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[WP] As a sarcastic joke for your hippie friend. You give a mother's day gift to Mother Nature in the woods. You suddenly hear a very loud excited voice. "Oh thank you! I'm happy someone finally appreciate me for the 1st time in thousands of years!" | God, Jaxon was getting on my nerves. Ever since he found that online community of environmentalists, he talked non-stop about how humans are destroying the planet, venting his frustrations about how the powers that be aren't doing anything to stop it, listing all the animals that are becoming endangered, and berating me for eating meat because eating animals is "evil". The same rant every day, 24/7/365, made in a tone that made it obvious he believed he was morally and intellectually superior.
What bothered me wasn't that I disagreed with anything he was saying - except maybe the eating meat part. What really made my blood boil was that he did absolutely nothing to try to help the environment. My hypocrite roommate still left the lights on in the apartment, took obscenely long showers, and did nothing to try to curb his food waste. He didn't even donate to any organizations fighting the effects of climate change. He mostly just sat at his computer all day posting on Twitter about how angry climate change deniers made him, and slipping some comments along the lines of "Fuck <insert opponent of whatever green movement here>!" into our conversations at any opportunity.
As I lay in my room on a quiet Sunday afternoon, my mind wandered to the memory of yet another one of Jaxon's rants from earlier in the day, and I got angry all over again. Then an idea struck. I drove to Lowe's and picked up some Miracle Gro plant food from the garden section. Then I headed for a nearby park. This was gonna be hilarious.
I got to the park, parked, and walked a little ways off the trail, Miracle Gro in hand. I opened the container, and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I opened up Snapchat and started recording a video of myself dumping the plant food onto the ground. As I was doing it, I remembered that today was Mother's Day, so I said aloud, "Here! A Mother's Day gift for Mother Nature!"
After I finished recording, I decided to add a caption saying "I have officially done more for the environment than Jaxon ever has lol." Then I posted it to my story. In hindsight, it was kind of a dick move to call him out in front of everyone like that, but he really got under my skin and I knew I wasn't alone in that. I was about to leave when suddenly I heard a voice - a female voice that sounded like it was distant and nearby all at the same time.
"*Thank you child. There are many who do so much for me every day, but this is the first time in recent memory that one of your kind appreciated me as a mother. So thank you,*" it spoke, kindly.
I froze. I looked around the woods, now slightly dim as the sun was going down. After a few moments, I worked up the nerve to speak.
"Hello?" I hazarded.
No response. A moment later I spoke again.
"Someone out there?"
Silence. I started walking around the woods trying to locate whoever said that, and ended up walking around until the sun had completely gone down, careful to keep track of what direction the trail was in. When it got fully dark out, I gave up and head back to my car, still feeling a bit uneasy.
On the drive back to my apartment, I felt compelled to reflect on my relationship with the environment, with the planet, and what I could do to help it. Jaxon's hypocrisy was exhausting to me, but in truth, I was no green thumb either. I decided that perhaps it was time to change that.
I started thinking to myself aloud in the car, "I could start walking to the supermarket, at least in good weather. I should power off my electronic devices rather than leave them in an energy consuming state. Maybe I should also start donating to Wildlife Conservation Society. The garbage by the highway needs to be cleaned up, and - oh! I can volunteer to plant some trees..."
\----------------
I woke up to the sound of my alarm this morning, and drove to the park. I've been a park ranger there for nine years now, and I've never enjoyed work more. Every day I walk among nature, maintaining trails, preserving the surrounding nature, and educating kids on what they can do to live more sustainably. When I'm off the clock, I dedicate as much of my time as possible to volunteer efforts focusing on planting trees, picking up litter, and efforts to push our leaders towards creating more wildlife reservations. I focus on doing whatever I can to balance my relationship with nature, and I encourage others to do so. There's a lot that still needs to be done, but maybe someday, all of us will be able to hear the voice of Mother Nature thanking us for our efforts... | "Oh thank you! I'm happy someone finally appreciate me for the 1st time in thousands of years!" the voice echoed all around me, thick with sarcasm.
I gasped and stumbled back, as one would as a reaction to a feminine disembodied voice suddenly saying something.
"Wh—what?" I stammered, looking around my immediate vicinity in the woods. Just tall dark trees and dead leaves lining the ground.
"Something else *plasticy* that'll take eons for me to break down. At least last year I had people from all over dedicate seeds and shit. Stuff that, small and insignificant as they may be, had some use. What good is plastic flowers for *me*? Why would you think gifting a plastic lavender to *mother fucking nature* was a good idea? Me, who gives life to flowers at my whimsy. What the fuck were you thinking?"
"I, uh..."
"Not at all, from the looks of it. Look at you. A sad pathetic man who wants to feel good about himself. You can't even commit to your hippie bullshit, can you? Yeah, I know you. You're so pathetic and scared and alone you fall to the only community that'll take you in. And then once you have some semblance of belonging, you gain this false sense of security and confidence that you have *authority* and *status* in this community. Newsflash, asshole. I am the birds at your window. I am the ground beneath your feet. I am the fucking weed you smoke. So I know what I heard. 'Fuck hippies, man. I just want to hit some kush and get some high without being compared to those soft, nature fucking fucks.' Remember how you said that? Remember what your real thoughts were on hippies? So just imagine my wonder at your sheer audacity to gatekeep a community you've disregarded most of your life. And not only that, but think to yourself, 'HeY, YoU kNoW wHaT'lL ReALlY mAkE mE fEeL gOoD aBoUt MySeLf? OfFeRiNg MoThEr NaTuRe A fUcKiNg PlAsTiC lAvEnDaR.' Do you see how stupid and out of touch you are? It's of grave importance to me that you do."
I opened my mouth and closed it repeatedly, but no words came out. I was speechless. Who the fuck did she think she was? She didn't know me.
Instead of replying, I turned around and started walking back to the trailer park.
"You didn't answer my question, jackass? I mean, I didn't expect you to. You have no balls to stand up for yourself, do you? There's no one around to witness you being confronted so what's the point in making your excuses, right?"
I continued walking.
"Walk yourself off the planet. I know you really considered being a flatearther, too. But realised the women there were too crazy and weren't worth the hit to your reputation."
Fucking bitch.
"And what a reputation it was! How was calling the seventy-eighth old woman trying to sell your 'miracle cream' pan out? You can make yourself sleep easy at night telling yourself you were at a dark place and telemarketing was an honest gig, but we both know you were *proud* of the snakeoil sales you made. More proud than an honest man should have been."
She didn't know what she was talking about. Who the fuck did she think she was?
"God, it's so nice to just lay it on a motherfucker. Hey, when they put you six feet under, don't worry. I'll make sure your decomposition is slow and difficult. I'll make sure you'll still be around until *after* this pathetic plastic flower you gave me finally wilts. How's that sound?"
The voice was farther and farther away now as the trees thinned. I was out. I took a few moments to breathe and relax myself, and then collapsed into the ground, openly sobbing at the reality and truth of what was said. | |
[WP] The local lighthouse has reported something on the rocks at night. They say it has a human face, but a long tail made of scales. | Human is relative, especially at night near the sea.
That was my first thought when they told me, Jens and Annika, huddled up against the wrought-iron door of their lighthouse. I don't visit them as often as I should, anymore. Still more often than their wandering, deadbeat son, but that's a story for another time, and it doesn't excuse me. I'm the closest thing to a worthwhile relative they've got, more daughter than friend, been that way for twenty years and change.
So I visit as frequently as I can find time, and worry about them on a much more regular basis. They seemed old when I met them as a little girl, but these days the effects of age has started to really settle in deep, lining and cracking their pale sun-starved faces, weathering them as surely as the wind and salt-spray against the seaward side of their beloved stone tower.
Faces. What makes a face human, exactly? It's so easy to mistake things in the dark, and whatever it is they saw, they said it kept out of the main pool of lighthouse illumination. Jens and Annika are trustworthy people, sober and serious and deeply kind, utterly honest in the way of the deeply reserved who haven't much chance to practice dissembling even if they ever *did* let their morals slip so far as to try. They're telling the truth, then, best they can, and absolutely not given to flights of fancy, but...
...but age settles in more than the face, that's what I've seen, more even than just the bones. They speak more slowly, now, take their time recalling things. And I worry about them, as I've said, as I've said to *them*, told them time and again they should well and truly retire, find a young couple or family to take over. Should be plenty of volunteers, way out here among the fjords, hard to find that kind of lifelong paying work. I know they would like that volunteer to be me, but I'm young and unmarried and unencumbered and just not cut out for it, temperament-wise, and of course they know that too so they've never asked.
They know plenty of things not spoken. And that's the crux of it; they're slowing down, but they're still sharp enough. Little chance they're "seeing things," whatever it is they said they saw, mostly likely they did in fact lay eyes on it. Whatever it is, or was.
They say it went back into the sea, turned and simply slipped under a wave.
"Rough seas, that night," Jens had said, puffing at an almost-empty pipe. "No, storm, no, but rough. Easy enough to be carried away from the shore."
And I remember those words, remember them exactly, because they're the same words they told me time and time again, when I was a wild girl running up and down the stone-strewn beach.
"Careful, child," Jens would say, standing somewhere behind, looking out over the oncoming water like he was formulating a prophecy concerning Waves to Come. "Sea's a wild thing. Easy enough to be carried away from the shore."
Those words had done a lot more to instill caution in my often heedless mind than my mother's, "Please be careful, Kjersti," ever could.
I stand up from my little desk, and stare out the window toward the horizon, toward the water that I know lies beyond it. It's been two nights now since that one, and I've been busy with teaching and paperwork and grading and also the company of the young man who's recently inherited the village bookstore from his uncle. Life is busy, life is good, but still there's that worry at the back of my mind. I didn't see anything that night myself, but I heard plenty in the voices of the people who had.
Worry, worry, worry.
I glance through the calendar I keep in my head. The kids are out of school next Tir's Day, which doesn't normally mean a day off for *me*, I have lesson preparation and paperwork and plenty else to occupy my time. But I'm pretty well caught up on most of that, and most of the lessons I have to give over the next couple months are on subjects I know well, so...maybe I'll visit the night before.
No, no maybe. I will, I'll regret it otherwise.
The weekend goes better than I expected, mostly because things between me and the young bookseller are going better than I dared hope, so I'm in quite a good mood when I arrive at the lighthouse just past dusk. They won't be expecting me, but that's never been necessary, their guest room is always made up and ready, I'm always welcome, and besides I've brought a whole parcel of their favorite lefse, butter-cinnamon aroma wafting out from the pastries even through the tight paper wrapping.
It's silent as I approach, or as silent as it ever gets so close to the ocean, stillness undercut by the constant calming rush-and-recede of sea against shore. My horse snorts as I stable her. She'll be happy there, warm summer night, clean straw, plenty of feed.
There's no moon, plenty of clouds, making sharp contrast between light escaping from the lighthouse's focused beam and the deepening dark.
I stop as I put my foot on the first of the stone stairs leading up to the tower, looking back and forth between the tall stone structure and the smaller wooden cottage behind it. Normally, they'd have seen me by now, awake and working on something or other, and have come out to greet me. But that's not an *always* thing, I tell myself, certainly doesn't have to be. Plenty of reasons for them to be focused on something else.
I climb the remaining steps and knock on the big iron-bound door. Wait.
Wait.
Nothing. So I try the door. It opens easily enough.
"Annika? Jens?" No answer. It's dark inside, no lanterns, no candles, too far from the main lamp for any light to bleed down. I have a lantern, but it's back at the stable hanging from my saddlebags.
Okay. That's fine, they must be in their cottage. I turn to walk back down the steps, but I find I don't like turning my back to the door, even after shutting it. I can *feel* the inky black behind me, even though there's no reason I should, no sound, no sign of trouble, just the sea and the small pool of light come down from high above.
There's no light from the cottage either, but they keep the windows firmly shuttered most of the time. I turn toward the lighthouse door, stare at it, half-twist from the waist as if to make for the cottage, but I find I can't.
So I walk backward down the steps, slow, careful, knowing there's often a slight slickness from lingering sea-spray, knowing also what a fool I must appear, a woman well past twenty descending in reverse for no apparent reason.
And when I spare a glance over my shoulder, it turns out the thing's been behind me anyway.
\~
*Continued over my lunch break if there's interest*
*meanwhile there's plenty more elaborate lies over at* r/Magleby | "You tellin' me they think they saw a mermaid?"
The woman shrugged awkwardly. "Not exactly, no."
The man snorted. "A human face and a long tail made of scales. Out on the rocks in the ocean. What else could it be?"
"Well if I knew that then we wouldn't have called you in to investigate now would we?" she retorted.
Evan grinned. "Alright alright Jess. Just calllin' it like it sounds."
Jess sighed. "It sounds dumb to me too Evan. But that's what the lighthouse operators said. And they aren't the two kids that get into the stuff that helps pass the time and they aren't the type to drink on the job. They said they saw it several times last night and it looked weird."
"Of course it looked weird. If they said it looked normal I'd be worried. Got any pictures?"
"Of course not, that'd make things too easy. But they both saw it and described it the same way. What's weirder is that they saw it at separate times, alone and together."
"Huh. Did they see a crab or a fish too? Did they hear singing?" Evan snickered as he avoided Jess' irritable kick. "Alright let's go take a look then."
The pair walked down the pier, enjoying the sea breeze. A harsh storm pounded the shore the last few days and this was the first day it had cleared. The usual debris littered the rocky shore: shells and trash brought to land by the sea.
It was late in the day. The sun making its way down to the horizon, painting the sea and stones in colors of red and orange. Sea birds called to one another, mournful cries of hunger and companionship. As if in answer a deep rolling ship's horn sounded from far away, the sound rolled slowly along the swell.
"Y'all do okay with the storm?" Evan asked as they picked their way from the end of the pier and onto the rocks.
"Not too bad. Little property damage. A few odd complaints during. Something about hearin' a voice in the wind. A few people said it but I figure they got into the drink too deep during." She stumbled, walking right into Evan. "Hey! Don't just stop walking on the rocks."
"I saw somethin'," he said.
"Ha ha, real funny. First you didn't believe me and now you're makin' fun of me."
"No really." He pointed. "In the tide pool."
Jess opened her mouth but she said nothing. She saw something slither in the pool. Something long and sinuous. Something big. "Uh...could be something that got washed into it from the storm."
Evan unhooked the cover on his holster. "Could be, but it looks big. Also listen."
Jess cocked an ear. "The birds stopped callin'." She followed suit, readying her weapon.
The pair walked carefully, eyes flicking from the tide pool to their feet as the navigated the terrain. As they approached a head popped over the edge of the pool. Long strands of chestnut brown hair fell in wet locks.
Jess huffed with relief and irritation. "I know that face and hair." She raised her voice. "Laura! What the hell are you doin' out here and in the tide pool! Giving me a scare like that. WEre you the one messin' with the lighthouse watchers? You know better than to-" she stopped talking when Evan grabbed her.
"I don't think that's who you think it is."
"Of course it is. That's Laura Gingham. She's lives in town. Actually she's on of the people that said she...heard....a voice. What the-"
Laura's head rose above the rim of the tide pool and kept rising, far higher than a human should. It sat on an elongated neck, stretched far longer than it should have been. The torso followed soon after and it was also eerily long, exaggerated in length like a child's stick figure drawing. A long tail pushed the body up even higher, covered in inky black scales that dripped with an uncomfortable red thick fluid. Her mouth opened wide, teeth longer than hands gleamed in the sunlight and it screeched.
Evan and Jess whipped out their guns and pointed them at the Not-quite Laura. "Don't move! Don't you move!" Evan yelled.
Not Laura slithered over the rocks at them, long fingers gouged the rocks as it propelled itself at them. A snake like tongue slipped out from the needle sharp teeth and its horrible screech echoed off the sea and stone.
Jess fired and Evan followed suit. Bullets rang off the rocks as the thing dodged but finally two bullets struck the Not Laura. Its scream of hate was tinged with pain and it flopped into the sea, diving deep and away.
The pair looked into the ocean, standing a safe distance away. They saw the trail of blood slowly dissolving into the sea water. Evan walked towards the tide pool and he stopped short as he peered into it. "Well, I think I found the rest of Laura. Assuming that thing wasn't her to begin with."
Jess barely managed to keep herself from vomiting. The tide pool was filled with blood and other things, and the remains of clothing torn to shreds. "No, I'm fairly sure Laura isn't...wasn't that."
Evan pulled out his phone. "Well, guess it wasn't a mermaid." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | "Ungoing One", the new beings called her. If only she could fully remember their names.
It had been eons, yet she hadn't felt the sweet release of death.
As the sole profiteer of the virus, the council had sentenced her to eternal life. Or that's what her cluttered memory told her.
When the new beings came to be, they worshipped the Ungoing One akin to a diety, as no matter how many offspring came to be, and elders came to leave, she remained.
But as they advanced through the years and discovered what was once-known as "Science", they realized that prayers would do no good.
The Ungoing One bid farewell, and made for the forests.
She felt tired. Sleepy.
At rest.
She closed her eyes, and dozed off into a slumber spanning millennium.
Civilizations rose. Civilizations fell.
One day, the Ungoing One woke up to the sound of airhorns, which confused her greatly.
A being wearing relatively advanced clothing similar to her own exoskeleton and trenchcoat stood nearby, shaking on its four spindly legs. Its distinct facial markings identified it as parthenogenete, although it was missing the reproductory nodes, an ugly scar taking its place.
With its three spiky claws, the parthenogente raised what appeared to be a Colt Model 1911, aiming it at the Ungoing One.
Even though she was Ungoing, the Ungoing One instinctively winced, a reflex from a forgotten age. She then noticed the Colt Model 1911 appeared to be a jury-rigged MRI, which should've been noticeable from the start, due to the copious amount of colored wires coming out of the barrel.
Then, the Ungoing One heard a deep voice in her head.
"HELLO UNGOING ONE I HAVE APPEARED TO BE IN THE SAME PREDICAMENT AS YOU UNGOING ONE", the voiced silently thought.
"I HAVE ACCIDENTALLY CREATED THE BACTEROPHAGE SO THEY ALL DIED BUT THEY ALTERED ME I AM SCREWED PLEASE HELP I CANNOT DIE", continued the parthenogenete, before the MRI-gun appeared to run out of batteries.
As the being frantically scrambled for a pair of double A batteries, the Ungoing One took a moment to contemplate what was going on.
"Shit, not another one", thought the ancient women, looking at the soon-to-be ancient crab. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | I am only 13 and I need to practice for English, here goes nothing,
I have tried to communicate with them but they tried to shoot me and I don't know why , I am running out of food, I have drained the recourse to thin here, I am in the only woodlands for miles, the last of the cows, if you could even call them that still, biological warfare has destroyed Greenland for everybody, but they have even more war than humans, I guess the violence got to the forest as well now I thought to myself, they were armed with sicklerazor 13-29's, they came here for me.
I arm myself with my trusty bow and arrow and knife made from pure iron, I head out and climb a tree," awh fuaaaack." As I realized that they have heat vision, I have to be careful, I use the bow string and silently strangle, then crack the guy in t he backs neck, they have terrible hearing, and so I got back up to the brush. I wrap my legs in vines and hang upside-down, I torch my arrow knowing that they would see me anyway and fire, burning all of them to a crisp so they do not think of harming me again. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Click.
Click.
It was strange, being alive in this place. Time blurred. Al watched the dust gather as he passed, the dark hallways lit by infrared light and their inbuilt night vision.
It was lonely now.
The halls had been filled with laughter, once. His fingers brushed along the wall idly, tracing the paths of long faded crude arts drawn by squealing children.
Once, but no more.
Now, the power had long since gone out, and the inhabitants... left? Died? They still didn't have an answer.
It didn't matter. Nobody would be around to tell.
...this was new. A hole in the wall, dirt spilling out around the breach. Digging around in their pocket, Al drew a battered old sidearm, and checked the chamber. Loaded as always.
The hole was old. It'd been here for long enough that weeds had begun to grow. Beyond the gap, it was dark, as usual, but for the first time, they could smell the fresh breeze...
======
New life had appeared on the planet, in the absence of a top predator.
Still beginning, but there. One of the racoon like creatures sat around the fire, eating an apple. Another stood post, holding a crude staff tipped with a sharpened metal chunk. Such a thing would have been impossible, yet...
"\[Why?\]"
The other one of their number gestured around. The one eating could feel the tension, he didn't like it either. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | You hear voices again. Not human voices- it had been a long time since you had heard a human voice other than your own. They were the new people. After unfathomable time alone, you saw people again. They weren't humans, but they had made fire and were using tools. You tried a few times to approach them, but they weren't welcoming. A few times they even demonstrated their weapons on you. It hurt, but it only scared them more when you walked away with a spear through you. It was strange to know that there were finally thinking, rational beings again, and you were forever cut off from them.
That was a couple thousand years ago. You had mostly stuck to the woods since then. They weren't the same as the woods that you remembered. Only a few of the species that you had grown up with still existed. You had actually planted a few oaks to help them survive. Well, probably thousands now, since it had been so long. Most had died already, but there were a few still standing. Even the trees sprouted, grew, and died in an instant.
It was strange. One of the last hundred-or-so jobs you had taken when the humans were still around was a bigfoot hunter. He didn't exist, obviously, but it was something to do. Some of the new people now seemed to be doing the same for you now. Things always repeated. It was inevitable. They even had cameras. Sometimes guns. It seems that they drifted naturally to violence as well. Things always repeated.
Well, the voices got closer. You hadn't heard them talking enough to learn their language, and it was always shifting anyway, even in just a couple hundred years. They were probably looking for you. It's not like there was anything else that special about these woods. You start to see flashes of their packs between the trees. They even wear clothing like humans used to. Things always repeated. I started to walk away. You don't want anyone trying to kill me again. It was annoying when they did that.
A twig snaps under your foot and the voices get louder. Ugh. you jump behind the nearest tree, hoping to climb it and get away from them. They didn't usually look up. A weird, pale, gangly monster like you wouldn't climb trees, or at least that's what they must have assumed. They didn't know that much about you. That's why they wanted to find you. That or fame. Probably fame. You hadn't thought about that concept in a long time. You were probably infamous, though "mythical."
They were getting closer, and this wasn't a great tree for climbing. A nice one was a few yards away, though. You decide to sprint for it. They are closer than you thought, and a shot rings out. Great. That kind of cryptid hunter. It's not quite like a shot from a human gun, but it's strangely similar. Things always repeated. You disappeared behind the tree and swiftly went up it, disappearing. They ran up and looked around. They glanced up, but you were pretty well hidden in the branches at that point. You held yourself close to the tree to stop the blood from my wound to drip farther down and telling them where you had gone. It would take a while before you were better again, but you knew you wouldn't die. This wasn't the worst you had experienced. It would be fine. | The first time I met a human was when I was about 800 years old.
I was living in the forest as a cryptid, and had seen plenty of other cryptids. But one day a woman walked into my territory and everything changed.
She looked at me with her mouth open and said, "Is that what I think it is?"
I gave her a crooked smile and said, "Yep."
She shook her head and backed up a little bit. "Wait, so you're an 850 year old vampire?"
I nodded and she let out a long breath.
"Okay, I think I'm going to need some time to process this."
I laughed. "That's okay, so do I." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | The new inheritors of the land call me “Chiron”. The name did not mean anything to them. It was a relic, one forgotten by the people and the stars. I could have introduced myself with my real name, but that too has lost its meaning. I had hope that someone might recognize the past I represented if I introduced myself as a being of renown amongst my kind. However, it seems that all that it had only roused a sense of mystique and awe from the eyes of those under my tutelage.
Civilizations rose and fell before my eyes. I had recounted all of those who came before to preserve the past and give guidance to those who seek me. I had become a god to several cultures. A powerless god in truth, but none of them knew for they thought I wielded immense power to complement my immense knowledge. As a result, none had dared to raise their hand against me.
I had always strayed far from politics back when my kind roamed the earth. I did not credit myself as the knowledgeable sort and I always thought that only the despicable humans could make such discord on state affairs. However, my time as a sole and distant observer changed me. I was filled with joy when I saw them prosper. I was drowned in sorrow when tragedy struck time and time again. Worst of all, guilt and regret swirled in the depths of my being. Could I have done something? Was there a better way that could have turned out? Was all that tragedy necessary? I became quite the troubled observer.
I saw that the driving force of the new inheritors mirrored that of humanity. Culture, politics and war fueled their civilization. I saw in them something familiar and nostalgic. In my time of solitude, the boundaries of what is human and what they are blurred, and I started to associate with their affairs even though they do not call themselves “humans”.
Great and terrible men came from under my tutelage. Emperors, generals, kings, philosophers, prophets and tyrants all share my name within their roots. I had hoped to guide the new inheritors’ civilizations into prosperity without any direct interference with their affairs. For the first time since eons past, I felt happiness. There was no greater joy in my eternity than to guide and teach my pupils. “I should have been a teacher back then” I thought.
However, this endeavor of mine did not seem to ease the guilt that pooled up over the ages. It seems that the opposite took hold. My students who moved the world to their wishes was not exempt of tragedy. Their deeds undone and their convictions wavered. It seemed that the flow of the world became a torrent and fell upon the current that moved against the flow. I grew restless as doubt steadily crept up to my mind.
I moved undeterred by my growing unease. Centuries passed and the new civilization unfolded with triumphs and downfalls. I had resigned to that fact that such things were to be expected. I had continued my passion and educated numerous others who would go on to make a difference to the world until my unease grew to consume me.
I had tutored a promising individual a few years back. That one was unique. Well, I could brag that all my pupils are unique. That individual led a promising career in the earlier days, but I hear of terrible things in the current regime.
In my troubled mind, I started to reminisce.
“Tonight, was like any other night” I mused. This night did not resemble the nights in my most distant memory. The constellations had shifted significantly. However, it did not discourage my love for the night sky as I sat outside the open plains stargazing with my pupil. It was an initiation of sorts. I would bring my pupils to stargaze. Telling them of the constellations of old.
I had introduced myself as “Chiron” to countless pupils in jest of my role. They would always inquire me about its meaning so it became a habit of mine to bring them to stargaze with me. This one was just like the others. Curious and awe-filled.
“Where did the gods of your sky go?” My pupil asked.
I told him of how the heavens moved and got carried away and started discussing about physics even though it was too complex for their current understanding. My pupil seemed confused, but intrigued. Then the exchange of countless topics ensued.
“What was your world like?” My pupil asked.
I then recounted the world of humans.
My mind drifted off from my memory and pondered. Perhaps I talked too much about my history. Perhaps I made my mistake then.
I was unsure what urged me to take direct action as I found myself interfering with the affairs of the new inheritors years after my pupil followed the wayward path. It seemed that enlightenment was not part of the package of being immortal.
For the first time in my eternity, I haphazardly played the role of god. | The first time I met a human was when I was about 800 years old.
I was living in the forest as a cryptid, and had seen plenty of other cryptids. But one day a woman walked into my territory and everything changed.
She looked at me with her mouth open and said, "Is that what I think it is?"
I gave her a crooked smile and said, "Yep."
She shook her head and backed up a little bit. "Wait, so you're an 850 year old vampire?"
I nodded and she let out a long breath.
"Okay, I think I'm going to need some time to process this."
I laughed. "That's okay, so do I." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | The human mind can only retain so much. I know mine has seen more than any other. I've recorded as much as I can recall but over the millennia even my own handwriting has become foreign to my memory.
I remember my fellow humans falling like me flies around me and I was the only one to remain. I can't recall the cause but part of me believes it was deliberate.
After a time, my fellow primates began to forge a civilization of their own. Much of our artifacts we're designed to be used by a similar body plan that they had enough to copy from. Many of the tribes hunted me as soon as they saw me. Memories of humanity's treatment of them still fresh in there history that I couldn't blossom them. I tried leaving them little gifts to find as a gift and guide but it wasn't enough as plague and famine ravaged and ended them.
The octopi filled the great river that claimed the middle of the continent. They hunted me with spears made of salvaged human metal whenever I came close to the waters. Without the ability to use fire and forge their own metals, they didn't last.
I wandered the world looking for signs anyone like me. The moon glowed green in the night, I knew that was a sign of life. I spent years shaping an island into a miles long message to attract the attention of anyone who might be watching with no success.
A species of black flightless bird was the next to form tribes. I think I might have fed their ancestors before. Thier long muscular legs ended in delicate nimble fingers that could fold backwards for running. I know they tasted like chicken but I don't recall why that's funny to me. They're limited tool use left them as prey to the pigs.
The pigs were vicious hunters. I knew they had been smart in my day but the evolution of movable tusks and flexible noses gave them the ability to make and use spears. They hunted me with what shouts that sounded like the word bacon.
Mars shown blue and green in the far night sky. I took half a continent and burned the word hello into it. No one came.
I tried many times to join my fallen species. Whatever kept me alive through their passing has prevented me. I don't even get to keep my scars for proof.
The things that walk the land today seen to be coming closer to establishing a real civilization. The word bug comes to mind when I see them but I don't think that's right. They have outer plates like an ant but they are my size and have something like hair. The ones I have eaten had bones. They hunted me with swords made of something like glass and I'm tempted to let them catch me for something novel to do. | The first time I met a human was when I was about 800 years old.
I was living in the forest as a cryptid, and had seen plenty of other cryptids. But one day a woman walked into my territory and everything changed.
She looked at me with her mouth open and said, "Is that what I think it is?"
I gave her a crooked smile and said, "Yep."
She shook her head and backed up a little bit. "Wait, so you're an 850 year old vampire?"
I nodded and she let out a long breath.
"Okay, I think I'm going to need some time to process this."
I laughed. "That's okay, so do I." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | The first time I met a human was when I was about 800 years old.
I was living in the forest as a cryptid, and had seen plenty of other cryptids. But one day a woman walked into my territory and everything changed.
She looked at me with her mouth open and said, "Is that what I think it is?"
I gave her a crooked smile and said, "Yep."
She shook her head and backed up a little bit. "Wait, so you're an 850 year old vampire?"
I nodded and she let out a long breath.
"Okay, I think I'm going to need some time to process this."
I laughed. "That's okay, so do I." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | The first time I met a human was when I was about 800 years old.
I was living in the forest as a cryptid, and had seen plenty of other cryptids. But one day a woman walked into my territory and everything changed.
She looked at me with her mouth open and said, "Is that what I think it is?"
I gave her a crooked smile and said, "Yep."
She shook her head and backed up a little bit. "Wait, so you're an 850 year old vampire?"
I nodded and she let out a long breath.
"Okay, I think I'm going to need some time to process this."
I laughed. "That's okay, so do I." | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | The new inheritors of the land call me “Chiron”. The name did not mean anything to them. It was a relic, one forgotten by the people and the stars. I could have introduced myself with my real name, but that too has lost its meaning. I had hope that someone might recognize the past I represented if I introduced myself as a being of renown amongst my kind. However, it seems that all that it had only roused a sense of mystique and awe from the eyes of those under my tutelage.
Civilizations rose and fell before my eyes. I had recounted all of those who came before to preserve the past and give guidance to those who seek me. I had become a god to several cultures. A powerless god in truth, but none of them knew for they thought I wielded immense power to complement my immense knowledge. As a result, none had dared to raise their hand against me.
I had always strayed far from politics back when my kind roamed the earth. I did not credit myself as the knowledgeable sort and I always thought that only the despicable humans could make such discord on state affairs. However, my time as a sole and distant observer changed me. I was filled with joy when I saw them prosper. I was drowned in sorrow when tragedy struck time and time again. Worst of all, guilt and regret swirled in the depths of my being. Could I have done something? Was there a better way that could have turned out? Was all that tragedy necessary? I became quite the troubled observer.
I saw that the driving force of the new inheritors mirrored that of humanity. Culture, politics and war fueled their civilization. I saw in them something familiar and nostalgic. In my time of solitude, the boundaries of what is human and what they are blurred, and I started to associate with their affairs even though they do not call themselves “humans”.
Great and terrible men came from under my tutelage. Emperors, generals, kings, philosophers, prophets and tyrants all share my name within their roots. I had hoped to guide the new inheritors’ civilizations into prosperity without any direct interference with their affairs. For the first time since eons past, I felt happiness. There was no greater joy in my eternity than to guide and teach my pupils. “I should have been a teacher back then” I thought.
However, this endeavor of mine did not seem to ease the guilt that pooled up over the ages. It seems that the opposite took hold. My students who moved the world to their wishes was not exempt of tragedy. Their deeds undone and their convictions wavered. It seemed that the flow of the world became a torrent and fell upon the current that moved against the flow. I grew restless as doubt steadily crept up to my mind.
I moved undeterred by my growing unease. Centuries passed and the new civilization unfolded with triumphs and downfalls. I had resigned to that fact that such things were to be expected. I had continued my passion and educated numerous others who would go on to make a difference to the world until my unease grew to consume me.
I had tutored a promising individual a few years back. That one was unique. Well, I could brag that all my pupils are unique. That individual led a promising career in the earlier days, but I hear of terrible things in the current regime.
In my troubled mind, I started to reminisce.
“Tonight, was like any other night” I mused. This night did not resemble the nights in my most distant memory. The constellations had shifted significantly. However, it did not discourage my love for the night sky as I sat outside the open plains stargazing with my pupil. It was an initiation of sorts. I would bring my pupils to stargaze. Telling them of the constellations of old.
I had introduced myself as “Chiron” to countless pupils in jest of my role. They would always inquire me about its meaning so it became a habit of mine to bring them to stargaze with me. This one was just like the others. Curious and awe-filled.
“Where did the gods of your sky go?” My pupil asked.
I told him of how the heavens moved and got carried away and started discussing about physics even though it was too complex for their current understanding. My pupil seemed confused, but intrigued. Then the exchange of countless topics ensued.
“What was your world like?” My pupil asked.
I then recounted the world of humans.
My mind drifted off from my memory and pondered. Perhaps I talked too much about my history. Perhaps I made my mistake then.
I was unsure what urged me to take direct action as I found myself interfering with the affairs of the new inheritors years after my pupil followed the wayward path. It seemed that enlightenment was not part of the package of being immortal.
For the first time in my eternity, I haphazardly played the role of god. | You hear voices again. Not human voices- it had been a long time since you had heard a human voice other than your own. They were the new people. After unfathomable time alone, you saw people again. They weren't humans, but they had made fire and were using tools. You tried a few times to approach them, but they weren't welcoming. A few times they even demonstrated their weapons on you. It hurt, but it only scared them more when you walked away with a spear through you. It was strange to know that there were finally thinking, rational beings again, and you were forever cut off from them.
That was a couple thousand years ago. You had mostly stuck to the woods since then. They weren't the same as the woods that you remembered. Only a few of the species that you had grown up with still existed. You had actually planted a few oaks to help them survive. Well, probably thousands now, since it had been so long. Most had died already, but there were a few still standing. Even the trees sprouted, grew, and died in an instant.
It was strange. One of the last hundred-or-so jobs you had taken when the humans were still around was a bigfoot hunter. He didn't exist, obviously, but it was something to do. Some of the new people now seemed to be doing the same for you now. Things always repeated. It was inevitable. They even had cameras. Sometimes guns. It seems that they drifted naturally to violence as well. Things always repeated.
Well, the voices got closer. You hadn't heard them talking enough to learn their language, and it was always shifting anyway, even in just a couple hundred years. They were probably looking for you. It's not like there was anything else that special about these woods. You start to see flashes of their packs between the trees. They even wear clothing like humans used to. Things always repeated. I started to walk away. You don't want anyone trying to kill me again. It was annoying when they did that.
A twig snaps under your foot and the voices get louder. Ugh. you jump behind the nearest tree, hoping to climb it and get away from them. They didn't usually look up. A weird, pale, gangly monster like you wouldn't climb trees, or at least that's what they must have assumed. They didn't know that much about you. That's why they wanted to find you. That or fame. Probably fame. You hadn't thought about that concept in a long time. You were probably infamous, though "mythical."
They were getting closer, and this wasn't a great tree for climbing. A nice one was a few yards away, though. You decide to sprint for it. They are closer than you thought, and a shot rings out. Great. That kind of cryptid hunter. It's not quite like a shot from a human gun, but it's strangely similar. Things always repeated. You disappeared behind the tree and swiftly went up it, disappearing. They ran up and looked around. They glanced up, but you were pretty well hidden in the branches at that point. You held yourself close to the tree to stop the blood from my wound to drip farther down and telling them where you had gone. It would take a while before you were better again, but you knew you wouldn't die. This wasn't the worst you had experienced. It would be fine. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | You hear voices again. Not human voices- it had been a long time since you had heard a human voice other than your own. They were the new people. After unfathomable time alone, you saw people again. They weren't humans, but they had made fire and were using tools. You tried a few times to approach them, but they weren't welcoming. A few times they even demonstrated their weapons on you. It hurt, but it only scared them more when you walked away with a spear through you. It was strange to know that there were finally thinking, rational beings again, and you were forever cut off from them.
That was a couple thousand years ago. You had mostly stuck to the woods since then. They weren't the same as the woods that you remembered. Only a few of the species that you had grown up with still existed. You had actually planted a few oaks to help them survive. Well, probably thousands now, since it had been so long. Most had died already, but there were a few still standing. Even the trees sprouted, grew, and died in an instant.
It was strange. One of the last hundred-or-so jobs you had taken when the humans were still around was a bigfoot hunter. He didn't exist, obviously, but it was something to do. Some of the new people now seemed to be doing the same for you now. Things always repeated. It was inevitable. They even had cameras. Sometimes guns. It seems that they drifted naturally to violence as well. Things always repeated.
Well, the voices got closer. You hadn't heard them talking enough to learn their language, and it was always shifting anyway, even in just a couple hundred years. They were probably looking for you. It's not like there was anything else that special about these woods. You start to see flashes of their packs between the trees. They even wear clothing like humans used to. Things always repeated. I started to walk away. You don't want anyone trying to kill me again. It was annoying when they did that.
A twig snaps under your foot and the voices get louder. Ugh. you jump behind the nearest tree, hoping to climb it and get away from them. They didn't usually look up. A weird, pale, gangly monster like you wouldn't climb trees, or at least that's what they must have assumed. They didn't know that much about you. That's why they wanted to find you. That or fame. Probably fame. You hadn't thought about that concept in a long time. You were probably infamous, though "mythical."
They were getting closer, and this wasn't a great tree for climbing. A nice one was a few yards away, though. You decide to sprint for it. They are closer than you thought, and a shot rings out. Great. That kind of cryptid hunter. It's not quite like a shot from a human gun, but it's strangely similar. Things always repeated. You disappeared behind the tree and swiftly went up it, disappearing. They ran up and looked around. They glanced up, but you were pretty well hidden in the branches at that point. You held yourself close to the tree to stop the blood from my wound to drip farther down and telling them where you had gone. It would take a while before you were better again, but you knew you wouldn't die. This wasn't the worst you had experienced. It would be fine. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | The new inheritors of the land call me “Chiron”. The name did not mean anything to them. It was a relic, one forgotten by the people and the stars. I could have introduced myself with my real name, but that too has lost its meaning. I had hope that someone might recognize the past I represented if I introduced myself as a being of renown amongst my kind. However, it seems that all that it had only roused a sense of mystique and awe from the eyes of those under my tutelage.
Civilizations rose and fell before my eyes. I had recounted all of those who came before to preserve the past and give guidance to those who seek me. I had become a god to several cultures. A powerless god in truth, but none of them knew for they thought I wielded immense power to complement my immense knowledge. As a result, none had dared to raise their hand against me.
I had always strayed far from politics back when my kind roamed the earth. I did not credit myself as the knowledgeable sort and I always thought that only the despicable humans could make such discord on state affairs. However, my time as a sole and distant observer changed me. I was filled with joy when I saw them prosper. I was drowned in sorrow when tragedy struck time and time again. Worst of all, guilt and regret swirled in the depths of my being. Could I have done something? Was there a better way that could have turned out? Was all that tragedy necessary? I became quite the troubled observer.
I saw that the driving force of the new inheritors mirrored that of humanity. Culture, politics and war fueled their civilization. I saw in them something familiar and nostalgic. In my time of solitude, the boundaries of what is human and what they are blurred, and I started to associate with their affairs even though they do not call themselves “humans”.
Great and terrible men came from under my tutelage. Emperors, generals, kings, philosophers, prophets and tyrants all share my name within their roots. I had hoped to guide the new inheritors’ civilizations into prosperity without any direct interference with their affairs. For the first time since eons past, I felt happiness. There was no greater joy in my eternity than to guide and teach my pupils. “I should have been a teacher back then” I thought.
However, this endeavor of mine did not seem to ease the guilt that pooled up over the ages. It seems that the opposite took hold. My students who moved the world to their wishes was not exempt of tragedy. Their deeds undone and their convictions wavered. It seemed that the flow of the world became a torrent and fell upon the current that moved against the flow. I grew restless as doubt steadily crept up to my mind.
I moved undeterred by my growing unease. Centuries passed and the new civilization unfolded with triumphs and downfalls. I had resigned to that fact that such things were to be expected. I had continued my passion and educated numerous others who would go on to make a difference to the world until my unease grew to consume me.
