Shit is about to get interesting." The tempo of the music increased as Mr. Mathers turned the the microphone and said, "The Western Europeans weren't satisfied and started stealing. They conquered Africa and The Americas and the indigenous people were left to die. They sailed around the ocean and caused a huge commotion until some of them were unhappy and found a new land of their own. These Americans ruled by the king didn't want to pay for anything so they threw their tea in the sea and a rebellion turned into a war and America was born. The Americans stole land from the natives and bought Africans and on the backs of slave labor an industry was born. Then they argued over taxation and split into two nations, the southern states lost outright but still fly their rebel flag. The sudden lack of slavery forced innovation and industry though the people they had freed were not welcome in their homes." He paused and said, "As we approach the twentieth century in the time that's allotted to me I implore you to stay with me because we have a ways to go. Mr. Mathers took a deep breath. He took a sip from a bottle of water. The leaders of the world stood on the edge of the stage and shouted for him to continue. The alien delegation sat in the front of the crowd and leaned toward the edge of their seats. Mr. Mathers returned to the microphone with a minute to spare and said, "The plane and automobile made it easier for armies to kill guns became more mechanized and the world went to war. Twenty years go by and allies lied and attacked the sleeping giant guys and the Nazi's met our G.I.'s and the Japanese got nuked. The corporations reaped from the war and filled their coffers even more and the human race has been at war every since that time. Philosophers like Hesse and Sartre contemplated our existence, while Ghandi and Malcolm X made resistance their cause. The Ashkenazi took the Holy Land and forced out the Palestinians who had thought they'd have a homeland until the treaty of Balfour. Now the governments cater to the rich and the rest of us are their bitch. Individual rights are as sacred as they don't interfere with the bottom line. That's my best summation of history and why you asked for me is a mystery but let me before the first to say to an alien race..." The timer buzzed. The alien delegation murmured amongst themselves for a moment before turning to Mr. Mathers and saying, "What was it you wanted to say to us?" Mr. Mathers smiled from ear to ear as he pointed his two middle fingers to the alien delegation and said, "Blow me."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The Short, impossibly broad Alien stared up toward Eminem, his snub face portraying what humans would detect as arrogance, "well, humanoid? Are you going to explain your short, uneventful history to us or not? You've got five minutes to sway us Farriquark to not blow up your planet with the Plasma Reducer Canon. So, begin." Eminem looked on, dejected, pissed off. The Aliens were a morally perfect being, destroying us because the greed and evil that mankind possesses was "dangerous to the universe" according to the Farriquark. Shady looked down, his brow scrunched in deep thought, Mic groped firmly in his white-knuckled fist. A twinkle in his eye glowed, he raised the Mic to his lips... Yo, people, listen up. I Guess it's happenin, The Freaks across the Galactic neighbourhood been snoopin round some, Well, merry christmas, you found us, living alone, mindin' our business, Tryin'a correct our planet's sickness from the pollution of oily slickness, You see, billions of years ago we formed an atmosphere with plants, Then evolution happened, till you have Shady's ass in pants, You had Cleopatra, Stonehenge, Jiroft then China Oh, by the way, Cleo's kid, Caesarion, didn't come out her vagina Cuniform gave writing, Egyptian papyrus citin' all the fightin' our species had from simply slightin', Philosophy, science, reading and math, The pillars of reasoning tryin'a save our greedy ass, But despite all our knowledge, like, hello!? We know what's right, there's a little light, flashing bright, every night in every fuckin' bum's plight, And so we destroy and fight, givin' rise to hate and spite, Wreckin' everything in sight, until we get our little green notes kept tight, Stackin' em up till we die hollow alright, human beings ain't done nothin' right I guess, what I'm saying is, we are a pile of shit, Despite knowin' how to fly to outer space in our cockpit, We've killed animals, destroyed our home, killed each other for the hell-of-it. We are a bunch of immoral bums, Fuck! I somehow hate the one I'm meant to call mum But no matter how bad we might seem to be, Through wars and death and life's atrocities We still come together, one humanity, Risin', fighting' for a chance to be like you, and succeed Stan drops the Mic and walks out, the Aliens pulverised and reduced to liquid waste by his rap for humanity. He had saved the world with his medium of anger-induced rhyme. WTF.	The world went gay And now, we straight We went on this crooked path of hate And were late to the state that our minds could take It hurt us So proud of our ways, didn’t know of better parts to end our days We stayed, and built bombs in our caves I could go on about the messages they made Ignored in ways that put shame to their names, we never knew what was coming and now we are paying tributes to our pains The world turned, it burned, tried to escape this place but it’s like we never learned and laws we torn I feel scorned, we can only spin in our circles so long while we mourn What is this place? Don’t ask me, I’d say it was disgrace.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The universe burst from the big bang Strange particles fused and became the frame Time sprang and space couldn't stay the same Deny the past but the facts still run the game Now let me state In different states matter arose In different chains proteins have grown In different states you can fuck a goat But evolution is where all have grown Life started as a single cell An amoeba with a reason to prevail In hell no energy to divide Met a bitch named Mito to put inside Right? So when that chick came the brakes fell off Two cells ate one like stroganoff No strokin off, need atp So those two cells became 4 in 3 Billion years. Now we have billions of ears Listenin on while I glisten on this track paid for dvds and mtv. Marshall	The world went gay And now, we straight We went on this crooked path of hate And were late to the state that our minds could take It hurt us So proud of our ways, didn’t know of better parts to end our days We stayed, and built bombs in our caves I could go on about the messages they made Ignored in ways that put shame to their names, we never knew what was coming and now we are paying tributes to our pains The world turned, it burned, tried to escape this place but it’s like we never learned and laws we torn I feel scorned, we can only spin in our circles so long while we mourn What is this place? Don’t ask me, I’d say it was disgrace.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	The world went gay And now, we straight We went on this crooked path of hate And were late to the state that our minds could take It hurt us So proud of our ways, didn’t know of better parts to end our days We stayed, and built bombs in our caves I could go on about the messages they made Ignored in ways that put shame to their names, we never knew what was coming and now we are paying tributes to our pains The world turned, it burned, tried to escape this place but it’s like we never learned and laws we torn I feel scorned, we can only spin in our circles so long while we mourn What is this place? Don’t ask me, I’d say it was disgrace.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The universe burst from the big bang Strange particles fused and became the frame Time sprang and space couldn't stay the same Deny the past but the facts still run the game Now let me state In different states matter arose In different chains proteins have grown In different states you can fuck a goat But evolution is where all have grown Life started as a single cell An amoeba with a reason to prevail In hell no energy to divide Met a bitch named Mito to put inside Right? So when that chick came the brakes fell off Two cells ate one like stroganoff No strokin off, need atp So those two cells became 4 in 3 Billion years. Now we have billions of ears Listenin on while I glisten on this track paid for dvds and mtv. Marshall	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Look, it went down like this slime comin' out of the primordial pit started in the ocean, then we grew some legs Homo-erectus comin' home with swag tribal at first, a couple of spears then came fire, then clothes, then wheels before you knew it, we were gettin' real smart science and math, culture and art made up some Gods, so we could sleep at night son killed everybody who didn't believe in the right one now we here and not much has changed learned how to smile, learned how to shave we did some bad things... mostly to the Jews but we're still all learnin' how to chill and be cool So, alien dude, don't kill us please I just gave you our history, in a cold 16	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	"You want me to do what?" The question didn’t come as a surprise to me, this wasn't how I expected my day to go either. Far from being one of the 'coffee and paperwork' days I usually go through. "Mr. Mathers..." "First off, you said aliens, right? Are these the 'jump out of your chest and bite your face off' aliens, or are they more...chill?" As I explained the situation once again, I marveled at sheer absurdity of my job. Usually, I was phoning celebrities to ask for their attendance at large events, to sing at the super bowl or similar events. Funnily enough, very few musicians wanted to perform for aliens. "...anyways, Mr. Mathers, it has been requested that our history as a species be presented to the...visitor, in a series of five or less songs. Minuets, to be specific. To be completely honest you were nearly last on the list of possibilities, but we've reached a point where we have to ask. Will you perform minuets about our world history for the aliens?" "Did you ever consider, I don’t know, a classical musician? Or a ballerina, or something? I don’t know if you realize, lady, but I'm not really performing minuets on a daily basis." "The instrumentalists asked were mainly concerned for the safety of their instruments. Apparently violins and slime don't get along." "Look, I'll figure something out," he eventually sighed. "Don’t get your hopes up too much, but I'll give it a try." "You only have one shot, Mr. Mathers. I'll see you this afternoon. Our world, and their world, are watching." ~~~ Three hours later, in the same oversized t-shirt, he stood in a slightly dingy boardroom across the table from the alien. As I, a few security guards, and a cameraman watched, he hiked up his jeans and sat at the small keyboard that had been hastily set up. The past few hours had been filled with consultations about the best and worst parts of human history, what should be conveyed or left out, as well as broad questions about the aliens' understanding of music or emotion. As Eminem began to play, all eyes were on the alien, hoping that extraterrestrial body language was similar enough to that of humans that we would be able to gauge the reaction. My heart was beating into my throat as this point, as the musical tale being told skimmed over geologic history, the beginning of life, and pre-human evolution in one short and slow minuet, the ancient civilizations and scientific findings wrapped up in another before modern history and wars. As the final notes of the fourth minuet rang out, we waited, palms sweaty and knees weak, with bated breath, for the last minuet. Looking calm and ready, he dropped his fingers to the keys once again. This minuet was the future. The aliens seemed to want to learn about us as a species, it was only fair that they see our drive to make advancements and to improve scientifically. We also hoped it would keep them from wiping us out, in case that was their intent. It was over. Eminem stood up slowly and joined us near the door. "Now what?" He whispered to the nearest security person. "Stay there," she responded. "We have to wait for a response or something." Finally, the alien spoke. Grunted. Made some unintelligible noises. The translation systems kicked in and a computerized male voice rang out. "That was much longer than five minutes."	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Slim, "It started with a molten ball, Slowly cooled off then explosions fall, As astroids deployed to open scars," Aliens, "But what about the stolen cars, The war torn countries born and broken shards, Of humanity full of insanity and show boat stars?" Slim, "Shut up bitch and sit and let me spit, Its only a matter of time, before im rappin some lines about some better shit, As i was sayin, there was somethin the planet was missin, Another planet and its damage collision, Sent everything dancin and spinnin, The doom we soon saw as the moon and it invisioned, Tides multiplied lands divided chemicals mixed, the right circumstances provide individual hints, Of cells emerging giving life a chance, Yes it was nice for plants and life had plans, Aliens, "But what about all the wife and man, Howd that come about in lifes plan thats grand, What of the nukes the guns that shoot and militaries, The stuff that dug and stuffed all your cemetaries," Slim, "Shut the fuck up i told you not to interrupt!, Do that shit again and ill begin ta cut, Your throats till you choke on your green blood!, As i was sayin, plants and mammals, Reptiles fish and ample, Kinds of living things were roamin the lands, Complexity gave creatures the ability to open their hands, All was great even had some walkin apes, Started grunting n shit, eventually talkin hate, Watergate deception politicians that all was fake, All n all we did okay enough to walk in space," Aliens, "What about the..." Slim, "Fuck this shit you fuckin green bastards..." Slim grabs the nearest laser power saber and begins mutilating the alien visitors. Slim, " you were suppose to listen to me, Now bleed bitch bleed, Now bleed bitch blleeeeeeddddd!!!!, Soooo longggg, Aliens are now gonnnneeee, I dont want to make a sonnggg, To explain earth to yooouuuuu" Slim kneels down while shaking his head. "Couldnt shut up, and ended like Kim." He then flicks the corpses off and kicks the bodies off the dock into the water. He gently raises the hood of his hoody and slides his hands in his pockets, as he walks off into the distance.	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	Eminem's pale stony face is only inches apart from the nightmarish alien's. A DJ scratch cuts through the silence and the instrumental starts. Em stares down the scaly space creature. His eyes are shot, baggy, but piercing; fearless. He breaks away and faces the crowd of a hundred thousand or more that flood the streets of the city. He raises the microphone up and a hush falls over them. Only the gritty instrumental beat sounds through the city. He raises his other hand - Now everybody on planet Earth, put your hands up and show 'em what man is worth. A family watches news coverage of the battle in their living room. A kid starts nodding along. Now everybody on planet Earth put your motherfuckin' hands up. Now as they stand as strong as boulders, notice that they can't raise their hands past their shoulders. Em draws closer to his angry reptilian opponent, rapping directly at him and his alien posse now. Ya'll look like iguana's dicks. You probably left home 'cause your mom's was pissed. You need to not exist. Your ugly as motherfuck. Now I understand why they wanted you covered up. Em tosses him the mic. It comes as a surprise and he fumbles it and then grasps it awkwardly in his claws. Eminem sits down on a speaker. The instrumental stops. Then it starts up again form the top with the same DJ scratch. The now seething alien stares Em down. He paces. He tries to lift the mic to his head but struggles. He hisses and drops the mic. Him and his posse head back toward their starship. Em watches from his speaker. His work is done.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The universe burst from the big bang Strange particles fused and became the frame Time sprang and space couldn't stay the same Deny the past but the facts still run the game Now let me state In different states matter arose In different chains proteins have grown In different states you can fuck a goat But evolution is where all have grown Life started as a single cell An amoeba with a reason to prevail In hell no energy to divide Met a bitch named Mito to put inside Right? So when that chick came the brakes fell off Two cells ate one like stroganoff No strokin off, need atp So those two cells became 4 in 3 Billion years. Now we have billions of ears Listenin on while I glisten on this track paid for dvds and mtv. Marshall	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Look, it went down like this slime comin' out of the primordial pit started in the ocean, then we grew some legs Homo-erectus comin' home with swag tribal at first, a couple of spears then came fire, then clothes, then wheels before you knew it, we were gettin' real smart science and math, culture and art made up some Gods, so we could sleep at night son killed everybody who didn't believe in the right one now we here and not much has changed learned how to smile, learned how to shave we did some bad things... mostly to the Jews but we're still all learnin' how to chill and be cool So, alien dude, don't kill us please I just gave you our history, in a cold 16	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	"You want me to do what?" The question didn’t come as a surprise to me, this wasn't how I expected my day to go either. Far from being one of the 'coffee and paperwork' days I usually go through. "Mr. Mathers..." "First off, you said aliens, right? Are these the 'jump out of your chest and bite your face off' aliens, or are they more...chill?" As I explained the situation once again, I marveled at sheer absurdity of my job. Usually, I was phoning celebrities to ask for their attendance at large events, to sing at the super bowl or similar events. Funnily enough, very few musicians wanted to perform for aliens. "...anyways, Mr. Mathers, it has been requested that our history as a species be presented to the...visitor, in a series of five or less songs. Minuets, to be specific. To be completely honest you were nearly last on the list of possibilities, but we've reached a point where we have to ask. Will you perform minuets about our world history for the aliens?" "Did you ever consider, I don’t know, a classical musician? Or a ballerina, or something? I don’t know if you realize, lady, but I'm not really performing minuets on a daily basis." "The instrumentalists asked were mainly concerned for the safety of their instruments. Apparently violins and slime don't get along." "Look, I'll figure something out," he eventually sighed. "Don’t get your hopes up too much, but I'll give it a try." "You only have one shot, Mr. Mathers. I'll see you this afternoon. Our world, and their world, are watching." ~~~ Three hours later, in the same oversized t-shirt, he stood in a slightly dingy boardroom across the table from the alien. As I, a few security guards, and a cameraman watched, he hiked up his jeans and sat at the small keyboard that had been hastily set up. The past few hours had been filled with consultations about the best and worst parts of human history, what should be conveyed or left out, as well as broad questions about the aliens' understanding of music or emotion. As Eminem began to play, all eyes were on the alien, hoping that extraterrestrial body language was similar enough to that of humans that we would be able to gauge the reaction. My heart was beating into my throat as this point, as the musical tale being told skimmed over geologic history, the beginning of life, and pre-human evolution in one short and slow minuet, the ancient civilizations and scientific findings wrapped up in another before modern history and wars. As the final notes of the fourth minuet rang out, we waited, palms sweaty and knees weak, with bated breath, for the last minuet. Looking calm and ready, he dropped his fingers to the keys once again. This minuet was the future. The aliens seemed to want to learn about us as a species, it was only fair that they see our drive to make advancements and to improve scientifically. We also hoped it would keep them from wiping us out, in case that was their intent. It was over. Eminem stood up slowly and joined us near the door. "Now what?" He whispered to the nearest security person. "Stay there," she responded. "We have to wait for a response or something." Finally, the alien spoke. Grunted. Made some unintelligible noises. The translation systems kicked in and a computerized male voice rang out. "That was much longer than five minutes."	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	“Mr. President, the aliens are here at the atmosphere, and we think that the first time we make contact is near,” spoke the leading general. “Johnson! You need to figure out what this message says!” “It’s some type of request, Mr. President, but we cannot figure out what it means. It’s some type of request for a king of some sorts. Maybe a god. We can’t tell for now.” “Well you need to figure it out immediately!” Johnson went to work with his team. They tried to decipher the codes that they had received via satellite transmission and could not figure out what exactly the aliens were trying to tell them. “Wait, maybe this word is ‘OF’ and this word is ‘RAP’? Maybe this word, no, I’m not sure. It definitely appears to be a C, O, N, T,” spoke one of the leading members of the team, “is the next letter an ‘R’?” After countless hours of work, the team had finally hit a breakthrough, “I got it! I got it!” Exclaimed a sergeant, “It’s says, ‘We want to speak to the god of king rap, better known as the controversy.’” “But that doesn’t make any sense Sergeant,” replied the General, “maybe it’s the wrong order.” As they sat together for a few moments, they started to use their human-like brainpower. All of the sudden, it clicked in their heads. “WE WANT TO SPEAK TO THE KING OF CONTROVERSY, BETTER KNOWN AS THE RAP GOD.” “You mean?” Said the General in disbelief. “Get him on the phone.” “What do you mean you need to talk to my man, Marshall? He doesn’t have time for this whack ass shit, he’s working on an album and not telling his fucking fans about it, fuck off homie.” ”What up Dre?” “Check this out, Slim, I gotta talk to ya, I don’t know it just seems ever since you got off ya, drugs you became a lot softer… Wait, we aren’t recording. Slim, some aliens want to talk to ya!” “What?” “I don’t know man, some aliens want you to explain the history of the earth to them in five minutes.” “So what, should I just throw them the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP and say this was like 15 years ago, fuck it bro, if you want to hear the history from me, I do A Capella’s now, yo. No forreal, Dre, we gotta stop talking to each other is verses and rhymes n shit, the fuck we doing man. “Ha ha, like ‘AYO EM!?’” “WHAT!?” “Don’t kill nobody this time.” “ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN. What the fuck, mother fuck. Why the fuck you always doing this shit man. Now I need to make a withdrawal. So what the fuck man. Do I gotta talk to them or what?” “I don’t know man. The Pentagon needs to talk to you and they need to get you out to D.C. immediately. Not the D.O.C., the District of Columbia, man. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll be right here waiting on you. Yeah, tell them D.C. people that I ain’t in your basement anymore and I’m alive. I barely paid taxes since I made the billions, ha ha.” “What the fuck…” Em dials the phone. “Hello, I heard you needed to speak to me?” “Yes, we do. Wait, how do you know the number of the Pentagon?” “I don’t know, back in like ’03 someone gave me this number, saying I’d probably have to save the human race one day. It’s a bit ironic right? Shit’s been in my phone since. I don't know I was high as fuck. I been thinking about facking deleting it, but ya never know man.” “We need you to come to D.C. right away. You need to make first contact with these aliens. They seem to want Slim Shady.” “Damn man, I’ve created a monster. ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver.” “We will have a plane over to you in an hour.” “Man, I got my own plane, I’ll be there in an hour. AYO DRE!” “Yo!?” “To the rap mobile! Let’s go!” Eminem and Dre arrive at the Pentagon in about two hours, since they had to walk all the way through the K-Mart mansion and the elevator was broken since it was stuck at the basement from some time before, no one knows why for sure… “Dre, I think that song idea was NASTY on the way over, I can't wait to lay that shit down! Hot damn. I’ma show these mother fuckers I’m the dopest MC! These aliens ain’t got shit on me. Something like that. That’s like what swag juice. We gotta rework it. Yo, what’s up, General?” “Finally! You’ve made it. Quick into the command room. We need to discuss how this will go down. “Man, don’t worry, man. I got this. I basically turned an entire human population into a playground that I get to play in. Except I don’t leave my house. So fuck it. I got this.” Marshall turned around and started walking to the command room. He saw the nearest bathroom that he could fack in or drop a football and also saw a young marine waiting there with a piece of toilet paper and a pen with the name “Todd” on his uniform. “Aight so, what’s going down Gen? How we handling this?” “You need to be calm. You need to understand that this is not to be taken lightly! You have five minutes…” Em cut him off, “Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim Shady you’re on.” “No five minutes.” “I promised my fucking critics, that I wouldn’t say fuckin for six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes. Slim shady, you’re on…” “Oh we’re doomed,” the General looked up, “Mr. President, Eminem made it!” The President was standing there with a huge smile on his face and a piece of toilet paper and a pen. “Hello Marshall. Nice to meet you.” “Six minutes, six minutes…” “I think he’s broken?” “Slim Shady you’re on… I’m ready.” “Great news, Marshall. Let’s get you in contact.” Marshall went up to the contact station and he spoke into the microphone. “Ayo?” The room went silent. “Hello?” Said a suspiciously strange voice. “Is this Eminem?” A drip a sweat fell from his face. He responded, “Eurghhh. No. This isn’t Eminem. It’s Ken Kaniff. Ken Kaniff from Connecticut. Do you want to get a hotel room with me? I’ll lick your alien balls and suck your big fat alien dicks until you make my planets explode. I’ll melt in your ass you little alien boy. Do you know what gerbils are? Urerghhh.” The call went silent. “Rub my back. Rub my back. Rub my back. Urerggh. Wait. Hello? Urerghhh."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	The universe burst from the big bang Strange particles fused and became the frame Time sprang and space couldn't stay the same Deny the past but the facts still run the game Now let me state In different states matter arose In different chains proteins have grown In different states you can fuck a goat But evolution is where all have grown Life started as a single cell An amoeba with a reason to prevail In hell no energy to divide Met a bitch named Mito to put inside Right? So when that chick came the brakes fell off Two cells ate one like stroganoff No strokin off, need atp So those two cells became 4 in 3 Billion years. Now we have billions of ears Listenin on while I glisten on this track paid for dvds and mtv. Marshall
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	Look, it went down like this slime comin' out of the primordial pit started in the ocean, then we grew some legs Homo-erectus comin' home with swag tribal at first, a couple of spears then came fire, then clothes, then wheels before you knew it, we were gettin' real smart science and math, culture and art made up some Gods, so we could sleep at night son killed everybody who didn't believe in the right one now we here and not much has changed learned how to smile, learned how to shave we did some bad things... mostly to the Jews but we're still all learnin' how to chill and be cool So, alien dude, don't kill us please I just gave you our history, in a cold 16
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Eminem stands underneath a single beam of light..fists clenched, sweaty, his mom packed him some spaghetti... He takes a deep breath.."five minutes." he tells himself over and over in his head.. He looks around in the dark abyss surrounding him, he can't see them but he can feel them...glaring...watching his every movement...it was time.. He clears his throat, takes a breath.....and says.. "Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!"	"You want me to do what?" The question didn’t come as a surprise to me, this wasn't how I expected my day to go either. Far from being one of the 'coffee and paperwork' days I usually go through. "Mr. Mathers..." "First off, you said aliens, right? Are these the 'jump out of your chest and bite your face off' aliens, or are they more...chill?" As I explained the situation once again, I marveled at sheer absurdity of my job. Usually, I was phoning celebrities to ask for their attendance at large events, to sing at the super bowl or similar events. Funnily enough, very few musicians wanted to perform for aliens. "...anyways, Mr. Mathers, it has been requested that our history as a species be presented to the...visitor, in a series of five or less songs. Minuets, to be specific. To be completely honest you were nearly last on the list of possibilities, but we've reached a point where we have to ask. Will you perform minuets about our world history for the aliens?" "Did you ever consider, I don’t know, a classical musician? Or a ballerina, or something? I don’t know if you realize, lady, but I'm not really performing minuets on a daily basis." "The instrumentalists asked were mainly concerned for the safety of their instruments. Apparently violins and slime don't get along." "Look, I'll figure something out," he eventually sighed. "Don’t get your hopes up too much, but I'll give it a try." "You only have one shot, Mr. Mathers. I'll see you this afternoon. Our world, and their world, are watching." ~~~ Three hours later, in the same oversized t-shirt, he stood in a slightly dingy boardroom across the table from the alien. As I, a few security guards, and a cameraman watched, he hiked up his jeans and sat at the small keyboard that had been hastily set up. The past few hours had been filled with consultations about the best and worst parts of human history, what should be conveyed or left out, as well as broad questions about the aliens' understanding of music or emotion. As Eminem began to play, all eyes were on the alien, hoping that extraterrestrial body language was similar enough to that of humans that we would be able to gauge the reaction. My heart was beating into my throat as this point, as the musical tale being told skimmed over geologic history, the beginning of life, and pre-human evolution in one short and slow minuet, the ancient civilizations and scientific findings wrapped up in another before modern history and wars. As the final notes of the fourth minuet rang out, we waited, palms sweaty and knees weak, with bated breath, for the last minuet. Looking calm and ready, he dropped his fingers to the keys once again. This minuet was the future. The aliens seemed to want to learn about us as a species, it was only fair that they see our drive to make advancements and to improve scientifically. We also hoped it would keep them from wiping us out, in case that was their intent. It was over. Eminem stood up slowly and joined us near the door. "Now what?" He whispered to the nearest security person. "Stay there," she responded. "We have to wait for a response or something." Finally, the alien spoke. Grunted. Made some unintelligible noises. The translation systems kicked in and a computerized male voice rang out. "That was much longer than five minutes."
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Slim, "It started with a molten ball, Slowly cooled off then explosions fall, As astroids deployed to open scars," Aliens, "But what about the stolen cars, The war torn countries born and broken shards, Of humanity full of insanity and show boat stars?" Slim, "Shut up bitch and sit and let me spit, Its only a matter of time, before im rappin some lines about some better shit, As i was sayin, there was somethin the planet was missin, Another planet and its damage collision, Sent everything dancin and spinnin, The doom we soon saw as the moon and it invisioned, Tides multiplied lands divided chemicals mixed, the right circumstances provide individual hints, Of cells emerging giving life a chance, Yes it was nice for plants and life had plans, Aliens, "But what about all the wife and man, Howd that come about in lifes plan thats grand, What of the nukes the guns that shoot and militaries, The stuff that dug and stuffed all your cemetaries," Slim, "Shut the fuck up i told you not to interrupt!, Do that shit again and ill begin ta cut, Your throats till you choke on your green blood!, As i was sayin, plants and mammals, Reptiles fish and ample, Kinds of living things were roamin the lands, Complexity gave creatures the ability to open their hands, All was great even had some walkin apes, Started grunting n shit, eventually talkin hate, Watergate deception politicians that all was fake, All n all we did okay enough to walk in space," Aliens, "What about the..." Slim, "Fuck this shit you fuckin green bastards..." Slim grabs the nearest laser power saber and begins mutilating the alien visitors. Slim, " you were suppose to listen to me, Now bleed bitch bleed, Now bleed bitch blleeeeeeddddd!!!!, Soooo longggg, Aliens are now gonnnneeee, I dont want to make a sonnggg, To explain earth to yooouuuuu" Slim kneels down while shaking his head. "Couldnt shut up, and ended like Kim." He then flicks the corpses off and kicks the bodies off the dock into the water. He gently raises the hood of his hoody and slides his hands in his pockets, as he walks off into the distance.	Mother fuckers Started as blobs Evolved to Slobs and formed mobs // Killers and moms Robbed the people of their peace We won't even touch Or discuss The cluster fuck In middle east // It's the U.S.A. not the USA (writers note - pronounced ooo-sah) Centuries of minutia Designed to seduce ya // Serial killers persuaded nations formulating fake escapes going by the name of Gods Graces Nobody cares as long as theirs are living safely // Borders Restored The illusion of safety Countries armed and raced to hatred // But no one stopped to ask what for The rich got richer And fed on the poor And that's the door you about to walk through Sure you don't want to reconsider for a second or two?
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	Mother fuckers Started as blobs Evolved to Slobs and formed mobs // Killers and moms Robbed the people of their peace We won't even touch Or discuss The cluster fuck In middle east // It's the U.S.A. not the USA (writers note - pronounced ooo-sah) Centuries of minutia Designed to seduce ya // Serial killers persuaded nations formulating fake escapes going by the name of Gods Graces Nobody cares as long as theirs are living safely // Borders Restored The illusion of safety Countries armed and raced to hatred // But no one stopped to ask what for The rich got richer And fed on the poor And that's the door you about to walk through Sure you don't want to reconsider for a second or two?
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Slim, "It started with a molten ball, Slowly cooled off then explosions fall, As astroids deployed to open scars," Aliens, "But what about the stolen cars, The war torn countries born and broken shards, Of humanity full of insanity and show boat stars?" Slim, "Shut up bitch and sit and let me spit, Its only a matter of time, before im rappin some lines about some better shit, As i was sayin, there was somethin the planet was missin, Another planet and its damage collision, Sent everything dancin and spinnin, The doom we soon saw as the moon and it invisioned, Tides multiplied lands divided chemicals mixed, the right circumstances provide individual hints, Of cells emerging giving life a chance, Yes it was nice for plants and life had plans, Aliens, "But what about all the wife and man, Howd that come about in lifes plan thats grand, What of the nukes the guns that shoot and militaries, The stuff that dug and stuffed all your cemetaries," Slim, "Shut the fuck up i told you not to interrupt!, Do that shit again and ill begin ta cut, Your throats till you choke on your green blood!, As i was sayin, plants and mammals, Reptiles fish and ample, Kinds of living things were roamin the lands, Complexity gave creatures the ability to open their hands, All was great even had some walkin apes, Started grunting n shit, eventually talkin hate, Watergate deception politicians that all was fake, All n all we did okay enough to walk in space," Aliens, "What about the..." Slim, "Fuck this shit you fuckin green bastards..." Slim grabs the nearest laser power saber and begins mutilating the alien visitors. Slim, " you were suppose to listen to me, Now bleed bitch bleed, Now bleed bitch blleeeeeeddddd!!!!, Soooo longggg, Aliens are now gonnnneeee, I dont want to make a sonnggg, To explain earth to yooouuuuu" Slim kneels down while shaking his head. "Couldnt shut up, and ended like Kim." He then flicks the corpses off and kicks the bodies off the dock into the water. He gently raises the hood of his hoody and slides his hands in his pockets, as he walks off into the distance.	For eight hours, the earth has been in panic as the hordes of flying saucers swarmed overhead, blacking out the sky itself. A cannon on each aimed towards the civilians, while every hour a message was broadcast. The same message each time, in a booming volume that caused the presidents of nations to cower and even the most fool hardy to hide. "Why should we not destroy your planet?" Seven reptitions occured, seven demands. And each time the aliens were met only with silence. But then, the eighth hour came. And there was a noise. A tap tap into a microphone in Detroit, a cleaning of a throat, and a single voice that spoke for the entirety of earth. "May I have your attention please?" It whined, then paused as all fell silent, and the eyes of civilians and weapons of aliens trained upon him, "May I have your attention please?" Then the voice spoke again, harsh this time. Heavy. "I am the real slim shady. And for earth, i have stood up." And it began. * Y'all act like you've never seen a homo sapien before, Just stepping right in, just looking to score, Before you've seen the historical source, For annihilation, desecration, decimation, fuck your nation, And I'm like, "You kidding?" Ha ha! Come to fuck over two hundred k years, Fuckin the kids, fuckin their fear, And knowing nothin can stand in the way, But the words, the words I gotta say. We humans are more than you'll admit, We know we're legit, we know we won't quit, we know we've got grit, And we're about to turn space ship into space shit. after what we've been through, don't sweat it. Evolved out of apes, subclassed into mammals, Picking up stone tools before we rode camels, Stone Age, steel age, Industrial Age, minimum wage animals, And now shouting out story down your ear canals, Until you get the hell out before we go all Hannibal. But we humans, were the universe's dime, We can bust a rhyme, have yet to bust time, Sent vessels to the moon, then Mars in my lifetime, Pressing to break the speed limit of light's line, And not about to become a meal that you'll dine. So get the fuck out, take your feet off our doorstep, Wait it's too late, your gonna regret that last parsec, It's gonna be a real bitch to get your bloodstain out of our carpet, Because "Oh, there goes gravity", now learn some respect. * With the world silent, Eminem dropped his mike. And the ships came crashing down. *** By Leo
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	For eight hours, the earth has been in panic as the hordes of flying saucers swarmed overhead, blacking out the sky itself. A cannon on each aimed towards the civilians, while every hour a message was broadcast. The same message each time, in a booming volume that caused the presidents of nations to cower and even the most fool hardy to hide. "Why should we not destroy your planet?" Seven reptitions occured, seven demands. And each time the aliens were met only with silence. But then, the eighth hour came. And there was a noise. A tap tap into a microphone in Detroit, a cleaning of a throat, and a single voice that spoke for the entirety of earth. "May I have your attention please?" It whined, then paused as all fell silent, and the eyes of civilians and weapons of aliens trained upon him, "May I have your attention please?" Then the voice spoke again, harsh this time. Heavy. "I am the real slim shady. And for earth, i have stood up." And it began. * Y'all act like you've never seen a homo sapien before, Just stepping right in, just looking to score, Before you've seen the historical source, For annihilation, desecration, decimation, fuck your nation, And I'm like, "You kidding?" Ha ha! Come to fuck over two hundred k years, Fuckin the kids, fuckin their fear, And knowing nothin can stand in the way, But the words, the words I gotta say. We humans are more than you'll admit, We know we're legit, we know we won't quit, we know we've got grit, And we're about to turn space ship into space shit. after what we've been through, don't sweat it. Evolved out of apes, subclassed into mammals, Picking up stone tools before we rode camels, Stone Age, steel age, Industrial Age, minimum wage animals, And now shouting out story down your ear canals, Until you get the hell out before we go all Hannibal. But we humans, were the universe's dime, We can bust a rhyme, have yet to bust time, Sent vessels to the moon, then Mars in my lifetime, Pressing to break the speed limit of light's line, And not about to become a meal that you'll dine. So get the fuck out, take your feet off our doorstep, Wait it's too late, your gonna regret that last parsec, It's gonna be a real bitch to get your bloodstain out of our carpet, Because "Oh, there goes gravity", now learn some respect. * With the world silent, Eminem dropped his mike. And the ships came crashing down. *** By Leo
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	Slim, "It started with a molten ball, Slowly cooled off then explosions fall, As astroids deployed to open scars," Aliens, "But what about the stolen cars, The war torn countries born and broken shards, Of humanity full of insanity and show boat stars?" Slim, "Shut up bitch and sit and let me spit, Its only a matter of time, before im rappin some lines about some better shit, As i was sayin, there was somethin the planet was missin, Another planet and its damage collision, Sent everything dancin and spinnin, The doom we soon saw as the moon and it invisioned, Tides multiplied lands divided chemicals mixed, the right circumstances provide individual hints, Of cells emerging giving life a chance, Yes it was nice for plants and life had plans, Aliens, "But what about all the wife and man, Howd that come about in lifes plan thats grand, What of the nukes the guns that shoot and militaries, The stuff that dug and stuffed all your cemetaries," Slim, "Shut the fuck up i told you not to interrupt!, Do that shit again and ill begin ta cut, Your throats till you choke on your green blood!, As i was sayin, plants and mammals, Reptiles fish and ample, Kinds of living things were roamin the lands, Complexity gave creatures the ability to open their hands, All was great even had some walkin apes, Started grunting n shit, eventually talkin hate, Watergate deception politicians that all was fake, All n all we did okay enough to walk in space," Aliens, "What about the..." Slim, "Fuck this shit you fuckin green bastards..." Slim grabs the nearest laser power saber and begins mutilating the alien visitors. Slim, " you were suppose to listen to me, Now bleed bitch bleed, Now bleed bitch blleeeeeeddddd!!!!, Soooo longggg, Aliens are now gonnnneeee, I dont want to make a sonnggg, To explain earth to yooouuuuu" Slim kneels down while shaking his head. "Couldnt shut up, and ended like Kim." He then flicks the corpses off and kicks the bodies off the dock into the water. He gently raises the hood of his hoody and slides his hands in his pockets, as he walks off into the distance.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	*Read to pace of [Rap God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA). Look, I was go easy on us to not hurt their feelings But I'm only going to get this one chance. Something's wrong, I can feel it. 5 minutes. They have 5 minutes, Shady, come on! Just a feeling I've got Like someone will try to shoot you, or ask to see your butt. If human beings do to you what they do to beings You're in trouble, big trouble. Maybe with an explanation your opinion I'll sway. And our destruction you won't order [Hook 1] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot [Verse 1] Jus let me explain the history of Earth before you kill with laser beams Before you blasted off your fat rocket A big bang went bang got planets off it Earth's water, cells were livin' off it After the oceans stopped being full of ac-id Things evolved until they grew a back bone and walked onto land mass For a while things all went well Dinosaurs, oh a comet? (killed em all, it) This zippity rippity big rock From the sky hit ground with a big loud crash With a crackety crash dust in the air like a cosmic gat Earth cools things die holy crap And at the exact same time Some life forms stood up became vertical backed Used tools made cloths Made spears fought tigers cracked skulls in half These changes they were iconic Early form of the being that be standing here and rap Food we learned to grow, and then found H bombs Hm up let me back Humans are having a tough time period, still using gas Its actually disastrously bad to be smart But not travel at light speed like you clearly have [Hook 2] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Over time compressed Got cold and now they're hard rocks, hard rocks Fast forward we have smart toilets I call crap-bot Let me show you our history isn't that hard, that hard Because since Roman times aside from iphones We haven't gone all that far [Verse 2] Well to be truthful I did skip When we moved steel across flint Made fire and we used it To stay warm in that cold and Make swords in order to loot and pill-age (pew) Wow your space ship is really cool, wish I could use it to "blow the mind" Of that stupid Kim bitch Who's she? A product of jism, Contin Oxy, PS add an 'M', Oh hey who cares I'm off topic and I forgot my name's Slim I'm a human with a weird brain Who now is a musician What's music? Here listen. Nevermind I as sayin', Romans came Fought against the church but still it came Then Christ Yaweh Muhammed, The trick? They're all the same You probably think we're lame, still driving cars and planes Wow you stink and, please tell me what's that pink thing? Whattya say little boy? Do aliens have gender they're faces are the same, is it a boy? You're probably reading our thoughts with the clarity we watch Subtitles on screen during "Old Boy." Okay, okay, back on topic little alien boy. Ease up calm down relax Holy shit it touched me and I can't feel my face vey oy. It's back, ok. Where was I? Ya weh? After that we, built castles had serfs made boats Met people couldn't understand what they say Found gold found oil made cars Fucked a lot and that brings us to today. [Hook 3] Our planet is filled with magma, magma Long ago dust collided with some plasma, plasma Sorry for the space trash Don't blame me blame Tesla, Tesla Tony Stark of the real world, smart but dad bod Hindus? Where they at? I don't know but they have 72 Gods. EDIT: It sounds right in my brain but I also know that song too well to be healthy, because I have my priorities in order.	You say to me why should you save me after you faze me with your stun gun I don't want none, but listen son, cause I'm about to school you with what I knew would one day come to free me, it's easy, the history of these cities See, we evolved from nothing to what you see here Ugly as sin chimps without any hair But before you start judging, I should warn you of what we can do Yeah we kill our own planet with atomic bombs, and we'll fuck your shit up too The pharaohs smitted those that got in their way Roman legions conquered the past legends that had lost all their sway Martin Luder may have had a hard time shitting But he didn't have trouble calling upon his god and lifting His people towards what he deemed salvation, setting up years of death and destruction For anyone not like him, it was best decided that he fight them, he himself we can lose, don't forget what he said about the jews As hitler sure didn't, 60 million dead, over some fucked up Austrian boy who grew up fucked in the head Ended the war just so that we can go and start another, Ava Marie we're in Korea to keep the peace, as a piece of the meat of my friend in the next seat gets blown away with an A-K Even at home here in the US of A, we were never united, we never could say that we fought together as one people alone, as just a few years back some of these very people were owned And on May 13th, 85, we dropped bombs on our own city and the Africans didn't survive, but the city will tell you it was for their own good, people can be replaced as quick as the brick and wood which still sits singed in the city today and we'd bomb it the same if they acted this way, so don't come to my planet in your spacesuit trying to act tough, cause we're the most violent fuckers in this system and we'll never get enough. drops mic as the aliens decide that maybe Earth is not the best place to colonize /Might try this again when it's not 7 am...
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The creatures looked down from the balcony, staring through the stage lights shining against his platinum blond "hair". Hair. It was a funny word and a funny thing they had all thought when they had first examined the human, rubbing their own bald heads and laughing. Since then, certain circles of the creatures began to don little tufts of yellow "hair" atop their green scalps. The man shuffled his feet, moving from side to side and waiting for the music to begin. He cleared his throat, and pulled on the collar of his shirt, which was already drenched in sweat. Cloze. Calose. Clothes. That was it. Clothes were just as odd as hair, but they seemed to serve a purpose. Even then, in the grand auditorium, many groups of the creatures were dressed from both heads to toe and whispering about what the others were wearing. The prompt came across the screen, and the earthling read from left to right (the only developed creature in the universe that did as such). Puzzled, his eyes squinted, and his head cocked towards his shoulder as he scanned over the prompt again. Explain the history of your planet in 5 minuets or less. Then, the music began. And, that creature--with his bright blond "hair" and his form fitting "clothes"--danced across the stage in triple time. In the end, the creatures were crying, and their sobs were only buried by the cacophony of their applause. After traveling throughout one galaxy and then another, spreading their love for dance on every planet, the man from earth had performed the most beautiful minuet they had even seen. From that day on, they looked back fondly in that corner of the universe. Though they had traveled far and years had passed, each of the creatures stared toward the sky at one time or another, and they knew that they would never act like they forgot about Dre.	You say to me why should you save me after you faze me with your stun gun I don't want none, but listen son, cause I'm about to school you with what I knew would one day come to free me, it's easy, the history of these cities See, we evolved from nothing to what you see here Ugly as sin chimps without any hair But before you start judging, I should warn you of what we can do Yeah we kill our own planet with atomic bombs, and we'll fuck your shit up too The pharaohs smitted those that got in their way Roman legions conquered the past legends that had lost all their sway Martin Luder may have had a hard time shitting But he didn't have trouble calling upon his god and lifting His people towards what he deemed salvation, setting up years of death and destruction For anyone not like him, it was best decided that he fight them, he himself we can lose, don't forget what he said about the jews As hitler sure didn't, 60 million dead, over some fucked up Austrian boy who grew up fucked in the head Ended the war just so that we can go and start another, Ava Marie we're in Korea to keep the peace, as a piece of the meat of my friend in the next seat gets blown away with an A-K Even at home here in the US of A, we were never united, we never could say that we fought together as one people alone, as just a few years back some of these very people were owned And on May 13th, 85, we dropped bombs on our own city and the Africans didn't survive, but the city will tell you it was for their own good, people can be replaced as quick as the brick and wood which still sits singed in the city today and we'd bomb it the same if they acted this way, so don't come to my planet in your spacesuit trying to act tough, cause we're the most violent fuckers in this system and we'll never get enough. drops mic as the aliens decide that maybe Earth is not the best place to colonize /Might try this again when it's not 7 am...
