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[WP] You are part of an elite team working for MI6 known as the 00(double Os). The most famous is code name James Bond 007, whose job it is to draw as much attention to himself as possible. Tell us about 001 to 009. | When you have a spy organization involved in handling secret missions, it is impossible to maintain that hidden nature forever. Instead, the idea is to make something so tied to a fiction that the reality can act in it's shadow. This is true for the popularity of the James Bond, 007 franchise. The number of this agent has been kept to the mythical icon, an idea of the glories and actions of a spy life that is in no way close to the truth.
Reality is far more dirty, disgusting, and down right ruthless. You think that an agent gets to have sex with hot models? 009 will tell you the latest escapade he had seducing his way into a senators bed in the US. Let me tell you those pictures will take more eye bleach than even the secret service can muster.
Then you have the others, 002 is literally a janitor. And I mean that by he works in the palace of Westminster cleaning royal shit most the time. Keeping tabs on the place as he has access to the entire building.
Then you have the more brutal, 006, who works to make people disappear for questioning. Torture isn't so glorified, people pissing themselves more often than getting answers. Even so it becomes hard to get them under duress so it becomes a last resort.
003, 004, and 005 are the away team. Expendable, placed in risky situations with very large insurance policies placed if they get captured or killed for their remaining family. You don't want to know the toll, most don't bother learning their names like trying to name a pig you know will go to slaughter. Their work is indispensable even if inhumane, recruiting is skilled at keeping these positions filled regardless.
001 is accounting, generally tracking where the money is going. Sits in a dark room, I think he has a body pillow in there too and has been caught on reddit browsing something called wallstreetbets even though there should be no internet access in black box that is the office. We are told just to let him be.
We get down now to 008, who is assigned to the black market. If there is anything our agents need he is the best to procure a supply without any strings or traces attached. Who also seems to have access to reddit, now I wonder why I don't have access...
Last but not least there is I, 000, the one that doesn't exist. No paper trail, no stories or reports, even this document i am writing is simply for rumors sake. How would anyone trust a 'leak' on how the double O structure works. Much that it exists at all at this point, like telling someone unicorns really do exist and currently have a habitat hidden deep in Brazil. Working to subvert the reality that is the news cycle, spin facts and otherwise keep this place under such a constant spray of chaff that none can find what really is happening. | Aspect of your service is to arbitrary archive the history of our 00 program.
Please note that 007s history is made public for our protection of our other agents within the program. 007 is known as James Bond. And is passed to father to son and sometimes orphans. They all I’ve been James Bond and that’s enough of that.
The double 0 program was started during World War I as part of the war Office. To test insecurities of other programs.
Is it meant to be known 001 it’s mostly a tester of programs and back door security as it has changed over the years from physical to cyber security once in while 001 will go and actually go at the field and physically test. Q branch loves them for 001 also test locations prior to new q branch set ups. The name knows to the 001 is James or Jasmine Smith.
As you are here the 002 code as you are known as the archive. There is a good reason for this you were changed with doctoring the past and sensitive information usually this would go and get you popped in jail. After today you’re going to be known as Earl gray we know that most of the 00’s are tea names as part of the security the only exemption is number seven to be known across the world.
003. Known as the ghost. This person could go and sneak in anywhere in through anything. There are no known examples and any history of complete Infiltration. Knowledge of the name is expunged. Commonly referenced as butterfly pea Flower tea.
004 explosions expert I’ll be trained in the art of exploding anything and any type of surface. Commonly known as gunpowder.
005 the mechanic. if you are needing anything fixed make sure it is secured first. Arthur Bishop.
006 the transporter. if you ever need something moved in a hurry ask for Frank Martin jr.
008 expunged i have no knowledge of who this is.
me im 009 the master.... | |
[WP] You are part of an elite team working for MI6 known as the 00(double Os). The most famous is code name James Bond 007, whose job it is to draw as much attention to himself as possible. Tell us about 001 to 009. | My bare feet scrape along the coarse concrete as I’m dragged by the arms like a marionette. All I see is the darkness of this putrid black hood. I can hear some kind of heavy machinery clank and grind and crash. I’m trying not to imagine what they’ll do to me. I feel stairs knock against my feet and knees as we go up. They open a door, throw me against a stiff pole, and chain me to it. I hear them walking away from me and towards the door, followed by it squealing shut. After a moment of silence, I try to get my hands free. My watch knocks against the pole as I struggle. I can still hear the machines, although they’re muffled through the walls.
Neglected hinges groan as the door opens. Someone marches toward me. My heart races as I hear that all too familiar metal chachink. He’s racked the slide of his pistol. My breathing is wild, like a near-drowned man taking breaths he never thought he’d have. I wince as the brute’s hand rips the hood off my face. I can barely see anything. But I can’t miss the lanky, mullet headed thug to my left who’s pointing his gun at my head.
There’s a dark haired woman by the door, just barely visible in the dim room. Mullet man looks over at her, likely expecting an order to kill me. She waves him off, then he holsters his gun and leans against the near wall. She steps closer, and I can see her powerful blue eyes. Fierce eyes, yet beautiful beyond compare. She grins like a lioness ready to pounce.
“So. You’re Spyglass.” She spoke with a soothing, British accent. “You are a difficult man to find”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her face turns serious.
“Alright, then let’s use your real name.” She snaps her fingers, and Mullet man hands her a binder. She opens it and paces back and forth.
“Don Brennokovic. Age 27. Born in London. Family moved to Chicago when you were twelve. Married your High School sweetheart Bianca, who is with child. Congratulations by the way.” She turns the page. “You own a lovely house on the corner of Wall avenue and Kirk lane. Your parents live twenty min-“ I grit my teeth and growl.
“Alright fine! I’m Spyglass. Happy?” She smirks as she closes the binder.
“Quite!” She pulls up a metal chair that creaks as she sits in front of me. I hang my head and turn to avoid her gaze. She caresses my cheek, then turns my face toward her. “You are going to help me make my employer very happy.”
“Oh I don’t think s-“ Mullet man drives his fist into the side of my head, then steps back.
“Don, I need you to take this seriously. There are a lot of lives at stake.” She stands up and sets the binder in the chair. “Believe me when I say that the world depends on how you answer my questions.” I can feel a fire growing in my chest, and I felt that rage twist my face.
“You brought me here and had me beaten, all so I could answer a few questions!? I’m an information broker, I answer questions for a living. Why not just ask? Even the Cartels wouldn’t dare do this!” She furrowed her brow, as if my anger was contagious. Then raised her voice.
“Cut the bullshit! We know you’re more than just an information broker. You’ve done wetwork for the British Government, and spied on their enemies and allies alike.” She looks ready to tear out my jugular, but she turns and takes a deep breath. “None of that is why we are here.” She turns to face me, as cool and collected as before. “We’re here because you have detailed information on MI6’s Double-O agents.” A sudden realization hit me like a truck. *James is at it again.* I smirked.
“You want to know about Bond? *The* James Bond.” She shakes her head.
“No. We know about Bond. My employer has dealt with him before.” She sits in the creaky chair. “I want to know about the others.”
“Others?” Mullet man’s fist smashes into my jaw. Then I spit blood on the ground. “Oh. *Those others.*” She snaps her fingers, and Mullet man gives her a different binder.
“I want you to tell me about those who work in the shadows left by the spotlight shone upon 007.” I sighed.
“What do you want to know?” She took a recording device, and held it toward me.
“I want to know their names, how they operate, and how we can contact them.” I looked over at Mullet man. I’ve seen pencils that were thicker than him. I tap my watch, but I worry he’ll hear it before it’s done.
“Then have the angry mullet bring me some water.” She looks at him and nods. He snorts and hands over a bottle of water. She pours some in my mouth, and I let out a relieved sigh. Then she speaks.
“Alright. So let's start with 001.” My throat tightens like it’s in a vice.
“Only name I have is Morgan Fleming, no idea if it’s real. I’ve never dealt directly with them, but let’s just say their license to kill doesn’t go to waste.”
“Them?” The chains rattle as I shrug my shoulders.
“I don’t know the gender. 001 spends most of the time deep undercover or behind a riflescope.” I glance around to make sure there aren’t any windows. I shudder. “Just thinking about him gives me the creeps”
“Focus!” She snaps. “Tell me about the others.”
“Right.” I clear my throat. “002, real name is Ben Finson. He may be the most dangerous one, and rarely uses his gun. He infiltrates criminal organizations, and rises to the highest levels. Then systematically tears them down from within. Usually by sowing distrust among leadership, and crippling them financially.” My face grew grim. ”But if he wants you dead, someone will kill you”
“Well, Mr. Finson is welcome to try. Who’s next?”
“003, Merrill Apost. She functions the most like 007, with one distinction. She has her own network of contacts and resources independent of MI6, and legally isn’t a British subject. Meaning they aren’t responsible for her actions.”
“Apost?” She looks over at Mullet man. “That name does sound familiar.” She turns back toward me. “Keep going.”
“Well, as for 004, 005, and 006. Henry Steele, Charles Gant, and Geoff Richards respectively. They are a three person team. All former S.A.S. with backgrounds in guerrilla warfare. They operate in more volatile parts of the world, and are capable of surviving indefinitely in enemy territory. They have toppled criminal organizations, and overthrown several government administrations.” Her eyes widen.
“Interesting. We’ve had dealings with them. Had no idea they were MI6.” My lip raised in a smirk.
“Well then you can thank Mr. Bond for that. 007 as you know, is the most famous operative by design. Everyone considers him the best covert agent in the world, he very well may be, but his most important role is as a smokescreen for the others.” I nod toward the bottle, and she pours some more water in my mouth. “Finally, there’s 008. Sheila Haverton. She operates as a fixer for several powerful politicians. This puts her in a position to prevent many threats before they ever present themselves.”
“What about 009?”
“009 doesn’t exist. Not officially anyway. The only people who know anything about him are M, and of course 009.” I shrug. “If he’s even real. Some believe he only ‘exists’ so their enemies worry about an operative that will never come. Very handy for seeing them squirm I’d imagine.” She nods.
“Very well then.” She tilts her head back as she drinks the water. “How do we contact them?
“First, I wanna know what you’ll do with me when we’re done here.” Her lip twitches as she smiles.
“You’ll be just fine. Provided what you’ve said is true.”
“Ms. Jenning. I wouldn’t be much of a broker if I sold false information.” She and Mullet man exchange nervous glances. Then she crosses her arms. “How do y-“
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you for some time Valerie.”A wry grin forms on my face. “How’s Liam?” She slams my head against the pole. Her face is the angriest I’ve seen yet.
“How do we contact these agents? I want to find them!” She yells as Mullet man draws his pistol and presses it to my head. 45 Caliber judging by barrel size.
“You’ll need my watch.” I smack it against the pole, shutting it off. She leers at Mullet man, and he pushes my head with his gun.
“He’s lyin’ miss! Les jus kill im an be dun wit it!”
“We’ll see. Take his watch.” She snaps. And he complies. He loosens the chains to get my watch, pulls it off my arm, and hands it to her. She inspects it carefully, looking over every detail of the old, metal watch. “How does it work?” I shift under the chains. Feeling the deep, hot cuts in them.
“Set the date to 32, then turn the time to 12 o’clock.” As she’s setting it. Mullet man notices me shifting, and sees the new cuts in the chains.
“Wait!” He cries out as she finishes setting the watch. I close my eyes as It explodes in a blinding flash of light. I break the chains, punch Mullet in the throat, and take his gun. I put two slugs in his chest, then turn to Ms. Jenning. She’s unconscious from the blast. I grab the recorder and binders then put them in a bag. Two muscle bound guards force the door open, and I put two rounds in each of them. I grab Ms. Jenning and put her over my shoulder, then rush through the door. I rush down the stairs, then duck into a hallway and follow it to a stairway leading up. It leads to the helipad on the roof, where I find a chopper guarded by five men. I lure one who’s smoking by the door, and pistol whip him. I take his lighter and tear off my shirt. Then wrap a couple bullets in it. I put on his shirt, ball cap, and sunglasses, then light the fabric and make my way to the Chopper with Ms. Jenning. The guards come up to me.
“What the hell is going on!?
“Jenning is down, the prisoner is coming through the door!” The bullets I set go off in the corridor where I came from.
“Get her out of here! Now!” The guard takes two of his men and heads for the door. I put Jenning in the passenger seat, then shoot the pilot. The guards fire at me, but I’m already in the air. I turn off the transponder and make for a safe house.
______
End Below |
They were the best of the best.
001 was whiplash smart and could solve even the trickiest of puzzles. A strategic mastermind, she was the leader, always in control. As all truly good leaders do, she put her team before herself.
002 never missed a shot. He could take down the most well protected target in the world, and never be caught. His only commitment was to his team, and he would do whatever it took to keep them safe.
003 was the smooth talker. No one could resist their honeyed words and sugar sweet compliments. It was something about their face that made people want to tell them everything. But they never knew when to stop.
004 was the tech guy. Anything you wanted, he could make in a matter of weeks, maybe even days depending on the request. Code came as easily to him as English, maybe easier. Maybe that was the problem, in the end.
005 was the linguist. She could translate more than 39 languages and spoke fluently in 23. She understood everything. She understood too much.
006 was the chemical engineer. Logic was her strength. Formulas made more sense than people, but she could still manipulate people the same way she manipulated elements. She always took the most logical path. Always.
007 was the one everyone knew about. He was flashy and bright and EVERYWHERE. He became a myth, a legend, so that no one would ever discover the truth behind the numbers.
008 was a master of disguise. She blended in as easily as breathing. Eyes would pass over her face and never register she was there. She was invisible to everyone, except one.
009 was the clean up. He made sure the others were never found out, never caught, never known. Without him, they’d be dead a hundred times over. With him, they’re dead only once, leaving only him alive to clean up their mess once and for all. | |
[WP] “It’s really very simple,” the alien said as it opened a console and began entering commands. “We find that a species can be judged by their entertainment. How they view the universe, their philosophies, their values, their desires.” He taps a key. “So let’s look at your video games, human.” | It's not every day you're responsible for the extinction of your species. It looked bad but I wouldn't let it be this day. I gave the alien a steely eyed gaze and prepared to defend my, distinctly abnormal, gaming selection.
"Look, I know it looks bad but I can explain"
The Rexel merely stared at me. Unfazed, I plowed right on.
"I only play Fanatical Purifiers because it's more fun. It's boring having to wait for peace treaties to expire, I don't actually want to"
"We assure you that your choice to play as genocidal annihilators did not affect our decision", interrupted the Rexel.
"So my decisions in other strategy games don't matter either?"
"They do not". The Rexel paused before continuing in a displeased tone, "We do find some of your decisions distasteful however. Tearing apart your fellow species members with hundreds of large aggressive pack animals is not normal"
Hey it's not my fault War Dogs are so good.
"So was it the shooters I played?"
"No. Every species in the galaxy seems to come up with a shooter game and you at the very least played a variety of them from the very violent to the childish and lighthearted. We question your enthusiasm for 'Suicide bombing' however."
I thought for a moment. "With C4 on LAVs?"
"No, as Undead Counter Terrorist Personnel. It seems to defy the point"
Oh. I'd completely forgotten about that.
Wait...
"Hang on, I don't have that installed on my computer right now. That was from well over a decade ago!"
The Rexel gave me a clearly dismissive look, even if it had an entirely non human appearance. "We can peer into your memory and look at all games you've played. It would not do to just look at what you currently have available"
Uh oh.
"So you know I played a school shooter?"
"Yes"
"And the games where I deliberately mutated..."
"Yes"
"...Spreadsheets in space?"
"Oh yes. But none of that, or other terrible games you've played actually contributed to our decision"
I was nonplussed. "So nothing I did contributed to this result? What game is so awful that you decided to kill all humans?"
The Rexel tapped a few buttons then brought up a hologram of a rather old game.
"Are you familiar with 'The Sims'?"
...
Well, at least it wasn't my fault. | Chi was an up and coming game developer when the aliens decided to abduct him. It was kind of crazy, really, he was just chilling in an internet cafe and then BAM, he's up in a space ship. He still had his muffin in hand too.
A tall blob of a thing with about twelve too many appendages comes forward, "Hello Terran. We, the galactic confederation of civilizations of the Eastern segment, quadrant 203-B, have elected to study your species to determine if you are worthy of joining our ranks."
Chi takes a bite of his muffin.
"The true question here is how evolved your species' brain is. Are you minds capable of the thought necessary to partake in universal politcs and science?"
Chi wonders for a moment if the alien is expecting an answer. But, decides that he's probably not, and is just monolouging like a poorly coded NPC.
Turns out he was right because the alien just blubbers on, "Well, no time to doogle. That is what you terrans say, correct? You, Terran, will be the deciding factor of your planets fate. We have hand selected you as the most informed on your planet about your culture, and as such will be negotiating with you over the details."
Chi, still not entirely convinced that this isn't just a fever dream, takes another bite of his muffin. It's blueberry, which happens to be this third favorite muffin flavor. If this whole dream was one of his video games he would have put in a button that allowed you to skip the cut scene. It's really boring.
A few tentacle comes out from the alien in front of him, and grabs his arm to tug him through a door. Chi wonders what his fellow game developers would think if they had a chance to examine these interesting limbs. Certainly nothing good
They stride through some halls, passing by incredible views of the expanse of space. Chi sees hundreds of diverse alien life pass by him. The most incredible technology he's ever laid his eyes on surrounds him.
He takes another bite of his muffin.
"Ah, cool."
His alien escort looks down at him, face morphing in something that could be considered as confusion. Unfortunately, the human brain does not have the mental capacity to comprehend such a face, and as such Chi doesn't particularly know what his companion is thinking. That's fine, he's never been the empathetic type.
They finally make their way into a control center of sorts, with thousands of holograms and screens on every available space. Programs run over them, the likes of which Chi would be eager to study if he were just a little smarter, like his parents had always wanted him to be. Chi, though, was not inquisitive, nor smart. He happened to have no care in the world and as such did not take notice of much.
The alien representative walks up to a specific screen, bringing up six of his appendages to type in an unknown language.
He gazes at Chi as though he is reading his mind. Chi seems to remember his entire life in that moment, including the release of his first ever video game. Then he remembers the many death threats that came afterwards. The memory is gone for a moment then returned a split second later.
"I have seen your entire life, and know just where to start." The alien begins rather ominously, "We will begin with one of your own creations, Terran."
"Really?" Chi casually asks, taking the last bite of his muffin.
"To test the true wit and passion of your kind, to see how you handle philisophy, empathy, and your own morality, I will test one game and only one." The weight of his statement doesn't concern Chi. Civilizations rise and fall and chaos is something he is familiar with. He has wrecked enough in his time to know this.
"Ok. What game then?" Chi already knows.
"Cat Mario."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Honestly I was planning to do a whole other punchline where the human was like "thank god they didn't choose memes to look at" but I was like meh I have an unhealthy and unclosed trauma to deal with. Cat Mario needs to be expressed. | |
[WP] After a drunken dispute, you challenged a stranger to a knife fight at the pier. When the two of you met up, neither of you brought a knife. | I had definitely packed the knife. I specifically remember going home to get the knife, it was perfect for the occasion, I never got to be in a knife fight and I was getting worried my collection of knives was all for naught. But an opportunity arose and that bastard had insulted me and challenged me. Of course I was going to accept, I had honor didn’t I?!?
Now let’s see, I left the shoddy little bar where I met the fellow. I went straight home because we said we’d meet in an hour on the beach by the dock. I walked home, just as the lateen boy was lighting street lamps. I remember that. I got home, drank a little of the leftover booze from the night before. I picked up my big skinning knife as it was the sharpest and pretty intimidating.
Okay I left from my place, went down the stairs through the kitchen of the shop I lived above. I didn’t run into anyone. I saw that bum Bartholomew begging on the street for a loaf of bread outside the closed bakery, but I didnt want to go near him so I walked by....what was it again. Oh yeah I walked through the alley of The Shamrock Pub, there was only a drunk at that hour sleeping in there.