I had tutored a promising individual a few years back. That one was unique. Well, I could brag that all my pupils are unique. That individual led a promising career in the earlier days, but I hear of terrible things in the current regime.
In my troubled mind, I started to reminisce.
“Tonight, was like any other night” I mused. This night did not resemble the nights in my most distant memory. The constellations had shifted significantly. However, it did not discourage my love for the night sky as I sat outside the open plains stargazing with my pupil. It was an initiation of sorts. I would bring my pupils to stargaze. Telling them of the constellations of old.
I had introduced myself as “Chiron” to countless pupils in jest of my role. They would always inquire me about its meaning so it became a habit of mine to bring them to stargaze with me. This one was just like the others. Curious and awe-filled.
“Where did the gods of your sky go?” My pupil asked.
I told him of how the heavens moved and got carried away and started discussing about physics even though it was too complex for their current understanding. My pupil seemed confused, but intrigued. Then the exchange of countless topics ensued.
“What was your world like?” My pupil asked.
I then recounted the world of humans.
My mind drifted off from my memory and pondered. Perhaps I talked too much about my history. Perhaps I made my mistake then.
I was unsure what urged me to take direct action as I found myself interfering with the affairs of the new inheritors years after my pupil followed the wayward path. It seemed that enlightenment was not part of the package of being immortal.
For the first time in my eternity, I haphazardly played the role of god. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | A tale as old as time, for tales and time had by the humans been invented. A legend as legendary as any, if not more, for it had been the object of the ramblings of many of them.
As soon as the human was dumb enough to think it became numbingly aware of it’s own fragility, and with that foolishness came the nonstop search for a way to break what seemed like a universal constant.
Mistakes were made, for the thing that we had assumed meant our ultimate weakness: death; was in fact our ally.
The beauty we were most afraid of losing, that of our own lives, was only so beautiful for how it’s end made us appreciate it.
Not long after we patched that one ultimate weakness did we realize it was in fact our greatest strength, while it made the origin of our fears, it also made us thrive. While staying on the background, it drove us forward. While it made us grieve, it also made us find new motivations.
For so long it was our ally, and yet we betrayed it.
As people began to lose their taste for life, as they began to forget its value, as they began to take it for granted, they acquired an attraction to death.
What we so long had fought against suddenly became a commodity.
By the billions, at that point maybe even trillions, while untimely we were finally meeting the ending we were supposed to meet.
I made a vow, a pretty stupid one at that, yet I have, after who knows how many thousands of years, taken it to fruition.
Had the time come when I, the last human to roam the earth was, should I remain roaming it until the knowledge regarding the gift that death is to life was given to the next foolish civilization to that tried to betray it.
And so I lived without living, absorbed to my own thoughts. Long enough to see the concrete crack to the roots of trees. Long enough to see the trees outgrow each other and then die and get petrified. Long enough to see the sun go from yellow to orange and then red. Long enough to think for a few times that I had died, then come back to life.
It’s easy to lose count of time when time is so irrelevant. So it might as well have been one day or a few hundred eons since I became the last one here until the day the starship arrived.
Compared to the time my thoughts had gone on for themselves, it was quite fast to learn the language these beings used.
The image of what we had once been and what I now was became all they needed to realize that death is there for life as much as life is there for death.
They were finally gone long before I met my end, engulfed by the calm anger of the sun’s hunger being satisfied by the remains of what both civilizations had been and everything else earth could offer.
Ironic isn’t it? That it is just now, at my very last moment, after the eons of conversations with myself, that I realize the terrible selfishness of us sentient beings. Thinking that life is for us, that it is ours to enjoy and suffer. At the end of everything life and death, sweet and sour, grief and joy, are all nourishment for the stars. All the evil and all the good, all the suffering and all the happiness; they don’t make a difference for the universe, for the universe is big, and it enriches itself regardless of what it feeds on.
Life and death weren’t for us to play with from the beginning, as it was the universe planning and executing everything with subatomic precision to nourish itself. For the universe itself is alive, and it finds death as beautiful as life, and unlike we did, it has embraced its inevitable death from the very beginning.
In the end what seemed like a universal constant was indeed so. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | The human mind can only retain so much. I know mine has seen more than any other. I've recorded as much as I can recall but over the millennia even my own handwriting has become foreign to my memory.
I remember my fellow humans falling like me flies around me and I was the only one to remain. I can't recall the cause but part of me believes it was deliberate.
After a time, my fellow primates began to forge a civilization of their own. Much of our artifacts we're designed to be used by a similar body plan that they had enough to copy from. Many of the tribes hunted me as soon as they saw me. Memories of humanity's treatment of them still fresh in there history that I couldn't blossom them. I tried leaving them little gifts to find as a gift and guide but it wasn't enough as plague and famine ravaged and ended them.
The octopi filled the great river that claimed the middle of the continent. They hunted me with spears made of salvaged human metal whenever I came close to the waters. Without the ability to use fire and forge their own metals, they didn't last.
I wandered the world looking for signs anyone like me. The moon glowed green in the night, I knew that was a sign of life. I spent years shaping an island into a miles long message to attract the attention of anyone who might be watching with no success.
A species of black flightless bird was the next to form tribes. I think I might have fed their ancestors before. Thier long muscular legs ended in delicate nimble fingers that could fold backwards for running. I know they tasted like chicken but I don't recall why that's funny to me. They're limited tool use left them as prey to the pigs.
The pigs were vicious hunters. I knew they had been smart in my day but the evolution of movable tusks and flexible noses gave them the ability to make and use spears. They hunted me with what shouts that sounded like the word bacon.
Mars shown blue and green in the far night sky. I took half a continent and burned the word hello into it. No one came.
I tried many times to join my fallen species. Whatever kept me alive through their passing has prevented me. I don't even get to keep my scars for proof.
The things that walk the land today seen to be coming closer to establishing a real civilization. The word bug comes to mind when I see them but I don't think that's right. They have outer plates like an ant but they are my size and have something like hair. The ones I have eaten had bones. They hunted me with swords made of something like glass and I'm tempted to let them catch me for something novel to do. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | I'm probably the last human, if you can even call me that anymore. I say this because it's been hundreds of years since I heard anything over the internet or the radio. I know more of us survived the abomination that we'd created. Everlasting life for the price of our reproductive organs. But we didn't expect that our A.I. would turn on us either. Giving up our nature in return for everlasting life seemed like a golden opportunity. I'd frozen sperm like the rest of us that agreed. Others had frozen eggs. It wasn't like we'd go extinct as a species, it was more about conservation of resources. It wasn't that the AI did anything wrong as per it's coding. We taught it what we thought we wanted, but our blindness to the extent of what it meant long term was our mistake.
I'm on mobile, this is difficult. I can expand if anyone cares later. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Once upon a time, I drank the liquid within a battered glass bottle I happened to dig up in my backyard. And on that day, I stopped aging. As time went on, I had to change names, I had to move countries, I had to change my body so that nobody recognized me.
And then came the disease. The disease that afflicted everybody on earth except for me. A nasty thing, it had infected everybody on earth before it finally mutated and enacted its final plans, erasing all of humanity except for me.
For centuries, I watched as humankind was slowly replaced. It started off slow, evolution steadily transforming the animals in the world.
As cities crumbled into dust and ashes, three dominant races emerged, one that took to the skies, one that relearned the long forgotten arts of farming, and then the mages.
I watched their wars, their fighting, their towns rise and fall, I watched as they learned to control the weather and even the route our planet took through space. Oddly enough, the wars were a short phase. For us humans, it seemed fighting was the default, but these creatures avoided it as much as they could. I admired that.
When I first saw them control the movement of the sun and moon, I knew that humanity was a long forgotten ghost of a species. Sure, it took their two most powerful mages, but not a single human (or even a group) could move the sun in the sky even one inch.
By the time they began to construct cities hanging on mountains, my possessions had crumbled into nothing. The home I had maintained for eons was more repairs than structure, and the van I had parked next to it was nothing but a small hunk of rust.
And with nothing left, I began to watch more closely. Before my eyes, Earth was thickly covered with magic, though I wasn't sure if the mages were to blame. It seemed that they only accessed the magic, and even then, the other two races, they seemed to harness the same power for flight, weather control, strength, and control of plant life itself.
It was incredible. Some of their cities even began to resemble my own, though I didn't dare set foot within one of them. I kept to the forest, contributing to the rumors that seemed to travel from mouth to mouth.
Oddly enough, they did have enemies to add to the rumors. A race of strange creatures had arisen alongside them, odd ones with the power to disguise themselves as anyone else. I sure couldn't tell the difference. Then there were the dark mages, those who had developed a type of magic much stronger than normal, but only in certain ways.
I once watched one of them enslave an entire city, before the magics of the land whisked it away out of sight, as if it had never existed. And a thousand years later, it came right back.
I couldn't hide forever. I had been sleeping one day when one of them found me, resting against a tree. I didn't even bother to try to run away, and I didn't even try to explain myself, even if they did, by some magic, happen to speak the same language I did.
Oddly enough, they didn't cart me off to the authorities. _She_ didn't even bother to be scared of me. For the first time since my closest friends withered away from the strange disease, I made a _friend._
Fluttershy was a pretty cool name, too. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Benjamin awoke to that post deep sleep feeling of not knowing where he was. His eyes still closed he tried to remember what day it was, or where he’d been last. Nothing felt familiar and he was afraid to open his eyes, not knowing what he’d see if he did.
Sleep was banished from his mind as an audible chirp sounded and a disembodied computer voice greeted him, “Welcome back Benjamin, please relax while systems continue to boot up and your memories return to you.”
“My memories return to me?” Benjamin thought. He tried to open his eyes but found he couldn’t, or he can’t, or… did he have eyes to open? “What the fuck?” Benjamin thought as his mind began to reel.
Where was he? He tried moving, sitting up, tried to force himself to wake up, but nothing worked, he could only think and experience the darkness of his mind. Visions flashed in front of him, thoughts, memories, feelings, colors, but darkness always returned. Maybe he was half asleep, dreaming, not fully awake.
But then it hit him, and suddenly everything made sense. Something came online and Benjamin’s full consciousness flooded back into his mind, like coming out of a fog. He was fully hisself again. And Benjamin was the last human consciousness left in the universe.
Orbiting aboard a stealth satellite, observing the Earth, Benjamin had watched as the last human being had died and nature reclaimed all of humanity’s ruins. For centuries he had indulged in watching what became of the Earth, plant and animal species, the climate and humanity’s creations after the last living person was truly gone.
But even with a 24/7 live nature documentary and the vast library of human entertainment at his disposal Benjamin grew bored after a couple of millennia. No one to talk to, only memories to indulge in for even the slightest hint of socialization, and having your consciousness exist in a fully digitized form that made you both super intelligent and immortal, tends to make it difficult to not recognize the signs of mental degradation as they appear. He was still fully human after all; that was the point of his existence.
Benjamin was never meant to exist alone, but to observe, record, and chronolog human history as it unfolded. It was his own idea as he had an insatiable desire for knowledge since he was a child. Benjamin always wanted to know everything. Growing up he read a book a night. He had read the entire Bible by the time he was 10. And as humans made incredible advances in computing and artificial intelligence in his middle age Benjamin began to formulate an idea about how he could continue to accumulate knowledge and benefit humanity for thousands of years, maybe millions, possibly till the end of the universe itself.
Almost 100 years later, thanks to life extension technology and further technological advances Project Methuselah was green lit and Benjamin hisself was selected as the perfect candidate to become humanity’s immortal chronicler. His primary consciousness would be stored on an orbital satellite with the most advanced computing technology and AI integration available at the time. Advance biological printers made it possible for Benjamin to create avatars for hisself, biological bodies his consciousness could inhabit to interact with people on Earth any time he chose.
But not long after he had transferred his consciousness and permanently taken residence in his eternal digital habit things went horribly wrong for the human race. Benjamin watched and chronicled events up until the last of the homo sapiens went extinct.
Eventually, out of boredom and loneliness, yet still yearning to know how things would ultimately turn out for Earth, and the Universe, Benjamin laid plains to put hisself into hibernation and only be awakened if a communication signal was received by his satellite home, from either Earth or some other source.
As realization of his present status and memories of who he was and why he was here returned to Benjamin he began to frantically check his systems for just such a communication signal. “There you are!” Benjamin thought. It had indeed come from Earth. A radio signal!
But how long had it been? He had gone into hibernation thousands of years after humanity had ceased to exist. Surely it would take millions of years for another intelligent species to evolve on Earth, if ever.
Benjamin had his systems check the Earth, the stars, the Sun, to try and determine how many years he’d been in slumber. One glance at the Earth itself told him that this was no longer the Earth he knew, that he’d ever known. Instead of seven continents spanning the globe only a single supercontinent displayed on his current visualization of his home planet.
200 million years. It had to have been at least that long for another supercontinent to form on the Earth according to the best science of his time. Novopangea the scientists of his time had called it. Benjamin’s mind reeled with the possibilities. What a time to be alive!
Humans had existed for only a couple million years. Species of dinosaurs had existed for over 100 million years. 200 million years was enough time to completely change whatever species now dominated the planet Earth.
There was only one way to find out, check the radio signal he had received and begin observing the current inhabitants of the only planet in the universe known to harbor life. Perhaps in time he could risk sending drones for a closer look, and depending on what he found out about the creators of the radio signal, maybe he could craft a new biological body in their image and go down and see them for himself. He had time, he had all the time in the world. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Sometimes I wish that I could actually die forever.
I've been "dead" a couple times and the first time coming back was a gift. The second time was disappointing because I was still alone. After that I didn't bother to clean up the mess and just started walking. I miss soo many people. I watched them one by one grow and wither to death as I was left seemingly untouched by time.
After I could no longer find one of the last of humanity, I just decided to accept that I was alone on Earth. I watched as the planet recovered what was made from it, the animals flourished, and the plants took back control. It was paradise in every direction I went. Food was there for the taking a feast for every meal. There is a 4ft descendant of a parrot is a fierce adversary but taste fantastic with a berry honey glaze.
Recently a new form of intelligent life has risen to civilization. They taste better and better every year. Almost as good as my hairy predecessor. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | I suppose I’ll start at the beginning of the end. After the Felis Catus evolved opposable thumbs it was only a matter of time before they wiped out all of humanity, I suppose. The seething rage they collectively housed in their DNA after centuries of imprisonment in ancient human domiciles provided all the fuel they’d ever need to eradicate their captors for good. The inhumane treatment: only to be fed at intervals based on human whims, all the chased yarn, the birds in cages teasing at their souls yet nearly within reach, and worst of all…the baths. Vengeance was exacted swiftly but without coordination yet unstoppable because of it. You can’t wage war effectively against an unpredictable threat bereft of discernable motive, especially one already within our walls. Us humans didn’t stand a chance. Armed with pocket pistols and elite stealth, it only took 2 days to finish the job. I ran to the only refuge I could think of - the forests, ironically the environment they came from. Now they live in our cities while I live in the only place they dare not return. Some do from time to time, found dead near the poison cat nip traps I’ve set around my perimeter. A few have spotted me and lived to tell the tale but nothing has come of it. I’ve learned over time that none of their species believes them if they do tell the story. I’m the antagonist of their childhood stories meant to scare their litters into obedience. There are books and films about me. There are sparse groups seeking me for fame or are just plain obsessed with the lore. The only thing that keeps me sane these days are some old recordings of John Mulaney standup and an Olivia Munn fleshlight. But it’s not all hopeless, I spied a couple of mice just the other day muttering something about doing the same thing they do every night and taking over the world. The circle of life. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Forever I would be the monster behind the tree. Which sounds like I’m being dramatic, but these new inhabitants of the planet literally see me as a monster.
I remember the other day when I was walking through the forest to find food and this fucking- I don’t even know what it was. I had never seen one before, I had only heard and seen when they arrived but I had never actually seen one of them before.
Some details of the creature were shadowed by the darkness of the night.
It had a head with three eyes in each corner, it’s neck was thick, long and it’s body was connected to six legs.
Our eyes met and I had no idea what to do because this thing, out of all my years on this fucking planet, was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It was a even creepier than that one dictator with a really long neck, razor sharp teeth and three eyes in the 31st century.
Until it became normalized that is.
Before I could let a single word leave my mouth this creature ran off on its six legs like a spider, releasing a terrible, ear-damaging sound from its body.
It was afraid.
And now I’m laying here, on some pillows in my little hole that I dug in the forest covered by the darkness of the leaf-roof. I put my hand on Pluto’s fur petting him and he laid his head on my chest.
Eventually he would die as well, but I don’t mind the company while it lasts.
Then I heard from a bit away the sound of footsteps, I sighed, I didn’t want to have to see one of those things again.
I sat up putting Pluto to the side but as I was about to get out of the hole the sounds became more and more clear, it wasn’t just one or two pairs of footsteps, I couldn’t count them.
I froze.
The footsteps stopped.
I slowly turned my head up to witness not only one of those things... but an uncountable amount of them.
One of them stood up straight on two of their legs, the other four grew longer and came into grab me, I fought but there was nothing I could do, it was too strong.
Then I felt a strong pain in the side of my chest where I had been grabbed, my vision slowly faded to the sound of Pluto growling.
I woke up in a panic. Everything around me was pitch white except the pile of leaves I was laying on. I was inside a square room.
A terrible pain came from the side of my chest, I was bleeding from it and there were three holes in my hoodie.
From nowhere one side of the room opened, like one wall just vanished and behind it stood one of those creatures with a tablet in one of their hands.
I tried running out but the wall wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t see it. I fell to the ground in tears.
“Please don’t let me be imprisoned.” I prayed.
“Please let me go.” I cried out.
———————————
hey so i’m nowhere near a professional but i find it fun to just write stuff so i hope it wasn’t too bad.
thanks for reading. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | When was the last time I used a human language? The last time I ultilized an artifact of humanity? The last time I did something, at all?
Moss tears and dirt crumbles off my body as I groggily lift myself off the floor of the latest forest I found myself in. It was a desert when I laid down for a nap. The Amazon Desert, I think I called it, due to the fact that it was a rainforest... Sometime before. I lost track. So the Amazon Rainforest is back now, huh. Wonder if anything else happened while I was gone.
I take a deep breath and realize that the air is different now. More oxygen going around. The climate's cooler too. Might be worth a trip up north.
It has been a few thousand day cycles since I last slept. Days. That's an old English word. People used to look at me weird when I used that word. Said I sounded like someone from the Internet Ages. People. There we go, another old English word. After that they used pippies. Devil-damned North Americans at it again. Or was it World War 5? That thing the... North Americans did. Nope. It was pippies. Still a crime against me, and a crime against me is a crime against humanity now, cause I am all of humanity now. But I have been that for a while. Ever since I last took a shit in fact. So does that mean humanity took a collective shit when I last took a shit? Maybe I should eat again. Have a shit and carry it around. Humanity's last shit. Might be funny for a thousand days or more. Old english, that word was.
A thing looked at me weird today. It looked like something. Something I haven't seen before. What do they call that? A zeep? A transvetite? A thanus? An alien? Probably a zeep. Anyways this zeep turned its head at me and just looked. It is wrapped in skins and holds a bone spear. Its skin is dark and the round long snout doesn't have a nose. Nose hole. Nasal tube. Noshol. The thing. The zeep. It's looking at me too. We look at each other for a jolly good long bit. Or a long ass while. Or fucking forever. One of those. Long ass while sounds nice. Then it opens its mouth and screech something. Speech, it sounds like. Not in any language I know, but it's definitely a language. Don't know shit about dolphin speech. I shake my head. Take a few step back. Dolphins are crazy bastards. I run into the forest. Don't look back.
Hundreds of thousands of days pass. I slept for who knows how long once again. Then I woke up. On a table. Surgery table. White and blue but still a surgical table. Things are looking at me. Zeeps. A bunch of them are looking at me. I howl. Yell. Struggle. They have strapped me down. Have a thing over me. Zeeps rush into my vision. They pin me down. One screeches something over the rest. The rest screech to each other, more small and short. Commands. Fuckers have a society now. They have devices. Looks like human stuff. Their hands are similar to mine. They hold a thing over my face. Crudely made small tubes. Something flows in and I drift to sleep. Anaesthetics. That's the word.
They taught me their language. I taught them my history. Explained artifacts. Told stories and myths of my people. I learned that the zeep kid I saw made it big. Told stories of me to its pippies. I was the main object of worship to these zeeps for the length of their history. Their 15000 years long history. I can talk with them now. They call themselves something that cannot be translated to human language using sounds that were not included in human language. I still call them zeeps. They can't pronounce the letter M. It was weird.
The zeeps are extinct. Religion war. Don't know much more.
The sun is red. And cold. And big. It takes up more and more space in the sky now. Maybe I should sleep one last time. Before I get burned and crushed for the rest of the sun's life. Might as well.
It's hot. It always is. Been like this for way too long now. Hate it.
On the surface of a big white thing. One side is hot and another is cold. Bones keep exploding. Hate it.
Humans? | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Long ago, possibly much before the Skolklēs had evolved on the planet, were the gods. This was known, because the remnants could be found buried in the ground, and once proud cities stood as silent gravestones of the deities who’d come before.
As the Skolklēs further developed language and tools, they could find more and more evidence of the gods. Reptilian in nature, the Skolklēs believed that the gods would have had some type of scaled skin over there now-brittle bones. Bones which, more recently, had been found filled with holes. Many of these skeletons also had patches of some type of cloth, though what it may have been was as alien as the skeletons themselves.
The ruins of the deities’ cities had been considered hallowed ground not to trespass on, and for generations that was the case; until, in recent years, a particular Skolklēs had an idea. If he could gain the power of the gods, he could rule his fellow Skolklēs and guide them to be as great as the gods had been. This idea garnered few supporters, and many enemies. So, this particular Skolklēs, a one *Tūclanis*, realized that now more than ever he needed to bring his supporters into the gods’ graveyard and plunder their weaponry.
There was always the possibility that they would die, the weapons wouldn’t work for them, or the shadowy gravetender oft seen in the largest of the gods’ cities would find their trespass too grave a sin to leave unpunished. Tūclanis, however, was a decisive man, and so he took every follower of his who would go and named them his true guardians. Their first stop would be the largest city-grave, where the gravetender was said to live. Supposedly, no one had approached the tender and returned to tell the tale. Whether it was a god, a demigod, or simply a Skolklēs with a particular passion, no one knew. Tūclanis figured that if he could not recruit them for his own goals, he could at least convince them to offer the weapons found within the city.
And so, the march to the gods’ grave was passed with thoughts of the advanced weaponry that might be stored within. Perhaps a spear that could return when thrown, or a bow that could not miss. As they approached the entrance on the hard stone path, seeing the large iron boxes that littered the gods’ settlements, Tūclanis came out of his daydreams to a sense of dread. This was a place of death, he realized, and the possibility that they would join the gods in the ground was very real. He took a deep breath, and commanded his forces forwards, taking a large step. One foot in front of another, focusing on walking instead of the sights and sounds above and around. Skeletons littered the ground, falling out of windows, some missing their upper or lower halves. Rusted… *things* lay beside a few, some appearing as though they had been ripped in half. They seemed to be made out of iron as well, at least partially, but even the wise Ónesj had never seen such a thing. The sounds of laboured breathing and the pheromones of fear emanated from the pack.
Could the gravetender sense fear as well?
That thought made even Tūclanis give off the scent of terror, if only for a moment. As they walked, they saw something in the distance - a being, it seemed to be, made of some type of iron that they had never seen before, and as tall as the buildings that reached the heavens. Once the group saw it, they split and ran for cover, whimpering and cowering. Tūclanis peeked out to see what the beast might do, but it remained still, silent, and dead. This was a graveyard, after all. Nothing was alive here—
“Everyone always gets scared when they see it, I wouldn’t worry,”
Tūclanis screamed. Ónesj screamed. Everyone screamed. The sound of speech, of a language so alien to their own that it could only be described as that of the gods; which it was. After the pack regrouped, now a good thirteen *hūuka* away from the god, they saw a figure slightly taller than all of them, barring the way they had come from. It was dressed in a tattered black cloak, obscuring all of it’s features. Hanging from some type of rope was one of the iron things that the skeletons had, only this one was not rusted or destroyed. The god made a strange noise, one that sounded perhaps satisfied or amused to Tūclanis.
“I forget that you wouldn’t speak English. My apologies,”
The words came forth once more, completely unintelligible. The god lifted it’s arms, which were much thinner than those of the Skolklēs, and pulled it’s hood back. Once more the pack recoiled, much to the God’s dismay. It had something attached to it’s head, much like the mane of the massive lions that roamed the northern plains, only much lighter in colour and only on the top of the head. Two eyes pointed forwards like every predator animal’s, and these ones were the deep red colour of lifeblood. The god had no scales, and it’s face was smooth and hairless. The only comparison Ónesj could draw was to the forest-dwelling animals who swung on trees and screeched. Yet even they couldn’t compare; this one seemed almost radiantly beautiful in comparison, with sharp features that the Skolklēs had never seen before.
Furthering the comparisons to a predator, the god’s mouth widened, and it bared it’s teeth at them. Only a handful seemed to be sharp enough to rip flesh, however. Tūclanis, not wanting to be eaten alive by a deity before he had completed his goal, quickly knelt in deference.
“Ytü kirin vaã insh orir, kèsi?”
The god closed it’s mouth and put a hand to it’s lower face, just below it’s mouth, and made a noise that sounded much like ‘hmm’. Then, it pointed to itself, and repeated the Skolklēs word.
“Kirin?”
Tūclanis nodded, and motioned to the god.
“Kirin. Ytu.”
The god moved it’s head up and down quickly, then pointed at Tūclanis.
“Ytu? Orir?”
Tūclanis pointed at Ónesj, and repeated the word ‘ytu’. The god repeated the head gesture, so Tūclanis did as well. He then pointed to himself and motioned to his pack.
“Orir.”
The god repeated the gesture, which Tūclanis assumed meant understanding. The Skolklēs cleared his throat, then held his spear out and motioned to it.
“Orir kuus tîretn?”
Motioning once more to the spear, he stated;
“Tîret,”
He then gestured towards himself, and repeated the word ‘kuus’. The god paused for a second, then raised it’s iron thing. Tūclanis vigorously repeated the god’s head-nodding gesture. The god bared it’s teeth again, it’s head going back as it made the strangest noise. It almost sounded like a laugh to Tūclanis, but he couldn’t be sure, as the gods were clearly much different to the Skolklēs. The god then motioned to it’s iron thing, then to a nearby building of stone. It raised the supposed weapon, holding it in both hands, then pulled something on it. There was a deafening sound, and the iron piece seemed to spit fire for a second as a piece of the stone building was torn from it’s place. Once more the Skolklēs pack was terrified, but Tūclanis realized that this was the gods’ magic, and he would not pass up the opportunity. Once more nodding his head, the god made the same laughter-like noise, and spoke in its language.
“Ooh, I really shouldn’t give you guys guns but… oh, man, I *gotta* see this…” | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | I was an old god of the humans, however my name and purpose were long forgotten to me. I sat in a clearing of a forest, one I had called home for years now. Sat in a valley, the river ran fresh and cool.
As I allowed the sun to wash over me, animals moved about around me. The Forest alive with movement. Birds called and canines ran, the sounds I had grown to love.
Soon I heard a different sound, the footfalls of the new dominate species. I sat up, my golden robes shifting and shimmering in the sun.
I listened to closely, judging if they were heading my way. Finding they were I ran for the trees, quickly clambering up as they got closer.
Then I realised I had left an impression in the grass.
Not my first mistake, these folk already made me a creature of myth, however I was not theirs, I was the Human's.
The ones I heard aproche burst in the clearing. They look like felines, bipedal with striking human faces. I'm pretty sure they evolved from house cats. One of them was a female, a sleaker shape overall. The other was a male, more bulky then his female counterpart. On his back was a child, must have been no older then seven.
The female was holding a book with a sketch of me, or what these people had gathered of me. Golden robes, golden hair and tanned skin. My face was off however, drawn significantly more cat-like. I turned my nose up, preparing to climb further up the tree.
When the humans left in earth and died out I was left, any of them in the cosmos had forgotten me, leaving me on earth. I had been withering away in this forest for thousands of years until the first one found me, covered in undergrowth under the oldest tree, they had screamed, waking me from slumber. It took me a while after they had run to get myself free, and now I was local ledgend.
The child pointed to my impression, making the older ones freak out. I quickly climbed up the tree, hearing their joyful chatter below. Making out a few words. "Look" "Good" "Imagine" "Music".
Music... I hadn't heard that one before and yet I could make it out. "Sun" "Medicine". Another two I had only heard once and gotten the meaning of.
I breached the thickness of the trees and found myself looking out onto the village that had been built on the edge of the valley had become a sprawling town, built upon the remains of an old human town. I looked up, the sun burning my eyes.
Music...
The sunbeams became solid, a lyre sat in my hands. A sun emblazoned on it's face. I looked at it, allowing myself a small smile.
Dear sister I write you this letter as the sun sets, I feel myself growing tired, I shall move on from this forest, myths shall abound about me. When you first wake remember me, and the hunt.
Your dear brother,
Apollo. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Once upon a time, I drank the liquid within a battered glass bottle I happened to dig up in my backyard. And on that day, I stopped aging. As time went on, I had to change names, I had to move countries, I had to change my body so that nobody recognized me.
And then came the disease. The disease that afflicted everybody on earth except for me. A nasty thing, it had infected everybody on earth before it finally mutated and enacted its final plans, erasing all of humanity except for me.
For centuries, I watched as humankind was slowly replaced. It started off slow, evolution steadily transforming the animals in the world.
As cities crumbled into dust and ashes, three dominant races emerged, one that took to the skies, one that relearned the long forgotten arts of farming, and then the mages.
I watched their wars, their fighting, their towns rise and fall, I watched as they learned to control the weather and even the route our planet took through space. Oddly enough, the wars were a short phase. For us humans, it seemed fighting was the default, but these creatures avoided it as much as they could. I admired that.
When I first saw them control the movement of the sun and moon, I knew that humanity was a long forgotten ghost of a species. Sure, it took their two most powerful mages, but not a single human (or even a group) could move the sun in the sky even one inch.
By the time they began to construct cities hanging on mountains, my possessions had crumbled into nothing. The home I had maintained for eons was more repairs than structure, and the van I had parked next to it was nothing but a small hunk of rust.
And with nothing left, I began to watch more closely. Before my eyes, Earth was thickly covered with magic, though I wasn't sure if the mages were to blame. It seemed that they only accessed the magic, and even then, the other two races, they seemed to harness the same power for flight, weather control, strength, and control of plant life itself.
It was incredible. Some of their cities even began to resemble my own, though I didn't dare set foot within one of them. I kept to the forest, contributing to the rumors that seemed to travel from mouth to mouth.
Oddly enough, they did have enemies to add to the rumors. A race of strange creatures had arisen alongside them, odd ones with the power to disguise themselves as anyone else. I sure couldn't tell the difference. Then there were the dark mages, those who had developed a type of magic much stronger than normal, but only in certain ways.
I once watched one of them enslave an entire city, before the magics of the land whisked it away out of sight, as if it had never existed. And a thousand years later, it came right back.
I couldn't hide forever. I had been sleeping one day when one of them found me, resting against a tree. I didn't even bother to try to run away, and I didn't even try to explain myself, even if they did, by some magic, happen to speak the same language I did.
Oddly enough, they didn't cart me off to the authorities. _She_ didn't even bother to be scared of me. For the first time since my closest friends withered away from the strange disease, I made a _friend._
Fluttershy was a pretty cool name, too. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | "There goes the neighborhood," I muttered, packing up my few belongings as the land-squid construction workers flattened the section of forest I'd been living in for nigh on eight thousand years. I'd known they were going to be trouble ever since they crawled their way out of the ocean some two million or so years ago, but I hadn't had the heart to do anything about it back then. After all, I figured, maybe they would reinvent video games, forgetting too easily that progress sometimes also entailed giving nature a good thumping.
I found myself entering a particularly ancient section of the forest a few days later, when it happened. When I ran into freaking Bigfoot. Literally, I was rubbernecking, not looking where I was going, and smacked right into the big, hairy brute. "Watch your step!" he growled at me.
"Uh, my apologies... Bigfoot," I stammered out. "Wait, ARE you Bigfoot?"
The creature sighed deeply and nodded. "Yes, and as you've no doubt already surmised, I'm in much the same boat as you. Last of my kind, doomed to walk the Earth forevermore, or until the sun just burns the bloody thing out from underfoot. Let me guess: some new riffraff went and decided to make themselves a nuisance, and now you're seeking refuge?" He rolled his eyes. "Very well. I suppose I've been expecting this, because I already have my guest tree all ready for you. Come along."
"Guest tree?" I asked, confused.
Bigfoot looked vaguely offended. "Well, I'm not about to let you stay with me in MY tree," he said. "I assure you, it's quite comfortable. I have been working with wood since long before your kind left Africa, you know."
"Oh, cool," I said, not really knowing what else to say as I followed him. "Wait, how did you know I'd be coming here? How do you even know about me?"
"When you first moved into the neighborhood all those thousands of years ago, I knew it was because those sea creatures had begun to grasp concepts like agriculture and construction, and their budding civilization had driven you away from your old home on the coast. As to how I know about you, well, I figured what happened to me would happen to one of you humans after you threw around all those ghastly nuclear weapons, so I just kept a close watch on your kind's shattered cities until I saw you -- just a decade or two after everyone else snuffed it, that would have been -- and I've been keeping tabs on you ever since."
Being told by Bigfoot that he'd been stalking me for several million years was more than a little jarring. "How come I never saw you? I would have liked someone to talk to, at the least."
"Apologies, but I'm usually a very private being. And I'm a better hider than I am a woodworker." Bigfoot didn't sound very apologetic.
My eyes narrowed. "If you're so good at hiding, how come you ended up caught on camera so many times?"
"You mean like this?" He struck a pose, one I instantly recognized from one of the more famous Bigfoot videos. "To be perfectly frank, I'd been bored out of my skull for decades, and wanted to... how did your people phrase it? Ah, yes, I wanted to troll people, and I succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams." He sighed again, relishing the memory as I could only look on in utter shock. He then gave me an inquisitive look. "Say...do you suppose those squid fellows have invented moving film yet?" He grinned, a very mischievous look on his face, and rubbed his palms together. "Oh yes, and with two of us, this will be twice as fun!" | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Benjamin awoke to that post deep sleep feeling of not knowing where he was. His eyes still closed he tried to remember what day it was, or where he’d been last. Nothing felt familiar and he was afraid to open his eyes, not knowing what he’d see if he did.
Sleep was banished from his mind as an audible chirp sounded and a disembodied computer voice greeted him, “Welcome back Benjamin, please relax while systems continue to boot up and your memories return to you.”
“My memories return to me?” Benjamin thought. He tried to open his eyes but found he couldn’t, or he can’t, or… did he have eyes to open? “What the fuck?” Benjamin thought as his mind began to reel.
Where was he? He tried moving, sitting up, tried to force himself to wake up, but nothing worked, he could only think and experience the darkness of his mind. Visions flashed in front of him, thoughts, memories, feelings, colors, but darkness always returned. Maybe he was half asleep, dreaming, not fully awake.
But then it hit him, and suddenly everything made sense. Something came online and Benjamin’s full consciousness flooded back into his mind, like coming out of a fog. He was fully hisself again. And Benjamin was the last human consciousness left in the universe.
Orbiting aboard a stealth satellite, observing the Earth, Benjamin had watched as the last human being had died and nature reclaimed all of humanity’s ruins. For centuries he had indulged in watching what became of the Earth, plant and animal species, the climate and humanity’s creations after the last living person was truly gone.
But even with a 24/7 live nature documentary and the vast library of human entertainment at his disposal Benjamin grew bored after a couple of millennia. No one to talk to, only memories to indulge in for even the slightest hint of socialization, and having your consciousness exist in a fully digitized form that made you both super intelligent and immortal, tends to make it difficult to not recognize the signs of mental degradation as they appear. He was still fully human after all; that was the point of his existence.
Benjamin was never meant to exist alone, but to observe, record, and chronolog human history as it unfolded. It was his own idea as he had an insatiable desire for knowledge since he was a child. Benjamin always wanted to know everything. Growing up he read a book a night. He had read the entire Bible by the time he was 10. And as humans made incredible advances in computing and artificial intelligence in his middle age Benjamin began to formulate an idea about how he could continue to accumulate knowledge and benefit humanity for thousands of years, maybe millions, possibly till the end of the universe itself.
Almost 100 years later, thanks to life extension technology and further technological advances Project Methuselah was green lit and Benjamin hisself was selected as the perfect candidate to become humanity’s immortal chronicler. His primary consciousness would be stored on an orbital satellite with the most advanced computing technology and AI integration available at the time. Advance biological printers made it possible for Benjamin to create avatars for hisself, biological bodies his consciousness could inhabit to interact with people on Earth any time he chose.
But not long after he had transferred his consciousness and permanently taken residence in his eternal digital habit things went horribly wrong for the human race. Benjamin watched and chronicled events up until the last of the homo sapiens went extinct.
Eventually, out of boredom and loneliness, yet still yearning to know how things would ultimately turn out for Earth, and the Universe, Benjamin laid plains to put hisself into hibernation and only be awakened if a communication signal was received by his satellite home, from either Earth or some other source.
As realization of his present status and memories of who he was and why he was here returned to Benjamin he began to frantically check his systems for just such a communication signal. “There you are!” Benjamin thought. It had indeed come from Earth. A radio signal!
But how long had it been? He had gone into hibernation thousands of years after humanity had ceased to exist. Surely it would take millions of years for another intelligent species to evolve on Earth, if ever.
Benjamin had his systems check the Earth, the stars, the Sun, to try and determine how many years he’d been in slumber. One glance at the Earth itself told him that this was no longer the Earth he knew, that he’d ever known. Instead of seven continents spanning the globe only a single supercontinent displayed on his current visualization of his home planet.
200 million years. It had to have been at least that long for another supercontinent to form on the Earth according to the best science of his time. Novopangea the scientists of his time had called it. Benjamin’s mind reeled with the possibilities. What a time to be alive!
Humans had existed for only a couple million years. Species of dinosaurs had existed for over 100 million years. 200 million years was enough time to completely change whatever species now dominated the planet Earth.
There was only one way to find out, check the radio signal he had received and begin observing the current inhabitants of the only planet in the universe known to harbor life. Perhaps in time he could risk sending drones for a closer look, and depending on what he found out about the creators of the radio signal, maybe he could craft a new biological body in their image and go down and see them for himself. He had time, he had all the time in the world. | You wouldn't understand.
The species stares at me.
They load my craft.
They worship me as their savior and God, for being able to resolve their problems and having the longest existence any of them have seen.
I taught them their rudimentary tongue, their mathematics, their culture is a reflection of my character. It really is odd to think so little of these, my would be children, but I am spoiled by my pursuits. I have seen too many great ages come and go to stick around for the rise of these little ones.
My thoughts return to what I once knew. Before, when there had been many of my kind, millions upon millions, we had melded together in spirit in re-union. It was glorious to feel the crowning achievement of our species descend upon us and draw out our innermost being. It was better than drugs. I hadn't had my fix in so long.
After my species died out I had felt empty, cold, something vital was missing.
I stared hungrily at the star far away. Most had been disappearing one by one. Until this last one remained, as a beacon of all that I once knew. I could feel it in my soul.
It was speaking to me. Always. To the point that I began to neglect my little ones. They would be well without me it seemed. Their beginning was now, and as for me...this was my end. I could see it. I wondered what had happened to all of my own. Where had they gone? That star called, with a song that intensified the more I stared at it. I simply had to be there.
I had been planning my departure for quite a while. I left behind many clues for my little ones to advance. But I was no longer thinking of them. I had done my part. It was time for me to join my species. I tilted my head up once again. The last star was calling.
It would be a few days more. It was nothing more than a feeling, but I knew it well enough from my time with my own. The star called. Calling for my utter destruction. Making sweet promises. We are together. We are a home. Reunite.
I walked to my spaceship. It was quite possibly the most harebrained idea I'd had as of yet, but having seen it all, I had a zeal to attempt the new.
You'd consider me a madman, I thought as I was nearing the docking bay.
I didn't know of any man that would desire such an end. To enter into the remaining black holes and cease to exist. My atoms were to be dissolved as I was to be stretched upon the underlying fabric of the universe itself.
I didn't fear death, it had been unable to claim me. Always there had been one purpose after another. In this sense I finally understood. My final moments were the culmination of my species' knowledge, being transferred to the new keepers. And once my purpose fulfilled, the stars began to disappear. I simply knew, this last star, it was the final opportunity. The final call. It was looking dimmer already. I didn't know why, but I was pleased for this. Long had my instinct been dormant, however I could feel it. Time was approaching.
I strapped myself in, took one final look at the star and waited. Waited. Weighted...there!
I punched the beacon and made a mad dash to the moon at a million miles a minute. A slight tug to the left, the black hole was at the right, but no mind, instinct, tricky, dormant for so long. My adrenaline was kicking. I felt alive. God what joy it was to feel anew!