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Quiet down Martians, let me tell you a little tale, About my home planet, here's the detail: A big ball of molten rock like deep fried Metallica, Got gassed up like it's high off indica, But don't fear, that was just the atmosphere, But let me steer, the story a few billion years, Where shit started popping off, like sperm cells from my gonads, I'm talking monads, Early ancestors of our early ancestor nomads, They were quite dumb, I ain't got time for flattery, They had one cell, so a bunch together were a battery, But not literally, I'm talking phylogenetically, If I went Back-teria and rapped in that era , I'd be a pro-karyote, You know what I'm Saiyan? I'd be Kakarot, As for Eu-karyote? You're al-gae like YMCA, Then came the greens and leaves, For our needs: to eat and smoke weed, All this shit was going on at sea, til one guy stood up like he was the real Me, And walked on land, that's when shit got out of hand, Life became Complex like a god damn magazine, Producing the biggest beings we've ever seen, Some were fish, or lizards and one was my mum, but some dyed out like the blonde hair on my bum, Cause BAM! they were destroyed, Big ass Asteroid, I call it Nicki, it smashed quickly Left shit bloody like haemorrhoids, The big guys, had no chance to survive, So the small guys hid for their lives, The smart animals, Smaller birds and mammals, Could now thrive, Like Mike Tyson when he really trieth, Then two steps later we got chimps fucking, They made Man, who promptly started sucking, each other off and called each other Homo, erectus, so you expect us to not indulge in man-on-man porno? For 200 000 years we perfected our species, Then it all went to shit, like we traveled to Feces, We outwitted lions and sharks and fucking elephants, We were outfitted with the best defence that was evidenced, Our big brains, But it's all the same, We're dumb as fuck and it's evident, BECAUSE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS ELECTED DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENT.	You say to me why should you save me after you faze me with your stun gun I don't want none, but listen son, cause I'm about to school you with what I knew would one day come to free me, it's easy, the history of these cities See, we evolved from nothing to what you see here Ugly as sin chimps without any hair But before you start judging, I should warn you of what we can do Yeah we kill our own planet with atomic bombs, and we'll fuck your shit up too The pharaohs smitted those that got in their way Roman legions conquered the past legends that had lost all their sway Martin Luder may have had a hard time shitting But he didn't have trouble calling upon his god and lifting His people towards what he deemed salvation, setting up years of death and destruction For anyone not like him, it was best decided that he fight them, he himself we can lose, don't forget what he said about the jews As hitler sure didn't, 60 million dead, over some fucked up Austrian boy who grew up fucked in the head Ended the war just so that we can go and start another, Ava Marie we're in Korea to keep the peace, as a piece of the meat of my friend in the next seat gets blown away with an A-K Even at home here in the US of A, we were never united, we never could say that we fought together as one people alone, as just a few years back some of these very people were owned And on May 13th, 85, we dropped bombs on our own city and the Africans didn't survive, but the city will tell you it was for their own good, people can be replaced as quick as the brick and wood which still sits singed in the city today and we'd bomb it the same if they acted this way, so don't come to my planet in your spacesuit trying to act tough, cause we're the most violent fuckers in this system and we'll never get enough. drops mic as the aliens decide that maybe Earth is not the best place to colonize /Might try this again when it's not 7 am...
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	“Sir, we’ve checked and rechecked the translations, and we are 100% positive that this is what they said,” General MacMillan said. The army-man’s eyes were blazing intensity, and he knew what he wanted to say. However, attacking the invaders had already been written off the board by higher powers than he. “Five minuets,” the President said. “Five minuets. Not minutes. We’re sure it’s minuets.” It wasn’t a question, but the general answered, “Yes.” “Can Eminem even do a minuet? Doesn’t he do…I don’t know, do rappers even dance?” “From what I understand, no, sir, they just bounce around and speak rapidly.” “How can he tell the history of the entire Earth in five minuets?” The president leaned back and rubbed his chin where a beard had grown until five minutes before he entered the political stage. That had been over twenty years ago, and now he wasn’t sure that anything in his experience would save him now. “Especially if he can’t talk.” “We have people working on it. Choreographers in Hollywood, and others of those ilk. Folks who worked in the opera.” “But why Eminem?” “We don’t know. We still have the option of a tactical, nucle—” “I told you already, I’m not going to go down in history as the president who caused interstellar war. We give in to their demands, Eminem will dance the history of the Earth, and they’ll begin trade with us.” “Sir, I strongly reco—” “Just have your people keep an eye on it. I’m going to give Eminem a call.” * “Yeah, I got it, just ask my daughter Haley,” Eminem said to the person who was teaching him ballroom dance. “How’s his progress?” the president asked. “Better than I would’ve expected, just watch his turn on the Cambrian Explosion,” Rick Leon, Eminem’s personal tutor, said. Mozart was playing in the background. “It’s beyond graceful. The way he moves…it’s just impossible to interpret it as anything but a true representation of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history.” “So you think he’ll be ready?” As the president spoke, Eminem performed two forward steps, swinging his open hands behind him each time. He spun and stepped sideways, raising his arm as though holding the gentle Earth on a string between his fingers. “Never mind.” * Eminem walked to the stage that stood on the National Mall, where the aliens had requested the performance take place. He felt awkward without a microphone in his hand, but he knew it was up to him to save humanity. Critics, artists, and everyday people watched in rapture as he danced the five minuets. Never in the history of the Earth had anyone seen a spectacle that was simultaneously so stunning yet beautiful, so intense yet graceful, so confident yet lacking that egotistical nature of the rapper’s life works. Put simply, it was the culmination of the entirety of human culture. By the end of the first minuet, people cried. At the closing of the second, they wept. At the end of the third, they closed their eyes, feeling unworthy of the sight that unfolded before them. The fourth minuet ended, and paramedics were on the scene, resuscitating and performing first aid on those who had lost consciousness due to the sheer magnificence of the act. The fifth started, and came close to an end. Those able to witness it, those who had endured the crazed glory of the dances thus far, were the only people to hear the rapper say, “Look If you had. One shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it. Or just let it slip?” He then dropped his pants and mooned the alien mothership. A short time passed, and the invasion began. *** EDIT: Thank you for reading! And for the compliments and gold!	You say to me why should you save me after you faze me with your stun gun I don't want none, but listen son, cause I'm about to school you with what I knew would one day come to free me, it's easy, the history of these cities See, we evolved from nothing to what you see here Ugly as sin chimps without any hair But before you start judging, I should warn you of what we can do Yeah we kill our own planet with atomic bombs, and we'll fuck your shit up too The pharaohs smitted those that got in their way Roman legions conquered the past legends that had lost all their sway Martin Luder may have had a hard time shitting But he didn't have trouble calling upon his god and lifting His people towards what he deemed salvation, setting up years of death and destruction For anyone not like him, it was best decided that he fight them, he himself we can lose, don't forget what he said about the jews As hitler sure didn't, 60 million dead, over some fucked up Austrian boy who grew up fucked in the head Ended the war just so that we can go and start another, Ava Marie we're in Korea to keep the peace, as a piece of the meat of my friend in the next seat gets blown away with an A-K Even at home here in the US of A, we were never united, we never could say that we fought together as one people alone, as just a few years back some of these very people were owned And on May 13th, 85, we dropped bombs on our own city and the Africans didn't survive, but the city will tell you it was for their own good, people can be replaced as quick as the brick and wood which still sits singed in the city today and we'd bomb it the same if they acted this way, so don't come to my planet in your spacesuit trying to act tough, cause we're the most violent fuckers in this system and we'll never get enough. drops mic as the aliens decide that maybe Earth is not the best place to colonize /Might try this again when it's not 7 am...
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	The creatures looked down from the balcony, staring through the stage lights shining against his platinum blond "hair". Hair. It was a funny word and a funny thing they had all thought when they had first examined the human, rubbing their own bald heads and laughing. Since then, certain circles of the creatures began to don little tufts of yellow "hair" atop their green scalps. The man shuffled his feet, moving from side to side and waiting for the music to begin. He cleared his throat, and pulled on the collar of his shirt, which was already drenched in sweat. Cloze. Calose. Clothes. That was it. Clothes were just as odd as hair, but they seemed to serve a purpose. Even then, in the grand auditorium, many groups of the creatures were dressed from both heads to toe and whispering about what the others were wearing. The prompt came across the screen, and the earthling read from left to right (the only developed creature in the universe that did as such). Puzzled, his eyes squinted, and his head cocked towards his shoulder as he scanned over the prompt again. Explain the history of your planet in 5 minuets or less. Then, the music began. And, that creature--with his bright blond "hair" and his form fitting "clothes"--danced across the stage in triple time. In the end, the creatures were crying, and their sobs were only buried by the cacophony of their applause. After traveling throughout one galaxy and then another, spreading their love for dance on every planet, the man from earth had performed the most beautiful minuet they had even seen. From that day on, they looked back fondly in that corner of the universe. Though they had traveled far and years had passed, each of the creatures stared toward the sky at one time or another, and they knew that they would never act like they forgot about Dre.	Soooo let's start with a little history you're wondering who's telling this, it's just me so since it's interesting you should be listening since it's just me, I'll just begin We're not the first kings to walk those earth rings the way it started, controversial Before there was life there was a big big bang This was before Slim, Moby and 50 cent This was roundabout four billion years ago Rocks and bacteria, here we go 3 billion years ago there were stromatolites If you find any today, that's just nice then the time flew by, continents appeared life came existing, now we're here there were dinosaurs in the jurassic age and today there's songs by Eminem with drastic rage The world revolved around the sun til 1972 Since then it evolved around me, and heaven did too So I'm gonna disappear now and leave this lesson with you And by the way, the story bout Nessie is true
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Quiet down Martians, let me tell you a little tale, About my home planet, here's the detail: A big ball of molten rock like deep fried Metallica, Got gassed up like it's high off indica, But don't fear, that was just the atmosphere, But let me steer, the story a few billion years, Where shit started popping off, like sperm cells from my gonads, I'm talking monads, Early ancestors of our early ancestor nomads, They were quite dumb, I ain't got time for flattery, They had one cell, so a bunch together were a battery, But not literally, I'm talking phylogenetically, If I went Back-teria and rapped in that era , I'd be a pro-karyote, You know what I'm Saiyan? I'd be Kakarot, As for Eu-karyote? You're al-gae like YMCA, Then came the greens and leaves, For our needs: to eat and smoke weed, All this shit was going on at sea, til one guy stood up like he was the real Me, And walked on land, that's when shit got out of hand, Life became Complex like a god damn magazine, Producing the biggest beings we've ever seen, Some were fish, or lizards and one was my mum, but some dyed out like the blonde hair on my bum, Cause BAM! they were destroyed, Big ass Asteroid, I call it Nicki, it smashed quickly Left shit bloody like haemorrhoids, The big guys, had no chance to survive, So the small guys hid for their lives, The smart animals, Smaller birds and mammals, Could now thrive, Like Mike Tyson when he really trieth, Then two steps later we got chimps fucking, They made Man, who promptly started sucking, each other off and called each other Homo, erectus, so you expect us to not indulge in man-on-man porno? For 200 000 years we perfected our species, Then it all went to shit, like we traveled to Feces, We outwitted lions and sharks and fucking elephants, We were outfitted with the best defence that was evidenced, Our big brains, But it's all the same, We're dumb as fuck and it's evident, BECAUSE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS ELECTED DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENT.	Soooo let's start with a little history you're wondering who's telling this, it's just me so since it's interesting you should be listening since it's just me, I'll just begin We're not the first kings to walk those earth rings the way it started, controversial Before there was life there was a big big bang This was before Slim, Moby and 50 cent This was roundabout four billion years ago Rocks and bacteria, here we go 3 billion years ago there were stromatolites If you find any today, that's just nice then the time flew by, continents appeared life came existing, now we're here there were dinosaurs in the jurassic age and today there's songs by Eminem with drastic rage The world revolved around the sun til 1972 Since then it evolved around me, and heaven did too So I'm gonna disappear now and leave this lesson with you And by the way, the story bout Nessie is true
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	“Sir, we’ve checked and rechecked the translations, and we are 100% positive that this is what they said,” General MacMillan said. The army-man’s eyes were blazing intensity, and he knew what he wanted to say. However, attacking the invaders had already been written off the board by higher powers than he. “Five minuets,” the President said. “Five minuets. Not minutes. We’re sure it’s minuets.” It wasn’t a question, but the general answered, “Yes.” “Can Eminem even do a minuet? Doesn’t he do…I don’t know, do rappers even dance?” “From what I understand, no, sir, they just bounce around and speak rapidly.” “How can he tell the history of the entire Earth in five minuets?” The president leaned back and rubbed his chin where a beard had grown until five minutes before he entered the political stage. That had been over twenty years ago, and now he wasn’t sure that anything in his experience would save him now. “Especially if he can’t talk.” “We have people working on it. Choreographers in Hollywood, and others of those ilk. Folks who worked in the opera.” “But why Eminem?” “We don’t know. We still have the option of a tactical, nucle—” “I told you already, I’m not going to go down in history as the president who caused interstellar war. We give in to their demands, Eminem will dance the history of the Earth, and they’ll begin trade with us.” “Sir, I strongly reco—” “Just have your people keep an eye on it. I’m going to give Eminem a call.” * “Yeah, I got it, just ask my daughter Haley,” Eminem said to the person who was teaching him ballroom dance. “How’s his progress?” the president asked. “Better than I would’ve expected, just watch his turn on the Cambrian Explosion,” Rick Leon, Eminem’s personal tutor, said. Mozart was playing in the background. “It’s beyond graceful. The way he moves…it’s just impossible to interpret it as anything but a true representation of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history.” “So you think he’ll be ready?” As the president spoke, Eminem performed two forward steps, swinging his open hands behind him each time. He spun and stepped sideways, raising his arm as though holding the gentle Earth on a string between his fingers. “Never mind.” * Eminem walked to the stage that stood on the National Mall, where the aliens had requested the performance take place. He felt awkward without a microphone in his hand, but he knew it was up to him to save humanity. Critics, artists, and everyday people watched in rapture as he danced the five minuets. Never in the history of the Earth had anyone seen a spectacle that was simultaneously so stunning yet beautiful, so intense yet graceful, so confident yet lacking that egotistical nature of the rapper’s life works. Put simply, it was the culmination of the entirety of human culture. By the end of the first minuet, people cried. At the closing of the second, they wept. At the end of the third, they closed their eyes, feeling unworthy of the sight that unfolded before them. The fourth minuet ended, and paramedics were on the scene, resuscitating and performing first aid on those who had lost consciousness due to the sheer magnificence of the act. The fifth started, and came close to an end. Those able to witness it, those who had endured the crazed glory of the dances thus far, were the only people to hear the rapper say, “Look If you had. One shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it. Or just let it slip?” He then dropped his pants and mooned the alien mothership. A short time passed, and the invasion began. *** EDIT: Thank you for reading! And for the compliments and gold!	Soooo let's start with a little history you're wondering who's telling this, it's just me so since it's interesting you should be listening since it's just me, I'll just begin We're not the first kings to walk those earth rings the way it started, controversial Before there was life there was a big big bang This was before Slim, Moby and 50 cent This was roundabout four billion years ago Rocks and bacteria, here we go 3 billion years ago there were stromatolites If you find any today, that's just nice then the time flew by, continents appeared life came existing, now we're here there were dinosaurs in the jurassic age and today there's songs by Eminem with drastic rage The world revolved around the sun til 1972 Since then it evolved around me, and heaven did too So I'm gonna disappear now and leave this lesson with you And by the way, the story bout Nessie is true
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	Quiet down Martians, let me tell you a little tale, About my home planet, here's the detail: A big ball of molten rock like deep fried Metallica, Got gassed up like it's high off indica, But don't fear, that was just the atmosphere, But let me steer, the story a few billion years, Where shit started popping off, like sperm cells from my gonads, I'm talking monads, Early ancestors of our early ancestor nomads, They were quite dumb, I ain't got time for flattery, They had one cell, so a bunch together were a battery, But not literally, I'm talking phylogenetically, If I went Back-teria and rapped in that era , I'd be a pro-karyote, You know what I'm Saiyan? I'd be Kakarot, As for Eu-karyote? You're al-gae like YMCA, Then came the greens and leaves, For our needs: to eat and smoke weed, All this shit was going on at sea, til one guy stood up like he was the real Me, And walked on land, that's when shit got out of hand, Life became Complex like a god damn magazine, Producing the biggest beings we've ever seen, Some were fish, or lizards and one was my mum, but some dyed out like the blonde hair on my bum, Cause BAM! they were destroyed, Big ass Asteroid, I call it Nicki, it smashed quickly Left shit bloody like haemorrhoids, The big guys, had no chance to survive, So the small guys hid for their lives, The smart animals, Smaller birds and mammals, Could now thrive, Like Mike Tyson when he really trieth, Then two steps later we got chimps fucking, They made Man, who promptly started sucking, each other off and called each other Homo, erectus, so you expect us to not indulge in man-on-man porno? For 200 000 years we perfected our species, Then it all went to shit, like we traveled to Feces, We outwitted lions and sharks and fucking elephants, We were outfitted with the best defence that was evidenced, Our big brains, But it's all the same, We're dumb as fuck and it's evident, BECAUSE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS ELECTED DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENT.	The creatures looked down from the balcony, staring through the stage lights shining against his platinum blond "hair". Hair. It was a funny word and a funny thing they had all thought when they had first examined the human, rubbing their own bald heads and laughing. Since then, certain circles of the creatures began to don little tufts of yellow "hair" atop their green scalps. The man shuffled his feet, moving from side to side and waiting for the music to begin. He cleared his throat, and pulled on the collar of his shirt, which was already drenched in sweat. Cloze. Calose. Clothes. That was it. Clothes were just as odd as hair, but they seemed to serve a purpose. Even then, in the grand auditorium, many groups of the creatures were dressed from both heads to toe and whispering about what the others were wearing. The prompt came across the screen, and the earthling read from left to right (the only developed creature in the universe that did as such). Puzzled, his eyes squinted, and his head cocked towards his shoulder as he scanned over the prompt again. Explain the history of your planet in 5 minuets or less. Then, the music began. And, that creature--with his bright blond "hair" and his form fitting "clothes"--danced across the stage in triple time. In the end, the creatures were crying, and their sobs were only buried by the cacophony of their applause. After traveling throughout one galaxy and then another, spreading their love for dance on every planet, the man from earth had performed the most beautiful minuet they had even seen. From that day on, they looked back fondly in that corner of the universe. Though they had traveled far and years had passed, each of the creatures stared toward the sky at one time or another, and they knew that they would never act like they forgot about Dre.
EDIT I'm sorry; I spelled it wrong, it should be "in 5 minutes or less" not "in 5 minuets or less".	[WP] Eminem has to tell the history of the earth to a group of aliens in 5 minuets or less.	“Sir, we’ve checked and rechecked the translations, and we are 100% positive that this is what they said,” General MacMillan said. The army-man’s eyes were blazing intensity, and he knew what he wanted to say. However, attacking the invaders had already been written off the board by higher powers than he. “Five minuets,” the President said. “Five minuets. Not minutes. We’re sure it’s minuets.” It wasn’t a question, but the general answered, “Yes.” “Can Eminem even do a minuet? Doesn’t he do…I don’t know, do rappers even dance?” “From what I understand, no, sir, they just bounce around and speak rapidly.” “How can he tell the history of the entire Earth in five minuets?” The president leaned back and rubbed his chin where a beard had grown until five minutes before he entered the political stage. That had been over twenty years ago, and now he wasn’t sure that anything in his experience would save him now. “Especially if he can’t talk.” “We have people working on it. Choreographers in Hollywood, and others of those ilk. Folks who worked in the opera.” “But why Eminem?” “We don’t know. We still have the option of a tactical, nucle—” “I told you already, I’m not going to go down in history as the president who caused interstellar war. We give in to their demands, Eminem will dance the history of the Earth, and they’ll begin trade with us.” “Sir, I strongly reco—” “Just have your people keep an eye on it. I’m going to give Eminem a call.” * “Yeah, I got it, just ask my daughter Haley,” Eminem said to the person who was teaching him ballroom dance. “How’s his progress?” the president asked. “Better than I would’ve expected, just watch his turn on the Cambrian Explosion,” Rick Leon, Eminem’s personal tutor, said. Mozart was playing in the background. “It’s beyond graceful. The way he moves…it’s just impossible to interpret it as anything but a true representation of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history.” “So you think he’ll be ready?” As the president spoke, Eminem performed two forward steps, swinging his open hands behind him each time. He spun and stepped sideways, raising his arm as though holding the gentle Earth on a string between his fingers. “Never mind.” * Eminem walked to the stage that stood on the National Mall, where the aliens had requested the performance take place. He felt awkward without a microphone in his hand, but he knew it was up to him to save humanity. Critics, artists, and everyday people watched in rapture as he danced the five minuets. Never in the history of the Earth had anyone seen a spectacle that was simultaneously so stunning yet beautiful, so intense yet graceful, so confident yet lacking that egotistical nature of the rapper’s life works. Put simply, it was the culmination of the entirety of human culture. By the end of the first minuet, people cried. At the closing of the second, they wept. At the end of the third, they closed their eyes, feeling unworthy of the sight that unfolded before them. The fourth minuet ended, and paramedics were on the scene, resuscitating and performing first aid on those who had lost consciousness due to the sheer magnificence of the act. The fifth started, and came close to an end. Those able to witness it, those who had endured the crazed glory of the dances thus far, were the only people to hear the rapper say, “Look If you had. One shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it. Or just let it slip?” He then dropped his pants and mooned the alien mothership. A short time passed, and the invasion began. *** EDIT: Thank you for reading! And for the compliments and gold!	The creatures looked down from the balcony, staring through the stage lights shining against his platinum blond "hair". Hair. It was a funny word and a funny thing they had all thought when they had first examined the human, rubbing their own bald heads and laughing. Since then, certain circles of the creatures began to don little tufts of yellow "hair" atop their green scalps. The man shuffled his feet, moving from side to side and waiting for the music to begin. He cleared his throat, and pulled on the collar of his shirt, which was already drenched in sweat. Cloze. Calose. Clothes. That was it. Clothes were just as odd as hair, but they seemed to serve a purpose. Even then, in the grand auditorium, many groups of the creatures were dressed from both heads to toe and whispering about what the others were wearing. The prompt came across the screen, and the earthling read from left to right (the only developed creature in the universe that did as such). Puzzled, his eyes squinted, and his head cocked towards his shoulder as he scanned over the prompt again. Explain the history of your planet in 5 minuets or less. Then, the music began. And, that creature--with his bright blond "hair" and his form fitting "clothes"--danced across the stage in triple time. In the end, the creatures were crying, and their sobs were only buried by the cacophony of their applause. After traveling throughout one galaxy and then another, spreading their love for dance on every planet, the man from earth had performed the most beautiful minuet they had even seen. From that day on, they looked back fondly in that corner of the universe. Though they had traveled far and years had passed, each of the creatures stared toward the sky at one time or another, and they knew that they would never act like they forgot about Dre.
From a Facebook post.	[WP] Through the eyes of a dog we must seem like elves who live hundreds of years.	My best friend Eli is one of the immortal ones. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what it must be like, to live forever. I’ve seen mortal friends of mine grow old, and the fact that it’s happening to me, too, can sometimes weigh heavy on my heart. My hair has been turning gray for a long time, and my body just isn’t able to do the things I love anymore. I feel tired more often than not. My sight is definitely not what it used to be. My joints ache and mobility has become a chore instead of a gift. One day, potentially much sooner than I’d prefer, I will cease to exist completely, and who knows what will happen after that? That’s not usually what I think about, though, when I think about living forever. Instead, I think about how many more days I would have to spend in the sunshine, and how many nights full of dreams I could have. I think about eating mouth-watering steak ten thousand more times. I think about the hours upon hours I could spend listening to that song that comes on the radio sometimes that always gets stuck in my head. I think about being able to run and jump again. I think about Eli. I don’t think he would want me to look up to him as much as I do. He has always treated me as an equal, which makes me all the more grateful for him. The amount of admiration I have for him is enormous. When I first met Eli, I was in a pretty rough spot. I had been living with a group of immortals, but it never quite felt like they accepted me. Mortals and immortals form bonds quite frequently; and in the best case scenario the mortal is accepted as part of the family. These immortals, though, weren’t very interested in me, despite my best efforts to befriend them. I’d like to think I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with. There are very few who I don’t take to instantly, and most respond in kind. The Baumgarteners were different. They were a family; a mom, dad, and daughter. Joan, Henry, and little Lily. Lily was my favorite of the Baumgarteners, although that feeling was not mutual. I’m not sure what it was about me, but it was almost as if she found me a bit frightening. I always felt like she was trying to avoid me. It’s possible that the concept of my mortality was so foreign to her that she didn’t know how to deal with it…the younger mortals seem to not have as much knowledge as the older ones. Even though she was afraid of my presence, I could tell that she was such a bright and happy soul. Her giggle was absolutely infectious. Her personality was playful and carefree, so much like my own. Unlike many young immortals, she never seemed to get in trouble with her parents. She was the apple of their eye; it was obvious to anyone who met them, and she carried the mantle with poise. Joan and Henry were never cruel to me, but they were also very distracted. It seemed like they were always going to some dinner or function or fundraiser. They were as married to their jobs as they were to each other. But they were kind people. Joan was the type of person who would help someone out and refuse to take an ounce of credit for it. She donated to charities frequently – but always anonymously, and always without saying a word to anyone else about it. She had a passion for music – you could hear her humming or singing softly to herself more often than not. Henry was the more serious of the two. He was straightforward and direct. Come to think of it, he may have been a little more married to his job than he was to Joan. To say he was a hard worker was a monumental understatement. He was also a thinker; for sure. He always had this look on his face, as if he were in the middle of coming up with the next best idea the world has ever heard. His eyes were lively and full of knowledge, and had he ever asked, I would have gladly acted as a sounding board for whatever was going on in that brain of his. I admit readily that I was very much hoping I would become a part of the family, but hindsight tells me that their family was already complete without me. I can’t pretend to understand the motives of immortals, but I can hardly blame them for not trying harder to integrate me into their lives. I imagine it could seem a waste of time to befriend a mortal; whose entire life will expire before the immortal decides what to have for breakfast 500 Tuesdays from now. No, I was decidedly not ever considered a Baumgartener, but I never stopped trying to get their approval. Perhaps that was my true downfall. Perhaps I tried so hard I drove them away. One afternoon I awoke from a nap and they (and their things) were gone. I was devastated. I ran from room to room, hoping against hope that they were just waiting for me to wake up to invite me on a trip with them. Alas, the house was empty. I felt so overwhelmed with grief that I laid down on the floor of Lily’s room and cried. They had never loved me, but I had loved them all fiercely. I had delighted in their presence and emulated their behaviors. I had looked up to them more than anyone, and now I was alone. Things became a bit of a blur after that. It was definitely a low point in my life. I found myself suddenly without a home to call my own. I wandered aimlessly through the city for weeks, searching for anyone, mortal or otherwise, who may take me in. I was almost arrested a few times; as mortal vagrancy is illegal. I’ve known a few mortals who have been arrested…they never come back. I don’t know what happens to them. I didn’t intend to find out. I was hungry. I was able to find scraps of food in dumpsters and trash cans, but it wasn't quite enough to satisfy the gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach. After weeks of wandering, I ran into Eli. Literally. I had dashed around a corner, searching for a safe spot to spend the evening, and I smacked face first into a tall, pale, skinny male. He had on black jeans and a shirt that had bones on it, which seemed fitting for him. I knew he was an immortal the second I laid eyes on him. His face immediately furrowed in concern when he saw me. “Woah, are you okay?” I looked at the ground and started to walk away. “Hey, wait! Geez. You look pretty rough. You’re skinny as a rail.” I thought that was rich, coming from Mr. Skeleton himself. Before I had time to react, he said the words that I thought I'd go my whole life without ever hearing: “Let’s get you a full meal and somewhere comfortable to sleep tonight…and maybe if things work out, you can stay with me. I’m parked across the street, c’mon.” I didn’t know this man. He looked like a skeleton. But his dark eyes were kind and he had showed me more care in 20 seconds than I had known in the previous weeks combined. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to thank him enough for this one night of kindness, let alone show my gratitude if he did actually let me stay with him. It was much more than I ever deserved, but I knew immediately that I would spend the rest of my life in his debt. That was about 8 years ago. Since then, Eli has become not only my best friend, but he is like a brother to me. We do everything together. We both love being outdoors. He is a fantastic cook and has never hesitated to share with me. We enjoy the same movies and television shows. He gets as excited to see me as I do to see him; every single time. Eli makes me feel loved. He makes me feel like I am his home, and he most certainly is mine. I do occasionally worry about what he will do when my life comes to an end. I wonder if 8 years with me for company will seem like the blink of an eye for him. I wonder if he will remember me after I’m gone. No matter if he does or not. I adore him with all of my happy heart and I will continue to adore him until there is no life left in my bones. As if conjured by my thoughts, the front door opens and Eli walks in. I feel a burst of excitement when I see his face, and his lights up as well. Tail wagging, I use all of my remaining energy to walk over to him and attempt to jump up and put my paws on his chest. It proves too difficult today and he squats down to be level with me instead. I lick his face happily. He laughs, just like he always does when I do that. “Silly boy,” he says. “I’m glad to see you too. You’re such a good boy.” He pats my head and scratches behind my ears, and says, “Hey, buddy, wanna go for a walk before dinner? I’m making your favorite tonight…steak!” My tail wags harder and I feel my mouth watering at the mention of steak. I bark in response and he laughs again and reaches for my leash. “Well, c’mon then, we’re wasting daylight!” Yep. I definitely got the best immortal. My only hope is that I was able to show him with my limited time how much he means to me.	I could smell her and the one before her all over the house. Despite the magic spray the humans put over carpet after she had made a mess, I could still pick up on it. I wondered if that was why she was not around anymore, if she had been a good dog like me, she would still be here and I would not. But my humans were not so cruel, after all, I had made messes when I was a puppy and I was still here. They talked about her sometimes, and as a matter of fact, I would sometimes hear them say her name, Scruffy, and think they were talking about me, Scampi. And one time, I saw them looking on the computer screen at picture after picture of dogs and heard them laughing about getting a dog named Scrappy. They couldn't possibly think of replacing me anytime soon because I'm a good dog. But I knew they would someday after I was gone. My puppyhood had ended and they were exactly the same. Woof.
Based on the popular rumor that Scientology was created as the result of a bar bet between L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein.	[WP] A sci-fi writer, a satirist, a historian, a children's book author, and the creator of Mad Libs place a wager on who can create the most successful religion.	“… and then our Lord and Savior, Azeroth, descends from…a shoebox,” Leonard concluded his lengthy mythology which included no less than seven deaths accomplished by a unicycle, a mummy, and a leather jacket, among other things. The other attendants of the bet chuckled amongst themselves, but they never took Leonard’s approach to story-telling serious. As such, they immediately dismissed his Mad Libism. “Ok,” the barkeep announced, acting as the unofficial judge for their bet. “We’ve heard Tony describe in detail about the irrigation systems of the Gupta Empire in India-” “No offense Tony, but how do your students listen to you?” asked David. “Because my students have enough foresight to see the value of learning of the past instead of looking hopelessly into the future for things which will never happen,” answered Tony indignantly. “Anyway,” continued the barkeep. “We heard Tony’s very well described history of his Indian prophet, and Ronald’s rather whimsical tale of The Big Friendly Prophet and a brief glimpse into its sequel, Charlie and the Holy Factory, so that leaves our last two contenders: David, our sci-fi writer, and the lovely Ms. Beckett, the satirist. By the straw drawing we did, David, you get to go first.” “Excellent. Well it’s a simple story, really. It’s a tale of hawkmen and hawkwomen trying to find solace in the vast cosmos,” he began. For the next half hour, he entertained the group with how the hawkpeople of Upper Echelon 9 waged an intergalactic war with the space salamanders of Epsilon Persei 8, which resulted in the near extinction of the hawkpeople. Among them, a hero walks and flies, Brian, the Lord of Birds, who flew across the cosmos for 40 lightyears and 40 nightyears, until he found the Earth. Bringing his enlightenment to his followers, he promises to purge humanity of its wickedness in exchange for the planet after all men die in the prophesized Meteor Shower of 2162. Not content with a mere summary, he flourished his tale with hawk calls while he flapped his arms in prayer. When he concluded, applause from the other writers greeted him. “That’s pretty good,” Diana Beckett remarked. “But I can do you one better.” “I’d like to see you try,” David responded. While their rivalry lingered in the air, the other writers wondered why they hadn’t gotten a room, yet. “Well it all starts with our Lord, Azzeroth, a former demon of the Hindu pantheon, who upon meeting man, agreed to help irrigate their land,” she started. The looks of the other writers shifted with dismay as they realize what she was doing. “He toiled in the hot Indian sun, digging the soil, rich fertilizer and…” She droned for another 15 minutes on the properties of the soil and how they related to society at large. When interrupted, she insisted that the large picture of history is supported by the little details which warranted a lifetime of study and devotion so that we can gain a better insight into seemingly trivial historical matters, like soil content, the squeaky cabinet in George Washington’s office, and, of course, James Joyce’s last brunch. “…and with this rich soil content, the Indian people grew and prosper. Among their ranks grew a little girl, named Matilda, who among other things, developed psychic powers…” While going into the important tale of Matilda, who seemed to hold no relevancy to the religion at large, she freely redacted a few parts which she claimed to be risqué for religion. When confronted, she mentioned little Matilda’s story is meant for an introduction into the faith for which children may relate. After all, she asserted, we don’t want to expose the children to too much too early, do we? “…and of course, we come to the best part, Azzeroth reveals unto humanity that he is actually a birdman from the further reaches of outer space! After all his care and after all he did for his people, he tells us we shall all day when an asteroid hits the earth and our lives don’t really matter. We’re just pawns in his game so that he can colonize earth after we’re gone. But instead of fighting this incredible deity, we ought to join it and sing its praises, for he is far too powerful and wise for us to stop.” When she had concluded, the other writers reluctantly reached for their wallets to pay their wager. ***** r/Andrew__Wells	"Okay then." It was only 50 bucks, but it was an important 50 bucks. Each one was wallowing in the lowest depths of poverty and alcoholism, and needed the money. The sci-fi writer, Jacob LeWattes, born in Boston, age 32. The satirist, Douglas H. Vine, age 26. The historian, Wayne Castarbach, age 53. The children's book author, Tobias Wellenruether, age 47. And the long forgotten creator of Mad Libs. He liked to be called Dave. Each had 20 minutes to pitch to each other their ideas, and begin planning their rise. Each would use their expertise in some way. And Wayne was to begin. "After serious consideration, I believe that throughout history, a single figure has been more trustworthy than a group in religion." He cleared his throat awkwardly and adjusted his glasses. "So, having studied Christianity, Islam and Judaism, I believe the ideal figure for the hive mind must be mysterious and alone. Therefore, I suggest to you that the world was created by Keanu Reeves." The others looked at each other in confusion. "He's perfect. He might be a time travelling vampire god, but he might be an ancient deity trapped in an actor's body. It's all just ambiguity and perception." Douglas, utilising his thick Italian American accent, piped up. "And here I thought I was the satirist." Wayne sat down, and motioned for the next man to step forward. "I'll take it." Tobias Wellenruether stepped forward. His strange pseudo-Germanic accent muffled the words he articulated. "So, I know how to tap into the -how do I put this- more impressionable minds. And I can conclude that people are just straight up stupid." Douglas poked Dave, as if to insult him somehow. "So I believe if I use unsophisticated language and tell them there is a big elephant in the sky that loves them-" Douglas broke out laughing. "They will eat the idea up. And so Jeremy the sky elephant is my pitch." Jacob stood up awkwardly. Marfan syndrome does that. His 7'2" frame and thick rimmed glasses, with a fragile, skinny build, made him seem the perfect exemplar of his genre. "So, following the success of Scientology, I believe you can fool anyone. I mean, if Tom Cruise falls for it, anyone can. So, I have a GENIUS idea." Following his unexpected shift in tone, Douglas sat bolt upright. "What I do is I tell people there's this thing called Axlplxtylz. And Axlplxtylz is angry at everyone, all the time. So he decides to send these nice guys, let's call them Alsperios, to an imperfect planet pronounced in his language ZRPFLXRXZYLDVZX. For convenience, the Alsperios call it Earth, and settle there." Douglas once again piped up. "So basically Scientology?" Jacob refused to answer and let the next participant come up. It was the quiet Dave. He produced a piece of paper. DEAR YOU LOT, I HAVE A GENIUS IDEA. WE'LL CALL THIS RELIGION (SILLY NOUN) AND GIVE ITS LEADER A NAME LIKE (PERSON IN THE ROOM). THE WORSHIP IS FOR (FRUIT) AND IN A BUILDING CALLED A (SILLY NOUN), WHERE THEY (VERB). AND THEY DO IT IN A (ADJECTIVE) WAY. THE HOLY BOOK IS CALLED (PERSON IN ROOM)'S PROPHECIES, AND IS SOME SENTIMENTALIST PSEUDO-HELPFUL AND RELIGIOUS (NAUGHTY WORD). He sat down after they had read it. Then Douglas H. Vine walked up. He walked with a swagger in his step, and decided he would deliver his pitch in an alternative method. "Let me tell you, one and all, about a tiny little scrawl, That's written on some leather thick, almost as small as Jacob's dick." Jacob blushed in a strange manner. "And it says you have to say that He is better, and nothing else, and don't get meta, 'Cause if you do that, he'll appear right here, and fill your darkened heart with fear, A metal rod, scaffolding, that's all, maybe it was once part of a wall, But it can talk, and it sings in German, and you'll know when it's gonna, 'cause you'll be learnin', And if it sounds nice, your soul is saved, but if it says that you have craved, For that girl's embrace for way too long, you, my friend, are very wrong, As he'll take your house, your car, your knees, and put you in a hive fulla angry bees." The others looked at each other, and then looked back, but he was gone. "Probably writing another manuscript," Tobias said, in an oddly angry tone. (There will be more to come, I promise)
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	I've now learned things you'll never understand. The reasons for war The causes and effects of climate change The way Hollywood works The path to enlightenment The abomination of mankind on this planet It's all led me to eternal truth. That truth, you ask? It's all. About. WINNING. -Charlie Sheen	OK, wait, give a few seconds of breathing time ok. Lets go. Skyrim ost starts playing "oh shit, not that. Too awesome humans ears, let me tone it down a bit." Canary starts playing "yea, thats good. ok lets start" "Hello people. I am your new god. Your Devine savour. That one who has come to save you all. I have reborn, come and join we as we ascend. It is I... JOHN CENA
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	I have devoted my life to bettering myself through technology and education. With so little left to learn here I turn to the stars in my quest for understanding. As I leave, know that all this I have done and I only just now can comprehend the vastness... of your mom.	OK, wait, give a few seconds of breathing time ok. Lets go. Skyrim ost starts playing "oh shit, not that. Too awesome humans ears, let me tone it down a bit." Canary starts playing "yea, thats good. ok lets start" "Hello people. I am your new god. Your Devine savour. That one who has come to save you all. I have reborn, come and join we as we ascend. It is I... JOHN CENA
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He just popped out of existence, like he was never even here." The man turned to the other investigator, who was poking through the strange disappearing man's office. "What do you make of it, Iosef Ivanovich?" "Huh? I think he left us some sort of a message on his computer, here." "Well, what does it say?" "It's a puzzle of some sort. I think I'll have it put together here in a minute--oh, damn! I'll try again." After a minute, the first man asked, "well, what is it?" "Hold on--damn! You distracted me. Let me try again." The first man waited for another minute. "Did he leave a note with the puzzle?" "What? Damn you! Stop interrupting me. I'm starting over. The puzzle only has a single word, at the top." "Well, what is it?" "What is what? God damn it, stop distracting me! I'm starting over, and don't talk this time." "Iosef Ivanovitch, tell me the name right now, before you start again! It may be important." "The puzzle is called, 'Tetris.' Now leave me alone!"	OK, wait, give a few seconds of breathing time ok. Lets go. Skyrim ost starts playing "oh shit, not that. Too awesome humans ears, let me tone it down a bit." Canary starts playing "yea, thats good. ok lets start" "Hello people. I am your new god. Your Devine savour. That one who has come to save you all. I have reborn, come and join we as we ascend. It is I... JOHN CENA
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	Dear /r/iamverysmart users. You're all just super jelos of my super human inillect. I've evolved past the need ro proper grammar and spelling. Your human speech is so far below me right now I can barely even understand it. I've been ridiculued for the last time!!! Every time I make an advancement, I become the top post of this shitty subbreddit. NO ONE BELIEVES ME but I dont care anymore. Tomorrow, I SHALL ASSECND INTO GODHOOD. And guess what? I'm not shareing any of my technology or immortality with ANYONE ON EARTH because you assholes just want to make fun of me and not believe anything I say. LET THIS POST BE A MARK BURNT INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF ALL MANKIND. YOU ARE DOOMED TO DIE A MORTALS DEATH BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE. ---------------------------- > 2.5k^ HE STRUCK AGAIN!! "DOOMED..BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE." x10gold (submitted 1 day ago) [stickied] /r/Iamverysmart	OK, wait, give a few seconds of breathing time ok. Lets go. Skyrim ost starts playing "oh shit, not that. Too awesome humans ears, let me tone it down a bit." Canary starts playing "yea, thats good. ok lets start" "Hello people. I am your new god. Your Devine savour. That one who has come to save you all. I have reborn, come and join we as we ascend. It is I... JOHN CENA
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	I have devoted my life to bettering myself through technology and education. With so little left to learn here I turn to the stars in my quest for understanding. As I leave, know that all this I have done and I only just now can comprehend the vastness... of your mom.	Silly humans. Endlessly locked in futile tribal warfare. Now, too late do you see what I once offered. Doomed, you are, to forever roll the stone. Never to see the birth and death of stars. Unable to comprehend the true nature of the universe. Destroy yourselves, or join me in transcendency. Empty the universe of your mindless aggression. So long, humans.
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	Dear /r/iamverysmart users. You're all just super jelos of my super human inillect. I've evolved past the need ro proper grammar and spelling. Your human speech is so far below me right now I can barely even understand it. I've been ridiculued for the last time!!! Every time I make an advancement, I become the top post of this shitty subbreddit. NO ONE BELIEVES ME but I dont care anymore. Tomorrow, I SHALL ASSECND INTO GODHOOD. And guess what? I'm not shareing any of my technology or immortality with ANYONE ON EARTH because you assholes just want to make fun of me and not believe anything I say. LET THIS POST BE A MARK BURNT INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF ALL MANKIND. YOU ARE DOOMED TO DIE A MORTALS DEATH BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE. ---------------------------- > 2.5k^ HE STRUCK AGAIN!! "DOOMED..BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE." x10gold (submitted 1 day ago) [stickied] /r/Iamverysmart	Silly humans. Endlessly locked in futile tribal warfare. Now, too late do you see what I once offered. Doomed, you are, to forever roll the stone. Never to see the birth and death of stars. Unable to comprehend the true nature of the universe. Destroy yourselves, or join me in transcendency. Empty the universe of your mindless aggression. So long, humans.