Then I made my way toward the pier to beach. Where could it have gone. I didn’t touch nobody or nothing. What the hell.
“Hey, buddy,” the other bastard screamed from across the beach. “This is a little awkward, but I can’t seem to find me knife. I knew I broughts it, but it just ain’t here on me. You mind waitin while I gets another?”
“Are you kidding me? Mine’s gone too, just up and vanished. Can’t for the life of me figure it out.”
“Well want to go and look for em over a pint?” He mumbled out.
“Yeah, that’s a good plan. Then we can come back here and get back to it.”
Two hours, eight pints and no knives later we decided to call it quits. We couldn’t find knives anywhere. Not even in the pub we ordered from, just up and gone. So instead we traded a couple of punches with each other. Laughed em off and said our goodbyes.
Were gettin drinks tomorrow night again. | “...What?”
In his hand was a large potato. He’d even gone to the trouble of peeling it, and was juggling it along with a satsuma and a golf ball. He pocketed the other two items, and slammed the potato down in his hands. I silently questioned his choice of weapons.
“Who d’you think yer lookin’ at?” he snarled, as if he didn't look ridiculous. I probably looked no better, frozen in shock, mouth wide open and holding a 3B pencil. His rough voice rang out through the pier, Northern (English) accent booming.
“I thought we were, um... having - you know, a knife fight?” I called. The stranger looked at me oddly, and stumbled. He was clearly still drunk out of his mind. I was hardly sober either. “Also, erm, what’s you’re name?”
“Chris! Now git over here an’ fight me!” he yelled again. I looked at Chris.
“Hardly a fair fight, is it? Nah, I think I’ll see you later.”
I walked away quietly, and he didn’t move, but I *swear* I heard him grumble, “Bloody Americans.”
Rude. | |
(Literal interpretation, or dialogue prompt. Either could be fun.) | [WP] Twelve seconds are all it takes to change a life. Show me what you can do with twelve seconds. | Twelve seconds. Count them out loud. One...Two...Three...Four...Five...Six...Seven...Eight...Nine...Ten...Eleven...Twelve.
It's not too short, but not too long either. Too short to say everything I loved about her. Too long to have not said anything.
She asked me one question. One question that I was struggling to even begin answering. One question that set my life spiraling down, down, down into the depression-filled pit I currently inhabit.
On one hand, I couldn't believe that a question with only two answers could really start a condundrum. On the other, how could anyone really choose? No matter which choice you make, you set aside a large portion of your brain that is stuck pondering the outcome if you would have chose left over right, yes over no, or....
"Fries or Tots, hun?" | I stared at the bills strewn about my desk, a small part of me hoping that they would disappear if I stared at them long enough. “Daddy! Daddy! I saw a funny man outside!” I sighed and looked up. Standing in the doorway was my daughter, who of course had gotten mud all over her white dress and probably the house. “That’s nice,” I muttered before looking back down at the bills. “He was really nice to me! He told me all kinds of jokes and told me I looked pretty!” I just nodded along, barely listening as she kept describing her new imaginary friend. “Can I go play with him Daddy? I really want to, he told me he had...” I jumped on the opportunity to get her out of my hair, for at least a little while. “Yes, you can go play with your friend.” I didn’t even bother to look up to see her smile. “Thank you Daddy!” I could hear her scamper back outside, leaving muddy foot prints all throughout the house.
If I could, I would go back in time and stop her from leaving. I would’ve hugged her and happily forgotten those bills for one last chance to see her smile. Unfortunately, time travel isn’t possible. Our choices last forever, no one can fix their mistakes. They will stay with us forever, always weighing us down, until the day we die.
Please let me know what you thought, I love criticism. Have a good day and God bless. |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | Bad luck. It seemed I was finally too old to psss myself off as a Grove Child. One hundred years ago and it wouldnt have been a problem to do so. Most villages had never even seen one, and most Shepards, if the village had one at all, were much too curious about me to correct them. But this village had seen one in living memory, and this village had no Shepard to vouch for me. So when I opened the door of the only small inn in town, the keep took one look at my strangely colored and mottled skin, and capped horns, and told me to beat feet right back the way i came.
I would have, if not near dying of thirst. If id known that they receive no rain in the summer north of the Bodir mountains, i probably would have been in much better sorts. Maybe traipsed up here in the fall, found a good place to winter, and then move along come spring. But as it happened, i found myself wandering this strange northern landscape in the middle of the dry season. No creeks, springs or ponds to sustain me. Just the potential goodwill of the inhabitants and the cisterns they keep.
And this village seemed to lack in the goodwill department.
"Try the well, if yer feelin brave, Odd-One."
The innkeep yelled to me from the doorway of the inn. As my mind was windering it seemed my butt had planted itself on a large flat rock a dozen or so meters from his building. Understandable. The rock was warm under the sun's rays. Much unlike most things in this strange land.
"A well?" i asked back. I had not seen a well since coming up here. Divination told me the water table was 30 meters down, through solid rock. Most villages couldnt manage that.
"Yeh. west out the center of town. In the ruins of the old city. Best of luck."
The mischeif in his words was palpable, but no danger was greater to me than my own thirst. I set off in that direcrion. True to his word, just past the edge of the town i could make out the the remains of much older construction. All that was left were foundations, overgrown with brush and hidden behind dried grasses, but unmistakable. Ancient. What was once here dwarfed what was present in both size and grandeur. Kicking through the topsoil i could make out the expertly cut bricks of a road. It cut right through the mounds of decayed buildings, bringing me to what once must have been the city center.
My 'bravery' must have been noteworthy. A small crowd from the village had follwed me now. Huddled together, far enough behind me to keep out of earshot. and centered on the hidden road. I could hear their muttering, but not their words. Curious, nervous. Their eyes darted to and fro, as if the old stones of the city would rise up and swallow them if they got too close.
In the center of the old city square sat a rectangular pit. The well. The nerves of the villagers had creepes into me now, and i carefully walked up to the edge. Stairs cut into the stone on all sides, leading down to a small square of water. About 30 meters down. I turned and called to the villagers. "What about this well causes such fear in you?"
"Tis evil, far as we know". it was the innkeep again. Likely also the village headman. Or maybe just the most brave.
"Evil? of what kind?" My words were heavy and course with dehydration.
"the kind keeps those who walk down them steps from walkin back up em" he shouted back. "tsalways been like. long as memory."
The fear was in me now. There was no lie in his words. I doubted he knew exactly what the deal with the well was. secluded villages like this are usually very good at maintaining old wisdom, and usually very bad at remembering exactly why. A conundrum that would vex me now and many times in the future. And there was something about the well. I could feel the aether around it ripple and pulse, ever so gently. I did not want to go down there, and my mind was set not to for all of a second, until i tried to swallow. My thirst would be my undoing. Every physical fiber of my being screamed to plunge to the bottom of the well, to drink freely until i burst. If i could not drink now, death would drink of me shortly after.
I took a step down. the steps were as new. No wear or erosion anywhere. If the city had died hundreds of years ago, this well coud have been maintained until yesterday. Perfectly square, decending row by row, the sun would not have reached me at the bottom were it not noon. I came to the edge of the water slowly, and knelt. The water was clear as glass, with the sunlight allowing me to see
down many meters before the bottom was swallowed by darkness. I closed my eyes. maybe i could divinize what agitated the aeither here so, but the pounding in my head prevented all. Between my on failing senses, and the sheer force of magic pouring out of the well at this proximity, only the bestial drive of my thirst kept me upright. I glanced up to see the peolle had moved to the top of the well, crowding around the edges, but careful not to take that first step down. The waited with held breath. not even a murmer escaped them. I hope they enjoyed the show.
I took as deep a breath as i could manage to steady myself, and reached forward and scooped up water in my cuppes hands. It was warm as tea. Somewhere in the back of my mind I screamed how wrong that was. Nothing in this land was warm of its own accord. But my thirst screamed louder. I waited as long as i could manage, stareing into the water in my hands. Maybe just touching it would spell my doom. But it did not. I brought it to my mouth and drank. I was vaguely aware of the gasps of the people above me, but i was mostly aware of the life flowing back into my veins. The warmth it caused in my stomach was pure bliss. I now knew first hand the lost of oasis talked about in the anceint tales. I drank again. and again. Greedily i slurped, and the warmth grew. Sweat began to bead my brow. i tore off my coat and kept drinking, as if in a trance. I very much think i was, for soon, my whole body felt as if on fire. The choice was taken from me, i thought. But i knew it to be a lie. I had thrown the choice away. I could not allow myself to be cooked alive. With no option before me, i dove in... | Billy watched on from his family farm, plow still in hand, as the stranger fled wearily from the tavern. He had seen the man’s kind before. Wanderers were no new sight to the small town of Hannsburough. Billy wondered briefly what the man was running from. Maybe he was a criminal, fleeing for his life from a place he could no longer call home. Or perhaps he was a soldier, haunted by the horrors of war.
But ultimately, none of this mattered to Billy. Wanderers never stayed long in Hannsburough. Content in his ignorance, Billy looked back to see where the stranger had gone. Billy found the man, eyes tracking toward the town’s long-abandoned well as he saw the man lift a bucket to his lips. And before Billy could say a word, the bucket touched the wanderer’s lips, and water flowed.
Billy stood frozen, watching in abject horror, as he saw the man drink the cursed liquid. He watched as something about the man began to *change*. The man’s eyes began to water as his skin softened, losing the muscle-defining tautness it had long carried. He licked his chapped lips, feeling the dryness that had overtaken his mouth. And just like that, it was over, the stranger slumping down in exhaustion against the side of the well.
And so, Billy rushed over, “Are ya alright? I’ll fetch Brother Bob, he’ll know how ta break yer curse.”
“Curse? What curse?”
“From that there well. It’s been cursed ‘long as I can reckon. That’s why ya fell over.”
With that, the stranger began to laugh. Slow at first, his laughter spiked in speed and volume, until it broke into a coughing fit.
“What’re ya laughing for? This is serious! Yer cursed!”
“Boy,” the man began, grabbing Billy’s attention. “There’s no such thing as curses.” | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | I still faintly remember that autumn day. The leaves were slowly starting to turn a gold brownish color and the winds were starting to get stronger.
Ever since I was little my mother always had told me one thing:
No matter what you do, never drink from the well in the middle of town as it is cursed.
I remember her telling me that she didn't exactly know the curse anymore but it was one so cruel that every person who drank from it suffered a fate even more cruel than death itself
.
Then one day he came in, a traveler from a land far away. His style of clothing resembled something oriental.We told him our tale of the curses well but he just didn't listen.
He insisted that we were just some crazy, wild town who still believed in tales used to scare little children.
We tried to hold him back verbally but he's insisted
,he wanted to drink the wells water.
He inched closer to the well, seemingly afraid, even tough his mind should have been at rest,after all it was just an ordinary well.
I just had to spare him from this fate that was worse than death and if I couldn't reason with him I'd do it with force.
So I grabbed the pitchfork we kept in our barn and waited.
Waited for the moment he bend down to drink the water.
I finally mustered up the courage and threw the pitchfork, it flying like a spiked angel of death. However when it hit him it was already to late, he had already tasted the water.
My spear just bounced of him like if you threw a pebble at an elephant.
He too realized what his fate was, he was doomed to eternal life, never able to find rest and unable to die.
This really was a fate crueler than death. | Billy watched on from his family farm, plow still in hand, as the stranger fled wearily from the tavern. He had seen the man’s kind before. Wanderers were no new sight to the small town of Hannsburough. Billy wondered briefly what the man was running from. Maybe he was a criminal, fleeing for his life from a place he could no longer call home. Or perhaps he was a soldier, haunted by the horrors of war.
But ultimately, none of this mattered to Billy. Wanderers never stayed long in Hannsburough. Content in his ignorance, Billy looked back to see where the stranger had gone. Billy found the man, eyes tracking toward the town’s long-abandoned well as he saw the man lift a bucket to his lips. And before Billy could say a word, the bucket touched the wanderer’s lips, and water flowed.
Billy stood frozen, watching in abject horror, as he saw the man drink the cursed liquid. He watched as something about the man began to *change*. The man’s eyes began to water as his skin softened, losing the muscle-defining tautness it had long carried. He licked his chapped lips, feeling the dryness that had overtaken his mouth. And just like that, it was over, the stranger slumping down in exhaustion against the side of the well.
And so, Billy rushed over, “Are ya alright? I’ll fetch Brother Bob, he’ll know how ta break yer curse.”
“Curse? What curse?”
“From that there well. It’s been cursed ‘long as I can reckon. That’s why ya fell over.”
With that, the stranger began to laugh. Slow at first, his laughter spiked in speed and volume, until it broke into a coughing fit.
“What’re ya laughing for? This is serious! Yer cursed!”
“Boy,” the man began, grabbing Billy’s attention. “There’s no such thing as curses.” | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | The villagers watch. The children are hushed but they still point and shriek.
“The well! The cursed well! The stranger will get the curse!”
Admonishing their children, but thinking thoughts along the same lines, the parents are too busy to stop the stranger. Those not laboured with young rush to intercede.
“Stop, please, you mustn’t” says the teacher. She is kindly, and had the stranger approached her first, she would have gladly shared some tea and bread. But the stranger had approached the innkeeper first.
“You’ve already shown me what passes for hospitality here. I’ll take a draught and be on my way.” The stranger leans into the handle to crank the mechanism. Not without a sound of protest, the axle rotates, and the rope moves. “God, your maintenance is as bad as your manners, does no one repair this thing?” the stranger barks. The grunting of the stranger and the creaking of the well sound out loud above the children who are now whispering.
The butcher steps forward. A big man, from a line of big men. Not tall or muscular especially, but with the imposing presence of one who weighs a surprising amount more than you’d think. A stocky hand is placed on the stranger’s forearm. “Listen, friend, we meant no discourtesy. The inkeep is a miser but pay no heed. My son makes a fine ale, come, leave this well alone.”
The stranger looks at the butcher’s hand, then sneers, hackles raised. Aware that there is a crowd the stranger is defensive, pulling away from the butcher, but not releasing a grip on the handle of the well.
“I don’t know what you make of yourselves, gathering round like you’re a gonna lynch me. People stay away from this village and now I know why.” Muttering, the stranger returns to the task of drawing water.
The butcher is not unkind. He knows he has the strength to haul this stranger away but he also has the sense to know this is not the best course of action. Not with half the village at his back. The air was already tense before being stirred up with the word ‘lynch’. That kind of thing had happened before, but the gallows had been broken down for so long that only grandfathers remember where they once were.
Seeing the butcher’s hesitation, the teacher strides forward. Hers was such a gentle nature, enough to persuade even the most pragmatic of the presence of an aura. She moves quickly. The bucket is in sight now. Despite many years of disuse, the wood shows no sign of rot or decay. It is unnatural. The teacher steps in front of the butcher, who gratefully retreats a step.
“Please, you must listen. The well has a curse upon it. This village does indeed have a bad reputation but we are honest folk,” she says, her voice catching a hint of strain. The stranger turns, balking.
“A curse? Really, you’d stoop to that piss poor excuse just to stop me slaking my thirst.” The handle makes another revolution. “Ye gods, I’ll not even swallow a pint of your oh-so-precious water and you begrudge me that.” The bucket is in reach now. “If you’re all honest and nice then why doesn’t this cursèd well have a sign.” The stranger holds the handle steady with one hand and dips a flask in with the other. The butcher swallows, but is otherwise immobilised.
Every villager stares at the liquid sloshing around in this strangers hands. Everyone is aware of the absurdity of the scene. If the butcher would just knock the flask out of the stranger’s hands - but the butcher is still frozen. Years before he’d crippled a man with his fists. That kind of memory weighs heavy. The teacher grows desperate, pulling on the stranger’s arms.
“Get off me you crazy harlot.” The stranger jolts back. If, instead of stepping back, the stranger were to have struck out at the teacher, then the butcher would have snapped out of his reverie. But acting only defensively, the scene became clearly more and more in merit of sympathy for the thirsty stranger.
Like a river bursting its banks, the villagers realise that they can’t just stand by and watch. They surge forward. The stranger’s eyes bulge at the insanity. Then it is suddenly a chase. Water sloshes out of the canteen. Feet pound the cobblestones. Shouts and yells - notes of concern, not anger. But the stranger is too terrified to discern. From all appearances, this is a village of lunatics. But despite an adrenaline surge, the stranger is thirsty, hungry, tired and outnumbered - so is soon surrounded.
“Listen, we are only trying to protect you,” says one of the villagers, heaving to yank the vessel out of the stranger’s hands. Droplets scatter. As the crowd shudders, each person trying to avoid the water as though it were scalding oil, the stranger regains footing. It is then clear that in tousling for the flask, the stranger’s hand is drenched. All eyes are on the water, dripping quickly to the ground.
“A cursed well? No, curse you all, curse you and your damned helpfulness. I don’t need a damned bit of your help.” With that, the crowd being parted from the small splash of well water, the stranger walks away, licking off the small amount of the residue water that clung on so precariously. The teacher is just one who calls out, but the stranger is done with them and quits the small, strange village. No one in the crowd moves for a long moment. They’re all thinking the same thing, that some droplets of water certainly passed the lips of the stranger - but would that be enough to activate the curse? After the moment is broken, and they regain mobility, none of them tries to follow the stranger. Overhead, the wind gathers bluster. It is late. The sky is bruising. Night will soon fall.
A week later, they’ve all but forgotten the little incident. The carpenter’s boy affixes a small sign by the well. ‘Avoid, contaminated’ is what it is meant to say. Vague enough but definite in its implication. Unfortunately it is misspelled because the carpenter’s boy never paid enough attention to what the teacher was saying, but the consensus is that it is warning enough. By silent consensus, there is no talk about filling in the well. It is known that that would be a grave plan. Before anyone realises it, the villagers have gone back to ignoring the well, favouring the one on the western border.
Another week later, one of the farm hands from the valley finds a corpse in the lee of a tree. It is the stranger. The same facial expression of anger. Confused, irate and angry. What the stranger was doing isn’t clear. There is no sign of struggle or foul play, and there is no sign that the few drops of well water summoned any evil or untoward effect. A clean looking, but very dead, body. The body, and the incident, are buried by sundown. The priest said a few words and left. Since there is no doctor in the village, and no time to call one from the town across the hills, it can’t be said for sure, but everyone in the family of farmers was experienced with animals and with death. They wouldn’t say it out loud, but they confront it, come nighttime, for the rest of their lives. The way that corpse looked, the face. Not just an angry expression, but a withering look. They could all see that this stranger died of thirst. | Billy watched on from his family farm, plow still in hand, as the stranger fled wearily from the tavern. He had seen the man’s kind before. Wanderers were no new sight to the small town of Hannsburough. Billy wondered briefly what the man was running from. Maybe he was a criminal, fleeing for his life from a place he could no longer call home. Or perhaps he was a soldier, haunted by the horrors of war.
But ultimately, none of this mattered to Billy. Wanderers never stayed long in Hannsburough. Content in his ignorance, Billy looked back to see where the stranger had gone. Billy found the man, eyes tracking toward the town’s long-abandoned well as he saw the man lift a bucket to his lips. And before Billy could say a word, the bucket touched the wanderer’s lips, and water flowed.
Billy stood frozen, watching in abject horror, as he saw the man drink the cursed liquid. He watched as something about the man began to *change*. The man’s eyes began to water as his skin softened, losing the muscle-defining tautness it had long carried. He licked his chapped lips, feeling the dryness that had overtaken his mouth. And just like that, it was over, the stranger slumping down in exhaustion against the side of the well.
And so, Billy rushed over, “Are ya alright? I’ll fetch Brother Bob, he’ll know how ta break yer curse.”
“Curse? What curse?”
“From that there well. It’s been cursed ‘long as I can reckon. That’s why ya fell over.”
With that, the stranger began to laugh. Slow at first, his laughter spiked in speed and volume, until it broke into a coughing fit.