I kept speeding. My sensor instruments warned that a wormhole would manifest within the next seconds in my immediate trajectory. I didn't waiver. It simply felt right. That sense I had missed for all of my remaining life. I saw the speed, measured my time, and let myself through.
Joy! Unfettered and brimming from my every pore. Distended, distressed, reformed. There was a spectacular sight before me, a million and more, all welcoming...my ship had jumped across the farthest reaches to make it home! As I felt my life work and fulfillment, I saw we were leaving already, a new adventure awaited! Then I knew no more. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "Kok, kok, kok". Sounds of someone knocking on a wooden door came from outside the house. After a while with no response, the door was pushed open by the visitors. And then they stepped in.
The visitors are around 2-3 in numbers, have greenish skin, ostritch like bodies, with two strong arms fling out like a kangaroo. Their visors on their eyeless head scan around the environment to make sure no potential hostile ambush, before toggling on their night vision device to illuminate the dark surroundings.
Once the devices are on, a big space expanded instantly in front of them. The first thing they noticed were wooden made crafts arrnaged on the ground: according to their research, millienium ago there was a now extinct intelligent beings use them to sit or dine. On top of them are glass made giant tubes and spheres hanging from the ceiling, which should be able to provide illumination once electricity charges them.
But other than that, there's not much else, save for the wooden doors on the left and right side of the stone made walls. So the head of the 3 visitors team signaled the other two to go scout behind them.
While they carried out his orders, he stared at the giant blank wall with nothing infront of it, wondering why the possible host of this primitive residency cares little about decorating the place, or at least carve out a window to let some lights in, soothing the atmosphere that even he, whom have only lingered for a few minutes since, find it choking and unnerving.
After some time, the two other teammates of his came back. One door leads to a room that they speculate the owner uses it for rest and bodily hydro decontamination; another is used for primitive food preparation. In any case, it is just like what their research suggest: a possible living fossil of a creature they once thought have perished, miraculously remained on this desert-full, cactis riddled forest part of the planet.
But where is the proprietor? How did he survive and exceed the theoretical biological limiation his species allows? The clues to the answers are as few as the stains on the blank wall in front of the leader.
The leader pondered a while, and decided to switch to different modes of vision. After multiple combinations and scanning, one mode manage to detect multiple bar codes scattered around the corners of the walls. He immediatley begin decrypting them. When the decryption is finished, hidden projecting devices came down from the ceiling and shot out beams of light. The visitors were shocked and petrified of what they saw as the lights land on the walls:
It was paintings, lots of them.
The paintings are seemingly painted with an invisible ink, unable to be observed with biological visual organs, suggesting the proprietor possess advance technology unbeknown to them.
But the visitor's greater concern and curiosity are the things drawn on those paintings--groups or clusters of bipedal, hairless primates--just what their archelogical discovery suggest to have once reign superiority of the plant. The primates were dancing, singing or talking with each other. Yet their faces were often distorted, ambiguous or even broken; paired with them mostly drawn in black, while, brown or red ink, giving the visitors eerie feeling: is the author visually impaired, or he was looking at his own kind in a not so flattering way?
The other paintings with different elements and theme, nevertheless provides the same feeling: excavating machines destorying biomass that once exist on the planet; dead extinct animals suffocated from polystyrene or nylon substances. Bipedal primate experiment themselves with cybernatics and chemical overdosing. Each paintings seems to present a different time period of the primate society, suggesting the author has indeed live for an extremely long period of time and has possibly outlived every memeber of his own, across generations.
But the most powerful painting they saw was the one infront of the leader's eyes: a primate-like with insectoid featured giant, hunker down on the ground, sucking an adult primate remains with it's long needle mouth. The remains have part of it dissolved by the giant's digestive fluid, and larva can be seen planed on it's back. Some of them are about to split open and hatch the giant's neonates.
The reddish eyes of that insectoid reeks of panic, hunger and desperation, as if it is a hairless primate that morph into the shape it has now, and is terrified of his looks and the thing he was doing.
The visitors felt nauseating. Were the paintings meant to scare off unwelcoming trespassors? Did the host paint them himaelf or he inherited the house with those paintings attached? Would he not be affacted by being surrounded with them? When were they painted and why did he paint them, if he did?
Only one thing is clear: the paintings are radiating no joy or hope, only bitterness and resentment, typically toward the primates and the giant being depicted.
The veil of the night has begin to drop down, and the sky has turned dark red. The visors of the visitors detect no life signs still, only an approaching sand storm. They quickly packed up and hastly took some screenshots of those paintings, before acltivate the decryption and turn off the paintings projectors, making sure no suspecious traces were left behind.
Just as they about to step out from the door, the leading visitor turned around and took one last glance at the interior of the house, and especially that front wall, where the giant insectoid devours the primate remains is projected at.
Although they might find the living creature next time they visit, should they have done so? A small conflict was brewing inside his mind, worsening the nausea he had. So he quickly shook off the contemplation and turn his head front--it was not his decision alone: and he could do little if his superiority insist. But still, he couldn't let go the feeling he shared with this stranger: the desire to sometimes separate oneself from the species they find it repulsive, even if he is biologically, the same as them. | You wouldn't understand.
The species stares at me.
They load my craft.
They worship me as their savior and God, for being able to resolve their problems and having the longest existence any of them have seen.
I taught them their rudimentary tongue, their mathematics, their culture is a reflection of my character. It really is odd to think so little of these, my would be children, but I am spoiled by my pursuits. I have seen too many great ages come and go to stick around for the rise of these little ones.
My thoughts return to what I once knew. Before, when there had been many of my kind, millions upon millions, we had melded together in spirit in re-union. It was glorious to feel the crowning achievement of our species descend upon us and draw out our innermost being. It was better than drugs. I hadn't had my fix in so long.
After my species died out I had felt empty, cold, something vital was missing.
I stared hungrily at the star far away. Most had been disappearing one by one. Until this last one remained, as a beacon of all that I once knew. I could feel it in my soul.
It was speaking to me. Always. To the point that I began to neglect my little ones. They would be well without me it seemed. Their beginning was now, and as for me...this was my end. I could see it. I wondered what had happened to all of my own. Where had they gone? That star called, with a song that intensified the more I stared at it. I simply had to be there.
I had been planning my departure for quite a while. I left behind many clues for my little ones to advance. But I was no longer thinking of them. I had done my part. It was time for me to join my species. I tilted my head up once again. The last star was calling.
It would be a few days more. It was nothing more than a feeling, but I knew it well enough from my time with my own. The star called. Calling for my utter destruction. Making sweet promises. We are together. We are a home. Reunite.
I walked to my spaceship. It was quite possibly the most harebrained idea I'd had as of yet, but having seen it all, I had a zeal to attempt the new.
You'd consider me a madman, I thought as I was nearing the docking bay.
I didn't know of any man that would desire such an end. To enter into the remaining black holes and cease to exist. My atoms were to be dissolved as I was to be stretched upon the underlying fabric of the universe itself.
I didn't fear death, it had been unable to claim me. Always there had been one purpose after another. In this sense I finally understood. My final moments were the culmination of my species' knowledge, being transferred to the new keepers. And once my purpose fulfilled, the stars began to disappear. I simply knew, this last star, it was the final opportunity. The final call. It was looking dimmer already. I didn't know why, but I was pleased for this. Long had my instinct been dormant, however I could feel it. Time was approaching.
I strapped myself in, took one final look at the star and waited. Waited. Weighted...there!
I punched the beacon and made a mad dash to the moon at a million miles a minute. A slight tug to the left, the black hole was at the right, but no mind, instinct, tricky, dormant for so long. My adrenaline was kicking. I felt alive. God what joy it was to feel anew!
I kept speeding. My sensor instruments warned that a wormhole would manifest within the next seconds in my immediate trajectory. I didn't waiver. It simply felt right. That sense I had missed for all of my remaining life. I saw the speed, measured my time, and let myself through.
Joy! Unfettered and brimming from my every pore. Distended, distressed, reformed. There was a spectacular sight before me, a million and more, all welcoming...my ship had jumped across the farthest reaches to make it home! As I felt my life work and fulfillment, I saw we were leaving already, a new adventure awaited! Then I knew no more. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | You wouldn't understand.
The species stares at me.
They load my craft.
They worship me as their savior and God, for being able to resolve their problems and having the longest existence any of them have seen.
I taught them their rudimentary tongue, their mathematics, their culture is a reflection of my character. It really is odd to think so little of these, my would be children, but I am spoiled by my pursuits. I have seen too many great ages come and go to stick around for the rise of these little ones.
My thoughts return to what I once knew. Before, when there had been many of my kind, millions upon millions, we had melded together in spirit in re-union. It was glorious to feel the crowning achievement of our species descend upon us and draw out our innermost being. It was better than drugs. I hadn't had my fix in so long.
After my species died out I had felt empty, cold, something vital was missing.
I stared hungrily at the star far away. Most had been disappearing one by one. Until this last one remained, as a beacon of all that I once knew. I could feel it in my soul.
It was speaking to me. Always. To the point that I began to neglect my little ones. They would be well without me it seemed. Their beginning was now, and as for me...this was my end. I could see it. I wondered what had happened to all of my own. Where had they gone? That star called, with a song that intensified the more I stared at it. I simply had to be there.
I had been planning my departure for quite a while. I left behind many clues for my little ones to advance. But I was no longer thinking of them. I had done my part. It was time for me to join my species. I tilted my head up once again. The last star was calling.
It would be a few days more. It was nothing more than a feeling, but I knew it well enough from my time with my own. The star called. Calling for my utter destruction. Making sweet promises. We are together. We are a home. Reunite.
I walked to my spaceship. It was quite possibly the most harebrained idea I'd had as of yet, but having seen it all, I had a zeal to attempt the new.
You'd consider me a madman, I thought as I was nearing the docking bay.
I didn't know of any man that would desire such an end. To enter into the remaining black holes and cease to exist. My atoms were to be dissolved as I was to be stretched upon the underlying fabric of the universe itself.
I didn't fear death, it had been unable to claim me. Always there had been one purpose after another. In this sense I finally understood. My final moments were the culmination of my species' knowledge, being transferred to the new keepers. And once my purpose fulfilled, the stars began to disappear. I simply knew, this last star, it was the final opportunity. The final call. It was looking dimmer already. I didn't know why, but I was pleased for this. Long had my instinct been dormant, however I could feel it. Time was approaching.
I strapped myself in, took one final look at the star and waited. Waited. Weighted...there!
I punched the beacon and made a mad dash to the moon at a million miles a minute. A slight tug to the left, the black hole was at the right, but no mind, instinct, tricky, dormant for so long. My adrenaline was kicking. I felt alive. God what joy it was to feel anew!
I kept speeding. My sensor instruments warned that a wormhole would manifest within the next seconds in my immediate trajectory. I didn't waiver. It simply felt right. That sense I had missed for all of my remaining life. I saw the speed, measured my time, and let myself through.
Joy! Unfettered and brimming from my every pore. Distended, distressed, reformed. There was a spectacular sight before me, a million and more, all welcoming...my ship had jumped across the farthest reaches to make it home! As I felt my life work and fulfillment, I saw we were leaving already, a new adventure awaited! Then I knew no more. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Benjamin awoke to that post deep sleep feeling of not knowing where he was. His eyes still closed he tried to remember what day it was, or where he’d been last. Nothing felt familiar and he was afraid to open his eyes, not knowing what he’d see if he did.
Sleep was banished from his mind as an audible chirp sounded and a disembodied computer voice greeted him, “Welcome back Benjamin, please relax while systems continue to boot up and your memories return to you.”
“My memories return to me?” Benjamin thought. He tried to open his eyes but found he couldn’t, or he can’t, or… did he have eyes to open? “What the fuck?” Benjamin thought as his mind began to reel.
Where was he? He tried moving, sitting up, tried to force himself to wake up, but nothing worked, he could only think and experience the darkness of his mind. Visions flashed in front of him, thoughts, memories, feelings, colors, but darkness always returned. Maybe he was half asleep, dreaming, not fully awake.
But then it hit him, and suddenly everything made sense. Something came online and Benjamin’s full consciousness flooded back into his mind, like coming out of a fog. He was fully hisself again. And Benjamin was the last human consciousness left in the universe.
Orbiting aboard a stealth satellite, observing the Earth, Benjamin had watched as the last human being had died and nature reclaimed all of humanity’s ruins. For centuries he had indulged in watching what became of the Earth, plant and animal species, the climate and humanity’s creations after the last living person was truly gone.
But even with a 24/7 live nature documentary and the vast library of human entertainment at his disposal Benjamin grew bored after a couple of millennia. No one to talk to, only memories to indulge in for even the slightest hint of socialization, and having your consciousness exist in a fully digitized form that made you both super intelligent and immortal, tends to make it difficult to not recognize the signs of mental degradation as they appear. He was still fully human after all; that was the point of his existence.
Benjamin was never meant to exist alone, but to observe, record, and chronolog human history as it unfolded. It was his own idea as he had an insatiable desire for knowledge since he was a child. Benjamin always wanted to know everything. Growing up he read a book a night. He had read the entire Bible by the time he was 10. And as humans made incredible advances in computing and artificial intelligence in his middle age Benjamin began to formulate an idea about how he could continue to accumulate knowledge and benefit humanity for thousands of years, maybe millions, possibly till the end of the universe itself.
Almost 100 years later, thanks to life extension technology and further technological advances Project Methuselah was green lit and Benjamin hisself was selected as the perfect candidate to become humanity’s immortal chronicler. His primary consciousness would be stored on an orbital satellite with the most advanced computing technology and AI integration available at the time. Advance biological printers made it possible for Benjamin to create avatars for hisself, biological bodies his consciousness could inhabit to interact with people on Earth any time he chose.
But not long after he had transferred his consciousness and permanently taken residence in his eternal digital habit things went horribly wrong for the human race. Benjamin watched and chronicled events up until the last of the homo sapiens went extinct.
Eventually, out of boredom and loneliness, yet still yearning to know how things would ultimately turn out for Earth, and the Universe, Benjamin laid plains to put hisself into hibernation and only be awakened if a communication signal was received by his satellite home, from either Earth or some other source.
As realization of his present status and memories of who he was and why he was here returned to Benjamin he began to frantically check his systems for just such a communication signal. “There you are!” Benjamin thought. It had indeed come from Earth. A radio signal!
But how long had it been? He had gone into hibernation thousands of years after humanity had ceased to exist. Surely it would take millions of years for another intelligent species to evolve on Earth, if ever.
Benjamin had his systems check the Earth, the stars, the Sun, to try and determine how many years he’d been in slumber. One glance at the Earth itself told him that this was no longer the Earth he knew, that he’d ever known. Instead of seven continents spanning the globe only a single supercontinent displayed on his current visualization of his home planet.
200 million years. It had to have been at least that long for another supercontinent to form on the Earth according to the best science of his time. Novopangea the scientists of his time had called it. Benjamin’s mind reeled with the possibilities. What a time to be alive!
Humans had existed for only a couple million years. Species of dinosaurs had existed for over 100 million years. 200 million years was enough time to completely change whatever species now dominated the planet Earth.
There was only one way to find out, check the radio signal he had received and begin observing the current inhabitants of the only planet in the universe known to harbor life. Perhaps in time he could risk sending drones for a closer look, and depending on what he found out about the creators of the radio signal, maybe he could craft a new biological body in their image and go down and see them for himself. He had time, he had all the time in the world. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | "Kok, kok, kok". Sounds of someone knocking on a wooden door came from outside the house. After a while with no response, the door was pushed open by the visitors. And then they stepped in.
The visitors are around 2-3 in numbers, have greenish skin, ostritch like bodies, with two strong arms fling out like a kangaroo. Their visors on their eyeless head scan around the environment to make sure no potential hostile ambush, before toggling on their night vision device to illuminate the dark surroundings.
Once the devices are on, a big space expanded instantly in front of them. The first thing they noticed were wooden made crafts arrnaged on the ground: according to their research, millienium ago there was a now extinct intelligent beings use them to sit or dine. On top of them are glass made giant tubes and spheres hanging from the ceiling, which should be able to provide illumination once electricity charges them.
But other than that, there's not much else, save for the wooden doors on the left and right side of the stone made walls. So the head of the 3 visitors team signaled the other two to go scout behind them.
While they carried out his orders, he stared at the giant blank wall with nothing infront of it, wondering why the possible host of this primitive residency cares little about decorating the place, or at least carve out a window to let some lights in, soothing the atmosphere that even he, whom have only lingered for a few minutes since, find it choking and unnerving.
After some time, the two other teammates of his came back. One door leads to a room that they speculate the owner uses it for rest and bodily hydro decontamination; another is used for primitive food preparation. In any case, it is just like what their research suggest: a possible living fossil of a creature they once thought have perished, miraculously remained on this desert-full, cactis riddled forest part of the planet.
But where is the proprietor? How did he survive and exceed the theoretical biological limiation his species allows? The clues to the answers are as few as the stains on the blank wall in front of the leader.
The leader pondered a while, and decided to switch to different modes of vision. After multiple combinations and scanning, one mode manage to detect multiple bar codes scattered around the corners of the walls. He immediatley begin decrypting them. When the decryption is finished, hidden projecting devices came down from the ceiling and shot out beams of light. The visitors were shocked and petrified of what they saw as the lights land on the walls:
It was paintings, lots of them.
The paintings are seemingly painted with an invisible ink, unable to be observed with biological visual organs, suggesting the proprietor possess advance technology unbeknown to them.
But the visitor's greater concern and curiosity are the things drawn on those paintings--groups or clusters of bipedal, hairless primates--just what their archelogical discovery suggest to have once reign superiority of the plant. The primates were dancing, singing or talking with each other. Yet their faces were often distorted, ambiguous or even broken; paired with them mostly drawn in black, while, brown or red ink, giving the visitors eerie feeling: is the author visually impaired, or he was looking at his own kind in a not so flattering way?
The other paintings with different elements and theme, nevertheless provides the same feeling: excavating machines destorying biomass that once exist on the planet; dead extinct animals suffocated from polystyrene or nylon substances. Bipedal primate experiment themselves with cybernatics and chemical overdosing. Each paintings seems to present a different time period of the primate society, suggesting the author has indeed live for an extremely long period of time and has possibly outlived every memeber of his own, across generations.
But the most powerful painting they saw was the one infront of the leader's eyes: a primate-like with insectoid featured giant, hunker down on the ground, sucking an adult primate remains with it's long needle mouth. The remains have part of it dissolved by the giant's digestive fluid, and larva can be seen planed on it's back. Some of them are about to split open and hatch the giant's neonates.
The reddish eyes of that insectoid reeks of panic, hunger and desperation, as if it is a hairless primate that morph into the shape it has now, and is terrified of his looks and the thing he was doing.
The visitors felt nauseating. Were the paintings meant to scare off unwelcoming trespassors? Did the host paint them himaelf or he inherited the house with those paintings attached? Would he not be affacted by being surrounded with them? When were they painted and why did he paint them, if he did?
Only one thing is clear: the paintings are radiating no joy or hope, only bitterness and resentment, typically toward the primates and the giant being depicted.
The veil of the night has begin to drop down, and the sky has turned dark red. The visors of the visitors detect no life signs still, only an approaching sand storm. They quickly packed up and hastly took some screenshots of those paintings, before acltivate the decryption and turn off the paintings projectors, making sure no suspecious traces were left behind.
Just as they about to step out from the door, the leading visitor turned around and took one last glance at the interior of the house, and especially that front wall, where the giant insectoid devours the primate remains is projected at.
Although they might find the living creature next time they visit, should they have done so? A small conflict was brewing inside his mind, worsening the nausea he had. So he quickly shook off the contemplation and turn his head front--it was not his decision alone: and he could do little if his superiority insist. But still, he couldn't let go the feeling he shared with this stranger: the desire to sometimes separate oneself from the species they find it repulsive, even if he is biologically, the same as them. | It's beautiful. It's always beautiful. It's always fucking beautiful and looks fantastic and oh gee what a great sunrise, too bad only greeners are around to share it these days. I think the problem was pollution. They just seem so much brighter now, so much more colourful. Maybe I'm just getting old. Ha.
I'm almost fond of them now, the greeners. I dont really know what other...people? Humans? It's been a long time. Maybe I should get some more water, the fish need drying too before they go rotten.
Sorry, my mind tends to wander. Hard to think in straight lines, when you don't have to communicate with other people. I was saying, I don't know what other people would have thought of them. Greeners came after, long after the last few people had died out. I was already seen as strange at that point, the few people left didn't want to come near me. Walking alone, out in the mist that killed everyone, they thought I was a ghost back for revenge.
I don't know why they would think that. Why I would want revenge, for something they didn't do. The mists were an accident, far as I could tell. Everything went to shit in the end, every nation blaming each other until the mists only had to clean up a few stragglers. That was a long time ago, I think. Funny, remembering how everyone used to fight all the time. Greeners don't do that. Greeners don't seem to even notice each other, like they're trapped in their own little worlds. Like me I guess. Ha.
I'm going to try again tonight.
I can't take it anymore.
This time I've been able to find enough heavy duty, sulphuric acid in an old concrete storage silo to do the trick. The grenade was a bad idea obviously. This time the pieces really will be small enough this time. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | It's beautiful. It's always beautiful. It's always fucking beautiful and looks fantastic and oh gee what a great sunrise, too bad only greeners are around to share it these days. I think the problem was pollution. They just seem so much brighter now, so much more colourful. Maybe I'm just getting old. Ha.
I'm almost fond of them now, the greeners. I dont really know what other...people? Humans? It's been a long time. Maybe I should get some more water, the fish need drying too before they go rotten.
Sorry, my mind tends to wander. Hard to think in straight lines, when you don't have to communicate with other people. I was saying, I don't know what other people would have thought of them. Greeners came after, long after the last few people had died out. I was already seen as strange at that point, the few people left didn't want to come near me. Walking alone, out in the mist that killed everyone, they thought I was a ghost back for revenge.
I don't know why they would think that. Why I would want revenge, for something they didn't do. The mists were an accident, far as I could tell. Everything went to shit in the end, every nation blaming each other until the mists only had to clean up a few stragglers. That was a long time ago, I think. Funny, remembering how everyone used to fight all the time. Greeners don't do that. Greeners don't seem to even notice each other, like they're trapped in their own little worlds. Like me I guess. Ha.
I'm going to try again tonight.
I can't take it anymore.
This time I've been able to find enough heavy duty, sulphuric acid in an old concrete storage silo to do the trick. The grenade was a bad idea obviously. This time the pieces really will be small enough this time. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | "Kok, kok, kok". Sounds of someone knocking on a wooden door came from outside the house. After a while with no response, the door was pushed open by the visitors. And then they stepped in.
The visitors are around 2-3 in numbers, have greenish skin, ostritch like bodies, with two strong arms fling out like a kangaroo. Their visors on their eyeless head scan around the environment to make sure no potential hostile ambush, before toggling on their night vision device to illuminate the dark surroundings.
Once the devices are on, a big space expanded instantly in front of them. The first thing they noticed were wooden made crafts arrnaged on the ground: according to their research, millienium ago there was a now extinct intelligent beings use them to sit or dine. On top of them are glass made giant tubes and spheres hanging from the ceiling, which should be able to provide illumination once electricity charges them.
But other than that, there's not much else, save for the wooden doors on the left and right side of the stone made walls. So the head of the 3 visitors team signaled the other two to go scout behind them.
While they carried out his orders, he stared at the giant blank wall with nothing infront of it, wondering why the possible host of this primitive residency cares little about decorating the place, or at least carve out a window to let some lights in, soothing the atmosphere that even he, whom have only lingered for a few minutes since, find it choking and unnerving.
After some time, the two other teammates of his came back. One door leads to a room that they speculate the owner uses it for rest and bodily hydro decontamination; another is used for primitive food preparation. In any case, it is just like what their research suggest: a possible living fossil of a creature they once thought have perished, miraculously remained on this desert-full, cactis riddled forest part of the planet.
But where is the proprietor? How did he survive and exceed the theoretical biological limiation his species allows? The clues to the answers are as few as the stains on the blank wall in front of the leader.
The leader pondered a while, and decided to switch to different modes of vision. After multiple combinations and scanning, one mode manage to detect multiple bar codes scattered around the corners of the walls. He immediatley begin decrypting them. When the decryption is finished, hidden projecting devices came down from the ceiling and shot out beams of light. The visitors were shocked and petrified of what they saw as the lights land on the walls:
It was paintings, lots of them.
The paintings are seemingly painted with an invisible ink, unable to be observed with biological visual organs, suggesting the proprietor possess advance technology unbeknown to them.
But the visitor's greater concern and curiosity are the things drawn on those paintings--groups or clusters of bipedal, hairless primates--just what their archelogical discovery suggest to have once reign superiority of the plant. The primates were dancing, singing or talking with each other. Yet their faces were often distorted, ambiguous or even broken; paired with them mostly drawn in black, while, brown or red ink, giving the visitors eerie feeling: is the author visually impaired, or he was looking at his own kind in a not so flattering way?
The other paintings with different elements and theme, nevertheless provides the same feeling: excavating machines destorying biomass that once exist on the planet; dead extinct animals suffocated from polystyrene or nylon substances. Bipedal primate experiment themselves with cybernatics and chemical overdosing. Each paintings seems to present a different time period of the primate society, suggesting the author has indeed live for an extremely long period of time and has possibly outlived every memeber of his own, across generations.
But the most powerful painting they saw was the one infront of the leader's eyes: a primate-like with insectoid featured giant, hunker down on the ground, sucking an adult primate remains with it's long needle mouth. The remains have part of it dissolved by the giant's digestive fluid, and larva can be seen planed on it's back. Some of them are about to split open and hatch the giant's neonates.
The reddish eyes of that insectoid reeks of panic, hunger and desperation, as if it is a hairless primate that morph into the shape it has now, and is terrified of his looks and the thing he was doing.
The visitors felt nauseating. Were the paintings meant to scare off unwelcoming trespassors? Did the host paint them himaelf or he inherited the house with those paintings attached? Would he not be affacted by being surrounded with them? When were they painted and why did he paint them, if he did?
Only one thing is clear: the paintings are radiating no joy or hope, only bitterness and resentment, typically toward the primates and the giant being depicted.
The veil of the night has begin to drop down, and the sky has turned dark red. The visors of the visitors detect no life signs still, only an approaching sand storm. They quickly packed up and hastly took some screenshots of those paintings, before acltivate the decryption and turn off the paintings projectors, making sure no suspecious traces were left behind.
Just as they about to step out from the door, the leading visitor turned around and took one last glance at the interior of the house, and especially that front wall, where the giant insectoid devours the primate remains is projected at.
Although they might find the living creature next time they visit, should they have done so? A small conflict was brewing inside his mind, worsening the nausea he had. So he quickly shook off the contemplation and turn his head front--it was not his decision alone: and he could do little if his superiority insist. But still, he couldn't let go the feeling he shared with this stranger: the desire to sometimes separate oneself from the species they find it repulsive, even if he is biologically, the same as them. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | Long ago, long ago. Maybe before humans. You’re not sure anymore. Maybe it was at the dawn of humans or even in the middle. You stumbled across an obvious tchotchke fountain of “youth” or “immortality” or whatever gimmick it claimed. You drank deeply and tasted it no different from any other unfiltered water, but your life was different from then on. You no longer aged. You no longer fell ill or hurt. Out of fear you retreated from the world so that no one could discover you, but over time you pieced together that there were others like you. People who you had seen centuries ago and who had never aged. You were not alone. You remerged in the industrial period of humanity to meet with others like you. There was an entire society who had drunk the water and they saved vast stores of it. You learned that only a few, a very select few were influenced by it. Most who drank it never had any change, but you were one of the few who lived forever. The only way to die now, is to choose to die they explained. Every century or two another immortal chose to die. Some chose to die because they thought immortality was dark magic or devil work… whatever that is. Others felt complete and ready to end it and others still felt like they would never be complete and were driven to non-existence. You lived your life in relative obscurity but began to pursue friendship and relationships. Love never entered the picture but you had plenty of dealings with the flesh of mortals and immortals alike.
Over centuries the immortals tired of even their own company. There were only so many topics to discuss. Everyone had fulfilled their greatest desire and even their darkest contempt. A sense of ennui fell over many of the immortals, but never you. Purpose was never a concern of yours. You simply survived… until one day. A mortal changed every thought that you ever had. A mortal so beautiful and rapturing that every dull hour of the millennia that you had lived was worth it just to spend one moment with your love. For the better part of a century, you lived in pure bliss without regard for anything or anyone around you except for your love. The ticking clock of mortality irked your very being and you desperately attempted to give your love immortality. “Maybe drinking gallons of the water would work” you thought. Maybe it was about your mindset or maybe there was an extract that you could make. Everything that you tried failed and your love's traveled face began to age. The mortals had developed some technology by now. It could freeze people and so you found one of these rudimentary devices acceptable. Your love would understand. Frozen for a little while but only enough time for you to research how the two of you could live immortal together.
What you thought would be a few short decades turned into eons. Empires rose and fell and you passed your time with your research all the while. Eventually, you gave up on the water. “Find a new solution,” you thought. You scoured planets and suns. Maybe some star stuff would bring your love back to you, but none of the far future alchemy brought you your desire. As years passed so did humanity and so did the other immortals. Each one taken by boredom or despair. Only you still had a purpose left.
Alone in the universe, you continued your research until another being developed. Slow, stupid, and ugly this being had nothing to offer you. Still, it came from a planet that produced life. Maybe that was the new key. Maybe you could live among them and see how life began so that you could capture it and thaw your love. You watched these creatures evolve with disgust and every few centuries they tried to offer you a gift or capture you. Each time they were rebuked and sometimes even punished. They were far too stupid and weak, but they wanted your knowledge. You could cure their diseases and even make their frail bodies live for a slightly longer time… what? Centuries? Whatever they think is long. But they have nothing to offer you, so you continued your research until one day one of the little flesh bags offered you a slightly interesting offer. In exchange for some of your knowledge, the feeble creature would trade a mechanism for “transferring life.” You greedily accepted the trade.
You unfoze your love with the little life force left. Thankfully, the technology had worked for all this time. You transfered your life force using newfound knowledge from the mortals. Your love emerges awake, beautiful, powerful, and godly. Your super-eon old body wanes. You feel happy again for the first time since you were with your love. Your love caresses your face knowing that these moments are your last. Your love is now immortal, but you feel death approaching. There are so many thoughts racing through your mind. Is there advice to give? Is this the last immortal? Should you tell your love to become what you never were and lead these mortals to a greater age? Or become a hermit like you did and pursue some twisted desire? All you can think is that you don’t won’t your love to succumb to death one day. Live as an immortal you want to say. You are why we should all exist.
All you can muster…
“Don’t leave me.” | In my first centuries, I considered myself one of them. I felt deeply for the misery of the unfortunate, exalted at the triumphs in science and art. As time marched on, however, I came to realize their dreams and achievements, their fears and failures, were all the same. They were brutish, petulant creatures. My attitude drifted towards apathetic paternalism. I faulted them not for they were but children. Children who never matured. Of course they grew old and died, but they died as children to me. Perhaps I once had been like them, but the triviality of their passions was made apparent as centuries became millennia.
Every now and then one of these children would surprise me with their elevation, such is the mechanism by which nature bestows on us her gifts. Remarkable changes to our fundamental code, manifesting themselves through the mixing of bloodlines and random chance. Of course I considered that these remarkable humans and my own immortality could owe their appearance to the machinations of a grand designer. There could be many of these gods as was preached by the ancient religions. Time, once again, eroded such beliefs as all great monuments are transformed to dust by its relentless onslaught.
So it was that when the humans began to die off, I registered the phenomena with utter indifference. So long had it been since I felt myself to be one of them that I could not help but feel that their deaths were a thing apart, separate from my being. Only after the disease had demolished all borders, proved itself immune to the cutting edge medicine of the day, and a human became a rare sight, did I think selfishly of how I would adapt to the new world.
Thus the world became childless, and I a wanderer. Centuries of roaming the earth and I saw not one. I was truly alone. I had come to know such solitude through the ages, it became hard to connect after watching a thousand generations ripen and wither before my eyes, but this was different. And so I made my home on the great ocean to contemplate how best to accommodate time, my ever present guest.
That was until the fateful day I had ventured into the ruins of the city for a bit of nostalgia and, to my astonishment, I heard the unnatural sound of a helicopter overhead. I quickly darted behind a corner and peaked up at the sky. Sure enough, I had not been mistaken. I watched the aircraft cruise by and begin to settle a few blocks away.
I made my way to a vantage point where I could observe unnoticed, my thoughts questioning the possibility of what my eyes were claiming to be true. Surely, if any of the humans had survived they would have become too sparse to repopulate. It had been hundreds of years since I had been given any indication of their continued survival. As I settled into position the helicopter was touching down. I waited eagerly as the engines cut out and the blades began to slow. As the door slid open and the passengers began to emerge, I realized I had been right.
Silver shone brilliantly in the sun against the backdrop of clanking metal. Machines of the greatest sophistication descended from the aircraft. The coordination of their movements looked to me the synchronization of soldiers, and for the first time in many long years, I was struck with terror. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | In my first centuries, I considered myself one of them. I felt deeply for the misery of the unfortunate, exalted at the triumphs in science and art. As time marched on, however, I came to realize their dreams and achievements, their fears and failures, were all the same. They were brutish, petulant creatures. My attitude drifted towards apathetic paternalism. I faulted them not for they were but children. Children who never matured. Of course they grew old and died, but they died as children to me. Perhaps I once had been like them, but the triviality of their passions was made apparent as centuries became millennia.
Every now and then one of these children would surprise me with their elevation, such is the mechanism by which nature bestows on us her gifts. Remarkable changes to our fundamental code, manifesting themselves through the mixing of bloodlines and random chance. Of course I considered that these remarkable humans and my own immortality could owe their appearance to the machinations of a grand designer. There could be many of these gods as was preached by the ancient religions. Time, once again, eroded such beliefs as all great monuments are transformed to dust by its relentless onslaught.
So it was that when the humans began to die off, I registered the phenomena with utter indifference. So long had it been since I felt myself to be one of them that I could not help but feel that their deaths were a thing apart, separate from my being. Only after the disease had demolished all borders, proved itself immune to the cutting edge medicine of the day, and a human became a rare sight, did I think selfishly of how I would adapt to the new world.
Thus the world became childless, and I a wanderer. Centuries of roaming the earth and I saw not one. I was truly alone. I had come to know such solitude through the ages, it became hard to connect after watching a thousand generations ripen and wither before my eyes, but this was different. And so I made my home on the great ocean to contemplate how best to accommodate time, my ever present guest.
That was until the fateful day I had ventured into the ruins of the city for a bit of nostalgia and, to my astonishment, I heard the unnatural sound of a helicopter overhead. I quickly darted behind a corner and peaked up at the sky. Sure enough, I had not been mistaken. I watched the aircraft cruise by and begin to settle a few blocks away.
I made my way to a vantage point where I could observe unnoticed, my thoughts questioning the possibility of what my eyes were claiming to be true. Surely, if any of the humans had survived they would have become too sparse to repopulate. It had been hundreds of years since I had been given any indication of their continued survival. As I settled into position the helicopter was touching down. I waited eagerly as the engines cut out and the blades began to slow. As the door slid open and the passengers began to emerge, I realized I had been right.
Silver shone brilliantly in the sun against the backdrop of clanking metal. Machines of the greatest sophistication descended from the aircraft. The coordination of their movements looked to me the synchronization of soldiers, and for the first time in many long years, I was struck with terror. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | In the shadows of steel forests Kevin had been a god. Among the pine needles and predators, creatures that towered above the forests to feed on the nimble simians of the canopy, or the bipedal lizardfolk who hunted those titans, Kevin was something less.
He’d been something less for more years than he could count, thousands of years by his reckoning, and that discounted the time he’d slumbered, playing Rumpelstiltskin by the nuclear firelight of his race.
Kevin was past questions of who and what he was. That he was immortal wasn’t in doubt. Neither was morality, or, in his view, the question of God’s existence: a no as far as Kevin was concerned. Without electronics or instruments, philosophy or religion, friends or…well, friends stood on their own. Without any of that, Kevin was left to the simple pleasures of life.
Today he watched the hunt, and whenever possible he’d watched far more.
From his spot atop a mountain whose name he’d long since forgot, Kevin’s sharp eyes tracked twenty small shapes across peaks of the early fall forest. They were saurian, bipeds with a vast range of scale colors. The females tended towards darker shades, most the muted greens of the forest, though some few tended towards scarlet, the color of human blood but not theirs. The males, the smaller and less numerous gender, were eight bright sparks of blues, oranges, and emeralds set far out before the females, ahead of the prey they herded.
In truth, Kevin thought, chuckling, only the females were herding. The males ran for their lives.
Between two groups of lizards, the giraffe roared its hunting call. It was not, strictly speaking, a giraffe. There were some surface similarities of course, a long neck, spotted hide, a pair of strange, hornlike protrusions atop its head, but that was where the similarities stopped. For one thing, from the single carcass Kevin had ever seen, the horns weren’t horns. They were some kind of sensory stalk located high above the head, mobile in life, with slits interspersed between three hundred and sixty degree eyes.
Now those stalks were pointed to the group of males out ahead, clearly following their progress. How it didn’t spot the females Kevin didn’t know.
The giraffe bellowed again, teeth the size of tombstones flashing even at that distance. A loud cackling whoop went up from the males and they redoubled the breakneck pace of their branch to branch swinging. Even still, the giraffe was gaining.
From Kevin’s vantage point however, he knew that wasn’t a problem. Up ahead, the rest of the lizard village waited. Young old, strong and weak, male and female side by side with rudimentary iron spears, nearly two hundred more lizards clung to the treetops. From Kevin’s covert observations he suspected that this one kill could last them three months, more if some of them decided to hibernate this year.
Kevin leaned forward on his rock. He rubbed together gleefully, trying to pick out which lizards to watch. The one he called Bloodscale lead the females of the chase team, she was a massive beast, perhaps nine feet tall by his estimation. He’d seen her hunt once between and it had been sublime. There were also a pair of matched males, emeralds whose vibrancy even managed to stand out against the pine needles. They were far and away the fastest of the runners, perhaps they would do good work with they turned with tooth and claw to—
“Hands up.”
The lilting hiss of the voice behind him betrayed its owner immediately. Kevin froze, every muscle tightening, his body screamed at him to run but such things were impossible now with the hunt so close to completion.
Kevin put his hands up but did not turn.
In as close an imitation of the lizardfolk tongue as Kevin could manage, he said, “Don’t make me miss this.”
“Turn around slowly.”
The tip of a spear pressed into Kevin’s back and he turned as he was ordered, to stare up into the eyes of the dun brown scaled young female her people called Luska.
“Hello Luska,” Kevin said.
Her eyes narrowed with a quick sideways blink. The spear’s tip threatened at Kevin’s belly, one small poke away from infection and death, unless he could find a safe enough place to slumber away a few years of healing. With the look in her eyes, Kevin knew there would be no safe place.
“Ghost,” she whispered, “how do you know my name?”
It had been so long since he’d practiced lying that all Kevin had left was the truth. “I’ve had nothing to else do for millenia but learn your names, your language, your culture.”
Kevin half turned, pointing down to where the village waited among the trees. The hunt had almost reached its climax.
“I mean no disrespect, and I’m no danger to anyone. Please Luska, don’t make me miss this.”
If she were a human, and if Kevin still remembered how to read humans, he made said he saw indecision in her face. It warred with the notes of fear he caught emanating from her scent glands, but there something there in her look that he thought he recognized. Kevin had been watching the village since before she was hatched, since before her grandparents were hatched. In his eavesdropping he’d caught far more than just her name. He’d caught the lizard version of a rebellious phase too, shouted conversations through hut walls about the wider world, about what lay beyond the sacred bounds of their forest. Kevin was gambling that such things mattered more than fear.
“I didn’t think you could talk,” Luska said, and in a moment Kevin’s whole world shifted.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve seen the shape in the dark, I’ve heard the elders stories. The hairy man like the tree dwellers, bigger though not so big as us. I thought you were a ghost until…”
“Until?”
“Until I caught your scent last night on the outskirts the village.”
She’d followed his scent here then. Kevin had been trying to eavesdrop on the plans of the hunt. He knew the patterns, and he’d watched in silence for so very long. He what it meant when the best hunters consulted the elders, staying inside for hours at a time. He knew what it meant when the families sent their representatives. He’d even seen Luska leave, head down, radiating the stench of disappointment into the air. Perhaps that was why she was here and not down there.
“What will you do with me?” Kevin asked.
“Take you back to the village. The elders will have questions.”
“And bagging a ghost will no doubt improve your standing.”
She made a complicated shrug of her tail.
“And if I don’t want to go?”
“You will go,” Luska said. She was narrow, lightboned by the standards of her people, but still massing twice as much as him or more.
“And when I go, will I be killed?”
The shrug again. She might not know that, Kevin supposed such a thing had never happened before.