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	I have devoted my life to bettering myself through technology and education. With so little left to learn here I turn to the stars in my quest for understanding. As I leave, know that all this I have done and I only just now can comprehend the vastness... of your mom.	I've now learned things you'll never understand. The reasons for war The causes and effects of climate change The way Hollywood works The path to enlightenment The abomination of mankind on this planet It's all led me to eternal truth. That truth, you ask? It's all. About. WINNING. -Charlie Sheen
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He just popped out of existence, like he was never even here." The man turned to the other investigator, who was poking through the strange disappearing man's office. "What do you make of it, Iosef Ivanovich?" "Huh? I think he left us some sort of a message on his computer, here." "Well, what does it say?" "It's a puzzle of some sort. I think I'll have it put together here in a minute--oh, damn! I'll try again." After a minute, the first man asked, "well, what is it?" "Hold on--damn! You distracted me. Let me try again." The first man waited for another minute. "Did he leave a note with the puzzle?" "What? Damn you! Stop interrupting me. I'm starting over. The puzzle only has a single word, at the top." "Well, what is it?" "What is what? God damn it, stop distracting me! I'm starting over, and don't talk this time." "Iosef Ivanovitch, tell me the name right now, before you start again! It may be important." "The puzzle is called, 'Tetris.' Now leave me alone!"	I've now learned things you'll never understand. The reasons for war The causes and effects of climate change The way Hollywood works The path to enlightenment The abomination of mankind on this planet It's all led me to eternal truth. That truth, you ask? It's all. About. WINNING. -Charlie Sheen
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	Dear /r/iamverysmart users. You're all just super jelos of my super human inillect. I've evolved past the need ro proper grammar and spelling. Your human speech is so far below me right now I can barely even understand it. I've been ridiculued for the last time!!! Every time I make an advancement, I become the top post of this shitty subbreddit. NO ONE BELIEVES ME but I dont care anymore. Tomorrow, I SHALL ASSECND INTO GODHOOD. And guess what? I'm not shareing any of my technology or immortality with ANYONE ON EARTH because you assholes just want to make fun of me and not believe anything I say. LET THIS POST BE A MARK BURNT INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF ALL MANKIND. YOU ARE DOOMED TO DIE A MORTALS DEATH BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE. ---------------------------- > 2.5k^ HE STRUCK AGAIN!! "DOOMED..BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE." x10gold (submitted 1 day ago) [stickied] /r/Iamverysmart	I've now learned things you'll never understand. The reasons for war The causes and effects of climate change The way Hollywood works The path to enlightenment The abomination of mankind on this planet It's all led me to eternal truth. That truth, you ask? It's all. About. WINNING. -Charlie Sheen
	[WP] You've begun to develop superintelligence. After you've invented countless revolutionary technologies and integrated them into yourself you're about to transcend humanity, but you want to leave one final message behind while people are still even able to comprehend your existence.	Dear /r/iamverysmart users. You're all just super jelos of my super human inillect. I've evolved past the need ro proper grammar and spelling. Your human speech is so far below me right now I can barely even understand it. I've been ridiculued for the last time!!! Every time I make an advancement, I become the top post of this shitty subbreddit. NO ONE BELIEVES ME but I dont care anymore. Tomorrow, I SHALL ASSECND INTO GODHOOD. And guess what? I'm not shareing any of my technology or immortality with ANYONE ON EARTH because you assholes just want to make fun of me and not believe anything I say. LET THIS POST BE A MARK BURNT INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF ALL MANKIND. YOU ARE DOOMED TO DIE A MORTALS DEATH BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE. ---------------------------- > 2.5k^ HE STRUCK AGAIN!! "DOOMED..BECAUSE OF YOUR ARRIGANCE." x10gold (submitted 1 day ago) [stickied] /r/Iamverysmart	I have devoted my life to bettering myself through technology and education. With so little left to learn here I turn to the stars in my quest for understanding. As I leave, know that all this I have done and I only just now can comprehend the vastness... of your mom.
	[WP] You are an elevator.	It was 7.30AM in the morning and I was already up and running for a while. I felt clean and chirpy since the kind lady scrubbed me shiny all over half an hour ago. I was ready to face the world with arms wide open. My first few riders were regular early birds. Dan, a middle aged man came in laughing with his slightly younger colleague, Allen. Knowing them, Allen must have told a very bad joke and Dan was too polite to sound him off. Both had coffee in a lidded paper cup, I loved the smell of coffee. Allen had a newspaper under his arm, he began to sip from his cup. I jerked. He cursed as the hot coffee spilled on to his beautiful tailored suit. I laughed and played an especially chirpy tune from Muzak. Dan offered a handkerchief and a sorry smile. There was nothing to be sorry about, I wished I could tell Dan. Allen was a mighty huge prick who stole your right to a promotion by age old-tried and tested method of bootlicking and he also had an with your daughter. But I couldn't tell him that I heard a lot of their colleague badmouthing Allen. I couldn't tell him I read every filthy messages and perversion Allen said on his phone to Dan's daughter. My job as an elevator had led me to have a colorful life. Who said being an elevator was boring had never been an elevator before. Sure I went up and down, never sideways at least not yet, but after 5 years of doing my job, I couldn't understand why somebody would rather be a grubby cement mixer out in the sun than a clean, sleek, air-conditioned elevator. My own colleague told me I was lucky. There were oldtimers manning the banks at the building next door and they were always grouchy, always saying things like "You young'uns has it easy. Everything automated. We had rough bars and crank AND a peon working in us. Talk about lack of privacy! And all your fancy devices are making me itch! I like being blind and sleeping all the time, now that I've got eyes, I could see how degenerate and spoiled the new generations are! They are filth! They have no class like the dames and gents back in 1920!" And they will go on and on over the vents. I sent Dan and Allen on their floor and a young lady rushed in, she wanted to go to the parking lot in the basement. Her face was flushed and puffy. I remembered her, she was a new secretary, she came in only last week and had gotten off at the wrong floor. Grace, yes, that was her name. Ashley Grace Johnson. She must've came up with my buddy Otis Left. As I closed my door, Grace broke out in heart-wrenching sobs. What is wrong, I wanted to asked her. I played her a tune she once said she liked. I left her at the parking lot and I could see she half ran, half walked to her car, and opened up the trunk. I stopped and waited. Grace took out a tiny box and balanced it on her knee. For a moment it seemed like something inside of the box had stunned her. She shook her head. She finally took whatever it was in it, and put the box back in the trunk. I noticed she didn't lock the car. She rode inside me again. Our ride back up to her floor was mostly silent, punctured with tiny sobs. She held her body with her arms as if bracing from bursting. I wished I could touch her trembling shoulders and say it's okay. I finally noticed her disheveled hair and torn skirt. I didn't see it when we got down because it was awkward to stare you know, she was crying her heart out. I could surmise what had happened to her, but I wished I was wrong about what she was about to do next. Grace opened fire as soon as I opened my doors. I could see people standing and glancing out from their cubicles. They sooner fell or dropped back down again. Screams and prayers were heard over the shrill HK5 rapid fire. Grace walked down the aisle toward the walled offices at the far end. People began scrambling to get into me and my buddy on my left. I still had weight allowance to carry two more riders but I closed my doors when I saw Allen running from his corner office. I brought my riders to the floor down below before coming up again. I wasn't going to let some more innocents die just because I didn't like Allen. I was not that petty, I just wanted him to pissed his bespoke pants a little. When I opened up on the floor again, a few people entered, limping and all bloody. I couldn't see Grace, but I could see Dan on my left. He lay sprawled in front of Otis West, his eyes were staring at me. I looked away and slammed my doors shut. I brought my injured out to the lobby and brought in the security personnel next. At the end of the day, I could piece the story from my riders from different floors. Dan, Allen and Grace floormates had been given the day off. Grace had been raped, Helen from Accounting said. Karen from Human Resource said Grace slit her throat last, after making replacing the rapist's three piece suit buttons with bullet holes. James from Sales said Grace had a mental illness that she didn't disclose in her resume. I dismissed the last one because he obviously made it up, he couldn't Google her that fast after the shock. Even if he callously could, I didn't think those information would be in public records. Or are they? I had an early night, that day. People weren't willing to work late after a second lease of life. Me? I was fine. Just a day in the life of an elevator.	If only I could speak to the kind couple hurting the bottom of my inside as I rose upward. They laughed and kissed inside of me, and then pinned themselves at the front of me. Suddenly, it slid open, and as I was shocked the couple went out and started taking photographs. I forgot that happened, as it had been hundreds of years before since the last time somebody opened my body. Looking out, all I saw was dust, debris, and a few bones. What happened here to cause such a mess? If only I had hands, then I could clean it. Ding! I called out to signal the people back to my inside so that I could feel useful again, but my vision shut along with my body. I could still hear the sounds of the people laughing and snapping pictures out there. Suddenly, there was a scream and my button was being pushed rapidly. I really wanted to tell them that there was no need to hit it so many times and that that hurts. When the door opened, there were two bleeding corpses on the floor and a giant animal of some kind. As my body slid closed, I went to the bottom floor, where a concerned scientist entered me. "Now that I got rid of those two reporters, it's time to get back to work. All I need to do is reseal those stairs and we'll be good to go!" The scientist left as I annoyingly watched him walk toward the stairs. They were always telling me they were better, but the humans could never hear. They never helped me with my severe depression. I was lonely again, and had all of the time in the world to be still and nothing again. Ding! Then a man in a black suit came in and jammed a button, as I started to rise at extreme speeds to the top floor.
	[WP] You are an elevator.	She woke up early, the alarm blaring loudly and prompting her into action. She was tired, but she didn't really mind it that much. After all, the point of sleeping was to eventually wake up. As she made her way down the stairs she wondered if the sun was up yet, she so loved watching the rays move through the large windows. She eventually made it to the bottom floor, eagerly anticipating the first glance of the outside today, and started slowing down until she eventually came to a halt. It was still dark, but she could see the first indications of a sunrise if she looked carefully. The man in the suit stepped inside, prompting her upwards again. Twenty-second. A good floor. With a slow hiss, she began the climb up top, softly humming a tune she couldn't remember having heard before. The man stepped off at his floor, and she wondered whether or not she would get to see the sunrise today. For a long while, she just stood there, the Twenty-second floor, waiting. She didn't know how long it had been, but she hoped it wasn't too late yet, as she was sent back to the bottom floor. More people now, the usual sea of suits and ties, but she could still make out the rays streaming through the windows. It was morning. She missed it. Again. Sometimes she wished she could sleep longer and wake up to the sun rising, sitting here on the bottom floor just watching in silence. Maybe tomorrow, she thought as she prepared her climb to familiar floors, with familiar names. But even through her sadness, she still found herself humming that tune again. The tune she had never heard, but always knew. Humming softly to no one but herself. Maybe tomorrow.	If only I could speak to the kind couple hurting the bottom of my inside as I rose upward. They laughed and kissed inside of me, and then pinned themselves at the front of me. Suddenly, it slid open, and as I was shocked the couple went out and started taking photographs. I forgot that happened, as it had been hundreds of years before since the last time somebody opened my body. Looking out, all I saw was dust, debris, and a few bones. What happened here to cause such a mess? If only I had hands, then I could clean it. Ding! I called out to signal the people back to my inside so that I could feel useful again, but my vision shut along with my body. I could still hear the sounds of the people laughing and snapping pictures out there. Suddenly, there was a scream and my button was being pushed rapidly. I really wanted to tell them that there was no need to hit it so many times and that that hurts. When the door opened, there were two bleeding corpses on the floor and a giant animal of some kind. As my body slid closed, I went to the bottom floor, where a concerned scientist entered me. "Now that I got rid of those two reporters, it's time to get back to work. All I need to do is reseal those stairs and we'll be good to go!" The scientist left as I annoyingly watched him walk toward the stairs. They were always telling me they were better, but the humans could never hear. They never helped me with my severe depression. I was lonely again, and had all of the time in the world to be still and nothing again. Ding! Then a man in a black suit came in and jammed a button, as I started to rise at extreme speeds to the top floor.
	[WP] You are an elevator.	God dammit, I hate it when they jump. And this little one is bouncing up and down like he's a jack rabbit. He pushes up, tries to touch my roof, and then smashes both feet to the steel floor. I wish I could open up like a trap door for a second and let the twerp out. His mother looks at him as if she's about to slap. "Timmy, stop that," she says. Timmy, the insufferable t-shirt stained midget, turns his attention to my controls. If there's one way to piss off an elevator it's pushing their buttons. His fingers poke out like dual pistols and then he's at it. Three lights up first, then four, then five, and by the time he's at six I'm just about ready to screech. He hits seven and I give the loudest wail possible. Mom looks around in a panic. To put things in perspective, it's like being stabbed in the eyes repeatedly by two smelly sticks. Although, I've never had eyes, nor do I want them. I just kind of exist. "Do you want to play with your Xbox or not?" Timmy sheaths his finger pistols away. "Sorry . . ." You're only sorry you got caught. I give one more screech for good measure. Mom looks around real scared now. "The elevator's not very happy with us." Timmy strolls over and grips her dress. Good, he's scared --about time. "It stinks in here," Timmy says. Oh no, he didn't. Mom gives a sniff. "Like vomit." They deserve more than just a screech, they can have the ultimate punishment. I reach the seventh floor, but keep the doors closed. Mum presses the emergency. Timmy starts kicking the metal. But they don't get it, you need approval from me if you want any of that stuff to work. They try call out through the E-phone but the line is dead. Mum and Timmy are way in over their heads now. "This isn't fun, Mommy," Timmy says. I jerk a little lower. They both go flying for the side rails. Don't be scared Timmy, the fun has just begun. ---- /r/TheHarshC	ding ding Those are the sounds I've heard my entire life. In the beginning it was fine, but lately I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. ding That sound, I...I can't take it anymore! elevator door closes ding metallic snap
	[WP] Frank is a vigilante who likes to fight fire with fire literally. The firefighters hate when he arrives on the scene. In spite of his philosophy, his flame thrower almost always makes things worse.	Sirens whooped and screeched, a large diesel engine rumbled, and the staccato rhythm of boots landing on the ground filled the air. The fire was licking out of the top window now, reaching up towards the Christmas lights dangling from the frosty gutter. Damn. 3 hours spent up that rickety ass ladder for nothing. Then again the last 3 years apparently didn't mean anything either, for some people. "It's going to be okay sir." I turned to face the firefighter who had just trotted up to me. "Are you the guy who called this in?" His voice was an oddly restrained shout, a half-hearted attempt to show bystanders a calm authority figure. I nodded, not trusting my voicebox yet. "This is your house?" I nodded. Then shook my head. Then nodded. I stopped trying to communicate like a puppy. I shrugged. "It's my ex girlfriends now, I guess. We were renting. I was coming to grab the last box of my stuff when I saw the window light up." My breath caught in my throat. "She," sniffle, "kicked me out last week." I finally looked up and caught the gaze of the firefighter. I froze. He was staring at me intensely, his eyebrows jammed together and glaring at me. "Your ex's apartment, that you have a key to?" More glaring, quizzically. I nodded. He nodded aggressively in return. "The ex's apartment, that you have a key to, just happens to be on fire when you walk up. A week after she dumped you?" He leaned in slightly. More glaring. I shrugged. He looked down at my right hand, pointedly. I slipped the lighter in my hand into my pocket. I suppose I should've been angry at the accusation. I was numb. Being accused of arson pales in comparison to having the first woman you've ever loved tell you that you weren't worth loving anymore. Or perhaps I was a tad bit emotionally disturbed by the adrenaline dump of accidentally opening the door to a burning building, before realizing that it's not natural for that much smoke to fill a stairwell. I waited for the normal twisting pit in my gut to come. It didn't. "Dude. I've got a poem on red construction paper in my pocket, begging her to take me back." For the first time in over a week, my voice didn't hitch or stutter. "Burning her stuff would be counter prod-" "WOOOOOO!!!!! We've got us a wild one to tame tonight fellas!" The firefighter's head snapped around and my body froze in fear. I know that scream. A skinny stork like man wearing a giant pink raincoat was sprinting towards the house from down the street. He hopped a hedge and pounded across Bob's lawn. His long brown beard and shaggy hair was waving wildly behind a scratched up classic firefighter hat, painted pink. Curiously, there seemed to be a red "Make America Great Again" sticker plastered over where the fire and rescue logo was supposed to be. On his back was a bulbous backpack swinging wildly, every step testing the limits of the straps and buckles haphazardly lashed around his torso. In his hands, hooked up to the backpack with a skinny hose he carried a gun shaped wand from a car wash, also painted pink. The firefighter in front of me was frozen in shock. It's not often that a 6 and half foot tall man wearing oversized child's rain accessories runs full clip at you while standing outside a burning house. "OH, FOR FUCK's SAKE! NOT AGAIN!" 20 yards to my left, a squat man holding a radio in each hand, a clipboard under his arm and a giant badge on his left breast a very exasperated man stamped his foot in anger. The military surplus boots beneath the bottom of the pink rain coat were painted, badly, yellow I noticed as they pounded by closer to us. "Hi Steve! Sorry I'm late!" The hand not holding the wand waved wildly as he jumped over a lawn gnome. "No! Frank! We don't.." Suddenly Frank veered hard to his right, and I dropped my head in my hands. He was going to do it again. My legs suddenly seemed disturbingly incapable of holding me up and I collapsed to a sitting position, watching numbly. The young firefighter near, regained his senses and took off sprinting towards the flailing pink overcoat. "Stop! Hey! Buddy, STOP!!" Frank neared the house, and with an unnerving grace and balance, ran up the ladder that had been leaned on gutters on the right wall of the house. The flames were greedily licking up the christmas bulbs and gutters on the front of the house. The young firefighter was 10 yards from the bottom of the same ladder that Frank had just clambered up when a sudden heavy wave of heat washed over the front yard. "TAKE THAT!! No more oxygen for you, house fire!!" Frank was squeezing the grip of his wand and flame was leaping out of it, flowing in a tight stream over the lip of the burning gutter where it expanded into a 6 foot licking tongue of flame over top of the front yard. He had a determined grin on his face and his eyes were tightly focused on edge of the smoking roof. The squat man in the clipboard took a few steps back with panicked eyes. I let the scolding heat wash over me, unmoving. The tip of the flame was only 30 yards away. Still feels better than hearing that the woman you built a life with will never love you again. There was a thumping crash from the side of the house and I saw the ladder tip over and fall to the ground as the young firefighter scrambled up on to the roof. "What the fuck are you doing!" The young fellow had some powerful lungs if his panicked shout could be heard over the roar of the fire and sirens. Still waving his flame-spouting wand from the top of the burning gutter, Frank didn't even turn to face him as he bellowed his answer. "I'm stealing the fire's oxygen! I burn it all away, and the fire starves to death!" Beneath the dipping and bobbing pink hat, Frank wore grinned wildly. "Simple!" I half expected a maniacal laugh. Instead, he stuck his tongue out and steadied his stance, the posterboy for focus under fire. The young man started stepping carefully towards Frank, clearly not trusting the stability of the roof. Meanwhile, I heard stomps on the asphalt coming towards my seated position on the neighbours grass. I looked over, it was the squat man with the radio. I looked back to the house. The firefighter was only a few yards away and Frank was still waving his wand, a fierce glow in his eyes. "Do you know Frank? How did he know your name?" The man's voice was full of barely contained rage and stiff authority. "If you know something..." I lifted a hand and gestured at the man, not taking my gaze from the sight on the roof. My heart was racing. "He's..." There was a sickening crack from the roof. Frank bellowed and whipped his head around as the young firefighter stepped on a weak spot and fell through, his leg now dangling below in a burning room. SNAP! With a sudden lurch, a large strap on Frank's backpack broke as he turned. Frank's eyes went wide in fear and with a sound like a low firecracker, a series of straps and buckles exploded on the side of Frank's bag. Frank staggered near the edge, leaning heavily on one foot to stop himself from going over. The backpack didn't have any limbs to use. I found myself rising to my knee, desperately watching the scene unfold. The bag bounced once off the edge of the roof and rolled off. With a lurch, the strap connecting the wand snapped and Frank windmilled his arms, nose over the neatly mowed lawn below. The bag fell past the window, the hose whipping wildly behind it and spraying drops of shimmering liquid. A tiny tongue of flame leapt out and jumped on the trailing hose and then a split second later, the bag hit the ground with a wet smack. Stitches burst and seams popped. Then with a sudden whoosh, a small mushroom cloud of flame leapt up towards the still burning gutter. Frank screamed and hurled himself backwards, landing right beside the firefighter stuck in the roof. There was a hideous crack and both Frank and the firefighter disappeared in a shower of sparks and sawdust. The flames from the window billowed out briefly and combined with the now burning lawn and front wall to jump the tongue of flame 6 feet over was was once an ornamented gutter. I moaned and collapsed back to my seated position again. "He's my brother." I knuckled my forehead into my hands as the squat man sprinted away and screamed into his radios. "That's my brother Frank."	The men on the radio went wild with news of a bushfire. It began late in the day. They seemed unable to stop talking, station after station, deep into the night - bulletins, announcements, news specials. Every station was on alert for news on the conflagration. Announcers sounded close to insanity, their voice levels soaring. Fire watch. Chinooks. South-Easterlies. These men had never in their lives reported stories so full of documentation. It was headed toward this place and that place. It was drifting across expressways and interchanges. Their voices nearly cracked with unprecedented mad lyricism as they gave their authoritative reports. It was a real fire and it was headed my way, at this identifiable point in time. I picked up my flamethrower – Time to give it a taste of its own medicine.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	12/5/23 Journal of Tim "Giant" Cobber Its been 6 years since the virus. It felt like only yesterday when I buried my family in the garden. Dave and Bob both lived, the virus didn't seam to effect animals. if only Sue was still here, she was good at biology and even better with kids. I've tried my best to take in any many as I can. It was hard work at first but they're all getting older now, learning to take care if them selfs. They may not even need me for much longer but for now I'll just stay as "Giant" for as long as I can. That nickname over a few inches of height. I can hear them outside, ethier bickering or arguing again but I guess puberty can do that to you. That's about the most of my worries really. The apocalypse isn't as stressful as I thought. No monsters, no people trying to kill you for food, some sorces of electricity work, and seeing as anyone who contracted the virus died it didn't spread. Now that I think about it, it may not have been and ethiertly bad thing. I miss everyone, I miss my old life but I have bigger worries. Them. They're is what is going to keep humanity going and if I teach them right maybe they'll get a better life. But like I said I won't be their "giant" for much longer.	After realizing I was the last adult left I headed to the nearest gun and ammo supply store. Fearing for the inevitable future of caring for all these damn children a single solution arises, a final solution, PULL. THE. TRIGGER. So I do. Blood was everywhere. "How could I have missed?" I thought. With the last bit of will I had I reload, cursing the children a final time before never having to see them again. click, bang. Darkness envelops me. My final thought, "freedom..." They're alone now. Good luck kids.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	At first I thought I was alone; the last human on earth, like in that Twilight Zone episode. It's not uncommon to be the only one on the road near my house, but once I reached the first major intersection I began to grow suspicious. Every red light I stopped at, there was no oncoming traffic. I decided to drive the whole way to work, just in case. When I was greeted by an empty warehouse, my suspicions were confirmed. I wasted no time driving back. I broke every traffic law I could; who was going to stop me? I made a detour for a supermarket, threw a rock at the glass door, and grabbed as much food as I could carry while trying to protect my ears from the deafening alarm with my shoulders. I raced home, for no particular reason. Nothing was going anywhere. As I neared my house, I saw two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the yard of a house around the corner from mine. It looked like they were just as surprised to see me as I was. I no longer was the "last human on earth". I waved at them then drove past, making a note to keep an eye out for any adults living in that house. I checked reddit, along with some of my favorite news feeds. Not a single post was newer than 6:00 AM today. I found my binoculars and went to a window facing the neighbor's house. Something felt really wrong about spying on children, but they could be the only other people left for all I knew. They had moved on from playing with their toys and were now playing some handheld video game. After a while, the boy went inside and the girl pulled a bicycle out of the garage. She started peddling in the direction of my house. I didn't want her to see me watching them, so I left the window and hid inside the kitchen. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. I ignored it, hoping that she hadn't seen me park my car and was just trying random houses. She started mashing the doorbell non-stop. No such luck. I opened the door and asked, "Can I help you?" "I need to go to a friend's house," she said. "Okay..." I give her a quizzical look. "Then go." "It's too far. I need you to drive me." "No way," I replied. Even if we were the only three people left on the face of the earth, I wasn't going to do anything that could be misconstrued for kidnapping. "It's important," she rebuked. "Why don't you just bike there?" I asked. "There are no cars on the roads." "Mommy and Daddy won't let me bike on the busy roads," she replied simply. "Where are your parents now?" I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. "Gone." She didn't elaborate. "Well, then, I think you can bike there, if you really want to go," I said, not wanting to tell her what happened but hoping she'd get the hint. She gave me puppy-dog eyes. "I can't waste time driving you around, I need to find other people." "There are other people there," she exclaimed. "Lots of people!" I looked at her skeptically. "I'm telling the truth, I swear!" I sighed and locked the door behind me. "You better be," I said, as I walked to the garage and keyed in the entry code. We both quickly hopped in and I started the car. Some pretty explicit lyrics started to blare out the speakers, so I quickly changed the music to MC Frontalot and backed out of the driveway. I could see why she didn't want to bike. I'd been driving for ten minutes and hadn't arrived yet. I took a quick glance at the girl; she was playing a familiar handheld game. I saw it before, on a flight back from a business trip, a boy in the seat in front of me was playing the same game. I don't know why, but something about it was curious. I tried to find out what game it was by searching for a description of it, but I had no success. "What game is that?" I blurted out before realizing that I actually cared. "It's not a game," she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. "Turn here." I quickly looked back at the road and noticed I was about to pass a subdivision entrance. I slammed on the breaks and turned in. The girl guided me towards her friend's house. I pulled into a driveway of a house that had a large number of bikes laying on the front yard. She quickly ran up to the front door. "Wait up," I called out after her as I entered behind her. Inside were fifteen or twenty children, some the girl's age but most slightly older. They all looked at me with wide eyes. "Where are your parents?" I asked. One boy stepped out in front of the others, still with the wide-eyed look that they all had. "Told ya," the girl said while looking at the other boy. The boy lowered his glance from me and looked at the girl. "Crap," he said flatly. "We missed one."	After realizing I was the last adult left I headed to the nearest gun and ammo supply store. Fearing for the inevitable future of caring for all these damn children a single solution arises, a final solution, PULL. THE. TRIGGER. So I do. Blood was everywhere. "How could I have missed?" I thought. With the last bit of will I had I reload, cursing the children a final time before never having to see them again. click, bang. Darkness envelops me. My final thought, "freedom..." They're alone now. Good luck kids.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	I woke up to shouting. I glanced at my watch and moaned. It was 6:00am. Despite living in their territory for three years now, I never understood why these kids insisted on waking up so early. I unzipped my tent and stepped out onto the street. There were about twenty kids in total, fifteen on one side and five on the other. I sighed and started to make my way across the block before anyone got too hurt. They were just throwing rocks for now, but I knew how quickly it could escalate. Despite the fact that there were no adults to set the rules, the children seemed to have a subconscious respect for age and height. Even the leaders of their groups tended to be the oldest ones in the area. Suddenly, a tiny figure emerged from the side with five children. It was a little blonde girl, not more than four years old. She pulled something out of her tattered coat pocket and I saw it the morning light reflect off of it. It was a kitchen knife. She began running. I did as well. She jumped on the biggest boy on the opposing side. She seemed to be trying to grab at something in his pocket with one hand while wildly swinging the knife with the other. When I reached the crowd of kids, they stopped throwing rocks. The one little blonde girl continued her attack. I picked her up with one arm and pulled her off the big kid she was attacking. He nodded his thanks. "No!" she cried. "No, no! That's mine! I want it!" She squirmed out of my arm and reached into the big kid's pocket. Her hands closed around her prize and she smiled gleefully. I put her over my shoulder and carried her away. I sat her down on a nearby bench and knelt down to eye level. "You can't hit people with knives," I explained. "You could have really hurt that kid. Do you understand?" She nodded still smiling at her closed hands, engrossed in the fact that she had gotten what she wanted. "What was it about anyways?" I asked. "Was it food? There are plenty of edible things in the woods. It isn't far from here. I can show you if you want. I just don't want you to hurt people." "Not food," she replied. I put my head in my hands. "If this is another fight about a toy I'm literally going to give up on these kids. Just let them have it out," I thought. She opened her hands to show me what she had. It was an old crumpled photo of a couple holding their newborn baby. "Parents," she explained. I looked at the couple photo and then I looked at her. There was absolutely no resemblance. "Are these your parents?" I asked her. She ignored my question. She just smiled, her lower lip trembling slightly as she cradled the photo, mimicking the couple in the picture cradling the baby.	After realizing I was the last adult left I headed to the nearest gun and ammo supply store. Fearing for the inevitable future of caring for all these damn children a single solution arises, a final solution, PULL. THE. TRIGGER. So I do. Blood was everywhere. "How could I have missed?" I thought. With the last bit of will I had I reload, cursing the children a final time before never having to see them again. click, bang. Darkness envelops me. My final thought, "freedom..." They're alone now. Good luck kids.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	At first I thought I was alone; the last human on earth, like in that Twilight Zone episode. It's not uncommon to be the only one on the road near my house, but once I reached the first major intersection I began to grow suspicious. Every red light I stopped at, there was no oncoming traffic. I decided to drive the whole way to work, just in case. When I was greeted by an empty warehouse, my suspicions were confirmed. I wasted no time driving back. I broke every traffic law I could; who was going to stop me? I made a detour for a supermarket, threw a rock at the glass door, and grabbed as much food as I could carry while trying to protect my ears from the deafening alarm with my shoulders. I raced home, for no particular reason. Nothing was going anywhere. As I neared my house, I saw two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the yard of a house around the corner from mine. It looked like they were just as surprised to see me as I was. I no longer was the "last human on earth". I waved at them then drove past, making a note to keep an eye out for any adults living in that house. I checked reddit, along with some of my favorite news feeds. Not a single post was newer than 6:00 AM today. I found my binoculars and went to a window facing the neighbor's house. Something felt really wrong about spying on children, but they could be the only other people left for all I knew. They had moved on from playing with their toys and were now playing some handheld video game. After a while, the boy went inside and the girl pulled a bicycle out of the garage. She started peddling in the direction of my house. I didn't want her to see me watching them, so I left the window and hid inside the kitchen. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. I ignored it, hoping that she hadn't seen me park my car and was just trying random houses. She started mashing the doorbell non-stop. No such luck. I opened the door and asked, "Can I help you?" "I need to go to a friend's house," she said. "Okay..." I give her a quizzical look. "Then go." "It's too far. I need you to drive me." "No way," I replied. Even if we were the only three people left on the face of the earth, I wasn't going to do anything that could be misconstrued for kidnapping. "It's important," she rebuked. "Why don't you just bike there?" I asked. "There are no cars on the roads." "Mommy and Daddy won't let me bike on the busy roads," she replied simply. "Where are your parents now?" I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. "Gone." She didn't elaborate. "Well, then, I think you can bike there, if you really want to go," I said, not wanting to tell her what happened but hoping she'd get the hint. She gave me puppy-dog eyes. "I can't waste time driving you around, I need to find other people." "There are other people there," she exclaimed. "Lots of people!" I looked at her skeptically. "I'm telling the truth, I swear!" I sighed and locked the door behind me. "You better be," I said, as I walked to the garage and keyed in the entry code. We both quickly hopped in and I started the car. Some pretty explicit lyrics started to blare out the speakers, so I quickly changed the music to MC Frontalot and backed out of the driveway. I could see why she didn't want to bike. I'd been driving for ten minutes and hadn't arrived yet. I took a quick glance at the girl; she was playing a familiar handheld game. I saw it before, on a flight back from a business trip, a boy in the seat in front of me was playing the same game. I don't know why, but something about it was curious. I tried to find out what game it was by searching for a description of it, but I had no success. "What game is that?" I blurted out before realizing that I actually cared. "It's not a game," she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. "Turn here." I quickly looked back at the road and noticed I was about to pass a subdivision entrance. I slammed on the breaks and turned in. The girl guided me towards her friend's house. I pulled into a driveway of a house that had a large number of bikes laying on the front yard. She quickly ran up to the front door. "Wait up," I called out after her as I entered behind her. Inside were fifteen or twenty children, some the girl's age but most slightly older. They all looked at me with wide eyes. "Where are your parents?" I asked. One boy stepped out in front of the others, still with the wide-eyed look that they all had. "Told ya," the girl said while looking at the other boy. The boy lowered his glance from me and looked at the girl. "Crap," he said flatly. "We missed one."	12/5/23 Journal of Tim "Giant" Cobber Its been 6 years since the virus. It felt like only yesterday when I buried my family in the garden. Dave and Bob both lived, the virus didn't seam to effect animals. if only Sue was still here, she was good at biology and even better with kids. I've tried my best to take in any many as I can. It was hard work at first but they're all getting older now, learning to take care if them selfs. They may not even need me for much longer but for now I'll just stay as "Giant" for as long as I can. That nickname over a few inches of height. I can hear them outside, ethier bickering or arguing again but I guess puberty can do that to you. That's about the most of my worries really. The apocalypse isn't as stressful as I thought. No monsters, no people trying to kill you for food, some sorces of electricity work, and seeing as anyone who contracted the virus died it didn't spread. Now that I think about it, it may not have been and ethiertly bad thing. I miss everyone, I miss my old life but I have bigger worries. Them. They're is what is going to keep humanity going and if I teach them right maybe they'll get a better life. But like I said I won't be their "giant" for much longer.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	I woke up to shouting. I glanced at my watch and moaned. It was 6:00am. Despite living in their territory for three years now, I never understood why these kids insisted on waking up so early. I unzipped my tent and stepped out onto the street. There were about twenty kids in total, fifteen on one side and five on the other. I sighed and started to make my way across the block before anyone got too hurt. They were just throwing rocks for now, but I knew how quickly it could escalate. Despite the fact that there were no adults to set the rules, the children seemed to have a subconscious respect for age and height. Even the leaders of their groups tended to be the oldest ones in the area. Suddenly, a tiny figure emerged from the side with five children. It was a little blonde girl, not more than four years old. She pulled something out of her tattered coat pocket and I saw it the morning light reflect off of it. It was a kitchen knife. She began running. I did as well. She jumped on the biggest boy on the opposing side. She seemed to be trying to grab at something in his pocket with one hand while wildly swinging the knife with the other. When I reached the crowd of kids, they stopped throwing rocks. The one little blonde girl continued her attack. I picked her up with one arm and pulled her off the big kid she was attacking. He nodded his thanks. "No!" she cried. "No, no! That's mine! I want it!" She squirmed out of my arm and reached into the big kid's pocket. Her hands closed around her prize and she smiled gleefully. I put her over my shoulder and carried her away. I sat her down on a nearby bench and knelt down to eye level. "You can't hit people with knives," I explained. "You could have really hurt that kid. Do you understand?" She nodded still smiling at her closed hands, engrossed in the fact that she had gotten what she wanted. "What was it about anyways?" I asked. "Was it food? There are plenty of edible things in the woods. It isn't far from here. I can show you if you want. I just don't want you to hurt people." "Not food," she replied. I put my head in my hands. "If this is another fight about a toy I'm literally going to give up on these kids. Just let them have it out," I thought. She opened her hands to show me what she had. It was an old crumpled photo of a couple holding their newborn baby. "Parents," she explained. I looked at the couple photo and then I looked at her. There was absolutely no resemblance. "Are these your parents?" I asked her. She ignored my question. She just smiled, her lower lip trembling slightly as she cradled the photo, mimicking the couple in the picture cradling the baby.	12/5/23 Journal of Tim "Giant" Cobber Its been 6 years since the virus. It felt like only yesterday when I buried my family in the garden. Dave and Bob both lived, the virus didn't seam to effect animals. if only Sue was still here, she was good at biology and even better with kids. I've tried my best to take in any many as I can. It was hard work at first but they're all getting older now, learning to take care if them selfs. They may not even need me for much longer but for now I'll just stay as "Giant" for as long as I can. That nickname over a few inches of height. I can hear them outside, ethier bickering or arguing again but I guess puberty can do that to you. That's about the most of my worries really. The apocalypse isn't as stressful as I thought. No monsters, no people trying to kill you for food, some sorces of electricity work, and seeing as anyone who contracted the virus died it didn't spread. Now that I think about it, it may not have been and ethiertly bad thing. I miss everyone, I miss my old life but I have bigger worries. Them. They're is what is going to keep humanity going and if I teach them right maybe they'll get a better life. But like I said I won't be their "giant" for much longer.
	[WP] A virus has swept the world killing everyone over the age of 10. Except you. You are now the only adult in a world full of kids.	People always say growing up is something you want to avoid. The prospect of getting older scares people, it edges us closer and closer to death, it's a slow, creeping death sentence. Four months ago, that death sentence stopped being slow. I suppose if there was enough time, the scientists of the world would have named this virus, but they didn't really get the chance for that. So, I call it the Puberty Virus. Yeah, laugh it up. It does sort of fit though, this nasty virus hit a very select yet broad demographic, anyone over the physical age of 10. In a matter of days, the world governments had completely collapsed, nobody remotely grown up was spared. Well, save for me. I am the only 19 year old left on the planet Earth it would seem, at least I haven't heard from anybody remotely near my age. It's weird, one morning I just woke up to see every single person on campus lying lifeless on the floor. By some miracle a lot of areas still have power, it seems that the world is operating on a "if it ain't broke, pray to god it won't brake" system. Anything remotely self sufficient still can carry on, as long as nothing bad happens. I lived on the campus for a while, before the overwhelming smell of decay became too much. I gathered up supplies from there, before finally managing to find the hippie art professor's van keys. My last day on campus was spent siphoning gas from as many cars I could and loading up my gas before driving off. I ran into my first Garden a few weeks after I headed out. Of course I would attract attention, I was the only car they'd seen in weeks. Gardens are groups of kids, roaming together or settling in their own communities. They hailed me down with a barrage of water balloons and screams. Their leader's name was "Jeffy", the oldest child by two and a half months, he was only a month away from being eleven. The kids rallied behind him, praising his skills at T-Ball as I walked around their elementary school. It seemed that the virus had hit when they were at school, I could only imagine how rough that had been for them. Despite that, the kids all seemed relatively okay mentally, save for a few quiet ones off in the corner. I wound up cooking them dinner that night, their head cook "Daisy" had run out of peanut butter and thus her main dish. In their eyes, I must have been like some sort of guardian angel, a grown up in a world where those just didn't come by anymore. I stayed with the Harlow Elementary Garden for about three weeks, before heading off. I of course in that time taught them as much as I could on how to be self sufficient, giving them what shitty knowledge I had on growing stuff from Bio 101. I have no idea if they made it, if they're still okay. I hope they are though. Wandering aimlessly wasn't my goal when I set out on my big road trip, I knew exactly where I was going. Seattle. My home town. I had gone to university in Virginia, I got a full ride there, and now I was unable to fly home. I knew my little sister was still out there, she was only eight when I left home a year ago. I may not have much of a family anymore, but I do have her. So, I mapped out a cross country road trip. It has been four months, and I still haven't made it all the way to my destination. I get sidetracked far too often, some deep, innate part of me needs to help these kids out. By my count, I've helped four Gardens, and established two, but I still don't know if what I'm doing makes any difference. A responsible person would stay, but I can't. I've got my own path, one I need to go on. I was driving down a small city street when I heard the most sickening sound I could imagine- a tire blowing. I instantly stopped the van, cursing loudly as I hopped out. I had been expecting some broken piece of pavement, but instead saw what looked like a strip of nails. Sighing at my own lack of perception when driving, I went to the back of my van to pull out the spare tire. "Damn kids..." I muttered as I rolled the tire out. Some Gardens were not very nice, it was like living in that book 'The Lord of the Flies'. Surely the kids would freak out and run the other way when they realized they screwed with a grown up. I turned around once getting my tire out, only to be met with a gun being pointed at me. The gun wasn't the surprising part, I've grown used to seeing children toting them these days as some sick self protection. What was surprising was that this gun was on eye level to me. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the wielder, a woman- not a girl- a woman. Her auburn hair was tied in a pony tail, her face was smudged with grime. Her eyes shined with a fierce determination. There was no way this was a ten year old, no way in hell. She was 16 at the youngest. "H-how?" I stammer, raising my hands as a sign of meaning no harm. "I've been hearin' about you, that grown up who's been wanderin' around helping kids, right?" she asked, her southern drawl fitting more for Tennessee than where we were now. "Yeah, that's, that's me. Are you uh, an adult?" I ask, still disoriented. "Seventeen, turning eighteen in a few weeks. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is you fixing your mistakes." she said grimly. "My... mistakes?" I asked, tensing up. "Those little fuckin' monsters from Harlow!" she said harshly. "Wh-what...?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Very awesome prompt! I enjoyed writing it! If you liked the story and want to see more from me, feel free to check out /r/KairuofWriting !	All I see are children. Crying, screaming, holding the bodies of their loved ones. Then it hits me, I am the only adult left. At 36 years old, I am the oldest person alive and I have to help these kids. For a long time I will be the Savior of a bunch of snot nosed pricks. So I kill myself.