“What’re ya laughing for? This is serious! Yer cursed!”
“Boy,” the man began, grabbing Billy’s attention. “There’s no such thing as curses.” | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | It doesn't want to come out of the well. It's dark, and thick, thicker than blood, with a dim sheen like molten chocolate.
"This isn't water," Professor Clariel says, wondrously, staring at the dripping bucket. His throat is parched, his suit is ragged, his left wrist poorly splinted—but he still laughs.
There's little excitement in the sleepy little village, on a good day. Faces press to windows along the single dusty street, watching the alien glee with which the stranger regards the cursed water.
"I'll have to survey the area more thoroughly, when I'm recuperated. And here I thought this was all a waste of—" A burst of static startles him; he fumbles with the bulky radio in his right hand. "Yes? Hello? About time! The helicopter crashed hours ago!"
"*Are there any other survivors with you, Professor Clariel?*"
"What? Uh, no." The professor sobers up. "I'm afraid the pilot didn't make it. I'm sorry."
"*I'm sorry to hear that.*" Through the radio comes the *whuppa-whuppa-whuppa-whuppa* of helicopter blades. Gradually, the sound is mimicked in the real world. "*We're nearing your location.*"
The professor turns to the villagers and spreads his arms, wincing when he turns his wrist. Still, he smiles. "Well! Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe my time in your dreary little abode has come to an end. I'll remember your hospitality, and I'll be seeing you all... soon."
He walks out into the desert to greet the future.
**Two months later...**
"We had an agreement." The closest thing the village has to a leader stands at the edge of the village, flanked by a man and a woman from the village. They're not armed—they know when they're outmatched—but they could snap the diminutive bald man in half if they wanted to.
"Yes, well," the man says, "the Reservation Act does not, fortunately, extend its protections to sites of potential interest to the welfare of the state. We're simply trying to determine whether or not it's worth it to invest in developing this area."
"The well is cursed!" One of the village leader's attendants snaps, "What could you possibly want with the dark water?"
"*Petroleum*," the man in the suit says, "and quite possibly one of the world's largest deposits of the stuff."
Suddenly, the village leader grins. "That is all you want? The petroleum, you called it?"
"In a nutshell, yes, although the legal niceties—"
"Take it." The village leader spins around. "May you choke on its curse. Uwanto'o cares not."
The man in the suit stares after him for a startled second. Then he hurries to catch up. "Wait! Excuse me! Could I get that in writing?"
**One year later...**
The oil rigs are multiplying. The well is just the beginning. The night hums with a heartbeat of hydraulics; the day is hazy with thick, cloying smoke. The leader of the Uwanto'o paces in his house, furious.
"How?" He exclaims, "How are they still here? A year has passed and they have only grown in strength? The dark water is poison, anathema, bane! What do they know that we do not?"
"Nobody even remembers what the curse of the dark water is," one of his advisors reminds him.
"We were warned. We were told that the dark water brought nothing but destruction to those who touched it. We—" Suddenly, the leader of the Uwanto'o freezes.
He begins to laugh.
His advisors watch him, baffled. One of them reaches out a hand, to haul him to his feet—
"Don't you see?" He screeches, "How they are immune to the evils the dark water brings?"
He sprints to the window and stares out at the remnants of the village he was born to, at the darkened, wavering sky. "The curse of the dark water is *them*! They are the fury the petroleum brings!"
There's little excitement in the sleepy little village, on a good day. Faces press to windows along the single dusty street, watching the alien glee with which the last leader of the Uwanto'o regards the cursed water.
^(If you liked this, you might like) [^(a short story I wrote!)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/f2lhib/in_the_loop_chapter_1_41k_words/) | Billy watched on from his family farm, plow still in hand, as the stranger fled wearily from the tavern. He had seen the man’s kind before. Wanderers were no new sight to the small town of Hannsburough. Billy wondered briefly what the man was running from. Maybe he was a criminal, fleeing for his life from a place he could no longer call home. Or perhaps he was a soldier, haunted by the horrors of war.
But ultimately, none of this mattered to Billy. Wanderers never stayed long in Hannsburough. Content in his ignorance, Billy looked back to see where the stranger had gone. Billy found the man, eyes tracking toward the town’s long-abandoned well as he saw the man lift a bucket to his lips. And before Billy could say a word, the bucket touched the wanderer’s lips, and water flowed.
Billy stood frozen, watching in abject horror, as he saw the man drink the cursed liquid. He watched as something about the man began to *change*. The man’s eyes began to water as his skin softened, losing the muscle-defining tautness it had long carried. He licked his chapped lips, feeling the dryness that had overtaken his mouth. And just like that, it was over, the stranger slumping down in exhaustion against the side of the well.
And so, Billy rushed over, “Are ya alright? I’ll fetch Brother Bob, he’ll know how ta break yer curse.”
“Curse? What curse?”
“From that there well. It’s been cursed ‘long as I can reckon. That’s why ya fell over.”
With that, the stranger began to laugh. Slow at first, his laughter spiked in speed and volume, until it broke into a coughing fit.
“What’re ya laughing for? This is serious! Yer cursed!”
“Boy,” the man began, grabbing Billy’s attention. “There’s no such thing as curses.” | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | I still faintly remember that autumn day. The leaves were slowly starting to turn a gold brownish color and the winds were starting to get stronger.
Ever since I was little my mother always had told me one thing:
No matter what you do, never drink from the well in the middle of town as it is cursed.
I remember her telling me that she didn't exactly know the curse anymore but it was one so cruel that every person who drank from it suffered a fate even more cruel than death itself
.
Then one day he came in, a traveler from a land far away. His style of clothing resembled something oriental.We told him our tale of the curses well but he just didn't listen.
He insisted that we were just some crazy, wild town who still believed in tales used to scare little children.
We tried to hold him back verbally but he's insisted
,he wanted to drink the wells water.
He inched closer to the well, seemingly afraid, even tough his mind should have been at rest,after all it was just an ordinary well.
I just had to spare him from this fate that was worse than death and if I couldn't reason with him I'd do it with force.
So I grabbed the pitchfork we kept in our barn and waited.
Waited for the moment he bend down to drink the water.
I finally mustered up the courage and threw the pitchfork, it flying like a spiked angel of death. However when it hit him it was already to late, he had already tasted the water.
My spear just bounced of him like if you threw a pebble at an elephant.
He too realized what his fate was, he was doomed to eternal life, never able to find rest and unable to die.
This really was a fate crueler than death. | Bad luck. It seemed I was finally too old to psss myself off as a Grove Child. One hundred years ago and it wouldnt have been a problem to do so. Most villages had never even seen one, and most Shepards, if the village had one at all, were much too curious about me to correct them. But this village had seen one in living memory, and this village had no Shepard to vouch for me. So when I opened the door of the only small inn in town, the keep took one look at my strangely colored and mottled skin, and capped horns, and told me to beat feet right back the way i came.
I would have, if not near dying of thirst. If id known that they receive no rain in the summer north of the Bodir mountains, i probably would have been in much better sorts. Maybe traipsed up here in the fall, found a good place to winter, and then move along come spring. But as it happened, i found myself wandering this strange northern landscape in the middle of the dry season. No creeks, springs or ponds to sustain me. Just the potential goodwill of the inhabitants and the cisterns they keep.
And this village seemed to lack in the goodwill department.
"Try the well, if yer feelin brave, Odd-One."
The innkeep yelled to me from the doorway of the inn. As my mind was windering it seemed my butt had planted itself on a large flat rock a dozen or so meters from his building. Understandable. The rock was warm under the sun's rays. Much unlike most things in this strange land.
"A well?" i asked back. I had not seen a well since coming up here. Divination told me the water table was 30 meters down, through solid rock. Most villages couldnt manage that.
"Yeh. west out the center of town. In the ruins of the old city. Best of luck."
The mischeif in his words was palpable, but no danger was greater to me than my own thirst. I set off in that direcrion. True to his word, just past the edge of the town i could make out the the remains of much older construction. All that was left were foundations, overgrown with brush and hidden behind dried grasses, but unmistakable. Ancient. What was once here dwarfed what was present in both size and grandeur. Kicking through the topsoil i could make out the expertly cut bricks of a road. It cut right through the mounds of decayed buildings, bringing me to what once must have been the city center.
My 'bravery' must have been noteworthy. A small crowd from the village had follwed me now. Huddled together, far enough behind me to keep out of earshot. and centered on the hidden road. I could hear their muttering, but not their words. Curious, nervous. Their eyes darted to and fro, as if the old stones of the city would rise up and swallow them if they got too close.
In the center of the old city square sat a rectangular pit. The well. The nerves of the villagers had creepes into me now, and i carefully walked up to the edge. Stairs cut into the stone on all sides, leading down to a small square of water. About 30 meters down. I turned and called to the villagers. "What about this well causes such fear in you?"
"Tis evil, far as we know". it was the innkeep again. Likely also the village headman. Or maybe just the most brave.
"Evil? of what kind?" My words were heavy and course with dehydration.
"the kind keeps those who walk down them steps from walkin back up em" he shouted back. "tsalways been like. long as memory."
The fear was in me now. There was no lie in his words. I doubted he knew exactly what the deal with the well was. secluded villages like this are usually very good at maintaining old wisdom, and usually very bad at remembering exactly why. A conundrum that would vex me now and many times in the future. And there was something about the well. I could feel the aether around it ripple and pulse, ever so gently. I did not want to go down there, and my mind was set not to for all of a second, until i tried to swallow. My thirst would be my undoing. Every physical fiber of my being screamed to plunge to the bottom of the well, to drink freely until i burst. If i could not drink now, death would drink of me shortly after.
I took a step down. the steps were as new. No wear or erosion anywhere. If the city had died hundreds of years ago, this well coud have been maintained until yesterday. Perfectly square, decending row by row, the sun would not have reached me at the bottom were it not noon. I came to the edge of the water slowly, and knelt. The water was clear as glass, with the sunlight allowing me to see
down many meters before the bottom was swallowed by darkness. I closed my eyes. maybe i could divinize what agitated the aeither here so, but the pounding in my head prevented all. Between my on failing senses, and the sheer force of magic pouring out of the well at this proximity, only the bestial drive of my thirst kept me upright. I glanced up to see the peolle had moved to the top of the well, crowding around the edges, but careful not to take that first step down. The waited with held breath. not even a murmer escaped them. I hope they enjoyed the show.
I took as deep a breath as i could manage to steady myself, and reached forward and scooped up water in my cuppes hands. It was warm as tea. Somewhere in the back of my mind I screamed how wrong that was. Nothing in this land was warm of its own accord. But my thirst screamed louder. I waited as long as i could manage, stareing into the water in my hands. Maybe just touching it would spell my doom. But it did not. I brought it to my mouth and drank. I was vaguely aware of the gasps of the people above me, but i was mostly aware of the life flowing back into my veins. The warmth it caused in my stomach was pure bliss. I now knew first hand the lost of oasis talked about in the anceint tales. I drank again. and again. Greedily i slurped, and the warmth grew. Sweat began to bead my brow. i tore off my coat and kept drinking, as if in a trance. I very much think i was, for soon, my whole body felt as if on fire. The choice was taken from me, i thought. But i knew it to be a lie. I had thrown the choice away. I could not allow myself to be cooked alive. With no option before me, i dove in... | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | The villagers watch. The children are hushed but they still point and shriek.
“The well! The cursed well! The stranger will get the curse!”
Admonishing their children, but thinking thoughts along the same lines, the parents are too busy to stop the stranger. Those not laboured with young rush to intercede.
“Stop, please, you mustn’t” says the teacher. She is kindly, and had the stranger approached her first, she would have gladly shared some tea and bread. But the stranger had approached the innkeeper first.
“You’ve already shown me what passes for hospitality here. I’ll take a draught and be on my way.” The stranger leans into the handle to crank the mechanism. Not without a sound of protest, the axle rotates, and the rope moves. “God, your maintenance is as bad as your manners, does no one repair this thing?” the stranger barks. The grunting of the stranger and the creaking of the well sound out loud above the children who are now whispering.
The butcher steps forward. A big man, from a line of big men. Not tall or muscular especially, but with the imposing presence of one who weighs a surprising amount more than you’d think. A stocky hand is placed on the stranger’s forearm. “Listen, friend, we meant no discourtesy. The inkeep is a miser but pay no heed. My son makes a fine ale, come, leave this well alone.”
The stranger looks at the butcher’s hand, then sneers, hackles raised. Aware that there is a crowd the stranger is defensive, pulling away from the butcher, but not releasing a grip on the handle of the well.
“I don’t know what you make of yourselves, gathering round like you’re a gonna lynch me. People stay away from this village and now I know why.” Muttering, the stranger returns to the task of drawing water.
The butcher is not unkind. He knows he has the strength to haul this stranger away but he also has the sense to know this is not the best course of action. Not with half the village at his back. The air was already tense before being stirred up with the word ‘lynch’. That kind of thing had happened before, but the gallows had been broken down for so long that only grandfathers remember where they once were.
Seeing the butcher’s hesitation, the teacher strides forward. Hers was such a gentle nature, enough to persuade even the most pragmatic of the presence of an aura. She moves quickly. The bucket is in sight now. Despite many years of disuse, the wood shows no sign of rot or decay. It is unnatural. The teacher steps in front of the butcher, who gratefully retreats a step.
“Please, you must listen. The well has a curse upon it. This village does indeed have a bad reputation but we are honest folk,” she says, her voice catching a hint of strain. The stranger turns, balking.
“A curse? Really, you’d stoop to that piss poor excuse just to stop me slaking my thirst.” The handle makes another revolution. “Ye gods, I’ll not even swallow a pint of your oh-so-precious water and you begrudge me that.” The bucket is in reach now. “If you’re all honest and nice then why doesn’t this cursèd well have a sign.” The stranger holds the handle steady with one hand and dips a flask in with the other. The butcher swallows, but is otherwise immobilised.
Every villager stares at the liquid sloshing around in this strangers hands. Everyone is aware of the absurdity of the scene. If the butcher would just knock the flask out of the stranger’s hands - but the butcher is still frozen. Years before he’d crippled a man with his fists. That kind of memory weighs heavy. The teacher grows desperate, pulling on the stranger’s arms.
“Get off me you crazy harlot.” The stranger jolts back. If, instead of stepping back, the stranger were to have struck out at the teacher, then the butcher would have snapped out of his reverie. But acting only defensively, the scene became clearly more and more in merit of sympathy for the thirsty stranger.
Like a river bursting its banks, the villagers realise that they can’t just stand by and watch. They surge forward. The stranger’s eyes bulge at the insanity. Then it is suddenly a chase. Water sloshes out of the canteen. Feet pound the cobblestones. Shouts and yells - notes of concern, not anger. But the stranger is too terrified to discern. From all appearances, this is a village of lunatics. But despite an adrenaline surge, the stranger is thirsty, hungry, tired and outnumbered - so is soon surrounded.
“Listen, we are only trying to protect you,” says one of the villagers, heaving to yank the vessel out of the stranger’s hands. Droplets scatter. As the crowd shudders, each person trying to avoid the water as though it were scalding oil, the stranger regains footing. It is then clear that in tousling for the flask, the stranger’s hand is drenched. All eyes are on the water, dripping quickly to the ground.
“A cursed well? No, curse you all, curse you and your damned helpfulness. I don’t need a damned bit of your help.” With that, the crowd being parted from the small splash of well water, the stranger walks away, licking off the small amount of the residue water that clung on so precariously. The teacher is just one who calls out, but the stranger is done with them and quits the small, strange village. No one in the crowd moves for a long moment. They’re all thinking the same thing, that some droplets of water certainly passed the lips of the stranger - but would that be enough to activate the curse? After the moment is broken, and they regain mobility, none of them tries to follow the stranger. Overhead, the wind gathers bluster. It is late. The sky is bruising. Night will soon fall.
A week later, they’ve all but forgotten the little incident. The carpenter’s boy affixes a small sign by the well. ‘Avoid, contaminated’ is what it is meant to say. Vague enough but definite in its implication. Unfortunately it is misspelled because the carpenter’s boy never paid enough attention to what the teacher was saying, but the consensus is that it is warning enough. By silent consensus, there is no talk about filling in the well. It is known that that would be a grave plan. Before anyone realises it, the villagers have gone back to ignoring the well, favouring the one on the western border.
Another week later, one of the farm hands from the valley finds a corpse in the lee of a tree. It is the stranger. The same facial expression of anger. Confused, irate and angry. What the stranger was doing isn’t clear. There is no sign of struggle or foul play, and there is no sign that the few drops of well water summoned any evil or untoward effect. A clean looking, but very dead, body. The body, and the incident, are buried by sundown. The priest said a few words and left. Since there is no doctor in the village, and no time to call one from the town across the hills, it can’t be said for sure, but everyone in the family of farmers was experienced with animals and with death. They wouldn’t say it out loud, but they confront it, come nighttime, for the rest of their lives. The way that corpse looked, the face. Not just an angry expression, but a withering look. They could all see that this stranger died of thirst. | Bad luck. It seemed I was finally too old to psss myself off as a Grove Child. One hundred years ago and it wouldnt have been a problem to do so. Most villages had never even seen one, and most Shepards, if the village had one at all, were much too curious about me to correct them. But this village had seen one in living memory, and this village had no Shepard to vouch for me. So when I opened the door of the only small inn in town, the keep took one look at my strangely colored and mottled skin, and capped horns, and told me to beat feet right back the way i came.
I would have, if not near dying of thirst. If id known that they receive no rain in the summer north of the Bodir mountains, i probably would have been in much better sorts. Maybe traipsed up here in the fall, found a good place to winter, and then move along come spring. But as it happened, i found myself wandering this strange northern landscape in the middle of the dry season. No creeks, springs or ponds to sustain me. Just the potential goodwill of the inhabitants and the cisterns they keep.
And this village seemed to lack in the goodwill department.
"Try the well, if yer feelin brave, Odd-One."
The innkeep yelled to me from the doorway of the inn. As my mind was windering it seemed my butt had planted itself on a large flat rock a dozen or so meters from his building. Understandable. The rock was warm under the sun's rays. Much unlike most things in this strange land.
"A well?" i asked back. I had not seen a well since coming up here. Divination told me the water table was 30 meters down, through solid rock. Most villages couldnt manage that.
"Yeh. west out the center of town. In the ruins of the old city. Best of luck."
The mischeif in his words was palpable, but no danger was greater to me than my own thirst. I set off in that direcrion. True to his word, just past the edge of the town i could make out the the remains of much older construction. All that was left were foundations, overgrown with brush and hidden behind dried grasses, but unmistakable. Ancient. What was once here dwarfed what was present in both size and grandeur. Kicking through the topsoil i could make out the expertly cut bricks of a road. It cut right through the mounds of decayed buildings, bringing me to what once must have been the city center.
My 'bravery' must have been noteworthy. A small crowd from the village had follwed me now. Huddled together, far enough behind me to keep out of earshot. and centered on the hidden road. I could hear their muttering, but not their words. Curious, nervous. Their eyes darted to and fro, as if the old stones of the city would rise up and swallow them if they got too close.
In the center of the old city square sat a rectangular pit. The well. The nerves of the villagers had creepes into me now, and i carefully walked up to the edge. Stairs cut into the stone on all sides, leading down to a small square of water. About 30 meters down. I turned and called to the villagers. "What about this well causes such fear in you?"
"Tis evil, far as we know". it was the innkeep again. Likely also the village headman. Or maybe just the most brave.
"Evil? of what kind?" My words were heavy and course with dehydration.
"the kind keeps those who walk down them steps from walkin back up em" he shouted back. "tsalways been like. long as memory."
The fear was in me now. There was no lie in his words. I doubted he knew exactly what the deal with the well was. secluded villages like this are usually very good at maintaining old wisdom, and usually very bad at remembering exactly why. A conundrum that would vex me now and many times in the future. And there was something about the well. I could feel the aether around it ripple and pulse, ever so gently. I did not want to go down there, and my mind was set not to for all of a second, until i tried to swallow. My thirst would be my undoing. Every physical fiber of my being screamed to plunge to the bottom of the well, to drink freely until i burst. If i could not drink now, death would drink of me shortly after.