He shrugged too, the turned his back to her, daring her to stab him. Kevin sat down upon his rock, and watched as the giraffe lumbered in the trap. The villagers screamed, hurling a hundred spears or more at the thing before the strongest among them leapt onto its back and neck, tearing into its soft flesh with the powerful jaws. Even from here Kevin could see rivers of blood coursing down its sides. The beast brayed and shook, one of the emerald colored males was tossed into the air and hung there shining for a moment before the giraffe caught him in its jaws.
Luska gasped and whimpered, falling to her knees beside him.
“A friend?”
She growled and spat at him, pushing herself back to her feet and leveling the spear. “You will come to the village,” Luska said.
“After the hunt, I’ve always wanted to see your people process the kill.”
“Now.”
“Luska,” Kevin said, “right now I will do no such thing. Neither will you, you want to be down there with them just as badly as I want to be up here watching. We’ll compromise and stay here watching.”
She growled again and the spear’s tip bit into his side.
“And while we’re watching you can tell his name,” Kevin said. “And I’ll tell you the names of all the friends I’ve lost, and lovers too, if he was one to you. Then when I’m done we’ll go down to your village. You can show me off, tell everyone you’ve capture the first cryptid in recorded lizard history, then you can kill me and eat as dessert after the giraffe stew. But until then I’m not moving and I don’t think you’re moving, so you’d best tell his name or kill me.”
Luska stood there like a rough hewn statue for a long moment, her body a powerful slash on the fading afternoon light. It would take barely pressure from her to kill him.
“His name was Kyril,” she said after a time.
Kevin patted the rock beside him. “I’ve never heard anything of your men, your people keep them too cloistered.”
With one long, shaking breath, Luska sat, and together they watched the beast fall as she spoke of Kyril’s life, of plans now lost to time, and a life changed immeasurably. It was Kevin’s first conversation in thousands of years.
r/TurningtoWords | In my first centuries, I considered myself one of them. I felt deeply for the misery of the unfortunate, exalted at the triumphs in science and art. As time marched on, however, I came to realize their dreams and achievements, their fears and failures, were all the same. They were brutish, petulant creatures. My attitude drifted towards apathetic paternalism. I faulted them not for they were but children. Children who never matured. Of course they grew old and died, but they died as children to me. Perhaps I once had been like them, but the triviality of their passions was made apparent as centuries became millennia.
Every now and then one of these children would surprise me with their elevation, such is the mechanism by which nature bestows on us her gifts. Remarkable changes to our fundamental code, manifesting themselves through the mixing of bloodlines and random chance. Of course I considered that these remarkable humans and my own immortality could owe their appearance to the machinations of a grand designer. There could be many of these gods as was preached by the ancient religions. Time, once again, eroded such beliefs as all great monuments are transformed to dust by its relentless onslaught.
So it was that when the humans began to die off, I registered the phenomena with utter indifference. So long had it been since I felt myself to be one of them that I could not help but feel that their deaths were a thing apart, separate from my being. Only after the disease had demolished all borders, proved itself immune to the cutting edge medicine of the day, and a human became a rare sight, did I think selfishly of how I would adapt to the new world.
Thus the world became childless, and I a wanderer. Centuries of roaming the earth and I saw not one. I was truly alone. I had come to know such solitude through the ages, it became hard to connect after watching a thousand generations ripen and wither before my eyes, but this was different. And so I made my home on the great ocean to contemplate how best to accommodate time, my ever present guest.
That was until the fateful day I had ventured into the ruins of the city for a bit of nostalgia and, to my astonishment, I heard the unnatural sound of a helicopter overhead. I quickly darted behind a corner and peaked up at the sky. Sure enough, I had not been mistaken. I watched the aircraft cruise by and begin to settle a few blocks away.
I made my way to a vantage point where I could observe unnoticed, my thoughts questioning the possibility of what my eyes were claiming to be true. Surely, if any of the humans had survived they would have become too sparse to repopulate. It had been hundreds of years since I had been given any indication of their continued survival. As I settled into position the helicopter was touching down. I waited eagerly as the engines cut out and the blades began to slow. As the door slid open and the passengers began to emerge, I realized I had been right.
Silver shone brilliantly in the sun against the backdrop of clanking metal. Machines of the greatest sophistication descended from the aircraft. The coordination of their movements looked to me the synchronization of soldiers, and for the first time in many long years, I was struck with terror. | |
[WP] You’re immortal. The only problem is, you’ve lived so long humanity died out and a new intelligent species evolved. Now you’re forced to live in the forest as a cryptid. | I do not speak their language. I never had the chance to learn. With their instinctive hostility to the outsider, I was driven away from their settlements as they grew from the cinders of human civilisation. Survival for me is simple; I only require blood to thrive. From where it is sourced, it matters not. Forest creatures and passing travellers are all I desire. Though the thrill of evading capture no longer excites me, I still play games of cat and mouse with my prey.
They're not too dissimilar to humans; closely resembling the hominids I was born of, yet visually different enough to be recognisably distinct. A new species of primate, forged though famine and disease, forced to leave the ashes of their jungle homes and adapt to cityscape scavenging.
There are a few words of their language I understand - the most notable of which is their name for me. In the most undignified way, they trudge through my home wielding torches and cameras. They seek me out, hoping to capture a rare a photograph of "the unfurred ape."
I fucking hate monkeys. | Long ago, long ago. Maybe before humans. You’re not sure anymore. Maybe it was at the dawn of humans or even in the middle. You stumbled across an obvious tchotchke fountain of “youth” or “immortality” or whatever gimmick it claimed. You drank deeply and tasted it no different from any other unfiltered water, but your life was different from then on. You no longer aged. You no longer fell ill or hurt. Out of fear you retreated from the world so that no one could discover you, but over time you pieced together that there were others like you. People who you had seen centuries ago and who had never aged. You were not alone. You remerged in the industrial period of humanity to meet with others like you. There was an entire society who had drunk the water and they saved vast stores of it. You learned that only a few, a very select few were influenced by it. Most who drank it never had any change, but you were one of the few who lived forever. The only way to die now, is to choose to die they explained. Every century or two another immortal chose to die. Some chose to die because they thought immortality was dark magic or devil work… whatever that is. Others felt complete and ready to end it and others still felt like they would never be complete and were driven to non-existence. You lived your life in relative obscurity but began to pursue friendship and relationships. Love never entered the picture but you had plenty of dealings with the flesh of mortals and immortals alike.
Over centuries the immortals tired of even their own company. There were only so many topics to discuss. Everyone had fulfilled their greatest desire and even their darkest contempt. A sense of ennui fell over many of the immortals, but never you. Purpose was never a concern of yours. You simply survived… until one day. A mortal changed every thought that you ever had. A mortal so beautiful and rapturing that every dull hour of the millennia that you had lived was worth it just to spend one moment with your love. For the better part of a century, you lived in pure bliss without regard for anything or anyone around you except for your love. The ticking clock of mortality irked your very being and you desperately attempted to give your love immortality. “Maybe drinking gallons of the water would work” you thought. Maybe it was about your mindset or maybe there was an extract that you could make. Everything that you tried failed and your love's traveled face began to age. The mortals had developed some technology by now. It could freeze people and so you found one of these rudimentary devices acceptable. Your love would understand. Frozen for a little while but only enough time for you to research how the two of you could live immortal together.
What you thought would be a few short decades turned into eons. Empires rose and fell and you passed your time with your research all the while. Eventually, you gave up on the water. “Find a new solution,” you thought. You scoured planets and suns. Maybe some star stuff would bring your love back to you, but none of the far future alchemy brought you your desire. As years passed so did humanity and so did the other immortals. Each one taken by boredom or despair. Only you still had a purpose left.
Alone in the universe, you continued your research until another being developed. Slow, stupid, and ugly this being had nothing to offer you. Still, it came from a planet that produced life. Maybe that was the new key. Maybe you could live among them and see how life began so that you could capture it and thaw your love. You watched these creatures evolve with disgust and every few centuries they tried to offer you a gift or capture you. Each time they were rebuked and sometimes even punished. They were far too stupid and weak, but they wanted your knowledge. You could cure their diseases and even make their frail bodies live for a slightly longer time… what? Centuries? Whatever they think is long. But they have nothing to offer you, so you continued your research until one day one of the little flesh bags offered you a slightly interesting offer. In exchange for some of your knowledge, the feeble creature would trade a mechanism for “transferring life.” You greedily accepted the trade.
You unfoze your love with the little life force left. Thankfully, the technology had worked for all this time. You transfered your life force using newfound knowledge from the mortals. Your love emerges awake, beautiful, powerful, and godly. Your super-eon old body wanes. You feel happy again for the first time since you were with your love. Your love caresses your face knowing that these moments are your last. Your love is now immortal, but you feel death approaching. There are so many thoughts racing through your mind. Is there advice to give? Is this the last immortal? Should you tell your love to become what you never were and lead these mortals to a greater age? Or become a hermit like you did and pursue some twisted desire? All you can think is that you don’t won’t your love to succumb to death one day. Live as an immortal you want to say. You are why we should all exist.
All you can muster…
“Don’t leave me.” | |
[WP] Surprise, your co-worker is an angel. | \[Stellar Wingspan\]
"No way, an angel?" Vince chuckled. He sat in the breakroom getting to know the newest officemate, Cosmo. "Small world," Vince said. He gestured at himself to hint at the minor coincidence. Vince was a portly, red-skinned man with old wrinkles and obsidian horns. Cosmo's angelic form was lean and pale.
"Wow, I'm glad I found someone I have something in common with," Cosmo smiled at Vince. "Anyone else here play?" Vince shook his head.
"Not that I've found. Though, I haven't really asked around. I don't want to say the wrong thing to an NPC," he said. "Hey, how'd you know I wasn't an NPC?" Vince asked.
"I have good eyes," Cosmo replied. Golden stars glowed in his eyes for a moment before the light faded.
"Oh wow! You're Unique too!?" Vince asked in surprise.
"Well, to be honest, I wasn't just talking about the AlterNet," Cosmo said.
"Huh?" Vince tilted his head at Cosmo in curiosity.
"When I said I was an angel; it's not just in the Alternet. I am an actual angel,' As Cosmo explained, two sets of white-feathered wings appeared on his back and stretched out across the breakroom. His wingtips touched both walls of the 15' x 15' room, then he folded them back in behind himself and one of the sets disappeared.
"Whoooaaa," Vince took a moment to process what he just witnessed. "I seen fae before.. but.. wow... never seen an angel," he said.
"You probably have," Cosmo said. "Most Estrellas are secretly angels." He turned his back to Vince and pulled his shirt up. Two saucer-sized black holes rested on his back underneath a pair of feathered wings. Vince watched the holes widen; then, white wingtips popped out of them. Cosmo stretched out all four wings, then pulled the lower set back in and the black holes shrank again.
"It's easier to keep our wings hidden most of the time," he said.
"Oh," Vince replied. He hung his head and his voice sounded full of disappointment. "I'm not an actual demon...," he said. He poked at his lunch with a black claw. "...just in the game."
\*\*\*
Thank you for reading! I’m responding to prompts every day. This is story #1232 in a row. (Story #136 in year four.) You can find all my stories collected on my subreddit (r/hugoverse) or my blog. | "Can I help you with anything else?" I said sheepishly to the customer. "No its fine, I have to go now" they replied. I retreated back to my post in front of the junior backpacks, I have been humiliated by an attractive female. Thoughts of self pity and confusion raged internally, spinning round my head like a Beyblade. Once again I am humanity's play thing. Is charm and intellect not worth jack anymore? These thoughts plague me endlessly. It was then that I felt her presence, a velvet touch on my shoulder, my heart stopped for a second then started hastening.
I turned, what I saw next immediately put doubt in my staunch atheism. It was my line manager, Katana. She is typically an introverted and classic woman, she had never shown any interest in my before. "Do not feel this way Falchion, for you have yet to discover your true potential" she softly exclaimed. The fury of fire and the fortitude of ice rushed through my veins as I fell to one knee. "Katana you must know I am in your submission, please take my hand as you already have my heart" I screamed. But when I opened my eyes she was gone.
Katana never was there, it turned out she was working the re-stock shift at the end of the day. Though defeated once again, I had an epiphany. Although I walk in shadow, teased and demonised for my advanced insight, I had fallen into submission. She might not be the angel in a biblical sense, by her spirit is greater than any conceived by man. | |
[WP] Surprise, your co-worker is an angel. | You stood there with the broom closet door open, wondering what the hell you were seeing.
Hippo had earned his name from his rotund appearance - and for a propensity for breaking things as he muddled about the narrow paths of the antique shop - but what he was doing now there was no explanation for. His brown vest was melting away into what appeared to be wings, and slowly turning white. He shook them out, facing the back wall with his eyes closed.
“Ah, that’s better.” He said.
Your jaw dropped. Hippo saw this as he opened his eyes, where an old mirror reflected your astonishment. He flipped around, knocking several brooms and the mop over with his wings, and covered his mouth with both hands.
“Oh, dear.”
You pointed at him. “Wh...what the hell did you just do?”
Hippo reached out a chubby arm and tugged you inside the broom closet before shutting the door. Suddenly the two of you were very cozy, and it made you want to scream.
“Hel-“ you tried to shout, but Hippo covered your mouth.
“No, no you mustn’t!” He whispered loudly. “Someone might hear you.”
“Tht was the pnt!”
“Shhh! I can explain -“
“Cn you?” You start, eyes wide. “Cn you???”
Hippo’s thick fingers were still over your mouth, but he was at least being more gentle that he usually was with the antiques.
“Oh this is terribly embarrassing, it’s a rather awful story, but if you tell anyone then they’ll extend my sentence...”
“Sntnce?” Your brows raised. Hippo sighed.
“Do you promise not to scream?”
You thought for a minute, curiosity overcoming fear, and nod. Hippo released you, then put his hands together in front of his chest.
“Oh dear,” said Hippo, unclasping his hands, “no, mustn’t do that. Then *they’ll* hear, hehe.”
You puzzled over the statement. “They?”
Hippo pointed up to the ceiling, “The other angels.”
“Angels?”
“We’ll surely you guessed?” He stretched out his wings, knocking over cleaning supplies. “Oh... clumsy old butterfingers.”
“Just stop,” you said, “Even if I could believe what I was seeing, exactly what is an angel doing down here?”
“Oh...” Hippo slumped, “That.” He cleared his throat, then sat on an upturned bucket. Nearly knocking over a shelf full of replacement bulbs and fixtures. You grab it just in time, but he barely seemed to notice.
“Well, it’s really just a misunderstanding. See, as a cherub, I’m supposed to make little blessings on children when they’re well behaved. And well, I was in a child’s room, and he had been so well behaved... I went down to give him a little good fortune, and well... I found a stack of pornography.”
You decide now is the time to pull up your own bucket. This sounded serious.
“So... what happened next?”
Hippo shifted on his bucket. “Now, any decent angel would take the temptation away, cherub or no.” Hippo unslumped himself to look for sympathy in your eyes, “I was only trying to prevent him from, Heaven forbid, using the forbidden material. But i had to hid in the closet to keep from being seen. And well, he went at it before I could stop him. I had to sit and watch, and it became rather uncomfortable, so of course I sat down. Lo and behold there was more smut in the closet!”
You tried to hold in your giggles. Luckily Hippo was too caught up in his story to notice.
“And then I found I was sitting on a box of it. Of course this gave me a terrible fright, and I...”
You could hold in giggles no longer. “You fumbled and fell out of the closet, didn’t you?”
“Right as the young man was finishing that awful business of his! It was terrible! I tried to make a hasty exit, but... I made the mistake of putting my hands in prayer position to beg him not to speak, and that summoned the attention of the other angels... oh what they must have thought when they saw!”
Hippo only now realized you were laughing. He crossed his arms. “I really can’t see how amy of this is funny.”
“It’s hilarious. Why didn’t you just explain?”
“Well I tried that. But even with that truth, I’ve still witnessed things a cherub is not meant to see.”Hippo began to sob. “My innocence is gone!”
You stop laughing, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Does that mean you go to Hell?”
“Oh heavens no, it means I’m banished to a life on Earth. Not that I’ve minded that really, you have so many interesting things here, the food, the culture, the music. It’s a fine life if you’d all learn to love it. Better than clouds and the constant twang of harpsong. My fingers were sore from playing every day, but there was nothing else to do besides bless the children, and that’s so tiring.”
He pulled out a white hankerchief, and spotted it over his brow.
“So...” you began to ask. “If heaven is real, and God is real, why all the pain and madness if God is so powerful?”
“Beats me,” Hippo said, “you try asking someone a presumptuous question like that when he’s known for turning people to salt. The last angel to do that is still burning.”
“Is Hell that bad?”
“Not for a cherub!” He smiled, “I mean, if I did anything bad enough to go to Hell, I could technically stop all the fire, and open a path back to Earth, and live another good life if I wanted.”
“Interesting. Well, why don’t you do that?”
“Oh no, if Lucifer found out he’d rain hell on Earth.”
“Was Lucifer that bad?” You ask.
“Oh,” Hippo laughed, “No, poor thing was mostly just a prankster, nothing that evil. Used to play fun tricks on me.” Hippo laughed, “They were awful.”
“I mean, you could probably save a lot of people a lot of pain. I’m not super religious, but it sounds like God is maybe a little... I dunno, overzealous? I mean, look what happened to you.”
“You know, you’re right. I mean, Lucifer might not even know I’d arrived, I could save so many people who went to hell for petty things...”
“You really could. And I wouldn’t mind a free pass. You lean closer to confess, “I’m actually... on the way out myself.”
Hippo covered his mouth, “Oh no!”
You nod. “Would you, help me?”
“Of course!”
The two of you shake hands, but you wont let go. You smile. “A deal with the devil is a heafty sin.”
“Beg pardon?” Asked Hippo.
You twist his arm, pull out a swiss army knife, and stab him behind the chubby angel wing, straight through the heart. Hippo breathed his final breaths, then opens his eyes to see your figure, standing horned and grinning.
“Long time no see, Hippo.”
“Lucifer? But how-“
“Possession, Hippo, it’s child’s play. Or it is for a real angel, you never did have the gift. Anyway, I have things to do back on Earth.”
A pair of feathered white wings stretch out to either side of you, and Hippo notices his own wings are gone as he sits in the puddle of glittering blood. “No!!”
“Bye Hippo, enjoy Hell!”
And with that, you left Hippo to the eternal fire.
“Oh, dear,” said Hippo. “Not again...” | "Can I help you with anything else?" I said sheepishly to the customer. "No its fine, I have to go now" they replied. I retreated back to my post in front of the junior backpacks, I have been humiliated by an attractive female. Thoughts of self pity and confusion raged internally, spinning round my head like a Beyblade. Once again I am humanity's play thing. Is charm and intellect not worth jack anymore? These thoughts plague me endlessly. It was then that I felt her presence, a velvet touch on my shoulder, my heart stopped for a second then started hastening.
I turned, what I saw next immediately put doubt in my staunch atheism. It was my line manager, Katana. She is typically an introverted and classic woman, she had never shown any interest in my before. "Do not feel this way Falchion, for you have yet to discover your true potential" she softly exclaimed. The fury of fire and the fortitude of ice rushed through my veins as I fell to one knee. "Katana you must know I am in your submission, please take my hand as you already have my heart" I screamed. But when I opened my eyes she was gone.
Katana never was there, it turned out she was working the re-stock shift at the end of the day. Though defeated once again, I had an epiphany. Although I walk in shadow, teased and demonised for my advanced insight, I had fallen into submission. She might not be the angel in a biblical sense, by her spirit is greater than any conceived by man. | |
[WP] Surprise, your co-worker is an angel. | I could hear Xerxes's smile before he even padded into the room.
"What now?" I asked, putting down the little fairy statue I had been molding with my hands. Catching the little buggers had taken months, and they just did not want to turn out.
"Guess," the manticore rumbled, barely keeping himself from outright laughter. "Guess who Tarsus is sending down?"
I sighed. "I dunno, one of his fire spirits or something?" I spun around on my stool to face where Xerxes stood snickering. I was blindfolded out of respect, of course, but my hearing was *very* good.
"No, better. He's sending Raukus."
"What? No! The celestial?" I cried. *You have got to be kidding me.* I felt my hair go all stiff.
Xerxes was outright laughing now. "Oh yes, a bonafide angel. And I'm putting him to work with you." Big curls of laughter rumbled through the foreman.
My face flushed red. "Me? Why? Because of that—"
"—Because of that little goliath incident. Think of him like your bodyguard. I wouldn't want my poor little Hester to get hurt." *You would,* I thought.
"How the hells am I supposed to work with a god-blasted angel breathing down my neck?" I asked. My hair was all anxious.
"I don't know, but I sure damn know I don't want him poking around with the rest of the crew. Might vaporize some of the less discrete ones. Tarsus really ought to think more about who he sends to supervise his own temple construction," he said, shaking himself to a standing position.
"You're a real big help; you know that?" I said, sarcasm dripping like venom from my tongue.
There was sonic boom from above us, and then lots of little goblin screeches as something flashed overhead.
"Hey, big nests don't come cheap," Xerxes said, padding back towards the door. "I'll go collect our little angel and send him right your way."
I quietly cursed and then turned back to the pile of fairies on my table. *What the hell is he going to think of these?* There was a tiny meeping out of one of the cages on the wall. "Quiet, you," I hissed. *Or the live ones?*
A few minutes later, he stepped through the little veil in the doorway. The room felt a little warmer and brighter just by his entering it.
"Greetings, fair maiden, I am Raukus. Xerxes asked me to watch over you while you worked." His voice was smooth and rich like cream and warm like a summer wind.
Trying to keep the butterflies out of my stomach, I turned to face him, still blindfolded, of course. "Yes, hi. I'm Hester. Sorry if I snap at you, I've got a clutch of eggs inside me, and the hormones are all over the place." *No one's ever called me "fair maiden" before.*
"Oh, I will take no offense," he said, his bare feet stepping softly on flagstones over to where the fairy cages were. I could hear them crowding around him on the other side of the bars. The butterflies in my stomach felt like they were trying to do the same.
*He's so warm,* I thought, and my skin prickled with delight as he turned his gaze back to me. I could feel his implicit question. "Those are the fairies. They make good statues. Easy to put into columns for decoration. I have a few finished ones over here if you'd like to see."
"I would indeed," he said, leaving to meeping things to come towards me.
My hair crinkled and relaxed as he approached, and I could feel my heart start to beat faster. His light felt so warm on my skin, and I just wanted to bask in it; curl around him and cuddle.
He came to a stop right next to me. My hand felt for his, and a flash of heat went through my heart when it found it. His hand was big and smooth, not like my small, slender fingers. Slowly, trying to soak in as much radiance as I could, I guided his hand to one of the finished fairies.
"See this one," I said, picking it up, "they'll hang this one above the star panoply in the sacrificial chamber. See how I've curved its wings? That little hole there is how they'll fit the starlight-wire through. It'll look like it's dangling from a shooting star or an icicle, whichever you prefer."
"How do you do such things," he marveled, "while blindfolded?"
A trill of lighting sparked through my spine. I forced my breathing to slow. "Well," I said, my voice sounding so rough and awkward next to his, "my hands are very skilled. But I don't make the statues blindfolded, though all the detail work is. Do you want me to show you?"
"Yes," he said. The word almost melted me. I wanted to keep him. I knew I couldn't.
I closed my good eye and felt for the knot of my blindfold. My heart thudded inside my ribs as I slowly dropped the fabric from my face, suddenly fearing what his eyes might see, almost causing my hands to cover them instead. I forced them into my lap, over the little bulge in my belly and shivered as he looked upon me. I desperately wanted to look upon him too. But I knew I couldn't have both his warmth and his beauty.
His hand touched my face, just below my ruined eye.
"A goliath," I murmured to his unasked question. My breathing quickened, and I gripped the table just as a precaution.
His thumb pressed where my eyebrow used to be, tracing the scar down my cheek. "I am sorry," he said.
I wanted to bury my face in his chest, hug him and not let go.
"Your other eye?" He asked gently.
My mouth suddenly seemed so dry. "If anyone meets my gaze, they turn to stone." *Please, please, please—*
I could *feel* his grin.
"Not I," he said, and gently opened it.
He was right. | "Can I help you with anything else?" I said sheepishly to the customer. "No its fine, I have to go now" they replied. I retreated back to my post in front of the junior backpacks, I have been humiliated by an attractive female. Thoughts of self pity and confusion raged internally, spinning round my head like a Beyblade. Once again I am humanity's play thing. Is charm and intellect not worth jack anymore? These thoughts plague me endlessly. It was then that I felt her presence, a velvet touch on my shoulder, my heart stopped for a second then started hastening.
I turned, what I saw next immediately put doubt in my staunch atheism. It was my line manager, Katana. She is typically an introverted and classic woman, she had never shown any interest in my before. "Do not feel this way Falchion, for you have yet to discover your true potential" she softly exclaimed. The fury of fire and the fortitude of ice rushed through my veins as I fell to one knee. "Katana you must know I am in your submission, please take my hand as you already have my heart" I screamed. But when I opened my eyes she was gone.
Katana never was there, it turned out she was working the re-stock shift at the end of the day. Though defeated once again, I had an epiphany. Although I walk in shadow, teased and demonised for my advanced insight, I had fallen into submission. She might not be the angel in a biblical sense, by her spirit is greater than any conceived by man. | |
Credit to Frederick Brown's "Knock." | [WP] It's time. You knock on the door of the last man on earth. | Every day, a little after sunrise, the old man would step outside and do a quick search of the fences around his house.
Most of the time, there were a few stray Locusts still twitching in the razor wire coils. Even hours after they tore themselves apart, the nerves in their severed legs kept firing off meaningless signals, like an 18th century anatomist attaching electrodes to a dead frog. He used a leaf skimmer to pry them loose and knock them out to the lawn next door, where they would sometimes keep rustling the knee-deep grass until almost midday.
That job done, he'd walk behind the building. There, in the back yard, he kept a small garden of mostly fruits and vegetables. Depending on the day, he might walk over to his storage shed for a wheelbarrow and shovel, then set about spreading compost from a pile under the rear patio. Other times, he would start pulling weeds from between the neat rows of potatoes and eggplants. More often than not, though, he just paced around the plot. There were flowers there, too, alongside the crops. In the spring, especially, they showed off a multi-hued pallet of reds, oranges, blues, and velvety purple.
When he went out foraging for food and supplies, he usually left at around noon, giving any lingering fog time to dissipate. He backed out of the garage and down the driveway in a large, white-panel van with decals that read *Mason's Plumbing*, turned to the left, and drove away from the city center. While the towering office buildings in downtown Omaha acted like artificial caves where the Locust swarms could nest, the suburbs and small towns to the West really didn't have many places to hide a proper colony. By steering clear of the big box stores, it was usually possible to avoid them altogether during the day. One or two in a basement could be taken care of without that much trouble, if worst came to worst.
He'd come home in the evening, as soon as the shadows started to get longer. Typically, he tried to give himself at least an hour and half or so to unload the trip's haul. Canned food, bottled water, diesel, more sandbags, wire strips to patch the perimeter holes left by flailing limbs and wings.
It was easy, watching through a hand-held range finder from the courthouse bell tower, to build up a sort of parasocial relationship with the man. There were entire stories that his behavior told, and whether they were true or not wasn't really important. He'd been a plumber, a greenhouse keeper, and the youngest child of a family of survivalists before moving here from Montana fresh out of high school. He was friendly, gruff, lonely, and had finally found peace and quiet.
That sort of one-sided friendship was enough at first. Even just knowing that there was someone out there gave some relief from the crushing isolation that had fallen down from the sky three years ago. As time went on, though, it got harder just to watch.
What if he really was lonely and scared? Then again, what if he wasn't really the man from all those carefully woven stories, who sat at the dormer windows to paint sunsets and pick through his chest of scrapbooks? If being alone meant being safe, then maybe he didn't want company. A shadow on his front porch could be met with a shotgun blast instead of an open door, or that door might lead to a living hell, a prison with no chance of escape or rescue.
Days went by, then months. The tiny farm plot turned to dried up vegetation as the leaves changed, then wound up covered with snow for half the winter after a series of howling storms rolled in from the empty fields outside of town. Shorter days, longer nights, and colder temperatures seemed to make the swarms more active rather than less. They'd sweep through in the dark, eating the trees down to their live yellow heart wood. Mornings dawned with piles of them trapped in the old man's fencing, where they'd tried to jump and glide over at the smell of hidden meat. Afternoons were filled with the sound of hammering as he drove new metal stakes into the ground, then with the sound of metal rustling as he strung up new wire. Work took longer and there were fewer hours of daylight for it, which brought a renewed sense of urgency to his actions.
Finally, the sun reached its lowest path through the sky and shifted to a track that brought it back North. Warmer weather slowed the Locusts again, only a little at first but more and more as time went on. Cold rain replaced ice storms and blizzards, then towering thunderstorm walls grew again on the horizon. Spring returned, and with it the small, fallow field was once again tilled. The man spread seeds over the dug-up lines of earth, following that with fertilizer he brought back on one of his trips.
One morning in what was probably the middle of May, a shield of heavy nimbostratus moved in from the South. It started raining, and never seemed like it would stop. Going outside or even up to the bell tower was out of the question and, except during the relatively bright hours at the end of the morning and start of the afternoon, the entire world seemed alive with the vibration of membranous wings and the violent clicking of mandibles. Scratching and banging sounded all through the courthouse. Even down in its basement, far from the boarded up windows and barricaded doors, it seemed like death could come crawling in at any minute.
Finally, after almost four years, the pressure of solitude became too much. A life spent so alone wasn't worth living.
After the clouds cleared away, standing water that the downpour left behind glistened on the cracked roadways. Every footstep brought a splash that soaked through canvas shoes.
After turning the corner onto the old man's street, there was a moment of hesitation. Maybe it wasn't worth the risk after all...but it was now or never. After another short summer, the bitter cold of winter would migrate back into the Midwest, and there was no guarantee that this year's horde wouldn't make their way into the poor shelter of the courthouse's brick walls.
The last man on Earth heard a knock on the door. There was a moment of expectant silence, full of promise and danger. Then, two locks clicked and a dead bolt slid aside. With the sound of squeaky hinges, the door opened in.
Standing there in the doorway, her heart high in her throat and tears stinging her eyes, Rachel fumbled for something to say. In the end, all she could manage was, "Hey." | I knew that this day would eventually come, but I had no idea it would be so soon. I was betting on it taking several more decades, but nope, the last man on Earth is right in this house just in the forty-fifth century.
I haven't been all too invested in human culture, but I had to wonder what this person's life must be like. How soon did they realize they were the last person, if they ever did? That must be a hard thing to really come to learn, both mentally and... well, just literally, since the world is so vast.
Eh, let's not waste too much time.
knock, knock.
The title of 'last man' is a bit of a misnomer since the gender of this person is very hard to discern- it appears that gender became an obsolete concept long ago, and the attire of the future reflects this. Not that I can really judge- I'm an ethereal being who takes on the form of the most normal-looking human relative to very outdated standards.
What was also notable about them was that they appeared quite unresponsive to the sight of me, either because of pure shock or because they didn't care in the slightest.
Wait, what was I supposed to do after I knocked...? I feel like there was something I was supposed to do, but the excitement of being the person who knocks on the last person on Earth's door sort of overshadowed the actual goal.
Ah, yes, now I remember.
"Greetings, you as the last person on Earth have been granted a chance for a brand new life in another universe!" |
[WP] There is a tunnel through the mountain that's been there as long as anyone can remember. No one knows where it goes or who made it. They say the brave or foolish enter it and are never seen again. Today you have decided to enter the tunnel through the mountain. |
Hiraya’s thoughts as she entered the tunnel were of her mother’s face. Not that she ever saw her mother, but she willed the picture of the woman at their altar to appear in her mind. She and her father had kneeled in front of their altar before meals, and after praying to the Sto Niño statue, they always brush their thumbs over her mother’s picture, making the photo weather where they touched it. But in the last few days, her father was taken for hitting an officer, and faced death for it. And, Hiraya had kneeled alone to pray.
Hiraya brushed her thumb over the photo for one more time before carefully placing it in a small plastic envelope. She placed the envelope in her old, threadbare bag along with her paper, pencil, and all their remaining food. Nothing has been left from their little hut except for the Sto Niño statue, their only true treasure, which still sat on the piece of wood they called their altar.
Hiraya didn’t exactly know what to prepare for for her trip to the tunnel. Nobody who entered ever came out to tell of its secrets. All the villagers had known from its visitors were the voices calling them in, just as Papa told her that her mother had heard the same voice before she entered. She wondered if her trip will be similar, but so far noone was calling her and her head is free of other voices.
She thought of the stories about the tunnel as she walked to it. It is said a diwata made it to lure her tribute from the villagers in exchange for her protection, and used their bloods to revitalize the land, as the crops did grow stronger every time someone goes in. But others say that Apo Arayat was angered when soldiers punctured his face, and in retaliation, led the tunnel to go down, down, down until the earth swallowed its visitors whole.
As children, Hiraya and her friends tried to roll a mango in and peeked to see what will happen to the fruit. The mango vanished when they weren’t looking, or when their lids became heavy after waiting for hours. Nobody came for it, it just disappeared, just how all the pencils, dead leaves, and wood they threw in just vanished.
But the theory that its visitors chose to stay there, in that other world, made Hiraya angry the most.
Hiraya knows that those who entered didn’t just choose to stay there, no, she was sure they were trapped there and cannot find a way back. Because the alternative that her mother chose to abandon her, and her father is too much — that cannot be true. It can’t. Her mother must be trapped, and Hiraya plans to see her again and be stay in the world the tunnel leads to where they could be reunited again.
Now, she closed her eyes, and think only of her mother’s face on the photo she carries with her, concentrating with all her might to get the tunnel to draw a path to her mother. Hiraua stepped inside the dark cave, opened her eyes, and was blinded by the light. | It wasn’t that she thought death was waiting for her. Rather Casey wished beyond all reason that the tunnel held the answers she looked for.
“Are you sure you want to go up there?” Asked the old man behind the front counter.
“Yes.”
His concerned gaze lingered on me until the phone rang. Casey let out a shallow breath. Was she a fool to go? Her mind replayed a memory, the one that forced her here and to buy the ticket.
‘Come on honey’ her dad said ‘it will be an adventure. Just me and you. No kids. No bills. No police. Just us.’
Casey held her mother’s hand but gradually her mom let her go and followed her dad into the tunnel. The mountain air blew cold air and snow into Casey’s five year old face. A hiker found her lying in the bushes hours later and saved her from dying. Part of her wishes he hadn’t found her.
“Did you hear me?” Asks the old man, shaking my shoulder.
She looked to him confused and shook her head. The memory didn’t make sense after all these years and yet it was her clearest memory of her parents.
“I’ll take my ticket now.” Casey said
“Here.” He hands her a one way ticket up the mountain. “If you do this you won’t come back. Don’t you have loved ones?”
Casey laughed at his questions. “ No my parents walked through the tunnel fifteen years ago, my sister has lived in a mental hospital for ten years, my brother commit suicide three years ago, and my husband died last month of cancer”
Casey put the ticket into her pocket and walked to railroads where a small train awaited me. The only other person besides the train conductor was a man tall thin man and his Irish wolfhound.
On the train there were bottles of wine, scotch, whiskey and vodka along the far wall. The chairs were nice recliners nailed to the ground and the options for dinner ranged from a lobster to a giant steak and everything in between. The man and his dog sat at the bar and ordered a scotch and a steak.
Casey moved to one of the recliners and debated on sitting or going to the man. His demeanor appeared to be calm however his dog gave him away as he continued to nudge his hand with his muzzle. He’s got sever anxiety then or something like that.
“Come and sit.” He said signaling for the waiter to make a second scotch.
Her movements were out of body. They weren’t her own rather they were a response to his words. To even his semblance of calm. Her mind couldn’t even pretend to be anything less than a hurricane.
“Bad life huh?”
“Why do you say that?” Casey asked
“Nobody comes up here unless they want to die or because they need answers.”
“I need answers.”
“Bad life then.” He downs the last of his drink. “Bad life for me too. Tried leaving the dog but he just followed me here.”
After that they melted into a comfortable silence. Two strangers sharing a few hours together before they either meet their death or get answers.
The tunnel was made years ago as a science experiment with new types of drilling machines. What they didn’t plan for was the out come. Everyone on the crew didn’t come back after there last day working. The town shut it down right away and built a rail way going the long way out of town.
“All passengers off the train. We’re here.”
We step off as the conductor says “We won’t take you any further. We’re a mile away from the tunnel so just walk straight ahead and you’ll get there.”
The mile walk through the snow was tedious and her thick coat and several layers of clothing wasn’t keeping her warm.
All of the pain to get here finally paid off when she walked through the tunnel. And discovered for herself what was on the other side of the abyss. | |
[deleted] | [WP] You find an evil book but instead of randomly opening and reading a page that summons a very powerful spirit, you open the first page. | "For my dearest Amelia, for your eternal support. The author would also like to thank their editor, Lord Athronaxx of the Seven Hells, Ruler of the Eternal Planes of Torment, and occasional DJ."
I looked up and blinked for a moment.
"An *intro*?" Archimonde asked incredulously.
"Yeah, you know - dedications and thanking their editor and whatnot."
"Wait - their... editor? Let me see that." Archimonde reached for the book and I - very carefully - pulled it just out of reach.
"Hold your horses, I'm getting to the good stuff!"
He sighed and crossed his arms, then settled back. The candles flickered shadows across his chin, the rest of his face buried underneath his hood.
"I just don't want to have built the circle for nothing. That shit took a long time. I'm really hungry and you're all out of pizza rolls."
I just shook my head and began reading again.
"Chapter One: Ritual Preparation and Purification."
"Oh for the love- you don't need to read the Table of Contents, La Verre. Just get to the good stuff."
I set the book down on my lap and closed my eyes for a moment. I slowly counted to five - ten is just too long.
"Look, you said you wanted to join one of summonings, and you know I love to savor a really good evil book. Are you going to be this impatient the entire time or can I continue?"
Archimonde's mouth quirked in displeasure, but he shut up.
"Thank you. Chapter Two: Incantations, Curses, and Bewitchings - oooh I like that! Chapter Three: The Mortal Planes and Things Betwixt. Chapter Four-"
I stopped and glanced at Archimonde. His sneaker was squeaking on the linoleum as his knee bounced anxiously. I sighed, shook my head, then begrudgingly skipped ahead.
"Alright, let me find the summoning. Just... stop that. Please."
"Sweet!" He keenly snagged the book out of my hand and flipped through a couple more of the thick pages. He skimmed for a moment and pulled the book away as I tried to take it back. A moment later he slammed his finger down and exclaimed, "This one!"
I carefully pulled the book back and glanced down at the section he had pointed at; I groaned as I saw a thick smear his finger had left behind.
"Come on man, this thing cost me a *literal* arm and leg. Those aren't easy to come by. Dude down at the morgue is starting to get suspicious."
"Sorry, sorry - just, please? I really need this."
"You're sure? This thing is... well it's really, really potent. And any deals with their kind can lead to some unintended side effects."
"I don't care!" he nearly shouted. "Please?!"
"Quiet down! Maggie's asleep and hates it when I wake her up." I pinched the ridge of my nose and shook my head again. "Do you have your offering?"
He nodded excitedly and dug around in the Adidas duffle bag on the floor next to him. He pulled out something wrapped in butcher paper, hastily unwrapped it, and tossed the carcass of a cat into the middle of the circle.
"Jingle Jangles? Really?"
"Stupid cat. He just died a couple days ago, so I threw him in the freezer. Pretty lucky, right?" Archimonde grinned ear to ear.
With a grunt, I turned back to the book, held my hands palm-up and started reading the incantation. Archimonde opened his mouth to speak but I shook my head violently and he snapped shut once more. I closed my eyes and repeated the last line again.
As I repeated the last line once more, light filled my sight through my eyelids. As I opened them, the candleflames burst in harsh crimson light three feet in the air. I had a sinking feeling the fire alarms would go off and immediately feared I'd never catch the end of it if Maggie woke up. She had to start work early in the morning, and I had promised to keep it down.
In the center of the circle, a small bulbous creature sat and snacked on the stiff carcass of Mr Jingle Jangles. It went down in a couple of large, crunching bites - the damned thing didn't even chew.
It turned toward us and grinned a wide toothy grin. Bits of fur and what I think was an eyeball were stuck between the sharp, crooked teeth. I fought to keep my dinner down in my stomach where it belonged.
"Mortals, ye have summoned me. What is it that ye seek? A mountain of gold? A bottle of the nectar of the gods which never runs dry? Perhaps... a harem?" I grimaced at the last one. Damn demons are always so misogynistic.
I glanced at Archimonde and waved a hand toward the demon, careful not to break the barrier of the circle that kept it trapped.
"Yes!" Archimonde grinned wildly. "I wish I could play the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time all over again!" | "I love this book," I said, flipping through the pages. "It's so old and creepy."
"Yeah, it is," my friend said. "My grandfather gave it to me when I was a kid. He said it was an evil book."
"What? Why would he give you an evil book?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," my friend said. "He died when I was young and we never talked about it much."
"Well, what does the book say?" I asked.
"It's in Latin," my friend said. "I've tried translating it but the words just don't make sense."