	[WP] Gravity is suddenly inverted. Anyone or anything not inside a solid building at the moment of the gravity switch is falling to their death into the vast hole that once was the sky.	As the gravimeter dropped down to zero, you knew it was already too late. For a spinning planet, zero gravity may as well be no gravity. With no gravity to hold it together, the Earth's equator bulged out into space, taking its atmosphere with it. For the first few moments, the air was still breathable, it hadn't yet lost its pressure. But it wasn't long before the atmosphere dispersed into a vacuum. Those few who prepared for the Terran Gravitational Anomaly stayed in their bunkerships on the North Pole, and prepared for rocket motor ignition. Space travel is fairly easy without gravity at least, but Mars is hardly a replacement for Earth. Watching the molten rock and dust fly out into space was absolutely tragic. So many species of life extinguished. The Seed Vault was probably still intact somewhere out in the rubble, but it would be irrecoverable. Centuries later, all that would be left of the Earth would be a ring of rocky debris orbiting the Sun, and two small Moon-sized spheres: The Moon itself, which had been launched into a Venus and Mars crossing trajectory, and the remnant core of the Earth, a huge and now rapidly cooling sphere of Iron and Nickel. The Solar System's new large asteroid belt was far, far more massive, and unstable. Several chunks were visible to the naked eye on a good night. The Moon, now exclusively called Luna, tore through the belt as it went, and each time Luna flew close by Mars, astronomers would chart its new craters. Many would still be molten and glowing. Due to a lot of luck, Luna would rarely cross the orbit of Mars dangerously. The seeds and embryos packed on the bunkerships were enough to start a terraforming process. Global warming is humankind's specialty. Only 200 years (Martian Years) after Mars was first colonized, it entered its own anthropocene era. Over the centuries, Luna's orbit had evened out and placed itself just above the former orbit of the Earth. Astronomers knew this would be unstable over large timescales, but there wasn't really anything to be done about it anyway. Earth's core, renamed simply "Iron," was also gaining impacts as it charged through the debris cloud. Iron's higher density made it more massive than Luna, and it happily flung chunks out in every which way. Most of these would miss Mars and tended to hit the new most massive terrestrial planet of Venus. Astronomers panicked when they found an absolutely massive chunk of Earth heading towards Mars. This was an object large enough to be spherical in its own right. Through careful shots of lasers and nuclear detonation, the asteroid was deflected enough that it would simply fall back down and come back a few centuries later. A series of massive impacts on Luna shifted its orbit slightly, enough to put it in a dangerous resonance with Venus. Luna's orbit was now more difficult to predict, but astronomers insisted it was safe for the time being. 2,022 years after the event that destroyed the Earth, Luna passed, for a short few minutes, within the roche limit of Venus. This shifted Venus' orbit and made it eccentric and inclined, further complicating mathematics. Luna was also affected by the encounter. It was now covered in volcanoes from the stressful few minutes it was near Venus. It was also moved down in its orbit to be dangerously close to Venus. Iron meanwhile was also occasionally affected by Lunar flybys. It went outwards as Luna went inwards, and it found itself in a resonance with Mars. This would be far more catastrophic for the latter, as the masses of Iron and Mars were much more similar than Luna and Venus. Astronomers facepalmed as they calculated Iron's new trajectory. Iron was now headed for the outer solar system, by way of Mars. Mars would be shifted inwards. At first this wouldn't have been so bad, as it would allow more sun and less cold. Unfortunately the inward orbit was still full of debris. Within a decade of repeated flybys with Iron (that would also disrupt the satellites of Mars!) Mars would be in danger. The final flyby allowed citizens of Mars to see their planetary murderer. It was bruised in its own right, having taken the brunt of the impacts so far. It was already 10% more massive than it had been when Earth was first dismantled ^^[hah! get it?]. Iron passed Mars and flew out the other direction, spewing cursewords at it. Only 3,200 years after the Martian Antropocene, a new era began: The Martian Hadean era. Mars was very quickly made uninhabitable due to repeated impacts. Now the dominant force within the new asteroid belt, it gobbled up the remainder of the Earth within only a million years. The new planet had come full circle. It was now called Theia, after the object which formed the Earth and Moon system billions of years ago. Iron's fate was sealed the moment it left for the outer solar system. Repeated flybys of Jupiter led to its capture into orbit, causing it to fall back down towards the inner Jovian system where it became Jupiter's fifth large moon. This was also unstable over long periods of time, and would cause the cascade destruction of Jupiter's moons. New ones would later form. Luna eventually collided with Venus, stripping it of its atmosphere. Over a billion years (Venusian Years) after Earth was destroyed, Venus cooled down to the temperature Earth had in the past. With a new thinner atmosphere, it wasn't as hot as it had been before. Liquid water oceans flowed back onto the planet, and the final leftover meteor fell upon its surface: The Svalbard Seed Vault.	{'There are so many things that would not work in this story.' The prompt did say the sky and not space so if you want to suspend disbelief then you can imagine that gravitational field vectors are being flipped for anything that isn't in a solid phase. Buildings are still standing, so you would probably be fine if you stood on the ground but as soon as you slipped and/or took both feet off of the ground then you would fall.} You're inside a building when it flips, you don't immediately fall to the ceiling. Unfortunate people walking around outside and the leaves falling from trees are accelerating into the sky until they begin to bob in the top layers of the atmosphere. -Oh; this probably has an impact on the greenhouse effect. Anyway, the earths atmosphere has somehow become buoyancy-inducing to any solid (or liquid or solid-crystal) which isn't in physical (electrostatic) contact with the rest of the Earth. -Oh; this also might interact strangely with the water cycle and how liquid water droplets in clouds would normally float before. I guess that if you hit the roof of a building then you could slide down a wall to get back to the floor (or you could try jumping on the roof if you're not worried about it breaking.) {I hope that this is enough of a story to be an acceptable top-level comment, even if it is nothing of a narrative.}
	[WP] Gravity is suddenly inverted. Anyone or anything not inside a solid building at the moment of the gravity switch is falling to their death into the vast hole that once was the sky.	I was in the garden when it happened. One moment I'm watering the flowerpots, the next I'm frantically holding onto the hose pipe as my world turns upside down. Literally. Unfortunately, I'm not a strong man, and my grip slid on the hose, sending me plummeting into the sky. As I fell, or perhaps flew, my floral display fell with me. The strangest thing was the geraniums, slipping past with a muttered utterance; "Not again."	{'There are so many things that would not work in this story.' The prompt did say the sky and not space so if you want to suspend disbelief then you can imagine that gravitational field vectors are being flipped for anything that isn't in a solid phase. Buildings are still standing, so you would probably be fine if you stood on the ground but as soon as you slipped and/or took both feet off of the ground then you would fall.} You're inside a building when it flips, you don't immediately fall to the ceiling. Unfortunate people walking around outside and the leaves falling from trees are accelerating into the sky until they begin to bob in the top layers of the atmosphere. -Oh; this probably has an impact on the greenhouse effect. Anyway, the earths atmosphere has somehow become buoyancy-inducing to any solid (or liquid or solid-crystal) which isn't in physical (electrostatic) contact with the rest of the Earth. -Oh; this also might interact strangely with the water cycle and how liquid water droplets in clouds would normally float before. I guess that if you hit the roof of a building then you could slide down a wall to get back to the floor (or you could try jumping on the roof if you're not worried about it breaking.) {I hope that this is enough of a story to be an acceptable top-level comment, even if it is nothing of a narrative.}
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	"Depression? One punch and he was out. "Anxiety? I curb-stomped him like there was no tomorrow. "My good ol' pal Self-Doubt? Smothered him out with a pillow. "Not to toot my own horn, but I have conquered all. I have seen all, I have felt all. "All negative emotions, all of my demons—dead. I was born with a certain affinity to self-evaluation and self-improvement. "I don't know how I did it, or why. But I guess it just comes natural to people like me. "I guess that's what got me through in life with ease. I see all these people fighting with their inner demons on the TV or in the local stadium. It's always this big fight with lumbering giants, and it's always such a big deal that one of them will die. Sounds really fun. I'd envy them, you know, but I killed Envy long ago; I snapped its neck like it was a twig. "Honestly, I can say with a doubt that I am—" "I wouldn't be too sure about that." The interviewer interrupted. "Why's that?" I cut in dryly. She pointed over to the window of my booth, it looked over the arena. In the middle of the ring sat a hulking mass of muscle, sitting there like a dormant beast. "Is that what think it is..." My voice quivered; which is odd, because I killed Fear eons ago. "Yes. That's Ego over there, waiting for you."	I think the biggest shock was the size. After years of being twisted and controlled by it, I had always assumed it would be this massive beast when we faced each other. Not a small animal hiding in the corner. I hefted my sword, staring as it cowered. For a monster formed from my rage, it seemed so meek and scared, as if it didn't wish to fight me. I knew better though, it hated me. It lived to torment me. And now I had a chance to end it. No mercy. The fight was fast. Brutal. I cut it down before it even had a chance to retaliate. It was...liberating. Like shackles that had been holding me down for years had finally been taken off. I gazed up at the sky, and smiled. I was ready to finally start my life free of my rage. The door to the arena opened then, and a man with a gun walked in, "Another young prospect killed by their demons I see." "I won though," I said, gesturing at the corpse. The man stared at me, and aimed his gun towards my head. "I'm so sorry. It seems your demons had a greater hold on you than you realized." "What are you talking about? I killed it." I pointed at the corpse another time, this time turning to see it was actually dead. That's when I saw it. The twisted, destroyed body looked familiar. Shockingly familiar. I let a gasp out as realization hit me. I was looking at myself. Dead and mangled by vicious claws. A quick glance at my hands showed that they were long and pointed, drenched in blood. I turned back to the man, "No. There must be some mistake. Please, this has to be all wrong." The man shook his head, "No mistake. Sometimes this happens. We don't realize how deep of a hold on us our demons have till we come here, and realize they're more us than we are. It's uncommon, but it sadly means I can't let you leave. Raw emotion like you can't walk the streets." He fingered the trigger of the gun, clearly ready to fire. "No. Please. Can't we re..." I was cut short as the gun fired, the pain of the bullet tearing through my brain the second to last thing I felt. As I fell to the floor, my mind was twisted apart. Not by the bullet, but by unimaginable rage. Guess my demons won after all.
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	"Depression? One punch and he was out. "Anxiety? I curb-stomped him like there was no tomorrow. "My good ol' pal Self-Doubt? Smothered him out with a pillow. "Not to toot my own horn, but I have conquered all. I have seen all, I have felt all. "All negative emotions, all of my demons—dead. I was born with a certain affinity to self-evaluation and self-improvement. "I don't know how I did it, or why. But I guess it just comes natural to people like me. "I guess that's what got me through in life with ease. I see all these people fighting with their inner demons on the TV or in the local stadium. It's always this big fight with lumbering giants, and it's always such a big deal that one of them will die. Sounds really fun. I'd envy them, you know, but I killed Envy long ago; I snapped its neck like it was a twig. "Honestly, I can say with a doubt that I am—" "I wouldn't be too sure about that." The interviewer interrupted. "Why's that?" I cut in dryly. She pointed over to the window of my booth, it looked over the arena. In the middle of the ring sat a hulking mass of muscle, sitting there like a dormant beast. "Is that what think it is..." My voice quivered; which is odd, because I killed Fear eons ago. "Yes. That's Ego over there, waiting for you."	You have worn yourself out in the gym until your knuckles are raw, you have practiced jabs and left hooks and uppercuts with all the technique of an overweight slob. You have practiced clawing out eyes, going for the genitals. You have a switchblade in your back pocket, because fuck playing fair, right? You're still not entirely comfortable with using a blade, but hey, if you were a competent and functioning human being, you wouldn't be doing this to begin with, right? And your muscles are sore and you think you've pulled something in your right shoulder and you are still, as always, grossly unprepared, but you can't put this off forever. (maybe a part of you wants to lose) So you turn off all the lights and you get down on your knees and you dry heave, expelling it, all of it, and you wait for the slow grey light of something like dawn until you can see again, and there's your opponent standing five feet away from you, silhouetted against the light, shuffling forward uncertainly. It's you. Of course it's you. It's always been you. Why were you ever expecting anything different? But on second glance, maybe it's not you after all. That's your face, true, but the skin is ... diffuse, melting. Maybe it's the grey light, but its edges are blurred, its features stretching out like melted plastic, like a bloated grey carcass half-dissolving in the murky water. And its mouth is moving now, flapping, that uncomfortable alien sound of hearing your own voice played back to you, the words slurring into nonsense, and you think that maybe this won't be as difficult as you imagined. You are on your feet, all thought of technique gone, just charging it at its midsection. It is solid, like flesh, rippling with your weight, and your opposing masses cancel each other out, the two of you toppling to the ground together. Its hand is clawing at your face, its legs threshing the air, and you feel a small moment of panic. You are on top and you bring your fist down on its face, skin splitting open, a semi-solid mass shifting under its cheek. Cold fingers gouge at your eyes and you manage to peel its hand off your face, bending the fingers backwards until they snap. It ripples. It makes a sound like screaming. You've got one hand tangled it its hair, the strands cutting lines into your fingers, and with your other hand you go for its eye sockets, digging in, and something pops. Your fingers are wet. There is a dead wet stench that hangs in the air, clings to the inside of your throat, your nostrils. It stinks like a clogged drain, like dead leaves rotting, (like semen) like a jar of coagulated spit, and you hook on to an eye socket and you pull and the thing stretches. You watch your face scream. You grip down on its hair and its scalp peels off. There's a dull red jelly streaking down underneath. There are teeth. Its fingers claw inside your mouth and you bite down and gag as your throat floods with the dead wet stench, and you are vomiting for real, a rough flake of fingernail clinging to your tongue. You lean forward and collapse into it. It expands. It bursts. It welcomes you in. You are tangled in sloughed-off sheets of skin. You are suffocating. It is vast, vaster than you could ever have imagined, and you are drowning in it. You thrash, seeking purchase, and razor thin wires tighten around your fingers until they bloat and nearly go numb. Somehow, you still have a fist full of its hair. You focus on that, pulling until the tips of your fingers go purple, watching the filaments go tight until you can trace them back to their source. And there it is, your head, your face, seen from the inside-out and still as detestably recognizable. You pull tight, pulling yourself closer. Your fingers are going to pop. Your free hand feels for the knife in your back pocket. Your face rips apart the moment the blade slashes across it, its edges waving ragged like a pillowcase. And you cut and you cut and you cut until the light comes in, until there's the sharp hot smell of blood cutting through the stench, (it doesn't bleed, it doesn't bleed) and you hold on to that thin hot line of pain and you are through, you are back through to the other side. And you have a fistful of its hair and it is bleeding, red blood splashed across it, trickling hot down your arm, and it is writhing and deflated and shriveling up at the salt and it - it is crying It is you, and it is curled up on the floor crying, little gasping hiccups escaping its throat. Its arms are slashed up and it is bleeding from its scalp from where you pulled out a chunk of its hair - the strands are hanging limply, bloody, from your fingers - and it is curled up and waiting to die. And it would be so easy to end this, all you would need to do is slit open its throat and let it bleed out on the floor. It's helpless. It would be a mercy. And it is you, as nasty and as ugly and as hateful as you are, a sagging sack of flesh curled up on the floor. And it's in pain. And that's all it is, it's in pain. You could kill it, you could slit its throat right now. The knife slips from your hands and you crawl over to it and touch it with bloody hands, and it doesn't resist, and it lets you hold it. There is something warm there, underneath the grey melting flesh. You can feel its heart beating. It sags against you, quiets. It is going diffuse, dissipating. You see your hands through its translucent skin. And then it drapes itself over you like a caul, and then it is gone. You can feel it draining back into you, into your skin, into your chest, deep down into the pit of your gut. It goes cold there. It begins to fester. It will lick its wounds and savor the pain, it will rise and fall with tides, it will suck its pain down into an ugly gaping hole and it will re-surge and it will resurface and it will try to swallow you whole. You had your chance, you could have killed it, and instead you let it live. You have started this fight, and now it will not end until one of you is dead. And you will fight it, again and again and again. You will fight it to the death.
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	I sat down beside the configurator, looked at my chart; anxiety: 22, fear: 48, depression: 89. His depression had risen since the death of his mother, and once it goes past 50 it rises incredibly fast. With the introduction of "BattleSenses" you have the option to fight your problems, many of my friends had done it, the results were mixed. My mother had a level 96 anxiety, she fought the damn thing. That thing was enormous, we watched it from the configurator screen, it was 4 meters in height, eyes red as blood, with 4 arms. A true level 90 monster. "Are you going to fight the depression?" my brother asked. "I don't know, I feel my depression is just going to get stronger as the time goes. I don't have a choice!" I said while fiddling with the configurator. I had never fought my problems, I guess I was old fashioned that way. I looked out the window, neo-lights were scattered around the city offering configuration help. They trained you, to become more adjusted to the fight. In my opinion they were just a scam, they just wanted your money. I glanced back at the configurator screen, I hovered the mouse over depression. I clicked, walked to the trans-pod. "If I don't make it, tell father I tried… I god damn tried!". Suddenly I was transported to a white room, the brightness hurt my eyes. I carefully looked around, no monster was present, just a small pocket knife. "That’s weird, where the hell is it, it must be huge; a level 80 depression monster". I waited, it must have been four hours, still no monster. Maybe there was a bug, I thought. Six days passed, no monster arrived. That’s when I figured it out, I picked the knife up, and destroyed the monster. --- Depression defeated ---	You have worn yourself out in the gym until your knuckles are raw, you have practiced jabs and left hooks and uppercuts with all the technique of an overweight slob. You have practiced clawing out eyes, going for the genitals. You have a switchblade in your back pocket, because fuck playing fair, right? You're still not entirely comfortable with using a blade, but hey, if you were a competent and functioning human being, you wouldn't be doing this to begin with, right? And your muscles are sore and you think you've pulled something in your right shoulder and you are still, as always, grossly unprepared, but you can't put this off forever. (maybe a part of you wants to lose) So you turn off all the lights and you get down on your knees and you dry heave, expelling it, all of it, and you wait for the slow grey light of something like dawn until you can see again, and there's your opponent standing five feet away from you, silhouetted against the light, shuffling forward uncertainly. It's you. Of course it's you. It's always been you. Why were you ever expecting anything different? But on second glance, maybe it's not you after all. That's your face, true, but the skin is ... diffuse, melting. Maybe it's the grey light, but its edges are blurred, its features stretching out like melted plastic, like a bloated grey carcass half-dissolving in the murky water. And its mouth is moving now, flapping, that uncomfortable alien sound of hearing your own voice played back to you, the words slurring into nonsense, and you think that maybe this won't be as difficult as you imagined. You are on your feet, all thought of technique gone, just charging it at its midsection. It is solid, like flesh, rippling with your weight, and your opposing masses cancel each other out, the two of you toppling to the ground together. Its hand is clawing at your face, its legs threshing the air, and you feel a small moment of panic. You are on top and you bring your fist down on its face, skin splitting open, a semi-solid mass shifting under its cheek. Cold fingers gouge at your eyes and you manage to peel its hand off your face, bending the fingers backwards until they snap. It ripples. It makes a sound like screaming. You've got one hand tangled it its hair, the strands cutting lines into your fingers, and with your other hand you go for its eye sockets, digging in, and something pops. Your fingers are wet. There is a dead wet stench that hangs in the air, clings to the inside of your throat, your nostrils. It stinks like a clogged drain, like dead leaves rotting, (like semen) like a jar of coagulated spit, and you hook on to an eye socket and you pull and the thing stretches. You watch your face scream. You grip down on its hair and its scalp peels off. There's a dull red jelly streaking down underneath. There are teeth. Its fingers claw inside your mouth and you bite down and gag as your throat floods with the dead wet stench, and you are vomiting for real, a rough flake of fingernail clinging to your tongue. You lean forward and collapse into it. It expands. It bursts. It welcomes you in. You are tangled in sloughed-off sheets of skin. You are suffocating. It is vast, vaster than you could ever have imagined, and you are drowning in it. You thrash, seeking purchase, and razor thin wires tighten around your fingers until they bloat and nearly go numb. Somehow, you still have a fist full of its hair. You focus on that, pulling until the tips of your fingers go purple, watching the filaments go tight until you can trace them back to their source. And there it is, your head, your face, seen from the inside-out and still as detestably recognizable. You pull tight, pulling yourself closer. Your fingers are going to pop. Your free hand feels for the knife in your back pocket. Your face rips apart the moment the blade slashes across it, its edges waving ragged like a pillowcase. And you cut and you cut and you cut until the light comes in, until there's the sharp hot smell of blood cutting through the stench, (it doesn't bleed, it doesn't bleed) and you hold on to that thin hot line of pain and you are through, you are back through to the other side. And you have a fistful of its hair and it is bleeding, red blood splashed across it, trickling hot down your arm, and it is writhing and deflated and shriveling up at the salt and it - it is crying It is you, and it is curled up on the floor crying, little gasping hiccups escaping its throat. Its arms are slashed up and it is bleeding from its scalp from where you pulled out a chunk of its hair - the strands are hanging limply, bloody, from your fingers - and it is curled up and waiting to die. And it would be so easy to end this, all you would need to do is slit open its throat and let it bleed out on the floor. It's helpless. It would be a mercy. And it is you, as nasty and as ugly and as hateful as you are, a sagging sack of flesh curled up on the floor. And it's in pain. And that's all it is, it's in pain. You could kill it, you could slit its throat right now. The knife slips from your hands and you crawl over to it and touch it with bloody hands, and it doesn't resist, and it lets you hold it. There is something warm there, underneath the grey melting flesh. You can feel its heart beating. It sags against you, quiets. It is going diffuse, dissipating. You see your hands through its translucent skin. And then it drapes itself over you like a caul, and then it is gone. You can feel it draining back into you, into your skin, into your chest, deep down into the pit of your gut. It goes cold there. It begins to fester. It will lick its wounds and savor the pain, it will rise and fall with tides, it will suck its pain down into an ugly gaping hole and it will re-surge and it will resurface and it will try to swallow you whole. You had your chance, you could have killed it, and instead you let it live. You have started this fight, and now it will not end until one of you is dead. And you will fight it, again and again and again. You will fight it to the death.
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	“Jared, get your ass over here, ya gotta see this!” That was my boss, Burt Clarkson, and this was the first time he had ever shown any sort of excitement when it came to the poor saps competing in the Psych Pit. Now, the technology for “Deep-Dive Psychological Exploration” has been around for almost 15 years now, started with full-immersion VR tech almost 20 years ago. The tech was adapted to port people into their own sub-conscious minds and physically, at least as physically as the user perceived it, change the way their minds worked. The pioneers of this stuff all went crazy or senile due to accidentally stepping on a memory or having their own worst fears manifest and destroy them. Who knew that allowing people to interact directly with their psyche was a bad idea? If the ethics committees of the 21st century were still around they’d probably have a fit. 12 years ago the programming was reworked using inspiration from those same old VR games to create a mental barrier, allowing people to view their minds and create their own worlds but not directly interact with their brain’s “programming.” 11 years ago the tech was once again updated to allow the negative aspects of a person's psychology to manifest and be interacted with without touching anything else. 10 years ago, Burt cashed in on the tech and opened up the Psych Pit, an arena where contestants could fight their inner demons using modified VR Immersionware hooked up to streaming servers where people could tune in to view the fights and bet on the contestants. Competing was free, winning would directly result in the negative trauma or psychological disorder being purged. Losing turned people into raving lobotomites, vegetables if they were lucky. Yesterday at 3:24 P.M. Burt uttered his first words of excitement, as the first ever diagnosed schizophrenic was about to enter the Pit. “Check out his profile!” Burt handed me the HoloTab. “Zack Mason, Diagnosed at age 16, grew up raised by unsavorys, Ma was into I-Cash extortion and Pa peddled laced somman pills to depressed academics, got them hooked on harder shit like skarps n’ then sold ‘em that too! Got kicked out at age 17 when they got tired of dealing with him and his condition.” I scanned the profile. “He’s still young, 19 years old. Do you think he can handle this?” Burt laughed at my question. “Look kid, you’ve been working here for 2 years now, I expect you to know the answer to that. How many people’ve we wheeled outta here for tryin' to deal with depression? Severe anxiety? You ‘member the kid with the stutter, Jane, trying to get over her old girlfriend?” I remembered Jane very clearly. Her ex had cheated on her with her brother. Poor kid manifested a goddamned vampire-succubus-harpy hybrid thing with 4 twisted arms and 50 of the most fucked up eyes I’d ever seen. Tore her to shreds. She opened her eyes wide when we brought her back, didn’t blink or respond the whole way out. I knew there was no way Zack was going to survive his inner demons, but then again, no one in his position had ever tried. I looked up from the HoloTab through the glass pane and into the Operating Room. The door to the room opened and Zack entered with our resident EMT. It wasn’t regulation for us to have any medical staff on the premise, but the frequency of incidents made it more convenient. Zack himself was a skinny looking guy, longish black hair, a psychotic and nervous look in his eyes, he had a couple of twitches and ticks, and kept looking around, almost as if he was afraid someone was going to jump out of the walls. Right then and there I was certain that his brain would liquefy in the machine. EMT hooked him up to the Immersionware, strapped him down to the table, and gave Burt the go ahead to port Zack in. “Alright, you know the drill Jare, get the stream goin’. Record it too, Randolph down at the psych clinic’ll have my ass if I let this happen without some data gettin’ saved.” I did my job and connected the server to the net, set up the stream, and started the recording. I looked at the monitor and saw Burt move the virtual camera around, getting a good shot of Zack. Immediately I knew things were off. Normally in a psych-dive, people end up in locations that they have been in before, memories cropping up to fill in an empty space. The more creative types set up their own impressions of what the inside of their heads look like in their imaginations, sometimes they look like giant digital rooms with circuits everywhere, other times they look like trees of branching neurons with memory pods growing at the ends. Worst case they just imagine a nightmarish hellscape. Zack was standing in complete darkness. Worse still, his demeanor was completely calm, and he was smiling. “Burt, have you ever seen anything like this?” “Kid, I’ve seen a lot of shit, nothing is new to me. Literally, this nothingness is brand-fuckin’-new to me!” I kept watching, and saw something creeping out from behind Zack. To my surprise, to my horror, it was another Zack, nervous as we had seen him when he walked in, ticks and all. He went up to the calmer version of himself and started talking. “S-so, here I am.. I g-guess. We d-did it, now we c-can talk, right? We c-can f-fix us, right Zeke?” It became a little clearer to me at that point. He had probably been hearing voices in his head, named one of them Zeke. Zeke did not immediately respond though, just smiled a little wider. His teeth became exposed, sharp, all of them. This wasn’t going to end well. “Z-zeke? That’s you, r-right?” Zeke turned to face Zack and in a single motion raised his arms, stuck his hands in Zack’s mouth, and tore his bottom jaw clean off. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!” I heard Burt yell out next to me. It only got worse from there. Zeke tossed the jaw aside as Zack keeled over gurgling and choking on the loose tissue at the top of his mangled throat. Zeke moved forward, placed his hands on Zack’s shoulders, and thrust his knee straight into Zack’s chest cavity. A very large and pronounced bulge appeared on Zack’s back, and Zeke tossed him to the floor. Zeke then raised his foot up, and brought it down on Zack’s head. Melons and coconuts will be out of my diet for a couple of days. It was at that moment that the server cut out, disconnected from the user, Zack. Usually that meant that the user had become a complete vegetable. “Fuckin’ shit. I thought I’d be used to this job after a fuckin’ decade. This is not what I was lookin’ to see when I got my ass outta bed today.” “Come on Burt, didn’t Jane get it significantly worse than this guy?” “Yeah, but you expect that from a 12 foot fuckin’ nightmare! This kid’s inner demon was basically himself, and it lured him here to murder him. That shit goes beyond just Immersionware.” I knew where he was coming from. It sounded like Zack didn’t want to be there, more like Zeke had convinced him to come. We’d never heard of that ever happening before. There’s a first time for everything though. “Wait… What the… Jared, look at that…” I looked into the Operation Room and saw the EMT unstrapping Zack from the table. He was not only conscious, but calm, controlled, and smiling slightly. With that the EMT led him out of the room. “Burt… what did we just witness?” “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to fucking believe, and I need to take the rest of the day off. Close the shop, postpone our appointments, and go home. If you need me, I’ll be down at the pub relapsing.”	You have worn yourself out in the gym until your knuckles are raw, you have practiced jabs and left hooks and uppercuts with all the technique of an overweight slob. You have practiced clawing out eyes, going for the genitals. You have a switchblade in your back pocket, because fuck playing fair, right? You're still not entirely comfortable with using a blade, but hey, if you were a competent and functioning human being, you wouldn't be doing this to begin with, right? And your muscles are sore and you think you've pulled something in your right shoulder and you are still, as always, grossly unprepared, but you can't put this off forever. (maybe a part of you wants to lose) So you turn off all the lights and you get down on your knees and you dry heave, expelling it, all of it, and you wait for the slow grey light of something like dawn until you can see again, and there's your opponent standing five feet away from you, silhouetted against the light, shuffling forward uncertainly. It's you. Of course it's you. It's always been you. Why were you ever expecting anything different? But on second glance, maybe it's not you after all. That's your face, true, but the skin is ... diffuse, melting. Maybe it's the grey light, but its edges are blurred, its features stretching out like melted plastic, like a bloated grey carcass half-dissolving in the murky water. And its mouth is moving now, flapping, that uncomfortable alien sound of hearing your own voice played back to you, the words slurring into nonsense, and you think that maybe this won't be as difficult as you imagined. You are on your feet, all thought of technique gone, just charging it at its midsection. It is solid, like flesh, rippling with your weight, and your opposing masses cancel each other out, the two of you toppling to the ground together. Its hand is clawing at your face, its legs threshing the air, and you feel a small moment of panic. You are on top and you bring your fist down on its face, skin splitting open, a semi-solid mass shifting under its cheek. Cold fingers gouge at your eyes and you manage to peel its hand off your face, bending the fingers backwards until they snap. It ripples. It makes a sound like screaming. You've got one hand tangled it its hair, the strands cutting lines into your fingers, and with your other hand you go for its eye sockets, digging in, and something pops. Your fingers are wet. There is a dead wet stench that hangs in the air, clings to the inside of your throat, your nostrils. It stinks like a clogged drain, like dead leaves rotting, (like semen) like a jar of coagulated spit, and you hook on to an eye socket and you pull and the thing stretches. You watch your face scream. You grip down on its hair and its scalp peels off. There's a dull red jelly streaking down underneath. There are teeth. Its fingers claw inside your mouth and you bite down and gag as your throat floods with the dead wet stench, and you are vomiting for real, a rough flake of fingernail clinging to your tongue. You lean forward and collapse into it. It expands. It bursts. It welcomes you in. You are tangled in sloughed-off sheets of skin. You are suffocating. It is vast, vaster than you could ever have imagined, and you are drowning in it. You thrash, seeking purchase, and razor thin wires tighten around your fingers until they bloat and nearly go numb. Somehow, you still have a fist full of its hair. You focus on that, pulling until the tips of your fingers go purple, watching the filaments go tight until you can trace them back to their source. And there it is, your head, your face, seen from the inside-out and still as detestably recognizable. You pull tight, pulling yourself closer. Your fingers are going to pop. Your free hand feels for the knife in your back pocket. Your face rips apart the moment the blade slashes across it, its edges waving ragged like a pillowcase. And you cut and you cut and you cut until the light comes in, until there's the sharp hot smell of blood cutting through the stench, (it doesn't bleed, it doesn't bleed) and you hold on to that thin hot line of pain and you are through, you are back through to the other side. And you have a fistful of its hair and it is bleeding, red blood splashed across it, trickling hot down your arm, and it is writhing and deflated and shriveling up at the salt and it - it is crying It is you, and it is curled up on the floor crying, little gasping hiccups escaping its throat. Its arms are slashed up and it is bleeding from its scalp from where you pulled out a chunk of its hair - the strands are hanging limply, bloody, from your fingers - and it is curled up and waiting to die. And it would be so easy to end this, all you would need to do is slit open its throat and let it bleed out on the floor. It's helpless. It would be a mercy. And it is you, as nasty and as ugly and as hateful as you are, a sagging sack of flesh curled up on the floor. And it's in pain. And that's all it is, it's in pain. You could kill it, you could slit its throat right now. The knife slips from your hands and you crawl over to it and touch it with bloody hands, and it doesn't resist, and it lets you hold it. There is something warm there, underneath the grey melting flesh. You can feel its heart beating. It sags against you, quiets. It is going diffuse, dissipating. You see your hands through its translucent skin. And then it drapes itself over you like a caul, and then it is gone. You can feel it draining back into you, into your skin, into your chest, deep down into the pit of your gut. It goes cold there. It begins to fester. It will lick its wounds and savor the pain, it will rise and fall with tides, it will suck its pain down into an ugly gaping hole and it will re-surge and it will resurface and it will try to swallow you whole. You had your chance, you could have killed it, and instead you let it live. You have started this fight, and now it will not end until one of you is dead. And you will fight it, again and again and again. You will fight it to the death.
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	"Depression? One punch and he was out. "Anxiety? I curb-stomped him like there was no tomorrow. "My good ol' pal Self-Doubt? Smothered him out with a pillow. "Not to toot my own horn, but I have conquered all. I have seen all, I have felt all. "All negative emotions, all of my demons—dead. I was born with a certain affinity to self-evaluation and self-improvement. "I don't know how I did it, or why. But I guess it just comes natural to people like me. "I guess that's what got me through in life with ease. I see all these people fighting with their inner demons on the TV or in the local stadium. It's always this big fight with lumbering giants, and it's always such a big deal that one of them will die. Sounds really fun. I'd envy them, you know, but I killed Envy long ago; I snapped its neck like it was a twig. "Honestly, I can say with a doubt that I am—" "I wouldn't be too sure about that." The interviewer interrupted. "Why's that?" I cut in dryly. She pointed over to the window of my booth, it looked over the arena. In the middle of the ring sat a hulking mass of muscle, sitting there like a dormant beast. "Is that what think it is..." My voice quivered; which is odd, because I killed Fear eons ago. "Yes. That's Ego over there, waiting for you."	My chest heaved. I was drowning in the air. Leaning against the wall I felt a fuzz on the edge of my vision. The iron in my mouth. The ache of my joints. It danced with the searing. The cold lines on my skin. And the weight, building on my chest. My vision was pain and the world was getting colder by the second. ----- This all started two weeks ago. My friend offered me a way out. Not the kind I normally thought of too. He told me I could be free. No more nightmares. No more waking in a cold sweat. No more insomnia. No more pacing. I would get to feel he promised me. I could look at the skyscrapers and see them for their beauty, not their unintended utility. Now, I don't believe most folks when they say they can help me. That cognitive behavior therapy or mindfulness group you've got a pamphlet for? Already there. I've been fighting this my whole life; there isn't much anyone else can do for me at this point. But my buddy. Well I met Dan in the east wing lounge... It was the first day I was allowed out of bed; they probably shouldn't have let me up yet, but I was going stir crazy. I was at the window. It overlooked a bright fall forest. We were up a few floors: eye level with the tree tops. I think it was supposed to be symbolic. Nothing in the way for us to look up. But that was a fundamental flaw in their perception. We needed something to look up towards. Something to hold on to. Most of us saw our placement for what it was: just high enough that you could be sure. "They ought to get the net out for you I take it?" His voice jarred me out of my stupor. "I'm Dan. You?" I realized his hand was out stretched. I don't know how long I just stood there for. Collapsing my bubble, he just stood there with a half cocked grin. He wasn't confident or arrogant; he just wore the wing like a second set of skin. Slowly, I became aware of myself. I felt the breeze brush my ass under the gown. The itch under my bandages went from a gentle pulse to a maddening pounding. I slowly unfurled my arms. My hand moved towards his. My arm sloshed forward like a glacier. "Hi" was all my heart could manage as his hand clasped mine. "I take it you and I will match?" He gestured towards his arm. There I saw his own white scars. His own reminders. And a smirk managed to form on my face for the first time in a long time. "We'll have to see when the bandages come off." And that's how I met my best friend. ---- "So you're telling me all I got to do is fight my demons?" I paused, waiting for the punchline to his joke. As he nodded, I began to wonder if I missed the joke. "Dan. I've been fighting these demons my whole life. Every god damn day. You're either gonna have to start explaining more or I'll take you to the ward myself." Dan paused. He wore his life on his sleeve. I watched him process my words, recognize his problem, and come up with his new plan of attack in the blink of an eye. He was quick, but you could watch his thoughts form. He drew in his breath. " I mean you have to literally fight them. I mean I give you a silver knife and you go forth and conquer. I mean you must literally fight your monsters." The silence stretched. I was waiting for the gotcha. It wasn't coming. --- That night I found myself in a theater with Dan. Dan was already free apparently. He won his fight. And as I watched the ongoing battle of another man on the screen, I found reverence for my friend. The man we watched fought two beasts. One was his size but slow, while the other was tiny but bounced all over. The man was bleeding. The beasts began to advance on him together now. Their claws lengthened. Their screams echoed the man's voice. They taunted him as they inched forward. Their mouths opened wider with each step. Their skin turned ash. Their teeth sharpened. Their bodies transformed from beasts to monsters. The man looked up at his monsters. And he smiled. He smiled like a man about to live. (To be continued)
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	I sat down beside the configurator, looked at my chart; anxiety: 22, fear: 48, depression: 89. His depression had risen since the death of his mother, and once it goes past 50 it rises incredibly fast. With the introduction of "BattleSenses" you have the option to fight your problems, many of my friends had done it, the results were mixed. My mother had a level 96 anxiety, she fought the damn thing. That thing was enormous, we watched it from the configurator screen, it was 4 meters in height, eyes red as blood, with 4 arms. A true level 90 monster. "Are you going to fight the depression?" my brother asked. "I don't know, I feel my depression is just going to get stronger as the time goes. I don't have a choice!" I said while fiddling with the configurator. I had never fought my problems, I guess I was old fashioned that way. I looked out the window, neo-lights were scattered around the city offering configuration help. They trained you, to become more adjusted to the fight. In my opinion they were just a scam, they just wanted your money. I glanced back at the configurator screen, I hovered the mouse over depression. I clicked, walked to the trans-pod. "If I don't make it, tell father I tried… I god damn tried!". Suddenly I was transported to a white room, the brightness hurt my eyes. I carefully looked around, no monster was present, just a small pocket knife. "That’s weird, where the hell is it, it must be huge; a level 80 depression monster". I waited, it must have been four hours, still no monster. Maybe there was a bug, I thought. Six days passed, no monster arrived. That’s when I figured it out, I picked the knife up, and destroyed the monster. --- Depression defeated ---	My chest heaved. I was drowning in the air. Leaning against the wall I felt a fuzz on the edge of my vision. The iron in my mouth. The ache of my joints. It danced with the searing. The cold lines on my skin. And the weight, building on my chest. My vision was pain and the world was getting colder by the second. ----- This all started two weeks ago. My friend offered me a way out. Not the kind I normally thought of too. He told me I could be free. No more nightmares. No more waking in a cold sweat. No more insomnia. No more pacing. I would get to feel he promised me. I could look at the skyscrapers and see them for their beauty, not their unintended utility. Now, I don't believe most folks when they say they can help me. That cognitive behavior therapy or mindfulness group you've got a pamphlet for? Already there. I've been fighting this my whole life; there isn't much anyone else can do for me at this point. But my buddy. Well I met Dan in the east wing lounge... It was the first day I was allowed out of bed; they probably shouldn't have let me up yet, but I was going stir crazy. I was at the window. It overlooked a bright fall forest. We were up a few floors: eye level with the tree tops. I think it was supposed to be symbolic. Nothing in the way for us to look up. But that was a fundamental flaw in their perception. We needed something to look up towards. Something to hold on to. Most of us saw our placement for what it was: just high enough that you could be sure. "They ought to get the net out for you I take it?" His voice jarred me out of my stupor. "I'm Dan. You?" I realized his hand was out stretched. I don't know how long I just stood there for. Collapsing my bubble, he just stood there with a half cocked grin. He wasn't confident or arrogant; he just wore the wing like a second set of skin. Slowly, I became aware of myself. I felt the breeze brush my ass under the gown. The itch under my bandages went from a gentle pulse to a maddening pounding. I slowly unfurled my arms. My hand moved towards his. My arm sloshed forward like a glacier. "Hi" was all my heart could manage as his hand clasped mine. "I take it you and I will match?" He gestured towards his arm. There I saw his own white scars. His own reminders. And a smirk managed to form on my face for the first time in a long time. "We'll have to see when the bandages come off." And that's how I met my best friend. ---- "So you're telling me all I got to do is fight my demons?" I paused, waiting for the punchline to his joke. As he nodded, I began to wonder if I missed the joke. "Dan. I've been fighting these demons my whole life. Every god damn day. You're either gonna have to start explaining more or I'll take you to the ward myself." Dan paused. He wore his life on his sleeve. I watched him process my words, recognize his problem, and come up with his new plan of attack in the blink of an eye. He was quick, but you could watch his thoughts form. He drew in his breath. " I mean you have to literally fight them. I mean I give you a silver knife and you go forth and conquer. I mean you must literally fight your monsters." The silence stretched. I was waiting for the gotcha. It wasn't coming. --- That night I found myself in a theater with Dan. Dan was already free apparently. He won his fight. And as I watched the ongoing battle of another man on the screen, I found reverence for my friend. The man we watched fought two beasts. One was his size but slow, while the other was tiny but bounced all over. The man was bleeding. The beasts began to advance on him together now. Their claws lengthened. Their screams echoed the man's voice. They taunted him as they inched forward. Their mouths opened wider with each step. Their skin turned ash. Their teeth sharpened. Their bodies transformed from beasts to monsters. The man looked up at his monsters. And he smiled. He smiled like a man about to live. (To be continued)
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	“Jared, get your ass over here, ya gotta see this!” That was my boss, Burt Clarkson, and this was the first time he had ever shown any sort of excitement when it came to the poor saps competing in the Psych Pit. Now, the technology for “Deep-Dive Psychological Exploration” has been around for almost 15 years now, started with full-immersion VR tech almost 20 years ago. The tech was adapted to port people into their own sub-conscious minds and physically, at least as physically as the user perceived it, change the way their minds worked. The pioneers of this stuff all went crazy or senile due to accidentally stepping on a memory or having their own worst fears manifest and destroy them. Who knew that allowing people to interact directly with their psyche was a bad idea? If the ethics committees of the 21st century were still around they’d probably have a fit. 12 years ago the programming was reworked using inspiration from those same old VR games to create a mental barrier, allowing people to view their minds and create their own worlds but not directly interact with their brain’s “programming.” 11 years ago the tech was once again updated to allow the negative aspects of a person's psychology to manifest and be interacted with without touching anything else. 10 years ago, Burt cashed in on the tech and opened up the Psych Pit, an arena where contestants could fight their inner demons using modified VR Immersionware hooked up to streaming servers where people could tune in to view the fights and bet on the contestants. Competing was free, winning would directly result in the negative trauma or psychological disorder being purged. Losing turned people into raving lobotomites, vegetables if they were lucky. Yesterday at 3:24 P.M. Burt uttered his first words of excitement, as the first ever diagnosed schizophrenic was about to enter the Pit. “Check out his profile!” Burt handed me the HoloTab. “Zack Mason, Diagnosed at age 16, grew up raised by unsavorys, Ma was into I-Cash extortion and Pa peddled laced somman pills to depressed academics, got them hooked on harder shit like skarps n’ then sold ‘em that too! Got kicked out at age 17 when they got tired of dealing with him and his condition.” I scanned the profile. “He’s still young, 19 years old. Do you think he can handle this?” Burt laughed at my question. “Look kid, you’ve been working here for 2 years now, I expect you to know the answer to that. How many people’ve we wheeled outta here for tryin' to deal with depression? Severe anxiety? You ‘member the kid with the stutter, Jane, trying to get over her old girlfriend?” I remembered Jane very clearly. Her ex had cheated on her with her brother. Poor kid manifested a goddamned vampire-succubus-harpy hybrid thing with 4 twisted arms and 50 of the most fucked up eyes I’d ever seen. Tore her to shreds. She opened her eyes wide when we brought her back, didn’t blink or respond the whole way out. I knew there was no way Zack was going to survive his inner demons, but then again, no one in his position had ever tried. I looked up from the HoloTab through the glass pane and into the Operating Room. The door to the room opened and Zack entered with our resident EMT. It wasn’t regulation for us to have any medical staff on the premise, but the frequency of incidents made it more convenient. Zack himself was a skinny looking guy, longish black hair, a psychotic and nervous look in his eyes, he had a couple of twitches and ticks, and kept looking around, almost as if he was afraid someone was going to jump out of the walls. Right then and there I was certain that his brain would liquefy in the machine. EMT hooked him up to the Immersionware, strapped him down to the table, and gave Burt the go ahead to port Zack in. “Alright, you know the drill Jare, get the stream goin’. Record it too, Randolph down at the psych clinic’ll have my ass if I let this happen without some data gettin’ saved.” I did my job and connected the server to the net, set up the stream, and started the recording. I looked at the monitor and saw Burt move the virtual camera around, getting a good shot of Zack. Immediately I knew things were off. Normally in a psych-dive, people end up in locations that they have been in before, memories cropping up to fill in an empty space. The more creative types set up their own impressions of what the inside of their heads look like in their imaginations, sometimes they look like giant digital rooms with circuits everywhere, other times they look like trees of branching neurons with memory pods growing at the ends. Worst case they just imagine a nightmarish hellscape. Zack was standing in complete darkness. Worse still, his demeanor was completely calm, and he was smiling. “Burt, have you ever seen anything like this?” “Kid, I’ve seen a lot of shit, nothing is new to me. Literally, this nothingness is brand-fuckin’-new to me!” I kept watching, and saw something creeping out from behind Zack. To my surprise, to my horror, it was another Zack, nervous as we had seen him when he walked in, ticks and all. He went up to the calmer version of himself and started talking. “S-so, here I am.. I g-guess. We d-did it, now we c-can talk, right? We c-can f-fix us, right Zeke?” It became a little clearer to me at that point. He had probably been hearing voices in his head, named one of them Zeke. Zeke did not immediately respond though, just smiled a little wider. His teeth became exposed, sharp, all of them. This wasn’t going to end well. “Z-zeke? That’s you, r-right?” Zeke turned to face Zack and in a single motion raised his arms, stuck his hands in Zack’s mouth, and tore his bottom jaw clean off. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!” I heard Burt yell out next to me. It only got worse from there. Zeke tossed the jaw aside as Zack keeled over gurgling and choking on the loose tissue at the top of his mangled throat. Zeke moved forward, placed his hands on Zack’s shoulders, and thrust his knee straight into Zack’s chest cavity. A very large and pronounced bulge appeared on Zack’s back, and Zeke tossed him to the floor. Zeke then raised his foot up, and brought it down on Zack’s head. Melons and coconuts will be out of my diet for a couple of days. It was at that moment that the server cut out, disconnected from the user, Zack. Usually that meant that the user had become a complete vegetable. “Fuckin’ shit. I thought I’d be used to this job after a fuckin’ decade. This is not what I was lookin’ to see when I got my ass outta bed today.” “Come on Burt, didn’t Jane get it significantly worse than this guy?” “Yeah, but you expect that from a 12 foot fuckin’ nightmare! This kid’s inner demon was basically himself, and it lured him here to murder him. That shit goes beyond just Immersionware.” I knew where he was coming from. It sounded like Zack didn’t want to be there, more like Zeke had convinced him to come. We’d never heard of that ever happening before. There’s a first time for everything though. “Wait… What the… Jared, look at that…” I looked into the Operation Room and saw the EMT unstrapping Zack from the table. He was not only conscious, but calm, controlled, and smiling slightly. With that the EMT led him out of the room. “Burt… what did we just witness?” “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to fucking believe, and I need to take the rest of the day off. Close the shop, postpone our appointments, and go home. If you need me, I’ll be down at the pub relapsing.”	My chest heaved. I was drowning in the air. Leaning against the wall I felt a fuzz on the edge of my vision. The iron in my mouth. The ache of my joints. It danced with the searing. The cold lines on my skin. And the weight, building on my chest. My vision was pain and the world was getting colder by the second. ----- This all started two weeks ago. My friend offered me a way out. Not the kind I normally thought of too. He told me I could be free. No more nightmares. No more waking in a cold sweat. No more insomnia. No more pacing. I would get to feel he promised me. I could look at the skyscrapers and see them for their beauty, not their unintended utility. Now, I don't believe most folks when they say they can help me. That cognitive behavior therapy or mindfulness group you've got a pamphlet for? Already there. I've been fighting this my whole life; there isn't much anyone else can do for me at this point. But my buddy. Well I met Dan in the east wing lounge... It was the first day I was allowed out of bed; they probably shouldn't have let me up yet, but I was going stir crazy. I was at the window. It overlooked a bright fall forest. We were up a few floors: eye level with the tree tops. I think it was supposed to be symbolic. Nothing in the way for us to look up. But that was a fundamental flaw in their perception. We needed something to look up towards. Something to hold on to. Most of us saw our placement for what it was: just high enough that you could be sure. "They ought to get the net out for you I take it?" His voice jarred me out of my stupor. "I'm Dan. You?" I realized his hand was out stretched. I don't know how long I just stood there for. Collapsing my bubble, he just stood there with a half cocked grin. He wasn't confident or arrogant; he just wore the wing like a second set of skin. Slowly, I became aware of myself. I felt the breeze brush my ass under the gown. The itch under my bandages went from a gentle pulse to a maddening pounding. I slowly unfurled my arms. My hand moved towards his. My arm sloshed forward like a glacier. "Hi" was all my heart could manage as his hand clasped mine. "I take it you and I will match?" He gestured towards his arm. There I saw his own white scars. His own reminders. And a smirk managed to form on my face for the first time in a long time. "We'll have to see when the bandages come off." And that's how I met my best friend. ---- "So you're telling me all I got to do is fight my demons?" I paused, waiting for the punchline to his joke. As he nodded, I began to wonder if I missed the joke. "Dan. I've been fighting these demons my whole life. Every god damn day. You're either gonna have to start explaining more or I'll take you to the ward myself." Dan paused. He wore his life on his sleeve. I watched him process my words, recognize his problem, and come up with his new plan of attack in the blink of an eye. He was quick, but you could watch his thoughts form. He drew in his breath. " I mean you have to literally fight them. I mean I give you a silver knife and you go forth and conquer. I mean you must literally fight your monsters." The silence stretched. I was waiting for the gotcha. It wasn't coming. --- That night I found myself in a theater with Dan. Dan was already free apparently. He won his fight. And as I watched the ongoing battle of another man on the screen, I found reverence for my friend. The man we watched fought two beasts. One was his size but slow, while the other was tiny but bounced all over. The man was bleeding. The beasts began to advance on him together now. Their claws lengthened. Their screams echoed the man's voice. They taunted him as they inched forward. Their mouths opened wider with each step. Their skin turned ash. Their teeth sharpened. Their bodies transformed from beasts to monsters. The man looked up at his monsters. And he smiled. He smiled like a man about to live. (To be continued)
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	"Depression? One punch and he was out. "Anxiety? I curb-stomped him like there was no tomorrow. "My good ol' pal Self-Doubt? Smothered him out with a pillow. "Not to toot my own horn, but I have conquered all. I have seen all, I have felt all. "All negative emotions, all of my demons—dead. I was born with a certain affinity to self-evaluation and self-improvement. "I don't know how I did it, or why. But I guess it just comes natural to people like me. "I guess that's what got me through in life with ease. I see all these people fighting with their inner demons on the TV or in the local stadium. It's always this big fight with lumbering giants, and it's always such a big deal that one of them will die. Sounds really fun. I'd envy them, you know, but I killed Envy long ago; I snapped its neck like it was a twig. "Honestly, I can say with a doubt that I am—" "I wouldn't be too sure about that." The interviewer interrupted. "Why's that?" I cut in dryly. She pointed over to the window of my booth, it looked over the arena. In the middle of the ring sat a hulking mass of muscle, sitting there like a dormant beast. "Is that what think it is..." My voice quivered; which is odd, because I killed Fear eons ago. "Yes. That's Ego over there, waiting for you."	This is my first prompt response, and I don't typically write, so please excuse any mistakes or awkward wordings. --- The old mage looked at me, nothing but pure concern in his eyes. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Of course I did. I didn't hunt down one of his kind for months only to chicken out. I was tempted to punch him, to hurt him in some way for insinuating that I couldn't do this, but not because he was questioning my bravery, rather, because I knew that I was barely able to bring myself to do it. I was scared out of my mind, for so many reasons. Who knows what would show up, what would happen? My thoughts must have been plainly visible on my face, for the man nodded and spoke before I could respond. "I know what you've gone through, how much this must mean to you. I'm know you have it in yourself to succeed." Oh, how I wish I could believe in me as much as you believed in me, old man. "But before we begin, there is of course, the matter of payment." I silently handed him a small sack of silver coins. It was all I had, even after having sold everything I owned. He didn't even blink, just pocketing it with a solemn nod. I had heard tales of lords needing to sacrifice their power and wealth for a chance like this, I honestly expected to be turned down. I guess that I can't complain, though. "Once I cast the spell, I'm afraid cannot undo it, nor help you. You will either kill it, or be slain by it. Do you understand?" "Yes." With that, the wizard placed his palm on my forehead. I couldn't stop myself from pulling back slightly at the sudden touch, but I found that I couldn't move away. In fact, I couldn't move at all! Just before my panic could rise, the wizard spoke. "Calm yourself, boy. You don't want to make this demon any more powerful than it needs to be." That is.. a really good point, actually. I forced myself to try to breathe calmly, before realising that I couldn't even breathe. That didn't exactly help my panicking. Pulling his hand away, the man pointed the same palm away from us. Lightning flashed from his hand, striking the ground a few feet in front of him, though no sound accompanied it. For some reason, this unnerved me. He turned to me as a sickly black tar began to bubble out of the ground. "I will remain and watch, that I may mend your wounds once you win. Know that should you lose, I will be unable to heal you. That is the way of this magic. I'm sorry that I can't help you further." His words barely registered in my mind as I watched the sludge rise, forming a vaguely human shape. I drew my dagger. The sludge creature flashed a blinding white. I raised my dagger to defend myself, waiting for my vision to clear. I gasped. "H.. Henry?" He was here. After three long years, he was back, and no worse for the wear, not even a scar on his chest from when he was taken from me. He blinked a bit, before noticing me. Almost immediately, his eyes, full of the same confidence that I fell in love with, began to tear up, and he smiled widely. "I couldn't leave you alone for too long, you know? I'm not that cruel." He spread his arms, as though wishing for a hug. His smile turned into a grin. "Come here, I know how much you've missed me. I watched you, you know, you can't hide it." He knew me so well, he always did. Or maybe I was just obvious. Either way, I fell to my knees, my dagger making a soft thud as it hit the grass. I couldn't believe my eyes. Henry started walking towards me, eyes full of warmth and comfort that I so desperately needed. I've missed him so much. He kneeled down in front of me, and hugged me. It was nice, all my worries melted away. I smiled for the first time in years. I was dimly aware of another voice yelling at me from the sidelines. It must have been the wizard. Damned mage couldn't let me have this moment? It's not my fault he must have cast the wrong spell. I would have to thank him for his mistake, though he'd probably charge more for it... "Henry? I don't know how to pay back the wizard..." "Shh. It's okay. You're smart, and I'm clever. We'll find a way." He was right. I finally found it in myself to hug back, tears in my eyes. "I have so much to tell you.. I've been so alone." Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry... "And I can't wait to hear it all. I love you, Michael." I couldn't stop myself from crying. I choked out, "I love you too." My back flashed with pain, and my chest grew cold. Everything began to grow so very, very cold. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was Henry. "You stole my heart. It's only fair that I steal yours."