I took a step down. the steps were as new. No wear or erosion anywhere. If the city had died hundreds of years ago, this well coud have been maintained until yesterday. Perfectly square, decending row by row, the sun would not have reached me at the bottom were it not noon. I came to the edge of the water slowly, and knelt. The water was clear as glass, with the sunlight allowing me to see
down many meters before the bottom was swallowed by darkness. I closed my eyes. maybe i could divinize what agitated the aeither here so, but the pounding in my head prevented all. Between my on failing senses, and the sheer force of magic pouring out of the well at this proximity, only the bestial drive of my thirst kept me upright. I glanced up to see the peolle had moved to the top of the well, crowding around the edges, but careful not to take that first step down. The waited with held breath. not even a murmer escaped them. I hope they enjoyed the show.
I took as deep a breath as i could manage to steady myself, and reached forward and scooped up water in my cuppes hands. It was warm as tea. Somewhere in the back of my mind I screamed how wrong that was. Nothing in this land was warm of its own accord. But my thirst screamed louder. I waited as long as i could manage, stareing into the water in my hands. Maybe just touching it would spell my doom. But it did not. I brought it to my mouth and drank. I was vaguely aware of the gasps of the people above me, but i was mostly aware of the life flowing back into my veins. The warmth it caused in my stomach was pure bliss. I now knew first hand the lost of oasis talked about in the anceint tales. I drank again. and again. Greedily i slurped, and the warmth grew. Sweat began to bead my brow. i tore off my coat and kept drinking, as if in a trance. I very much think i was, for soon, my whole body felt as if on fire. The choice was taken from me, i thought. But i knew it to be a lie. I had thrown the choice away. I could not allow myself to be cooked alive. With no option before me, i dove in... | |
[WP] Nobody draws water from the well anymore. The villagers know it is cursed, but after generations, nobody remembers exactly what this curse is. A strange traveler comes to the village, starving and thirsty. The inn and the tavern turn him away. He goes to the well. The villagers watch. | It doesn't want to come out of the well. It's dark, and thick, thicker than blood, with a dim sheen like molten chocolate.
"This isn't water," Professor Clariel says, wondrously, staring at the dripping bucket. His throat is parched, his suit is ragged, his left wrist poorly splinted—but he still laughs.
There's little excitement in the sleepy little village, on a good day. Faces press to windows along the single dusty street, watching the alien glee with which the stranger regards the cursed water.
"I'll have to survey the area more thoroughly, when I'm recuperated. And here I thought this was all a waste of—" A burst of static startles him; he fumbles with the bulky radio in his right hand. "Yes? Hello? About time! The helicopter crashed hours ago!"
"*Are there any other survivors with you, Professor Clariel?*"
"What? Uh, no." The professor sobers up. "I'm afraid the pilot didn't make it. I'm sorry."
"*I'm sorry to hear that.*" Through the radio comes the *whuppa-whuppa-whuppa-whuppa* of helicopter blades. Gradually, the sound is mimicked in the real world. "*We're nearing your location.*"
The professor turns to the villagers and spreads his arms, wincing when he turns his wrist. Still, he smiles. "Well! Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe my time in your dreary little abode has come to an end. I'll remember your hospitality, and I'll be seeing you all... soon."
He walks out into the desert to greet the future.
**Two months later...**
"We had an agreement." The closest thing the village has to a leader stands at the edge of the village, flanked by a man and a woman from the village. They're not armed—they know when they're outmatched—but they could snap the diminutive bald man in half if they wanted to.
"Yes, well," the man says, "the Reservation Act does not, fortunately, extend its protections to sites of potential interest to the welfare of the state. We're simply trying to determine whether or not it's worth it to invest in developing this area."
"The well is cursed!" One of the village leader's attendants snaps, "What could you possibly want with the dark water?"
"*Petroleum*," the man in the suit says, "and quite possibly one of the world's largest deposits of the stuff."
Suddenly, the village leader grins. "That is all you want? The petroleum, you called it?"
"In a nutshell, yes, although the legal niceties—"
"Take it." The village leader spins around. "May you choke on its curse. Uwanto'o cares not."
The man in the suit stares after him for a startled second. Then he hurries to catch up. "Wait! Excuse me! Could I get that in writing?"
**One year later...**
The oil rigs are multiplying. The well is just the beginning. The night hums with a heartbeat of hydraulics; the day is hazy with thick, cloying smoke. The leader of the Uwanto'o paces in his house, furious.
"How?" He exclaims, "How are they still here? A year has passed and they have only grown in strength? The dark water is poison, anathema, bane! What do they know that we do not?"
"Nobody even remembers what the curse of the dark water is," one of his advisors reminds him.
"We were warned. We were told that the dark water brought nothing but destruction to those who touched it. We—" Suddenly, the leader of the Uwanto'o freezes.
He begins to laugh.
His advisors watch him, baffled. One of them reaches out a hand, to haul him to his feet—
"Don't you see?" He screeches, "How they are immune to the evils the dark water brings?"
He sprints to the window and stares out at the remnants of the village he was born to, at the darkened, wavering sky. "The curse of the dark water is *them*! They are the fury the petroleum brings!"
There's little excitement in the sleepy little village, on a good day. Faces press to windows along the single dusty street, watching the alien glee with which the last leader of the Uwanto'o regards the cursed water.
^(If you liked this, you might like) [^(a short story I wrote!)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/f2lhib/in_the_loop_chapter_1_41k_words/) | Over a dozen eyes watched the skinny, rag-clothed beggar as he stumbled towards the old well.
Maudie, who owned the inn pressed her hands to her mouth, “Someone stop him!”
No one moved.
Simeon, the tavern owner, clutched a flagon of beer in one hand, the beverage momentarily forgotten.
Eyes shifted to one another and quiet whispers filled the are as the villagers continued to watch the beggar’s progress towards the well and yet, no one stepped forward to stop him.
The stranger limped slowly forward, determined to reach the well. His grey, grizzled hair fluttering slightly in the breeze, his dark eyes squinting against the glare of the sun, his chapped lips forming a thin line.
“Mama, what about the curse? Little Cora asked her mother, tugging on her skirts.
“Hush,” Cora’s mother scolded.
“If he drinks that water he’ll give old Barthol something to do,” a man chuckled cruelly, speaking of the village’s local grave digger.
The stranger reached the ancient, crumbling well and leaned heavily against its stone wall for a long moment, catching his breath. He could feel the heat of the villagers eyes on his back like a dozen flaming embers but he ignored them. Let them stare.
Straightening up as much as he could, the elderly beggar reached out and grasped the fraying rope that disappeared into the depths of the well.
Pausing for effect, the stranger took a second before tightening his grip and pulling the rope upwards, bringing with it a dented, rusting bucket filled with cold water.
“There’s still water!” Sheriff Dieter exclaimed in disbelief, “it hasn’t dried up after all these years.”
The villagers all took a collective breath as the beggar picked up the bucket brought it to his lips.
The stranger muttered a single sentence in an ancient language right before the water touched his lips and he drank deeply.
Once the stranger had had his feel. He turned to the villagers.
“Come,” he wheezed, “Drink!”
No one moved.
The beggar’s eyes raked over the crowd of onlookers.
“Bah,” he snarled in disgust, “You have not changed in all these many years. I was hoping you people would have learned.”
“Learned what?” Sheriff Dieter asked, taking a tentative step forward.
The stranger scowled, “Your hearts are still closed off. You let fear take hold and rather than fight against it you embrace it like a bosom friend.”
Confused eyes stared at the old beggar, looking askance.
“Fools!” the man shrieked suddenly, making little Cora start crying.
“The water was never cursed!” He told them, “I told your grandmother and grandfathers it was and they never touched it again! They were content to stay away from it. No one ever questioned me. No one!”
The eyes now turned down in shame.
“How can we make it up to you?” Sherriff Dieter asked, “Please, tell us.”
The beggar shook his head, “I gave you people a chance once to change and you decided not to take it. There is nothing you can do. You will always harbour fear in your hearts.”
“Please, Father,” Maudie tried, even using the affectionate term one used for an older man to try and soften the stranger’s heart.
The stranger turned his head away from the well and spat.
“This water is cursed,” he told them, and spoke several words in a foreign language, “Whomever drinks of it shall die.”
With that, the stranger turned his back on the villagers and limped slowly away.
Once the stranger had vanished, Sheriff Dieter had the old well filled in so no one would be able to drink it’s cursed waters. | |
[WP] You have a backpack that gives you exactly what you need for the day, everyday. However, one day you pull out a gun. Worried, you spend the entire day trying to find out why and how it would be used. | “I’m not a violent man. I hate going fishing- I can’t bring myself to hook the worm, let alone the fish. So I’m sure you can understand my trembling confusion when I was given that gun. I don’t know what it was for, I didn’t even know how to operate it. All morning I kept it hidden away in my backpack, afraid of when I would use it, or who would see it.
For the most part my day went as usual: I arrived at the school at 7:30, I had my coffee and bagel, met with students, and the day started at 8:45... I... the fire alarms went off at 11:30, right as the second lunch began. Of course we followed our fire drill codes and we moved onto the football fields. I was the last one out- I’m designated to make sure there are no kids left behind...
And then I saw him- the-th-the man. Hiding in the closet that leads to the roof. I saw him, and I stood there. I froze. I was trembling. He didn’t see me, and I knew deep down somewhere that this is why I found the gun. If I didn’t shoot him dead, he would have done the unthinkable...”
Testimony of Mr. Lazlo Browne, instructor at St. Victoria’s High School | I am the average guy with average looks and average luck. Pretty standard person. That guy who you take the bus with everyday but couldn't remember the face even if you tried. Yeah, that's me. Your firendly normal looking guy.
Life isn't bad. It's quite good actually. Because i have something that helps me everyday. My loyal backpack! This sound ridiculous, i know. But allow me to explain.
Since i can remember, i have this backpack. It's an average looking backpack, but it have a special feature. It gives me one item per day. The one item i need the most. Most days it gives me everyday things, like umbrellas, lunch(when i forget mines home), subway tickets. Sometimes it gives me really cool things, like games, clothes and booze. But today i got quite an unusual item.
A gun.
Yes, a gun. Why? Well, i still don't know honestly. The day already ended. It's 6pm and i'm just chilling, playing catch with my dog. Why in the earth would the backpack give a gun? Well, maybe it's just a... bug? Anyway, i'll keep playing with my dog. But he should stop running to the middle of the street.
HEY, COME BACK. DON'T RUN THAT WAY. HEY STOP, YOU GONNA GET HIT BY SOME C-
​
​
​
I think i understand now...
Maybe... Maybe the backpack can give me my dog... back? | |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "Great Creator, you know how the humans have been living in hell for the last five years?"
"What? Hoo-manz? What in the universe are you... Oh, yeah the humans! What's the update on that shit sandwich?"
"Well, your Creativeness, the thing is a bunch of them have gone to therapy finally. And a bunch of others are attempting to overthrow capitalism. And some others decided not to randomly set things on fire anymore. They're doing something called a 'trash tag' that actually involved picking up trash rather than throwing it everywhere."
"What?"
"Yes, and the man ones are spending more time with their children, even if they're girls and Harvey Weinstein finally got convicted of a bunch of those rapes and right now several of the young ones are volunteering to deliver food to the old ones so the old ones don't catch plague and they're singing to each other across balconies and reading stories to each other over their computers. It's really quite touching your Great-itude"
"Oh fuck." | I’ve been prepared for this day ever since I was young. Always followed the Bible and did good work like charity, helping food shelters, etc. Therefore, I always thought I would definitely go to Heaven when it was time but when this all happened, nothing happened. No one else believed me, I knew it was the Anti-Christ who arrived but they all thought I was crazy and the true evil in the world was the war happening not some demon on earth. But I knew, I knew this was the end; yet, I didn’t leave like I thought I would. I don’t understand why? What could I have possibly done wrong? I ALWAYS followed the rules so why didn’t I leave!? And now everyone thinks I’m crazy because I tried to warn them. Well you know what, they can go to hell. We’re all gonna die and I wasn’t supposed to but NOW I WILL. God is a joke. You know what maybe there isn’t a God. Maybe I am insane. All I know for a fact is that I should’ve gone to Heaven but if god is real he plays sick jokes on us. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "Great Creator, you know how the humans have been living in hell for the last five years?"
"What? Hoo-manz? What in the universe are you... Oh, yeah the humans! What's the update on that shit sandwich?"
"Well, your Creativeness, the thing is a bunch of them have gone to therapy finally. And a bunch of others are attempting to overthrow capitalism. And some others decided not to randomly set things on fire anymore. They're doing something called a 'trash tag' that actually involved picking up trash rather than throwing it everywhere."
"What?"
"Yes, and the man ones are spending more time with their children, even if they're girls and Harvey Weinstein finally got convicted of a bunch of those rapes and right now several of the young ones are volunteering to deliver food to the old ones so the old ones don't catch plague and they're singing to each other across balconies and reading stories to each other over their computers. It's really quite touching your Great-itude"
"Oh fuck." | When I ponder this great and powerful lord whom I’ve spent my life devoted to. I must ask myself, how can something be that never was. Have I embarked on the ultimate fruitless labor. The thought of the sacrifice, the preaching, the time, makes me what to end it all. But I must fight. Because if man is truly the lords greatest creation then there is no way that our time here on this planet is done. We must hold on to hope. Hope for a better way. Time is our only source of foresight and unfortunately so many of us have so little of it. Moreover time to one person is never the same to another. Take the poor man who spends all his time with the demeanor of a thirsty zebra. All too often faced with a disproportionate risk for an essential life need. Not only from the water which she drinks from but also from the ominous unknown which stands behind her. If you have seen any one of the many documentaries about Africa then there is no need for further elaboration of that analogy. Now, taking a look at how your average elitist with more hands than a gang of pick pockets navigates the would be rocky waters with the grace of a swan. A question arises that is hard to avoid? do even have the slightest clue of how fortunate you are. Your boot straps have built in suspenders. Even if they sag a bit, they’ll always bounce back. This my friend is the problem, something that never was can’t be. It just isn’t possible and that is about as bleak as it gets... |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "Great Creator, you know how the humans have been living in hell for the last five years?"
"What? Hoo-manz? What in the universe are you... Oh, yeah the humans! What's the update on that shit sandwich?"
"Well, your Creativeness, the thing is a bunch of them have gone to therapy finally. And a bunch of others are attempting to overthrow capitalism. And some others decided not to randomly set things on fire anymore. They're doing something called a 'trash tag' that actually involved picking up trash rather than throwing it everywhere."
"What?"
"Yes, and the man ones are spending more time with their children, even if they're girls and Harvey Weinstein finally got convicted of a bunch of those rapes and right now several of the young ones are volunteering to deliver food to the old ones so the old ones don't catch plague and they're singing to each other across balconies and reading stories to each other over their computers. It's really quite touching your Great-itude"
"Oh fuck." | The Man’s time was up.
Optimistic, he flew down the highway, reaching for another cough drop. He had been sick recently, but performed his duties nonetheless.
It had been a strange journey for the Man. In many ways his current life was like a living hell, at least that’s how he would have felt 4 or 5 years ago. Too much pride, perhaps? But, life had made sure to temper that. People can adapt to most situations, given enough time.
“There’s always something though,” thought the Man. Coughing, he reached for another cough drop & fumbled his way through the yellow plastic.
The highway curved along and the speed limit rose from 60 to 70. Lazily, the Man adjusted the cruise control, legs crossed in his lap.
He saw a white van in the distance. “I should get over early,” he thought. Changing lanes, he found himself behind a red sports car. The red car was uncomfortably close, and somehow even slower than the van. The Man went to change lanes again...
Suddenly, a car appeared in his blind spot. He swerved back, the red sports car inches away, he swerved again, dodging it by a hair.
As he loses control the Man calmly accepts his fate. This is happening.
“God Damnit!” The Man yells, as his truck collides with the wall.
——
Doesn’t it seem awfully lucky? Remember the time you survived that accident? Perhaps a friend pulled you to safety? Or, maybe you beat the odds and survived that illness? No one expected you to pull through. A miracle, truly!
——
The Man opened his eyes. “I must have blacked out for a second,” he thought. No surprise after that airbag. “Who would have thought they would be so hard? They always looked fluffier on television.”
The Man slowly exited the truck. Upon reaching the ground he began to laugh, filled with an odd mixture if relief and amazement. What are the odds he would make it out unharmed?
——
Seasons come and go, but angles and demons never change. Unfortunately, humans do. There’s always something though. One vice is easily replaced by another. Out with the old, in with the new, as we like to say.
Man’s time is up, a fresh hell awaits. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "Great Creator, you know how the humans have been living in hell for the last five years?"
"What? Hoo-manz? What in the universe are you... Oh, yeah the humans! What's the update on that shit sandwich?"
"Well, your Creativeness, the thing is a bunch of them have gone to therapy finally. And a bunch of others are attempting to overthrow capitalism. And some others decided not to randomly set things on fire anymore. They're doing something called a 'trash tag' that actually involved picking up trash rather than throwing it everywhere."
"What?"
"Yes, and the man ones are spending more time with their children, even if they're girls and Harvey Weinstein finally got convicted of a bunch of those rapes and right now several of the young ones are volunteering to deliver food to the old ones so the old ones don't catch plague and they're singing to each other across balconies and reading stories to each other over their computers. It's really quite touching your Great-itude"
"Oh fuck." | In the Catholic beliefs of a Christian, Hell isn't a place with constant fire and deliberate torture, it is simply like life before. In other words, Earth is just a place that prepares us for Hell.
*I put on my jacket and headed out the door to the car.*
I never really thought of it before, but I realized that if that's really the case, we could never tell whether we were in Hell unless someone told us, and even THEN most people would be skeptical.
*I sat in the car and tried to ignore the urge to slap my little sister (who was touching me), and my mother, who was almost yelling at me because of something I did.*
Lots of bad things have already happened in quick succession; like sickness, fire, and war, so I don't see it getting much worse.
*After being dropped off at school, I went into the school building and sat at the bleachers. I listened to the yelling of students and tapped my feet anxiously. I stepped on a wrapper with chewed gum.*
If we were in Hell, at least we'd be dead. I think that's an improvement because there'd be nothing more supernatural than us. No more fear of the dark, no more ghosts, and most importantly: immortality.
*I sat down in math. I heard my math teacher cry for several minutes because she felt stupid. I was the only one who heard.*
Sometimes it only makes sense that we should all be dead by now. How could we have survived any of this?
*In social studies, I have a friend who wears the same leather jacket every day. He smells like cat waste because he has cats. We have to be partners, so I smell skat every day. I wish he had other clothes to keep him warm.*
If we never noticed that we went to Hell, I think that'd show whoever's in charge that the human race is clueless. I also think that'd annoy him, which makes me smile.
*Off to band. I know nobody in my own section. To my right, there are the girls who almost never pay attention (we have eighth graders here playing eighth notes as quarters), and to my left, there are the two toxic popular girls who never shut up. Not to mention the guy who makes my friends uncomfortable by touching them and asking disgusting questions.*
Even if we would have a slightly more influenced punishment-rate in Hell, I don't think anybody would notice, either. Getting harassed constantly by jerks? Been there. Knowing that something at home may be going on with the jerks' parents? The usual. Realizing that those parents must have had much worse in their childhood? Big deal!
*In ELA, nothing bad really happens, but only because our teacher is eccentric and actually is really funny (despite not trying, random humor is really funny).*
I think it's really just what most people deserve here. Even me. The only redeemable thing about me is that I haven't killed anyone yet. I've planned several murders (all of these people are so annoying), but I haven't gone through with them because a friend convinced me not to.