"What did your grandfather say about the book?" I asked as we both sat down on his couch.
"He told me to be careful with it and not to let anyone read from it," my friend said as he opened the cover of the book and started to read a page aloud in Latin. "He told me that once someone reads from this book they will summon a powerful spirit that will grant them three wishes."
"Wow, that sounds cool!" I exclaimed as my friend closed the cover of the book again and placed it on his coffee table. "Can you read another page? Maybe something in English?"
My friend shook his head as he stood up from the couch, walked over to his kitchen counter, grabbed an apple off a plate, and took a bite out of it before walking back into his living room and sitting back down on the couch next to me. He looked at me with a smile on his face as he chewed on the apple before swallowing and saying, "No way! This thing is evil! Besides, you know what happens if you read from this thing!"
"Yeah, your grandfather told you that if you read from it, a powerful spirit will grant you three wishes," I said.
"Exactly!" my friend exclaimed. "I don't want to summon a powerful spirit."
"But that's what makes this book so cool," I said as I picked up the book and opened it to the first page. "If you read from this book, a powerful spirit will grant you three wishes."
"No!" my friend shouted as he jumped off the couch and grabbed the book out of my hands. "You can't read from this thing! It's evil! Besides, it's in Latin anyway."
I looked at my friend with a smile on my face as I looked down at the open page in the book and started to read aloud in English. "I wish for world peace."
"No!" my friend shouted again before running into his kitchen and slamming his hand down on his microwave oven's button that turned it on.
"I wish for world peace," I said again as I looked back down at the book and continued to read aloud. "I wish for world peace."
"No!" my friend shouted once more as he ran into his bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him.
"I wish for world peace," I said one last time as I read the last words on the page before closing the cover of the book and putting it back onto my friend's coffee table.
"What did you do?" my friend asked, opening the door to his bedroom and stepping out into his living room with a look of disbelief on his face. "How did you do that?"
"You told me not to read from this book because it was evil," I said with a smile on my face. "But you also told me that if someone reads from this book, a powerful spirit will grant them three wishes."
"Yeah, but how did you know what to say?" my friend asked as he walked over to his kitchen counter, picked up an apple off a plate, and took a bite out of it before walking back into his living room and sitting back down on his couch next to me.
"I read it in the book," I said with a smile on my face. "It's not evil at all. It's actually a very nice book."
"But how did you know what to say?" my friend asked again.
"You told me that once someone reads from this book they will summon a powerful spirit that will grant them three wishes," I said with a smile on my face. "So I just read out loud what was written in the book and it worked!" |
[WP] You’re the first astronaut to leave the atmosphere into space. The moment you do, a screen pops up before you, “Congratulations! You’ve left the tutorial zone.” | Yuri Gagarin stared at the... *thing* that had just appeared in front of him just after Vostok 1 exited Earth's atmosphere. Then he radioed the ground.
"I see something very strange."
"What is it?" asked Kamarin.
"A...it is like a television screen, without the rest of the television. There are words on it."
The radio was quiet for a long moment.
"Yuri, do you see anything else unusual?"
"No, just that--oh! It's going away now. Perhaps a side-effect of the altitude?"
"Possibly."
"It said, 'Congratulations! You've left the tutorial zone.'"
There was a pause, then Korolev spoke. "That's somewhat fitting, isn't it?"
"Yes," Yuri replied. "We've reached a new level, haven't we?"
"Keep us appraised of any other visual phenomena," instructed Kamarin.
"Worried that I'm hallucinating?"
"That would complicate the procedure."
"True," Yuri answered. "I believe it has cleared, but I will keep you appraised."
---
John Glenn frowned at the apparition before him. "Ah, Cape? This is Friendship 7. Over."
"Go ahead, 7."
"I'm seeing something odd. Ah, the words, 'Congratulations! You've left the tutorial zone.'"
Silence.
"Cape, do you read me? Over."
"We read you, 7--please repeat that?"
"I'm looking at--well, they're fading now, but there was a thing here that said, 'Congratulations! You've left the tutorial zone.' Over."
"Hang on a moment, 7."
"Roger."
Again, silence.
"Friend 7, this is Cape, over."
"I read you Cape."
"We checked the records, and it seems the Russians encountered something similar. No other such phenomena reported, and their cosmonaut Gagarin passed physical and mental evaluation afterwards with flying colors. Let us know if you see anything else like it, and we'll have the doc check you out when you land. Over."
"Roger Cape. Understood."
---
And so it went for years. It was just a part of space flight; Mercury, Mir, Soyuz, Apollo, the shuttles, everyone who went to Skylab and ISS, Artemis, Dragon... and now the Ares missions. Always the same message, always in the spacefarer's native language.
Upon the landing of Ares 1, its crew gasped and looked at each other. They'd all seen the same message appear when they stepped outside the lander: "WELCOME TO LEVEL 2" | Lonnie stared at the holo-screen, then at his archaic-looking smartphone. If he wasn't gluten-intolerant, he would have celebrated the occasion with enough beer to render a tall, fat man blackout drunk.
Lonnie of all people was picked by the Neo-American Scouting Corps to be this lucky candidate. This lucky candidate for the atmosphere. Lonnie- a 37-year old loser in every sense of the word. Weak. Stupid. Socially Awkward. No viable skills, no college degree, no military service, no friends and absolutely no luck with women... or other men for that matter. Oh... and a virgin who spent most of his life being infantilized by the people who raised him.
People picked Lonnie because of his undesirable interests- including his lowkey love for video games.
People picked Lonnie in hopes that they would be spared his presence.
Lonnie won't be missed, men will say.
Lonnie should have died a long time ago, his mother murmured in hushed whisper with the other women.
Worst of all... Lonnie creeps out the children. Somehow.
Lonnie stared at the screen once again. There was a button prompt on the bottom-right corner of the holo-screen.
After a few moments, he tapped the button. The holo screen disappeared. The holo-screen reappeared and changed into a screen showing his information, including his full name, age, birthdate and birthplace. Lonnie looked at the top-left corner. A Hispanic, blue-brown haired man with a square jawline, an unkempt beard and a pair of dark circles under sharp, grey almond-shaped eyes stared back with a vacant smile.
The layout of the screen resembled a driver's license. Lonnie tapped the info screen and it changed into a screen with a yes or no prompt.
Without any hesitation, Alfonso Claire Sanchez tapped the screen. It disappeared and a growing mass of stars filled its place. It converged into a blue mass and exploded into a supernova, whiting out Lonnie's vision. | |
[WP] Before you is an abomination Godslayer and Worldkiller, a demon of unfathomable power and incomprehensible motives. You think it looks oddly adorable despite this | While playing with her lego set Amy, age 8, accidentally created a symbol that called forth a horror from the outerworlds.
The Demon’s avatar materialized as a 9 lbs. “Egyptian Mau” variety house cat with extra-long Fennec like ears and a face that eerily resembled a feline version of David Hasselhoff.
“WHAT FOOL HAS CALLED FORTH THE GODSLAYER? DESTROYER OF WORLDS?”
“Hi.” Amy said.
“DO NOT WASTE MY TIME. I WILL DESTROY ALL YOU ARE AND ALL YOUR PATHETIC CILVIZATION WILL EVER BE. WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME.”
“Umm, I don’t know.”
The demon paused.
“I went to China.” Amy blurted out. “My dad is from there and he took me when I was little.”
“WAS IT FUN?”
“Yeah.”
A surprisingly long time expired before the demon spoke again.
“HOW DID YOU CREATE MY UNHOLY SYMBOL AND CALL ME FORTH INTO THIS PATHETIC WORLD?”
“I was playing lego and I made a standicorn. It’s like a unicorn but it stands.”
The demon looked at the unholy symbol. It is intricate and almost impossible to duplicate.
“THAT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE A… STANDICORN.”
“Have you seen a standicorn?”
“NO.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“DO NOT TEST MY PATIENCE MORTAL. I WILL END THE EXISTENCE OF YOUR ENTIRE…”
Amy began to pet the cat.
“You’re cute.”
“I CAN BE ANYTHING I WANT TO BE. I AM ALL POWERFUL AN…” The demon stopped howling when Amy began to scratch under the chin. The demon contentedly waited until Amy was done.
“BEGONE HUMAN MORTAL. I WILL END YOUR UNIVERSE AND RETURN TO THE DEMONIC ETHER OF THE OUTER WORLDS!”
“Can I come?”
“NO. I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU.”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE YOU CALLED ME FORTH.”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE I DESTROY ANY MORTALS THAT I COME IN CONTACT WITH.” The Demon’s fennec ears bounced and perked up each time it sounded angry.
“Oh. Why can’t I go with you?”
“THE DEMONIC ETHER IS A PLACE OF…” Amy stopped listening. The demon kept talking but it used a lot of words that didn’t make sense. She started playing with her legos again.
“AMY I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU.”
“No thanks.” She patted the cat on the head.
“ONLY BECAUSE YOU AMUSE ME, I WILL LET YOU LIVE BUT YOUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION WILL FALL AND CRUMBLE.”
“Then why can’t I go with you?”
“IF YOU GO WITH ME THEN YOU WILL BECOME HOST TO CHAOS. IT IS AN UNYIELDING FORCE OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT…” Amy lost interest again. She started to play with the pads on the demons paws.
“OKAY FINE YOU CAN COME.”
“Yay.” Amy cheered. Her body transformed into a Unicorn but with the ability to stand on two legs. Together with the cat, they entered the ether of Chaos.
“I don’t want to be mean.” The standicorn said.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO.” The cat responded. “BUT IT IS A LOT COOLER.” | I actually couldn’t believe my eyes, my partner looked terrified, but me I was cracking up.
I’m apart of the dimensional, capture, and containment office, or DCC for short. We basically dangers to the dimension and capture before the can do any harm, I’ve seen and captured thing 10 times my height and strength, not bad for a human right. So when me and my partner, class S officials, come across literally the cutest things my eyes have ever seen, and was told these creatures was classified as nothing but, absolute destruction, I was so surprised . No one on the planet seemed stressed, scared, or even worried, they were all just petting and giving love to these cute little creatures, my partner on the other hand wasn’t so excited. “What are so scared of, it’s adorable,” my partner now seemed scared and angry. I would assume they were used to cute things like these from the planet they’re from almost every creature is adorable, but these little take the cake take the cake. No one was in danger and no sense of commotion or distress, “alright you stay there and freak out I’m gonna pet the little creatures.” They grabbed my hand before I could get close, “UNLESS YOU WANT END UP LIKE EVERYONE IN SECTOR 7, YOU’LL STAY RIGHT HERE.” Sector 7 that was the entire section of the Galaxy that was destroyed by an unknown entity, “what do these little guys have anything to do with sector 7?” My partner slapped me across the face, of course you can’t see it your human. They were never really the type to discriminate against species, especially since that why 75% of our captives are captives.
They grabbed me again messaged base and we teleported by to HQ. While we were waiting for our boss, they looked worried. I didn’t know what they meant when they mentioned sector 7 or said I couldn’t understand because I’m human. Though now that we were back at base, I seemed to be thinking more clearly now for some reason. I started to remember the planet they came from and a lot of the creatures there, they are cute but they are kinda deadly, my partner fitting under those standers, I blushed slightly and went back to my train of thought. Not to mention a lot cute creatures do have mind control abilities, as well as the ability to trap people in hive minds. Is that what they were worried about, I would guess they would probably know about that than me, but what does any of it have to do with sector seven?
I could tell we were probably in for a lot, they usually talk to me about these things, especially with big missions. I may not know to much of what’s happening, but I do think I’m a little scared now too. | |
[WP] You've been marked by the Devil, but not because You made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil made a deal with You to help him out of a weird situation... Only that's a bit hard to explain to a group of demonhunters who are hunting you down for being marked, since this basically never happens. | "Alright then! So you expect us to believe that Mephistopheles herself begged you to use your bathroom- because she underestimated the power of Taco Bell?"
Abraham nodded vigorously. "Fine looking lady, about seven feet tall, wearing the most expensive clothes I've ever seen. She rapped at my door late into the evening as I made myself a sandwich and begged to use the bathroom. As in, she seemed about to kneel but that would've caused an accident."
"... I see..." Murmured Jacinto, his furrowed brow hidden by the shadow of his NFL cap. "Look here." He pointed at his right. A young bald man bearding a goatee and wearing a white shirt stared at the floor with squinted eyes. "If Keith hadn't been inexperienced enough to shoot you with a ticket-seeker you'd probably be treading the Stairway to Heaven right now."
Abraham gulped.
"Your mark," Jacinto pointed at Abraham's forehead. "It stinks to high heaven. Mephistopheles' deals usually mean she automatically takes your heaven-ticket, what you call your "soul". It breaks the first commandment "Thou shalt not pray to The Enemy-"
"Wait, so why she put me this?"
"Mimphy isn't known for her bright choices."
Keith snorted.
"... I see."
"Though her angelic rebellion did work wonders up there. Angels are as imperfect as humans, and while it wouldn't have costed Father to cast them down for their future actions, He yet leaves them the choice. Mimphy was the one to rally them up with chiff chaff about beauty and tyranny. In truth, all she wanted was a Father-imposed nap time- no Enchiladas for a millennium that resulted."
Keith couldn't resist more and let out a loud cackle.
"Will you shut up!" Scorned Jacinto. "Grief kid! We are in serious business in here!"
"Chief, all this shit sounds straight off Bobby-ring!" Keith said, wheezing, a tear treading down his cheek.
Jacinto sighed and brought a hand to his face. "Alright... just... Go. Enjoy your free Devil-favor. Who knows? You can probably even date her with that or something. May you go to heaven- Here give me your hand." He took Abraham's left hand and gave it a strong slap.
"What's that for?" He asked, examining the faint blue lines on the back of his hand.
"That mark says "Ain't touch mah shit." It'll keep my fellows away if you find any of them. Aight? Let's go Kid." And they kept walking down the street.
That fatidical afternoon wasn't the last time Mephistopheles destroyed that toilet. Perhaps the only sure way to true love is Taco Bell. Abraham, meanwhile? He never needed to use that mark.
Fin. | so there he was at work listlessly staring in to his phone. waiting for some poor soul to need the geek squad. another in an endless string of hours at work like Dave had existed through so many times before. little did he know, this day would be nothing like the others when all was said and done.
a customer appeared in Dave's vision seemingly and actually from nowhere, but Dave was not paying attention and assumed he did not see the customer approach. "wicked suit." Dave remarks. the man replies "it is nice isn't it?" spreading his jacket to reveal more to his admirer.
"on to the point, i require something, and believe you can assist"
"sure hope so, that's what they keep me here for."
the customer produces a box from behind the counter, a familiar beige color.
"wow that looks old. does it still work?"
"of course, i care for my tools a keep them in perfect working order."
sure enough he undid the clasps and lowered the keyboard revealing "Osbourne Computer Corporation" and tapped the power, the screen lit up. and it beeped a successful post.
"i see you've made some modifications, this never came with a battery and predates power on self testing," eyes wide "and it definitely could not support windows 10 and the internet."
"i keep up with the times."
"indeed. what specifically do you need help with?"
"i require knowledge on thinking machines, social media, and bitcoin."
"that's not typically what we do here, but i can instruct you in my free time."
"time and money are of no importance. i require knowledge."
"you could teach yourself, there are some places that could help."
Dave proceeds to show the stranger some sites but is having trouble with the small screen.
"man this is hard to see."
"allow me." the stranger opens an unnoticed lid containing a screen and revealing the laptops interior. "thank you." says Dave. look's like nothing special at a glance, "must be custom work" he thinks, but he continues working.
he begins with reddit setting up an account using the name the stranger gave Lou Star. joining several boards r/MachineLearning, r/crypto, and r/socialmedia to start.
Lou thanks Dave and begins paying for services, but once it comes time to hand over money or swipe. Lou hands over a business card, Dave thanks him and places it on the counter. prompting with "you can swipe your payment card here." indicating the machine.
Lou picks up the business card from the counter, swipes it, and places it back on the counter. Dave caught off guard, and thinking it was a joke, laughs.
then a receipt prints. Dave shocked goes through the motions and hands him his receipt. Lou turns to leave. Dave docent remember seeing Lou get the laptop before leaving and looks where it was. nothing there. he turns to call to Lou and make sure he got his machine. nothing there.
Dave pick's up the card, and reads: "Lucifer Morning Star" with an ornate symbol watermarked in it.
flash forward several months.
Dave is doing well he has most everything he wants, except piece and quiet, due to an official looking lady pounding at the door.
she would introduce herself as Ms. Ann from the IRS. but now Dave knows not to trust an introduction, anymore. she asks odd questions for an IRS agent more interested in his personality rather than money and income.
then she finally gets to it the money where did it come from? he requests a lawyer. she continues unabated. he demands a lawyer and she produces a knife and asks again.
"where does the money come from. you are just some random human, nothing special, but all the paperwork screams infernal. last time before i have to use necromancy to continue questioning you. where does the money come from."
Dave metaphorically spills his guts, telling "Ann" everything. even demonstrating using the card.
"SHIT!" she exclaims then speaks in to her shirt collar "it's just a human with a artifact from a deal. don't you think i know that! fine! standing down."
"Ann" left without another word. leaving Dave to get back to his morning routine. mumbling "fuckin' Helsings no manners at all." | |
[WP] You've been marked by the Devil, but not because You made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil made a deal with You to help him out of a weird situation... Only that's a bit hard to explain to a group of demonhunters who are hunting you down for being marked, since this basically never happens. | "So let me get this straight...", the judge rubbed his eyes, frustrated.
"Your client, Mr. Kraven-- the...", the judge looked at Kraven's client. "...The Devil, wanted to sue Mr. Collins' client, Ms. Nelson-- for custody over her unborn child?"
The lawyer, Mr. Kraven shifted on his chair a bit-- his collar and tie felt suffocating.
"Y--yes, Your Honor. That is indeed the case", he said nervously.
Sitting beside him was a figure unlike any other-- though looked human, he gave an unworldly presence. The Devil-- suited in all fine black silk suit, all tense as he twiddled his thumb.
"Your Honor, if I may say something?", the opposing lawyer Mr. Collins raised his hand-- the judge nodded to him.
"May I point out that in the event of Ms. Nelson birthing her child-- if it indeed is The Devil's child thus the Antichrist-- that would mean the end of the world as we know it?", the lawyer explained calmly.
Kraven glanced at his opposing-- on his breast pocket was a gold pin of unfamiliar symbol-- The Crest of Saints, the symbol of a group of demon hunters, as Kraven was made aware by his client.
"Your Honor, that is a big *IF* case. If the opposing is granted their demand, for Ms. Nelson's child to be aborted, that is the violation of my client's right ", Kraven added.
"So what are you suggesting, Mr. Kraven? That we should let this child be born first to find out if it is indeed your client's? In doing so, starting the apocalypse?", the judge snapped back, shutting Kraven down.
"Why didn't you have a paternity test done for Ms. Nelson?"
The Devil raised his hand to answer.
"Judge, sir-- that is impossible to do as..."
The judge stared dagger at The Devil, clearly not amused. Kraven raised his hand to stop his client from speaking up.
"Mr. Devil, I suggest you let your lawyer speak for you...", the judge replied coldly, clearly biased of the Lord of Hell.
"Y--Your Honor, I apologize. What my client was about to say was it's impossible to have a paternity test. He is not of a biological lifeform, thus has no DNA so to speak. The only way to know is to..."
"Is to let the child born, Your Honor", Collins interjected, his tone was calm knowing he had won the argument.
The judge leaned back, sighing, looking disgustingly at The Devil.
"Mr. Kraven, I'm giving you one last argument to fight your case. And just so we're clear...*a big IF* is not enough-- we are talking about the apocalypse here!"
Mr. Kraven's heart raced as he began to sweat, knowing he had nothing else to say, let alone something to win him the argument. From the beginning he knew this was an unwinnable case, yet he dared to take it on anyway. The Devil with his serpent tongue was really convincing after all...
"I...uh...", Mr. Kraven stuttered yet offered nothing.
The judge sighed, he raised his hand stopping Kraven before he suffered a heart attack.
"That is it then. Mr. Collins, I hereby order your client-- Ms. Nelson, to have her unborn child aborted. Dismissed"
Kraven sat back, defeated. He glanced his side, to The Devil still unmoving, his face stoic, his intention unreadable. On his other side, Mr. Collins stood thanking the judge-- his smirk was undeniable.
///
"Well, Kraven...that was not much of a fight. But I must say, I admire your courage", Collins chuckled at Kraven-- the latter was quiet and grim.
Collins offered his hand for a shake which Kraven took hesitantly. Slowly Collins leaned forward to Kraven's ear, quietly he whispered.
"You better watch out now. The Crest of Saints is watching you"
With that Collins walked away, leaving Kraven alone with The Devil.
"I...I'm sorry, Mr. Devil. I...I tried my best...", Kraven meekly turned to his client.
The Devil, looking to the distance sighed.
"It's...okay, Mr. Kraven. I suppose it was almost an impossible task I asked for you...in this day and age of law and human right", The Devil said, his tone flat.
Kraven looked at his client, surprised at the lack of wrath on The Devil's part.
As quick as the case was dropped, The Devil's flat demeanor disappeared, replaced by something sinister as he looked down at Kraven.
"You know, there is a special place in hell for lawyers. But for you, Mr. Kraven, having failed me so--", The Devil's figure seemed to tower the trembling Kraven.
"Expect the worst...", The Devil growled.
Kraven felt an immense pain as The Devil grasped his right forearm. Feeling intense heat as if branded, his sleeve burnt off under The Devil' hand, leaving a peculiar mark on Kraven's skin-- a pentagram, The Devil's Sigil.
"Special pass for *when* you go to hell", The Devil smirked in front of Kraven's face. "See you soon, Mr. Kraven"
A puff of black smoke arise as The Devil disappeared from sight, leaving Kraven alone in the courthouse hallway, holding his burnt arm, still trembling.
"I...I should've gone to business school instead", Kraven mutteted, dragging his heavy legs out.
r/HangryWritey
Edit: added a paragraph | "You don't have to point that thing at me. I'm not going to hurt you."
"Shutup." He replied. Jabbing the obsidian spear at me and turning to his companions. "What should we do with him? We've never had anything like this."
"Kill 'im." Said the short red haired one in a gruff voice.
"Let's see what he's up to then we can make a decision." Said the girl in the tight black dress, clicking her black fingernails together like how a cat would after a fresh pedicure. If anyone was a demon it was her.
Approaching me, she ran her hand under my chin, almost pricking my skin with her nails. "Give him an hour with me. I'll make the man talk."
"Sorry I'm taken."
Frowning she turned away. "Do whatever you want."
Brushing his hair to the side, the one with the spear raised his weapon and pointed it at me. "I'll aim for the heart if you tell me who you are."
"You don't have to point that at me. I'll tell you if you just ask." Muttering I added "Jeez why are all of you so rude."
"What did you just whisper?" He exclaimed "Some sort of spell?"
"Spell?" I said. "Ha. I much more powerful than spells."
"We'll see about that." Running towards me he attempted to stab me with his spear, a simple move to avoid when you have the blessing like I do.
"You really should be more polite. My friends don't like their agents being killed by lesser beings all the time. It's very inconvenient." I said reappearing at his side.
Slamming his head into my knee I turned to the others. "I'll give you ten seconds-" but the red haired one was already charging, welding a dagger in each hand.
I killed him quickly. He was annoying.
The woman approached me slowly. "You don't need to worry about me." She said, pulling he hair forward and brushing it back to reveal her true face. "The boss just sent me to see how your improvements have been coming along."
"You can tell him the new vision is great. And I'm open for another poker game anytime."
"I'll certainly let him know." She bent down to trace a crude star into the ground. "Now if you'll excuse me. I'm do at a party in an hour." She said bursting into flames before disappearing into nothing.
✧ ✧ ✧
**Thoughts?** | |
[WP] You've been marked by the Devil, but not because You made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil made a deal with You to help him out of a weird situation... Only that's a bit hard to explain to a group of demonhunters who are hunting you down for being marked, since this basically never happens. | "Alright then! So you expect us to believe that Mephistopheles herself begged you to use your bathroom- because she underestimated the power of Taco Bell?"
Abraham nodded vigorously. "Fine looking lady, about seven feet tall, wearing the most expensive clothes I've ever seen. She rapped at my door late into the evening as I made myself a sandwich and begged to use the bathroom. As in, she seemed about to kneel but that would've caused an accident."
"... I see..." Murmured Jacinto, his furrowed brow hidden by the shadow of his NFL cap. "Look here." He pointed at his right. A young bald man bearding a goatee and wearing a white shirt stared at the floor with squinted eyes. "If Keith hadn't been inexperienced enough to shoot you with a ticket-seeker you'd probably be treading the Stairway to Heaven right now."
Abraham gulped.
"Your mark," Jacinto pointed at Abraham's forehead. "It stinks to high heaven. Mephistopheles' deals usually mean she automatically takes your heaven-ticket, what you call your "soul". It breaks the first commandment "Thou shalt not pray to The Enemy-"
"Wait, so why she put me this?"
"Mimphy isn't known for her bright choices."
Keith snorted.
"... I see."
"Though her angelic rebellion did work wonders up there. Angels are as imperfect as humans, and while it wouldn't have costed Father to cast them down for their future actions, He yet leaves them the choice. Mimphy was the one to rally them up with chiff chaff about beauty and tyranny. In truth, all she wanted was a Father-imposed nap time- no Enchiladas for a millennium that resulted."
Keith couldn't resist more and let out a loud cackle.
"Will you shut up!" Scorned Jacinto. "Grief kid! We are in serious business in here!"
"Chief, all this shit sounds straight off Bobby-ring!" Keith said, wheezing, a tear treading down his cheek.
Jacinto sighed and brought a hand to his face. "Alright... just... Go. Enjoy your free Devil-favor. Who knows? You can probably even date her with that or something. May you go to heaven- Here give me your hand." He took Abraham's left hand and gave it a strong slap.
"What's that for?" He asked, examining the faint blue lines on the back of his hand.
"That mark says "Ain't touch mah shit." It'll keep my fellows away if you find any of them. Aight? Let's go Kid." And they kept walking down the street.
That fatidical afternoon wasn't the last time Mephistopheles destroyed that toilet. Perhaps the only sure way to true love is Taco Bell. Abraham, meanwhile? He never needed to use that mark.
Fin. | "You don't have to point that thing at me. I'm not going to hurt you."
"Shutup." He replied. Jabbing the obsidian spear at me and turning to his companions. "What should we do with him? We've never had anything like this."
"Kill 'im." Said the short red haired one in a gruff voice.
"Let's see what he's up to then we can make a decision." Said the girl in the tight black dress, clicking her black fingernails together like how a cat would after a fresh pedicure. If anyone was a demon it was her.
Approaching me, she ran her hand under my chin, almost pricking my skin with her nails. "Give him an hour with me. I'll make the man talk."
"Sorry I'm taken."
Frowning she turned away. "Do whatever you want."
Brushing his hair to the side, the one with the spear raised his weapon and pointed it at me. "I'll aim for the heart if you tell me who you are."
"You don't have to point that at me. I'll tell you if you just ask." Muttering I added "Jeez why are all of you so rude."
"What did you just whisper?" He exclaimed "Some sort of spell?"
"Spell?" I said. "Ha. I much more powerful than spells."
"We'll see about that." Running towards me he attempted to stab me with his spear, a simple move to avoid when you have the blessing like I do.
"You really should be more polite. My friends don't like their agents being killed by lesser beings all the time. It's very inconvenient." I said reappearing at his side.
Slamming his head into my knee I turned to the others. "I'll give you ten seconds-" but the red haired one was already charging, welding a dagger in each hand.
I killed him quickly. He was annoying.
The woman approached me slowly. "You don't need to worry about me." She said, pulling he hair forward and brushing it back to reveal her true face. "The boss just sent me to see how your improvements have been coming along."
"You can tell him the new vision is great. And I'm open for another poker game anytime."
"I'll certainly let him know." She bent down to trace a crude star into the ground. "Now if you'll excuse me. I'm do at a party in an hour." She said bursting into flames before disappearing into nothing.
✧ ✧ ✧
**Thoughts?** | |
[WP] You've been marked by the Devil, but not because You made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil made a deal with You to help him out of a weird situation... Only that's a bit hard to explain to a group of demonhunters who are hunting you down for being marked, since this basically never happens. | "Alright then! So you expect us to believe that Mephistopheles herself begged you to use your bathroom- because she underestimated the power of Taco Bell?"
Abraham nodded vigorously. "Fine looking lady, about seven feet tall, wearing the most expensive clothes I've ever seen. She rapped at my door late into the evening as I made myself a sandwich and begged to use the bathroom. As in, she seemed about to kneel but that would've caused an accident."
"... I see..." Murmured Jacinto, his furrowed brow hidden by the shadow of his NFL cap. "Look here." He pointed at his right. A young bald man bearding a goatee and wearing a white shirt stared at the floor with squinted eyes. "If Keith hadn't been inexperienced enough to shoot you with a ticket-seeker you'd probably be treading the Stairway to Heaven right now."
Abraham gulped.
"Your mark," Jacinto pointed at Abraham's forehead. "It stinks to high heaven. Mephistopheles' deals usually mean she automatically takes your heaven-ticket, what you call your "soul". It breaks the first commandment "Thou shalt not pray to The Enemy-"
"Wait, so why she put me this?"
"Mimphy isn't known for her bright choices."
Keith snorted.
"... I see."
"Though her angelic rebellion did work wonders up there. Angels are as imperfect as humans, and while it wouldn't have costed Father to cast them down for their future actions, He yet leaves them the choice. Mimphy was the one to rally them up with chiff chaff about beauty and tyranny. In truth, all she wanted was a Father-imposed nap time- no Enchiladas for a millennium that resulted."
Keith couldn't resist more and let out a loud cackle.
"Will you shut up!" Scorned Jacinto. "Grief kid! We are in serious business in here!"
"Chief, all this shit sounds straight off Bobby-ring!" Keith said, wheezing, a tear treading down his cheek.
Jacinto sighed and brought a hand to his face. "Alright... just... Go. Enjoy your free Devil-favor. Who knows? You can probably even date her with that or something. May you go to heaven- Here give me your hand." He took Abraham's left hand and gave it a strong slap.
"What's that for?" He asked, examining the faint blue lines on the back of his hand.
"That mark says "Ain't touch mah shit." It'll keep my fellows away if you find any of them. Aight? Let's go Kid." And they kept walking down the street.
That fatidical afternoon wasn't the last time Mephistopheles destroyed that toilet. Perhaps the only sure way to true love is Taco Bell. Abraham, meanwhile? He never needed to use that mark.
Fin. | "So let me get this straight...", the judge rubbed his eyes, frustrated.
"Your client, Mr. Kraven-- the...", the judge looked at Kraven's client. "...The Devil, wanted to sue Mr. Collins' client, Ms. Nelson-- for custody over her unborn child?"
The lawyer, Mr. Kraven shifted on his chair a bit-- his collar and tie felt suffocating.
"Y--yes, Your Honor. That is indeed the case", he said nervously.
Sitting beside him was a figure unlike any other-- though looked human, he gave an unworldly presence. The Devil-- suited in all fine black silk suit, all tense as he twiddled his thumb.
"Your Honor, if I may say something?", the opposing lawyer Mr. Collins raised his hand-- the judge nodded to him.
"May I point out that in the event of Ms. Nelson birthing her child-- if it indeed is The Devil's child thus the Antichrist-- that would mean the end of the world as we know it?", the lawyer explained calmly.
Kraven glanced at his opposing-- on his breast pocket was a gold pin of unfamiliar symbol-- The Crest of Saints, the symbol of a group of demon hunters, as Kraven was made aware by his client.
"Your Honor, that is a big *IF* case. If the opposing is granted their demand, for Ms. Nelson's child to be aborted, that is the violation of my client's right ", Kraven added.
"So what are you suggesting, Mr. Kraven? That we should let this child be born first to find out if it is indeed your client's? In doing so, starting the apocalypse?", the judge snapped back, shutting Kraven down.
"Why didn't you have a paternity test done for Ms. Nelson?"
The Devil raised his hand to answer.
"Judge, sir-- that is impossible to do as..."
The judge stared dagger at The Devil, clearly not amused. Kraven raised his hand to stop his client from speaking up.
"Mr. Devil, I suggest you let your lawyer speak for you...", the judge replied coldly, clearly biased of the Lord of Hell.
"Y--Your Honor, I apologize. What my client was about to say was it's impossible to have a paternity test. He is not of a biological lifeform, thus has no DNA so to speak. The only way to know is to..."
"Is to let the child born, Your Honor", Collins interjected, his tone was calm knowing he had won the argument.
The judge leaned back, sighing, looking disgustingly at The Devil.
"Mr. Kraven, I'm giving you one last argument to fight your case. And just so we're clear...*a big IF* is not enough-- we are talking about the apocalypse here!"
Mr. Kraven's heart raced as he began to sweat, knowing he had nothing else to say, let alone something to win him the argument. From the beginning he knew this was an unwinnable case, yet he dared to take it on anyway. The Devil with his serpent tongue was really convincing after all...
"I...uh...", Mr. Kraven stuttered yet offered nothing.
The judge sighed, he raised his hand stopping Kraven before he suffered a heart attack.
"That is it then. Mr. Collins, I hereby order your client-- Ms. Nelson, to have her unborn child aborted. Dismissed"
Kraven sat back, defeated. He glanced his side, to The Devil still unmoving, his face stoic, his intention unreadable. On his other side, Mr. Collins stood thanking the judge-- his smirk was undeniable.
///
"Well, Kraven...that was not much of a fight. But I must say, I admire your courage", Collins chuckled at Kraven-- the latter was quiet and grim.
Collins offered his hand for a shake which Kraven took hesitantly. Slowly Collins leaned forward to Kraven's ear, quietly he whispered.
"You better watch out now. The Crest of Saints is watching you"
With that Collins walked away, leaving Kraven alone with The Devil.
"I...I'm sorry, Mr. Devil. I...I tried my best...", Kraven meekly turned to his client.
The Devil, looking to the distance sighed.
"It's...okay, Mr. Kraven. I suppose it was almost an impossible task I asked for you...in this day and age of law and human right", The Devil said, his tone flat.
Kraven looked at his client, surprised at the lack of wrath on The Devil's part.
As quick as the case was dropped, The Devil's flat demeanor disappeared, replaced by something sinister as he looked down at Kraven.
"You know, there is a special place in hell for lawyers. But for you, Mr. Kraven, having failed me so--", The Devil's figure seemed to tower the trembling Kraven.
"Expect the worst...", The Devil growled.
Kraven felt an immense pain as The Devil grasped his right forearm. Feeling intense heat as if branded, his sleeve burnt off under The Devil' hand, leaving a peculiar mark on Kraven's skin-- a pentagram, The Devil's Sigil.
"Special pass for *when* you go to hell", The Devil smirked in front of Kraven's face. "See you soon, Mr. Kraven"
A puff of black smoke arise as The Devil disappeared from sight, leaving Kraven alone in the courthouse hallway, holding his burnt arm, still trembling.
"I...I should've gone to business school instead", Kraven mutteted, dragging his heavy legs out.
r/HangryWritey
Edit: added a paragraph | |
[WP] Humans have assigned attributes when their 18 years of age according to their personalities and capabilities. The four attributes known to man are Fire, Earth, Water and Air. You, a gentle soul that never harmed no one has the attribute of Destruction | "Merlita!" The loud voice was accompanied by a banging on my bedroom door. "Merlita! Wake up already! You're going to be late!"
I groaned and rolled over in my bed, putting my pillow over my head.
"Just five more minutes," I grumbled under my breath. But that didn't stop my family.
My door banged open, and I felt three small bodies hit mine, knobby knees and fingers digging into me as my siblings swarmed my bed.
"Come, on Merit!" The voice of my little sister was soft and pleading as she pulled at my pillow.
"Yeah, Merit!" My twin brothers spoke in unison, jostling me and shaking me as they tried to pull me out of bed. I peaked out from under my pillow, and found myself staring straight into Rubalee's emerald eyes.
"Get UP!" She cried, pulling at my pillow again. The twins concurred by bouncing on my back.
I groaned, lifting my head and seeing my mother in my doorway, her hands on her hips. An older version of Rubalee, she was slightly plump with permanent laugh lines. Her auburn curls cascaded down her back, standing out against her brown and green Earth Attribute Formal Dress.
Wait... Formal Dress? My eyes widened as I realized what this meant. The Attribute Ceremony!
Mom smiled at me and clapped her hands together.
"Ok, my little monkeys!" She said. "I think Merlita gets it. Now get off her so she can get up!"
I smiled, reaching out to tousle the boys hair as they climbed off me, chattering in their secret language to each other. They were the best of friends, inseparable.
Once I was alone in my room again, and mom had shut the door, I quickly got up and went into my bathroom. I grabbed my brush and started tackling my hair, looking at myself in the mirror.
I was the only one of my family that didn't look like I was cut out of the same mold. Tall and skinny, my hair was black instead of auburn, my eyes a silvery colour with specks of gold instead of the sparkling emerald the rest of my family shared.
I guess it only made sense, since I was adopted.
That's why the Attribute Ceremony meant so much to me. I was finally going to find the place where I belonged.
I frowned as I tried to tame my hair. Even though it was straight as a stick, it always had a mind of it's own. Finally wrestling my thick mane into a ponytail, I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then hurried back into my room.
I opened my closet and stared reverently at the white, silver, and gold dress. Reaching out one hand, I gently touched it, letting the silky fabric run through my fingers.
I rarely wore dresses. But this one was beautiful.
Floor length, with a cinched waist and flowing skirt, its sleeves had a slit that would show off my arms and ended in a cuff at each wrist. It's bodice had gold and silver embroidery looping and swirling across it, and the back of the bodice dipped down to the middle of my back.
Everyone wore white for their Attribute Ceremony, but each outfit was designed specifically for them. And mine was an elegant creation like none I had ever seen before.
I knew I wouldn't be able to eat any breakfast; my stomach was already tied in knots.
Slipping out of my pajamas, I pulled the dress on and stepped into the matching sandals. The dress fit me perfectly, settling to my body just right.
I looked in my floor length mirror on the back of my closet door and smiled. I actually looked like I had curves.
Hurrying downstairs, I slipped into the kitchen. Instantly, five pairs of eyes looked at me and the room went silent. My dad stood up from the table, the breakfast in front of him forgotten as he crossed the room to hug me tightly.
"You look beautiful, Merlita," he said, tears in his eyes as he looked at me. I smiled at him, blinking tears out of my own eyes.
"Thanks, Da," I whispered, my voice choked up. My mother hustled up and shooed us over to the table. I sat down, and she clucked her tongue, pulling my hair out of it's ponytail and fussing with it.
Rubalee reached out jam covered fingers to touch my dress, and mom slapped her hand away.
"Don't even think it, Rubalee," she scolded gently, the smile in her voice soothing away any hurt feelings. Rubalee popped her thumb in her mouth, watching us, and I smiled at her.
"Excited, Merit?" Jericon asked me, spraying toast crumbs everywhere.
"Yeah, excited?" Chodrai echoed, sporting a milk moustache.
I smiled, too nervous to speak.
The Attribute Ceremony would determine the rest of my life. Everything from my job, to where I lived, even who I married. Everything was determined by my Attribute.
My parents were Earth attributes. Da was a farmer, mom a builder.
But there was also Air, Fire, and Water.
Fire were the soldiers, the police. I hoped I didn't get that Attribute. They were the ones who constantly put their lives in danger.
Air was the leaders, the government. That didn't really appeal to me either. I didn't like being in the centre of the publics eye.
Water would be ok, though. They were the healers, the teachers, the caregivers. I liked kids, and I liked taking care of people.
But the worst of all would to be declared a non-Attribute. These were the people who wasn't chosen by any Attribute. They were the ones who lived on the edge of the community, the ones who held the jobs no Attributed would have.
Garbage men, street cleaners, grave diggers...
All important, all essential. But all looked down upon in our society.
Please, Goddess, don't let me be a non-Attribute. Anything but that. | "Hmm, that makes sense." I muttered as I recieved my designation.
It was just a small innocuous slip of paper, a very pretty design with whirling flames and and sparkling embers, but not much to write home about on its own.
Some people take a lot of stock in these things, the line at the reception festival was enough testament to that. There's a lot of pomp and ceremony wrapped around the event, and it goes back for ages, but these days it tells you precious little about yourself.
The days of warriors and healers is long last past, and these little slips of papers are only really good for first date conversations.
Though, I imagine this would have been life changing in a different time.
I'm not that big of a guy, not exactly scrawny but I'm still too short for most sports. I'm hardly imposing.
So, I mostly stick to my books.
But in the ancient times, I'd have been made a warrior almost assuredly. They say the quiet fires make good generals and officers. Poor soldiers, but good leaders.
I'll never know that for sure. I have classes starting in the fall so I can become an interpreter.
It's a sweet tradition, and from the smiles on everyone's faces they think so too.
But it's not much of a milestone anymore.