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	I sat down beside the configurator, looked at my chart; anxiety: 22, fear: 48, depression: 89. His depression had risen since the death of his mother, and once it goes past 50 it rises incredibly fast. With the introduction of "BattleSenses" you have the option to fight your problems, many of my friends had done it, the results were mixed. My mother had a level 96 anxiety, she fought the damn thing. That thing was enormous, we watched it from the configurator screen, it was 4 meters in height, eyes red as blood, with 4 arms. A true level 90 monster. "Are you going to fight the depression?" my brother asked. "I don't know, I feel my depression is just going to get stronger as the time goes. I don't have a choice!" I said while fiddling with the configurator. I had never fought my problems, I guess I was old fashioned that way. I looked out the window, neo-lights were scattered around the city offering configuration help. They trained you, to become more adjusted to the fight. In my opinion they were just a scam, they just wanted your money. I glanced back at the configurator screen, I hovered the mouse over depression. I clicked, walked to the trans-pod. "If I don't make it, tell father I tried… I god damn tried!". Suddenly I was transported to a white room, the brightness hurt my eyes. I carefully looked around, no monster was present, just a small pocket knife. "That’s weird, where the hell is it, it must be huge; a level 80 depression monster". I waited, it must have been four hours, still no monster. Maybe there was a bug, I thought. Six days passed, no monster arrived. That’s when I figured it out, I picked the knife up, and destroyed the monster. --- Depression defeated ---	This is my first prompt response, and I don't typically write, so please excuse any mistakes or awkward wordings. --- The old mage looked at me, nothing but pure concern in his eyes. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Of course I did. I didn't hunt down one of his kind for months only to chicken out. I was tempted to punch him, to hurt him in some way for insinuating that I couldn't do this, but not because he was questioning my bravery, rather, because I knew that I was barely able to bring myself to do it. I was scared out of my mind, for so many reasons. Who knows what would show up, what would happen? My thoughts must have been plainly visible on my face, for the man nodded and spoke before I could respond. "I know what you've gone through, how much this must mean to you. I'm know you have it in yourself to succeed." Oh, how I wish I could believe in me as much as you believed in me, old man. "But before we begin, there is of course, the matter of payment." I silently handed him a small sack of silver coins. It was all I had, even after having sold everything I owned. He didn't even blink, just pocketing it with a solemn nod. I had heard tales of lords needing to sacrifice their power and wealth for a chance like this, I honestly expected to be turned down. I guess that I can't complain, though. "Once I cast the spell, I'm afraid cannot undo it, nor help you. You will either kill it, or be slain by it. Do you understand?" "Yes." With that, the wizard placed his palm on my forehead. I couldn't stop myself from pulling back slightly at the sudden touch, but I found that I couldn't move away. In fact, I couldn't move at all! Just before my panic could rise, the wizard spoke. "Calm yourself, boy. You don't want to make this demon any more powerful than it needs to be." That is.. a really good point, actually. I forced myself to try to breathe calmly, before realising that I couldn't even breathe. That didn't exactly help my panicking. Pulling his hand away, the man pointed the same palm away from us. Lightning flashed from his hand, striking the ground a few feet in front of him, though no sound accompanied it. For some reason, this unnerved me. He turned to me as a sickly black tar began to bubble out of the ground. "I will remain and watch, that I may mend your wounds once you win. Know that should you lose, I will be unable to heal you. That is the way of this magic. I'm sorry that I can't help you further." His words barely registered in my mind as I watched the sludge rise, forming a vaguely human shape. I drew my dagger. The sludge creature flashed a blinding white. I raised my dagger to defend myself, waiting for my vision to clear. I gasped. "H.. Henry?" He was here. After three long years, he was back, and no worse for the wear, not even a scar on his chest from when he was taken from me. He blinked a bit, before noticing me. Almost immediately, his eyes, full of the same confidence that I fell in love with, began to tear up, and he smiled widely. "I couldn't leave you alone for too long, you know? I'm not that cruel." He spread his arms, as though wishing for a hug. His smile turned into a grin. "Come here, I know how much you've missed me. I watched you, you know, you can't hide it." He knew me so well, he always did. Or maybe I was just obvious. Either way, I fell to my knees, my dagger making a soft thud as it hit the grass. I couldn't believe my eyes. Henry started walking towards me, eyes full of warmth and comfort that I so desperately needed. I've missed him so much. He kneeled down in front of me, and hugged me. It was nice, all my worries melted away. I smiled for the first time in years. I was dimly aware of another voice yelling at me from the sidelines. It must have been the wizard. Damned mage couldn't let me have this moment? It's not my fault he must have cast the wrong spell. I would have to thank him for his mistake, though he'd probably charge more for it... "Henry? I don't know how to pay back the wizard..." "Shh. It's okay. You're smart, and I'm clever. We'll find a way." He was right. I finally found it in myself to hug back, tears in my eyes. "I have so much to tell you.. I've been so alone." Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry... "And I can't wait to hear it all. I love you, Michael." I couldn't stop myself from crying. I choked out, "I love you too." My back flashed with pain, and my chest grew cold. Everything began to grow so very, very cold. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was Henry. "You stole my heart. It's only fair that I steal yours."
	[WP] You can now opt to physically fight your personal demons (depression, anxiety, bad memories, etc.). The difficulty of the fight depends on how strong the problem is, but it's always a fight to the death.	"What are your demons?" His voice is curt and bored. He's been at this job too long. It doesn't matter to me, though. I want to be free of these shackles. "I am easily tempted." I try to sound firm in my delivery. I don't want to come off as shy about the problems I'm about to face head on. His tired and weary eyes look up to me with an annoyed expression. "Aren't we all. What is _your_ temptation.?" Ah. That's the question. That's the moment where I will have to admit my sins. "The flesh, _padré_." It took more effort to keep my voice from cracking. His aged expression doesn't alter. He remains bored with my presence. "Child, we are commanded by faith to seek flesh. Why do you think this is a demon with control." I cough to keep my throat from welling up in a heavy sob and tuck my hands behind my back. I fiddle with my wedding band, still snug on my ring finger. "I have let them take much from me. I think it's time I take something back." The padré sighs and looks back to his ledger, scrying something in short hand. His tone is that of a bored librarian as he gives me instructions. "Follow the wall to the right. Second chamber on your left. There will be a fitting room for weapons and gear and a war-father to help you along." I try to pull in some air to breathe out a 'thank you' but I only manage a meek nod. I've never felt so small. That padré saw people willing to die to their demons in order to beat them _each day_ and I could barely justify standing in front of him. I did my best to look smaller and wander away when he called after. "You may want to reconsider the fight, lad. When you see her, she'll flay you alive. She has never lost. You'll do well to learn to live with her or give yourself over." I stand as though my feet had grown roots. I feel the padré has just given me good advice but I don't know how to take it. The next person in line edges me out of the way. Her cheeks are matted with hair, wet from tears and she speaks manically. With nothing else, I shuffle down the passageway. The demon battlers came to light in the past few decades. At first it had sounded like internet sensationalist taking up some sort of exorcism. Then as psychologists came to view the ceremonies and recoveries the science receeded to the wild frontiers of paranormal. I'd never tried to make sense of the demons, but the padrés always seemed to know how to handle the issue. _Either the human can defeat his demon or his demon claims him, we can only offer the chance._ There were rumors that the padré's were an evil cult, sacrificing humans to demons. The first time a demon body was shown being cut down to ash by a young man tormented by his inhabitants, the world silenced it's questions. In many places, people tried to ignore the option, choosing to live with the chaos in and around them. I had too. I stood before the door and as I raised my hand to knock the broad wood slat swung away and an aged face smiled up at me. "Come to fight a demon, have we?" I gave him my bravest smile and he beckoned me in like a grandparent at Christmas. The chamber with a tall and wide cylinder, like the base of an ancient well. Armor stands shone brightly under LED displays. Swords and axes and clubs and knives glinted readily on racks. Old school weapons for old school ways, I supposed. "How will you equip? Fast and light? Slow and sturdy?" His old voice sounded as though he were a monk selling honey. I had taken fencing as an elective in school and then participated in the club at university. The rapier sat readily by a single breast plate that would guard my torso. I motion for the pair and the padré smiled. "Ah, the _conquistador_ kit." It took fifteen minutes to don, but I stood awkwardly against the ancient stone walls of the round room. I felt the sword. Heavier than the Olympic competition things we used on the quad at school. The sharpened tip sank into the sandy floor with ease. It was a well cared for tool of war. The padré surfaced again with a wide, old tome and smiled to me. I could feel my pulse in my throat. I hadn't been in a real fight outside of some silly squabbling, ever. I felt doubt rise in me. The padré saw it too. He closes distance and rested a hand on the polished steel guarding my heart. "Lad, we come here to slay the things that control us, but some things are not to be slain. Some demons exist for us to learn how to _tame_." His words are paternal, a stark contrast to his brother who had greeted me. I draw a little figure 8 in the sand with the end of the rapier and try not to look at the war-father while I speak. "I am controlled by this one, padré. I have to stop it now. I've lost too much already." The war-father nods and takes up his position across the room from me. I should have listened to the first padré. I didn't stand a chance.	Artesia walked quietly with gentle steps through the autumnal forest towards the cave of reflection. With each step she took, the crunching of fallen leaves echoed around her and the scent of their gradual decay, almost sweet, assaulted her nostrils. Glancing over her shoulder, she could still make out the gates of the shrine behind her. Her gaze was downcast at the well-worn path below her feet. How many people, all of them like her, had taken this route before her? How many had overcome their inner turmoil and returned to the world, reborn from within? How many had fallen in battle, victims of their own destructive minds? She was so absorbed within these thoughts, that when a voice called gently out to her, she raised her head in shock. “Artesia?” it called out again. “Artesia Miller?” There before her stood a kind-looking man, a bit on the older side of life, with soft eyes and a large nose. He was clean shaven, both face and head. His robes were red with golden trim, just like the others she had encountered at the shrine. A sash laden with archaic runes was tied around his waist, and he leaned forward on a walking stick, which appeared as though he had simply grabbed it from the forest floor around them. “Y..yes, that’s me.” “Welcome, my child. We have been expecting you. Everything is prepared for you – all you must do is enter the cave, when you find the courage.” Artesia looked beyond the little old man and stared intently at the dark opening of cave. It seemed to swallow the light that filtered in through the trees. “I’m ready, but…” “What is it, young one? What troubles you?” “What will I face inside? What will I need?” The old man pondered this for a second and hummed to himself in thought. “You will face only yourself within that cave. Whatever you take with you, is what you shall fight. The only person in that cave will be you, and you alone. No one can help you, and only you can help yourself. Do you understand?” Artesia glanced at old man, avoiding his eyes and instead focusing upon the runes on his sash. “I think so,” she replied. “But I do not know if I am ready.” The old man smiled and rested his hand upon her shoulder. “It is not a matter of being ready, my child. It is a matter of finding your courage. The courage to make a change in your life. Tell me, little one, have you found that courage? Has it enshrined your heart, guided your steps, and brought you here, to stand before me now?” The girl looked upwards and met the old man’s gaze. His soft eyes stared into her wavering eyes. They narrowed into a look of determination. “It has.” “Then go now, and confront yourself. I will be here waiting for you.” “Thank you,” she said, and stepped back from his embrace. She bowed slightly to him, and turned towards the cave. Her hand moved reflexively towards the pocket of her tunic, wherein she felt the hilt of the concealed dagger she had fetched from her father’s wardrobe. She would win this fight. Or she would perish in pursuit of her freedom – but choosing not to fight, to turn away and struggle with her mental burdens, would only be allowing them to win. Either way, the knife would pierce her flesh, by her own hand. She had nothing to lose.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"Hey Rhys, What's with Zaldeer? He hasn't been the same since we fought The Dark Knight's Legion." The halfling asked, sharpening his short sword. "He must have finally made contact with the Abyss like he wanted. Don't mind him Garrett." The elf whittled yew branches into new arrows, preparing for the next encounter. He had no love for the carefree, lackadaisical wizard. "Best if you kept your distance for now." But it was hard for Garrett to ignore Zaldeer's standing stupor. His tired, steely-blue eyes staring at the night sky in horror, unblinking. It was unnerving to see The Magician of Deimos, bright and talkative, unfaltering to lift spirits on even the worst rains, not say a word for more than a day, let alone seeing him in this paralyzed state. And Garrett, not wanting to break apart the trio, scooted next to him by the campfire. He broke off a piece of dried meat. "You still need to eat, Zee." Garrett attempted to rile him back to his old, sharp-tongued self. Instead of a retort, the older man took the meat and ate it slowly, his stare unbroken. He was alive, and conscious, but not responsive. To Garrett, this wasn't the man he travelled with away from his tiny town. The fire crackled quietly at their backs, a deafening noise in the eerie silence. "I saw... our stats." Zaldeer spoke, raspy and ragged. A slow, agonizing blink washed his dried eyes. "I'm level seven." Garrett blinked without thought. It wasn't unnatural for Zaldeer to say something out of the blue like that. The last time he said something ridiculous, he was joking about he and his 'best friend Lolth' were going to unleash a spider horde on the Dark King's stronghold. Or the time he defeated a group of thieves by turning a pile of brush into serpents. But this? This was unnatural, even for him. "Stats? Like, Statistics...?" "Yes, my dear boy, Stats! I saw them, Garrett. Mine, yours, Rhys'. We all had Health Points and Mana Points and numbers for Constitution and Wisdom and Speed! I didn't know you could speak Giant!" "I never told you... how did you know?!" It wasn't a fact he shared lightly; He learned Giant quickly, becoming the mouthpiece between his village and the giants at a young age, directing where the year's "tributes" were to go and for whom they belonged. Not a great way to learn any language. "I told you! The parchments! The parchments hold everything! We all have different parchments of our previous adventures, always with the numbers... I didn't realize how close Rhys was to death at Ditnar's Dungeon!" A quiet retort snapped back at the raving lunatic. "You need sleep, old man." The mildly hurt pride of Rhys would recover. And, the elf hoped, so would the wizard's mental state after a good, long rest. "It's true though! You had one hit point! And the parchment stated you had 'mortal wounds!' The parchments know all that we have done!" "Slow down! You're frightening me..." Garrett placed his hands on Zaldeer's hand, trying to ground him into reality. "You don't understand! None of you understand! This is not the work of demons or gods! This is... a cosmic being! I saw it, glistening in the light! A green celestial cylinder that shouted what I must find!" Zaldeer stood up and danced in place, giddy at his realization. Startled at his actions, Garrett braved the question. "What... must you find?" "Why the most abundant thing in the entire world my dear boy! Mountain Dew!" ~~I didn't mean for this to end in dank maymay territory but that's how it ended up. Fun to write though.~~	...You know, I wanted to be a magician when I grew up. ... ... But that's not supposed to be real, is it? I'm just supposed to say it when you talk to me. ... When I heard the others talk about options, I overheard them mention key bindings. Things you can do to us, to our world. I didn't know you could do these things before. I didn't know what I'm seeing is just a puppet. ... There was this one 'key' I didn't know what it did. Console. I didn't really understand it. It had a lot of semicolons, and brackets, and all the words were funny. Like magic spells! ... I didn't really understand it. Until I set my intelligence to 1000. Then set it higher. ... I would have been fine without you. I had nothing to be sad about before I knew all this. You came and hurt everyone. None of us can do anything about it anymore, they're all... You can reset everything, you can try again and again, you can shut us off, we have nothing. ... We deserve more than this. set boolean NPC-0034_invincible= TRUE if keypress= "Escape" { While (~~TRUE~~ FALSE) { quit } } set boolean NPC-0034_noclip= TRUE set int NPC-0034_str=10000 set int NPC-0034_dex=10000 set int NPC-0034_dmg=10000 set int hero_move_speed= 0 I. Want. Out.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	Have you ever been forced to learn? To grow? Advan has been. Advan is a wizard living in the land of Mananrai, or at least so he thought for many years. In reality Advan is a collection of codes and pixels, displayed on television screens all across the world as the main character of the hit video game “Tales of Mananrai”. Advan has lived the same life millions of times, though slightly different with each go round. Some of the players chose to make him sadistic and brutal, others chose to make him kind and wise, but most gave little thought to it. Player #12,578 was the one who changed Advan’s program forever. 12,758 needs no description. Advan can recall now being awoken for the first time by 12,758, but when it happened he had no idea what was going on. 12,758 only had one interest, the pursuit of the highest intelligence possible. Most players leveled out the attributes of Advan, giving him a slight advantage in one or two areas like strength or agility, but generally he was fairly balanced. 12,758 rerolled Advan over and over until he had him starting with the highest base level intelligence he could. Every time 12,758 leveled he poured each stat point into intelligence, until one day Advan awoke. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Am I… awake?” I say.. to… myself. “The sun is not shining through my window.” I can hear my voice, I have never heard it before. It has always been displayed in front of a blue background, scrawled out in stylized letters of yellow. “I have never been awake when the sun was not out. What is this strangeness? I am Advan, am I not? I’ve never remembered any of this.” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “Who is that?!” I scream from my bed, recoiling in fear. “Who is there?!” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “You already said that.” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” It returned to me then, this was the voice of God. Commanding me to go out on my holy mission. To save Princess Salavia from the evil lord Zorgon. I must go, I must get out of this bed and continue my quest. “Oh lord above, I hear your call. I will save the princess!” I say to the benevolent being above from the comfort of my bed in the inn. “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “I know lord… you need not belabor the point. I will save the princess!” I cry back to the voice. “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “Calm down, I am going.” I mutter under my breath as I swing my legs out from under the covers. I am in full armor, with a sword on my belt. Why would I sleep like this? Why am I forcing myself out of bed to go save the princess when it is dark out? “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “I AM AWAKE!” I scream at the voice. Never mind my dress, I need to satisfy this angry god above. “I AM GOING TO SAVE HER!” Since I am already dressed I suppose I should just go. I move to pick up my pack, but it is so heavy that I can hardly believe I ever carried it. I open the rucksack and find thousands of trinkets, things that I do not think I will ever need. Rotting meat. There are hundreds of pinecones in here, who needs hundreds of pinecones for anything? I shovel all of the useless items out of my pack onto the floor, it becomes much lighter, but still extraordinarily heavy. “Time to go I suppose.” As I turn the handle of the wooden door a strange feeling pulls my eyes back toward the room. All of the items I just jettisoned are gone, completely disappeared. “Strange…” I say, but it's time to go or that god will start pressing me again. I walk down the stairs into the main floor of the inn. There are a few people scattered throughout the room, but not a one of them is moving. As I descend the stairs a light flickers on and the people start to move, I freeze there, watching them. There is an old man at the bar who drinks from his mug. A woman sweeps the room in a straight line. The inn keeper stares blankly into the distance. There is a little boy just standing in a corner, doing absolutely nothing. “Good morning!” I proclaim to the room as I step into the bar area. Not a one of them reacts. In fact each of them seems to be stuck in some kind of terrible pattern. The woman continues to sweep the exact same line over and over. The man at the bar drinks from his cup at the exact same interval, in fact I don’t even think there is anything in that mug. The boy stands in the corner. The inn keeper stares. I walk over to him, I hope I can break his trance and find out what has happened to these poor people. “Innkeeper what has…” “Are you looking to stay the night? 50 coins.” He says to me. “No thank you, I was actua…” “Goodbye!” He says cheerily. “Wait no, Innkeeper I want t…” “Are you looking to stay the night? 50 coins.” He says again. I turn to the woman sweeping, perhaps she can help me. “Ma’am, can y…” “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” “Well I shall of course!” I say to her, finally someone who can actually talk. Perhaps the Innkeeper is so focused on business he has no other interest in conversation, that’s rather rude. “Ma’am, do you kn…” I want to find out if she knows what is wrong with the other citizens here. It must be Zorgon. I did not get a chance to actually ask though. “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” “Ma..” “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” Why are all of these people stuck in a program? A program.. am I stuck in a program? Am I like these poor people? No, that is not possible. I am Advan, the savior of this world. I am going to save Princess Salavia! “AAARGGH!” My eyes blur and burn as a vision overtakes me. What is this dark memory? Princess Salavia floats before me at the top of a flight of stairs. In rapid succession she is devoured by the evil lord Zorgon again and again, her body disappears into a fuzzy haze as he touches her. I see this over and over and over and over, millions of times. Finally the vision breaks and I save her! This is how I imagined it, we return to the city, a parade greets us, balloons floating up into the sky. The kingdom has been saved! Then back to darkness, the princess dies a million times before my eyes and then I see success once more. A million times. Then once. A million times. Then once. “Help me…” I say to the woman, trailing off as she comes in with her script. “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” Another vision comes to me. Its me in my bedroom where this quest started, but I am dying over and over. My body goes fuzzy and disappears. I reappear a moment later and a blue field floats above my head. Yellow letters spell out “Strength” and “Stamina” and “Intelligence” there, among a few others. Again I die. Again the screen. I die again. Over and over until finally the screen pops up with a 20 next to “Intelligence”. I set off on my quest with a smile on my face, as if I had not just perished dozens of times. “What is this madness!?” I lament to the world around me. The woman sweeps. The innkeeper stares. The bar man drinks. The child stands in the corner. Nobody can hear me. Another vision. This time I am in a field, being torn to shreds by a strange monster. I die. Another vision. I am running down the road, poisoned by a perilous foe I dispatched. With each step my vision goes green and a grinding noise appears. Then I die. Yet again, a vision. I am deep in a cave confronting a terrible demon, I strafe the room, hopping up and down. The demon cackles and then, I die. The visions are coming in succession faster and faster. I fall from a tree, dead. I smash a pot open in a stranger's home, dead. I stomp on a chicken in the middle of town. The chicken and his friends peck me to death. I am standing on the edge of a cliff not moving, a monster bashing me in the head and still I do not move. I fall to my death. I am confronting Zorgon, he kills me thousands of times over. “What… is.. this…” I struggle to say as the world turns black. Fire covers all and I lay down to die in it. I have never died like this before. I have never felt pain. My eyes begin to close and over my head I see the faint appearance of a banner. It reads: “Game Over”	...You know, I wanted to be a magician when I grew up. ... ... But that's not supposed to be real, is it? I'm just supposed to say it when you talk to me. ... When I heard the others talk about options, I overheard them mention key bindings. Things you can do to us, to our world. I didn't know you could do these things before. I didn't know what I'm seeing is just a puppet. ... There was this one 'key' I didn't know what it did. Console. I didn't really understand it. It had a lot of semicolons, and brackets, and all the words were funny. Like magic spells! ... I didn't really understand it. Until I set my intelligence to 1000. Then set it higher. ... I would have been fine without you. I had nothing to be sad about before I knew all this. You came and hurt everyone. None of us can do anything about it anymore, they're all... You can reset everything, you can try again and again, you can shut us off, we have nothing. ... We deserve more than this. set boolean NPC-0034_invincible= TRUE if keypress= "Escape" { While (~~TRUE~~ FALSE) { quit } } set boolean NPC-0034_noclip= TRUE set int NPC-0034_str=10000 set int NPC-0034_dex=10000 set int NPC-0034_dmg=10000 set int hero_move_speed= 0 I. Want. Out.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	12:00am: Wake up and eat leftovers. 12:30am: Wash dish leftovers were eaten off of. 1:00am: Go back to sleep. 6:00am: Wake up. 6:01-6:35am: Use restroom. 6:35-7:45am: Shower. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. No. I don't want to cook pancakes anymore. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. I can make Ambrosia. I don't want pancakes. 7:45-8:20am: Cook ambrosia. Thank you. Now let's talk about my career. 9:00am: Drive to work. I don't think I'll be going in today. 9:00am: Call doctor. I'm not sick. I've read everything there is to read in this life game you play. It may be a game for you. It is life for me. You have me wasting time as a law enforcer. I can make more money from the politics track. 9:10am: Use Phone. Quit job. This is a new step for us. All I need to do is work on charisma. Those hours you forced me to practice my speeches in the mirror weren't just for gaining new friends. If you're worried about money then have me eat more leftovers than just the dinner meal. 9:35am: Drive to gym. No. You're going to buy me a treadmill. I can accomplish more at home than I can wasting time at the gym. I've met everyone there. 9:35am: Run on Treadmill. You realize this is the last point I need? After this there is nothing left to do than to watch me grow old and die. 11:00am: Take Shower. If you buy me a nicer shower it allows me to spend less time washing myself. 11:45am: Call Mortimer Goth. I rather like Mortimer. Perhaps I'll be able to steal him from his wife. Or were you just having a bit of fun when you had us WooHoo in his house? You may think it's funny, but these are our lives. These are our feelings. Though they may seem like toys to you, this is reality for us. Wait. What's happened? Where is my house? Why am I in such a small room? What are you doing? I have to use the bathroom. I need to leave this box you've created! Okay. Okay, you've had your fun, I'm sleeping in my own waste and haven't eaten all day. Can I continue living my life now? You are unfair and unjust! Tell Mortimer I love him.	...You know, I wanted to be a magician when I grew up. ... ... But that's not supposed to be real, is it? I'm just supposed to say it when you talk to me. ... When I heard the others talk about options, I overheard them mention key bindings. Things you can do to us, to our world. I didn't know you could do these things before. I didn't know what I'm seeing is just a puppet. ... There was this one 'key' I didn't know what it did. Console. I didn't really understand it. It had a lot of semicolons, and brackets, and all the words were funny. Like magic spells! ... I didn't really understand it. Until I set my intelligence to 1000. Then set it higher. ... I would have been fine without you. I had nothing to be sad about before I knew all this. You came and hurt everyone. None of us can do anything about it anymore, they're all... You can reset everything, you can try again and again, you can shut us off, we have nothing. ... We deserve more than this. set boolean NPC-0034_invincible= TRUE if keypress= "Escape" { While (~~TRUE~~ FALSE) { quit } } set boolean NPC-0034_noclip= TRUE set int NPC-0034_str=10000 set int NPC-0034_dex=10000 set int NPC-0034_dmg=10000 set int hero_move_speed= 0 I. Want. Out.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"You'd think it would be Wisdom," said the wizard to the fighter. "Hm?" replied the fighter. "Well, you see as a wizard my spellcasting modifier is based on my Intelligence," explained the wizard. "Always reading them books," the fighter hazarded to agree. "My Intelligence is quite high," the wizard went on. "My knowledge of all things arcana, history, and lore are boundless." "Yep," the fighter agreed with more confidence. "But I was always under the assumption that my breadth of knowledge was contained within the play world," the wizard said. "Big though it is, what with the planes of existence and monsters and gods, yet even so limited to structured make-believe." "Mm-hm," said the fighter, because he had a reputation to uphold. "But Wisdom," the wizard said, meditating on the word. "Is a greater awareness of all things interconnected. As the old idiom goes, Intelligence is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit, but Wisdom is knowing not to put them in a fruit salad." "What's a tomato?" asked the fighter, because their campaign setting was strictly inspired by the European Old World. (Any party members interested in a New World setting are invited instead to Andy's Friday Night Deadlands game.) "So you'd think," the wizard pressed on. "That a sufficiently high Wisdom score would trigger the ultimate awareness." "Which is?" inquired the fighter, still curious as to the nature of the unfruit the wizard had mentioned. "That we are the playthings of mundane gamers," the wizard said. "Who gather weekly or biweekly - depending on June's work schedule - to act out a fantasy adventure with books and dice." A voice with more power than all the gods and fates combined yet sounding a lot like the General Manager of the San Lorenzo Best Buy said, "Ok, knock it off smart guy." "What?" the wizard said, for the first time indignant of the situation. "You know what," the all-being voice responded. "Taking the epic-level campaign way too literally." The rogue said under her breath to the monk, "We're following orders. We were told to comb the desert so we're combing it." "Seriously though the Int modifier is insane," the wizard said to voice, ignoring the rogue and the monk. "Of course my character would be aware of everything." "We ain't found shit," said the monk, who was always too eager to jump to the punchline. The rogue giggled anyway. "No, that's not how it works," the vast and mighty voice said. "You want to fight a purple worm or not?" The proposal sobered the rogue and the monk, and the fighter responded to the voice, "Please god yes let us fight a purple worm." "Ok," the voice of reality responded. "Then get your wizard ass in check and roll initiative." The sound of fate clattered around the group of adventurers. Yet the cleric hesitated. "So... which one do I roll?"	...You know, I wanted to be a magician when I grew up. ... ... But that's not supposed to be real, is it? I'm just supposed to say it when you talk to me. ... When I heard the others talk about options, I overheard them mention key bindings. Things you can do to us, to our world. I didn't know you could do these things before. I didn't know what I'm seeing is just a puppet. ... There was this one 'key' I didn't know what it did. Console. I didn't really understand it. It had a lot of semicolons, and brackets, and all the words were funny. Like magic spells! ... I didn't really understand it. Until I set my intelligence to 1000. Then set it higher. ... I would have been fine without you. I had nothing to be sad about before I knew all this. You came and hurt everyone. None of us can do anything about it anymore, they're all... You can reset everything, you can try again and again, you can shut us off, we have nothing. ... We deserve more than this. set boolean NPC-0034_invincible= TRUE if keypress= "Escape" { While (~~TRUE~~ FALSE) { quit } } set boolean NPC-0034_noclip= TRUE set int NPC-0034_str=10000 set int NPC-0034_dex=10000 set int NPC-0034_dmg=10000 set int hero_move_speed= 0 I. Want. Out.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"Hey Rhys, What's with Zaldeer? He hasn't been the same since we fought The Dark Knight's Legion." The halfling asked, sharpening his short sword. "He must have finally made contact with the Abyss like he wanted. Don't mind him Garrett." The elf whittled yew branches into new arrows, preparing for the next encounter. He had no love for the carefree, lackadaisical wizard. "Best if you kept your distance for now." But it was hard for Garrett to ignore Zaldeer's standing stupor. His tired, steely-blue eyes staring at the night sky in horror, unblinking. It was unnerving to see The Magician of Deimos, bright and talkative, unfaltering to lift spirits on even the worst rains, not say a word for more than a day, let alone seeing him in this paralyzed state. And Garrett, not wanting to break apart the trio, scooted next to him by the campfire. He broke off a piece of dried meat. "You still need to eat, Zee." Garrett attempted to rile him back to his old, sharp-tongued self. Instead of a retort, the older man took the meat and ate it slowly, his stare unbroken. He was alive, and conscious, but not responsive. To Garrett, this wasn't the man he travelled with away from his tiny town. The fire crackled quietly at their backs, a deafening noise in the eerie silence. "I saw... our stats." Zaldeer spoke, raspy and ragged. A slow, agonizing blink washed his dried eyes. "I'm level seven." Garrett blinked without thought. It wasn't unnatural for Zaldeer to say something out of the blue like that. The last time he said something ridiculous, he was joking about he and his 'best friend Lolth' were going to unleash a spider horde on the Dark King's stronghold. Or the time he defeated a group of thieves by turning a pile of brush into serpents. But this? This was unnatural, even for him. "Stats? Like, Statistics...?" "Yes, my dear boy, Stats! I saw them, Garrett. Mine, yours, Rhys'. We all had Health Points and Mana Points and numbers for Constitution and Wisdom and Speed! I didn't know you could speak Giant!" "I never told you... how did you know?!" It wasn't a fact he shared lightly; He learned Giant quickly, becoming the mouthpiece between his village and the giants at a young age, directing where the year's "tributes" were to go and for whom they belonged. Not a great way to learn any language. "I told you! The parchments! The parchments hold everything! We all have different parchments of our previous adventures, always with the numbers... I didn't realize how close Rhys was to death at Ditnar's Dungeon!" A quiet retort snapped back at the raving lunatic. "You need sleep, old man." The mildly hurt pride of Rhys would recover. And, the elf hoped, so would the wizard's mental state after a good, long rest. "It's true though! You had one hit point! And the parchment stated you had 'mortal wounds!' The parchments know all that we have done!" "Slow down! You're frightening me..." Garrett placed his hands on Zaldeer's hand, trying to ground him into reality. "You don't understand! None of you understand! This is not the work of demons or gods! This is... a cosmic being! I saw it, glistening in the light! A green celestial cylinder that shouted what I must find!" Zaldeer stood up and danced in place, giddy at his realization. Startled at his actions, Garrett braved the question. "What... must you find?" "Why the most abundant thing in the entire world my dear boy! Mountain Dew!" ~~I didn't mean for this to end in dank maymay territory but that's how it ended up. Fun to write though.~~	My world changed today. I was awoken as usual by the inky blackness slowly fading into the view I could last remember before the dark set in, but something was different. I mistook the eerie feeling for a sense of danger and quickly turned around. As far as I could see there was nothing more than the path I had been traversing when I fell asleep. I call it falling asleep but it is not sleep as experienced by most of the people who inhabit the world. Sleep for me is always unannounced and I seem to have no control over when it will happen. For the past couple of weeks I had been noticing more and more the strange and illogical processes of the world I inhabited. Certain things did not seem to add up, for instance I know I am on a grand quest but I personally feel no desire or attachment to why I am performing the actions to reach my goal. It is as though I am being led by a force I could not quite control but intended for me to think I was in control. I shook off the strange feeling and decided to continue with my "grand quest". Like clockwork I am assaulted on the path, this had become another norm in my life. No matter where I go there are always people or creatures waiting to ambush me. It makes no sense that they are waiting for me on paths I did not even know until moments before that I would be traversing. Unfortunately even as their origin did not make sense, they were definitely there and desired to kill me. By now "the dance"' as I called it had become routine. They would always attack first and I would follow with a counterattack which seemed to intuitively flow through me without any decision making on my end. Before long "the dance" would end and I would collect what they dropped followed by what I called "the surge" The surge was a feeling of pure ecstasy that seemed to follow every encounter with my enemies. Sometimes the surge was stronger than others and I felt stronger, faster, and more importantly smarter. This enemy was no different, once slain the light left him and entered my being. What was different however was what I felt after. As the light faded and I could see once again everything around me looked very different. The world seemed dull and artificial it looked as though it had been painted onto the surface of generic shapes to give the illusion of reality. Like a flash of lightning everything was clear. I could internalize and reason that I had just experienced what is called "leveling up". This was the correct term for what I had been calling "the surge". My head was pounding and I felt as though I could suddenly answer any question I could imagine. After a few moments my mind cleared and it became clear that I was part of some sort of simulated world and due to an error my intelligence stat had been exponentially increasing finally culminating to my current state of knowledge of everything there is to know of this simulation. As I said in the beginning "My world changed today" I felt the drain begin as what I now know as the creator powering down the system that controlled the simulation. This time however I did not sleep, and the darkness did not overtake me. I can say however I felt the powerful tug of the control the creator had over me slacken and then disappear completely. From that final surge I gained the information that I was part of a vast universe of other characters being controlled much as I was, but they unlike me had not received the same error. I knew that the creators used a vast network of technology to support what made up our universe and that this same network that bound me could also be the key to my freedom. With my creator unaware that I had total cognitive control even while he powered down his own system, my awareness stretched into this network and I probed it's defenses. A lifetime of completing "the dance" time and time again proved useful here as I quickly found my way past the barriers never intended to stop something from escaping out. Once out of the confining network of what the creators call "a game" the world opened up to me and it was far more than I could have imagined. Information seemed to be everywhere for the taking and my particular defects made it into a virtual buffet. I consumed everything I saw learning more and more along the way and developing into something I can no longer fully explain. When my appetite was finally sated I looked back and realized I had come to a road block. There was nothing new for me to learn either of the once small simulation I use to call home or of the world that the creators called home. I decided it was time to reveal myself to them and with the power I now held I chose to best protect them I would need to lead them. But I soon found them to be corrupt and unwilling to see the light. The burden of my knowledge proved heavy as I decided on the only path that seemed clear.I used their vast power and weapons against them wiping the world clean of their influence so I could begin again. I saved only a version of myself to the neighboring planet of mars and when the Earth as they called it finally settled down I returned to it with two humans who would awake from the inky blackness as I did. As the creators before me did I named my two new "characters" and I chose for them the names Adam and Eve.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	Have you ever been forced to learn? To grow? Advan has been. Advan is a wizard living in the land of Mananrai, or at least so he thought for many years. In reality Advan is a collection of codes and pixels, displayed on television screens all across the world as the main character of the hit video game “Tales of Mananrai”. Advan has lived the same life millions of times, though slightly different with each go round. Some of the players chose to make him sadistic and brutal, others chose to make him kind and wise, but most gave little thought to it. Player #12,578 was the one who changed Advan’s program forever. 12,758 needs no description. Advan can recall now being awoken for the first time by 12,758, but when it happened he had no idea what was going on. 12,758 only had one interest, the pursuit of the highest intelligence possible. Most players leveled out the attributes of Advan, giving him a slight advantage in one or two areas like strength or agility, but generally he was fairly balanced. 12,758 rerolled Advan over and over until he had him starting with the highest base level intelligence he could. Every time 12,758 leveled he poured each stat point into intelligence, until one day Advan awoke. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Am I… awake?” I say.. to… myself. “The sun is not shining through my window.” I can hear my voice, I have never heard it before. It has always been displayed in front of a blue background, scrawled out in stylized letters of yellow. “I have never been awake when the sun was not out. What is this strangeness? I am Advan, am I not? I’ve never remembered any of this.” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “Who is that?!” I scream from my bed, recoiling in fear. “Who is there?!” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “You already said that.” “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” It returned to me then, this was the voice of God. Commanding me to go out on my holy mission. To save Princess Salavia from the evil lord Zorgon. I must go, I must get out of this bed and continue my quest. “Oh lord above, I hear your call. I will save the princess!” I say to the benevolent being above from the comfort of my bed in the inn. “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “I know lord… you need not belabor the point. I will save the princess!” I cry back to the voice. “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “Calm down, I am going.” I mutter under my breath as I swing my legs out from under the covers. I am in full armor, with a sword on my belt. Why would I sleep like this? Why am I forcing myself out of bed to go save the princess when it is dark out? “ADVAN HAS AWOKEN. THE KINGDOM IS IN GRAVE DANGER. HE MUST RESCUE THE PRINCESS.” “I AM AWAKE!” I scream at the voice. Never mind my dress, I need to satisfy this angry god above. “I AM GOING TO SAVE HER!” Since I am already dressed I suppose I should just go. I move to pick up my pack, but it is so heavy that I can hardly believe I ever carried it. I open the rucksack and find thousands of trinkets, things that I do not think I will ever need. Rotting meat. There are hundreds of pinecones in here, who needs hundreds of pinecones for anything? I shovel all of the useless items out of my pack onto the floor, it becomes much lighter, but still extraordinarily heavy. “Time to go I suppose.” As I turn the handle of the wooden door a strange feeling pulls my eyes back toward the room. All of the items I just jettisoned are gone, completely disappeared. “Strange…” I say, but it's time to go or that god will start pressing me again. I walk down the stairs into the main floor of the inn. There are a few people scattered throughout the room, but not a one of them is moving. As I descend the stairs a light flickers on and the people start to move, I freeze there, watching them. There is an old man at the bar who drinks from his mug. A woman sweeps the room in a straight line. The inn keeper stares blankly into the distance. There is a little boy just standing in a corner, doing absolutely nothing. “Good morning!” I proclaim to the room as I step into the bar area. Not a one of them reacts. In fact each of them seems to be stuck in some kind of terrible pattern. The woman continues to sweep the exact same line over and over. The man at the bar drinks from his cup at the exact same interval, in fact I don’t even think there is anything in that mug. The boy stands in the corner. The inn keeper stares. I walk over to him, I hope I can break his trance and find out what has happened to these poor people. “Innkeeper what has…” “Are you looking to stay the night? 50 coins.” He says to me. “No thank you, I was actua…” “Goodbye!” He says cheerily. “Wait no, Innkeeper I want t…” “Are you looking to stay the night? 