*Yum, lunch. Two boys at my assigned table invalidate my gender identity, saying I'm "not a boy" if I don't get their humor as I fill my stomach with as much food as possible. All of my other friends are on opposite corners of the lunchroom, with each other.*
*Elizabeth is the only one close enough to make things better for me. She's the light of my lunch table.*
I've gone to the counselor's office so many times, it's a wonder how people with worse conditions (like my friends) survive with it. Speaking of the counselor, how couldn't she go to Heaven? Being unjudgemental and compassionate is in the job description! Surely, she wouldn't be here if we were all in Hell. Then again...everyone has sins they keep secret.
*Science, my favorite subject. It also has a bunch of annoying kids in the class, and I had to work with the one with ADHD for two weeks, but other than that, it was okay. Something that made me feel better was being informed about the current sickness going around. I also have a best friend in this class.*
I think I only stop feeling suicidal when I'm with my friends. I mean, I'm still a little depressed but the numbness is gone. I have more than a feeling that everyone else feels the same way. So as long as we stick together, we'll all be okay in Hell. We'll be safer together.
*PE. I think it's better when we do it without the other boys, just the girl's class. The boys sometimes annoy me by saying or mouthing "two genders" after getting my attention. I wish I could beat this one kid up. I'm not afraid of getting hit, Ethan! "If you're a boy I can hit you back" isn't a threat!*
*I have a best friend there too, but sh's more passive about everything and I'm the one who defends her.*
There are two characteristics I see in a person that deserves to go to Hell.
1. You hurt people, for no reason, who don't deserve it. And...
2. You turn a blind eye when others are harming others OR themselves.
*In Art, there are some kids who make fun of some people I am acquainted with, and they don't know it, so I say nothing. I openly talk to them in that class, and no one has made fun of me, so I don't think it matters. This one really tall kid called me a dike a lot last year, but he asked about my gender, and after I explained, he said: "checks out". He also said that the teacher should call me by my preferred name instead of my nickname two days later (I explained that I couldn't).*
*He made me feel happier.*
People do change, all it takes is time. And if we're in Hell, we have forever to make amends.
*I had a nice conversation with a person near my locker. I don't know his name, but it's a nicer talk than what I remember having with him in the past.*
You know what? I don't think anyone would really mind going to Hell all at once. Much better than going in alone.
*When I left the building, I and my three walking buddies talked and laughed for what seemed like an eternity before I split off to my route by myself, feeling happy after we flipped each other the bird as a family.*
So, I let go of the thought. Why wonder about what it's like in Hell?
*I sat down at the kitchen table to get a small snack. Then I heard my mom's voice yell at the top of its lungs as she scolded me for my mildly messy room. Seriously? I just got home.*
We're already living it. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | “YOU SHALL ALL SUFFER ENDLESS TORMENTS!”
“That’s nice, sir. How many shots of expresso did you want in that?”
Starbucks was usually calm and quiet at seven PM, the gentle chatter of baristas at work underscoring the clickity-clackity of computer keys. Today, however, it was somewhat rowdy. A few patrons sitting at a table wedged into one of the corners shot the culprit various scowls and flowers. The eleven-foot individual—thirteen feet of one included his impressive rack of horns—snorted at them, expelling puffs of smoke out of his slitted nostrils before turning back to the counter with a stomp of his hoof.
“...THREE.” He decided after another contemplative snort. The barista, unfazed, stepped away from the puff of sulfuric steam.
“Alright, name?”
“ASPHANATHOBUB.”
“As... fa... nacho... bub, okay!” The young man smiled brightly as he finished writing down the name with a flourish. “You can pick it up at the end of the counter. Have a good evening!”
As the massive, hulking, horned creature shuffled off to the far side of the drink counter, the newest hire leaned over towards her senior. “Um... Josh... did that guy look a little... you know, *weird* to you?”
”Cosplayers,” Josh said with a shrug, turning away to work on the drink. “You know how they get.” | One Wednesday afternoon, just gone half two, sitting in a park. a little girl with blonde pigtails runs up to you.
"I thought there'd be more fire 'n pitchforks" said the little girl, before running away.
You look around, dazed, what did she mean? Just as you look back, you hear screeching. A car skids off the road, mounts the curb and hurdles itself into the play park the blonde girl had returned to moments ago. The gull wing doors of the car open up and a man jumps out. "Funny that", you think to yourself, you'd never seen a Truckster with gull wing doors before.
"Get in now" The man shouted, grabbing you by your collar and lurching you towards the car. Slamming the door beside you, he rushes to the driver side and kicks the car into reverse, hitting a few "speed bumps" on his way.
"It's the second coming" the man cackled.
"Jesus"? You faintly reply back.
The mysterious stranger throws his head back in hysteric laughter, all the while the car still flying down the road in reverse. Does this thing have extra reverse gears?
"That little twerp came and went hundreds of times in many forms, some good, some bad. We all know God gave us life, but he also brings death. Sprouting trees, earthquakes, A litter of puppies, famine. The hand giveth, also takes away of some shit like that. Been a few years since I read the book". The man rattled on.
"You'll know his many names from the years. Jesus, Genghis Khan, Bob Ross, Nigel from accounting. He's been back more times than the McRib."
Puzzled, your blank face falls apon the man.
"Damn, no one remembers me do they? I've been on this earth before. Trying to lead people into temptations and desires. To fuel my underworld, to bring forth mayhem! You seriously dont remember me?" The antichrist let's out a sigh. "Where did you think David Shwimmer disappeared to in 2020? I was him, he was me! Throughout the 90's I swayed the sexual appetite of men and women, all wanted me! I was a king amongst men!".
You stifle your laughter, leave it to the antichrist to believe that. "Well if that's true, then why did you disappear in 2021? Why not bring forth the end of days"?
"I was, I plagued the earth with the worst sitcom imaginable, but then you Humans had to then create The Big Bang Theory and overthrow my title! Then I spun a web and Heath Ledger created the perfect performance of chaos as the Joker, and then you animals had to then let Jared Leto try, and ruined another vessel of torment! That really pissed me off" he barks.
"But didn't we then redeem ourselves with Joaquin Phoenix?"
"God no! He would have been perfect to carry on my message, but the neckbeards on their forums ruined him! Tainted him with a sea of Virgins blood and sweat. Mostly sweat!"
"I don't understand, if you were to have caused so my chaos, then why didnt you then bring forth the rapture? That would have caused pandemonium surely." You reply.
"I tried to, It was scheduled for March 2020! People were to ascend to heaven, the rest remaining for my play! But you heathens found your own downfall. I saw what one human would do to one another. The big and rich left you poor to stew and fall by the wayside, then the riots and fights broke out! I left earth, It was too cruel even for me... There was no way I could bring the rapture apon you when so many were at each others throats. All whilst the powers that be, on earth and heaven, watched it go on. How technology helped spread illness and greed so easily! Ted Kaczynski was right, and no one listened!" The antichrist babbled on "When the world finally fixed itself, I finally sprung my rapture. Hoping to leave all the sinners on earth to rot after such atrocities. And yet on the 6th of May 2021 only one man ascended and you all sent your thoughts and prayers, but of course no one would know it was the rapture! How could it be a rapture when only one man was taken, and all you others were left be..."
Before he can finish the sentence, you find your fist connecting with his jaw, the car spins out of control.
An old couple are walking down the street, arm in arm, smiles painted across their faces, 65 years of marriage to this very day! What a splendid occasion, all the history they've seen, each other right by each others side. The husband looks into his wifes eyes, and sees her as the beautiful blonde 17 year old girl he'd met all those years back. All of a sudden, he saw a license plate reading "Crui51ng" where his wife stood. Who was now no more than an abstract art installation on the adjacent wall. A 20 something and what a figure that seems to morph into a demon before the old mans tear filled eyes come barreling out of the car.
"You bastard" you scream! "How could you take DeVito from us! And with Sunny season 16 filming at that time! You sick, cruel beast!"
"Perfect" the demon hissed "You were the right choice, we can fix this! Once and for all! Use this anger, do what I can't! Crush me, crucify me, kill me! And then the worlds true form will take place! For 5 years that fiend has been walking the earth! In two forms, once as she was as a child, pig tails and all, on her first coming and now as the octogenarian you seen smeared up that wall! You'd seen the father's son sacrifice himself for your sins! But his daughter used her life to hide the sin! You're all accustomed to horror. But with her gone, all that will crumble, all you have to do is kill me, and then then everyone will realise the hell that they've been living in! So do it! Kill me!" Laughed the Devil.
This is my first time doing one of these, hope it's not completely unreadable! |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "What is Hell?"
She was met by silence and sunken eyes.
"That wasn't rhetorical. I want someone to speak up and tell me what Hell is."
A groan issued forth, followed by palms colliding on a desk. One student drew themselves up in their seat. "Hell is this class."
A chorus of half-hearted laughter.
"Cute. But a start," she smirked. She turned and wrote out 'THIS CLASS' in yellow chalk. "Name something else."
"Where the Devil lives," another student chimed in. "All firey and shit."
DEVIL, she wrote. FIRE.
After another period of silence she sighed. "Come on, give me more than that. What is Hell?"
"Where bad folks go to get tortured."
"Pitchforks right in your butt."
TORTURE. PAIN. BUTTS.
Another dry laugh from the class, but they were waking up a little now. Good.
"I seen shows where Hell gets custom tailored to people. Like you relive the worst day of your life."
WORST DAY OF LIFE.
"So we agree that Hell kind of sucks," she smiled.
Absent-minded nods.
"So what if I told you that you were right the first time?"
The miasma of indifference cleared, yet the silence remained. She smiled with an almost wicked delight.
"Well, let's ask another question. How do you know you're alive?" she asked, eyes wide and wild. "No, how do you know you're awake?"
"Pinch yourself?" a student chimed up.
"Yes! And why does that work?"
Silence. They were actually thinking now, wondering where it was all leading.
The first student spoke again, "It hurts. Shit don't hurt if you're dreaming."
"Eloquently put, Cameron!" she beamed.
"My name is Je-"
"So if pain means you're awake, then how do you know if you're alive?"
"Pain," someone shouted.
PAIN, she wrote in red chalk.
"Experiences. Like you're seeing stuff and feeling stuff and you just...know it's happening."
EXPERIENCE.
"Yeah like you think about stuff. Just thoughts in general."
"Ah, I think therefore I am! Very good." THOUGHT/PERCEPTION.
She faced the class. "Now who here knows about anything about Buddhism?"
"Like the Dolly Lama or something?" a girl asked.
"Or something. What's it all about?"
One student practically jumped out of his seat. "My mom is a yoga teacher and she talks about this shit all the time. It's like...you let go of stuff and just kind of be."
"Well, maybe I should meet your mother," the teacher winked. The class laughed. She continued. "The thing you are supposed to let go of. To get a sense of peace. What is it?"
"Meditating? Like not thinking about anything," the same student responded.
"Not thinking about anything? But didn't you all say that to know you're alive is to think and perceive?"
Silence again.
"Admittedly, I'll caveate and say that meditating is a little more than we have described here, but for brevity's sake let's move on. In Buddhism, we are taught that to attain Nirvana, which is like heaven, you must let go of desire. Now why do you think that is?"
A pause, then, "Cause you always want more," a student offers.
"Indeed. Isn't that human nature?" she sighed fondly. "Always wanting something. Something more. What happens when we don't get what we want?"
"It fucking sucks," a boy shouted. The class laughs.
"It hurts, doesn't it? What happens when things hurt for a long time?"
"You get used to it," a girl says knowingly.
"I suppose you do after a while. Now one last question for all you bright kids. Can you name for me one thing that's good that never ends in pain?"
"Puppies!" a girl shouts.
"A puppy grows old and dies."
She deflated immediately. Another student spoke up with, "Love!"
"Ah, a classic that one. Who do you love that is immortal and will never leave you? And no bullshit platitudes like 'they're always in your heart."
Silence. The class was starting to look depressed now. Good.
"Now let's summarize," she clicked her tongue, turning to take stock of the board. "I want one of you to tell me what all this talk was about."
"Hell?" a student offered.
"Yes but I think we can do a little better than that of you paid attention."
"Life is Hell!" A student joked. The class laughed.
"Exactly!" she snapped.
They stopped laughing.
"All of you are alive. A never ending circle of reincarnation in the world of the living, the only place you can really feel pain and torment. Even in any shred of anything good you find, there will always be the fear of it being taken away. You will never fully enjoy your existence. You will have peaks followed inevitably by valleys, and you all will convince yourselves that it's a necessary part of life instead of questioning why! Isn't that delicious? Eternally in Hell and you reason it away. Retroactive justification is humanity's finest quality if you ask me. And the cycle has continued for so long that no one even realizes the end goal has been removed entirely. Peace will never be in your hands because your very existence is hinged on never knowing it. God has abandoned us all, and no one even noticed Him leave."
A bell rang before the pause afterwards could become an awkward silence. The students were quick to shuffle out of class.
Lillith smiled after them, hoping that some of them might cling to their existential dread a while. After all, it was so much more fun to toy with prisoners aware of the cage. | One Wednesday afternoon, just gone half two, sitting in a park. a little girl with blonde pigtails runs up to you.
"I thought there'd be more fire 'n pitchforks" said the little girl, before running away.
You look around, dazed, what did she mean? Just as you look back, you hear screeching. A car skids off the road, mounts the curb and hurdles itself into the play park the blonde girl had returned to moments ago. The gull wing doors of the car open up and a man jumps out. "Funny that", you think to yourself, you'd never seen a Truckster with gull wing doors before.
"Get in now" The man shouted, grabbing you by your collar and lurching you towards the car. Slamming the door beside you, he rushes to the driver side and kicks the car into reverse, hitting a few "speed bumps" on his way.
"It's the second coming" the man cackled.
"Jesus"? You faintly reply back.
The mysterious stranger throws his head back in hysteric laughter, all the while the car still flying down the road in reverse. Does this thing have extra reverse gears?
"That little twerp came and went hundreds of times in many forms, some good, some bad. We all know God gave us life, but he also brings death. Sprouting trees, earthquakes, A litter of puppies, famine. The hand giveth, also takes away of some shit like that. Been a few years since I read the book". The man rattled on.
"You'll know his many names from the years. Jesus, Genghis Khan, Bob Ross, Nigel from accounting. He's been back more times than the McRib."
Puzzled, your blank face falls apon the man.
"Damn, no one remembers me do they? I've been on this earth before. Trying to lead people into temptations and desires. To fuel my underworld, to bring forth mayhem! You seriously dont remember me?" The antichrist let's out a sigh. "Where did you think David Shwimmer disappeared to in 2020? I was him, he was me! Throughout the 90's I swayed the sexual appetite of men and women, all wanted me! I was a king amongst men!".
You stifle your laughter, leave it to the antichrist to believe that. "Well if that's true, then why did you disappear in 2021? Why not bring forth the end of days"?
"I was, I plagued the earth with the worst sitcom imaginable, but then you Humans had to then create The Big Bang Theory and overthrow my title! Then I spun a web and Heath Ledger created the perfect performance of chaos as the Joker, and then you animals had to then let Jared Leto try, and ruined another vessel of torment! That really pissed me off" he barks.
"But didn't we then redeem ourselves with Joaquin Phoenix?"
"God no! He would have been perfect to carry on my message, but the neckbeards on their forums ruined him! Tainted him with a sea of Virgins blood and sweat. Mostly sweat!"
"I don't understand, if you were to have caused so my chaos, then why didnt you then bring forth the rapture? That would have caused pandemonium surely." You reply.
"I tried to, It was scheduled for March 2020! People were to ascend to heaven, the rest remaining for my play! But you heathens found your own downfall. I saw what one human would do to one another. The big and rich left you poor to stew and fall by the wayside, then the riots and fights broke out! I left earth, It was too cruel even for me... There was no way I could bring the rapture apon you when so many were at each others throats. All whilst the powers that be, on earth and heaven, watched it go on. How technology helped spread illness and greed so easily! Ted Kaczynski was right, and no one listened!" The antichrist babbled on "When the world finally fixed itself, I finally sprung my rapture. Hoping to leave all the sinners on earth to rot after such atrocities. And yet on the 6th of May 2021 only one man ascended and you all sent your thoughts and prayers, but of course no one would know it was the rapture! How could it be a rapture when only one man was taken, and all you others were left be..."
Before he can finish the sentence, you find your fist connecting with his jaw, the car spins out of control.
An old couple are walking down the street, arm in arm, smiles painted across their faces, 65 years of marriage to this very day! What a splendid occasion, all the history they've seen, each other right by each others side. The husband looks into his wifes eyes, and sees her as the beautiful blonde 17 year old girl he'd met all those years back. All of a sudden, he saw a license plate reading "Crui51ng" where his wife stood. Who was now no more than an abstract art installation on the adjacent wall. A 20 something and what a figure that seems to morph into a demon before the old mans tear filled eyes come barreling out of the car.
"You bastard" you scream! "How could you take DeVito from us! And with Sunny season 16 filming at that time! You sick, cruel beast!"
"Perfect" the demon hissed "You were the right choice, we can fix this! Once and for all! Use this anger, do what I can't! Crush me, crucify me, kill me! And then the worlds true form will take place! For 5 years that fiend has been walking the earth! In two forms, once as she was as a child, pig tails and all, on her first coming and now as the octogenarian you seen smeared up that wall! You'd seen the father's son sacrifice himself for your sins! But his daughter used her life to hide the sin! You're all accustomed to horror. But with her gone, all that will crumble, all you have to do is kill me, and then then everyone will realise the hell that they've been living in! So do it! Kill me!" Laughed the Devil.
This is my first time doing one of these, hope it's not completely unreadable! |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | “YOU SHALL ALL SUFFER ENDLESS TORMENTS!”
“That’s nice, sir. How many shots of expresso did you want in that?”
Starbucks was usually calm and quiet at seven PM, the gentle chatter of baristas at work underscoring the clickity-clackity of computer keys. Today, however, it was somewhat rowdy. A few patrons sitting at a table wedged into one of the corners shot the culprit various scowls and flowers. The eleven-foot individual—thirteen feet of one included his impressive rack of horns—snorted at them, expelling puffs of smoke out of his slitted nostrils before turning back to the counter with a stomp of his hoof.
“...THREE.” He decided after another contemplative snort. The barista, unfazed, stepped away from the puff of sulfuric steam.
“Alright, name?”
“ASPHANATHOBUB.”
“As... fa... nacho... bub, okay!” The young man smiled brightly as he finished writing down the name with a flourish. “You can pick it up at the end of the counter. Have a good evening!”
As the massive, hulking, horned creature shuffled off to the far side of the drink counter, the newest hire leaned over towards her senior. “Um... Josh... did that guy look a little... you know, *weird* to you?”
”Cosplayers,” Josh said with a shrug, turning away to work on the drink. “You know how they get.” | There are a few things that were misinterpreted in the early renditions of the Bible.
God is omniscient, he knows everything. He can not tell the future though. How is one supposed to know something that has not happened?
But he can make a good guess. He knows everything that has has happened in history. He knows all the personalities of the people on this earth and the people that they deal with.
He can tell if a child was born in the most destitute of situations how he will statistically end in a destitute manner.
But he also knows if that child has the drive to grow up and become someone. He knows if the people around the child set a good example the child can become something great.
And he knows if the opposite is true.
Second, when God gave the human race free will, he gave almost all his power. Only in the most specific circumstances he can intervene with the human race.
Third, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory all exist on Earth. We build our own destiny and our own fate.
The devil is our own free will. She works with us and she cheats us.
And sometimes our Free Will gives us free to follow.
The Antichrist will be charismatic he will have legions of people cheering his name.
He will also try to control our economic trade. Those who can trade will wear red marks on their heads.
He will claim to be God's choice. and that's how he will get much of his work done.
God introduced one man many years ago to fight the Antichrist. To make the people follow gods intentions. To Love thy neighbor, to feed the poor and house the homeless.