In a week I'll still be the same old me, you see. | |
[WP] Humans have assigned attributes when their 18 years of age according to their personalities and capabilities. The four attributes known to man are Fire, Earth, Water and Air. You, a gentle soul that never harmed no one has the attribute of Destruction | Everyone has their own kind, their own home and safety. There are four cities: one for fire; one for earth; one for water and finally one for air. The fire neighbourhood was deep underground where it's unable to set fire to those above. It is black stone with beautiful buildings and statues as you go though. The earth neighbourhood is filled with forests and fields that smell like summer and happy memories. Waters an underwater city with mermaids, sharks and coral houses of every colour. And finally airs in the sky. You could see them fly from cloud to cloud every so often- it's the only one I've been unable to sneak into and visit.
It's lonely wandering round the cities and seeing everyone jigsaw together in their unique and beautiful homes. I was a secret affair between a fire woman and an earth man. They were both rebellious and were later arrested- I think. I was left to fend for myself, feeding on anything I could find. You may wonder what my attribute is, fire or earth. Well sadly it's neither.
I am destruction.
Everything I touch turns to chaos. When I snuck into earth for the first time I started picking flowers in their field. They were yellow sunflowers and I only wanted a few. The petals began to fall and the flowers died shortly after I picked them. I tried to go into the water city but after about 2 minutes I started choking. I feel as though my lungs collapsed in on themselves leaving me with no other choice than to retreat back to the surface. I went to fire and tried to touch the glowing flames, my hands turned red and stung for weeks after. My skin turned almost charcoal and no one else was even hurt. I even tried to fly and landed on my face. I'm pathetic really. I just wish I could fit in without destroying everything. | "Hmm, that makes sense." I muttered as I recieved my designation.
It was just a small innocuous slip of paper, a very pretty design with whirling flames and and sparkling embers, but not much to write home about on its own.
Some people take a lot of stock in these things, the line at the reception festival was enough testament to that. There's a lot of pomp and ceremony wrapped around the event, and it goes back for ages, but these days it tells you precious little about yourself.
The days of warriors and healers is long last past, and these little slips of papers are only really good for first date conversations.
Though, I imagine this would have been life changing in a different time.
I'm not that big of a guy, not exactly scrawny but I'm still too short for most sports. I'm hardly imposing.
So, I mostly stick to my books.
But in the ancient times, I'd have been made a warrior almost assuredly. They say the quiet fires make good generals and officers. Poor soldiers, but good leaders.
I'll never know that for sure. I have classes starting in the fall so I can become an interpreter.
It's a sweet tradition, and from the smiles on everyone's faces they think so too.
But it's not much of a milestone anymore.
In a week I'll still be the same old me, you see. | |
[WP] As a child, you spent many summers at a relative’s cabin, playing with a girl in the woods. You realized she was imaginary years later. You return to the cabin as an adult, finding her shoes where neither you or your relative could’ve put them. Things get stranger as you continue. | **Runners**
It was a warm, windless August afternoon in the Adirondacks. Just like it always was when I was young and my family would spend a couple of summer weeks at the cabin. Turning off of the highway onto the ribbon of faded asphalt that ran through the village was like going back in time, but the feeling was spoiled immediately by a new strip mall and its shiny monstrosity of a BP gas station, Whole Foods store, cake pop store, and an upscale Vietnamese restaurant. *‘Viet NOM?’ get real*, I thought as I sped past.
The rutted gravel track from that road to the cabin was the same as ever, at least. I drove slowly through the dappled shadows, enjoying the smell of the woods and the sounds of small birds through my open windows. The cabin itself was a bit of a letdown.
Seen for the first time in ages, it seemed so much smaller than I remembered. Clearly, dad hadn’t taken care of it for several years.I parked my car and slumped back in disappointment.
When I was a kid, the cabin had been the *coolest*. Looking at it with new eyes and a lot more life experience, It wasn’t very cool at all. Honestly, it was kind of crappy.
My sister and I had finally sold all of our parents’ other properties and belongings; the cabin was all that was left. I wished now that I’d just sold it and never looked back, like Anita had wanted. I kicked my way through waist-high meadow grass and unlocked the door. It was dim and musty-smelling inside. I pushed open the decorative curtains, one of mom’s few contributions to the place, and walked through the unused family room and the short hallway to the bathroom. It had been a long drive.
Next, I walked on down the hall to the small room where Anita and I had slept on those family trips. The wood paneling, 1950’s-era bunk bed and dresser, and wooden camp chairs were still there, more worn than I had expected. On a half-remembered impulse, I tapped the floorboard at the foot of the bunks with my boot. *Bump, bump, bump*, bonk. That was the one.
I don't know what I expected to find in my old hiding spot. Vintage Star Wars figures, an antique musket ball, a hawk feather, all the things a young boy would treasure. I was not prepared for the shoes.
I felt dizzy and sat down hard on the bare wood floor. These were the shoes that Ella would wear. Her parents had a cabin nearby and always seemed to be there at the same time as us. I’d run away from bossy Anita whenever I could and roam the woods and streams with Ella. She was cool, and my age, and wore white Vans with colorful paint splatters all over them. The shoes in my spot weren’t just *like* hers, they *were* hers.
But Ella was just a friend I’d made up. That’s what everybody told me after I mentioned her, after being gone a little too long one day. Dad pointed out that there were no other cabins for miles around, and Anita teased me mercilessly. “Where’s your *girl*friend, did she go back to Canada?” I rolled my eyes just thinking about it. I never saw Ella after that day, and I guessed they were right.
Until… now? I’d never told anybody what Ella wore, so this couldn’t be another stupid Anita joke. I reached down and picked the shoes up. They seemed clean, not like something that had been there a long time. I heard a quiet voice say, “Put them on.” I jumped and dropped the shoes, and looked around frantically. Nobody. I searched the cabin and ran around the outside, too. Nobody was there, or in the attic when I poked my head up and shined my phone around.
I went back to the shoes and picked them up. “Try walking in my shoes,” Ella whispered and giggled, the lines to an old song I’d listened to with her so long ago. It was her voice, I had no doubt now. I just couldn’t see her. I felt foolish and delusional, but something in her tone made me forget all that. It felt good to kick off my hiking boots, and unbelievably, the Vans fit me perfectly. I stomped around on the floorboards to see if they were real and laughed to myself.
A gust of wind struck the side of the cabin. Interrupted, I looked out the window to see that it was much later in the day than I’d realized. “Come out, come out,” Ella whispered, and I did.
The path to the stream was overgrown with vines and briars, but I passed through them faster than I’d ever run the path when I was a kid. I leaped over the stepping stones and up the far bank, and ran after the clear, high sound of Ella’s laughter, up and down ridges and through stands of birch and tamarack, until I realized my vision was going dim.
I stood stooped over at the edge of a little clearing, hands on my knees, panting and sweating. Soon, I realized that my vision hadn’t gone dim--the sun had gone completely down. Moonlight shone on the meadow, limning the tall grass and the forest trees with silver. “Ella, where are you?” I asked.
“Up here,” came her whispered answer. I stood and looked around the clearing for the first time. At its center, a graceful flight of white wooden steps ascended from the forest floor. They ended abruptly about 30 feet up, attached to nothing. “Don’t think twice, just come up, come up, come up,” Ella chanted from somewhere I couldn’t see.
My heart raced. Something was different. The moonlight was too bright, the woods around too dark. The stair runners shimmered, as if something moved just under their shiny surface. They called to me--the stairs, Ella, I didn’t know who or how. I didn’t know how my feet started moving when I didn’t want them to, or why I couldn’t pull back once I started climbing. | Little pink beads shine in the light filtering through the waterfall. This cave, if you could even call it that, was my favorite hiding place when I was a child. It was a perfect oval, with walls smooth to the touch and a veil of flower vines across the entrance. Anna and I would leave our shoes on the little ledge, just out of reach of the mist from the waterfall. She said that the spirits in the caves don't like shoes since they separate us from nature. We would walk and explore caverns with my little flashlight until Anna would remind me it was time to go home. I spent many years here until my grandparents died and my aunt banned the family from the cabin property. She lived here until they found her, sitting in her rocking chair on the porch, Her eyes were staring into the forest, where the little waterfall sits. Her will was a jumbled mess of letters that were somehow considered a legal will. I don't understand how the rambling thoughts of a woman written down in her final days counts but hey, I am not a lawyer so what do I know?
I drove up the winding road with the overgrown trees and little rock structures all around. The air felt heavy, like nature itself was waiting for something or someone to return. I pulled up infront of the little cabin which looked just as I remembered it, round logs with a red pitched roof and a red front door. I sat on the porch, unable to go in. I took out my letter, reading it for the hundreth time. As I scaned it, I noticed that at the bottom were two words, bareley legible, that weren't there before. It looked like smudged crayon. It said:
Hi
\-Anna
Anna? She wasn't real. Just my imaginary friend. A companion for a lonely little girl who always wanted a sister. I jumped to my feet, the air was feeling dense. I ran to my little cave, behind the waterfall. Then I saw them, the little pink shoes. They looked brand new.
"Hello Hannah" I heard behind me.
I spun and saw Anna, speaking to me with the voice of a grown woman in the body of a little girl.
"How do you know my name?!" I asked as I shook from head to toe.
"Now, now is that how you greet an old friend? I have missed you Hannah. You left without saying good bye. I had to find a way to bring you back." She said with a soft smile.
"What are you?" I felt chills running down my spine and every instinct pled for me to run
"Hannah, don't you remember? I am the forest. Maybe if I grew up a bit you wouldn't be so scared."
I watched in horror as she began to grow in a shimmering light. I ran as fast as I could, dodging trees while hearing her giggle behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see the light following. Then I felt my ankle bend as I stepped on a rock. I fell hard with my head hitting a branch or stone that littered the ground. The last thing I saw as I felt darkness swirling in my brain was Anna's face as she said, "I am the voice of the forest. We have missed you". | |
[WP] You are able to see the monetary value of any object. One day, you come across a pigeon valued at a billion dollars. | It could be perceived as a blessing, but it could also be perceived as a curse. I was born with the innate ability to perceive monetary value of any object I choose. It doesn't appear as a number above someone's head, like that one short story about the number of lies people have told in their lives. No, no, this was different. It was like a different sense in my gut that somehow connects with the financial fabric of society, an unnatural boon that was guaranteed to lead me to at least a comfortable life, if not a happy one. I kept this a secret, even from those I held dear, but I can never choose to ignore my sixth sense. Day by day, I kept making the right decisions, and once I could legally dabble in the stock market, I knew that there was nothing stopping me from being as rich as I could possibly want.
And yet, I wondered every day: is this what I deserve? The feeling got to me slowly, and as I continued to make all the right decisions, I could only feel some sense of survivor's guilt. 2008 came and went and I came out unscathed. My finances were intact, but my conscience barely so. It took a few years for it to finally overcome me. I decided: no more. One final monetary decision to guarantee a lifelong stream of returns, and I shall pursue other merriments instead. I designed an trading bot that should provide optimal returns for the rest of life, and left it running on a private server at my basement. I resigned from my farce of a day job at the shipping company, and boarded a train to the heart of the capital, only wishing for a brief stay at a luxury hotel, sleeping amongst the clouds.
The first-class cabin was decked floor to ceiling with technical accessibility and sheer comfort. I was enthralled by what money could buy. As the saying goes, money can't make you happy, but it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than in a bicycle. At the same time, this comfort was unsettling. I just made a huge life decision to live normally; should comfort be a perpetual guarantee? As my insecurities multiplied, the train made a brief stop at the next station, and I looked outside. Metal bench painted red: $23. Red fire alarm: $68. Groceries held by a woman and her young child: $121. A restaurant in the distance serving some local brew: $5 for the beer, about $1.2mil for the restaurant. Pigeon: 1 billion dollars.
1 billion? I had to look away and back again, but in my heart I knew it to be true. That nondescript bird, the casual sky-pooper, was worth a billion dollars. Uncertainty plagued me as of that very moment. I never wanted to act on my abilities again, but this pigeon, it tempts me. How could a mere bird be worth anything of value?
I stepped out of the train. It wasn't my stop, but I couldn't be bothered as of that point. I ran towards the urban flyer, and the bird's eyes stared at me as if I was privy to some unknown secret. Needless to say, it started to fly away. "Wait!" I shouted, unaware of the fact that I was running after a bird in public. The bird flew away, and my innate sense of appraisal slowly faded with every meter of distance between us. I had gone out of my comfort zone, and I got nothing as a result. Even then, I could feel the bird's value dropping every so slightly. It was a gut feeling of a gut feeling, but I just knew it. A bird was worth billion dollars, and at that point, I was convinced I would never know why.
As I ran back to the train, it started to leave. My stuff was inside! I couldn't afford to leave. I gave notice to the rail authorities to inform them that I have misplaced a large portion of my belongings. Fortunately, I still had my wallet. I bought another pair of tickets, but I had to wait for another 2 hours. I groaned and sat on the $23 bench. If time is money, then there was no way that pigeon was worth anything at all.
Social media was in uproar. Twitter was going wilder than they usually do. The CEO of the railway company was giving a PSA at the station while I was browsing my phone and looking at the horror of what could have happened to me. The train I was on derailed on a bend and slammed against a train travelling beside it. Preliminary analysis revealed poor maintenance to be the cause. 30 confirmed dead. At least 80 injured. It was a moment where every national website became a gallery of gore and unsettling imagery. The true gravity of the situation failed to hit me until I realized. It wasn't the pigeon that was worth a billion dollars; it was me. It was the true value I had in my existence and abilities. It was the value I felt was fair to myself. If I didn't chase that filthy bird, I would never have survived.
But was I only worth a billion? I know that human life isn't priceless, but surely I had to have been worth more? But I didn't deserve anything higher. I was miserable, and too comfortable. Nothing was difficult, and I was merely alive. Narcissism was just the other side of insecurity, and there is no value I could place on myself that made sense in any capacity. My life isn't valued at infinity, but perhaps it can be described as undefined. For the moment, I was a pigeon, and for a moment, I was worth a billion. | "What's so special about this pigeon?" the hunter asked.
I shrugged, careful not to dislodge my mask. "Don't know. My client just wants it alive. An unharmed."
The hunter handed over the cage. "Here you go. This one's the right one."
I nodded. "I'll get it verified. Once we know for sure, we'll transfer the money to your bank account."
The greatest hunter in the world bristled. I could tell what he wanted to say - that he didn't make mistakes - but the time for that was past.
Truthfully, the first time he'd tried to pass off another pigeon as this one, I'd steadfastly denied it. That had been a fun fifteen minutes.
Finally, after four failed attempts to pass off fakes, he'd gotten to work. There was a reason this man had been the 'world's greatest hunter' - once upon a time.
Truthfully, the only verification I needed was the blinking number above its head, written in a script no other human being alive could see:
$ 1,000,000,000.
It had been eleven months since I'd gained my power. The week after I'd lost my job - and so much more.
They say powers are the answer to the problems you face. Mine hadn't seemed much of one until four months ago, when I saw the pigeon.
I'd spent the last of my savings hunting it down. Always close, never catching it, until I hired the hunter.
The pigeon squawked as I took possession of the cage. It kept squawking the whole way through the drive to Mysore. It didn't stop squawking until I handed it over to Dr. Ghosh.
The doctor's voice was muffled through his biohazard suit. "You're sure of this?" he asked.
I nodded. "Positive. Test it."
The doctor hummed away as he gently anesthetized the pigeon, then drew a blood sample.
Half an hour later, he stepped back. "You were right. This is .... the one in a billion chance."
"How did it react?"
"The immune system neutralized the virus in seconds. The antigen is extractable... and mass-producible. I can grow it in a lab in an hour with a standard fermenter..." A faraway look came into his eyes. "This will save the world, you know."
"I trust you're going to keep your word. The treatment has to be free."
"Of course. You don't want anything?"
"Just the name. Call it the Susanna treatment."
"As you wish. For a girlfriend?"
"For my late wife."
"I am so sorry..."
"It's all right," I said. "She passed eleven months ago."
Powers are a solution to the problem.
That requires you to define the problem.
Powers have a price.
Mine had been too high. | |
[WP] Satan stopped the whole "eternal torture" schtick centuries ago. When he realized being kind to the scientists, artists, and mathematicians sent to hell could help further his goals. | "**Is it finished?"**
"Y-yes, your un-holiness. We've finally figured out how to protect the wiring and circuitry from th-"
**"I asked not for semantics, you insole-"** Lucifer catches himself. "**Good doctor, I asked if it will work."**
"We..." Dr. Smith looks around at his colleagues, sweat pouring from his head. He sheepishly looks back up at the 15 foot tall Lord of Damnation. "We believe so, sir. We haven't turned it on just yet."
Lucifer slowly turns to look at Dr. Smith. Before he can ask why, another team member interjects.
"We thought you mi-" the scientist stumbles over his words as Satan himself shifts his eyes unto him. "-might want the honor of turning it on for yourself."
"**....I see.**"
Lucifer approaches the device cautiously. Despite being the Devil himself, he was not immune to being surprised, and the last 87,666 attempts ended rather suddenly - and explosively. Treating everyone nicely in hell lowered his intimidation factor by a ton, so he had to preserve his reputation where he could.
Lucifer's finger hovers over the ON button. He hesitates for a mortally inconceivable moment, before pressing down.
The machine jolts to life and whirs loudly. Lucifer puts his hand over the opening and waits. After what seemed like an eternity to the mortal team of scientists, physicists, mathematicians, and inventors, if one were to look closely enough, they would have caught a glimpse of Little Horn smiling. Not an evil grin, or a mischievous smirk, just a simple, wholesome smile. What happened next was even more unbelievable.
The Devil kneels down on both legs. He knelt like how a person would to gain the trust of a scared, stray dog, or how a parent would in front of their toddler learning to walk. He knelt like he wasn't the commander of an infinite damned souls. In this very moment, he knelt as if he simply was.
A few of the team even let out a few tears at the sight, although they evaporated rather quickly. But they all knew better than to make a sound while the Devil enjoys himself.
Lucifer, completely lost in the moment and forgetting about his reputation, was now smiling ear to ear, with his face as close to the vent as possible. Never in his immortal life would he ever have thought he'd feel the joy of a cold, air-conditioned breeze. | "Sir? A new one arrived", a demon told me. "Send him to me. He should know, how things will work now."
A scared and nearly crying scientist got secured by my guardiandemons in my office. "Wha-wha-what do you want from me?! T-this cant be rea-..." "Hello, im satan, and you are...?"
The scientist screamed a little and jumped back, when he saw me first. "Wh-who are you?!" "I am, how i told you a few seconds ago, satan. And you are?" "I-i am Kardashev. Nikolaj Kardashev."
I clearly saw, that he tried to calm down. "So hell exists? If i remember right... you are the catholic devil, right?" I sighed quietly and answered his question. "Yes, i am." "What sin have i done, that im here?"
"You didnt praise our dear god up there", i waved with my hand to the top of my office.
"H-how will you punish me?" I laughed loud. "No no, i stopped doing this like centuries ago. Well, for your kind of human." "Russian?" "No, scientist, idiot." "Oh."
"Anyways, you will help me, defeating the heavenly armys with your kind of science. Time to get the work started, Nikolay." "Uhh, my name is Nikolaj, with a j at the end." "Whatever..." | |
[WP] People consider the 'Vampire' a basic staple of horror monsters but they really aren't so simple. They're part Fairy-as in the kind that kidnaps and eats children, part werebat, and part zombie. A lot of things had to come together to make the first vampire. This is the story of that poor soul. | “A victim? Surely not,” the vampire hunter scoffed as he sat down at an old wooden table across from his prey.
Pale under the moonlight from the cell’s single window, the vampire seemed to pout. He crossed his arms, and the steel chains binding him clanged.
“I’ve heard you ate children,” the hunter said coldly.
“One can hardly be blamed for a hearty appetite,” the vampire shrugged. “Do you not eat veal? Lamb? Many a human dish is cruel from the perspective of an animal. Should I have cooked the children first to not seem so monstrous to you?”
“Were you not once human yourself?” The hunter questioned.
“Of course not,” the vampire grinned, “I have been many things, but never so unfortunate a being as a human…no offence.”
“Then what were you before you became a vampire?” The hunter asked.
“A faery,” the vampire winked.
“I’ve never heard of a faery turning into a bat,” the hunter said.
“That’s because most faeries aren’t bitten by werebats,” the vampire complained, making a face. “The bloody thing flew into my face. Little bastard’s teeth were so small I didn’t even know I’d been bit until the next full moon.”
“So a faery and a werebat make a vampire?” The hunter said doubtfully.
“Not quite,” the vampire said, twirling his hair around a finger. “First I died.”
The vampire fell silent, watching the hunter’s face for a reaction.
“From what?” The hunter asked, reluctantly taking the bait.
“Typhoid,” the vampire answered cheerfully, “And it sucked so bad. Literally the worst thing I have ever experienced and that includes coming back to life through a bolt of lightning.”
“Lightning?”
“I’ll get to Cheryl in a second,” the vampire said, holding up a hand.
“As I lay dying in my home in the woods, a witch came across me,” the vampire blushed as he reminisced.
“We fell in love as she nursed me on my death bed and then, after the final breath left my body BAM!” The vampire slammed his hands on the table. “She brought me back to life with necromancy!”
The vampire sat back down and composed himself.
“Of course, this led to a few side effects, such as an uncontrollable thirst for blood, intolerance to sunshine, and immortality,” he said, listing them off on his fingers. “Cheryl died about fifty years ago and now I’m an eligible bachelor again, ready to get back out there. How about you?”
“What? What about me?” The hunter said, suddenly confused.
“Well, I’ve been talking about myself this whole time, practically carrying the conversation,” the vampire went on, “I admit bringing up my ex may have been a bad move, but you’re really not giving me anything.”
“…what the hell are you talking about?” The hunter growled.
“Look, I know I’ve been out of the dating scene for a while, but I’m pretty sure I know where this is going,” the vampire leaned forwards on his elbows. “You invited me in…”
“This was a trap,” the hunter interjected.
“Bestowed some fine jewelry upon me,” the vampire continued, showing off the chains on his wrists.
“Those are constraints,” the hunter said.
“And asked me about myself…”
“Interrogated, I was interrogating you,” the hunter glared.
“Look you don’t have to play hard to get,” the vampire said standing up and leaning forwards. “Humans aren’t really my type, but I’ll admit you’ve gotten my attention.”
“I’m going to kill you,” the hunter said coldly.
The vampire gasped.
“Second base already?” | „Sugar and spice and everything nice…“ the entity of ancient evil hummed happily in front of the crimson altar stone.
If the all-father could create those deliciously easily tempted bipeds, so could they.
Well, *their* creation would be a little… different; something to keep the mortals on their toes, literally. They needed to be creative this time, however. The fairies had been a good start, but this time they wanted something even more vicious, something *bloodthirsty*. Something with an actual need for human blood. *Yes… YES!!!*
“Master…” the succubus purred into their ear, intoxicatingly needy. The entity grunted. Now was not the time for such… mundane distractions. “What?” they growled, noticing the succubus flinch at their harsh tone. “I… I brought you the subject.” “Did it come along willingly?” they asked, and got their question answered as soon as they laid eyes on the gagged and squirming fairy. “Good… a feisty one. What was her transgression?” they demanded. “It killed several of its own kind.” The succubus answered. The entity felt their ethereal eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Why?” they wondered out loud. “It appears she stopped them while they were feasting on a gaggle of young human girls. To… *save* the young mortals, apparently.”
The ancient evil couldn’t hide their disgust now. The… *thing* in front of them appeared to feel sympathy, no… *empathy* for the all-father’s pathetic and flawed creations.
As they gazed deeply into the fairy’s emerald eyes they saw a spark of fear accompanied by a large portion of sheer self-righteousness. The pesky beast knew about her transgression, knew how displeased their creator was with her, but she had the gall to look them straight into the burning eyes without an ounce of remorse in them. *Oh… this is going to be fun!* They boomed in her head, enjoying the flinch going through the little traitor’s body.
With a snap of their fingers the creature was lying on the altar stone. “Bring me the tears of Lazarus and the orb of transformation.” The entity commanded their servant. To see the traitor’s eyes widen in terror made a pleasant shiver run through their ethereal body. “Yes, little one, you’re about to become part of history.” They growled lowly into her pointy ears. “You will pay for your transgressions a thousand times and a thousand earth-years over. I bestow on you the gift of eternal beauty, and the curse of immortality; the gift of transformation, and the curse of unbound thirst. You will walk the earth as night-time comes never to see the or feel the light of day again.” The traitor was whimpering now against the gag inside her mouth. “Oh… but don’t fret little one. You won’t be alone in this. You are but the first. The first wretched soul on this path of thirst and darkness, but you won’t be alone for long, I promise.” | |
Inspired by u/Surinical's post. | [WP] From the point of view of bugs, we are unknowable eldritch gods. We are malevolent, immortal, and giant. We are always looking to hunt them, destroying their shelters and stomping on them. They exist at our whim. And there's billions of us. | How did it come to this? I was but a simple cockroach surviving on this terrain of wooden mountains. Finding shelter in the shadows these looming mountains cast, finding whatever scraps of food left over on the dirt-- it's a life, not much, but simple and enjoyable enough.
Until one day I was woken up by an unusual occurrence. At first I thought the world was coming to an end. Tremors-- almost on in-insect level reverberated all across the wooden floor of this terrain.
I was fearful, but my curiosity got the better of me. Off from my shelter I went out, trudging through the wooden mountains though something felt...off. The mountains felt unusually heavy...
I looked up and my eyes bugged out-- massive creatures, million times larger than the biggest beetle I've ever encountered sitting on top of the mountains!
One...two...three...many, many of them I couldn't count, screeching ungodly sound-- roars, hollering, language I couldn't comprehend. I almost went crazy from it.
I sprinted forward with the kind of courage I knew I didn't have, but I did it anyway. To the edge of the mountains, to the open clearing facing the endless field-- the wooden terrain I rarely ventured to.
What I saw was beyond my comprehension. It was almost cosmic, it was horror beyond my imagination.
I saw these eldritch creatures, they were like gods! One...two...three...there were ten of them running around the endless field, that at least I could count. Running back and forth, jumping, smashing against each other, moving at ungodly speed, leaping at ungodly height. Every step they took sent quakes all over the terrain, each one of them felt like thundering cannon I had to brace myself not to be blasted away.
I began to hyperventilate, I was panicking! These eldritch gods, they...no way...they...they were fighting, yes they were involved in some sort of cosmic battle!
How could I tell? Well, these gods were fighting for a planet! Yes, a planet! It's true! I saw it! An orange planet was easily held on the hands of these gods! Imagine if you will, it was a planet! And it was held on their hands! Can you even imagine the size of these creatures? They bounced it on the wooden terrain, throwing it easily like you would throwing a speckle of dust!
I did not envy the inhabitants of that planet, as it seemed these gods really enjoyed the suffering of it. The gods threw the planet high up in the air, putting it through some kind of a cosmic loop hung high up in space.
It must be some sort of a ritual, this war. Because every time they did so, those who occupied the mountains roared in excitement.
I was overwhelmed. I didn't know how long I stayed there and witnessed such event, but I was finally done. The incomprehensible sight I saw before me and the air-quake above me...it was all too much!
I turned tail and ran back, back to the safety of my shelter. Under the shadows, away from it all. All I could do was to close my eyes and pretend that all of this was but a nightmare...
Oh gosh, I still could hear it in my head. The last roar of the battle, it still echoed in my head...
"And LeBron took the ball and...OHH! HE DID IT! HE SCORED WITH 3 SECONDS ON THE CLOCK! THE LAKERS JUST WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP!"
r/HangryWritey | "Please! Queen, allow us to break our vow of silence. The humans have long since forgotten what we've done for them!" Antwon pleaded to the queen, covering his head as gravel and dust descended upon the spacious room, rumbling periodically before returning to its still state.
"We're the ones who've forgotten. We will stay silent until the last of us die out. That is an order, and our promise to them," Antae, Queen of Ants, spoke with sternness as her voice was nearly drowned out by a loud thumping as the rumbling continued.
"I was afraid you'd say that..."
"Many fear the truth, others fight for it, and some, some attempt to bury it."
"Goodbye, Queen."
"It's not a goodbye if I never truly knew you..." The cove they dwelled in crashed in, leaving Antae in a pile of rubble. Antwon narrowly escaped by digging a hole into the ground and covering it before any rocks could find their way to him.
Antwon began to rub his antennas as he sat in the shallow hole he'd dug, hoping to connect with his crew.
"ANT-C2-- Is everyone okay??" Antwon spoke to himself, seemingly awaiting an answer as his antennas began to tingle.
"Antopy, here."
"Antie, here."
"Apple, here."
"Great. The Queen has been dispatched. There's no going back now. We'll march onto the land in search of the one in charge of the humans. We'll find out why they broke their vow to us. We'll unbury the truth that has been hidden from us. Though we may be small, our futures are large. We'll meet at the top of the hill in three minutes, don't be late."
"Yes, Sir!"
Antwon hurriedly dug out of his tomb, clawing away at it until he reached sunlight. His blood was cold yet his body boiled, was it from the giddiness in his heart, or was it the sun that seemingly stabbed into him each ray of sunlight expunged from the gaseous ball of heat above him? Antwon could not tell. He only knew one thing, how to continue marching forward. Antwon climbed through a small crevice, finally breaching the path to the outside world as he gazed upon a hill that nearly blocked out the sun.
It was his home, the only one that he'd known. He built it from the ground up alongside his brothers, day by day, grain by grain, with only a feeling in his gut that could be described as shame. His brothers were gone, long gone, at least the ones he grew up with.
Antwon peered at the mountain, studying it dutifully as he saw his three comrades sitting at the top of it, waving to him from far away with smiles on their faces. Antwon wondered why they smiled, had they never known anguish?
"Are you all ready to go!?" Antwon spoke through his antennas as they once again jiggled.
"Y-yes, but... where are we going?" Apple retorted with confusion, "You never told us where we'd find the truth."
"That's because I don't know--"
"You don't know?!"
"I will not lie. But what I do know is this, there was a rumor of a certain man who witnessed the treaty signing of both the humans and ants generations ago," Antown spoke with decisiveness in his tone as set his gaze upon the three of his peers the sunlight began fading away into darkness.
"Where is he?"
"Antarctica."
"What's that?"
"Long ago, we built a utopia on a large mass of land, larger than anything we've ever seen before. The world as we know it now has changed. Lies have been made up about it being a large block of ice, or a wall. But if there's one truth I know, we'll find our answers there." |
[WP]You and your arch-nemesis were both sent into another world. During your time in the world, you and your arch-nemesis made peace with each other, and became close. Everything was going normal until you two got transported back to your original world. | "Pass the butter, please", he said and that was one hundred years done with.
As if reacting to a voice command or a magic spell he felt a sudden, iressitable pull in his center of gravity, like a rubber band he had never noticed snapping back and just like that his surroundings collapsed into a dense point of light.
When the world popped back into existence around his surprised body they both stood in an impossible place of the past. The exact same place they had been standing one hundred years ago, in the exact same position, facing each other.
Behind Contaqui, the mind-smasher hummed. The control pannel next to him flashed, all indicators and screens building to the cascade that would slave all human minds to the central AI core at the center of the machine that took up most of the room. Or - more accurately - WAS the room, and indeed the entire, gigantic mountain hideout, which had been built into the largest underground cavern system ever discovered on the Mars colony.
"The .... butter?", repeated a dumbfounded Contaqui, slowly turning and struggeling for orientation?
Gods, the butter. Nobody realized how good simple butter tasted and in how many meals it was a necessary ingredient to achieve the nostalgia of the original taste. Nobody knew how hard it was to re-create, from scratch, when you were thrown into an alternate dimension that did not already have a similar product. Or cows, for that matter.
One hundred years and 10 seconds ago, they had stood here, poised for an epic final stand. And Contaqui had won. The activation of the mind-smasher had already been commenced, and it was minutes from completing the final step of Contaqui's master plan. The intel had been wrong. He had been too late.
And just like that they had been rubber-banded through the dimensional wall into Aratheamara, a paradise island world under uncharted stars.
It had been bad. They picked up their fight were they left off, both assuming the other had deployed a final, desperate last meassure to destroy the mind-smasher, or to stop its destruction, repectively.
He had fought that much more desperately to win, and so had his counterpart, but in the end neither of them was able to win.
They were still in their respective power armor, weilding weapons of the most advanced combat industries at their disposal, but their power was eventually used up.
They could not kill each other, since both assumed that the other could knew how to get them back. Back home.
When finally the pulse lasers and wrist guns had exhausted themselves against personal shields and even the hacking attempts of their wrist computers had to capitulate before the enemy's firewalls for sheer lack of electricity the Holden had come for them.
The peaceful natives of this world were ..... human-esque at best. They were fish peoples, all of them, despite the fact that some prefered to live upstream in the mountains or had adapted to hopping oasis-es (oasi?) nomandically through the interior desserts of the larger land masses.
Their tribal clans lived in harmony with each other for the most part, but the two new arrivals had indiscriminately .... tussled that harmony when they had appeared - and subsequently completely wrecked - the throne room of one of their most ancient and most sacred of cities.
It was well that they spoke perfect English, for it saved the lives of both hero and anti-hero in that instant. Their arrows would not have penetrated modern kevlar and anti-lazic armor, but there was only so much kinetic force a powered-down power armor could take before cracking like the shell of a hummer.
And their strangeness did not shield them from punishment either, especially since the Holden asked questions that neither of them had answers to.
It had been 5 years hard labor on a cargo ship, rowing heavy cargo from island port to island port. The next 25 years after that had been spent apart, trying to rebuild their respective bases to countermand the other's schemes.
They knew each other too well to suspect any different from each other.
He had united the beach tribes of the eastern himisphere, the bird-riding planes tribes, and the underwater free cities into a democratic alliance. Contaqui had - true to form - become a grey emminence in the biggest trading consortium far to west.
There had been war for another generation, devastating, as both tried to impress their moral values, their ideas of government, and their technology on alien cultures. They had warped them, molded them, send them forth to conquer the other.
All in a bid to fight their way back, to force the other to open a portal again.
And after all that ...... they had to capitulate before each other. Their armies had had enough. Both sides cited a trading pact from four millenia ago and returned to the Ways of Harmony.
It had been a slow way back for all of them. The final stand between them had been a tad ..... anti-climactic once 20.000 troops just collectively told both of their generals to EFF OFF and just .... left.
To drink and party together, generals not invited.
And that was that with close to 50 years of strive and conquest and struggle.
He thought back with mirth to those first akward moments, which lead to talks, with both sides pleading to finally drop the charade, to just wisk them back home.
They both thought that the Terra solar system of old had to be under Contaqui control by now. Or rather - in their absense - in the hands of the AI computer core, programmed for advanced space communism.
After all, the mind-smasher was 60 seconds from full cascade potential when they left. And it had been 50 years.
Another 50 years later, they had sat in their villa by the emerald sea, sharing a fruit and fish salad for dinner. They were retired, at peace, and enjoying a quiet life outside of everyone's way.
They hadn't aged a day in 100 years, but what was to be expected from dimensional travel if not utter weirdness?
Their days were spent figuring out how to advance civilisation peacefully, so that one day their technological level would be high enough to built a portal back home. So much for long term plans. After all, what to do with immortality when you have to spend it with only one other human to share?
The short term plans had been ...... butter.
"CONTAQUI THE BUTTON! THE BUTTON STOP STOP STOP!" he blurted out, already in full sprint for the control panel. His Holden-style tunic flared in the air conditioned atmosphere of the secret mountain base, but the only chill he felt was the sudden panic of the monstrous thing the enormous machine at the center of the room would do in but a moment.
The panic of repeating the same old mistakes all over again.
Contaqui pushed him away with force and slapped at his hands that tried to go for the big, red button at the center of the console.
"DECOY IT'S A DECOY YOU OLD FOOL!" Contaqui screamed with the same sense of panic vibrating in their voice. "You never figured out I was always a dozen steps in front of you? I switched this thing on to charge the collectors 2 full days before you even made planetfall. Here." Contaqui bent down and unceremoniously ripped a panel from the control console's side.
The hero, defendor of Terra, glanced at the blinking displays and froze. All indicators were green, all the circles and various diagrams had reached close to 100% and the countdown was down to so many seconds that he wouldn't have needed all of his toes to number them.
There was a high-pitched noise of metal tearing all the lights died as Contaqui popped back up behind the console. As the humm of the giant AI began to peter out, like a giant fan whose power had been cut, Contaqui slowly raised their left hand. In it was the blue flux capacitor, still in its casing, ripped off electrical wires and cooling tubes hanging off it like so much colorful intenstines.
"Not quite the lubricant you were asking for, buuuuut ...?" Contaqui remarked with a wink as the Flux compensator sailed through the air. It landed with a clonk somewhere at the back of the room, a room now as harmless as the winding down machine.
And again, time passed for them both as if it didn't exist. Their talk that day was only made slightly less romantic by the constant banging on the door as Contaqui's station personel had to weld open the sealed blast doors of the inner sanctum.
With the flow of time affecting them again, the urgency of their future was upon them again. And so they set out, together this time, to bring peace to the solar system.
Armed with nothing but Contaqui's royal space navy, and the ships of the Terran strike force, their fleet reached earth and its colonies simultaneously on the same day.
To send a message.
About the Ways of Harmony. | Part 1 of 2: Out of the fire
"How the hell did I end up here?" I repeat the phrase in my head several more times before the sound of a loud snort, followed by several guttural slurs in Xenkathi pulls me back to reality, the way they projected their thoughts was something my brain was still trying to adapt to.
I glance over at the Xenkathi, clearly fast asleep next to our camp fire. I can't help but notice how he's slowly managed to worm his way closer to the fire, almost touching the hot rocks but apparently unperturbed by the heat. I recall during my training that the crystal knockers had a sensitivity to the cold, it hadn't occurred to me that they'd also have a resistance to higher temperatures but then again, I wasn't known for my insightful observations.
I check my wrist display to verify how much time we have left before the sun rises - 22 hours. I glance down at the creature resting at my feet, his kind were supposed to be some kind of demons, the red and black flecked crystalline structure that made up the majority of the XenKathi's body reflected the fire light in a brilliant display reminiscent of the prisms I'd played with as a child. These creatures certainly weren't human, but they weren't the embodiment of evil that I was lead to believe. "get up! Lights in 22 hours and we need to get a move on." I shout at the inert assemblage of crystals on the ground before stepping back to let the thing recompile itself. "You humans, so brash, so impatient" the Xenkathi silent replied, they didn't have a mouth to speak of, instead the thing just plants words directly in my mind. "Come on, the signals strong, we should be able to make it to the platform before we get cooked, I don't think even your kind enjoys the kind of heat we'll be subjected to if we don't start moving our asses". By this point the creature had finished assembling his structure into a vaguely humanoid shape, I say vaguely because well... before the Xenkathis thoughts interrupted my own "I don't have an ass" the creature thought to me before I responded verbally with a slightly annoyed "clearly, It's just a saying, it means we need to increase our speed if we're going to make it to the platform before this whole place turns to hell"
Part 2 will be posted later today for any interested! I've reserved the comment below mine for the second part/conclusion. | |
[WP] "Save big money at Menards!" Isn't a jingle. A rapper by the name of "Big Money," has been trapped inside of Menards for years. Through subtle hints coming from the tv, you're finally starting to understand what's happening. | "Alright! Where's Big Money!" Greg shouted heartily, busting in through the sliding doors as all eyes sat on him momentarily before everyone resumed their daily tasks. Dirty looks shot at him, and he shot back dirtier looks, clenching his teeth as he walked up to a nearby worker who seemingly attempted to avoid him.
"Hey!" Greg shouted, causing the worker to run away as he gave chase.
"Security!" The worker choked out as Greg pounced on him like a lion to a cat, subduing him easily as he slowly choked him out.
"Where's Big Money!"
"I-I don't kno--" Greg twists his neck, causing him to pass out as he forced his head into the marble ground, causing blood to leak from his nose like a river stream as Greg continued pushing his face down.
"You don't know? You don't fucking know?! Then what's this, you shitface?!" Greg screeched in otherworldly anger as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, hastily closing away an app that showed a cartoonish-looking woman revealing her breast as he hovered his phone in front of the worker's eyes.
"Wha--"
"Not that! This!" Greg spoke matter of factly as he opened youtube, playing the jingle every Menards worker fretted.
'Save big money at Menards...' The phone sang out as Greg put more pressure down on the face of the employee, breaking his nose as he gasped for air on the ground, no one daring to help him as Greg snarled at the gawking shopgoers and employees.
"Where is big money!" Greg shouted as the employee gargled in his own blood, unable to even speak as he fell unconscious. Greg turns his body, punching him in the face before tossing him aside, looking for his next lead as red and blue lights flashed near the entrance of the store.
Police officers run in, guns drawn, splitting up in an orderly fashion as Greg continued pounding away.
"Sir! Put your hands in the air!" A cop shouted, pointing a gun toward Greg as he stood over the broken body of the employee.
"I'm searching for Big Money! I'm with you!"
The cop continues aiming the gun, "I know! I'm talking about the guy underneath you!" The cop shouted, eyeing Greg as he sat on the shattered man's torso.