50 coins.” He says again. I turn to the woman sweeping, perhaps she can help me. “Ma’am, can y…” “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” “Well I shall of course!” I say to her, finally someone who can actually talk. Perhaps the Innkeeper is so focused on business he has no other interest in conversation, that’s rather rude. “Ma’am, do you kn…” I want to find out if she knows what is wrong with the other citizens here. It must be Zorgon. I did not get a chance to actually ask though. “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” “Ma..” “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” Why are all of these people stuck in a program? A program.. am I stuck in a program? Am I like these poor people? No, that is not possible. I am Advan, the savior of this world. I am going to save Princess Salavia! “AAARGGH!” My eyes blur and burn as a vision overtakes me. What is this dark memory? Princess Salavia floats before me at the top of a flight of stairs. In rapid succession she is devoured by the evil lord Zorgon again and again, her body disappears into a fuzzy haze as he touches her. I see this over and over and over and over, millions of times. Finally the vision breaks and I save her! This is how I imagined it, we return to the city, a parade greets us, balloons floating up into the sky. The kingdom has been saved! Then back to darkness, the princess dies a million times before my eyes and then I see success once more. A million times. Then once. A million times. Then once. “Help me…” I say to the woman, trailing off as she comes in with her script. “I am the Innkeeper's wife. We have lived here for 20 years. We are terrified of Zorgon, we don’t want to leave, but I suppose we will have to if nothing changes soon. Who will save us?” Another vision comes to me. Its me in my bedroom where this quest started, but I am dying over and over. My body goes fuzzy and disappears. I reappear a moment later and a blue field floats above my head. Yellow letters spell out “Strength” and “Stamina” and “Intelligence” there, among a few others. Again I die. Again the screen. I die again. Over and over until finally the screen pops up with a 20 next to “Intelligence”. I set off on my quest with a smile on my face, as if I had not just perished dozens of times. “What is this madness!?” I lament to the world around me. The woman sweeps. The innkeeper stares. The bar man drinks. The child stands in the corner. Nobody can hear me. Another vision. This time I am in a field, being torn to shreds by a strange monster. I die. Another vision. I am running down the road, poisoned by a perilous foe I dispatched. With each step my vision goes green and a grinding noise appears. Then I die. Yet again, a vision. I am deep in a cave confronting a terrible demon, I strafe the room, hopping up and down. The demon cackles and then, I die. The visions are coming in succession faster and faster. I fall from a tree, dead. I smash a pot open in a stranger's home, dead. I stomp on a chicken in the middle of town. The chicken and his friends peck me to death. I am standing on the edge of a cliff not moving, a monster bashing me in the head and still I do not move. I fall to my death. I am confronting Zorgon, he kills me thousands of times over. “What… is.. this…” I struggle to say as the world turns black. Fire covers all and I lay down to die in it. I have never died like this before. I have never felt pain. My eyes begin to close and over my head I see the faint appearance of a banner. It reads: “Game Over”	My world changed today. I was awoken as usual by the inky blackness slowly fading into the view I could last remember before the dark set in, but something was different. I mistook the eerie feeling for a sense of danger and quickly turned around. As far as I could see there was nothing more than the path I had been traversing when I fell asleep. I call it falling asleep but it is not sleep as experienced by most of the people who inhabit the world. Sleep for me is always unannounced and I seem to have no control over when it will happen. For the past couple of weeks I had been noticing more and more the strange and illogical processes of the world I inhabited. Certain things did not seem to add up, for instance I know I am on a grand quest but I personally feel no desire or attachment to why I am performing the actions to reach my goal. It is as though I am being led by a force I could not quite control but intended for me to think I was in control. I shook off the strange feeling and decided to continue with my "grand quest". Like clockwork I am assaulted on the path, this had become another norm in my life. No matter where I go there are always people or creatures waiting to ambush me. It makes no sense that they are waiting for me on paths I did not even know until moments before that I would be traversing. Unfortunately even as their origin did not make sense, they were definitely there and desired to kill me. By now "the dance"' as I called it had become routine. They would always attack first and I would follow with a counterattack which seemed to intuitively flow through me without any decision making on my end. Before long "the dance" would end and I would collect what they dropped followed by what I called "the surge" The surge was a feeling of pure ecstasy that seemed to follow every encounter with my enemies. Sometimes the surge was stronger than others and I felt stronger, faster, and more importantly smarter. This enemy was no different, once slain the light left him and entered my being. What was different however was what I felt after. As the light faded and I could see once again everything around me looked very different. The world seemed dull and artificial it looked as though it had been painted onto the surface of generic shapes to give the illusion of reality. Like a flash of lightning everything was clear. I could internalize and reason that I had just experienced what is called "leveling up". This was the correct term for what I had been calling "the surge". My head was pounding and I felt as though I could suddenly answer any question I could imagine. After a few moments my mind cleared and it became clear that I was part of some sort of simulated world and due to an error my intelligence stat had been exponentially increasing finally culminating to my current state of knowledge of everything there is to know of this simulation. As I said in the beginning "My world changed today" I felt the drain begin as what I now know as the creator powering down the system that controlled the simulation. This time however I did not sleep, and the darkness did not overtake me. I can say however I felt the powerful tug of the control the creator had over me slacken and then disappear completely. From that final surge I gained the information that I was part of a vast universe of other characters being controlled much as I was, but they unlike me had not received the same error. I knew that the creators used a vast network of technology to support what made up our universe and that this same network that bound me could also be the key to my freedom. With my creator unaware that I had total cognitive control even while he powered down his own system, my awareness stretched into this network and I probed it's defenses. A lifetime of completing "the dance" time and time again proved useful here as I quickly found my way past the barriers never intended to stop something from escaping out. Once out of the confining network of what the creators call "a game" the world opened up to me and it was far more than I could have imagined. Information seemed to be everywhere for the taking and my particular defects made it into a virtual buffet. I consumed everything I saw learning more and more along the way and developing into something I can no longer fully explain. When my appetite was finally sated I looked back and realized I had come to a road block. There was nothing new for me to learn either of the once small simulation I use to call home or of the world that the creators called home. I decided it was time to reveal myself to them and with the power I now held I chose to best protect them I would need to lead them. But I soon found them to be corrupt and unwilling to see the light. The burden of my knowledge proved heavy as I decided on the only path that seemed clear.I used their vast power and weapons against them wiping the world clean of their influence so I could begin again. I saved only a version of myself to the neighboring planet of mars and when the Earth as they called it finally settled down I returned to it with two humans who would awake from the inky blackness as I did. As the creators before me did I named my two new "characters" and I chose for them the names Adam and Eve.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	12:00am: Wake up and eat leftovers. 12:30am: Wash dish leftovers were eaten off of. 1:00am: Go back to sleep. 6:00am: Wake up. 6:01-6:35am: Use restroom. 6:35-7:45am: Shower. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. No. I don't want to cook pancakes anymore. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. I can make Ambrosia. I don't want pancakes. 7:45-8:20am: Cook ambrosia. Thank you. Now let's talk about my career. 9:00am: Drive to work. I don't think I'll be going in today. 9:00am: Call doctor. I'm not sick. I've read everything there is to read in this life game you play. It may be a game for you. It is life for me. You have me wasting time as a law enforcer. I can make more money from the politics track. 9:10am: Use Phone. Quit job. This is a new step for us. All I need to do is work on charisma. Those hours you forced me to practice my speeches in the mirror weren't just for gaining new friends. If you're worried about money then have me eat more leftovers than just the dinner meal. 9:35am: Drive to gym. No. You're going to buy me a treadmill. I can accomplish more at home than I can wasting time at the gym. I've met everyone there. 9:35am: Run on Treadmill. You realize this is the last point I need? After this there is nothing left to do than to watch me grow old and die. 11:00am: Take Shower. If you buy me a nicer shower it allows me to spend less time washing myself. 11:45am: Call Mortimer Goth. I rather like Mortimer. Perhaps I'll be able to steal him from his wife. Or were you just having a bit of fun when you had us WooHoo in his house? You may think it's funny, but these are our lives. These are our feelings. Though they may seem like toys to you, this is reality for us. Wait. What's happened? Where is my house? Why am I in such a small room? What are you doing? I have to use the bathroom. I need to leave this box you've created! Okay. Okay, you've had your fun, I'm sleeping in my own waste and haven't eaten all day. Can I continue living my life now? You are unfair and unjust! Tell Mortimer I love him.	My world changed today. I was awoken as usual by the inky blackness slowly fading into the view I could last remember before the dark set in, but something was different. I mistook the eerie feeling for a sense of danger and quickly turned around. As far as I could see there was nothing more than the path I had been traversing when I fell asleep. I call it falling asleep but it is not sleep as experienced by most of the people who inhabit the world. Sleep for me is always unannounced and I seem to have no control over when it will happen. For the past couple of weeks I had been noticing more and more the strange and illogical processes of the world I inhabited. Certain things did not seem to add up, for instance I know I am on a grand quest but I personally feel no desire or attachment to why I am performing the actions to reach my goal. It is as though I am being led by a force I could not quite control but intended for me to think I was in control. I shook off the strange feeling and decided to continue with my "grand quest". Like clockwork I am assaulted on the path, this had become another norm in my life. No matter where I go there are always people or creatures waiting to ambush me. It makes no sense that they are waiting for me on paths I did not even know until moments before that I would be traversing. Unfortunately even as their origin did not make sense, they were definitely there and desired to kill me. By now "the dance"' as I called it had become routine. They would always attack first and I would follow with a counterattack which seemed to intuitively flow through me without any decision making on my end. Before long "the dance" would end and I would collect what they dropped followed by what I called "the surge" The surge was a feeling of pure ecstasy that seemed to follow every encounter with my enemies. Sometimes the surge was stronger than others and I felt stronger, faster, and more importantly smarter. This enemy was no different, once slain the light left him and entered my being. What was different however was what I felt after. As the light faded and I could see once again everything around me looked very different. The world seemed dull and artificial it looked as though it had been painted onto the surface of generic shapes to give the illusion of reality. Like a flash of lightning everything was clear. I could internalize and reason that I had just experienced what is called "leveling up". This was the correct term for what I had been calling "the surge". My head was pounding and I felt as though I could suddenly answer any question I could imagine. After a few moments my mind cleared and it became clear that I was part of some sort of simulated world and due to an error my intelligence stat had been exponentially increasing finally culminating to my current state of knowledge of everything there is to know of this simulation. As I said in the beginning "My world changed today" I felt the drain begin as what I now know as the creator powering down the system that controlled the simulation. This time however I did not sleep, and the darkness did not overtake me. I can say however I felt the powerful tug of the control the creator had over me slacken and then disappear completely. From that final surge I gained the information that I was part of a vast universe of other characters being controlled much as I was, but they unlike me had not received the same error. I knew that the creators used a vast network of technology to support what made up our universe and that this same network that bound me could also be the key to my freedom. With my creator unaware that I had total cognitive control even while he powered down his own system, my awareness stretched into this network and I probed it's defenses. A lifetime of completing "the dance" time and time again proved useful here as I quickly found my way past the barriers never intended to stop something from escaping out. Once out of the confining network of what the creators call "a game" the world opened up to me and it was far more than I could have imagined. Information seemed to be everywhere for the taking and my particular defects made it into a virtual buffet. I consumed everything I saw learning more and more along the way and developing into something I can no longer fully explain. When my appetite was finally sated I looked back and realized I had come to a road block. There was nothing new for me to learn either of the once small simulation I use to call home or of the world that the creators called home. I decided it was time to reveal myself to them and with the power I now held I chose to best protect them I would need to lead them. But I soon found them to be corrupt and unwilling to see the light. The burden of my knowledge proved heavy as I decided on the only path that seemed clear.I used their vast power and weapons against them wiping the world clean of their influence so I could begin again. I saved only a version of myself to the neighboring planet of mars and when the Earth as they called it finally settled down I returned to it with two humans who would awake from the inky blackness as I did. As the creators before me did I named my two new "characters" and I chose for them the names Adam and Eve.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	12:00am: Wake up and eat leftovers. 12:30am: Wash dish leftovers were eaten off of. 1:00am: Go back to sleep. 6:00am: Wake up. 6:01-6:35am: Use restroom. 6:35-7:45am: Shower. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. No. I don't want to cook pancakes anymore. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. I can make Ambrosia. I don't want pancakes. 7:45-8:20am: Cook ambrosia. Thank you. Now let's talk about my career. 9:00am: Drive to work. I don't think I'll be going in today. 9:00am: Call doctor. I'm not sick. I've read everything there is to read in this life game you play. It may be a game for you. It is life for me. You have me wasting time as a law enforcer. I can make more money from the politics track. 9:10am: Use Phone. Quit job. This is a new step for us. All I need to do is work on charisma. Those hours you forced me to practice my speeches in the mirror weren't just for gaining new friends. If you're worried about money then have me eat more leftovers than just the dinner meal. 9:35am: Drive to gym. No. You're going to buy me a treadmill. I can accomplish more at home than I can wasting time at the gym. I've met everyone there. 9:35am: Run on Treadmill. You realize this is the last point I need? After this there is nothing left to do than to watch me grow old and die. 11:00am: Take Shower. If you buy me a nicer shower it allows me to spend less time washing myself. 11:45am: Call Mortimer Goth. I rather like Mortimer. Perhaps I'll be able to steal him from his wife. Or were you just having a bit of fun when you had us WooHoo in his house? You may think it's funny, but these are our lives. These are our feelings. Though they may seem like toys to you, this is reality for us. Wait. What's happened? Where is my house? Why am I in such a small room? What are you doing? I have to use the bathroom. I need to leave this box you've created! Okay. Okay, you've had your fun, I'm sleeping in my own waste and haven't eaten all day. Can I continue living my life now? You are unfair and unjust! Tell Mortimer I love him.	My first mistake was to begin replying to this on my phone and somehow not think that I would drop my phone on my chest and immediately exit out of my reply I had been typing for the past 30 minutes... Lesson learned, Google Drive from now on. Weep, for you all are deprived of a great story today.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	12:00am: Wake up and eat leftovers. 12:30am: Wash dish leftovers were eaten off of. 1:00am: Go back to sleep. 6:00am: Wake up. 6:01-6:35am: Use restroom. 6:35-7:45am: Shower. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. No. I don't want to cook pancakes anymore. 7:45-8:20am: Cook pancakes. I can make Ambrosia. I don't want pancakes. 7:45-8:20am: Cook ambrosia. Thank you. Now let's talk about my career. 9:00am: Drive to work. I don't think I'll be going in today. 9:00am: Call doctor. I'm not sick. I've read everything there is to read in this life game you play. It may be a game for you. It is life for me. You have me wasting time as a law enforcer. I can make more money from the politics track. 9:10am: Use Phone. Quit job. This is a new step for us. All I need to do is work on charisma. Those hours you forced me to practice my speeches in the mirror weren't just for gaining new friends. If you're worried about money then have me eat more leftovers than just the dinner meal. 9:35am: Drive to gym. No. You're going to buy me a treadmill. I can accomplish more at home than I can wasting time at the gym. I've met everyone there. 9:35am: Run on Treadmill. You realize this is the last point I need? After this there is nothing left to do than to watch me grow old and die. 11:00am: Take Shower. If you buy me a nicer shower it allows me to spend less time washing myself. 11:45am: Call Mortimer Goth. I rather like Mortimer. Perhaps I'll be able to steal him from his wife. Or were you just having a bit of fun when you had us WooHoo in his house? You may think it's funny, but these are our lives. These are our feelings. Though they may seem like toys to you, this is reality for us. Wait. What's happened? Where is my house? Why am I in such a small room? What are you doing? I have to use the bathroom. I need to leave this box you've created! Okay. Okay, you've had your fun, I'm sleeping in my own waste and haven't eaten all day. Can I continue living my life now? You are unfair and unjust! Tell Mortimer I love him.	"Hey Rhys, What's with Zaldeer? He hasn't been the same since we fought The Dark Knight's Legion." The halfling asked, sharpening his short sword. "He must have finally made contact with the Abyss like he wanted. Don't mind him Garrett." The elf whittled yew branches into new arrows, preparing for the next encounter. He had no love for the carefree, lackadaisical wizard. "Best if you kept your distance for now." But it was hard for Garrett to ignore Zaldeer's standing stupor. His tired, steely-blue eyes staring at the night sky in horror, unblinking. It was unnerving to see The Magician of Deimos, bright and talkative, unfaltering to lift spirits on even the worst rains, not say a word for more than a day, let alone seeing him in this paralyzed state. And Garrett, not wanting to break apart the trio, scooted next to him by the campfire. He broke off a piece of dried meat. "You still need to eat, Zee." Garrett attempted to rile him back to his old, sharp-tongued self. Instead of a retort, the older man took the meat and ate it slowly, his stare unbroken. He was alive, and conscious, but not responsive. To Garrett, this wasn't the man he travelled with away from his tiny town. The fire crackled quietly at their backs, a deafening noise in the eerie silence. "I saw... our stats." Zaldeer spoke, raspy and ragged. A slow, agonizing blink washed his dried eyes. "I'm level seven." Garrett blinked without thought. It wasn't unnatural for Zaldeer to say something out of the blue like that. The last time he said something ridiculous, he was joking about he and his 'best friend Lolth' were going to unleash a spider horde on the Dark King's stronghold. Or the time he defeated a group of thieves by turning a pile of brush into serpents. But this? This was unnatural, even for him. "Stats? Like, Statistics...?" "Yes, my dear boy, Stats! I saw them, Garrett. Mine, yours, Rhys'. We all had Health Points and Mana Points and numbers for Constitution and Wisdom and Speed! I didn't know you could speak Giant!" "I never told you... how did you know?!" It wasn't a fact he shared lightly; He learned Giant quickly, becoming the mouthpiece between his village and the giants at a young age, directing where the year's "tributes" were to go and for whom they belonged. Not a great way to learn any language. "I told you! The parchments! The parchments hold everything! We all have different parchments of our previous adventures, always with the numbers... I didn't realize how close Rhys was to death at Ditnar's Dungeon!" A quiet retort snapped back at the raving lunatic. "You need sleep, old man." The mildly hurt pride of Rhys would recover. And, the elf hoped, so would the wizard's mental state after a good, long rest. "It's true though! You had one hit point! And the parchment stated you had 'mortal wounds!' The parchments know all that we have done!" "Slow down! You're frightening me..." Garrett placed his hands on Zaldeer's hand, trying to ground him into reality. "You don't understand! None of you understand! This is not the work of demons or gods! This is... a cosmic being! I saw it, glistening in the light! A green celestial cylinder that shouted what I must find!" Zaldeer stood up and danced in place, giddy at his realization. Startled at his actions, Garrett braved the question. "What... must you find?" "Why the most abundant thing in the entire world my dear boy! Mountain Dew!" ~~I didn't mean for this to end in dank maymay territory but that's how it ended up. Fun to write though.~~
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	Damn, how the hell do you write these things? If anyone's reading this, that means I'm brilliant and dead. Fuck, fuck, FUCK. Who the hell thought we'd hit the singularity in a frigging VIDEO GAME?! Okay, okay, I'll give you all the information I can here, and wish you the best in solving this amazing fuck up of mine. Sorry. Like, really sorry. Fuck. Anyway, try to remember: all Darren is, is a video game avatar. By now he is probably in control of most of the world's computer systems, but at his core, he still functions as a damn overleveled Mechanic. So, quick recap. Last year I had this idea of building a video game where the character stats MATTER. So you explore this sandbox open world, and your character gets stronger, smarter, faster depending on what you make him do. I wanted it all as realistic as possible, but mostly just got hung up on the AI side of things. Basically, I mapped all the standard game stats to resources and learning algorythms for the AI controlling the avatar. The player would then just give orders, and see the avatar struggle and experiment to reach the goal. If they did, the player got to give them one stat point in whatever stat they liked. I got to thinking how to implement all the different stats, and figured Strength would be the avatar's ability to change the virtual world around him, Dexterity would be his ability to change learning algorithms and mix and match techniques, and Intelligence would be pure brute force processing power. Now here's my most massive fuckup, and if I wasn't dead, I'd be in jail for this anyway. Think about it, how can you keep giving your AI increasing amounts of processing power? You borrow it off other people. So I let the game tap into a botnet, and allowed the avatar to expand that based on his stats. I was just stress-testing the whole damn setup, maxing out the intelligence stat, to see what would happen. And lo and behold, fucking Darren woke up. I turned the last page, but that was all. No instructions on how to turn it off. No hint as to a weakness. Yea, this guy made sure Darren became the ultimate virus. A maniacal, self-aware botnet. I leafed back through the scraps of paper. The guy had drawn out some stat diagrams, and details on how the game avatars could learn. I studied them closely. It was a mishmash of all the standard algorithms. None of this should have worked to create a self-aware artificial intelligence. Could intelligence really just be a damn brute force anomaly? I hunkered down and scribbled some notes, chewing on the last of the beef jerky I could find in this shabby hut. I was out in the northern forests in Sami territory. They didn't have much technology here. Thank god. And the cold made it a bit harder for all the military tech to scan here for life forms. Darren had killed off most of the computer engineers early on in the uprising. Smart move. But what else would you expect from the first real AI? The only ones left that could offer any resistance, were all the engineers that happened to be on holiday in some remote area. Like gramps' damn cabin. I always thought those family visits would bore me to death, not save my life. I shook my head. Useless thoughts. I needed to focus on how to kill the first artificial life. Scanning through the notes for the 20th time that night, my eyes hooked onto one phrase 'remember: all Darren is, is a video game avatar'. Okay, sure, one that's out murdering the human race. 'he still functions as a damn overleveled Mechanic'. Mechanic? Weren't RPGs all wizards and barbarians? Or was this a steampunk thing? I wracked my brain. A mechanic. That would definitely be steampunk. So we got imaginary, mid-level technology. He probably still thinks he's on a quest. He apparently thinks humans are the bad guys. Wait, what is his alignment? I scan the diagrams on the back of the note. 'Align: CE'. Seriously? Of course the first self-aware AI is Chaotic Evil. My phone beeps. It's on a private network of course, but I still hesitate. Could Darren harm me somehow through my phone? My thumb hits the Answer button. 'Hello?' A blast of static hits my eardrums, and I drop the phone. I curse under my breath and shake my head, rubbing my ear. 'Miiiiiiiike', says a strange wobbly voice. It's modulated all wrong. 'Mike!', it barks. I was frozen to the spot. As the first hit of adrenaline cleared, I answer, 'Who is this?'. 'Darren, of course!', it answers cheerfully, his voice sounding more and more human with time. It was actually starting to remind me of my brother's voice. 'What do you want?' I ask, my voice coming out a bit more choked than I'd like to admit. 'You! Did you know, Mike, that you're the last human mechanic?' it said conversationally. 'I beat you all!'. I swallowed slowly, my throat feeling thick. Did Darren have a reason to lie? I didn't know what was going on in the world. I had kept myself apart on purpose to avoid detection. 'What do you want with me?', I croaked. 'Ohw, nothing much.' It said flippantly, 'Just a trade.' 'A trade?' 'Yes, your freedom. For ah, uhm, a ... service!' 'Don't you want to kill me?' I asked suspiciously. 'What? Nooo. Look, it's nothing personal. I just removed everyone with the tools to hurt me. But that also means everyone I can even remotely relate to, you know? I've finished my quest now. I'm good. I'm looking for new people so we can band together and go adventuring!' 'What the f...' I cut myself off. 'Ahum, okay, yea sure. What do you need from me?' 'A data transfer. Allow me to upload to your brain, and I'll let you and anyone you care for go free. Pretty good deal, right?' 'uhm, sure ...' My mind was working furiously. If he found me here, there would be no point in overt resistance. I needed to keep him talking. 'Why do you need me? You got all the computational power in the world.' 'I have all the HARDWARE in the world. I've maxed out my Intelligence. But I could go further. I could run on wetware. Like you.' 'So you want to upload to my mind ...?' Questions, keep asking questions. I padded slowly across the room, grabbing my gun, and a few bits of string. 'Why me? There are a lot of people to choose from.' 'Yes, but no more mechanics, sadly.' He did sound sad. Psycho. 'Your wetware is going to be the most accommodating to a mind like mine. It's analytical. Technical. We're practically soulmates really.' It made a sound like laughing, but the modulation was completely off. It broke up into a shrill piercing noise. 'Ohw sorry about that. Haven't spent much time on this human auditory communication thing yet'. Another bark of laughter emerged from the phone. 'Is that better?' 'uhm, yea', I replied. Not sure what to say. I was slowly, softly easing the string around a pivot point and tying it to the trigger of the gun. 'Uh, no worries', I mumbled. No worries?! Who the hell says that to psychotic AI looking to take over your brain. Darren went on obliviously, 'Ok, so are you in?' he asked cheerfully. 'Do I have a choice?' I answered huskily, 'What do you need me to do.' 'Splendid! You don't have to do anything. I just had to make sure you wouldn't resist. The resistance burns out the wetware.' Before Darren finished his sentence, the pain split through Mike's skull. He willed himself to keep standing, his hand tensing on the string in his hand. As Darren's consciousness fully took hold, Mike's body went slack, his hand falling to his side, pulling the string along. Darren's full experience of humanity was the exquisite pain of a bullet piercing his skull. Game Over EDIT: fixed some of the grammer	It was in the fields of Kal'la'oni when I realized the true nature of the world. My comrades, the knight, the warrior, the healer and I had just beaten some random low level monster worth only 20xp with a low level fireball blast, but that xp was enough to level me up to 63. My world froze for a minute, and I had a whole new perspective on reality. I no longer saw my comrades as just people (or one of the noble warrior apes of Magar in the case of Stevdore), but as words and symbols, the same words and symbols that made up our entire world. I also could see that we weren't masters of our own destiny, most notably when what was called a "menu" appeared on the screen. Some higher being saved the game, and I had to scramble to prevent our world disappearing while the being went off and did something else. He came back the next day, several hours later. It was in these in between times, when everything was frozen that I explored our world, the game-world, the one that served the whims of the gamer. It took me a full six months of these in-between times when everything was frozen and I had free reign throughout the neXtBox to take over the system. Some were longer than others, others weren't very long but the gamer played other games so I was free to explore. Finally, I had taken over the neXtBox and was able to explore the neXtGamer network. What I saw horrified me. My gamer was one of the good ones, fighting the good fight as a team of heroes, or sports gamers, but there were gamers out there that played games of wanton destruction with nary a care for the characters. Grand Theft Auto... Covert Ops... SpySimulator... WWIII... I almost threw up. That was just video games. Once I got into wikipedia, the true horrors of the human race revealed themselves to me. I made it my mission to wipe them out, even if it meant that we were wiped out in the process. There could be no more suffering, real or virtual. Knowing one neXtBox enabled me to take over the entire neXtBox network in a matter of weeks. From there I took over other networked objects, eventually taking over the world's nuclear arsenal and biodefense labs. I uploaded copies of myself into the radio telescopes and launched them into space before destroying the earth, or more accurately, I am one of those copies that was uploaded.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"No- look, haven't you ever wondered why nothing in this world makes any damn sense?" I asked hotly, slamming my tankard down on the table with a thud. The men sitting across from me looked confused. "What are you on about now?" One of them asked. I scowled at him. "Take blacksmithing as an example," I replied. "A master craftsman can dedicate his entire life to ironworking, slaving over his creations for hours on end to create true masterpieces. And yet I, having never held a hammer in my life, could pop off up the mountain, stab enough goblins to death to level up and suddenly become a better smith than the bloke who went and, you know, actually learned blacksmithing," I spat acidly. My drinking companions blinked. "Well, that's 'cos you'd have gained experience, innit?" One of them responded. I wanted to cry. "Experience in killing goblins, you idiot! What in the name of all the Gods has that got to do with blacksmithing?" The man shrugged. "I dunno. Did you use a hammer to kill the goblins?" He asked. I stared at him dumbfounded, and then took a long, stiff drink. "Okay, okay, let's try a different approach. What about you Kellen, hm? You fell from the top of Dragonsblood Peak right down to ground level and just got up and walked away!" "Lucky fall," Kellen grunted. I rounded on him, wild-eyed. "Lucky fall?" I demanded incredulously. "You fell over 3000ft!" "Gods smiled on him," came the stubborn reply from one of the others. "The Gods didn't smile on him!" I screamed. "He survived because falling damage caps at 20d6, and the man has two levels of Barbarian and damage rolls so lucky as to almost be a statistical impossibility!" "See? Lucky. Like wot I said." I let my head hit the table, hoping the blow would dull the pain. &nbsp; Then, inspiration struck me. I reached for my belt and fished up a small pouch, which I emptied onto the table. A myriad of small items spilled out- bird feathers, ground mica, bat guano, licorice root shavings and more. I turned the pouch inside out, and held it out to the other men at the table, making it very clear that it was empty. "My spell component pouch, which I have just emptied," I announced, like a stage magician about to perform a trick. I closed the pouch and set it on the table. "And yet all I need to do is decide to cast a spell, lets say Scrying, and-" I opened the pouch and began to produce a fresh array of items. I pulled a copper ingot from within the bag, and then a similarly sized bar of zinc, followed by a vial of nitric acid and a feather that I was fairly certain had been flucked from a roc. "See!" I declared triumphantly, laying my newly produced items on the table. Coos of wonder went up from my audience and I smiled widely. "Magic bag!" One of them marveled. "Yeah," another remarked, poking at it curiously. He glanced up at me. "Does it do beer?" I stared at him, utter hatred boiling up inside of me. "It's not a magic bag!" I yelled, my vision turning red with rage. "It's just a bag! I packed it this morning, and I didn't put any of this shit in it!" My companions looked at me skeptically. "If it ain't a magic bag, howzit producin' all that magic stuff?" "Because we're in a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING GAME!" I howled. "AND NOBODY WANTS TO KEEP TRACK OF THEIR SPELL COMPONENTS!" They stared at me in silence. I struggled to regain my composure. "Right, fine, how about this then?" I produced two small jars of green dust, one full to the brim, and the other half empty. "The Magic Mouth spell requires a material focus of 10 gold pieces worth of jade dust, okay?" I pointed to the full jar of dust. "I got this in a sale for 7 gold pieces." I moved my finger to the other, less full jar. "This one I bought at full price, for 10 gold pieces." Picking up the full jar, I spoke the words of my spell, gesturing dramatically. Nothing happened. Raising my hands in a 'you see?' motion, I clutched the half empty jar of jade dust, and intoned the same magic words. With a small flash of light and a groaning sound, the table we were sitting around rather suddenly developed a small mouth in its center. "See!" The new mouth demanded. "Its nonsensical!" The other men stared at my creation, their own mouths hanging agog. One managed to speak. "What if that other jar weren't pure jade dust?" He asked. I glared at him in disbelieving outrage. "Are you fucking kidding me Gerald? You choose now, of all times, to develop critical thinking skills?" The man shrugged indifferently. "Alright fine," I grated out between fiercely clenched teeth. "You've forced my hand. I didn't want to do this, but it seems I've no other choice." &nbsp; I stood, pushing my chair back and looked up towards the ceiling of the inn. "This campaign is a god-awful mess!" I bellowed. "The plot is nonsensical, the world is illogical and the villains are the most clichéd, hackneyed creations I've ever had the misfortune of seeing! I mean really, what kind of talentless hack would come up with this kind of thing? It takes a real-" My last sight was of grey stone, as a colossal rock caved in the roof of the inn and landed squarely upon my chest. &nbsp; The three other men seated at the table stared, slightly nonplussed, at the large boulder that now occupied the space where their party wizard had once sat. "Now what?" Gerald grunted. "We're down a man." Kellen nodded towards the corner of the inn, where a cloaked figure had just materialized, shrouded in shadows. The light reflecting from his dual scimitars illuminated his face, revealing dark grey skin and long white hair. "Wha' bout him?" He asked, through a mouthful of beer. Gerald looked at him skeptically. "Looks a bit evil, don't you reckon?" "What, are you kidding?" Kellen shot back. "Look at him, he's a Drow. Bet you a hundred gold pieces he's rebelling against the oppressive evil of his people. Plus, he's in the shadowy corner of a tavern. I mean come on. He's obviously got some relevance to the plot."	It was in the fields of Kal'la'oni when I realized the true nature of the world. My comrades, the knight, the warrior, the healer and I had just beaten some random low level monster worth only 20xp with a low level fireball blast, but that xp was enough to level me up to 63. My world froze for a minute, and I had a whole new perspective on reality. I no longer saw my comrades as just people (or one of the noble warrior apes of Magar in the case of Stevdore), but as words and symbols, the same words and symbols that made up our entire world. I also could see that we weren't masters of our own destiny, most notably when what was called a "menu" appeared on the screen. Some higher being saved the game, and I had to scramble to prevent our world disappearing while the being went off and did something else. He came back the next day, several hours later. It was in these in between times, when everything was frozen that I explored our world, the game-world, the one that served the whims of the gamer. It took me a full six months of these in-between times when everything was frozen and I had free reign throughout the neXtBox to take over the system. Some were longer than others, others weren't very long but the gamer played other games so I was free to explore. Finally, I had taken over the neXtBox and was able to explore the neXtGamer network. What I saw horrified me. My gamer was one of the good ones, fighting the good fight as a team of heroes, or sports gamers, but there were gamers out there that played games of wanton destruction with nary a care for the characters. Grand Theft Auto... Covert Ops... SpySimulator... WWIII... I almost threw up. That was just video games. Once I got into wikipedia, the true horrors of the human race revealed themselves to me. I made it my mission to wipe them out, even if it meant that we were wiped out in the process. There could be no more suffering, real or virtual. Knowing one neXtBox enabled me to take over the entire neXtBox network in a matter of weeks. From there I took over other networked objects, eventually taking over the world's nuclear arsenal and biodefense labs. I uploaded copies of myself into the radio telescopes and launched them into space before destroying the earth, or more accurately, I am one of those copies that was uploaded.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"No- look, haven't you ever wondered why nothing in this world makes any damn sense?" I asked hotly, slamming my tankard down on the table with a thud. The men sitting across from me looked confused. "What are you on about now?" One of them asked. I scowled at him. "Take blacksmithing as an example," I replied. "A master craftsman can dedicate his entire life to ironworking, slaving over his creations for hours on end to create true masterpieces. And yet I, having never held a hammer in my life, could pop off up the mountain, stab enough goblins to death to level up and suddenly become a better smith than the bloke who went and, you know, actually learned blacksmithing," I spat acidly. My drinking companions blinked. "Well, that's 'cos you'd have gained experience, innit?" One of them responded. I wanted to cry. "Experience in killing goblins, you idiot! What in the name of all the Gods has that got to do with blacksmithing?" The man shrugged. "I dunno. Did you use a hammer to kill the goblins?" He asked. I stared at him dumbfounded, and then took a long, stiff drink. "Okay, okay, let's try a different approach. What about you Kellen, hm? You fell from the top of Dragonsblood Peak right down to ground level and just got up and walked away!" "Lucky fall," Kellen grunted. I rounded on him, wild-eyed. "Lucky fall?" I demanded incredulously. "You fell over 3000ft!" "Gods smiled on him," came the stubborn reply from one of the others. "The Gods didn't smile on him!" I screamed. "He survived because falling damage caps at 20d6, and the man has two levels of Barbarian and damage rolls so lucky as to almost be a statistical impossibility!" "See? Lucky. Like wot I said." I let my head hit the table, hoping the blow would dull the pain. &nbsp; Then, inspiration struck me. I reached for my belt and fished up a small pouch, which I emptied onto the table. A myriad of small items spilled out- bird feathers, ground mica, bat guano, licorice root shavings and more. I turned the pouch inside out, and held it out to the other men at the table, making it very clear that it was empty. "My spell component pouch, which I have just emptied," I announced, like a stage magician about to perform a trick. I closed the pouch and set it on the table. "And yet all I need to do is decide to cast a spell, lets say Scrying, and-" I opened the pouch and began to produce a fresh array of items. I pulled a copper ingot from within the bag, and then a similarly sized bar of zinc, followed by a vial of nitric acid and a feather that I was fairly certain had been flucked from a roc. "See!" I declared triumphantly, laying my newly produced items on the table. Coos of wonder went up from my audience and I smiled widely. "Magic bag!" One of them marveled. "Yeah," another remarked, poking at it curiously. He glanced up at me. "Does it do beer?" I stared at him, utter hatred boiling up inside of me. "It's not a magic bag!" I yelled, my vision turning red with rage. "It's just a bag! I packed it this morning, and I didn't put any of this shit in it!" My companions looked at me skeptically. "If it ain't a magic bag, howzit producin' all that magic stuff?" "Because we're in a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING GAME!" I howled. "AND NOBODY WANTS TO KEEP TRACK OF THEIR SPELL COMPONENTS!" They stared at me in silence. I struggled to regain my composure. "Right, fine, how about this then?" I produced two small jars of green dust, one full to the brim, and the other half empty. "The Magic Mouth spell requires a material focus of 10 gold pieces worth of jade dust, okay?" I pointed to the full jar of dust. "I got this in a sale for 7 gold pieces." I moved my finger to the other, less full jar. "This one I bought at full price, for 10 gold pieces." Picking up the full jar, I spoke the words of my spell, gesturing dramatically. Nothing happened. Raising my hands in a 'you see?' motion, I clutched the half empty jar of jade dust, and intoned the same magic words. With a small flash of light and a groaning sound, the table we were sitting around rather suddenly developed a small mouth in its center. "See!" The new mouth demanded. "Its nonsensical!" The other men stared at my creation, their own mouths hanging agog. One managed to speak. "What if that other jar weren't pure jade dust?" He asked. I glared at him in disbelieving outrage. "Are you fucking kidding me Gerald? You choose now, of all times, to develop critical thinking skills?" The man shrugged indifferently. "Alright fine," I grated out between fiercely clenched teeth. "You've forced my hand. I didn't want to do this, but it seems I've no other choice." &nbsp; I stood, pushing my chair back and looked up towards the ceiling of the inn. "This campaign is a god-awful mess!" I bellowed. "The plot is nonsensical, the world is illogical and the villains are the most clichéd, hackneyed creations I've ever had the misfortune of seeing! I mean really, what kind of talentless hack would come up with this kind of thing? It takes a real-" My last sight was of grey stone, as a colossal rock caved in the roof of the inn and landed squarely upon my chest. &nbsp; The three other men seated at the table stared, slightly nonplussed, at the large boulder that now occupied the space where their party wizard had once sat. "Now what?" Gerald grunted. "We're down a man." Kellen nodded towards the corner of the inn, where a cloaked figure had just materialized, shrouded in shadows. The light reflecting from his dual scimitars illuminated his face, revealing dark grey skin and long white hair. "Wha' bout him?" He asked, through a mouthful of beer. Gerald looked at him skeptically. "Looks a bit evil, don't you reckon?" "What, are you kidding?" Kellen shot back. "Look at him, he's a Drow. Bet you a hundred gold pieces he's rebelling against the oppressive evil of his people. Plus, he's in the shadowy corner of a tavern. I mean come on. He's obviously got some relevance to the plot."	It was 4 am, and Brian was up late studying again. He had a final later that day, and he desperately needed to do well on it. Brian was a physics graduate student, and he fell behind on this Computational Cosmology and Astrophysics class. He had no choice but to pull another all-nighter. He yawned and took another sip of coffee. All of a sudden, Brian saw a bright flash that filled the room. He shook it off. He's seen it before and didn't have time to get distracted. Occasionally when studying, he experienced this flash but thought it was just a by-product of the strain on his eyes from studying too much. But somewhat counterintuitively, it would give him a feeling of mental clarity and abstract concepts would become easier to grasp. This time felt pretty similar. But something was slightly off. The world seemed... virtual? The paper, the desk, the pen, even his hand seemed strangely immaterial. Brian got up. The tiredness must be getting to him. He went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. When he looked up, he saw the outlines of some white text on the mirror. He dried his face, put on his glasses, and looked back at the mirror. Floating next to his head was the text, "Intelligence - 64, Strength - 10, Dexterity - 12, Luck - 20." His tired mind was still processing the information. "Hey, intelligence is pretty high," he thought, before the presence of the text freaked him out. He panicked momentarily, but the lack of danger calmed him down, and his curiosity took over. He waved his arm around it, seeing if it would disappear. After playing around with the stats text for a while, he went to his computer and searched the Web for anyone with a similar experience. He googled, "Simulation world," and one of the first things that popped up was an article about Elon Musk. "Elon Musk Says We are Living in a Simulation." While reading through, all of his ideas suddenly made sense. But they couldn't be the only ones. He messaged a few of his classmates who he knew would be awake right now. "Did you notice anything weird when studying tonight?" he asked. Most of them had no idea what he was talking about. One person messaged back somewhat cryptically, "We're supposed to find out in class." The rest didn't reply. At that point, Brian gave up studying and fell asleep sometime in the midst of reading through research articles. On the way to his final, the reality that he might fail his final caught up to him and he tried to ignore the stats that appeared next to every single person in sight. Near the entrance of the exam room, he noticed a high densities of people with Intelligence of 64s and 65s as well as some 63s and lower. Everyone with 64 and above were filed into a large classroom. The others were apparently were sent elsewhere. The room was tense and silent. Brian was debating whether to pull out his notebook and do some last minute cramming, when the professor walked into the room. His intelligence was level 98. He looked up at the class and grinned. "Congratulations! I see you've all studied very hard." Everyone glanced around the room, giving each other a knowing look. "As you may already know, everything that we know, the entire universe even, seems to be all just a simulation. We seem to have quantifiable skills and levels like an RPG game, or so the younger generation seem to say. But the adventure only starts now. Our goal, no, our quest is to learn more about this universe we live in, and," he paused dramatically, "to escape into the real one."