This man came when society had issues, we didn't allow God's children to go to certain schools because of the color of their skin. We didn't allow people proper medical Care because of the people that they loved.
This man lived his life and will die never knowing that he was God's choice to make earth into heaven. This man talked in front of the most powerful people of the world at that time to make a change to the most powerful Nation in the world.
This man did not quite have the charisma that was needed. But he had the message that needed to be said. And people listened and they followed. But not enough
The first horseman was war, this was the forever war. A war turned and killed the bodies of the youth.
The second one was division of Nations. this was interesting because nobody expected that the division would be Heald with political borders but more with social borders. The borders that the people themselves put up.
The third horse was famine and plague. We actually don't know which one it is. Because it actually came together. A sickness sweep across the world, and without work people hey trouble getting food.
And the third was death. the stuff was actually caused by war but not one that has developed between nations but it has been developed between people. As stomachs grew hungry people got desperate. As people got to bite it I did not see the fellow man the saying that they saw themselves.
(Chapter 2, the beginning of the end)
Nobody knows when the apocalypse broke. But I'm guessing that it has happened after the attempted assassination of our president.
Nobody would have believed that Donald Trump would survive a bullet wound to the Head. But he did. We all joked that it was mostly because there was nothing there.
His first address to the nation, he blamed a radical liberal. In his defense this man probably did shoot the president but we will never know.
But his next words is what shocked the nation.
He demanded the execution of a prominent journalist who revealed damning evidence of Trump's re-election in 2020.
Somewhere between ballots, and what was seen on TV, Trump didn't win, but only by a remarkably small number
But how do you explain that to supporters who saw numbers that wildly favored Trump?
So with an execution of a reporter on national TV who sole job was to tell the truth. People took up arms.
Riots in the streets of Milwaukee prompted hillbillies in pickup trucks driving down the streets of Appleton.
both of which prompted the government taking up arms against its own people.
Young men killing other young men who grew up in the same schools.
The chaos lasted for seven long years.
(Chapter 3: the Phoenix)
Seven years bodies lie in the streets. 7 years men hang from industrial cranes.
But the blood of those seven years introduced men and women who promised themselves and their country and we will never do this again.
They lived through the horrors of hell. and they did not want their children to experience it.
10 years after the assassination attempt. You have a new generation of senators, house members, governors and mayors who not that long ago picked up a gun and killed.
This is the cycle of the world. This is how it's done.
This is not the first apocalypse. We have had many. Every bloodbath has caused the good and the bad.
With every apocalypse God expects the human race to crawl to him and demand that he takes back free will. and with every apocalypse we don't do that we just build a better world.
Every time our earth burns, new life is created from its ashes. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "What is Hell?"
She was met by silence and sunken eyes.
"That wasn't rhetorical. I want someone to speak up and tell me what Hell is."
A groan issued forth, followed by palms colliding on a desk. One student drew themselves up in their seat. "Hell is this class."
A chorus of half-hearted laughter.
"Cute. But a start," she smirked. She turned and wrote out 'THIS CLASS' in yellow chalk. "Name something else."
"Where the Devil lives," another student chimed in. "All firey and shit."
DEVIL, she wrote. FIRE.
After another period of silence she sighed. "Come on, give me more than that. What is Hell?"
"Where bad folks go to get tortured."
"Pitchforks right in your butt."
TORTURE. PAIN. BUTTS.
Another dry laugh from the class, but they were waking up a little now. Good.
"I seen shows where Hell gets custom tailored to people. Like you relive the worst day of your life."
WORST DAY OF LIFE.
"So we agree that Hell kind of sucks," she smiled.
Absent-minded nods.
"So what if I told you that you were right the first time?"
The miasma of indifference cleared, yet the silence remained. She smiled with an almost wicked delight.
"Well, let's ask another question. How do you know you're alive?" she asked, eyes wide and wild. "No, how do you know you're awake?"
"Pinch yourself?" a student chimed up.
"Yes! And why does that work?"
Silence. They were actually thinking now, wondering where it was all leading.
The first student spoke again, "It hurts. Shit don't hurt if you're dreaming."
"Eloquently put, Cameron!" she beamed.
"My name is Je-"
"So if pain means you're awake, then how do you know if you're alive?"
"Pain," someone shouted.
PAIN, she wrote in red chalk.
"Experiences. Like you're seeing stuff and feeling stuff and you just...know it's happening."
EXPERIENCE.
"Yeah like you think about stuff. Just thoughts in general."
"Ah, I think therefore I am! Very good." THOUGHT/PERCEPTION.
She faced the class. "Now who here knows about anything about Buddhism?"
"Like the Dolly Lama or something?" a girl asked.
"Or something. What's it all about?"
One student practically jumped out of his seat. "My mom is a yoga teacher and she talks about this shit all the time. It's like...you let go of stuff and just kind of be."
"Well, maybe I should meet your mother," the teacher winked. The class laughed. She continued. "The thing you are supposed to let go of. To get a sense of peace. What is it?"
"Meditating? Like not thinking about anything," the same student responded.
"Not thinking about anything? But didn't you all say that to know you're alive is to think and perceive?"
Silence again.
"Admittedly, I'll caveate and say that meditating is a little more than we have described here, but for brevity's sake let's move on. In Buddhism, we are taught that to attain Nirvana, which is like heaven, you must let go of desire. Now why do you think that is?"
A pause, then, "Cause you always want more," a student offers.
"Indeed. Isn't that human nature?" she sighed fondly. "Always wanting something. Something more. What happens when we don't get what we want?"
"It fucking sucks," a boy shouted. The class laughs.
"It hurts, doesn't it? What happens when things hurt for a long time?"
"You get used to it," a girl says knowingly.
"I suppose you do after a while. Now one last question for all you bright kids. Can you name for me one thing that's good that never ends in pain?"
"Puppies!" a girl shouts.
"A puppy grows old and dies."
She deflated immediately. Another student spoke up with, "Love!"
"Ah, a classic that one. Who do you love that is immortal and will never leave you? And no bullshit platitudes like 'they're always in your heart."
Silence. The class was starting to look depressed now. Good.
"Now let's summarize," she clicked her tongue, turning to take stock of the board. "I want one of you to tell me what all this talk was about."
"Hell?" a student offered.
"Yes but I think we can do a little better than that of you paid attention."
"Life is Hell!" A student joked. The class laughed.
"Exactly!" she snapped.
They stopped laughing.
"All of you are alive. A never ending circle of reincarnation in the world of the living, the only place you can really feel pain and torment. Even in any shred of anything good you find, there will always be the fear of it being taken away. You will never fully enjoy your existence. You will have peaks followed inevitably by valleys, and you all will convince yourselves that it's a necessary part of life instead of questioning why! Isn't that delicious? Eternally in Hell and you reason it away. Retroactive justification is humanity's finest quality if you ask me. And the cycle has continued for so long that no one even realizes the end goal has been removed entirely. Peace will never be in your hands because your very existence is hinged on never knowing it. God has abandoned us all, and no one even noticed Him leave."
A bell rang before the pause afterwards could become an awkward silence. The students were quick to shuffle out of class.
Lillith smiled after them, hoping that some of them might cling to their existential dread a while. After all, it was so much more fun to toy with prisoners aware of the cage. | There are a few things that were misinterpreted in the early renditions of the Bible.
God is omniscient, he knows everything. He can not tell the future though. How is one supposed to know something that has not happened?
But he can make a good guess. He knows everything that has has happened in history. He knows all the personalities of the people on this earth and the people that they deal with.
He can tell if a child was born in the most destitute of situations how he will statistically end in a destitute manner.
But he also knows if that child has the drive to grow up and become someone. He knows if the people around the child set a good example the child can become something great.
And he knows if the opposite is true.
Second, when God gave the human race free will, he gave almost all his power. Only in the most specific circumstances he can intervene with the human race.
Third, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory all exist on Earth. We build our own destiny and our own fate.
The devil is our own free will. She works with us and she cheats us.
And sometimes our Free Will gives us free to follow.
The Antichrist will be charismatic he will have legions of people cheering his name.
He will also try to control our economic trade. Those who can trade will wear red marks on their heads.
He will claim to be God's choice. and that's how he will get much of his work done.
God introduced one man many years ago to fight the Antichrist. To make the people follow gods intentions. To Love thy neighbor, to feed the poor and house the homeless.
This man came when society had issues, we didn't allow God's children to go to certain schools because of the color of their skin. We didn't allow people proper medical Care because of the people that they loved.
This man lived his life and will die never knowing that he was God's choice to make earth into heaven. This man talked in front of the most powerful people of the world at that time to make a change to the most powerful Nation in the world.
This man did not quite have the charisma that was needed. But he had the message that needed to be said. And people listened and they followed. But not enough
The first horseman was war, this was the forever war. A war turned and killed the bodies of the youth.
The second one was division of Nations. this was interesting because nobody expected that the division would be Heald with political borders but more with social borders. The borders that the people themselves put up.
The third horse was famine and plague. We actually don't know which one it is. Because it actually came together. A sickness sweep across the world, and without work people hey trouble getting food.
And the third was death. the stuff was actually caused by war but not one that has developed between nations but it has been developed between people. As stomachs grew hungry people got desperate. As people got to bite it I did not see the fellow man the saying that they saw themselves.
(Chapter 2, the beginning of the end)
Nobody knows when the apocalypse broke. But I'm guessing that it has happened after the attempted assassination of our president.
Nobody would have believed that Donald Trump would survive a bullet wound to the Head. But he did. We all joked that it was mostly because there was nothing there.
His first address to the nation, he blamed a radical liberal. In his defense this man probably did shoot the president but we will never know.
But his next words is what shocked the nation.
He demanded the execution of a prominent journalist who revealed damning evidence of Trump's re-election in 2020.
Somewhere between ballots, and what was seen on TV, Trump didn't win, but only by a remarkably small number
But how do you explain that to supporters who saw numbers that wildly favored Trump?
So with an execution of a reporter on national TV who sole job was to tell the truth. People took up arms.
Riots in the streets of Milwaukee prompted hillbillies in pickup trucks driving down the streets of Appleton.
both of which prompted the government taking up arms against its own people.
Young men killing other young men who grew up in the same schools.
The chaos lasted for seven long years.
(Chapter 3: the Phoenix)
Seven years bodies lie in the streets. 7 years men hang from industrial cranes.
But the blood of those seven years introduced men and women who promised themselves and their country and we will never do this again.
They lived through the horrors of hell. and they did not want their children to experience it.
10 years after the assassination attempt. You have a new generation of senators, house members, governors and mayors who not that long ago picked up a gun and killed.
This is the cycle of the world. This is how it's done.
This is not the first apocalypse. We have had many. Every bloodbath has caused the good and the bad.
With every apocalypse God expects the human race to crawl to him and demand that he takes back free will. and with every apocalypse we don't do that we just build a better world.
Every time our earth burns, new life is created from its ashes. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | “YOU SHALL ALL SUFFER ENDLESS TORMENTS!”
“That’s nice, sir. How many shots of expresso did you want in that?”
Starbucks was usually calm and quiet at seven PM, the gentle chatter of baristas at work underscoring the clickity-clackity of computer keys. Today, however, it was somewhat rowdy. A few patrons sitting at a table wedged into one of the corners shot the culprit various scowls and flowers. The eleven-foot individual—thirteen feet of one included his impressive rack of horns—snorted at them, expelling puffs of smoke out of his slitted nostrils before turning back to the counter with a stomp of his hoof.
“...THREE.” He decided after another contemplative snort. The barista, unfazed, stepped away from the puff of sulfuric steam.
“Alright, name?”
“ASPHANATHOBUB.”
“As... fa... nacho... bub, okay!” The young man smiled brightly as he finished writing down the name with a flourish. “You can pick it up at the end of the counter. Have a good evening!”
As the massive, hulking, horned creature shuffled off to the far side of the drink counter, the newest hire leaned over towards her senior. “Um... Josh... did that guy look a little... you know, *weird* to you?”
”Cosplayers,” Josh said with a shrug, turning away to work on the drink. “You know how they get.” | Content warning: non-graphic mentions of suicide.
The reports built up slowly, at first. The madmen rave, the fevered dream; the children play, the war-torn scream. There were logical, simple explanations for why .0003% of the population were claiming to be from the Harmonious Iridium Theocracy.
But then the results started streaming in. A self-proclaimed citizen of the Iridium Republic crashed the stock market overnight with an unprecedentedly intelligent algorithm. The newly-minted Iridium Entertainment created more than three thousand original movies in a month. Over the course of three years, North Korea gradually opened its borders, radically rearranged its government, and renamed itself the Second Harmonious Iridium Theocracy.
Five years after the event had begun, it was clear that the reports were accurate. We lived in Hell, and the damned souls of another world were trickling into ours.
The Iridites were, of course, more advanced than us. I supposed not living in literal Hell sped one's technological development up by a bit. Their social infrastructure was superior by quite the wide margin, as well; in the words of one Iridite, they'd stopped having wars by "simply not having wars about things. Seriously, you dingleberries, this isn't that hard."
Clearly, they were also more stuck-up than us.
"Alright, Sertie, thanks again. These theology books will be a life-saver," I said. Doctor Vanto Sertie of the Second Harmonious Iridium Theocracy—which would never be abbreviated like the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.—nodded to me sharply from across my couch.
"*Doctor* Sertie, if you please; the pleasure mine, I take my leave." Oh, yeah, and they all talked like that. We put up with them because we had to. Doctor Sertie stood up, brushed couch-crumbs off his pants with a grimace, and opened the door to leave. I couldn't blame him; I hadn't cleaned the place up in three weeks.
As Doctor Sertie opened the door, however, he nearly ran face-first into my landlord. She gave him a surprised glance—probably at seeing an Iridite in a dump like my apartment—then stood aside to let him pass. I sighed internally. Here it came.
My landlord—Ms. Loren, a young, spry woman—stood uncertainly at the door. When I didn't respond, she called out, "Cal?"
I sighed. Yes, my work was important, but I couldn't just leave Ms. Loren hanging. Woman with the power to evict me or no, it just wasn't right to leave an old friend hanging. An ugly thought flashed through my mind—that was exactly what I'd done to my last roommate, and planned to do to myself. But there was still some time before I was certain.
"Yes, Ms. Loren?" I stood up and respectfully brushed aside the mound of decaying instant ramen cups. She looked down at the stained carpet, and it cut me deeper than I'd care to admit that she didn't even give me an earful about damaging her property.
"Look, Cal. I know... I know you miss Kara. But, ah... she didn't mail in the rent, before she died, and you haven't either. I... I'm afraid that if you can't get together the money before next Sunday, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." She looked pointedly at the stack of gold-embossed books on Iridite theology, but said nothing.
I shook my head. I'd spent every dollar I'd had on these books, and I wasn't backing down now. "Thanks for the concern, but one way or another, I'll be out of everyone's hair by Sunday." I smiled a mirthless grin.
"Now, Cal, I don't like the sound of that. Look, I know a good grief counselor, and Kara was as much of a friendly face to me as anyone. If you need anything, even on a college student's budget—"
"I dropped out," I said, flatly.
"Oh." Ms. Loren swallowed. "I'm very sorry to hear that, Cal. But—"
"Thank you for your concern, and for allowing me to stay here. Now please, go away." I gently—but firmly—eased the door shut.
After I heard her receding footsteps, I sighed.
Then I got to work. There were precious few freely available texts on Iridite theology, for a nation which identified itself as a theocracy, and even fewer which had been written on the Iridite homeworld in the last five years. It had taken three weeks of scrimping and saving to be be able to reach this point, but I needed to be a hundred percent certain.
It didn't take very long to read through them. Not for nothing was I a student of history; cutting through dry, ancient texts was my favorite pastime, back when Kara and I had been at the University of Southwest Colorado together. It took me maybe twelve hours to finish sorting, cross-referencing, and above all, absorbing their contents into my mind. Twelve hours which left me cramped, hungry, thirsty—and resignedly, hopeful.
*It is a strange phenomenon,* the text wrote, *how the consciousness translates between afterlives. Only recently has our technology advanced to the point where we can consistently bring someone to the brink of death and back. And here, we have made startling discoveries.*
*Those who were good in life—really, truly, virtuously selfless people—they come back screaming. Begging to be put back into the Land of the Light, and tearing their eyes and throat out if left unrestrained. We have gotten nothing of use from such explorers.*
*But for the rest of us—even the merely average—we find an entirely alien world. One which, in the past five years, has shifted.*
*Sadly, funding for exploring the afterlife has always been low; it is of little potential application to humanity, and the last Hell we explored was a barren, sulfurous wasteland. This fresh Hell, however, is an entire, inhabited planet. A planet of humans whose past has diverged from ours significantly. A planet of humans advanced enough for us to establish similar levels of technology to our own. And so, for the first time, we report on what happens when you die in Hell.*
*The consistent answer, as far as we can tell? You simply go one Hell deeper.*
*This is where the old Hell went. That land of nightmares and myths. It was simply forced further down by the weight of this Earth—by mechanisms as yet unknown. But every exploration has proclaimed the same thing: that the freshly dead are still down there. And that there are as many layers of Hell as there are stars in the sky.*
I swallowed. The explorations indicated that nothing physical could be taken with you—only your physical body. So I'd tattooed her face into my hand. Kara's face.
I went into my closet. I took out what I'd left there since they'd taken Kara down from the ceiling, Kara swinging with the air conditioner's wind.
The ceiling fan was all too sturdy.
I took a deep breath.
"I'm coming to get you, Kara."
And I let go.
r/rileywrites |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "What is Hell?"
She was met by silence and sunken eyes.
"That wasn't rhetorical. I want someone to speak up and tell me what Hell is."
A groan issued forth, followed by palms colliding on a desk. One student drew themselves up in their seat. "Hell is this class."
A chorus of half-hearted laughter.
"Cute. But a start," she smirked. She turned and wrote out 'THIS CLASS' in yellow chalk. "Name something else."
"Where the Devil lives," another student chimed in. "All firey and shit."
DEVIL, she wrote. FIRE.
After another period of silence she sighed. "Come on, give me more than that. What is Hell?"
"Where bad folks go to get tortured."
"Pitchforks right in your butt."
TORTURE. PAIN. BUTTS.
Another dry laugh from the class, but they were waking up a little now. Good.
"I seen shows where Hell gets custom tailored to people. Like you relive the worst day of your life."
WORST DAY OF LIFE.
"So we agree that Hell kind of sucks," she smiled.
Absent-minded nods.
"So what if I told you that you were right the first time?"
The miasma of indifference cleared, yet the silence remained. She smiled with an almost wicked delight.
"Well, let's ask another question. How do you know you're alive?" she asked, eyes wide and wild. "No, how do you know you're awake?"
"Pinch yourself?" a student chimed up.
"Yes! And why does that work?"
Silence. They were actually thinking now, wondering where it was all leading.
The first student spoke again, "It hurts. Shit don't hurt if you're dreaming."
"Eloquently put, Cameron!" she beamed.
"My name is Je-"
"So if pain means you're awake, then how do you know if you're alive?"
"Pain," someone shouted.
PAIN, she wrote in red chalk.
"Experiences. Like you're seeing stuff and feeling stuff and you just...know it's happening."
EXPERIENCE.
"Yeah like you think about stuff. Just thoughts in general."
"Ah, I think therefore I am! Very good." THOUGHT/PERCEPTION.
She faced the class. "Now who here knows about anything about Buddhism?"
"Like the Dolly Lama or something?" a girl asked.
"Or something. What's it all about?"
One student practically jumped out of his seat. "My mom is a yoga teacher and she talks about this shit all the time. It's like...you let go of stuff and just kind of be."
"Well, maybe I should meet your mother," the teacher winked. The class laughed. She continued. "The thing you are supposed to let go of. To get a sense of peace. What is it?"
"Meditating? Like not thinking about anything," the same student responded.
"Not thinking about anything? But didn't you all say that to know you're alive is to think and perceive?"
Silence again.