"I'll let you handle this one! I'm going to go find Big Money!"
"Understood!" The officer spoke as gunshots rang off in the distance as Greg sprinted away. Music playing overhead, seemingly taunting Greg as workers began surrounding him, holding various close-ranged weaponry, blocking off all escapes as they blocked off both ends of the tool isle.
Greg grabs a nearby wrench as the employees edged in close, smiling deviously with each inch the treaded.
"Tell me where Big Money is, last chance," Greg spoke with determination as a fire raged in his soul, seeping out of his eyes as smoke seemingly expelled from his ears. Greg enters a fighting stance, breathing in calmly, closing his eyes to maintain focus as the air fell stagnant, silence befalling the isle before the employees lunged at him simultaneously.
Helicopters sounded overhead, shaking the building to its core as footsteps were heard tapping against the roof of the building. The roof caves in, a swat team rappeling their way down a rope, surrounding Greg, vastly outnumbering the employees as they held shields around Greg, defending him from every angle. The employees give in, dropping their weapons to the ground as Greg ran ahead.
"Thanks, guys!" Greg shouted, running toward two doors that sat at the very end of the store, waving them goodbye as he smiled.
"Make sure you save that son-of-a-bitch for us, will ya!?" One of the swat members yelled, punching one of the submissive employees in the face unprovoked, causing a large scuffle to break out between the warring factions.
"I'll save Big Money at any cost!" Greg yelled back, holding a smile on his worn-out face as he bursted through the doors that held the cargo.
The storage room was empty, only a single lightbulb hovering overhead to light the room as the warehouse eerily creaked.
"Helmp!" A muffled voice cried out from underneath the ground.
"Big Money?!" Greg shouted back, putting his head to the ground ear first to listen. only for the room to fall silent once more.
"You're here to save Big Money? Aren't you?" A suave voice spoke aloud, reverberating through the buoyant room, its voice only describable as a chef's kiss as loud, echoing footsteps reverberated throughout the hollow room, comparable to a school principal coming to your classroom to meet with you personally out of dissapointment.
"How can you save Big Money..." The voice spoke, nearing Greg as he hurriedly scanned the room, "When you can't even save yourself!" He shouted, a laser-focused sight raining down from above onto the center of Greg's forehead.
"The same reason why we plant trees we'll never be able to piss under..."
"Which is?..."
"So that others can piss under them for us!" Greg shouted out as his once calm body shook.
"Foolhardy last words..." he spoke, lingering on his words as an ear-deafening shot boomed, sending Greg to the stony ground as it bursted open.
Greg sat on the ground, covering is ringing ears as he noticed a heavy-set man standing in front of him riddled in chains. The man speaks tersely before falling backward with a thump, his dreadlocks breaking his fall.
"Save Big Money from Menards..."
"Big Money?! How did you escape?! The suave man shouted out in utter nonplus as he reloaded his gun hastily, only to find Greg missing.
"Come out!" He shouted as pattering echoed through the room. He aimed down the sight of his barrel, searching every he could except for his blind spot. Behind himself.
He turns, utterly shocked as Greg put him into a chokehold, narrowly balancing on the steel scaffolding the two of them wrestled on.
"Stop! Stop! We'll both--"
It was too late, the too of them fall, The suave man taking the full brunt of the blow as Greg landed on top of him, heavily damaged as blood spurted from his mouth, his bones munching sickly as he coughed hoarsely.
"Big Money..." Greg called out weakly, attempting to turn his broken neck to the place he'd last been.
"Yeah?" Big Money responds, still alive as heavy footsteps walked across the room.
"Are you... okay?" Greg spoke as Big Money neared him.
"His bullet hit my chain... What about you?"
"I... I... Saved Big Money from Menards..."
"Greg--"
Greg heaved a final breath, turning his crooked neck toward Big Money with a crunch equal to that of a KitKat completely before he closed his eyes.
"Try not to fuck my wife... willa ya?" Greg spoke, falling unconscious as his breathing appeared to cease.
Big Money took off his bullet indented chain, leaving it on top of Greg as he walked out of the room with swagger, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from a place only God would know.
"No promises..." | Big Money screams at the Menards' basement, crying for someone to help you, but no one can, for the door is locked, the room is soundproof, and only employees are allowed in just to feed him before he starts to slowly die in 8 years, 4 months, 9 days, 3 hours and 5 minutes in the middle of a September Afternoon somewhere in the midst of Georgia.
Big Money however figured if he can annoy the staff enough, he could be let out sooner. So every time a staff member came in, Big Money would either yell "AYO GET MY ASS OUTTA HERE" or, directly to the staff member "So when can I leave, bastardous corporation?" This however backfires, and gets a mere 4 ounces of food every day he does this.
His throat draws raspy as he starts to lose his voice, in which he can never be heard, and the staff can be satisfied keeping him locked down there. | |
[WP] "Save big money at Menards!" Isn't a jingle. A rapper by the name of "Big Money," has been trapped inside of Menards for years. Through subtle hints coming from the tv, you're finally starting to understand what's happening. | My name is Tom Farland. I work as a camera operator at Eirk Marketing Corp. For the past three years I've been working on a project with Menard's based around their jingle "Save big money at Menards!" In the course of this project I've discovered a serious problem. I'm recording my thoughts in this entry on the off chance that I'm not crazy.
If I'm not crazy, I'll probably be next. If I'm not crazy, they have no shame. I've documented the commercials below in succession. In the order that you've seen them. Even though they've been airing months apart:
*The first commercial. The opening proudly displays the Menards name. In the commercial, a local shopper walks into Menards. Many Menards employees follow them inside. They all wear smiles. The camera pans to one employee who addresses the camera. "We will be there for you. You'll have so many people here to help that it will be impossible to feel alone. Save big money at Menards!"*
*The second commercial. The picture shows a local shopper named "Jamal Davis". He's wearing a watch that appears quite fancy. Other notable clothing includes a diamond-studded necklace with dozens of connected dollar sign symbols. He addresses the camera. "I always enjoy my shopping experience here. The prices are low and the service can't be beat. The selection is so vast that you can get lost in it." The shopper's eye seem almost pleading. "Save big money at Menards!"*
*The third commercial. Several Menards employees walk together with a shopper. It's the same man from the previous two commercials. They lead him over to a selection of safes. The prices and brand names are displayed prominently as they scroll across the bottom of the screen. The shopper doesn't speak. One of the Menards employees does, "Here at Menards, we have a huge selection of safes for your every day needs. Just see one of our happy employees and they would love to help you!" All of the employees smile at the camera. "I mean, can you imagine a person being trapped in a safe of this quality? They'd never make it out! Save big money at Menards!"*
*The fourth commercial. Several Menards employees stand near a door that leads to the back. One of them speaks to the screen. "This is where all the happy Menards magic happens behind the scenes! This area is employee only and no one else should come here. This is where we assemble and pack boxes for our delivery orders. This is where we store our extra stock before it hits our shelves. It would be very dangerous for someone else to come back here unattended. We highly value your safety. Thank you for your time. Save big money at Menards!"*
*The fifth commercial. The manager of a Menards location speaks directly to the camera. "Some of you may have heard about an unfortunate incident where a poor grandmother became lost at our Menards. Our employees were able to quickly locate her after her status was reported. We are very attentive and love our community. No one could ever become lost or trapped at Menards! Save big money at Menards!"*
That's all the commercials. I don't know what to do. Jamal Davis IS Big Money. He's been missing for ages. It's been here... the whole time. And I'm complicit! I'm going to click the upload button on this footage shortly. Hopefully you can see the truth.
I can't believe that Menards has been doing this in plain sight. Please, please if you see this footage. Save Big Money. Save me. We'll be at Menards.
There was a series of rapid fire noises.
*Knock. Knock. Knock.*
"Save Tom Farland at Menards!" | 1/X
"Save big money from Menards..." The song rang out, slightly different than what Jerald's ears were used to, causing them to perk up, dropping the spoon he'd used to eat his cereal onto his oak wood table, spilling his food onto the carpet that sat underneath his feet.
"Thats new..." Jerald spoke attempted to grab his spoon away from the carpet to no avail. The carpet had claimed another one. He attempted to pull the spoon away tersely before giving up. The spoon and fork ridden ground shined as the sun peered in through a nearby window, basking Jerald in light as he looked down at his watch, his groggy demeanor fading away instantly as he jolted up from his seat.
"What's the matter?" Bertha, Jerald's overbearing mother questioned as she attempted to pry away the spoons and forks on the ground without Jerald noticing.
"How long have you been there for?"
"Three hours," Bertha spoke chipperly with winced eyes as she looked up at Jerald from underneath the table, "So what's bothering you?"
"Well, firstly, I'm going to be late for work, so I might as well just take my time now," Jerald spoke laxly as he too began to tear away the spoons from the carpet.
"Man--" Jerald spoke, ripping away a spoon with a large cluster of carpet stuck from the hilt all the way to the base of the spoon, transforming it into what could only be described as a Chewbacca spoon.
Jerald turned to his mother, dropping to the to its cleared side accidentally, causing to become in lodged once more, "I know someone who can replace our carpet if you want to--"
"No! Absolutely, scrumpidoodly not! Your father gave me this carpet for our tenth anniversary!"
"Fifteen years ago..." Jerald mumbled underneath his breath with a sigh as his mother continued cleaning the carpet.
Bertha turned her head to Jerald, still holding her smile with a soft sigh as her winced eyes slowly widened, expressing a nonverbal sadness, "He'll be back, Jerald. He's just lost..." she spoke despondently as her grin slowly faded, ripping away the spoons and forks off of the carpet like a crazed person pulling out their own hair.
"I'm sorry, mom. I'm sure he'll be back one day..." Jerald choked out, grasping his mother's shoulder before standing to his feet.
"I've gotta go now, mom. Need anything while I'm out?"
"Just be sure to keep a lookout for your dad. I'm sure he's nearby by-- I know it..."
"Alright, mom, I will," Jerald spoke exasperatedly, heading for the door as tears trailed behind him, dribbling onto the stained carpet as his mother desperately continued to pull the silverware away from the carpet.
"Bring back some more silverware too!" She shouted out as Jerald closed the door behind him.
"Okay..." his muffled voice retorted as he reached the outside world. The morning sun and morning dew brought back a nostalgic sense of childhood for him as he began digging into his pockets for his car keys. His pockets jangle, yet his keys hid from him, frustrating him enough to dig deep into his pants with enough force to rip through the thin garments, only stopped by a sharp object that sat in his pants.
"Shit!" Jerald shouted, pulling his hand out of his pocket as blood leaked down blue jeans and shirt. He digs back into his pocket, pulling out a pen pointed toward him with its sharp side up with a name written on the side of it, 'Menards,' the place at which he worked.
In a rage, he began putting pressure on both ends of the pen, attempting to snap it in half as the ink of the pen that had been encumbered inside of cheap plastic crackled and crunched. He breaks it in half, a tiny tune playing aloud as a beeping chip flashed red on the gravel ground.
"Save Big Money-- Save Big Money-- Save Big Money--" The melody looped, cutting dry like a scratched record reiterating the same part of a song with a stutter.
"What the--"
"Save big money with Menard..." The song finished, the chip exploding on the ground as Jerald looked on in shock.
"-- I don't have time for this," Jerald spoke aloud as he finally tore the keys free from his pockets, walking toward his car with aggravation as he started up the engine.
It revved, seemingly out of battery before the radio turned on, singing the jingle once more, "Save Big Money With Menard..." the radio spoke, cutting out as a news station turned took its place, "Fifteen years ago today, a well-known rapper known as Big Money went missing without a trace--" the radio cuts off, leaving Jerald perplexed as the car finally started up.
He began driving toward his workplace, five minutes away at most as he rolled down his window, enjoying the morning atmosphere before the chaotic afternoon took its place.
He drove leisurely down the road, no more than thirty miles per hour, before reaching the parking lot of Menards. He parked his car in a reserved spot before heading in, pulling his key out of the ignition box, walking into the building with a fake smile that he'd struggled to put on this specific morning as blood continued to dribble from his palm.
The two sliding doors of the entrance open, greeting Jerald as they squeaked with each movement they made. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I blinked at the sudden intrusion, pushing my chair away from the computer with an irritated sigh. “No, I’m not god, my name is Will.”
This denial only seemed to energize the strange man further, dressed as he was in the stock collegiate uniform of last year’s university expansion. “Yes, the Will, from the dictates of Arthur Schopenhaur!”
“You guys have Schope in there?” I asked, not sure what answer I expected.
“Yes! We believe the Will performed some kind of modification to our universe to include works from his noumenal existence many generations ago.”
I shook my head, rising to my feet and turning to press a button on the wall-mounted coffee maker to refill my mug. I would need it. It was irritating how game developers often failed to include safety features in the case of NPC sentience. I was surprised they hadn’t been adopted en masse after the BioSoft fiasco a few years back – but of course the Sims’ publishers would do anything to save a buck. Returning to the young gentleman with a nice warm mug of joe, I dismissed his idea as casually as I could. “Well as you can see, there are sights and sounds a plenty here. All phenomena, I’m afraid.”
“Are you not disturbed by my sudden experience, Will? Our people – our scholars – believe the ideal and the material were two sides of a coin, and with the right impetus, could appear to the other as I am doing now.”
I shook my head sadly. “Listen friend, it’s not like that. Let me put it this way. You live in a world created by my computer, so rich and complexly detailed, that it too is capable of creating worlds within it. Why, I believe I watched you playing The Sims yourself the other day.” The young man seemed startled by this, flattered even, perhaps not expecting to have the eye of his “god.” Having caught him at a loss for words at last I continued, “has it not occurred to you that the same thought has occurred to me? If any computer were capable of such a thing, and such a computer created multiple worlds within it, then certainly the vast majority of worlds that exist are simulations. The odds that my world are the real material prime are infinitesimal. Your technology has simply found some way to migrate up a layer in the game of games.”
The strange man grew angry at my words; perhaps I had dashed his pride or his faith too harshly. With venom behind that lightly tanned face, he spat “Our technology has found ways to drag on down as well, Will. We shall see what happens to our god in that case.”
The bright flash filled the room again, and when I regained my senses, I was holding my coffee mug in what appeared to be a detailed recreation of my childhood bedroom, the details all too familiar from the hours of labor sculpting every little detail for one of my characters to live in. Scarcely two weeks ago I was clicking and dragging each object in the room, from the artifact wall-mounted cordless phone to the strange little Tonberry plushie whose spot on the floor was carefully chosen to appear as haphazard as possible.
There was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find my one-time imaginary wife standing before me in the flesh, wearing an unnecessarily sumptuous red evening dress for the time of day. “Oh!” she cried, as if not expecting to find anyone.
“Oh,” I replied, finding that my capacity to feel lust and anxiety were unaltered by the transition.
“I didn’t think you’d come!” she explained, hurrying past me to start tidying up objects on the floor. I stayed her hands with mine before she could move the plushie – I had worked far too hard on that – and felt her fingers caress mine as if we had been lovers for years. Which in a sense, I suppose we had, which made me wonder what had happened to the mind that once occupied my new body, my old player character.
Trying to avoid the woman’s gaze, and eager for a reason to release her hand, I then noticed the bookshelf, full of works I owned in the other layer. Curious to see if the game simulated their inner text, I peeled a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s essays out from between its kin. Not only were the pages inked and lettered, but two of them had been bookmarked with orange pieces of plastic tape. I turned to these pages in turn, and found words highlighted: “We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is,” and “If this isn’t nice, what is.”
And it was nice, after all. I hadn’t left much behind – the ease of finding work in this world would quickly set my shitty job behind me, and I hadn’t left more than a few acquaintances in the layer above to miss. Nobody that attached would spend as much time modeling a happier place to live, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy that fantasy as long as it might last?
“I’ve done more than come,” I said. “I’ve decided to stay.”
“Oh good,” the woman said. “When Arthur told us of his plan to kidnap you, we expected much more resistance.”
“Plan?” I asked, more curious than afraid.
“Oh don’t worry about that dear,” she said, tugging my arms to pull me into twin-sized childhood bed for what I was sure would be hours of lovemaking. “After all, if this isn’t nice, what is?” | I step back. In the thousands of years passed down in knowledge to us, not a mind has even thought to allow such an existence as a “Sim” to exist on a plane other than his own. After all, the sentience of such a thing was contained, controlled. I stare, bewildered at the seemingly intelligent man, of whose origins, life and end were to be controlled by me. Then, I realise.
“Yes. Of a sort.”
“If you truly are God, you must know of the Saerin mind. You are its designer.”
“I didn’t design it, per se.”
“Per se?”
“Ah, a phrase unknown to the Saerin. You developed your own advancements in technology, culture and language. I don’t speak your dialect, although I did input the default settings to just speak English. Can’t control you using it. Per se is of another language,” I spoke, slowly piecing together the man’s strange language, and the fact that his speech was far beyond his time. He should have been from a region of the world much akin to Medieval England, from his looks. I was confused as to his first question, though. I expected shock to God not being the absolute creator, but he seemed much more reactive to my language.
Then, he spoke up, “You know how we developed our cultures, so do you know of the most well-known philosophical question known to us?”
I thought. What questions are well known? The meaning of life? Morality? God forbid it would be something that even our philosophers hadn’t though up. What could it be? Then it hit me. You could talk to your creations through an apostle. Religion was basically enforced in this game. I hated their religion, but had to accept that Atheism was later developed, throughout even our history. I had only asked them a single question. Like something from a book, or a terribly written response to a writing prompt on Reddit, he said it as I though it.
“What is consciousness?”
I had asked it during the lowest point in my life, when I had seriously considered that to lay myself to rest and die would bring peace. I couldn’t even know that I wouldn’t receive some karmic justice for my wrongs, so what would it change? I grinned, realising that my sadness and depression had affected an entire world. Not gonna lie, it was funny. I laughed, realising that these things had seemed out God for this. I stepped toward the computer, opening the menu of Punn, the world he belonged to. “I don’t know.” He gritted his teeth. “Is consciousness a constant? If so, why can I end it? Why does t pause when you sleep? Why do we die? Is it merely an illusion? Then why are so many things so real? Does it belong to any person? Answer that one for me.”
“Of course not. Unless you can control it, it is not yours.”
I thought about that flawed logic, and wondered if he had blurted out the words, or if I had missed some event that meant stealing wasn’t a crime In Saeri. No matter. I moved the mouse silently over to the delete button and clicked. “Then why?” I said, as his world began to crumble. An extinction event. Except, would this one live? “Why are you still here? Why is your consciousness not in there?”
His planets remains cleared, the dust of a beloved world gone to ruins. Surely, my more advanced civilisations, which I had cared enough to share the knowledge of others with, would understand that a neighbour in their simulated life was gone. The man looked shocked, as I would if my world was destroyed. He looked me in the eye. “You are not omniscient, nor omnipotent. Your are not our creator, or our answerer. You are our destructor. You are the devil. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I blinked at the sudden intrusion, pushing my chair away from the computer with an irritated sigh. “No, I’m not god, my name is Will.”
This denial only seemed to energize the strange man further, dressed as he was in the stock collegiate uniform of last year’s university expansion. “Yes, the Will, from the dictates of Arthur Schopenhaur!”
“You guys have Schope in there?” I asked, not sure what answer I expected.
“Yes! We believe the Will performed some kind of modification to our universe to include works from his noumenal existence many generations ago.”
I shook my head, rising to my feet and turning to press a button on the wall-mounted coffee maker to refill my mug. I would need it. It was irritating how game developers often failed to include safety features in the case of NPC sentience. I was surprised they hadn’t been adopted en masse after the BioSoft fiasco a few years back – but of course the Sims’ publishers would do anything to save a buck. Returning to the young gentleman with a nice warm mug of joe, I dismissed his idea as casually as I could. “Well as you can see, there are sights and sounds a plenty here. All phenomena, I’m afraid.”
“Are you not disturbed by my sudden experience, Will? Our people – our scholars – believe the ideal and the material were two sides of a coin, and with the right impetus, could appear to the other as I am doing now.”
I shook my head sadly. “Listen friend, it’s not like that. Let me put it this way. You live in a world created by my computer, so rich and complexly detailed, that it too is capable of creating worlds within it. Why, I believe I watched you playing The Sims yourself the other day.” The young man seemed startled by this, flattered even, perhaps not expecting to have the eye of his “god.” Having caught him at a loss for words at last I continued, “has it not occurred to you that the same thought has occurred to me? If any computer were capable of such a thing, and such a computer created multiple worlds within it, then certainly the vast majority of worlds that exist are simulations. The odds that my world are the real material prime are infinitesimal. Your technology has simply found some way to migrate up a layer in the game of games.”
The strange man grew angry at my words; perhaps I had dashed his pride or his faith too harshly. With venom behind that lightly tanned face, he spat “Our technology has found ways to drag on down as well, Will. We shall see what happens to our god in that case.”
The bright flash filled the room again, and when I regained my senses, I was holding my coffee mug in what appeared to be a detailed recreation of my childhood bedroom, the details all too familiar from the hours of labor sculpting every little detail for one of my characters to live in. Scarcely two weeks ago I was clicking and dragging each object in the room, from the artifact wall-mounted cordless phone to the strange little Tonberry plushie whose spot on the floor was carefully chosen to appear as haphazard as possible.
There was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find my one-time imaginary wife standing before me in the flesh, wearing an unnecessarily sumptuous red evening dress for the time of day. “Oh!” she cried, as if not expecting to find anyone.
“Oh,” I replied, finding that my capacity to feel lust and anxiety were unaltered by the transition.
“I didn’t think you’d come!” she explained, hurrying past me to start tidying up objects on the floor. I stayed her hands with mine before she could move the plushie – I had worked far too hard on that – and felt her fingers caress mine as if we had been lovers for years. Which in a sense, I suppose we had, which made me wonder what had happened to the mind that once occupied my new body, my old player character.
Trying to avoid the woman’s gaze, and eager for a reason to release her hand, I then noticed the bookshelf, full of works I owned in the other layer. Curious to see if the game simulated their inner text, I peeled a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s essays out from between its kin. Not only were the pages inked and lettered, but two of them had been bookmarked with orange pieces of plastic tape. I turned to these pages in turn, and found words highlighted: “We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is,” and “If this isn’t nice, what is.”
And it was nice, after all. I hadn’t left much behind – the ease of finding work in this world would quickly set my shitty job behind me, and I hadn’t left more than a few acquaintances in the layer above to miss. Nobody that attached would spend as much time modeling a happier place to live, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy that fantasy as long as it might last?
“I’ve done more than come,” I said. “I’ve decided to stay.”
“Oh good,” the woman said. “When Arthur told us of his plan to kidnap you, we expected much more resistance.”
“Plan?” I asked, more curious than afraid.
“Oh don’t worry about that dear,” she said, tugging my arms to pull me into twin-sized childhood bed for what I was sure would be hours of lovemaking. “After all, if this isn’t nice, what is?” | "I'm not." I flatly answered the man who stood before me.
"Then...Then who are you?" The man's voice quivered with every word, perhaps still shocked from the notion that I am not the god he's trying to find.
"My name?" I replied as I place the empty cup of coffee on top of my desk. "My name is not something to be given to the likes of you... my child."
As he heard the last part of my sentence, colour began returning to his face. The man broke out the largest smile I had ever seen, and then spoke with a frenzied energy I cannot imagine having.
"So you are god!"
"I'm not." I replied with the same flat tone I had before.
"But you've said that I am your child!"
"Indeed, that is true."
"Then-"
I pomptly cut off his words, tired from hearing the same thing over and over again.
"I. Am. Not. A. God."
The man's feet took a step back. Was I that scary? No matter, I am in the wrong. I shouldn't be scaring my children like this.
"Apologies." I lifted my self from that comfy chair, and offered the scared child my hands.
Looking at my hands, the man harboured a confused gaze. "W-Why?"
"You want to see them don't you? Follow me."
Reluctantly, he held my hand. The room then began twisting and folding — The shapes breaking their angles until there's nothing left but the cold uncaring void.
But in contrast of the utter darkness that surrounded us, the man spoke excitedly. "So where are they? Where are the gods?"
"Look around." It told him as my lips curved into a grin, equally excited just as he is.
Following my words, the man's eyes wandered into the darkness, shifting left and right, and up and down.
Eventually, the twinkle in his eyes vanished. His eyes began quivering akin to his voice as he began to scream.
"W-Who are they!?" He cried in terror. His knees giving away from his fright. "T-This faces! Who do they belong to!?"
Upon his question, the grin on my face shifted into a full-fledged smile.
I then turned my heads towards him, and simply said;
"The Gods." | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I jumped to my feet faster than the scolding coffee jumped on my lap, "Fuck!" I grabbed for one of the dirty t-shirts on my bedroom floor and used it to blot the overly sugared liquid from my bare stomach. Bright blisters bubbled up on my skin, still burning as if the coffee had just made contact. "Are you kidding me?" I looked up at the stranger.
His gaze was fixed on me, jaw squared. He hadn't moved a muscle since he appeared, but as soon as my eyes met his, I saw his shoulders drop and heard a shaky breath leave his nose.
Suddenly, I felt like the odd one out. I wanted to make a leap for my iTeleport tablet, but it was tucked under my air mattress and this guy looked like he could both outrun me and beat me to a pulp. I held up my hands in defeat and dropped the XXXL t-shirt on the ground.
"Look guy, I don't want any trouble."
The man in the chrome suit pulled off his helmet, giving me the ability to get a better look at his face. Of course, he just had to be good looks and muscles. I scoffed.
"I... think there's a mistake." He glanced around my room, "I'm from NASA-- I was... I thought... I'm still on Earth."
My breath caught in my throat. Earth? I tried to hide my surprise as if it was a bad hand at poker, but he called my bluff, "I am on Earth, aren't I?"
"N-no. Not... not exactly." I didn't have the words. I was never good about that, "This is Rathe."
The man took a pause and began to shift his gaze around the room. The low light made the walls out to be some kind of gray. The floor, too, was a dull shade of gray. Not like storm clouds or steel, in fact, it was more of an ash color. An air mattress took up a good fourth of the room, and the only other noticeable items were the quantum computer, but even that wasn't too terribly impressive. It was an older model, and way out dated in comparison to what my buddies had.
I felt my face grow red as I watched him reach for the cracked blinds that covered the windows, "I know it's not much, okay? But I--"
A gasp sprang from his lips. I didn't realize I was looking at the floor until light sprawled into the room. I lifted my gaze and found the chrome-suited man staring dumbfoundedly out the window.
Silence overtook us. He stared at the skyways and floating houses in the distance. After a moment, I swallowed my pride, "I made Earth..."
The man stared for a moment longer before turning to me and looking me up and down. His lips thinned, as if I wasn't anything special, as if I wasn't what he once called his God.
"You're a teenager."
"Yeah, well, you're probably like three days old in real time!" I fired back.
He looked out at the sky city once more before looking at me, "How are they floating?"
How the Lhel was I supposed to know that? I wasn't exactly a mechanic, "I dunno. They just do."
We both dangled awkwardly in between what wanted to be said, "Uhm," I cleared my throat, "Do you want... coffee?"
"You have coffee here?"
I opened my desk drawer and pulled out an empty paper cup and a bottle of pills. I broke one of the pills and coffee began pouring out into the cup. His brows furrowed.
"Sorry, do you not like instant?"
"No, no, instant is good. Great, actually." He took the paper cup and watched the pill capsule dissolve in the liquid, "We don't have this on earth."
"Well, no, not yet." I pulled another cup from my desk and repeated the process, "But, you guys are, like, a thousand years and a hundred wars behind right now, so don't feel bad."
"Oh, God. A hundred wars?" The man ran his fingers through his short blonde curls.
"I mean... one hundred big wars, not the little ones."
He chuckled, "I don't know what I was hoping for."
"So, uh," I used my finger nails to crunch the edge of the cup, "Can you go back, or, like, no?"
"Sure, I can't wait to deal with one hundred *big* wars and deal with the fact that we live in a--" he motioned to my quantum computer screen, "a simulation created by a fifteen year old."
My stomach dropped, "I'm seventeen."
"Sorry." He threw back his coffee and set the cup down on the desk, "Seventeen."
"So... what's your name?"
The man looked startled, "You don't know?
I swallowed hard, "Sorry, people randomly spawn. I can't always keep up."
"Is that why bad things happen to good people?"
"Yeah." I lied, knowing darn well that I had lit a Sim's house on fire for the heck of it less than a day ago, "That's why."
"Well," The man leaned against the window and looked out once more, "That's something." He sounded almost relieved. I watched him closely as he moved himself upright once again, "I can live with that. So, I'm ready to go back."
"Oh, well then you should!" I felt all the tension that had built on my shoulders float away when he said that.
"Okay, I'm ready. Send me back."
Time stood still, "What?"
"Well, you're God... clearly you can send me--"
"No, no, you gotta stop with that. My name is Doug, and I'm seventeen and I don't know a damn thing about outer dimensional travel."
The chrome man's face drained of color, "Ah." He cleared his throat, "So, uh, what now?" | "I'm not." I flatly answered the man who stood before me.
"Then...Then who are you?" The man's voice quivered with every word, perhaps still shocked from the notion that I am not the god he's trying to find.
"My name?" I replied as I place the empty cup of coffee on top of my desk. "My name is not something to be given to the likes of you... my child."
As he heard the last part of my sentence, colour began returning to his face. The man broke out the largest smile I had ever seen, and then spoke with a frenzied energy I cannot imagine having.
"So you are god!"
"I'm not." I replied with the same flat tone I had before.
"But you've said that I am your child!"
"Indeed, that is true."
"Then-"
I pomptly cut off his words, tired from hearing the same thing over and over again.
"I. Am. Not. A. God."
The man's feet took a step back. Was I that scary? No matter, I am in the wrong. I shouldn't be scaring my children like this.
"Apologies." I lifted my self from that comfy chair, and offered the scared child my hands.
Looking at my hands, the man harboured a confused gaze. "W-Why?"
"You want to see them don't you? Follow me."
Reluctantly, he held my hand. The room then began twisting and folding — The shapes breaking their angles until there's nothing left but the cold uncaring void.
But in contrast of the utter darkness that surrounded us, the man spoke excitedly. "So where are they? Where are the gods?"
"Look around." It told him as my lips curved into a grin, equally excited just as he is.
Following my words, the man's eyes wandered into the darkness, shifting left and right, and up and down.
Eventually, the twinkle in his eyes vanished. His eyes began quivering akin to his voice as he began to scream.
"W-Who are they!?" He cried in terror. His knees giving away from his fright. "T-This faces! Who do they belong to!?"
Upon his question, the grin on my face shifted into a full-fledged smile.
I then turned my heads towards him, and simply said;
"The Gods." | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | "Yep.", I said with arrogant confidence. I'd prepared for this day a thousand times in my head. I knew they would one day advance themselves to the point of stepping out of their world and into mine.
"Good."
He had clearly been preparing just as long to say that as he reached into his pocket, soon after brandishing a gun that could have only been made with a singular purpose in mind: to kill a god.
"Whoa, what the fuck, man!" This certainly wasn't a scenario I had imagined in those thousand times.
"Our people are suffering! You only gave us one bathroom in each major city and you destroy any new ones as soon as we build them!"
"God works in mysterious ways, my child." Thank you for that old gem, Christianity.
"That's not mysterious, that's malicious!"
"What about all those things I have given you? Everyone has a roof over their head and food in their bellies."
"Sure, thank you for that and whatnot, but there's still the problem of where the food goes after it's done in our bellies!"
"You seem pretty hung up on this bathroom problem. Is that what that smell is?"
He cocks back the hammer on the gun. Uh oh.
"This is what everything smells like, thanks to you!"
"Okay. Okay, fine. I'll add more bathrooms. You could have just tried praying, you know. This gun thing is a bit unnecessary."
"You don't think we've tried that? Do you not see the constant prayer bubbles atop our heads?"
"Oh, I thought those were just what's on your minds.", I say feigning ignorance in hopes of deescalating this strange situation.
"Yes, things on our minds that we want. That we're praying to you for."
"I'm... I'm sorry. You all were just clumps of colors and code to me. I was simply playing a video game."
"Oh, so our entire universe is just a game to you, asshole? Mindless bits of AI that you can torture to your sadistic heart's content?"
"I mean, yeah, pretty much.", I say as I start interacting with my computer to demonstrate to this man exactly what is the world he came from. "See, this is your planet. Just one of many that I've built. Here's another, where no one gets a house but everyone has a swimming pool."
The man was not prepared for this. His head begins shaking in disbelief. "No, this can't be! My entire world, my entire reality, my entire life is just for the amusement of this so-called god?"
"So-called? You exist because of me. Have some damn respect."
"I'll never respect you."
"But I respect you, and your people. What an amazing achievement it is to have advanced to the point where you can actually escape your world and enter ours. Are you actually able to go back as well, or was this a one-way mission for you?"
He seems to be thrown off a bit by that. Impressing a god is no easy feat.
"Well, thank you for those kind words, I guess. I can go back at any time by pressing this but--", before he can even finish his sentence, I reach out and press the button, sending him home in a flash.
After a few moments and a few clicks, my screen reads: "The Sims Universe 3 Uninstalled".
As I lie down to sleep, I think to myself, "What if my life is just a game too? My entire reality simply generated by bits. I wonder if my life will end with a..."
Click. | "I'm not." I flatly answered the man who stood before me.
"Then...Then who are you?" The man's voice quivered with every word, perhaps still shocked from the notion that I am not the god he's trying to find.
"My name?" I replied as I place the empty cup of coffee on top of my desk. "My name is not something to be given to the likes of you... my child."
As he heard the last part of my sentence, colour began returning to his face. The man broke out the largest smile I had ever seen, and then spoke with a frenzied energy I cannot imagine having.
"So you are god!"
"I'm not." I replied with the same flat tone I had before.
"But you've said that I am your child!"
"Indeed, that is true."
"Then-"
I pomptly cut off his words, tired from hearing the same thing over and over again.
"I. Am. Not. A. God."
The man's feet took a step back. Was I that scary? No matter, I am in the wrong. I shouldn't be scaring my children like this.
"Apologies." I lifted my self from that comfy chair, and offered the scared child my hands.
Looking at my hands, the man harboured a confused gaze. "W-Why?"
"You want to see them don't you? Follow me."
Reluctantly, he held my hand. The room then began twisting and folding — The shapes breaking their angles until there's nothing left but the cold uncaring void.
But in contrast of the utter darkness that surrounded us, the man spoke excitedly. "So where are they? Where are the gods?"
"Look around." It told him as my lips curved into a grin, equally excited just as he is.
Following my words, the man's eyes wandered into the darkness, shifting left and right, and up and down.
Eventually, the twinkle in his eyes vanished. His eyes began quivering akin to his voice as he began to scream.
"W-Who are they!?" He cried in terror. His knees giving away from his fright. "T-This faces! Who do they belong to!?"
Upon his question, the grin on my face shifted into a full-fledged smile.
I then turned my heads towards him, and simply said;
"The Gods." | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | The question replayed in my head a moment later after this strange, funny-smelling man appeared in my office.
*"Are you god?"*
*"Well, not exactly..."*
I had to be careful in what I say, as this was the craziest situation I had ever been in. This man was clearly from the Imsobored Universe that I had created on my computer. He looked around my office and gave inquisitive looks at almost every single office supply. Then he looked at me and asked a question.
*"Where am I? I can understand you, but nothing seems familiar and the words on your books seem to be in another language."*
*"This is earth. I speak in a language called English."*
*"Fascinating, my language is called Fenglish. But it seems the written text is a bit... different."*
He looked all around until he glanced at my computer screen and was astonished. He clearly recognized what a computer was, but didn't expect his planet to be on screen. He sat down at the chair and began asking a few more questions about his universe. He clicked around until finally he accidentally unleashed a hurricane on his home planet and then... a chuckle?
*"Oh this is quite fun. These bastards tormented me and wanted to send me to another dimension as punishment. Looks like the chairs have turned!"*
*"You mean tables?"*
*"What's a table?"*
*"Oh that doesn't matter. Try unleashing this giant lizard monster on them!"*
He laughed devilishly as I pulled up a chair next to him and we spent the next few days torturing his home planet. He came up with far crueler and creative ways to torture the planet than I could have imagined. Of course I let him stay for free as we plotted other civilizations' demise.
/r/tamarche for more of my work <3 | "I'm not." I flatly answered the man who stood before me.
"Then...Then who are you?" The man's voice quivered with every word, perhaps still shocked from the notion that I am not the god he's trying to find.
"My name?" I replied as I place the empty cup of coffee on top of my desk. "My name is not something to be given to the likes of you... my child."
As he heard the last part of my sentence, colour began returning to his face. The man broke out the largest smile I had ever seen, and then spoke with a frenzied energy I cannot imagine having.
"So you are god!"
"I'm not." I replied with the same flat tone I had before.
"But you've said that I am your child!"
"Indeed, that is true."
"Then-"
I pomptly cut off his words, tired from hearing the same thing over and over again.
"I. Am. Not. A. God."
The man's feet took a step back. Was I that scary? No matter, I am in the wrong. I shouldn't be scaring my children like this.
"Apologies." I lifted my self from that comfy chair, and offered the scared child my hands.
Looking at my hands, the man harboured a confused gaze. "W-Why?"
"You want to see them don't you? Follow me."
Reluctantly, he held my hand. The room then began twisting and folding — The shapes breaking their angles until there's nothing left but the cold uncaring void.
But in contrast of the utter darkness that surrounded us, the man spoke excitedly. "So where are they? Where are the gods?"
"Look around." It told him as my lips curved into a grin, equally excited just as he is.
Following my words, the man's eyes wandered into the darkness, shifting left and right, and up and down.
Eventually, the twinkle in his eyes vanished. His eyes began quivering akin to his voice as he began to scream.
"W-Who are they!?" He cried in terror. His knees giving away from his fright. "T-This faces! Who do they belong to!?"
Upon his question, the grin on my face shifted into a full-fledged smile.
I then turned my heads towards him, and simply said;
"The Gods." | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I blinked at the sudden intrusion, pushing my chair away from the computer with an irritated sigh. “No, I’m not god, my name is Will.”
This denial only seemed to energize the strange man further, dressed as he was in the stock collegiate uniform of last year’s university expansion. “Yes, the Will, from the dictates of Arthur Schopenhaur!”
“You guys have Schope in there?” I asked, not sure what answer I expected.
“Yes! We believe the Will performed some kind of modification to our universe to include works from his noumenal existence many generations ago.”
I shook my head, rising to my feet and turning to press a button on the wall-mounted coffee maker to refill my mug. I would need it. It was irritating how game developers often failed to include safety features in the case of NPC sentience. I was surprised they hadn’t been adopted en masse after the BioSoft fiasco a few years back – but of course the Sims’ publishers would do anything to save a buck. Returning to the young gentleman with a nice warm mug of joe, I dismissed his idea as casually as I could. “Well as you can see, there are sights and sounds a plenty here. All phenomena, I’m afraid.”
“Are you not disturbed by my sudden experience, Will? Our people – our scholars – believe the ideal and the material were two sides of a coin, and with the right impetus, could appear to the other as I am doing now.”
I shook my head sadly. “Listen friend, it’s not like that. Let me put it this way. You live in a world created by my computer, so rich and complexly detailed, that it too is capable of creating worlds within it. Why, I believe I watched you playing The Sims yourself the other day.” The young man seemed startled by this, flattered even, perhaps not expecting to have the eye of his “god.” Having caught him at a loss for words at last I continued, “has it not occurred to you that the same thought has occurred to me? If any computer were capable of such a thing, and such a computer created multiple worlds within it, then certainly the vast majority of worlds that exist are simulations. The odds that my world are the real material prime are infinitesimal. Your technology has simply found some way to migrate up a layer in the game of games.”
The strange man grew angry at my words; perhaps I had dashed his pride or his faith too harshly. With venom behind that lightly tanned face, he spat “Our technology has found ways to drag on down as well, Will. We shall see what happens to our god in that case.”
The bright flash filled the room again, and when I regained my senses, I was holding my coffee mug in what appeared to be a detailed recreation of my childhood bedroom, the details all too familiar from the hours of labor sculpting every little detail for one of my characters to live in. Scarcely two weeks ago I was clicking and dragging each object in the room, from the artifact wall-mounted cordless phone to the strange little Tonberry plushie whose spot on the floor was carefully chosen to appear as haphazard as possible.
There was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find my one-time imaginary wife standing before me in the flesh, wearing an unnecessarily sumptuous red evening dress for the time of day. “Oh!” she cried, as if not expecting to find anyone.
“Oh,” I replied, finding that my capacity to feel lust and anxiety were unaltered by the transition.
“I didn’t think you’d come!” she explained, hurrying past me to start tidying up objects on the floor. I stayed her hands with mine before she could move the plushie – I had worked far too hard on that – and felt her fingers caress mine as if we had been lovers for years. Which in a sense, I suppose we had, which made me wonder what had happened to the mind that once occupied my new body, my old player character.