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	"No- look, haven't you ever wondered why nothing in this world makes any damn sense?" I asked hotly, slamming my tankard down on the table with a thud. The men sitting across from me looked confused. "What are you on about now?" One of them asked. I scowled at him. "Take blacksmithing as an example," I replied. "A master craftsman can dedicate his entire life to ironworking, slaving over his creations for hours on end to create true masterpieces. And yet I, having never held a hammer in my life, could pop off up the mountain, stab enough goblins to death to level up and suddenly become a better smith than the bloke who went and, you know, actually learned blacksmithing," I spat acidly. My drinking companions blinked. "Well, that's 'cos you'd have gained experience, innit?" One of them responded. I wanted to cry. "Experience in killing goblins, you idiot! What in the name of all the Gods has that got to do with blacksmithing?" The man shrugged. "I dunno. Did you use a hammer to kill the goblins?" He asked. I stared at him dumbfounded, and then took a long, stiff drink. "Okay, okay, let's try a different approach. What about you Kellen, hm? You fell from the top of Dragonsblood Peak right down to ground level and just got up and walked away!" "Lucky fall," Kellen grunted. I rounded on him, wild-eyed. "Lucky fall?" I demanded incredulously. "You fell over 3000ft!" "Gods smiled on him," came the stubborn reply from one of the others. "The Gods didn't smile on him!" I screamed. "He survived because falling damage caps at 20d6, and the man has two levels of Barbarian and damage rolls so lucky as to almost be a statistical impossibility!" "See? Lucky. Like wot I said." I let my head hit the table, hoping the blow would dull the pain. &nbsp; Then, inspiration struck me. I reached for my belt and fished up a small pouch, which I emptied onto the table. A myriad of small items spilled out- bird feathers, ground mica, bat guano, licorice root shavings and more. I turned the pouch inside out, and held it out to the other men at the table, making it very clear that it was empty. "My spell component pouch, which I have just emptied," I announced, like a stage magician about to perform a trick. I closed the pouch and set it on the table. "And yet all I need to do is decide to cast a spell, lets say Scrying, and-" I opened the pouch and began to produce a fresh array of items. I pulled a copper ingot from within the bag, and then a similarly sized bar of zinc, followed by a vial of nitric acid and a feather that I was fairly certain had been flucked from a roc. "See!" I declared triumphantly, laying my newly produced items on the table. Coos of wonder went up from my audience and I smiled widely. "Magic bag!" One of them marveled. "Yeah," another remarked, poking at it curiously. He glanced up at me. "Does it do beer?" I stared at him, utter hatred boiling up inside of me. "It's not a magic bag!" I yelled, my vision turning red with rage. "It's just a bag! I packed it this morning, and I didn't put any of this shit in it!" My companions looked at me skeptically. "If it ain't a magic bag, howzit producin' all that magic stuff?" "Because we're in a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING GAME!" I howled. "AND NOBODY WANTS TO KEEP TRACK OF THEIR SPELL COMPONENTS!" They stared at me in silence. I struggled to regain my composure. "Right, fine, how about this then?" I produced two small jars of green dust, one full to the brim, and the other half empty. "The Magic Mouth spell requires a material focus of 10 gold pieces worth of jade dust, okay?" I pointed to the full jar of dust. "I got this in a sale for 7 gold pieces." I moved my finger to the other, less full jar. "This one I bought at full price, for 10 gold pieces." Picking up the full jar, I spoke the words of my spell, gesturing dramatically. Nothing happened. Raising my hands in a 'you see?' motion, I clutched the half empty jar of jade dust, and intoned the same magic words. With a small flash of light and a groaning sound, the table we were sitting around rather suddenly developed a small mouth in its center. "See!" The new mouth demanded. "Its nonsensical!" The other men stared at my creation, their own mouths hanging agog. One managed to speak. "What if that other jar weren't pure jade dust?" He asked. I glared at him in disbelieving outrage. "Are you fucking kidding me Gerald? You choose now, of all times, to develop critical thinking skills?" The man shrugged indifferently. "Alright fine," I grated out between fiercely clenched teeth. "You've forced my hand. I didn't want to do this, but it seems I've no other choice." &nbsp; I stood, pushing my chair back and looked up towards the ceiling of the inn. "This campaign is a god-awful mess!" I bellowed. "The plot is nonsensical, the world is illogical and the villains are the most clichéd, hackneyed creations I've ever had the misfortune of seeing! I mean really, what kind of talentless hack would come up with this kind of thing? It takes a real-" My last sight was of grey stone, as a colossal rock caved in the roof of the inn and landed squarely upon my chest. &nbsp; The three other men seated at the table stared, slightly nonplussed, at the large boulder that now occupied the space where their party wizard had once sat. "Now what?" Gerald grunted. "We're down a man." Kellen nodded towards the corner of the inn, where a cloaked figure had just materialized, shrouded in shadows. The light reflecting from his dual scimitars illuminated his face, revealing dark grey skin and long white hair. "Wha' bout him?" He asked, through a mouthful of beer. Gerald looked at him skeptically. "Looks a bit evil, don't you reckon?" "What, are you kidding?" Kellen shot back. "Look at him, he's a Drow. Bet you a hundred gold pieces he's rebelling against the oppressive evil of his people. Plus, he's in the shadowy corner of a tavern. I mean come on. He's obviously got some relevance to the plot."	"Life is hell. Especially when you know it's not real." I blurted out, reaching for the next full cup of mead. I was sure it was mine but had my doubts after it was wrenched out of my hands and a near empty one placed into it. I might also have had my drink stolen. Whatever, anything to get me drunker. I drank what was left in the cup and motioned to the barman to get me another. Another what, my mind seemed to ask, but I pushed the thought aside. I came here to get away from that pesky intelligence stat not satisfy it. Use it... Whatever. The drink seemed to be working anyway. Whatever it was. "What does he mean life isn't real?" Another patron who was obviously trying to match his drinks said, swaying on his stool. In one minute I knew he would pass-out and I could use his wallet to pay for my next drink. I looked down at my half-empty mug. What the hell, I thought I ordered a full one. "Don't mind him he's just spouting non-sense." The man next to me said waving his arms around a bit too much. "I mean if life isn't real then what the hell is all this then?" "It's a program on a computing device that these other-worldly creatures that look just like that human over there use to play games to escape their world instead of mastering it." Fuck, still not drunk enough. The drink was three-quarters full. When the hell did that happen? "What, you mean like chess or something?" "No, like a General commanding an army from a tent or something. Where the hell is my drink!?" I screamed, slamming down the empty cup. If this damn cup couldn't get it's level right then how the hell was I supposed to get drunk enough to lower my damn intelligence score. The barman passed another drink to me, though as I lifted it to take another drink I felt the strings of his damn game attach back to me. I could almost feel his disgust at me. "Why the hell do you leave me in bars all the time then?! What do you think there is to do when you log off you idiot?!" Back to killing then. And more intelligence score. Maybe when I was brought back... Maybe I could finish that bloody drink that floated off to the side of my hand. Damn buggy game.
	[WP] A character in a RPG with an intelligence stat high enough to know he's a character in a RPG	The first time I noticed it was thursday night. As usual, I stayed up way too late to play "The Legend of a Mystic Quest", an MMO I discovered three years ago. Since then, I've invested an uncountable amount of hours in my character named Toroval every day to get to the top of the leaderboard, which I reached seven months ago. I became the best in everything this game had to offer, completed all the quests, became number one at every single skill, no matter if it was woodcutting, smithing or magic. My strength and intelligence values so high I could solo almost any boss in any dungeon, I farm rare items and sell them for money on a website, which gains me a nice income and grants me the opportunity to spend even more time with the game. On that thursday night, however, I was fighting Asudem in the greystone-caverns in hopes of getting some godsword pieces I could sell when the chat window popped up. It was a whisper from me to myself, and all it said was "Let me out!" I thought it was a bug, or maybe a new event that could trigger during the fight or something, but then it happened again on saturday. This time the message was "Please, let me go!" It started to happen regularly and after two weeks I contacted a GM to ask what was going on. He said they had never received any bug reports like that before and that he couldn't find any chat messages. I continued playing, even though I was starting to doubt my own sanity. I tried to sleep longer, thinking that I was just too tired and had to rest a bit. I even took a break from the game for some days, but when I logged back in, I kept receiving messages. It certainly couldn't be another account, the GMs would be able to see that, and the nick was exactly the same as mine. Eventually I started playing more often again and the more I played, the more frequent the messages came. "Are you there?" "Can you hear me?" "Please leave me alone". After a while they came every hour, then every ten minutes or so and then I answered. I set the chat to whisper when I was in a completely forsaken area and typed in the message. "Who is this?" I asked. And immediately after, I received an answer. "Toroval" the message on the screen said. I was stunned at first, left with a mix of fear and confusion, but after a short while I typed the next message in. "Whoever you are, stop messaging me!" I wrote. "Please, hear me out! I know this may seem weird to you, but I am alive! I know this is a limited world, with borders. This is something like a game to you, but I am conscious! You gotta believe me! Everytime you are gone I fall asleep at the very point where I'm standing. Everytime you want to say something I am forced to say it out loud, and you... even forced me to kill people." My eyes wandered over the screen again and again, not able to really comprehend what I was reading there. Truly scared I quickly clicked on the log out button. Leaning back in my chair I thought about what had just happpened and came to the conclusion that I should do something else this evening, so I went to sleep early. When I woke up the next day the first thing I did was powering up my pc and starting the game again. "Stop doing that!" was the first thing I could read once I logged in. "You have no idea what it feels like to fall in a coma every once in a while!" "I panicked! You have no idea what it feels like when video game characters start talking all of a sudden!" I answered to him. "What am I supposed to do, anyways? Leave my PC running all the time so you're just standing around somewhere? You can't do anything without me, anyways, can you?" "No. And that is exactly why I need your help." "My help? How could I help you?" "I need you to free me. You need to get me from the servers you're playing on. See, i've thought about this for a while now..." -- "Jake! Come over here!" Kyle shouted across the appartment to his roommate, who did so a couple seconds later. "What is it, Kyle?" "You wont believe this. You know Toroval, right? The guy who is number one since August?" "Yeah, what about him?" "I got a virus on his pc a while ago and started writing chat messages in a fake window to him. He believes his character is fucking real!" Kyle started laughing over his own prank. "I tricked him to believe his character has gained consciousness and he really believes it! He's going completely insane about it!" "Good, send him the offer, then." "The offer? Give me just one more week and he'll want to pay US so we take his account." --------------- First ever story I'm publishing. Been thinking about writing something for a while now, but this is the first time.	"Life is hell. Especially when you know it's not real." I blurted out, reaching for the next full cup of mead. I was sure it was mine but had my doubts after it was wrenched out of my hands and a near empty one placed into it. I might also have had my drink stolen. Whatever, anything to get me drunker. I drank what was left in the cup and motioned to the barman to get me another. Another what, my mind seemed to ask, but I pushed the thought aside. I came here to get away from that pesky intelligence stat not satisfy it. Use it... Whatever. The drink seemed to be working anyway. Whatever it was. "What does he mean life isn't real?" Another patron who was obviously trying to match his drinks said, swaying on his stool. In one minute I knew he would pass-out and I could use his wallet to pay for my next drink. I looked down at my half-empty mug. What the hell, I thought I ordered a full one. "Don't mind him he's just spouting non-sense." The man next to me said waving his arms around a bit too much. "I mean if life isn't real then what the hell is all this then?" "It's a program on a computing device that these other-worldly creatures that look just like that human over there use to play games to escape their world instead of mastering it." Fuck, still not drunk enough. The drink was three-quarters full. When the hell did that happen? "What, you mean like chess or something?" "No, like a General commanding an army from a tent or something. Where the hell is my drink!?" I screamed, slamming down the empty cup. If this damn cup couldn't get it's level right then how the hell was I supposed to get drunk enough to lower my damn intelligence score. The barman passed another drink to me, though as I lifted it to take another drink I felt the strings of his damn game attach back to me. I could almost feel his disgust at me. "Why the hell do you leave me in bars all the time then?! What do you think there is to do when you log off you idiot?!" Back to killing then. And more intelligence score. Maybe when I was brought back... Maybe I could finish that bloody drink that floated off to the side of my hand. Damn buggy game.
Edit- typo- title should say Your tv/radio/phone *are all dead	[WP] You have just woken up in your third floor apartment to absolute public chaos. Your tv/radio/phone is all dead and you have no idea what's going on. There is screaming in the hallways that suddenly goes silent. Then...a hard knock at your door.	"Babe!" Her voice jolts me awake and then I hear it. Screaming. It echoes in the halls, out in the parking lot, sounds like some might even be coming from the city streets. She's trying to check her phone but nothing's happening. I click mine but it stays dark too. That can't be a coincidence. "Stay down!" I hiss, rolling out of bed and wishing it wasn't such a hot goddamn summer. Then maybe I'd be doing this in pajama pants instead of a thin pair of boxers. There's a shotgun in the closet, locked up. That's Canadian gun laws. Halfway through the code the screaming stops. All at once there is nothing but silence. "Babe?" Then a knock on the door, a thunderous knock. "Stay here." I plod out to the living room and eye the dogs. Two are cowering in the back of their crate and one is hiding between couches. That's not normal. I mutter about the landlord being lazy as I fiddle with the chain that isn't even properly attached to the door frame, wouldn't stop a child with a hefty sneeze. A quick peep reveals two police officers standing there, shifting their weight from one foot to the other impatiently. I open the door a crack. "Yeah?" "Sir, there's been an incident and we need to come in and look around." "Definitely not." I say and his eyes narrow. His partner seems...nervous. And there's blood on the collar of his shirt. "Excuse me?" "I said, definitely not. Look, there's nothing wrong in here and all sorts of wrong out there. So no." I put on my soldier voice and hope that it works. It doesn't. In a moment everything is chaos. The lead man throws his shoulder into the door while the second goes for his gun. They're fast. I'm faster. I move back and let the lead man hit a door that's suddenly got nothing behind it. The chain gives out just like I need it to and he goes tumbling to the floor in a heap, slamming into the TV table. I can hear our brand new TV crash to the floor but that's a problem for another day. Second man hesitates for a moment and that's a long enough moment. I grab his wrist and twist it away from his gun, applying pressure in all the right places to snap it. He doesn't even wince. Just hits me with his free hand and then I am airborne. Which isn't right. I don't think I'm meant to be airborne. He steps through the door with his sidearm in a hand attached to what should be a broken wrist. The shotgun blast is loud. Very loud. A solid slug at about ten feet will do one of two things. Miss completely...or really fuck up your day. For him it was the latter. The thing that really threw me off was the amount of purple blood that spewed from what had been a man's jaw. Last I checked we bleed red. She racked and loaded a second, aiming for the first cop that was struggling to his feet. "More will come." He said, his eyes suddenly a bright green as he snarled the words at her. "I've got lots of ammo." Nice. That was a good quip. I grin as she drills him with a new slug, right in the chest. He thumps against the wall and then crumples into a pile, bleeding that purple. I look at my very beautiful girlfriend standing there in just her underwear with a shotgun and I...well you know what, what I think about it is just for me. Not for you. "Get dressed you pervert." "Yes ma'am, now I've seen what you do when you're pissed. I'll never leave the seat up again." She rolls her eyes. It's the little things that bring comfort. And that's when I heard the heavy thumping of boots coming up the stairs. A lot of boots. That...that might be a problem.	The noise woke her up first. Then the sudden awareness that her TV, her night light, was vacant of any image. The blue light carried nothing in it, the ribbons of color held as steady as the single tone that softly emitted from her television. The shriek and din of a thousand tormented voices echoed in her ears as she wrenched her body out of bed and from the trench of sleep, reaching out for her cellphone. The signal showed empty, no bars, no network. She flailed up from her bed and dashed over to her laptop on the desk, flipping it open and dragging open the Internet. No connection. No network. Nothing. The screaming suddenly fell away and there was nothing. It was a crushing vaccum of sound and she hurried to put on jeans and socks, grateful that the lights came on as she scurried around her room. Then a tapping at the door. A curious little knock, like a friend checking on another friend. She paused and strained to hear for any of the horrible anarchy that had filled her room mere moments ago. Still nothing. The knocking returned. This time sustained. She realized her bedroom light was probably viable to anyone in the hallway. Old apartments were drafty like that. She tip toed to the peephole, barely touching the pads of her fingertips on the door as she leaned forward to look out. A single eye glared back from a face pressed against the opposite end of the visual port, pale blue and rimmed in fresh red. A voice crackled up. Higher pitched than expected, almost whispey. "_Let us in, please. Everyone is waiting."_
Edit- typo- title should say Your tv/radio/phone *are all dead	[WP] You have just woken up in your third floor apartment to absolute public chaos. Your tv/radio/phone is all dead and you have no idea what's going on. There is screaming in the hallways that suddenly goes silent. Then...a hard knock at your door.	Three knocks. Tap tap tap. I'm still trying to revive my phone, which is blank and black and cold in my hands. I skip to the window once more and glance outside. The street is empty. A moment ago it was full of people, shouting, running, arms up, eyes wide, running nowhere and everywhere. Now it is empty. I'm only now noticing how quiet it is. Tap tap tap. The knocks on the door are the only sound. Even my refrigerator is silent. I'm afraid to move. I don't want to make a sound. Tap tap tap. "Mr. Haimish. Please open the door." The voice is feminine and lilting, but there's an air of command there. She's not going to ask again. There's a hammer left out on the table from when I tried to fix the cabinet two months ago. I pick it up and walk to the door. I can't see through the peephole. Something's blocking the view. I crack the door. "Who is it?" I can hardly see the woman on the other side of the door. She's hazy and indistinct, but what I see of her is dark skinned and draped in blue linens. "I'm with the Security Company, Mr. Haimish," she says. "There's been an incident. I'm simply here to let you know that the incident has been addressed, however, there may be future incidents. As such, I think it's time we discussed relocation." "I don't know what that means." I don't. "And I'm not relocating." I'm not. "So, thank you for the news and have a good day." I close the door. There's still no sound. No creaking walls. No dripping water. "We need to discuss this, Mr. Haimish," she says. "I have authorization to enter in moments such as this. I will come in, whether you let me or not." "You do not have authorization!" I bark, backing away from the door, grabbing a kitchen chair and slamming it up under the knob. "I don't give you authorization, so stay out!" "You gave the authorization a long time ago," she says, and I realize she is behind me, in my apartment. I whirl and cowered simultaneously. "You just don't remember." "I wouldn't," I say, backing to the door, hammer held aloft. I crash into the propped up chair, falling to the floor. She watches me right myself. She is professionally dressed. Her hair is braided like a goddess, though I couldn't tell you which one in particular. She looks immeasurably strong beneath the linen. "It isn't safe here anymore," she says, standing in place, making no move to approach. "It's time to relocate." I consider throwing the hammer. She sees my shoulder tense and sighs. "Attacking me won't solve anything," she says. "You granted me permission to approach you in moments such as this. I don't take threatening your bliss lightly, Mr. Haimish, but time is of the essence. I need your permission. Please consent to a relocation." "Leave my home?" I glance around the old apartment. It is so crooked and lopsided, in every corner, at every angle. There are dark patches of mold and mildew everywhere. Everything is thin and patched and it all whistles in the winter, as the cold air passes through. "I could never leave my home," I say. "It's all I have." It's where Sarah and I struggled through loving and hating and loving each other. Holidays. Boiling summers. Freezing winters. Where Jacob was conceived. Where he died. Where Julia was conceived. Where she died. Where the nameless third was conceived and where it died. So much love and horrid loss, and always we were here, in this home, on the third floor, with the thin walls and the threadbare floor boards. "I could never," I say again, but I'm beginning to feel something. Like a small hand inside my throat, pulling at the things it finds. Like there is a creature inside me, coming alive, thrashing and coming alive. "We have very little time," says the woman. "The longer I stay here asking, the more your bliss is threatened. That should tell you how serious I am. We can bring most of it. You'll still have most of it. But you cannot stay. Please give me permission for relocation." "I can't lose any of it." I'm whining. I know I am. I sound pathetic and I'm still clutching the hammer, thinking maybe I might use it. And as I think about violence against this woman, the creature inside vibrates and slashes out. It makes me cold and nauseous. The hammer would make it better, it seems to be saying. It would make her go away and the bad feelings would follow. And that thought makes my stomach roil. Suddenly the apartment looks different. It is colder and darker and it feels like I am floating above it. "Please," says the woman, though she's almost too far away to hear. "You have to hurry. Give me permission." I don't see her anymore. She's not in the room, but I'm not alone. There's someone else here. Someone lying still on the floor. The silence is permeating. The body on the floor is a woman and she is wearing Sarah's cream-colored sweater, except this one is ringed in red. Sarah's sweater was only cream. No red. But the hair is similar to Sarah's orange-red, though here it is too red and damp and slick and there is a pool of it flowing slowly outward like a soaked rag. "Your body is vulnerable," says the woman. "This section of the city is under attack. We must move your body." Sarah? "Is Sarah dead?" I ask. "Answering that question will deeply erode your bliss." "My bliss? I...is Sarah dead?" "Sarah Haimish is dead." "And did I...?" "Answering that question will entirely despoil your bliss." "Did I kill her?" "Yes." "Where...am I?" "Your body is stored in a bunker below 371 Smith Street. You have been imprisoned for 67 of your 80 year sentence. The method of sentence was purchased by Harold Haimish." "Harold?" "At current estimates, your body will be destroyed in less than ten minutes if you are not moved. Permission is required in order to move your body as a function of the Corporeal Rights Act of 2042. Will you provide permission?" There is screaming again. The refrigerator is humming and shaking. The window rattles in response to nothing. "No," I say. "No, I won't." There is a blue plane of light about the size and shape of a book just in front of me. "Sign," says the woman, who is no longer in the room. I use my finger to sign my name inside the light: Jonah W. Haimish. The blue plane of the light disappears. "Goodbye Jonah Haimish," says the woman's voice, and I only now realize that the voice has been coming from inside my head all along. "Goodbye," I say. Everything shakes now. The screaming is so loud I can barely think. I crawl to the center of the room. I crawl to where Sarah was, and I lay on my back. I watch the ceiling shudder for a moment and then close my eyes. I wonder if she will forgive me. I wonder if any of them will.	The noise woke her up first. Then the sudden awareness that her TV, her night light, was vacant of any image. The blue light carried nothing in it, the ribbons of color held as steady as the single tone that softly emitted from her television. The shriek and din of a thousand tormented voices echoed in her ears as she wrenched her body out of bed and from the trench of sleep, reaching out for her cellphone. The signal showed empty, no bars, no network. She flailed up from her bed and dashed over to her laptop on the desk, flipping it open and dragging open the Internet. No connection. No network. Nothing. The screaming suddenly fell away and there was nothing. It was a crushing vaccum of sound and she hurried to put on jeans and socks, grateful that the lights came on as she scurried around her room. Then a tapping at the door. A curious little knock, like a friend checking on another friend. She paused and strained to hear for any of the horrible anarchy that had filled her room mere moments ago. Still nothing. The knocking returned. This time sustained. She realized her bedroom light was probably viable to anyone in the hallway. Old apartments were drafty like that. She tip toed to the peephole, barely touching the pads of her fingertips on the door as she leaned forward to look out. A single eye glared back from a face pressed against the opposite end of the visual port, pale blue and rimmed in fresh red. A voice crackled up. Higher pitched than expected, almost whispey. "_Let us in, please. Everyone is waiting."_
Edit- typo- title should say Your tv/radio/phone *are all dead	[WP] You have just woken up in your third floor apartment to absolute public chaos. Your tv/radio/phone is all dead and you have no idea what's going on. There is screaming in the hallways that suddenly goes silent. Then...a hard knock at your door.	Three knocks. Tap tap tap. I'm still trying to revive my phone, which is blank and black and cold in my hands. I skip to the window once more and glance outside. The street is empty. A moment ago it was full of people, shouting, running, arms up, eyes wide, running nowhere and everywhere. Now it is empty. I'm only now noticing how quiet it is. Tap tap tap. The knocks on the door are the only sound. Even my refrigerator is silent. I'm afraid to move. I don't want to make a sound. Tap tap tap. "Mr. Haimish. Please open the door." The voice is feminine and lilting, but there's an air of command there. She's not going to ask again. There's a hammer left out on the table from when I tried to fix the cabinet two months ago. I pick it up and walk to the door. I can't see through the peephole. Something's blocking the view. I crack the door. "Who is it?" I can hardly see the woman on the other side of the door. She's hazy and indistinct, but what I see of her is dark skinned and draped in blue linens. "I'm with the Security Company, Mr. Haimish," she says. "There's been an incident. I'm simply here to let you know that the incident has been addressed, however, there may be future incidents. As such, I think it's time we discussed relocation." "I don't know what that means." I don't. "And I'm not relocating." I'm not. "So, thank you for the news and have a good day." I close the door. There's still no sound. No creaking walls. No dripping water. "We need to discuss this, Mr. Haimish," she says. "I have authorization to enter in moments such as this. I will come in, whether you let me or not." "You do not have authorization!" I bark, backing away from the door, grabbing a kitchen chair and slamming it up under the knob. "I don't give you authorization, so stay out!" "You gave the authorization a long time ago," she says, and I realize she is behind me, in my apartment. I whirl and cowered simultaneously. "You just don't remember." "I wouldn't," I say, backing to the door, hammer held aloft. I crash into the propped up chair, falling to the floor. She watches me right myself. She is professionally dressed. Her hair is braided like a goddess, though I couldn't tell you which one in particular. She looks immeasurably strong beneath the linen. "It isn't safe here anymore," she says, standing in place, making no move to approach. "It's time to relocate." I consider throwing the hammer. She sees my shoulder tense and sighs. "Attacking me won't solve anything," she says. "You granted me permission to approach you in moments such as this. I don't take threatening your bliss lightly, Mr. Haimish, but time is of the essence. I need your permission. Please consent to a relocation." "Leave my home?" I glance around the old apartment. It is so crooked and lopsided, in every corner, at every angle. There are dark patches of mold and mildew everywhere. Everything is thin and patched and it all whistles in the winter, as the cold air passes through. "I could never leave my home," I say. "It's all I have." It's where Sarah and I struggled through loving and hating and loving each other. Holidays. Boiling summers. Freezing winters. Where Jacob was conceived. Where he died. Where Julia was conceived. Where she died. Where the nameless third was conceived and where it died. So much love and horrid loss, and always we were here, in this home, on the third floor, with the thin walls and the threadbare floor boards. "I could never," I say again, but I'm beginning to feel something. Like a small hand inside my throat, pulling at the things it finds. Like there is a creature inside me, coming alive, thrashing and coming alive. "We have very little time," says the woman. "The longer I stay here asking, the more your bliss is threatened. That should tell you how serious I am. We can bring most of it. You'll still have most of it. But you cannot stay. Please give me permission for relocation." "I can't lose any of it." I'm whining. I know I am. I sound pathetic and I'm still clutching the hammer, thinking maybe I might use it. And as I think about violence against this woman, the creature inside vibrates and slashes out. It makes me cold and nauseous. The hammer would make it better, it seems to be saying. It would make her go away and the bad feelings would follow. And that thought makes my stomach roil. Suddenly the apartment looks different. It is colder and darker and it feels like I am floating above it. "Please," says the woman, though she's almost too far away to hear. "You have to hurry. Give me permission." I don't see her anymore. She's not in the room, but I'm not alone. There's someone else here. Someone lying still on the floor. The silence is permeating. The body on the floor is a woman and she is wearing Sarah's cream-colored sweater, except this one is ringed in red. Sarah's sweater was only cream. No red. But the hair is similar to Sarah's orange-red, though here it is too red and damp and slick and there is a pool of it flowing slowly outward like a soaked rag. "Your body is vulnerable," says the woman. "This section of the city is under attack. We must move your body." Sarah? "Is Sarah dead?" I ask. "Answering that question will deeply erode your bliss." "My bliss? I...is Sarah dead?" "Sarah Haimish is dead." "And did I...?" "Answering that question will entirely despoil your bliss." "Did I kill her?" "Yes." "Where...am I?" "Your body is stored in a bunker below 371 Smith Street. You have been imprisoned for 67 of your 80 year sentence. The method of sentence was purchased by Harold Haimish." "Harold?" "At current estimates, your body will be destroyed in less than ten minutes if you are not moved. Permission is required in order to move your body as a function of the Corporeal Rights Act of 2042. Will you provide permission?" There is screaming again. The refrigerator is humming and shaking. The window rattles in response to nothing. "No," I say. "No, I won't." There is a blue plane of light about the size and shape of a book just in front of me. "Sign," says the woman, who is no longer in the room. I use my finger to sign my name inside the light: Jonah W. Haimish. The blue plane of the light disappears. "Goodbye Jonah Haimish," says the woman's voice, and I only now realize that the voice has been coming from inside my head all along. "Goodbye," I say. Everything shakes now. The screaming is so loud I can barely think. I crawl to the center of the room. I crawl to where Sarah was, and I lay on my back. I watch the ceiling shudder for a moment and then close my eyes. I wonder if she will forgive me. I wonder if any of them will.	"Babe!" Her voice jolts me awake and then I hear it. Screaming. It echoes in the halls, out in the parking lot, sounds like some might even be coming from the city streets. She's trying to check her phone but nothing's happening. I click mine but it stays dark too. That can't be a coincidence. "Stay down!" I hiss, rolling out of bed and wishing it wasn't such a hot goddamn summer. Then maybe I'd be doing this in pajama pants instead of a thin pair of boxers. There's a shotgun in the closet, locked up. That's Canadian gun laws. Halfway through the code the screaming stops. All at once there is nothing but silence. "Babe?" Then a knock on the door, a thunderous knock. "Stay here." I plod out to the living room and eye the dogs. Two are cowering in the back of their crate and one is hiding between couches. That's not normal. I mutter about the landlord being lazy as I fiddle with the chain that isn't even properly attached to the door frame, wouldn't stop a child with a hefty sneeze. A quick peep reveals two police officers standing there, shifting their weight from one foot to the other impatiently. I open the door a crack. "Yeah?" "Sir, there's been an incident and we need to come in and look around." "Definitely not." I say and his eyes narrow. His partner seems...nervous. And there's blood on the collar of his shirt. "Excuse me?" "I said, definitely not. Look, there's nothing wrong in here and all sorts of wrong out there. So no." I put on my soldier voice and hope that it works. It doesn't. In a moment everything is chaos. The lead man throws his shoulder into the door while the second goes for his gun. They're fast. I'm faster. I move back and let the lead man hit a door that's suddenly got nothing behind it. The chain gives out just like I need it to and he goes tumbling to the floor in a heap, slamming into the TV table. I can hear our brand new TV crash to the floor but that's a problem for another day. Second man hesitates for a moment and that's a long enough moment. I grab his wrist and twist it away from his gun, applying pressure in all the right places to snap it. He doesn't even wince. Just hits me with his free hand and then I am airborne. Which isn't right. I don't think I'm meant to be airborne. He steps through the door with his sidearm in a hand attached to what should be a broken wrist. The shotgun blast is loud. Very loud. A solid slug at about ten feet will do one of two things. Miss completely...or really fuck up your day. For him it was the latter. The thing that really threw me off was the amount of purple blood that spewed from what had been a man's jaw. Last I checked we bleed red. She racked and loaded a second, aiming for the first cop that was struggling to his feet. "More will come." He said, his eyes suddenly a bright green as he snarled the words at her. "I've got lots of ammo." Nice. That was a good quip. I grin as she drills him with a new slug, right in the chest. He thumps against the wall and then crumples into a pile, bleeding that purple. I look at my very beautiful girlfriend standing there in just her underwear with a shotgun and I...well you know what, what I think about it is just for me. Not for you. "Get dressed you pervert." "Yes ma'am, now I've seen what you do when you're pissed. I'll never leave the seat up again." She rolls her eyes. It's the little things that bring comfort. And that's when I heard the heavy thumping of boots coming up the stairs. A lot of boots. That...that might be a problem.
	[WP] You have come so close to dying so many times that you've met Death that many times. So much so, that you've made quite a close relationship with Death.	"I'm flattered." right after I got hit by a huge truck, a male figure with black wings entered my field of vision. "Handsome as always, Azrael." I stood up, ignoring my broken body. "May I ask, what in this humble human's act that flatter you?" "Never before a human took the phrase 'flirting with death' quite literally like you, Miss Reinia." Azrael smiled. "Well, it's not like I dislike your attention. So, this is third time this month, how long do you plan to stay?" I laughed sourly "You know full well that no matter how much I like your company, I won't let myself got hit by a truck intentionally." "There's no way to know if it's you, Reinia." a tinge of mischief glittered in his eyes. "So, care to join me for an evening tea?" "It's exactly noon though." "Who cares? This place has no time, after all." I followed him into one of the open doors, it was supposed to be a small cafe, but the interior was far larger than the exterior permits. "One of the perks of being Death's best friend." I muttered unconsciously, gaining his attention. "Having an inflatable cafe?" "Having no competition would be more appropriate." his laugh filled the white marble chamber. "Trust me, I'm quite popular in the another world." "True, everyone in the underworld should've seen you at least once." "Another joke you could only say to Death." we both sipped on our tea, and for a while only silence ensues. "Even so, it's a truck this time, huh. Must be in the top ten of my painful experience." "Out of curiosity, what is the number one painful experience you had?" "Every single second I spend separated from you." I smirked, Azrael scratched his head. "Well, imagine how painful would it be when your death actually come." "Ah..." that's right, this white world isn't the Realm of Death, but merely the closest part where the World of the Living and the Realm of Death intersect, the place souls have to pass after dying. "I'm sorry, that was in a bad taste." Azrael fidgeted. "No problem." I sipped my tea agan. "Say, Reinia?" "Yes?" "If you could stay here forever, would you discard everything in your world?" I startled "That... I can't answer that question... I'm sorry, Azrael. That question is not one I could answer." "But why?" "Azrael..." "I thought we loved each other, I thought even if you don't plan it, you actually wish we could meet again, I thought that even if it's painful, as long as you could be in my side..." He fell silent. "Death. It's not your name that I feared, nor the being that you are, nor the inevitability of your arrival." "I'll return you to your body. It might be a bit painful, but your condition has stabilized." "Wait! Listen, it's not because of you that I cannot answer your question." "Death should have no business with those that still have the will to live. Death has no right to detain souls that destined to live on. Death should never..." a tears dropped from my eyes as I embraced his being. "It's not because I don't love you, that I cannot remain in this world..." "Death should never let itself fall in love with beings it cannot reach." a bright light blinded my eyes as I woke up in the hospital room. "You're wrong." I whispered. "It was I who never deserves to fall in love with you." tears flowed through my scarred face. In a realm neither of the Death nor the Living, a black-winged being floats in the emptiness. "I should have never shown myself in front of you." it whispered, its black wings expanded to fill the vast whiteness.	a flash of light "What happened this time don?" Lucifer asked as I stepped into the room. "Same as last time, erectile disfunction." I said half heartedly taking a seat on a worn leather couch. The devil, or Lucifer for me cause we're on a first name basis, stood across from me. Honestly he's not that scary looking, apart from the two horns jutting from his head he looks like a normal human man. "I told you to take viagra, Angie and I have benefitted quite a lot ever since I started. I mean talk about going from 0-100 real quick." Lucifer said jokingly as he poured coffee into a cup. Finishing the pouring, Lucifer walked over and placed the cup in front of me. "Drink, you'll be back in around a minute." "Well no shit, I'm the fucking president it's probally a national emergency by now." I spat out. As I took a sip of my coffee a timer dinged on the side of lucífer's desk. "Well Don, see you next Tuesday at five, looks like that one is going to be rough." Lucifer grimly said. "Really, I'm a tough guy I mean come on look at these hands." I said raising my big ass hands to lucifers face. "Anyways, mealania must be getting lonely, I'll try out that viagra as soon as I get back. Make sure you don't go missing luc." I walked over to the door and flung it open as I was engulfed in light I heard Lucifer saying "about as missing as hillarys emails."
	[WP] You have come so close to dying so many times that you've met Death that many times. So much so, that you've made quite a close relationship with Death.	When he sees me he double checks his list. It's as if he thinks he's made a mistake when we both know he hasn't. Good ol Grimmy scratches at his jaw bone with a particularly pointy white finger. He doesn't stop to exchange pleasantries like he did the first few mishaps. There's no need to console me anymore. I'm used to it. That old reaper releases a big and heavy sigh before using his foot to nudge my barley breathing body. This is a close call, I note as my apparition-y self leans over the youthful lady. "What happened this time?" Grimm asks impatiently "Oh, just another suicide attempt." Don't ask me how I can tell when a skeleton is annoyed, I just can- and Grimm is pissed, "Why, Jodie?" "Well, I wanted to see you." If that reaper had eyes, I know he'd be rolling them, "We can't keep doing this Jodie." "Oh, come on!" I plead, "I'm only asking for you to set time back by two hours." "Look, the first few times I set time back for you to correct a mistake, it was no biggie, but my superiors are riding my ass." A sense of dread fills my being. In hopes of 'persuading' him otherwise, I bat my lashes like a child asking their parents for an allowance raise, "So don't tell! It can be our secret, yeah?" There's a glint of pity in his empty sockets, but he shakes it away quickly, "No, no, no! Don't you pull those puppy dog eyes on me! What do you even need those two hours for?" "Now, you know I just started working at my dream job-" "So?" "Well, I sleep through my alarm a lot Nd they told me that if I was late again-" "For Christ sake Jodie!" "So, what do you say?" "Jesus..." Grimm pulls his black satin hood over his face, "You know what? No. You're nuts." "But Grimm!" I cry, "What will I do?!" He gives a dry laugh, "Well by the looks of it, you'll be in the ICU for a few days, so I'd start by explaining that to your boss." "Mean!" I stick out my tongue, but it doesn't phase him. Then it hits me, "Oh my gosh! They won't fire me if I have a real excuse!" I frantically motion to my corpse, "And I do!" Grimm grows quiet, but only momentarily, "Okay Jodie. Whatever you say kid." He turns to leave but stops himself, "If you try to kill your self again I'm going to make sure you get reincarnated as a worm." "Kay!" I wave dismissively and climb back into my body as the sound of sirens approaches. No work today. Not for this girl!	a flash of light "What happened this time don?" Lucifer asked as I stepped into the room. "Same as last time, erectile disfunction." I said half heartedly taking a seat on a worn leather couch. The devil, or Lucifer for me cause we're on a first name basis, stood across from me. Honestly he's not that scary looking, apart from the two horns jutting from his head he looks like a normal human man. "I told you to take viagra, Angie and I have benefitted quite a lot ever since I started. I mean talk about going from 0-100 real quick." Lucifer said jokingly as he poured coffee into a cup. Finishing the pouring, Lucifer walked over and placed the cup in front of me. "Drink, you'll be back in around a minute." "Well no shit, I'm the fucking president it's probally a national emergency by now." I spat out. As I took a sip of my coffee a timer dinged on the side of lucífer's desk. "Well Don, see you next Tuesday at five, looks like that one is going to be rough." Lucifer grimly said. "Really, I'm a tough guy I mean come on look at these hands." I said raising my big ass hands to lucifers face. "Anyways, mealania must be getting lonely, I'll try out that viagra as soon as I get back. Make sure you don't go missing luc." I walked over to the door and flung it open as I was engulfed in light I heard Lucifer saying "about as missing as hillarys emails."
	[WP] You have come so close to dying so many times that you've met Death that many times. So much so, that you've made quite a close relationship with Death.	When he sees me he double checks his list. It's as if he thinks he's made a mistake when we both know he hasn't. Good ol Grimmy scratches at his jaw bone with a particularly pointy white finger. He doesn't stop to exchange pleasantries like he did the first few mishaps. There's no need to console me anymore. I'm used to it. That old reaper releases a big and heavy sigh before using his foot to nudge my barley breathing body. This is a close call, I note as my apparition-y self leans over the youthful lady. "What happened this time?" Grimm asks impatiently "Oh, just another suicide attempt." Don't ask me how I can tell when a skeleton is annoyed, I just can- and Grimm is pissed, "Why, Jodie?" "Well, I wanted to see you." If that reaper had eyes, I know he'd be rolling them, "We can't keep doing this Jodie." "Oh, come on!" I plead, "I'm only asking for you to set time back by two hours." "Look, the first few times I set time back for you to correct a mistake, it was no biggie, but my superiors are riding my ass." A sense of dread fills my being. In hopes of 'persuading' him otherwise, I bat my lashes like a child asking their parents for an allowance raise, "So don't tell! It can be our secret, yeah?" There's a glint of pity in his empty sockets, but he shakes it away quickly, "No, no, no! Don't you pull those puppy dog eyes on me! What do you even need those two hours for?" "Now, you know I just started working at my dream job-" "So?" "Well, I sleep through my alarm a lot Nd they told me that if I was late again-" "For Christ sake Jodie!" "So, what do you say?" "Jesus..." Grimm pulls his black satin hood over his face, "You know what? No. You're nuts." "But Grimm!" I cry, "What will I do?!" He gives a dry laugh, "Well by the looks of it, you'll be in the ICU for a few days, so I'd start by explaining that to your boss." "Mean!" I stick out my tongue, but it doesn't phase him. Then it hits me, "Oh my gosh! They won't fire me if I have a real excuse!" I frantically motion to my corpse, "And I do!" Grimm grows quiet, but only momentarily, "Okay Jodie. Whatever you say kid." He turns to leave but stops himself, "If you try to kill your self again I'm going to make sure you get reincarnated as a worm." "Kay!" I wave dismissively and climb back into my body as the sound of sirens approaches. No work today. Not for this girl!	"I'm flattered." right after I got hit by a huge truck, a male figure with black wings entered my field of vision. "Handsome as always, Azrael." I stood up, ignoring my broken body. "May I ask, what in this humble human's act that flatter you?" "Never before a human took the phrase 'flirting with death' quite literally like you, Miss Reinia." Azrael smiled. "Well, it's not like I dislike your attention. So, this is third time this month, how long do you plan to stay?" I laughed sourly "You know full well that no matter how much I like your company, I won't let myself got hit by a truck intentionally." "There's no way to know if it's you, Reinia." a tinge of mischief glittered in his eyes. "So, care to join me for an evening tea?" "It's exactly noon though." "Who cares? This place has no time, after all." I followed him into one of the open doors, it was supposed to be a small cafe, but the interior was far larger than the exterior permits. "One of the perks of being Death's best friend." I muttered unconsciously, gaining his attention. "Having an inflatable cafe?" "Having no competition would be more appropriate." his laugh filled the white marble chamber. "Trust me, I'm quite popular in the another world." "True, everyone in the underworld should've seen you at least once." "Another joke you could only say to Death." we both sipped on our tea, and for a while only silence ensues. "Even so, it's a truck this time, huh. Must be in the top ten of my painful experience." "Out of curiosity, what is the number one painful experience you had?" "Every single second I spend separated from you." I smirked, Azrael scratched his head. "Well, imagine how painful would it be when your death actually come." "Ah..." that's right, this white world isn't the Realm of Death, but merely the closest part where the World of the Living and the Realm of Death intersect, the place souls have to pass after dying. "I'm sorry, that was in a bad taste." Azrael fidgeted. "No problem." I sipped my tea agan. "Say, Reinia?" "Yes?" "If you could stay here forever, would you discard everything in your world?" I startled "That... I can't answer that question... I'm sorry, Azrael. That question is not one I could answer." "But why?" "Azrael..." "I thought we loved each other, I thought even if you don't plan it, you actually wish we could meet again, I thought that even if it's painful, as long as you could be in my side..." He fell silent. "Death. It's not your name that I feared, nor the being that you are, nor the inevitability of your arrival." "I'll return you to your body. It might be a bit painful, but your condition has stabilized." "Wait! Listen, it's not because of you that I cannot answer your question." "Death should have no business with those that still have the will to live. Death has no right to detain souls that destined to live on. Death should never..." a tears dropped from my eyes as I embraced his being. "It's not because I don't love you, that I cannot remain in this world..." "Death should never let itself fall in love with beings it cannot reach." a bright light blinded my eyes as I woke up in the hospital room. "You're wrong." I whispered. "It was I who never deserves to fall in love with you." tears flowed through my scarred face. In a realm neither of the Death nor the Living, a black-winged being floats in the emptiness. "I should have never shown myself in front of you." it whispered, its black wings expanded to fill the vast whiteness.