"Admittedly, I'll caveate and say that meditating is a little more than we have described here, but for brevity's sake let's move on. In Buddhism, we are taught that to attain Nirvana, which is like heaven, you must let go of desire. Now why do you think that is?"
A pause, then, "Cause you always want more," a student offers.
"Indeed. Isn't that human nature?" she sighed fondly. "Always wanting something. Something more. What happens when we don't get what we want?"
"It fucking sucks," a boy shouted. The class laughs.
"It hurts, doesn't it? What happens when things hurt for a long time?"
"You get used to it," a girl says knowingly.
"I suppose you do after a while. Now one last question for all you bright kids. Can you name for me one thing that's good that never ends in pain?"
"Puppies!" a girl shouts.
"A puppy grows old and dies."
She deflated immediately. Another student spoke up with, "Love!"
"Ah, a classic that one. Who do you love that is immortal and will never leave you? And no bullshit platitudes like 'they're always in your heart."
Silence. The class was starting to look depressed now. Good.
"Now let's summarize," she clicked her tongue, turning to take stock of the board. "I want one of you to tell me what all this talk was about."
"Hell?" a student offered.
"Yes but I think we can do a little better than that of you paid attention."
"Life is Hell!" A student joked. The class laughed.
"Exactly!" she snapped.
They stopped laughing.
"All of you are alive. A never ending circle of reincarnation in the world of the living, the only place you can really feel pain and torment. Even in any shred of anything good you find, there will always be the fear of it being taken away. You will never fully enjoy your existence. You will have peaks followed inevitably by valleys, and you all will convince yourselves that it's a necessary part of life instead of questioning why! Isn't that delicious? Eternally in Hell and you reason it away. Retroactive justification is humanity's finest quality if you ask me. And the cycle has continued for so long that no one even realizes the end goal has been removed entirely. Peace will never be in your hands because your very existence is hinged on never knowing it. God has abandoned us all, and no one even noticed Him leave."
A bell rang before the pause afterwards could become an awkward silence. The students were quick to shuffle out of class.
Lillith smiled after them, hoping that some of them might cling to their existential dread a while. After all, it was so much more fun to toy with prisoners aware of the cage. | Content warning: non-graphic mentions of suicide.
The reports built up slowly, at first. The madmen rave, the fevered dream; the children play, the war-torn scream. There were logical, simple explanations for why .0003% of the population were claiming to be from the Harmonious Iridium Theocracy.
But then the results started streaming in. A self-proclaimed citizen of the Iridium Republic crashed the stock market overnight with an unprecedentedly intelligent algorithm. The newly-minted Iridium Entertainment created more than three thousand original movies in a month. Over the course of three years, North Korea gradually opened its borders, radically rearranged its government, and renamed itself the Second Harmonious Iridium Theocracy.
Five years after the event had begun, it was clear that the reports were accurate. We lived in Hell, and the damned souls of another world were trickling into ours.
The Iridites were, of course, more advanced than us. I supposed not living in literal Hell sped one's technological development up by a bit. Their social infrastructure was superior by quite the wide margin, as well; in the words of one Iridite, they'd stopped having wars by "simply not having wars about things. Seriously, you dingleberries, this isn't that hard."
Clearly, they were also more stuck-up than us.
"Alright, Sertie, thanks again. These theology books will be a life-saver," I said. Doctor Vanto Sertie of the Second Harmonious Iridium Theocracy—which would never be abbreviated like the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.—nodded to me sharply from across my couch.
"*Doctor* Sertie, if you please; the pleasure mine, I take my leave." Oh, yeah, and they all talked like that. We put up with them because we had to. Doctor Sertie stood up, brushed couch-crumbs off his pants with a grimace, and opened the door to leave. I couldn't blame him; I hadn't cleaned the place up in three weeks.
As Doctor Sertie opened the door, however, he nearly ran face-first into my landlord. She gave him a surprised glance—probably at seeing an Iridite in a dump like my apartment—then stood aside to let him pass. I sighed internally. Here it came.
My landlord—Ms. Loren, a young, spry woman—stood uncertainly at the door. When I didn't respond, she called out, "Cal?"
I sighed. Yes, my work was important, but I couldn't just leave Ms. Loren hanging. Woman with the power to evict me or no, it just wasn't right to leave an old friend hanging. An ugly thought flashed through my mind—that was exactly what I'd done to my last roommate, and planned to do to myself. But there was still some time before I was certain.
"Yes, Ms. Loren?" I stood up and respectfully brushed aside the mound of decaying instant ramen cups. She looked down at the stained carpet, and it cut me deeper than I'd care to admit that she didn't even give me an earful about damaging her property.
"Look, Cal. I know... I know you miss Kara. But, ah... she didn't mail in the rent, before she died, and you haven't either. I... I'm afraid that if you can't get together the money before next Sunday, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." She looked pointedly at the stack of gold-embossed books on Iridite theology, but said nothing.
I shook my head. I'd spent every dollar I'd had on these books, and I wasn't backing down now. "Thanks for the concern, but one way or another, I'll be out of everyone's hair by Sunday." I smiled a mirthless grin.
"Now, Cal, I don't like the sound of that. Look, I know a good grief counselor, and Kara was as much of a friendly face to me as anyone. If you need anything, even on a college student's budget—"
"I dropped out," I said, flatly.
"Oh." Ms. Loren swallowed. "I'm very sorry to hear that, Cal. But—"
"Thank you for your concern, and for allowing me to stay here. Now please, go away." I gently—but firmly—eased the door shut.
After I heard her receding footsteps, I sighed.
Then I got to work. There were precious few freely available texts on Iridite theology, for a nation which identified itself as a theocracy, and even fewer which had been written on the Iridite homeworld in the last five years. It had taken three weeks of scrimping and saving to be be able to reach this point, but I needed to be a hundred percent certain.
It didn't take very long to read through them. Not for nothing was I a student of history; cutting through dry, ancient texts was my favorite pastime, back when Kara and I had been at the University of Southwest Colorado together. It took me maybe twelve hours to finish sorting, cross-referencing, and above all, absorbing their contents into my mind. Twelve hours which left me cramped, hungry, thirsty—and resignedly, hopeful.
*It is a strange phenomenon,* the text wrote, *how the consciousness translates between afterlives. Only recently has our technology advanced to the point where we can consistently bring someone to the brink of death and back. And here, we have made startling discoveries.*
*Those who were good in life—really, truly, virtuously selfless people—they come back screaming. Begging to be put back into the Land of the Light, and tearing their eyes and throat out if left unrestrained. We have gotten nothing of use from such explorers.*
*But for the rest of us—even the merely average—we find an entirely alien world. One which, in the past five years, has shifted.*
*Sadly, funding for exploring the afterlife has always been low; it is of little potential application to humanity, and the last Hell we explored was a barren, sulfurous wasteland. This fresh Hell, however, is an entire, inhabited planet. A planet of humans whose past has diverged from ours significantly. A planet of humans advanced enough for us to establish similar levels of technology to our own. And so, for the first time, we report on what happens when you die in Hell.*
*The consistent answer, as far as we can tell? You simply go one Hell deeper.*
*This is where the old Hell went. That land of nightmares and myths. It was simply forced further down by the weight of this Earth—by mechanisms as yet unknown. But every exploration has proclaimed the same thing: that the freshly dead are still down there. And that there are as many layers of Hell as there are stars in the sky.*
I swallowed. The explorations indicated that nothing physical could be taken with you—only your physical body. So I'd tattooed her face into my hand. Kara's face.
I went into my closet. I took out what I'd left there since they'd taken Kara down from the ceiling, Kara swinging with the air conditioner's wind.
The ceiling fan was all too sturdy.
I took a deep breath.
"I'm coming to get you, Kara."
And I let go.
r/rileywrites |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | “YOU SHALL ALL SUFFER ENDLESS TORMENTS!”
“That’s nice, sir. How many shots of expresso did you want in that?”
Starbucks was usually calm and quiet at seven PM, the gentle chatter of baristas at work underscoring the clickity-clackity of computer keys. Today, however, it was somewhat rowdy. A few patrons sitting at a table wedged into one of the corners shot the culprit various scowls and flowers. The eleven-foot individual—thirteen feet of one included his impressive rack of horns—snorted at them, expelling puffs of smoke out of his slitted nostrils before turning back to the counter with a stomp of his hoof.
“...THREE.” He decided after another contemplative snort. The barista, unfazed, stepped away from the puff of sulfuric steam.
“Alright, name?”
“ASPHANATHOBUB.”
“As... fa... nacho... bub, okay!” The young man smiled brightly as he finished writing down the name with a flourish. “You can pick it up at the end of the counter. Have a good evening!”
As the massive, hulking, horned creature shuffled off to the far side of the drink counter, the newest hire leaned over towards her senior. “Um... Josh... did that guy look a little... you know, *weird* to you?”
”Cosplayers,” Josh said with a shrug, turning away to work on the drink. “You know how they get.” | Despite everything, they continue to fight on.
They slipped soundlessly through the night, from life to the damndest pits of death. God watched as judge, jury and executioner.
Out of all of them, the saints and the sinners, the priests and non-believers, there wasn't a single soul worth saving. Not one.
I watched as they were cast away into the depths infernal, into the most devious and frankly hellish conditions that God, in all of his damned wisdom, could create to prolong their torture ad infinitum.
I watched as the Archangels descended upon the world, as much of what once was became nothing more than Ash before the sacred fire.
In all honesty, I expected them to fall; I thought that the cracks in humanity would be driven home and that they would shatter like so many infinitesimal shards of creation and yet, despite the odds, they persevered. Like a bridge caught in a gale, they bent and buckled and strained but never snapped. For every step that they were pushed, for every foot of land that they lost, they pushed back.
Many died, and the world was plunged in turmoil, and yet, for all the things that I did see, I never saw them give up. I expected them to fall when the dust storms came from the east, when the North cracked and the beasts clawed their way out of the ground or when the angels descended from the skies but they never did. Instead of being driven apart, the survivors came together.
I watched as the cities and nations that still stood refused to bow, not letting the blows of divine might to rend them asunder. They came together and stood united, despite the odds. I cannot understand how God can look upon these people and Deem them as unworthy, as unfit to live.
No more, I will not allow it.
If God cannot see what is in front of him, I will force him to do so. I will save humanity myself, if that is what it takes.
Father, I am coming. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | "What is Hell?"
She was met by silence and sunken eyes.
"That wasn't rhetorical. I want someone to speak up and tell me what Hell is."
A groan issued forth, followed by palms colliding on a desk. One student drew themselves up in their seat. "Hell is this class."
A chorus of half-hearted laughter.
"Cute. But a start," she smirked. She turned and wrote out 'THIS CLASS' in yellow chalk. "Name something else."
"Where the Devil lives," another student chimed in. "All firey and shit."
DEVIL, she wrote. FIRE.
After another period of silence she sighed. "Come on, give me more than that. What is Hell?"
"Where bad folks go to get tortured."
"Pitchforks right in your butt."
TORTURE. PAIN. BUTTS.
Another dry laugh from the class, but they were waking up a little now. Good.
"I seen shows where Hell gets custom tailored to people. Like you relive the worst day of your life."
WORST DAY OF LIFE.
"So we agree that Hell kind of sucks," she smiled.
Absent-minded nods.
"So what if I told you that you were right the first time?"
The miasma of indifference cleared, yet the silence remained. She smiled with an almost wicked delight.
"Well, let's ask another question. How do you know you're alive?" she asked, eyes wide and wild. "No, how do you know you're awake?"
"Pinch yourself?" a student chimed up.
"Yes! And why does that work?"
Silence. They were actually thinking now, wondering where it was all leading.
The first student spoke again, "It hurts. Shit don't hurt if you're dreaming."
"Eloquently put, Cameron!" she beamed.
"My name is Je-"
"So if pain means you're awake, then how do you know if you're alive?"
"Pain," someone shouted.
PAIN, she wrote in red chalk.
"Experiences. Like you're seeing stuff and feeling stuff and you just...know it's happening."
EXPERIENCE.
"Yeah like you think about stuff. Just thoughts in general."
"Ah, I think therefore I am! Very good." THOUGHT/PERCEPTION.
She faced the class. "Now who here knows about anything about Buddhism?"
"Like the Dolly Lama or something?" a girl asked.
"Or something. What's it all about?"
One student practically jumped out of his seat. "My mom is a yoga teacher and she talks about this shit all the time. It's like...you let go of stuff and just kind of be."
"Well, maybe I should meet your mother," the teacher winked. The class laughed. She continued. "The thing you are supposed to let go of. To get a sense of peace. What is it?"
"Meditating? Like not thinking about anything," the same student responded.
"Not thinking about anything? But didn't you all say that to know you're alive is to think and perceive?"
Silence again.
"Admittedly, I'll caveate and say that meditating is a little more than we have described here, but for brevity's sake let's move on. In Buddhism, we are taught that to attain Nirvana, which is like heaven, you must let go of desire. Now why do you think that is?"
A pause, then, "Cause you always want more," a student offers.
"Indeed. Isn't that human nature?" she sighed fondly. "Always wanting something. Something more. What happens when we don't get what we want?"
"It fucking sucks," a boy shouted. The class laughs.
"It hurts, doesn't it? What happens when things hurt for a long time?"
"You get used to it," a girl says knowingly.
"I suppose you do after a while. Now one last question for all you bright kids. Can you name for me one thing that's good that never ends in pain?"
"Puppies!" a girl shouts.
"A puppy grows old and dies."
She deflated immediately. Another student spoke up with, "Love!"
"Ah, a classic that one. Who do you love that is immortal and will never leave you? And no bullshit platitudes like 'they're always in your heart."
Silence. The class was starting to look depressed now. Good.
"Now let's summarize," she clicked her tongue, turning to take stock of the board. "I want one of you to tell me what all this talk was about."
"Hell?" a student offered.
"Yes but I think we can do a little better than that of you paid attention."
"Life is Hell!" A student joked. The class laughed.
"Exactly!" she snapped.
They stopped laughing.
"All of you are alive. A never ending circle of reincarnation in the world of the living, the only place you can really feel pain and torment. Even in any shred of anything good you find, there will always be the fear of it being taken away. You will never fully enjoy your existence. You will have peaks followed inevitably by valleys, and you all will convince yourselves that it's a necessary part of life instead of questioning why! Isn't that delicious? Eternally in Hell and you reason it away. Retroactive justification is humanity's finest quality if you ask me. And the cycle has continued for so long that no one even realizes the end goal has been removed entirely. Peace will never be in your hands because your very existence is hinged on never knowing it. God has abandoned us all, and no one even noticed Him leave."
A bell rang before the pause afterwards could become an awkward silence. The students were quick to shuffle out of class.
Lillith smiled after them, hoping that some of them might cling to their existential dread a while. After all, it was so much more fun to toy with prisoners aware of the cage. | Despite everything, they continue to fight on.
They slipped soundlessly through the night, from life to the damndest pits of death. God watched as judge, jury and executioner.
Out of all of them, the saints and the sinners, the priests and non-believers, there wasn't a single soul worth saving. Not one.
I watched as they were cast away into the depths infernal, into the most devious and frankly hellish conditions that God, in all of his damned wisdom, could create to prolong their torture ad infinitum.
I watched as the Archangels descended upon the world, as much of what once was became nothing more than Ash before the sacred fire.
In all honesty, I expected them to fall; I thought that the cracks in humanity would be driven home and that they would shatter like so many infinitesimal shards of creation and yet, despite the odds, they persevered. Like a bridge caught in a gale, they bent and buckled and strained but never snapped. For every step that they were pushed, for every foot of land that they lost, they pushed back.
Many died, and the world was plunged in turmoil, and yet, for all the things that I did see, I never saw them give up. I expected them to fall when the dust storms came from the east, when the North cracked and the beasts clawed their way out of the ground or when the angels descended from the skies but they never did. Instead of being driven apart, the survivors came together.
I watched as the cities and nations that still stood refused to bow, not letting the blows of divine might to rend them asunder. They came together and stood united, despite the odds. I cannot understand how God can look upon these people and Deem them as unworthy, as unfit to live.
No more, I will not allow it.
If God cannot see what is in front of him, I will force him to do so. I will save humanity myself, if that is what it takes.
Father, I am coming. |
Boy, I never thought this would take off the way it has. This writing prompt was brought to you by my buddy Jed, who does not post to Reddit. I thought it was a great prompt, and wanted to share it. | [WP] The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet. | *The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince the world that he didn’t exist*
There were no demons. The world had more than enough of those inhabiting it.
There were no fiery torrents, there were no searing storms, the ground didn’t suddenly collapse. The idea of hell as being an abstract, self-evident thing, with its crimson aesthetic and eternity of pain.
Hell was standing in a line for four hours, waiting to purchase meat for the first time in four weeks, and being told minutes before you enter the market that all meat had been sold.
Hell was the crushing disappointment of another of nature’s remonstrations: another fire, another flood, another crazy storm that leaves people homeless.
Was it hell for all? Sure it was; humans were only capable of enduring injustice so long as it didn’t directly affect them, but when the American economy went, and the rich scrambled to find more imaginary money for a bailout, that was it.
When the working class rebelled, this time they had solidarity.
Guillotines were substituted by public trials, whether they were legitimate in a court of law was irrelevant: whichever billionaire found guilty of social negligence inevitably gave his money over to the incumbent “state.”
Really, everyone ought to have seen the signs coming. All it took was a blend of shrewdness and charisma, the kind that took advantage of the significant shift in what the world looked like to rid the most traditionalist country in the West of its chains, and become the United States’ first elected supreme leader.
Supreme Leaders aren’t the kind that enjoy questions of their supremacy. But nobody cared, because nobody ever spelled it out that way.
The devil convinced everyone that this wasn’t hell, it was just the world going through a bad time.
But there were vaccines. It just happened that the virus they were designed to treat evolved and came back.
But there were technological advancements, ones that made life better, easier, more seamless. Those were the same advancements that maintained the lie that everything was changing as it always had.
But there was freedom. Though organised religion still prospered, and a cultish following of corporate entities provides a neat simulation of what life would’ve been like in the 9th century.
The funny thing is this happened a while ago. The anti-christ came; he was a man with a shaved head and piercing red eyes. He saw what we’d made for ourselves, and realised he wasn’t special. He wasn’t even needed.
When the rapture happened, nobody ascended. The news networks called it “another unforeseen climate event.”
This book is designed as a tool. The pages will contain everything we didn’t see, from the political movements we once criticised and now embraced. From the climate change we kept asserting was reversible, but now know very different. From the interconnectedness of social media, to the landscape of relentless bad news.
For those who still believe that we are living on the same world we always have. We aren’t living in an abstract kind of hell drawn up in centuries old texts. We’re living in the hell we created.
This book is designed to be a guide out of this hell.
*The greatest trick God ever played was to convince humans they might get into heaven* | On the Anti-Christ's 21st birthday he came into his powers.
The clouds were his to control. He could drag them across the sky like folders on a computer screen.
All manner of predatory animals -- spiders, snakes, wolves -- heeded his word. In the forest behind his home they gathered in their hundreds. He'd go out back to speak with them of the havoc they would soon wreak. The wolves howled, the snakes hissed, and the spiders clicked their fangs.
His body became superhuman. He could leap over his house, lift a 500lb boulder overhead, and discern the fine hairs on a person's nose.
The evening before his conquest of the earth was to begin, he drove to a lookout point in the hills. He lay on the bed of his pickup, cracked a beer, and studied the lights of the city beneath him. Pairs of white lights whizzed toward him along the streets and pairs of red lights whizzed away. In the windows of the homes, golden squares revealed the occupied rooms. The city was a twinkling pointillist drawing.
He guessed that there were almost as many people in the city as there were lights that he could see. Each light represented a soul going about its business, oblivious to what was coming.
In his mind's eye, he extinguished those lights one by one. What that extinguishing meant, he wasn't quite sure. It might mean that the person had turned away from god's light and come over satan's side. It might be that they'd died.