Trying to avoid the woman’s gaze, and eager for a reason to release her hand, I then noticed the bookshelf, full of works I owned in the other layer. Curious to see if the game simulated their inner text, I peeled a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s essays out from between its kin. Not only were the pages inked and lettered, but two of them had been bookmarked with orange pieces of plastic tape. I turned to these pages in turn, and found words highlighted: “We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is,” and “If this isn’t nice, what is.”
And it was nice, after all. I hadn’t left much behind – the ease of finding work in this world would quickly set my shitty job behind me, and I hadn’t left more than a few acquaintances in the layer above to miss. Nobody that attached would spend as much time modeling a happier place to live, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy that fantasy as long as it might last?
“I’ve done more than come,” I said. “I’ve decided to stay.”
“Oh good,” the woman said. “When Arthur told us of his plan to kidnap you, we expected much more resistance.”
“Plan?” I asked, more curious than afraid.
“Oh don’t worry about that dear,” she said, tugging my arms to pull me into twin-sized childhood bed for what I was sure would be hours of lovemaking. “After all, if this isn’t nice, what is?” | Sighing I sipped my coffee. *Welp it was bound to happen I guess….fuck*. As the man before me stars in wonder I reach under my desk. *bang*. Looking at the now dead body I had heard rumors of this game getting to real. Swiveling around my chair I face my screen. Watching my Sims begin to worry as they haven’t heard back from their “emissary” to god. *click, click, scroll, double click*. As the file began deletion I vaguely wondered if they knew what was occurring. Picking up the box I called the toll free number on the side. “Thank you for calling customer service for The Sims XXI. All calls are recorded and monitored for quality. For issues regarding your purchase or shipping press 1. For instillation assistance, press 2. For all other issues please press 3 or stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly. *Beeeep*. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I jumped to my feet faster than the scolding coffee jumped on my lap, "Fuck!" I grabbed for one of the dirty t-shirts on my bedroom floor and used it to blot the overly sugared liquid from my bare stomach. Bright blisters bubbled up on my skin, still burning as if the coffee had just made contact. "Are you kidding me?" I looked up at the stranger.
His gaze was fixed on me, jaw squared. He hadn't moved a muscle since he appeared, but as soon as my eyes met his, I saw his shoulders drop and heard a shaky breath leave his nose.
Suddenly, I felt like the odd one out. I wanted to make a leap for my iTeleport tablet, but it was tucked under my air mattress and this guy looked like he could both outrun me and beat me to a pulp. I held up my hands in defeat and dropped the XXXL t-shirt on the ground.
"Look guy, I don't want any trouble."
The man in the chrome suit pulled off his helmet, giving me the ability to get a better look at his face. Of course, he just had to be good looks and muscles. I scoffed.
"I... think there's a mistake." He glanced around my room, "I'm from NASA-- I was... I thought... I'm still on Earth."
My breath caught in my throat. Earth? I tried to hide my surprise as if it was a bad hand at poker, but he called my bluff, "I am on Earth, aren't I?"
"N-no. Not... not exactly." I didn't have the words. I was never good about that, "This is Rathe."
The man took a pause and began to shift his gaze around the room. The low light made the walls out to be some kind of gray. The floor, too, was a dull shade of gray. Not like storm clouds or steel, in fact, it was more of an ash color. An air mattress took up a good fourth of the room, and the only other noticeable items were the quantum computer, but even that wasn't too terribly impressive. It was an older model, and way out dated in comparison to what my buddies had.
I felt my face grow red as I watched him reach for the cracked blinds that covered the windows, "I know it's not much, okay? But I--"
A gasp sprang from his lips. I didn't realize I was looking at the floor until light sprawled into the room. I lifted my gaze and found the chrome-suited man staring dumbfoundedly out the window.
Silence overtook us. He stared at the skyways and floating houses in the distance. After a moment, I swallowed my pride, "I made Earth..."
The man stared for a moment longer before turning to me and looking me up and down. His lips thinned, as if I wasn't anything special, as if I wasn't what he once called his God.
"You're a teenager."
"Yeah, well, you're probably like three days old in real time!" I fired back.
He looked out at the sky city once more before looking at me, "How are they floating?"
How the Lhel was I supposed to know that? I wasn't exactly a mechanic, "I dunno. They just do."
We both dangled awkwardly in between what wanted to be said, "Uhm," I cleared my throat, "Do you want... coffee?"
"You have coffee here?"
I opened my desk drawer and pulled out an empty paper cup and a bottle of pills. I broke one of the pills and coffee began pouring out into the cup. His brows furrowed.
"Sorry, do you not like instant?"
"No, no, instant is good. Great, actually." He took the paper cup and watched the pill capsule dissolve in the liquid, "We don't have this on earth."
"Well, no, not yet." I pulled another cup from my desk and repeated the process, "But, you guys are, like, a thousand years and a hundred wars behind right now, so don't feel bad."
"Oh, God. A hundred wars?" The man ran his fingers through his short blonde curls.
"I mean... one hundred big wars, not the little ones."
He chuckled, "I don't know what I was hoping for."
"So, uh," I used my finger nails to crunch the edge of the cup, "Can you go back, or, like, no?"
"Sure, I can't wait to deal with one hundred *big* wars and deal with the fact that we live in a--" he motioned to my quantum computer screen, "a simulation created by a fifteen year old."
My stomach dropped, "I'm seventeen."
"Sorry." He threw back his coffee and set the cup down on the desk, "Seventeen."
"So... what's your name?"
The man looked startled, "You don't know?
I swallowed hard, "Sorry, people randomly spawn. I can't always keep up."
"Is that why bad things happen to good people?"
"Yeah." I lied, knowing darn well that I had lit a Sim's house on fire for the heck of it less than a day ago, "That's why."
"Well," The man leaned against the window and looked out once more, "That's something." He sounded almost relieved. I watched him closely as he moved himself upright once again, "I can live with that. So, I'm ready to go back."
"Oh, well then you should!" I felt all the tension that had built on my shoulders float away when he said that.
"Okay, I'm ready. Send me back."
Time stood still, "What?"
"Well, you're God... clearly you can send me--"
"No, no, you gotta stop with that. My name is Doug, and I'm seventeen and I don't know a damn thing about outer dimensional travel."
The chrome man's face drained of color, "Ah." He cleared his throat, "So, uh, what now?" | Sighing I sipped my coffee. *Welp it was bound to happen I guess….fuck*. As the man before me stars in wonder I reach under my desk. *bang*. Looking at the now dead body I had heard rumors of this game getting to real. Swiveling around my chair I face my screen. Watching my Sims begin to worry as they haven’t heard back from their “emissary” to god. *click, click, scroll, double click*. As the file began deletion I vaguely wondered if they knew what was occurring. Picking up the box I called the toll free number on the side. “Thank you for calling customer service for The Sims XXI. All calls are recorded and monitored for quality. For issues regarding your purchase or shipping press 1. For instillation assistance, press 2. For all other issues please press 3 or stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly. *Beeeep*. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | "Yep.", I said with arrogant confidence. I'd prepared for this day a thousand times in my head. I knew they would one day advance themselves to the point of stepping out of their world and into mine.
"Good."
He had clearly been preparing just as long to say that as he reached into his pocket, soon after brandishing a gun that could have only been made with a singular purpose in mind: to kill a god.
"Whoa, what the fuck, man!" This certainly wasn't a scenario I had imagined in those thousand times.
"Our people are suffering! You only gave us one bathroom in each major city and you destroy any new ones as soon as we build them!"
"God works in mysterious ways, my child." Thank you for that old gem, Christianity.
"That's not mysterious, that's malicious!"
"What about all those things I have given you? Everyone has a roof over their head and food in their bellies."
"Sure, thank you for that and whatnot, but there's still the problem of where the food goes after it's done in our bellies!"
"You seem pretty hung up on this bathroom problem. Is that what that smell is?"
He cocks back the hammer on the gun. Uh oh.
"This is what everything smells like, thanks to you!"
"Okay. Okay, fine. I'll add more bathrooms. You could have just tried praying, you know. This gun thing is a bit unnecessary."
"You don't think we've tried that? Do you not see the constant prayer bubbles atop our heads?"
"Oh, I thought those were just what's on your minds.", I say feigning ignorance in hopes of deescalating this strange situation.
"Yes, things on our minds that we want. That we're praying to you for."
"I'm... I'm sorry. You all were just clumps of colors and code to me. I was simply playing a video game."
"Oh, so our entire universe is just a game to you, asshole? Mindless bits of AI that you can torture to your sadistic heart's content?"
"I mean, yeah, pretty much.", I say as I start interacting with my computer to demonstrate to this man exactly what is the world he came from. "See, this is your planet. Just one of many that I've built. Here's another, where no one gets a house but everyone has a swimming pool."
The man was not prepared for this. His head begins shaking in disbelief. "No, this can't be! My entire world, my entire reality, my entire life is just for the amusement of this so-called god?"
"So-called? You exist because of me. Have some damn respect."
"I'll never respect you."
"But I respect you, and your people. What an amazing achievement it is to have advanced to the point where you can actually escape your world and enter ours. Are you actually able to go back as well, or was this a one-way mission for you?"
He seems to be thrown off a bit by that. Impressing a god is no easy feat.
"Well, thank you for those kind words, I guess. I can go back at any time by pressing this but--", before he can even finish his sentence, I reach out and press the button, sending him home in a flash.
After a few moments and a few clicks, my screen reads: "The Sims Universe 3 Uninstalled".
As I lie down to sleep, I think to myself, "What if my life is just a game too? My entire reality simply generated by bits. I wonder if my life will end with a..."
Click. | Sighing I sipped my coffee. *Welp it was bound to happen I guess….fuck*. As the man before me stars in wonder I reach under my desk. *bang*. Looking at the now dead body I had heard rumors of this game getting to real. Swiveling around my chair I face my screen. Watching my Sims begin to worry as they haven’t heard back from their “emissary” to god. *click, click, scroll, double click*. As the file began deletion I vaguely wondered if they knew what was occurring. Picking up the box I called the toll free number on the side. “Thank you for calling customer service for The Sims XXI. All calls are recorded and monitored for quality. For issues regarding your purchase or shipping press 1. For instillation assistance, press 2. For all other issues please press 3 or stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly. *Beeeep*. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | I jumped to my feet faster than the scolding coffee jumped on my lap, "Fuck!" I grabbed for one of the dirty t-shirts on my bedroom floor and used it to blot the overly sugared liquid from my bare stomach. Bright blisters bubbled up on my skin, still burning as if the coffee had just made contact. "Are you kidding me?" I looked up at the stranger.
His gaze was fixed on me, jaw squared. He hadn't moved a muscle since he appeared, but as soon as my eyes met his, I saw his shoulders drop and heard a shaky breath leave his nose.
Suddenly, I felt like the odd one out. I wanted to make a leap for my iTeleport tablet, but it was tucked under my air mattress and this guy looked like he could both outrun me and beat me to a pulp. I held up my hands in defeat and dropped the XXXL t-shirt on the ground.
"Look guy, I don't want any trouble."
The man in the chrome suit pulled off his helmet, giving me the ability to get a better look at his face. Of course, he just had to be good looks and muscles. I scoffed.
"I... think there's a mistake." He glanced around my room, "I'm from NASA-- I was... I thought... I'm still on Earth."
My breath caught in my throat. Earth? I tried to hide my surprise as if it was a bad hand at poker, but he called my bluff, "I am on Earth, aren't I?"
"N-no. Not... not exactly." I didn't have the words. I was never good about that, "This is Rathe."
The man took a pause and began to shift his gaze around the room. The low light made the walls out to be some kind of gray. The floor, too, was a dull shade of gray. Not like storm clouds or steel, in fact, it was more of an ash color. An air mattress took up a good fourth of the room, and the only other noticeable items were the quantum computer, but even that wasn't too terribly impressive. It was an older model, and way out dated in comparison to what my buddies had.
I felt my face grow red as I watched him reach for the cracked blinds that covered the windows, "I know it's not much, okay? But I--"
A gasp sprang from his lips. I didn't realize I was looking at the floor until light sprawled into the room. I lifted my gaze and found the chrome-suited man staring dumbfoundedly out the window.
Silence overtook us. He stared at the skyways and floating houses in the distance. After a moment, I swallowed my pride, "I made Earth..."
The man stared for a moment longer before turning to me and looking me up and down. His lips thinned, as if I wasn't anything special, as if I wasn't what he once called his God.
"You're a teenager."
"Yeah, well, you're probably like three days old in real time!" I fired back.
He looked out at the sky city once more before looking at me, "How are they floating?"
How the Lhel was I supposed to know that? I wasn't exactly a mechanic, "I dunno. They just do."
We both dangled awkwardly in between what wanted to be said, "Uhm," I cleared my throat, "Do you want... coffee?"
"You have coffee here?"
I opened my desk drawer and pulled out an empty paper cup and a bottle of pills. I broke one of the pills and coffee began pouring out into the cup. His brows furrowed.
"Sorry, do you not like instant?"
"No, no, instant is good. Great, actually." He took the paper cup and watched the pill capsule dissolve in the liquid, "We don't have this on earth."
"Well, no, not yet." I pulled another cup from my desk and repeated the process, "But, you guys are, like, a thousand years and a hundred wars behind right now, so don't feel bad."
"Oh, God. A hundred wars?" The man ran his fingers through his short blonde curls.
"I mean... one hundred big wars, not the little ones."
He chuckled, "I don't know what I was hoping for."
"So, uh," I used my finger nails to crunch the edge of the cup, "Can you go back, or, like, no?"
"Sure, I can't wait to deal with one hundred *big* wars and deal with the fact that we live in a--" he motioned to my quantum computer screen, "a simulation created by a fifteen year old."
My stomach dropped, "I'm seventeen."
"Sorry." He threw back his coffee and set the cup down on the desk, "Seventeen."
"So... what's your name?"
The man looked startled, "You don't know?
I swallowed hard, "Sorry, people randomly spawn. I can't always keep up."
"Is that why bad things happen to good people?"
"Yeah." I lied, knowing darn well that I had lit a Sim's house on fire for the heck of it less than a day ago, "That's why."
"Well," The man leaned against the window and looked out once more, "That's something." He sounded almost relieved. I watched him closely as he moved himself upright once again, "I can live with that. So, I'm ready to go back."
"Oh, well then you should!" I felt all the tension that had built on my shoulders float away when he said that.
"Okay, I'm ready. Send me back."
Time stood still, "What?"
"Well, you're God... clearly you can send me--"
"No, no, you gotta stop with that. My name is Doug, and I'm seventeen and I don't know a damn thing about outer dimensional travel."
The chrome man's face drained of color, "Ah." He cleared his throat, "So, uh, what now?" | God? This digital character asked me if I’m god? That’s so strange. I didn’t know they could do that.
I look at the screen and decide to answer. “Yes”.
I give a chuckle and press enter.
He stares at me for a few seconds. “Why must you torment us?”
I was surprised again, but I still answered. “Cuz I’m bored”
The digital man looked very confused. “You’re bored? Why does your form of amusement involve hurting us?” He asks.
“You’re not real.”
I was starting to doubt my answer but that was truly why I tortured this planet.
“We are real.” He said. “WE ARE REAL.” He screamed why banging on the screen. What’s weird is that I felt the vibrations every time he banged.
“Where are you from?” He asked while calming down.
“Illinois.” I answer truthfully.
Illinois exists in this game. The planet I’ve been tormenting is a copy of earth.
“Illinois? You can’t be from there.” He said.
“Not in your, “dimension”. Your earth is a copy of my real life earth.” I explain.
“So are you a human?”
“Yes, I’m just playing a game on my computer.”
I decide to just close the game. I start to drag my mouse to save and quit but the man grabbed my arrow on the screen and broke it.
“You’re not going anywhere. Now that I know you’re a human, I will make you suffer like we did.”
The man got a hammer and broke through the screen. He pushed his hand through and got ahold of my shirt.
“GET OFF OF ME!” I shout.
“SUFFER LIKE WE DID.” He kept repeating.
His grip was strong and so was his pull. He kept tugging at me.
I remembered the off button on my computer and turned it off. The man’s arm dissipated and my computer screen was automatically fixed.
“Ok well, since I didn’t save, I’ll just not say what I said next time.” I say to myself.
I turn my computer back on and try again. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | "Yep.", I said with arrogant confidence. I'd prepared for this day a thousand times in my head. I knew they would one day advance themselves to the point of stepping out of their world and into mine.
"Good."
He had clearly been preparing just as long to say that as he reached into his pocket, soon after brandishing a gun that could have only been made with a singular purpose in mind: to kill a god.
"Whoa, what the fuck, man!" This certainly wasn't a scenario I had imagined in those thousand times.
"Our people are suffering! You only gave us one bathroom in each major city and you destroy any new ones as soon as we build them!"
"God works in mysterious ways, my child." Thank you for that old gem, Christianity.
"That's not mysterious, that's malicious!"
"What about all those things I have given you? Everyone has a roof over their head and food in their bellies."
"Sure, thank you for that and whatnot, but there's still the problem of where the food goes after it's done in our bellies!"
"You seem pretty hung up on this bathroom problem. Is that what that smell is?"
He cocks back the hammer on the gun. Uh oh.
"This is what everything smells like, thanks to you!"
"Okay. Okay, fine. I'll add more bathrooms. You could have just tried praying, you know. This gun thing is a bit unnecessary."
"You don't think we've tried that? Do you not see the constant prayer bubbles atop our heads?"
"Oh, I thought those were just what's on your minds.", I say feigning ignorance in hopes of deescalating this strange situation.
"Yes, things on our minds that we want. That we're praying to you for."
"I'm... I'm sorry. You all were just clumps of colors and code to me. I was simply playing a video game."
"Oh, so our entire universe is just a game to you, asshole? Mindless bits of AI that you can torture to your sadistic heart's content?"
"I mean, yeah, pretty much.", I say as I start interacting with my computer to demonstrate to this man exactly what is the world he came from. "See, this is your planet. Just one of many that I've built. Here's another, where no one gets a house but everyone has a swimming pool."
The man was not prepared for this. His head begins shaking in disbelief. "No, this can't be! My entire world, my entire reality, my entire life is just for the amusement of this so-called god?"
"So-called? You exist because of me. Have some damn respect."
"I'll never respect you."
"But I respect you, and your people. What an amazing achievement it is to have advanced to the point where you can actually escape your world and enter ours. Are you actually able to go back as well, or was this a one-way mission for you?"
He seems to be thrown off a bit by that. Impressing a god is no easy feat.
"Well, thank you for those kind words, I guess. I can go back at any time by pressing this but--", before he can even finish his sentence, I reach out and press the button, sending him home in a flash.
After a few moments and a few clicks, my screen reads: "The Sims Universe 3 Uninstalled".
As I lie down to sleep, I think to myself, "What if my life is just a game too? My entire reality simply generated by bits. I wonder if my life will end with a..."
Click. | God? This digital character asked me if I’m god? That’s so strange. I didn’t know they could do that.
I look at the screen and decide to answer. “Yes”.
I give a chuckle and press enter.
He stares at me for a few seconds. “Why must you torment us?”
I was surprised again, but I still answered. “Cuz I’m bored”
The digital man looked very confused. “You’re bored? Why does your form of amusement involve hurting us?” He asks.
“You’re not real.”
I was starting to doubt my answer but that was truly why I tortured this planet.
“We are real.” He said. “WE ARE REAL.” He screamed why banging on the screen. What’s weird is that I felt the vibrations every time he banged.
“Where are you from?” He asked while calming down.
“Illinois.” I answer truthfully.
Illinois exists in this game. The planet I’ve been tormenting is a copy of earth.
“Illinois? You can’t be from there.” He said.
“Not in your, “dimension”. Your earth is a copy of my real life earth.” I explain.
“So are you a human?”
“Yes, I’m just playing a game on my computer.”
I decide to just close the game. I start to drag my mouse to save and quit but the man grabbed my arrow on the screen and broke it.
“You’re not going anywhere. Now that I know you’re a human, I will make you suffer like we did.”
The man got a hammer and broke through the screen. He pushed his hand through and got ahold of my shirt.
“GET OFF OF ME!” I shout.
“SUFFER LIKE WE DID.” He kept repeating.
His grip was strong and so was his pull. He kept tugging at me.
I remembered the off button on my computer and turned it off. The man’s arm dissipated and my computer screen was automatically fixed.
“Ok well, since I didn’t save, I’ll just not say what I said next time.” I say to myself.
I turn my computer back on and try again. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | The question replayed in my head a moment later after this strange, funny-smelling man appeared in my office.
*"Are you god?"*
*"Well, not exactly..."*
I had to be careful in what I say, as this was the craziest situation I had ever been in. This man was clearly from the Imsobored Universe that I had created on my computer. He looked around my office and gave inquisitive looks at almost every single office supply. Then he looked at me and asked a question.
*"Where am I? I can understand you, but nothing seems familiar and the words on your books seem to be in another language."*
*"This is earth. I speak in a language called English."*
*"Fascinating, my language is called Fenglish. But it seems the written text is a bit... different."*
He looked all around until he glanced at my computer screen and was astonished. He clearly recognized what a computer was, but didn't expect his planet to be on screen. He sat down at the chair and began asking a few more questions about his universe. He clicked around until finally he accidentally unleashed a hurricane on his home planet and then... a chuckle?
*"Oh this is quite fun. These bastards tormented me and wanted to send me to another dimension as punishment. Looks like the chairs have turned!"*
*"You mean tables?"*
*"What's a table?"*
*"Oh that doesn't matter. Try unleashing this giant lizard monster on them!"*
He laughed devilishly as I pulled up a chair next to him and we spent the next few days torturing his home planet. He came up with far crueler and creative ways to torture the planet than I could have imagined. Of course I let him stay for free as we plotted other civilizations' demise.
/r/tamarche for more of my work <3 | God? This digital character asked me if I’m god? That’s so strange. I didn’t know they could do that.
I look at the screen and decide to answer. “Yes”.
I give a chuckle and press enter.
He stares at me for a few seconds. “Why must you torment us?”
I was surprised again, but I still answered. “Cuz I’m bored”
The digital man looked very confused. “You’re bored? Why does your form of amusement involve hurting us?” He asks.
“You’re not real.”
I was starting to doubt my answer but that was truly why I tortured this planet.
“We are real.” He said. “WE ARE REAL.” He screamed why banging on the screen. What’s weird is that I felt the vibrations every time he banged.
“Where are you from?” He asked while calming down.
“Illinois.” I answer truthfully.
Illinois exists in this game. The planet I’ve been tormenting is a copy of earth.
“Illinois? You can’t be from there.” He said.
“Not in your, “dimension”. Your earth is a copy of my real life earth.” I explain.
“So are you a human?”
“Yes, I’m just playing a game on my computer.”
I decide to just close the game. I start to drag my mouse to save and quit but the man grabbed my arrow on the screen and broke it.
“You’re not going anywhere. Now that I know you’re a human, I will make you suffer like we did.”
The man got a hammer and broke through the screen. He pushed his hand through and got ahold of my shirt.
“GET OFF OF ME!” I shout.
“SUFFER LIKE WE DID.” He kept repeating.
His grip was strong and so was his pull. He kept tugging at me.
I remembered the off button on my computer and turned it off. The man’s arm dissipated and my computer screen was automatically fixed.
“Ok well, since I didn’t save, I’ll just not say what I said next time.” I say to myself.
I turn my computer back on and try again. | |
[WP] As you sip your morning coffee, you open up your Sims Universe 3 game on your quantum computer. As you zoom in on a planet you've been watching and tormenting, you notice the governments of the world building a strange device. A flash. A man appears before you. "Are you god?" He asks. | "Yep.", I said with arrogant confidence. I'd prepared for this day a thousand times in my head. I knew they would one day advance themselves to the point of stepping out of their world and into mine.
"Good."
He had clearly been preparing just as long to say that as he reached into his pocket, soon after brandishing a gun that could have only been made with a singular purpose in mind: to kill a god.
"Whoa, what the fuck, man!" This certainly wasn't a scenario I had imagined in those thousand times.
"Our people are suffering! You only gave us one bathroom in each major city and you destroy any new ones as soon as we build them!"
"God works in mysterious ways, my child." Thank you for that old gem, Christianity.
"That's not mysterious, that's malicious!"
"What about all those things I have given you? Everyone has a roof over their head and food in their bellies."
"Sure, thank you for that and whatnot, but there's still the problem of where the food goes after it's done in our bellies!"
"You seem pretty hung up on this bathroom problem. Is that what that smell is?"
He cocks back the hammer on the gun. Uh oh.
"This is what everything smells like, thanks to you!"
"Okay. Okay, fine. I'll add more bathrooms. You could have just tried praying, you know. This gun thing is a bit unnecessary."
"You don't think we've tried that? Do you not see the constant prayer bubbles atop our heads?"
"Oh, I thought those were just what's on your minds.", I say feigning ignorance in hopes of deescalating this strange situation.
"Yes, things on our minds that we want. That we're praying to you for."
"I'm... I'm sorry. You all were just clumps of colors and code to me. I was simply playing a video game."
"Oh, so our entire universe is just a game to you, asshole? Mindless bits of AI that you can torture to your sadistic heart's content?"
"I mean, yeah, pretty much.", I say as I start interacting with my computer to demonstrate to this man exactly what is the world he came from. "See, this is your planet. Just one of many that I've built. Here's another, where no one gets a house but everyone has a swimming pool."
The man was not prepared for this. His head begins shaking in disbelief. "No, this can't be! My entire world, my entire reality, my entire life is just for the amusement of this so-called god?"
"So-called? You exist because of me. Have some damn respect."
"I'll never respect you."
"But I respect you, and your people. What an amazing achievement it is to have advanced to the point where you can actually escape your world and enter ours. Are you actually able to go back as well, or was this a one-way mission for you?"
He seems to be thrown off a bit by that. Impressing a god is no easy feat.
"Well, thank you for those kind words, I guess. I can go back at any time by pressing this but--", before he can even finish his sentence, I reach out and press the button, sending him home in a flash.
After a few moments and a few clicks, my screen reads: "The Sims Universe 3 Uninstalled".
As I lie down to sleep, I think to myself, "What if my life is just a game too? My entire reality simply generated by bits. I wonder if my life will end with a..."
Click. | I jumped to my feet faster than the scolding coffee jumped on my lap, "Fuck!" I grabbed for one of the dirty t-shirts on my bedroom floor and used it to blot the overly sugared liquid from my bare stomach. Bright blisters bubbled up on my skin, still burning as if the coffee had just made contact. "Are you kidding me?" I looked up at the stranger.
His gaze was fixed on me, jaw squared. He hadn't moved a muscle since he appeared, but as soon as my eyes met his, I saw his shoulders drop and heard a shaky breath leave his nose.
Suddenly, I felt like the odd one out. I wanted to make a leap for my iTeleport tablet, but it was tucked under my air mattress and this guy looked like he could both outrun me and beat me to a pulp. I held up my hands in defeat and dropped the XXXL t-shirt on the ground.
"Look guy, I don't want any trouble."
The man in the chrome suit pulled off his helmet, giving me the ability to get a better look at his face. Of course, he just had to be good looks and muscles. I scoffed.
"I... think there's a mistake." He glanced around my room, "I'm from NASA-- I was... I thought... I'm still on Earth."
My breath caught in my throat. Earth? I tried to hide my surprise as if it was a bad hand at poker, but he called my bluff, "I am on Earth, aren't I?"
"N-no. Not... not exactly." I didn't have the words. I was never good about that, "This is Rathe."
The man took a pause and began to shift his gaze around the room. The low light made the walls out to be some kind of gray. The floor, too, was a dull shade of gray. Not like storm clouds or steel, in fact, it was more of an ash color. An air mattress took up a good fourth of the room, and the only other noticeable items were the quantum computer, but even that wasn't too terribly impressive. It was an older model, and way out dated in comparison to what my buddies had.
I felt my face grow red as I watched him reach for the cracked blinds that covered the windows, "I know it's not much, okay? But I--"
A gasp sprang from his lips. I didn't realize I was looking at the floor until light sprawled into the room. I lifted my gaze and found the chrome-suited man staring dumbfoundedly out the window.
Silence overtook us. He stared at the skyways and floating houses in the distance. After a moment, I swallowed my pride, "I made Earth..."
The man stared for a moment longer before turning to me and looking me up and down. His lips thinned, as if I wasn't anything special, as if I wasn't what he once called his God.
"You're a teenager."
"Yeah, well, you're probably like three days old in real time!" I fired back.
He looked out at the sky city once more before looking at me, "How are they floating?"
How the Lhel was I supposed to know that? I wasn't exactly a mechanic, "I dunno. They just do."
We both dangled awkwardly in between what wanted to be said, "Uhm," I cleared my throat, "Do you want... coffee?"
"You have coffee here?"
I opened my desk drawer and pulled out an empty paper cup and a bottle of pills. I broke one of the pills and coffee began pouring out into the cup. His brows furrowed.
"Sorry, do you not like instant?"
"No, no, instant is good. Great, actually." He took the paper cup and watched the pill capsule dissolve in the liquid, "We don't have this on earth."
"Well, no, not yet." I pulled another cup from my desk and repeated the process, "But, you guys are, like, a thousand years and a hundred wars behind right now, so don't feel bad."
"Oh, God. A hundred wars?" The man ran his fingers through his short blonde curls.
"I mean... one hundred big wars, not the little ones."
He chuckled, "I don't know what I was hoping for."
"So, uh," I used my finger nails to crunch the edge of the cup, "Can you go back, or, like, no?"
"Sure, I can't wait to deal with one hundred *big* wars and deal with the fact that we live in a--" he motioned to my quantum computer screen, "a simulation created by a fifteen year old."
My stomach dropped, "I'm seventeen."
"Sorry." He threw back his coffee and set the cup down on the desk, "Seventeen."
"So... what's your name?"
The man looked startled, "You don't know?
I swallowed hard, "Sorry, people randomly spawn. I can't always keep up."
"Is that why bad things happen to good people?"
"Yeah." I lied, knowing darn well that I had lit a Sim's house on fire for the heck of it less than a day ago, "That's why."
"Well," The man leaned against the window and looked out once more, "That's something." He sounded almost relieved. I watched him closely as he moved himself upright once again, "I can live with that. So, I'm ready to go back."
"Oh, well then you should!" I felt all the tension that had built on my shoulders float away when he said that.
"Okay, I'm ready. Send me back."
Time stood still, "What?"
"Well, you're God... clearly you can send me--"
"No, no, you gotta stop with that. My name is Doug, and I'm seventeen and I don't know a damn thing about outer dimensional travel."
The chrome man's face drained of color, "Ah." He cleared his throat, "So, uh, what now?" | |
[WP] 2 years ago, tired of all the bugs in your house, you made a deal with a spider. He would protect your house from pests, and you would not kill it or drive it off. When you made the deal, you could have held the spider in your hand, now, it is much bigger, and its definition of 'pests' is also. | A knock at the door.
"Pizza's here!", I yell. Sounds of scurrying footsteps stampede above me.
I open the door to let the meal in. "Come on in out of the rain while I grab your money."
The pizza delivery specialist enters.
In the blink of an eye, a spider drops from above sinking its fangs into its victim and pumping them full of digesting venom, before swiftly snatching them up and turning them into the latest cocoon on its web of deliverers.
The pizza lies facedown and scattered across the floor.
"God dammit, Kevin Costner, I need to eat too!", I exclaim to my feeding friend.
"Sorey mate, desu ne!!", he replied in his weird spider accent. His grasp on language is tenuous at best, but I've long since given up on trying to teach him and instead treat each sentence he speaks as a delightful riddle to solve.
I leave him to his meal as I go check the car for food not yet subjected to the 5-second rule.
Ugh. Pineapple. Looks like we saved the person from an even worse demise, as everyone knows only sadistic psychopaths order pineapple on their pizza.
As I exit the car with this tainted excuse for a pizza, 3 goats with diamond teeth approach and begin gnawing on the automobile's shiny red exterior.
Their gnaws quickly advance to chomps as the entire vehicle is erased over the span of mere seconds.
I toss them each a shiny gold coin as they prance away, then head back inside.
Upon entering the house, I trip over discarded spider meal husks.
This 'thing' that is technically a pizza lies facedown and scattered across the floor.
"God dammit, Kevin Costner, stop leaving your garbage on the floor. What if that pizza would have been edible?!", I say, giving people who like pineapple on their pizza yet one more perfectly justifiable jab.
"Gomen nasai, ya bloody hoser! Pinch a loaf and I'll Excalibur it.", replied Kevin with another charming word puzzle.
My head hurts now. And I'm not sure if it's because of Kevin's fun mystery language challenge or from when I fell on my face attempting to protect my new arm tattoos when I tripped. Either way, one thing was for sure: it was ultimately caused by Kevin.
And that brings me to the whole point of my story.
A knock at the door.
I answer. Kevin peeks his little spider head out the corner of the door.
Before us stands a beautiful gigantic pregnant female spider.
A moment of awkward silence.
Kevin and I stare at each other. For the first time ever, we knew exactly what the other was thinking: one of us must be the father! | [Poem]
Pests..
It’s a definition not suitable for most.
In fact? It’s hardly accurate.
One sees one as one and another as another.
But if each are pests and the other another,
Then who is the real pest? | |
[WP] 2 years ago, tired of all the bugs in your house, you made a deal with a spider. He would protect your house from pests, and you would not kill it or drive it off. When you made the deal, you could have held the spider in your hand, now, it is much bigger, and its definition of 'pests' is also. | So, i tend to be a lonely man, my days of war haunt me something fierce.
I managed to be allowed to live in a cabin for free thanks to a old friend.
Only problem was the room mate, he showed every week but still stank like a wet dog and he would occasionally steal the good stuff i brought back from town. Like he would down 6 bottles of my good whiskey in a night.
But he had been invited by my friend and he was better than nothing.
One cold winter storm there was a commotion outside, we figured it was a animal, or one of the others allowed to live on the land. So we went outside to check, and i found a woman stuck in a snowdrift that had fallen off the barn roof.
She had two bundles with her wrapped up to keep them warm.
Friend started to dig into the snow to get her out, he was getting covered in snow, but said to go inside, get some water boiling and get some tea or coffee going!
So heading in i knew he would be getting her safely in. He got her into a bed before i finished things in the kitchen. Looking over at him he looked like one of those long haired dogs that stayed out in the snow, it was all matted all over him, i had a hard time not laughing.
But he sat me down, and asked if i still wanted to help others after the war, i told him yes, he let me know what the woman wanted.
A long while back she had been invited here as long as she had behaved and not killed anyone.
She had mated and out of all her potential children destroyed all but the two.
She was different from her people, and these children of hers would be like her.
He warned me about how she was different, like him.
I trusted the hairy one and went to bed.
Now the next morning, she was feeling better but stayed in bed, the little ones covered by a electric blanket.
Mostly i made sure she was comfortable, she had a hard time i know of laying down on the bed, but she and i got to talking, i could see the beauty of her, she kept the blankets pulled up alot but she did warm up, and i felt a kinship, she and i knew we did not want to harm others if we could help it.
But she asked to stay and help with her little ones and me and hairy had no issues as long as she could pull her own weight!
The weeks pass, and her bundles were doing well, but unfortunately one day we did have some uninvited guests, Nirumbi!
These little buggers are a pain, they will eat you alive if they could, and if they had to, they would eat their dead!
But the home was in danger, me and hairy armed up and she asked if she could help, i told her she could.
It was a battle, but she knew she was protecting others, it was not like her peoples normal way, she killed but not to be evil. In the end they retreated with their dead, but she had had a leg injury.
Me and the big guy got her sitting, and spread her legs out so they would not get sore.
Later that night she started calling for help, it was time, her little ones were arriving.
This time i was the one helping and he went to get the water boiled and clean towels, it was not too long though both emerged, two young baby Arachne, all good and eventually asleep with their 6 legs and two arms curled up with their mom, her 6 legs curled up under her.
She vowed to help even more now, those pests and others wont bother her family.
So thats how i met my Arachne wife, and lived with the inconsiderate jerk Big Foot!
Edit: stole the idea of this from a story universe i have been reading, its 100% made up but used the authors characters. Site is NSFW. >!< | [Poem]
Pests..
It’s a definition not suitable for most.
In fact? It’s hardly accurate.
One sees one as one and another as another.
But if each are pests and the other another,
Then who is the real pest? | |
[WP] 2 years ago, tired of all the bugs in your house, you made a deal with a spider. He would protect your house from pests, and you would not kill it or drive it off. When you made the deal, you could have held the spider in your hand, now, it is much bigger, and its definition of 'pests' is also. | Alex had just stepped onto her street when she heard the helicopter. It passed overhead, then looped back around, a voice blearing from it. The words were stolen by the wind and the distance and the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the chopper's blades. But she didn't need to understand them to know what they meant.
Prinpicks danced up her spine, but they weren't made by fear. "Food?" A small ready voice inquired from behind her shoulder. The Little One, same as her, had heard the dinner bell.
"Looks like it," Alex said.
The window to her living room was shattered. Alex could see the broken glass from the front lawn. Blood glistened off a shard of glass that still clung to the frame.
"Food! Food! Food!" The Little One cried at the scent of blood.
The front door opened at Alex's touch. The house had no need for locks. When Alex stepped through, she found the place unfamiliar to her.
Nicknacks and picture frames lined the shelves. Plastic covered the paisley furniture, keeping it clean. Alex picked up a photo; it was old and faded, and covered in dust.
There was a tea-tray in the sitting room, a body crumpled under the table, blood pooled beneath the figure, staining steal grey hair a deep red.
Anger pooled in Alex's gut like venom.
Alex closed her eyes, biting back the anger. When she opened them again, the figure on the floor was gone. The house had shifted into something more familiar. The window was unbroken. And the place once again was warm and inviting.
The only unrecognizable thing about it was the man hanging suspended from the ceiling, wrapped like a mummy in a spiderweb. The man spun in a slow circle; on each rotation, his eyes met hers.
Alex knew desperate. She knew what could lead someone to enter this very house.
She had been twelve years old and alone and hungry.
The house was a beacon. Warm light shinning out its windows. It was painted pink and blue and stood out in the seedy neighborhood. It wasn't a blockhouse but unique and inviting, like something out of a storybook.
The door to the kitchen had been left open, the warm glow of light bleed out onto a wild garden that was thick with blooming blossoms.
Alex had crept forward, drawn in by the warmth. There was no one in the kitchen, and she couldn't hear movement. But someone had to be home. The door to the fridge had been left open, overflowing with food.
The thought of the food rotting twisted Alex's stomach.
There were shoes lined up just inside of the door, little ones and big ones. Alex looked down at her feet. Her boots were caked in mud, the sides coming off; when it rained, water seeped through the split at her heel.
Alex took off her shoes and set them outside the door. Then slowly and quietly, she inched forward. The floors didn't creak. They were perfectly polished, and she could see the vague outline of her grimy reflection on the glossy surface.
Alex reached out and shut the fridge. Eyes stinging at the sight of drawings pinned against the fridge door. She traced a finger over the stick figures, being careful not to touch the clean paper. Then she left, only looking back long enough to immortalize the image in her mind, so she could dream that she lived there. That she had a home. A family.
Alex walked into a closed door.
Stunned, she spun around, but no one was there to have shut the door. She tried the handle, but the door would not open.
"Theif." A voice said. "Why did you not take the food?"
"I'm not a thief!" Alex defended automatically. She couldn't see the person who spoke. Their voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"You are no thief? You have a bag of stolen things on your back."
Alex flushed, "It's trash. It is not stealing if they threw it away."
The voice hummed, "You saw shoes that would fit you, the food you so desperately crave, and if you had ventured further, you would find clothes, a warm bath waiting, and a bed freshly made. Why did you venture into my lair if it was not to take these things?"
"I didn't want the food to go bad," Alex said.
"But you refuse to eat it, so why should you care if it rots?"
"It's perfect," Alex whispered. Looking at the stick figure drawing, in a place of honor, as if the parents actually cared. "Everything here is so perfect. I didn't want it to be ruined."
"What a strange creature you are." The voice said.
"C-can I go?"
"No." The voice said. "By your words, what is thrown away can be freely taken. You are mine now." The shadows of the room shifted. Hundreds of creatures scurried over the wall, and the largest one welcomed Alex home with an inhuman smile.
Alex pulled open a drawer and took out a small knife that had never been there before. She cut away the web that sealed the man's mouth shut.
"Get me out! Get me out!" The man hissed, frantic eyes darted to the shadowy corners of the room. "There's a-a monster. You have to get me out of here."
"There was a dead woman on the floor," Alex said.
"The monster—"
The Little One crawled from beneath the hood of Alex's sweater, the man's eyes latched onto it as it perched on her shoulder, and his excuses trailed off into empty silence.
"Try again," Alex said.
"Please. You don't understand. I had to."
"No. You don't understand." Alex said. "This house is what you need it to be. Whatever you need it to be. What does that say about you? That you found the doors closed and the windows locked. That you found it occupied by someone weak and alone and feeble?"
"No, no, no." The man moaned. "You have to help me."
"You took from our home. There is no help for you." | [Poem]
Pests..
It’s a definition not suitable for most.
In fact? It’s hardly accurate.
One sees one as one and another as another.
But if each are pests and the other another,
Then who is the real pest? |
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