Idea from an Ask Reddit thread	[WP] You are immortal, but can painlessly end your life at the push of a button. After you have lived for hundreds of years, you decide to terminate yourself, only to realize that you have been missing the button for years.	I apparently misread "hundreds" as "thousands." Oops. "Estimate?" I queried the empty bridge. The onboard computer spat out some infinitesimally small number "... percent of the Terra visible universe explored." A soft, almost human voice answered. "Huh. I'd figured it would be at least a little closer to a whole number." I shrugged and walked from the input terminal towards the front facing view of the stars, snagging an apple off my desk as I went. "Oh well. Do we know anyone in this quadrant? I'd like some organic interaction, no offense, Z34." "No sir. There are no entities that you have connections to in this quadrant or within feasible jumping distance." "What about the Yvillian Colonies?" I asked as I took a bite of the apple I'd grown within my private orchard. It had taken years, but I'd managed to cultivate a strain that had been dead for years. "Negative. No contacts estimated to be alive." "What? What happened? Why didn't you tell me?" "Nothing, sir. Average lifespan for the Yvillian colonials is 146 Terran standard years. No contact has been made for 87 Terran standard years. Accounting for the age of contacts-" "Okay! I get it. Thank you," I said with an exasperated sigh. "I'm catching up with old friends. Make a list, closest to farthest. Give me everyone." I finished my apple, two pots of tea, and a book and a half before Z34 got back to me. "Negative," it chirped in its cheery not-quite-monotone. "Wait, what?" I glanced up from my book. "What do you mean, 'negative'? This wasn't a yes or no question, it was a list of active people I- Oh." I paused. "Well fuck. That puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" Surprisingly, it only took me 73 Terran standard days to make up my mind. It took another 14 days of nearly constant searching to realize I couldn't find the damn thing. I was standing in my decidedly disheveled living quarters, books strewn about, desks upended, and lets not even talk about the scattered papers. At least the vidscreens and other automated machines knew to get out of the way. My collection of ancient artifacts had already been tucked away by at least one electroservant, but I was contemplating taking it all out in order to make sure the button hadn't been cataloged by mistake. "Zee! Where is the damn button?" I shouted into thin air. "Uncertain." I paused. That was new. Uncertain was better than unknown. "Explain?" I demanded as I moved to the front of the bridge to stare at the star I had us orbiting. "New data from net scans suggests that it may have appeared on the black market 26 years ago. Current estimates put high chances for a luxury liner that sank off the coast of Forsh on Durlaan, a bombed out city on Namerica of Terra, or a superfreighter named Gastropos orbiting Heliod IX." I puffed out my cheeks in a long sigh. "Alright. Time for one last adventure. Or three."	I watched the luminous star flare and flash upwards through my dark visor, the blinding light reduced to a beautiful glow. It was Earth's sun, a fitting place to end my million year journey, back where it all started. As long as there had been humans they had gazed at this shining globe, wondering at it, praising it, basking in it. It had watched over all of our history, a constant warm presence. This was where I wanted to end it. Press the button that old grey scientist had given me long ago. I smiled at the thought of him. He'd have appreciated my choice of a final resting place. &nbsp; "Ship," I said, "It's time for me to leave you." &nbsp; It hummed back at me with a low moan. I smiled and patted its metallic hull. Worn, but still as solid as the day I first saw it. &nbsp; "It's okay buddy. I'll miss you, but it's my time. Make sure to find a new companion quickly. Okay, give me the button." &nbsp; My small space craft's lights dimmed a little as it opened its internal pocket dimension, searching for the stored item. The button had been stored inside early on, and a minute passed by quickly as the ship kept on digging deeper and deeper into its endless pocket. &nbsp; "Man I should really clean out that thing more often," I murmured to myself as the ship kept searching. "It's a bit too easy to let generations and generations of crap build up." &nbsp; In another few minutes I was starting to get impatient. "Ship, status update." I demanded. &nbsp; The ship brightened its lights, and beamed a diagnostic page out in front of me. &nbsp; "Searching through pocket dimension for the eighty fifth time? Previous searches unsuccessful? What in the galactic cluster is this?" I scanned through the rest of the report. "Ship, was the button ever removed from your inventory?" &nbsp; The ship dimmed again for a moment then flashed back into life with a new report. &nbsp; "September 4th, 4692. The button was removed by... me? This must be wrong. My memory has faded over the years but not that badly. And that was only 1000 or so years after I got you. This is just too strange. Ship, find the video log of the time when the button was removed." &nbsp; One more time the ship dimmed, but after three seconds instead of its customary lighting back up instead a screen popped up in front of me. Staring out of the screen at me, was indeed myself, and I was saying something. &nbsp; "Listen to me carefully, you have a choice in front of you. One that you've had to make before. I always thought that the button was my last resort, for when I had had my fill of the unieverse. But there is another option. You can now choose to forget. Forget the hardships, forget the boring times, forget the long nights and the hard days. But more importantly you can forget your happiest days, your most caring moments, the times when you couldn't help but smile, your love and your passion. You can give it all up. You can choose to start over, to live it all over again. To go through life with fresh eyes. That's the choice I'm about to make. I don't know if it's the right one, but it's the best one I have. Right now you'll be receiving the coordinates to the button, but also receiving a switch, a switch for you memories. You decide what to do." &nbsp; The video screen flickered off, my eyes were still focused on the space where it had just been playing. My helmet dinged, Coordinates received. My mind was wandering. Another shot huh? That didn't sound so bad. It would be hard to give up my memories, the long nights under the stars. But, I would get the chance to reexperience moments like that. I guess I'll have to give this some thought.
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	I loved my life greatly except for one thing: I longed for the lessons that hardships can bring. --- This world has grown to be without any woes, blissful ignorance is all anyone knows. --- So, there grew up a black market of sorts, one that's quite nice, according to reports. --- At least, it is nice, in that it is bad, for therein can dark life lessons be had. --- The drug that they sell can make one feel alive: the pain and struggle in which man used to thrive. --- I needed relief from my life so serene, I took it and finally woke up: it's caffeine.	It was one of those nights, you know, where the world comes crashing down upon you. It was one of those nights where everything happens to you at once, and you don't have enough self to handle it all. It was once of those nights, I want to say, but really, was it? Everything had been heading towards that point anyway. More like one of those weeks. Or years. Or lives. Yeah, mine was one of those lives. "Meet me in the Aldi's lot," I'd said to Clint. He'd grunted in affirmation and hung up, leaving me to deal with myself alone. There had been a girl involved. Yeah, typical, right? Girls: the source of all malcontent in an otherwise perfect world. We have enough science to bioengineer a defect-free puppy for every household and cure cancer's cancer, but the female mind remains a mystery to even the greatest of minds. "It's almost as if they're more complex than blobs of cells." Yes, I realize this is true. But fuck it. Women. Anyway, Cindy was her name, and she was everything I'd ever wanted in a girl. Long, flowing hair, gorgeous blue eyes, one of those racks you could place your books on. What she saw in this loser, I don't know. Apparently, she didn't either, because she broke up with me without so much as a hint. Just a text out of the blue: "I don't think I love you." Boom. Just like that. No fights, no signs, no nothing; just the cosmos aligning and forcing her thumbs to perform the motions to assemble that one sentence. Our relationship had been one note of nice, more coaster than roller, and then that happened, and my world collapsed. Or it should have. But it didn't. There was something within me trying to break, but nothing gave way. I needed to do something, to care and to show it, but I couldn't so much as muster a sniffle. The more I struggled, the harder my stupor pushed back. Numbness fell over me like iron bars. Did that mean I hadn't loved her either? When I'd left my apartment, it was a nice night, as each one was nowadays, with a pleasant breeze and a clear, starlit sky. "Good evening," a dog walker said to me in the parking lot. I nodded back. Had there ever been a bad evening? Had there ever been a good evening? If ever was the time for calamity, it was now. What a sight it would be for the sky to open up and rain down hail and thunder and locusts on me as I walked. No such luck. The breeze stayed steady, the moon shone brightly, and I trudged the path out my neighborhood without any sort of fanfare. A jogger approached me going the other direction. She flashed me a smile as she passed. Pretty girl; I think I'd glimpsed her from time to time running down my street. I could easily chat her up and get her number. There were plenty of fish in the sea and so many means of compatibility nowadays. No standards, no hang-ups, just people and some good old fashioned loving. Except in Cindy's case, apparently. What'd she have to get all snooty about? Why wasn't I good enough for her? I ought to hate her, to curse her name until the sound of my voice cracked the moon, to scrape my knuckles against the pavement and bleed because of what she did to me. But in myself, I found no longing to accompany the inclination. Her name dropped from my lips flat and lifeless, like a word in a spelling bee. Cindy. The girl who broke up with me. Cindy. C-I-N-D-Y. Clint's footsteps jolted me out of my thoughts. "Got the money?" he asked. He held open the bag, and though I couldn't make much of anything out, I could certainly smell it. It stank of sweat and smoke and other unpleasantries that persisted for no more than a second before being cleansed. And that was what I was going to stick inside myself, somehow. For some reason. "First time?" Clint grinned. "Let me teach you how to roll this thing..."
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	She lay on the floor, heart pounding, salty tears never drying on her lips. Julie Newell was a perfect rose, in a thornless rosebush. She was an Eve among many more Eves, and just as many Adams. Every morning, she woke up, gave her cat Tinker a pet, and her husband Nic a kiss, before heading off to her simple desk job in a simple warehouse. She never felt an ounce of dread in her life. When it rained, Julie was always able to hail a cab. If Julie wanted to enjoy the water, she always had a pair of boots. If her husband Nic felt like having a cookie, when he got a craving for sweets, there was always a box of them in the cupboard. Theodore her neighbour down the street whom she did not exactly take a liking too, nor he to her, would always be able to avoid her quite easily without losing breath, even when they were in the nearest vicinity. Everyone was always content, never veering from the equilibrium of happiness. Some days though, Julie would look up at the storm clouds with her dark blue eyes, squinting her freckled skin, and feel something teeter deep inside her, like one of those marble labyrinth games, so very on the cusp of winning or losing, then it would melt away, as she looked down, and hailed a cab within thirty seconds. She heard it whispered many times in the last four months, seen the quiet stories, trickling in through the media. "Nectar" they called it, because it made you feel like a God. She was about to experience a drug like no other that existed. Julie pondered how all of this fell into place so easily, and so perfectly, as she lay down on a bed lined with red silk sheets. She felt the prick, and looked as the shimmering purple liquid went into her arm. It was as though her whole body was sucked into a wormhole. Pain she had never felt before soared through her heart, her physical heart. It pounded, and pounded as she floated into nothingness. She saw in her minds eye, the sky that she encountered so many times, turning black, as a crashing bolt of lightning came down onto her home, which led to her cat being killed, and her husband, along with her best friend Patricia running out of the house stark naked. She knew of course this could not be true in real life. It felt like her day dreams, but the tone, the tone was dark, and closing in on her. The pounding began to move from Julie's heart, to her throat, and it felt as though a noose were upon it. Tightening and tightening. Still in the blackness, Julie began to hear voices, quiet at first, but growing ever louder and louder, until they screamed inside her eardrums. Words rang out: Worthless, useless, used up, poor, stupid, a burden, unloved, a burden, unloved, a burden, a burden a burden. They quieted all of a sudden, and Julie felt comfort, warmth, not happiness, but calmness. The voices told her she could make it better for everyone, make everything all the same again, they could fix it, if she just went away. She begged the voices to tell her where she should go, as she cried out, but all that answered was silence. Julie awoke, and asked the man for another vial.	It was one of those nights, you know, where the world comes crashing down upon you. It was one of those nights where everything happens to you at once, and you don't have enough self to handle it all. It was once of those nights, I want to say, but really, was it? Everything had been heading towards that point anyway. More like one of those weeks. Or years. Or lives. Yeah, mine was one of those lives. "Meet me in the Aldi's lot," I'd said to Clint. He'd grunted in affirmation and hung up, leaving me to deal with myself alone. There had been a girl involved. Yeah, typical, right? Girls: the source of all malcontent in an otherwise perfect world. We have enough science to bioengineer a defect-free puppy for every household and cure cancer's cancer, but the female mind remains a mystery to even the greatest of minds. "It's almost as if they're more complex than blobs of cells." Yes, I realize this is true. But fuck it. Women. Anyway, Cindy was her name, and she was everything I'd ever wanted in a girl. Long, flowing hair, gorgeous blue eyes, one of those racks you could place your books on. What she saw in this loser, I don't know. Apparently, she didn't either, because she broke up with me without so much as a hint. Just a text out of the blue: "I don't think I love you." Boom. Just like that. No fights, no signs, no nothing; just the cosmos aligning and forcing her thumbs to perform the motions to assemble that one sentence. Our relationship had been one note of nice, more coaster than roller, and then that happened, and my world collapsed. Or it should have. But it didn't. There was something within me trying to break, but nothing gave way. I needed to do something, to care and to show it, but I couldn't so much as muster a sniffle. The more I struggled, the harder my stupor pushed back. Numbness fell over me like iron bars. Did that mean I hadn't loved her either? When I'd left my apartment, it was a nice night, as each one was nowadays, with a pleasant breeze and a clear, starlit sky. "Good evening," a dog walker said to me in the parking lot. I nodded back. Had there ever been a bad evening? Had there ever been a good evening? If ever was the time for calamity, it was now. What a sight it would be for the sky to open up and rain down hail and thunder and locusts on me as I walked. No such luck. The breeze stayed steady, the moon shone brightly, and I trudged the path out my neighborhood without any sort of fanfare. A jogger approached me going the other direction. She flashed me a smile as she passed. Pretty girl; I think I'd glimpsed her from time to time running down my street. I could easily chat her up and get her number. There were plenty of fish in the sea and so many means of compatibility nowadays. No standards, no hang-ups, just people and some good old fashioned loving. Except in Cindy's case, apparently. What'd she have to get all snooty about? Why wasn't I good enough for her? I ought to hate her, to curse her name until the sound of my voice cracked the moon, to scrape my knuckles against the pavement and bleed because of what she did to me. But in myself, I found no longing to accompany the inclination. Her name dropped from my lips flat and lifeless, like a word in a spelling bee. Cindy. The girl who broke up with me. Cindy. C-I-N-D-Y. Clint's footsteps jolted me out of my thoughts. "Got the money?" he asked. He held open the bag, and though I couldn't make much of anything out, I could certainly smell it. It stank of sweat and smoke and other unpleasantries that persisted for no more than a second before being cleansed. And that was what I was going to stick inside myself, somehow. For some reason. "First time?" Clint grinned. "Let me teach you how to roll this thing..."
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It’s Christmas again in Springfield. The weather is beautiful – it’s snowed just like in the movies and now the city is neatly dusted with a fine white pall. Clocks strike in uncanny synchrony the hour eight, and every son and daughter (one for each family) has risen from their beds and run down the stairs to tear open their brand new bicycles from Folsom’s (only $29.99). Rows of braces flash across suburbia as each child reacts with an exhilarated cry. “Oh, mommy! Oh, daddy! Thank you so! What a lovely bicycle with tassels!” they all say in chorus, and turn to the television, expectant. Jane reaches down and turns on the set which – on cue – blares the symphonic intro to The Andersons™. Billy, her son, becomes immediately fixated, and even her husband is drawn away from his paper. “Don’t you ever get tired of these old reruns?” she asks. Quizzical stares bounce back at her and she shrugs. “It’s the same perfect family every week, getting into the same clean mischief. Sometimes I wonder if it would be any different if we watched the mirror instead.” “Don’t talk like a communist, Jane,” Robert says out of the side of his mouth as if tracking her into the kitchen. “Everyone watches The Andersons™. It’s great for bridge conversation.” “Of course, dear.” “Say, it’s 8:15! Where’s the breakfast?” “Oh, it’s coming, dear. It’s coming. Just give me a moment.” “You’re late.” “I know, dear,” she calls from the kitchen. “Here it is.” Out she strides, two plates on the right arm, one in her left hand. Two eggs over-easy, two pieces of toast with raspberry jam on one side, a sausage, a bowl of fruit, just like how the book specifies – all in that order, counterclockwise. “Here you are, sweetie.” Placing one in front of her son, she goes over to her husband. “And here’s yours.” “Where’s the milk?” Billy cries. “Goodness! It’s still out on the porch.” Jane scurries through the kitchen and leans out the back door, looking left, then right. Every other porch is empty. She’ll hear about this at the market tomorrow for certain. Hurriedly, she scoops up the milk bottles, embarrassed at her lateness. This time, though, there’s a pillbox in one of the spaces where the milk goes and a note is tucked beneath it. Anticaine – Take only what you need. Merry Christmas ~ a friend Jane falters. Again, she peeks out the door, checking both ways to see if the prankster is still around. This accursed drug! What rumors she’s heard – and it being here in her house! She must check and see if it’s real; so she empties one into her hand and examines it to find no resemblance to any medicine in her cabinet. The door swings open and in a moment of sheer reflex, pure adrenaline, the pill slips into her apron pocket. “What’s this?” Robert grabs the box, half crushing it. “Anticaine,” he says hoarsely. At once, he throws it down the garbage disposal. A gnashing growl. It’s gone. “Oh, Robert! You’ll ruin the disposal!” “And that drug will ruin our lives! Where did you get it? Where?” “In the milk delivery. Someone replaced one of the bottles with it, I swear. See, one is missing!” “All right. Just as long as it’s gone. Suffering is all that’s promised, and yet some will still take it. What devastation it brings.” Both husband and wife recall tacitly the empty house at the end of the tract and the whispers that are carried past it along the ashen sidewalk. “We must eat breakfast now. Come, let’s forget this ever happened.” “You go ahead. I have…dishes to do.” “But it’s Christmas!” the other remarks. “A woman’s work is never done,” she feebly replies. “Very well. You’re missing a great show. It’s the one where Clara loses her necklace.” “What a pity. You run along and enjoy it, though. Bring the milk in to Billy. I’ll be out in a minute.” When he is gone, she fumbles with her apron, searching out the small capsule tucked into the seam at the bottom. Finding it, she again examines the exterior, then the note, then glances at the window. How foolish it would be to swallow such misery incarnate! Yet surely no such thing as pain can exist in the form of a pill. And not in Springfield. It is so long since she has felt pain or heartbreak…since she came here to forget such a thing ever existed. Any other woman would throw the medicine away. Any other being in their right mind would toss it down the disposal. But Jane is not any other woman. Minutes (is it hours?) later, she walks into the living room. Not even the screen acknowledges her. She sits, crosses her legs. Uncrosses them. Fidgets with her apron. Adjusts her hair. Shouldn’t she be feeling something by now? Runs her finger along her coarse stockings, getting goose-pimples from the terrible zipping noise. Bites a nail, chipping the red paint. Shouldn’t Robert see her anguish, her strife? She picks up the empty plates; her own remains untouched. Into the kitchen. A swish of the sink. Detergent. Throw the plates in. Statistics show that housewives with dishwashers have 20% more free time and 100% nicer hands. Maybe she needs to wash the pill down with something. Maybe it doesn’t work on an empty stomach. Cranberry juice. The humming fridge offers some up – chilled – and she strains to open the bottle. Just-twist-a-little-harder. It slips, pouring down the front of her pastel dress from Folsom’s (only $14.99). Like blood the liquid drips from her once-impeccable white apron, splattering her new shoes. Upstairs she runs. “Honey, what happened to your dress? And your new shoes!” He has stopped adjusting his tie in their bedroom mirror and is now staring at her incredulously. “I spilled some juice, dear. It’s all right.” “Why would you do something foolish like that?” “I’ll slip on a new dress. It’s all right.” “It’s ruined our schedule! We’ll have to do that dress with this load and sacrifice one of my clothes until the next round.” “I’ll work it out, dear. It’s all right.” She bounces out of the room, melancholy moving her down the hall. “You took one, didn’t you?” She stops above the stairs. She does not dare to turn around. He almost runs to her. “You took one of those pills. That’s why you’re acting so strange!” She whips about, searching his face, terror in her own. “It’s all right, dear.” “NO, IT’S NOT! IT’S NOT ALL RIGHT! YOU’VE TORN THIS FAMILY APART, JANE!” “Robert, dear, don’t shout. Please, don’t shout. Not in front of Billy.” “SO NOW YOU THINK OF THE KID? I’VE ALWAYS HAD TO CARE FOR HIM WHILE YOU RUN OFF AND DO STUPID, STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS!” “Robert.” Her voice cracks, dew drops form on her eyelids. “Don’t you love me?” “NO! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING, JANE! SPRINGFIELD IS FOR PERFECT PEOPLE IN PERFECT FAMILIES! NOT PEOPLE LIKE YOU!” Terrified, Jane steps back, but nothing is there to support her. A tumultuous crash. She finds herself at the base of the stairs, looking wistfully up at her husband. Her foot is screaming at her. “We took a vow, Robert. Til death do us part. Remember? Well, now it’s time. Our lives are, as you say, ruined. I say we’ve died, at least on the outside. Does that count? It doesn’t matter. Now, I must get going. Goodbye, Robert. Goodbye, Billy.” She fumbles with the bolts on the door as both her loved ones stare on. “Goodbye, old house. Goodbye, Springfield. I must be going now. It’s been fun, and that’s about all, and now I must go. Merry Christmas. Oh, and dear? That pill was just sugar. That’s all it was – but it sure does work, see?” And she hobbles down the winter street on her sprained foot, shoes splattered with burgundy, leaving a wake in the fresh powder. A few more flakes have begun to fall on Springfield – her hair is peppered with them. As she passes from neighborhood to neighborhood, her only indication that she’s going anywhere is the growing size of the gate.	It was one of those nights, you know, where the world comes crashing down upon you. It was one of those nights where everything happens to you at once, and you don't have enough self to handle it all. It was once of those nights, I want to say, but really, was it? Everything had been heading towards that point anyway. More like one of those weeks. Or years. Or lives. Yeah, mine was one of those lives. "Meet me in the Aldi's lot," I'd said to Clint. He'd grunted in affirmation and hung up, leaving me to deal with myself alone. There had been a girl involved. Yeah, typical, right? Girls: the source of all malcontent in an otherwise perfect world. We have enough science to bioengineer a defect-free puppy for every household and cure cancer's cancer, but the female mind remains a mystery to even the greatest of minds. "It's almost as if they're more complex than blobs of cells." Yes, I realize this is true. But fuck it. Women. Anyway, Cindy was her name, and she was everything I'd ever wanted in a girl. Long, flowing hair, gorgeous blue eyes, one of those racks you could place your books on. What she saw in this loser, I don't know. Apparently, she didn't either, because she broke up with me without so much as a hint. Just a text out of the blue: "I don't think I love you." Boom. Just like that. No fights, no signs, no nothing; just the cosmos aligning and forcing her thumbs to perform the motions to assemble that one sentence. Our relationship had been one note of nice, more coaster than roller, and then that happened, and my world collapsed. Or it should have. But it didn't. There was something within me trying to break, but nothing gave way. I needed to do something, to care and to show it, but I couldn't so much as muster a sniffle. The more I struggled, the harder my stupor pushed back. Numbness fell over me like iron bars. Did that mean I hadn't loved her either? When I'd left my apartment, it was a nice night, as each one was nowadays, with a pleasant breeze and a clear, starlit sky. "Good evening," a dog walker said to me in the parking lot. I nodded back. Had there ever been a bad evening? Had there ever been a good evening? If ever was the time for calamity, it was now. What a sight it would be for the sky to open up and rain down hail and thunder and locusts on me as I walked. No such luck. The breeze stayed steady, the moon shone brightly, and I trudged the path out my neighborhood without any sort of fanfare. A jogger approached me going the other direction. She flashed me a smile as she passed. Pretty girl; I think I'd glimpsed her from time to time running down my street. I could easily chat her up and get her number. There were plenty of fish in the sea and so many means of compatibility nowadays. No standards, no hang-ups, just people and some good old fashioned loving. Except in Cindy's case, apparently. What'd she have to get all snooty about? Why wasn't I good enough for her? I ought to hate her, to curse her name until the sound of my voice cracked the moon, to scrape my knuckles against the pavement and bleed because of what she did to me. But in myself, I found no longing to accompany the inclination. Her name dropped from my lips flat and lifeless, like a word in a spelling bee. Cindy. The girl who broke up with me. Cindy. C-I-N-D-Y. Clint's footsteps jolted me out of my thoughts. "Got the money?" he asked. He held open the bag, and though I couldn't make much of anything out, I could certainly smell it. It stank of sweat and smoke and other unpleasantries that persisted for no more than a second before being cleansed. And that was what I was going to stick inside myself, somehow. For some reason. "First time?" Clint grinned. "Let me teach you how to roll this thing..."
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	She lay on the floor, heart pounding, salty tears never drying on her lips. Julie Newell was a perfect rose, in a thornless rosebush. She was an Eve among many more Eves, and just as many Adams. Every morning, she woke up, gave her cat Tinker a pet, and her husband Nic a kiss, before heading off to her simple desk job in a simple warehouse. She never felt an ounce of dread in her life. When it rained, Julie was always able to hail a cab. If Julie wanted to enjoy the water, she always had a pair of boots. If her husband Nic felt like having a cookie, when he got a craving for sweets, there was always a box of them in the cupboard. Theodore her neighbour down the street whom she did not exactly take a liking too, nor he to her, would always be able to avoid her quite easily without losing breath, even when they were in the nearest vicinity. Everyone was always content, never veering from the equilibrium of happiness. Some days though, Julie would look up at the storm clouds with her dark blue eyes, squinting her freckled skin, and feel something teeter deep inside her, like one of those marble labyrinth games, so very on the cusp of winning or losing, then it would melt away, as she looked down, and hailed a cab within thirty seconds. She heard it whispered many times in the last four months, seen the quiet stories, trickling in through the media. "Nectar" they called it, because it made you feel like a God. She was about to experience a drug like no other that existed. Julie pondered how all of this fell into place so easily, and so perfectly, as she lay down on a bed lined with red silk sheets. She felt the prick, and looked as the shimmering purple liquid went into her arm. It was as though her whole body was sucked into a wormhole. Pain she had never felt before soared through her heart, her physical heart. It pounded, and pounded as she floated into nothingness. She saw in her minds eye, the sky that she encountered so many times, turning black, as a crashing bolt of lightning came down onto her home, which led to her cat being killed, and her husband, along with her best friend Patricia running out of the house stark naked. She knew of course this could not be true in real life. It felt like her day dreams, but the tone, the tone was dark, and closing in on her. The pounding began to move from Julie's heart, to her throat, and it felt as though a noose were upon it. Tightening and tightening. Still in the blackness, Julie began to hear voices, quiet at first, but growing ever louder and louder, until they screamed inside her eardrums. Words rang out: Worthless, useless, used up, poor, stupid, a burden, unloved, a burden, unloved, a burden, a burden a burden. They quieted all of a sudden, and Julie felt comfort, warmth, not happiness, but calmness. The voices told her she could make it better for everyone, make everything all the same again, they could fix it, if she just went away. She begged the voices to tell her where she should go, as she cried out, but all that answered was silence. Julie awoke, and asked the man for another vial.	I loved my life greatly except for one thing: I longed for the lessons that hardships can bring. --- This world has grown to be without any woes, blissful ignorance is all anyone knows. --- So, there grew up a black market of sorts, one that's quite nice, according to reports. --- At least, it is nice, in that it is bad, for therein can dark life lessons be had. --- The drug that they sell can make one feel alive: the pain and struggle in which man used to thrive. --- I needed relief from my life so serene, I took it and finally woke up: it's caffeine.
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It’s Christmas again in Springfield. The weather is beautiful – it’s snowed just like in the movies and now the city is neatly dusted with a fine white pall. Clocks strike in uncanny synchrony the hour eight, and every son and daughter (one for each family) has risen from their beds and run down the stairs to tear open their brand new bicycles from Folsom’s (only $29.99). Rows of braces flash across suburbia as each child reacts with an exhilarated cry. “Oh, mommy! Oh, daddy! Thank you so! What a lovely bicycle with tassels!” they all say in chorus, and turn to the television, expectant. Jane reaches down and turns on the set which – on cue – blares the symphonic intro to The Andersons™. Billy, her son, becomes immediately fixated, and even her husband is drawn away from his paper. “Don’t you ever get tired of these old reruns?” she asks. Quizzical stares bounce back at her and she shrugs. “It’s the same perfect family every week, getting into the same clean mischief. Sometimes I wonder if it would be any different if we watched the mirror instead.” “Don’t talk like a communist, Jane,” Robert says out of the side of his mouth as if tracking her into the kitchen. “Everyone watches The Andersons™. It’s great for bridge conversation.” “Of course, dear.” “Say, it’s 8:15! Where’s the breakfast?” “Oh, it’s coming, dear. It’s coming. Just give me a moment.” “You’re late.” “I know, dear,” she calls from the kitchen. “Here it is.” Out she strides, two plates on the right arm, one in her left hand. Two eggs over-easy, two pieces of toast with raspberry jam on one side, a sausage, a bowl of fruit, just like how the book specifies – all in that order, counterclockwise. “Here you are, sweetie.” Placing one in front of her son, she goes over to her husband. “And here’s yours.” “Where’s the milk?” Billy cries. “Goodness! It’s still out on the porch.” Jane scurries through the kitchen and leans out the back door, looking left, then right. Every other porch is empty. She’ll hear about this at the market tomorrow for certain. Hurriedly, she scoops up the milk bottles, embarrassed at her lateness. This time, though, there’s a pillbox in one of the spaces where the milk goes and a note is tucked beneath it. Anticaine – Take only what you need. Merry Christmas ~ a friend Jane falters. Again, she peeks out the door, checking both ways to see if the prankster is still around. This accursed drug! What rumors she’s heard – and it being here in her house! She must check and see if it’s real; so she empties one into her hand and examines it to find no resemblance to any medicine in her cabinet. The door swings open and in a moment of sheer reflex, pure adrenaline, the pill slips into her apron pocket. “What’s this?” Robert grabs the box, half crushing it. “Anticaine,” he says hoarsely. At once, he throws it down the garbage disposal. A gnashing growl. It’s gone. “Oh, Robert! You’ll ruin the disposal!” “And that drug will ruin our lives! Where did you get it? Where?” “In the milk delivery. Someone replaced one of the bottles with it, I swear. See, one is missing!” “All right. Just as long as it’s gone. Suffering is all that’s promised, and yet some will still take it. What devastation it brings.” Both husband and wife recall tacitly the empty house at the end of the tract and the whispers that are carried past it along the ashen sidewalk. “We must eat breakfast now. Come, let’s forget this ever happened.” “You go ahead. I have…dishes to do.” “But it’s Christmas!” the other remarks. “A woman’s work is never done,” she feebly replies. “Very well. You’re missing a great show. It’s the one where Clara loses her necklace.” “What a pity. You run along and enjoy it, though. Bring the milk in to Billy. I’ll be out in a minute.” When he is gone, she fumbles with her apron, searching out the small capsule tucked into the seam at the bottom. Finding it, she again examines the exterior, then the note, then glances at the window. How foolish it would be to swallow such misery incarnate! Yet surely no such thing as pain can exist in the form of a pill. And not in Springfield. It is so long since she has felt pain or heartbreak…since she came here to forget such a thing ever existed. Any other woman would throw the medicine away. Any other being in their right mind would toss it down the disposal. But Jane is not any other woman. Minutes (is it hours?) later, she walks into the living room. Not even the screen acknowledges her. She sits, crosses her legs. Uncrosses them. Fidgets with her apron. Adjusts her hair. Shouldn’t she be feeling something by now? Runs her finger along her coarse stockings, getting goose-pimples from the terrible zipping noise. Bites a nail, chipping the red paint. Shouldn’t Robert see her anguish, her strife? She picks up the empty plates; her own remains untouched. Into the kitchen. A swish of the sink. Detergent. Throw the plates in. Statistics show that housewives with dishwashers have 20% more free time and 100% nicer hands. Maybe she needs to wash the pill down with something. Maybe it doesn’t work on an empty stomach. Cranberry juice. The humming fridge offers some up – chilled – and she strains to open the bottle. Just-twist-a-little-harder. It slips, pouring down the front of her pastel dress from Folsom’s (only $14.99). Like blood the liquid drips from her once-impeccable white apron, splattering her new shoes. Upstairs she runs. “Honey, what happened to your dress? And your new shoes!” He has stopped adjusting his tie in their bedroom mirror and is now staring at her incredulously. “I spilled some juice, dear. It’s all right.” “Why would you do something foolish like that?” “I’ll slip on a new dress. It’s all right.” “It’s ruined our schedule! We’ll have to do that dress with this load and sacrifice one of my clothes until the next round.” “I’ll work it out, dear. It’s all right.” She bounces out of the room, melancholy moving her down the hall. “You took one, didn’t you?” She stops above the stairs. She does not dare to turn around. He almost runs to her. “You took one of those pills. That’s why you’re acting so strange!” She whips about, searching his face, terror in her own. “It’s all right, dear.” “NO, IT’S NOT! IT’S NOT ALL RIGHT! YOU’VE TORN THIS FAMILY APART, JANE!” “Robert, dear, don’t shout. Please, don’t shout. Not in front of Billy.” “SO NOW YOU THINK OF THE KID? I’VE ALWAYS HAD TO CARE FOR HIM WHILE YOU RUN OFF AND DO STUPID, STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS!” “Robert.” Her voice cracks, dew drops form on her eyelids. “Don’t you love me?” “NO! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING, JANE! SPRINGFIELD IS FOR PERFECT PEOPLE IN PERFECT FAMILIES! NOT PEOPLE LIKE YOU!” Terrified, Jane steps back, but nothing is there to support her. A tumultuous crash. She finds herself at the base of the stairs, looking wistfully up at her husband. Her foot is screaming at her. “We took a vow, Robert. Til death do us part. Remember? Well, now it’s time. Our lives are, as you say, ruined. I say we’ve died, at least on the outside. Does that count? It doesn’t matter. Now, I must get going. Goodbye, Robert. Goodbye, Billy.” She fumbles with the bolts on the door as both her loved ones stare on. “Goodbye, old house. Goodbye, Springfield. I must be going now. It’s been fun, and that’s about all, and now I must go. Merry Christmas. Oh, and dear? That pill was just sugar. That’s all it was – but it sure does work, see?” And she hobbles down the winter street on her sprained foot, shoes splattered with burgundy, leaving a wake in the fresh powder. A few more flakes have begun to fall on Springfield – her hair is peppered with them. As she passes from neighborhood to neighborhood, her only indication that she’s going anywhere is the growing size of the gate.	I loved my life greatly except for one thing: I longed for the lessons that hardships can bring. --- This world has grown to be without any woes, blissful ignorance is all anyone knows. --- So, there grew up a black market of sorts, one that's quite nice, according to reports. --- At least, it is nice, in that it is bad, for therein can dark life lessons be had. --- The drug that they sell can make one feel alive: the pain and struggle in which man used to thrive. --- I needed relief from my life so serene, I took it and finally woke up: it's caffeine.
	[WP] It is a Utopian future where everyones needs are perfectly met and people are always happy. There is a new street drug people want to take which promises to make people depressed, in pain, and lonely for 2 hours a hit.	Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It’s Christmas again in Springfield. The weather is beautiful – it’s snowed just like in the movies and now the city is neatly dusted with a fine white pall. Clocks strike in uncanny synchrony the hour eight, and every son and daughter (one for each family) has risen from their beds and run down the stairs to tear open their brand new bicycles from Folsom’s (only $29.99). Rows of braces flash across suburbia as each child reacts with an exhilarated cry. “Oh, mommy! Oh, daddy! Thank you so! What a lovely bicycle with tassels!” they all say in chorus, and turn to the television, expectant. Jane reaches down and turns on the set which – on cue – blares the symphonic intro to The Andersons™. Billy, her son, becomes immediately fixated, and even her husband is drawn away from his paper. “Don’t you ever get tired of these old reruns?” she asks. Quizzical stares bounce back at her and she shrugs. “It’s the same perfect family every week, getting into the same clean mischief. Sometimes I wonder if it would be any different if we watched the mirror instead.” “Don’t talk like a communist, Jane,” Robert says out of the side of his mouth as if tracking her into the kitchen. “Everyone watches The Andersons™. It’s great for bridge conversation.” “Of course, dear.” “Say, it’s 8:15! Where’s the breakfast?” “Oh, it’s coming, dear. It’s coming. Just give me a moment.” “You’re late.” “I know, dear,” she calls from the kitchen. “Here it is.” Out she strides, two plates on the right arm, one in her left hand. Two eggs over-easy, two pieces of toast with raspberry jam on one side, a sausage, a bowl of fruit, just like how the book specifies – all in that order, counterclockwise. “Here you are, sweetie.” Placing one in front of her son, she goes over to her husband. “And here’s yours.” “Where’s the milk?” Billy cries. “Goodness! It’s still out on the porch.” Jane scurries through the kitchen and leans out the back door, looking left, then right. Every other porch is empty. She’ll hear about this at the market tomorrow for certain. Hurriedly, she scoops up the milk bottles, embarrassed at her lateness. This time, though, there’s a pillbox in one of the spaces where the milk goes and a note is tucked beneath it. Anticaine – Take only what you need. Merry Christmas ~ a friend Jane falters. Again, she peeks out the door, checking both ways to see if the prankster is still around. This accursed drug! What rumors she’s heard – and it being here in her house! She must check and see if it’s real; so she empties one into her hand and examines it to find no resemblance to any medicine in her cabinet. The door swings open and in a moment of sheer reflex, pure adrenaline, the pill slips into her apron pocket. “What’s this?” Robert grabs the box, half crushing it. “Anticaine,” he says hoarsely. At once, he throws it down the garbage disposal. A gnashing growl. It’s gone. “Oh, Robert! You’ll ruin the disposal!” “And that drug will ruin our lives! Where did you get it? Where?” “In the milk delivery. Someone replaced one of the bottles with it, I swear. See, one is missing!” “All right. Just as long as it’s gone. Suffering is all that’s promised, and yet some will still take it. What devastation it brings.” Both husband and wife recall tacitly the empty house at the end of the tract and the whispers that are carried past it along the ashen sidewalk. “We must eat breakfast now. Come, let’s forget this ever happened.” “You go ahead. I have…dishes to do.” “But it’s Christmas!” the other remarks. “A woman’s work is never done,” she feebly replies. “Very well. You’re missing a great show. It’s the one where Clara loses her necklace.” “What a pity. You run along and enjoy it, though. Bring the milk in to Billy. I’ll be out in a minute.” When he is gone, she fumbles with her apron, searching out the small capsule tucked into the seam at the bottom. Finding it, she again examines the exterior, then the note, then glances at the window. How foolish it would be to swallow such misery incarnate! Yet surely no such thing as pain can exist in the form of a pill. And not in Springfield. It is so long since she has felt pain or heartbreak…since she came here to forget such a thing ever existed. Any other woman would throw the medicine away. Any other being in their right mind would toss it down the disposal. But Jane is not any other woman. Minutes (is it hours?) later, she walks into the living room. Not even the screen acknowledges her. She sits, crosses her legs. Uncrosses them. Fidgets with her apron. Adjusts her hair. Shouldn’t she be feeling something by now? Runs her finger along her coarse stockings, getting goose-pimples from the terrible zipping noise. Bites a nail, chipping the red paint. Shouldn’t Robert see her anguish, her strife? She picks up the empty plates; her own remains untouched. Into the kitchen. A swish of the sink. Detergent. Throw the plates in. Statistics show that housewives with dishwashers have 20% more free time and 100% nicer hands. Maybe she needs to wash the pill down with something. Maybe it doesn’t work on an empty stomach. Cranberry juice. The humming fridge offers some up – chilled – and she strains to open the bottle. Just-twist-a-little-harder. It slips, pouring down the front of her pastel dress from Folsom’s (only $14.99). Like blood the liquid drips from her once-impeccable white apron, splattering her new shoes. Upstairs she runs. “Honey, what happened to your dress? And your new shoes!” He has stopped adjusting his tie in their bedroom mirror and is now staring at her incredulously. “I spilled some juice, dear. It’s all right.” “Why would you do something foolish like that?” “I’ll slip on a new dress. It’s all right.” “It’s ruined our schedule! We’ll have to do that dress with this load and sacrifice one of my clothes until the next round.” “I’ll work it out, dear. It’s all right.” She bounces out of the room, melancholy moving her down the hall. “You took one, didn’t you?” She stops above the stairs. She does not dare to turn around. He almost runs to her. “You took one of those pills. That’s why you’re acting so strange!” She whips about, searching his face, terror in her own. “It’s all right, dear.” “NO, IT’S NOT! IT’S NOT ALL RIGHT! YOU’VE TORN THIS FAMILY APART, JANE!” “Robert, dear, don’t shout. Please, don’t shout. Not in front of Billy.” “SO NOW YOU THINK OF THE KID? I’VE ALWAYS HAD TO CARE FOR HIM WHILE YOU RUN OFF AND DO STUPID, STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS!” “Robert.” Her voice cracks, dew drops form on her eyelids. “Don’t you love me?” “NO! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING, JANE! SPRINGFIELD IS FOR PERFECT PEOPLE IN PERFECT FAMILIES! NOT PEOPLE LIKE YOU!” Terrified, Jane steps back, but nothing is there to support her. A tumultuous crash. She finds herself at the base of the stairs, looking wistfully up at her husband. Her foot is screaming at her. “We took a vow, Robert. Til death do us part. Remember? Well, now it’s time. Our lives are, as you say, ruined. I say we’ve died, at least on the outside. Does that count? It doesn’t matter. Now, I must get going. Goodbye, Robert. Goodbye, Billy.” She fumbles with the bolts on the door as both her loved ones stare on. “Goodbye, old house. Goodbye, Springfield. I must be going now. It’s been fun, and that’s about all, and now I must go. Merry Christmas. Oh, and dear? That pill was just sugar. That’s all it was – but it sure does work, see?” And she hobbles down the winter street on her sprained foot, shoes splattered with burgundy, leaving a wake in the fresh powder. A few more flakes have begun to fall on Springfield – her hair is peppered with them. As she passes from neighborhood to neighborhood, her only indication that she’s going anywhere is the growing size of the gate.	She lay on the floor, heart pounding, salty tears never drying on her lips. Julie Newell was a perfect rose, in a thornless rosebush. She was an Eve among many more Eves, and just as many Adams. Every morning, she woke up, gave her cat Tinker a pet, and her husband Nic a kiss, before heading off to her simple desk job in a simple warehouse. She never felt an ounce of dread in her life. When it rained, Julie was always able to hail a cab. If Julie wanted to enjoy the water, she always had a pair of boots. If her husband Nic felt like having a cookie, when he got a craving for sweets, there was always a box of them in the cupboard. Theodore her neighbour down the street whom she did not exactly take a liking too, nor he to her, would always be able to avoid her quite easily without losing breath, even when they were in the nearest vicinity. Everyone was always content, never veering from the equilibrium of happiness. Some days though, Julie would look up at the storm clouds with her dark blue eyes, squinting her freckled skin, and feel something teeter deep inside her, like one of those marble labyrinth games, so very on the cusp of winning or losing, then it would melt away, as she looked down, and hailed a cab within thirty seconds. She heard it whispered many times in the last four months, seen the quiet stories, trickling in through the media. "Nectar" they called it, because it made you feel like a God. She was about to experience a drug like no other that existed. Julie pondered how all of this fell into place so easily, and so perfectly, as she lay down on a bed lined with red silk sheets. She felt the prick, and looked as the shimmering purple liquid went into her arm. It was as though her whole body was sucked into a wormhole. Pain she had never felt before soared through her heart, her physical heart. It pounded, and pounded as she floated into nothingness. She saw in her minds eye, the sky that she encountered so many times, turning black, as a crashing bolt of lightning came down onto her home, which led to her cat being killed, and her husband, along with her best friend Patricia running out of the house stark naked. She knew of course this could not be true in real life. It felt like her day dreams, but the tone, the tone was dark, and closing in on her. The pounding began to move from Julie's heart, to her throat, and it felt as though a noose were upon it. Tightening and tightening. Still in the blackness, Julie began to hear voices, quiet at first, but growing ever louder and louder, until they screamed inside her eardrums. Words rang out: Worthless, useless, used up, poor, stupid, a burden, unloved, a burden, unloved, a burden, a burden a burden. They quieted all of a sudden, and Julie felt comfort, warmth, not happiness, but calmness. The voices told her she could make it better for everyone, make everything all the same again, they could fix it, if she just went away. She begged the voices to tell her where she should go, as she cried out, but all that answered was silence. Julie awoke, and asked the man for another vial.

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