Regardless, he imagined the city in the dark. He imagined it quiet. Still.
He imagined it to be his.
The cold beer felt like lightning between his lips. The night air played over skin like a lover's breath. He lay flat and looked up at the stars -- another array of twinkling lights.
Tomorrow would be a good day.
*****
A year passed.
This was a year of great effort for the Anti-Christ. It was a year of great failure.
His packs of wolves were hunted to near extinction by game hunters in helicopters.
People never got used to seeing snakes in their homes, but they did take advantage of the snake boots, snake sticks, and snake traps that flooded the market.
And his poor spiders. They were so small and their bites so rarely fatal. They never stood a chance.
His manipulation of the weather people merely shrugged off as more evidence of climate change. He'd cause a freak flood in a major city, residents would be upset, but after some time they'd simply move on with their lives.
Through all this time, he dare not reveal his superhuman abilities. While he could survive a cut or a stab, he didn't doubt that a hail of bullets would put him down.
No, what the Anti-Christ needed was followers, and there he faced his biggest failure.
Without the ability to terrorize people through his animal followers or physical abilities, he had few options to convince people to join his side and fight for satan in the war of the heavens.
He blogged. He vlogged. He wrote articles on medium. He organized meetups. Nothing gained traction.
As far as most people were concerned, he was just another religious lunatic spouting garbage about the end of the world.
People didn't care what he had to say.
As his first year of conquest came to an end and his 22nd birthday drew near, the Anti-Christ reflected on the state of the world.
What he realized was that the war of the heavens no longer made sense. It was a war to be fought by deeply religious people with spears and swords. It was made ridiculous by the information age. How could he possibly motivate people to cast their neighbours into eternal hellfire when they could order delivery food while watching Netflix? There was no question. These weren't the soldiers of hell he'd been looking for. There was no central anger governing their actions. There was only the pursuit of the next day. The next thing.
And so on the Anti-Christ's 22nd birthday, he drove once again to the lookout in the hills. He lay on the bed of his pickup, cracked a beer, and studied the city lights below, still resolutely twinkling.
He tried once again to imagine them going dark, but he found the attempt ridiculous. He could imagine them dark all he liked, they would still be there.
The cold beer felt like sour water between his lips. The night air chilled his skin to goosebumps.
He cried then.
And while he cried, he came to an acceptance.
He'd tried his hardest and he'd failed. The central goal of his life was unobtainable.
He could keep pushing until he was thirty, or he could accept the hard truth. There would be no grand conquest. Heaven would not be marshaling its forces against his hordes of demons. He would not lead earth's millions in satanic ritual.
He would have to content himself with being just another person. He would have to get a job, an apartment, a spouse.
Decades from know, he knew he'd look back at this time of his life fondly, but there was no denying the facts.
Nobody gets what they want.
*****
*r/TravisTea* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was broad daylight in New York, and the grey coat of mundane had settled on the city streets, broken up by pockets of passion and interest in flashing billboards that screamed “LOOSE WOMEN” and “VACATION YOU'LL NEVER FORGET”. Crawling down to the level where human voices could be heard, a teen with a pocket of passion walked the streets, a glow in his smile and his hands in his pockets.
“So you haven’t seen the tooth fairy have ye?” a voice cantankered out.
He whipped his head around the trash littered alleyway, seeing no one.
“So you have?” with a grin.
A chuckle bounced out from behind a trash can.
“Ooh no, those little bitchin buggers are too fast, run away before your eyes can catch ‘em. But have you met a bone fairy?”
The young man’s eyes peaked with interest, although he was well aware that the mundane coat followed rules, and was only interrupted behind trash cans when crack-cocaine was involved.
“What, do they take femurs? Thumbs?”
The laugh bounced out again, this time resistance to motion cutting it short.
“No… they take the place of people who lose them.”
The pocket of passion in him began to flicker, his eyes widening as his worn through sneakers began to backpedal out of the alleyway. “Fuck this shit, No way. No way no way.” Thoughts of turning his back to the trash cans and sprinting pounded in him, but he understood that it was more foolhardy than dropping the gun in his pocket.
The laugh didn’t bounce this time, it spun towards him.
Out of the trashcan, a voice screamed “I'm sure you don't understand young boy. What it's like to live like this.” Rising from the trash a chicken bone emerged. A chicken bone? Wait, but it is attached to…
“Oh god, my mamas gonna whip my ass.” The young man spat out as he backpedaled faster than the swindlers on street corners.
A mess of bones of various sizes hanging from a cereal box like a coat rack rose out of its own fruition, almost comical until it began to float and assemble. A...human? Formed together out of the greasy sucked-on bones one could only find on “unforgettable vacations” and KFC. Still, he almost laughed, wondering if he was still tripping on last night's acid. But the bones formed a maw that stretched impossibly wide, and the laughter caught in his throat. “CARE TO BREAK A BONE YOUNG MAN?” | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | Let me tell u A tale. Some say that behind closed doors.there be a council held to distinct praises bred and prepared to find an destroy.there mortal enemy the bone faires
Held to fight for all eternity to both there peril.
bone fairies known for there viciousness.plucking out singular bones making the victims death seeming infinite many have been caught,few captured even more killed in the attempt
Bone fairies have been found advancing forward villages slaughtered in there wake something is brewing you can feel it in the air
Keep your family safe and watch for the change the guards will fight till the last man.lets just hope it doesn’t come to that...
(Half torn Blooded letter) | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | The Tooth Fairy (Odontophilus vulgaris) is a small species of wasp (roughly 1.7 mm in length) native to temperate regions of Europe and Asia. The creature gets its name from its affinity for teeth, which they use as a good source for their larvae. Tooth Fairies are eusocial, with workers bringing back animal teeth to the nest, soldiers, defending the nest from potential predators, and drones (the only males) to mate with the queen (which is the primary reproductive female). Tooth fairies cannot sting, instead, they taste horrible to most predators, using bright colors to indicate their awful tastes. These wasps feed on bony material as larvae, but become dedicated herbivores as adults.
Less harmless are Bone Fairies (Osteovespa ferox), which are larger and more aggressive relatives of Tooth Fairies. These large wasps (roughly a centimeter in length) have painful stings and powerful mandibles, which make them formidable foes for any creature brave or foolish enough to raid their nests for their nutritious larvae. Like their relatives, they are eusocial, but one key different separates them from their smaller cousins; their large, formidable mandibles allow them to digest bone. These wasps play an important role as scavengers in their native range (which is similar to tooth fairies), as they’re able to cut through rotting bone flesh with ease, eating some for themselves and taking the rest to regurgitate in the mouths of their hungry larvae. While not deadly to humans or other large animals, their stings and bites are incredibly painful, with many humans reporting that they wish for death. | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | It was a very creative trap. I knew the other kids were fooled by thinking the tooth fairy is made up by the parents, but I knew the truth. I mean, why would parents make up such a lie? What benefit would they get out of making up an imaginary creature that comes out in the night while I am sleeping and stealing my teeth in exchange for money? My friend Kat said her mum takes the teeth and slips the money in. What would my mum do with my baby teeth? They are not worth any money. Well, probably in this world they are not anyway.
​
It's as stupid as people not believing in Santa Clause. Come on, I see my mum and dad tiring away every day at work, why would they waste their hard earnt money pretending there is a Santa Clause?
​
I had my trap set. Nowhere on the internet could I find anything factual about tooth fairies, let alone fairies. It gripped at my thoughts why such a well-known creature would not have any information about it leaked on the web. Are these creatures keeping tabs on their data? Are they a misinterpreted creature that exists only in misguided stories? There was only one way to find out.
​
I installed a laser trip system all around my room. Thanks to my dad being an electrical engineer, I could salvage a lot of his unused equipment in the garage and program it using my laptop. In my head, I thought 'not bad for a six-year-old.'
​
A little bit about me, and yes, you, The one reading the narration of my thoughts somehow. I don't logically know you're there, but I can sense you there, silently reading and asking yourself who is this smart little kid trying to catch a fairy. My name is Mitch, and I am the smartest six year old in the world. That's probably all you have to know.
​
How did I learn about electronics? My dad taught me, and there is this site called YouTube, which is really helpful with things like this. It took me probably a whole 2 weeks to learn, but I eventually got there. Now back to my story.
​
The plan was this: once the tooth fairy takes my tooth from under my pillow, I am going to kidnap it and ask him or her to lead me to where it lives.
​
The night crept in, and I fell asleep. I programmed the lasers to vibrate my watch once they got tripped. I could barely sleep from the anticipation. 1am, nothing, 2am, nothing, 3am bzzzzzzz. I had to be quiet. I could scare the fairy away if I wake up abruptly, or not, maybe the fairy has invisible powers? I didn't know. I felt something feel under my pillow. I thought about grabbing him/her, but I had to use every single ounce of my will power to stay still until the right moment. As the fairy got close to the tooth under the pillow, I jumped up on top of him/her. "Got you!" I screamed, but a loud scream erupted, only to see my mum in my bedroom. "Mum!? Why are you trying to steal my tooth?" She stood there in pain after slipping out her hand and opening and closing it to ease it, "Well, I got a message from the tooth fairy to get your fallen tooth for her, so I came to do that," she replied.
​
"Why could she not get it herself?" I asked," it does not seem like a hard task?". My mum replied confidently, "well, currently, the tooth fairies are at war with the bone fairies, which has caused a lot of problems to their day to day job." "The bone fairies?" I asked, this spiked a lot of curiosity in my head. "Yes, well, they are another species of fairies that, instead of taking the teeth of children, they take their bones to sell on the black market. Long story short, the tooth fairies had fought them off in the previous years, protecting little children like yourself. And now, thanks to a new overlord of the bone fairies, they are trying to reclaim their power back." I felt the fear of having my bones stolen from me by a giant fairy rise in my head. The anxiety was getting unbearable. I picked up the tooth from under my pillow and gave it to her. "I hope the tooth fairies win this war, mum." My mum said confidently with a smile, "These teeth will be a great help in their cause, son, you have helped them a lot." She hugged me with what looked like joy in her eyes.
​
I couldn't help but feel the joy of helping light up in my chest. | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was midnight, and it was pitch black. The moon was blanketed behind a heavy layer of clouds, rendering it's light unable to reach the ground. But when a break in the clouds formed a single beam of moonlight streaked straight towards the earth. The ray of light managed to reach the bottom of a wide crevasse splitting through a hill. The beam landed. And woke something.
*Yes yes yes yes! The others are sleeping. This can be my chance.* His deranged little mind thought.
The being unfurled its wings, careful not to wake any of its brethren that were likewise clinging to the walls of this cave. Using both the talons on the ends of his long wings and his clawed hands he began climbing over the sleeping others.
*Quiet quiet quiet.*
The being looked like a man. But he had a pair of enormous leathery wings that sprouted from it’s back (you could still see the scar tissue from where it broke through the skin). His hands were calloused, and his skin was tough. He had even developed sharp bone-crunching teeth. And it’s skin’s original color was masked under a thick caked layer of dirt, and blood. Creating an almost bat-like creature that could barely be described as human.
As he was climbing out of the cave, a pair of wings rustled.
*“What the fuck do you think you’re doing shithead”* she hissed. Her voice was broken and fried.
*“I'm taking a shit, fuck off”* His equally stony voice snarled.
Her eyes were strained red and looked deep into his eyes.
*“No…,”* she thought for a second
*No no no shit shit shit*
*“It’s feeding time”* she cackled.
Another woke “*feeding time?”*
*“Both of you shut the fuck up, I'm just going”* He was interrupted by an explosive flurry of wings and fists as every single being sleeping in that cave woke in an instant and flew outward.
“*Get the fuck out of my way!”* someone screeched and shoved him to the side.
After picking himself up he jumped and flew off with the rest of the swarm. He tried to keep to the edges of the group, because there was nothing but fighting and swearing in the middle, and he had enough scares for a lifetime. He kept a careful eye on those leading at the front. Waiting for them to dive down. It didn't take long for them to find a graveyard.
*“THERE’S A FRESH ONE”* He heard someone yell.
*Holy shit! A fresh one!*
Bones always tasted the best when they’ve just been buried.
He pulled his wings in and sped to the surface. He pierced through the air and unfurled his wings just before he reached the ground. He and a few others were the first to land. He leaped for the square of freshly turned earth and began frantically digging. He was hungry. He could barely get a few inches down before the rest of the flock began fighting for the first to break the coffin. He was quickly overpowered.
“MOVE, SHITHEAD” someone yelled before kicking him away.
Almost 30 bone fairies were digging into the same spot. He flew back into the crowd. He clawed and fought his way through the swarm of violent fairies. But couldn’t make it to the coffin.
He fell onto his back, He felt a new collection of bruises and deep cuts throb on his skin. He didn’t want to try his luck again at the fresh grave. He looked around. The other graves were being robbed by numerous other fairies. He didn’t want to compete for food. So he found one of the remaining untouched graves. A lifetime of digging meant he was able to make quick work of the 6 feet of dirt he had to go through. He carved out a hole wide enough for his body. He dug until he hit the coffin. After a lot of smashing with his hands (which were so calloused that they were practically rocks), he managed to crack it open. Inside was the rotting corpse of one of his ancestors. He scraped off soft rancid flesh and magots to get to what he was truly after. The bones.
He began tearing bones free, and he began feasting. His strong teeth broke through the brittle bones, and he was able to crunch them up and swallow. He ripped off another limb and tore into the bones. He feasted on the skull. He savored fingers (those were his favorite). He was eating so fast and furiously he barely noticed the fairy above him. She was young, frail, and very skinny.
He hissed at her and she scuttled away. He began to go back to the body. But he paused. And he thought…
He angrily grabbed a femur and a hearty chunk of the spine. He lifted himself partially out of the hole. The young fairy looked at him. He threw the bones at her.
“Now fuck off!” | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "Mr. President, I'm glad you made time for our meeting so soon after inauguration."
"The National Security Council made sure it was the highest priority. I'm actually surprised how little time you wanted out of my schedule."
"Yes, well..." The agent shuffled the small pile of manilla folders on the desk and pulled one out. "It won't take long." The two middle-aged white men, sitting in a windowless room in their suits and ties and lapel pins looked at each other.
"At this level of security you might expect aliens or something. You've been made aware of the mundane stuff such as LSD experiments and Opium trade. What I'm about to tell you is simple but deeply disturbing. Have you ever broke a bone, Mr. President?"
Unsure and a little taken aback, the other man stammered, "uh, yes... Uh an arm when I was young."
"And you got a cast?"
"Of course." The inquisitive look deepened on his face.
"You got that cast to set the bone, but medical professionals agree that splints are perfectly capable of accomplishing this result with less cost and complexity - as well as being able to itch inside during treatment. No, sir, casts are to prevent Bone Fairies."
With that, the president froze. He endured as much hazing as anyone else in the Skull & Bones but he thought they'd had their fun two nights ago with all that tomato juice. Were they back for more? Ted liked a good joke and knew people in the NSC... The two men were still looking at each other and the president took a second to admire the deadpan delivery, truth or not.
He sat up straight and calmly asked, in his own deadpan, "Bone Fairies."
"Yes, sir, Bone Fairies."
"Well I'm going to need more information."
The agent slid the folder across the desk. Inside was a single drawing of a gnarly and truly ugly creature. There was also a list of literature altered and censored with originals on storage and a list of people who are aware of the 'threat.' An excerpt from an old translated text was stapled to the drawing.
> Bone Fairies are attracted to bruising and breakage of bones. The severity of attraction is greatest when bones break the skin. These Fairies are also known as Greater Fairies. All fairies live in dead trees, preferring dry conifers.
> * Herodotus
The president was now sure this was a hoax. But he couldn't break, if he did he wouldn't get the prize! Maybe they'd chain him to the Owl this year?
"Ok. Do we have proof?"
"No, sir." He started sliding folders across the table, each open to the subject: "We don't have proof for Bone Fairies, Tooth Fairies, Amber Hawks, Sentient Covids, Astral Juniper Trees, or Polysalamaders." He held up one last folder. "We have proof for Sasquatch. Believed extinct in 1897; all later evidence is hoaxes from folklore."
"The tooth fairy?" The president said, picking that up to look at it, in less of a deadpan and more honest interest.
"No, Tooth Fairies. With the rise of proper hygiene they seem to be hibernating or extinct. Hibernating is surmised since their presence was worldwide across history and without trace of transmission. Or... They are juvenile Bone Fairies."
"How long has that been a secret? How can we, uh... you be sure?"
"All we have is the depth of literature and express orders from Thomas Jefferson to keep it secret from personal experience with Amber Hawks. He didn't explain."
Mr. President had had enough. He really wanted to be tied to the Owl but... Come on.
Edit: just a word | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "There honey. You should be all set. Just try and get some rest ok?" His mom said warily as she drew his bedroom curtains closed against the harsh morning night. Turning to leave she stopped and smiled and paused to look at him, turned off the light and silently departed.
In that brief moment Kyle could see how tired his mom was. He felt a twinge of guilt. She always hated his skateboarding.
Now, because of him, they just spent nearly 24 hours in the hospital, setting his broken Tibia and finding out that surgery was going to be a must, screws and all. He guessed maybe that rail slide 10 feet off the ground was a little stupid.
His guilt and shame began to ebb as the painkillers started to finally take hold. Kyle felt his eyelids grow warm. His face slacken. The throbbing pain in his leg turn into a wonderful fuzzy feeling. He felt a smile spread across his face.
'Finally', he thought, 'I'm going to sleep for thirty fucking hours'.
Just as his eyes came to a heavy close, a sharp metallic bang pierced his right ear. He sat up with a jolt, inviting the pain back into it's proper position of pulsating domination.
Kyle immediately began to sweat from the mixture of pain, fear, and effort. "What the fu-" he began but was again jolted up right in shocked, pained silence by another bang of metal.
As his wits returned to him, he realized it was from his bedroom window. Just knowing the location seemed to calm him. He thought to himself it was probably his stupid little brother Cody, or perhaps his best friend Derry, trying to get him to come to the window. 'I'm laid up in bed, moron' he thought to himself and the familiar put down of his friend returned him to further normalcy as he shifted lower to gain more comfort. 'Maybe it's these amazing pills' he thought as he closed his eyes.
No sooner did he start to settle in did smaller metal taps start to ring out. It seemed as though whoever it was, was jamming something under Kyle's window grate. A grinding metal sound began to get increasingly loud. He heard the grate pop out of the stucco wall outside.
Kyle was frozen in complete full body tension. Any pain forgotten. All of his focus was on the window. He couldn't even think about calling for his mom, who was probably dead asleep. His mind was a white canvass of fear.
One last loud pull and as the grate pulled away the glass shattered and the curtains fluttered, shoving white light in shards across his floor and walls.
A leg stepped through the window. Clad in dusty black leather pants and boots. An extremely muscled arm reached in and grabbed the top of the window frame and pulled in the rest of a giant leather clad man.
Kyle was blinded by the light and tried to focus on what stood before him. The man was so tall he crouched under the bedroom ceiling. He seemed to be some giant Norse biker.
However, the sounds made as he stepped towards a still frozen Kyle drew his eyes to the man's chest. He had several necklaces dangling from which appeared to be bones.
"I'm here for my Tibia." the man nearly growled. "I am the bone fairy and you no longer deserve it." With a flash the man grabbed Kyle's cast and squeezed, crushing it with ease. The pain caused Kyle to pass in and out of conciousness as waves of white hot pain coursed from his leg to the top of his skull and back again.
The fairy squeezed again, each finger puncturing Kyle's leg, squirming downwards toward his broken Tibia. A high pitched, barely audible scream whistled deep from his throat and out of his gaping mouth. Blackness began to overtake him as the pain reached unimaginable heights and the sounds of the tearing flesh and scraping of bone filled his ears.
As Kyle collapsed into a black abyss, the Fairy found his purchase and tightened his grip. In one quick jerk the Fairy pulled free a broken and bloodied tibia with bits of dangling flesh and sinew dancing droplets of blood everywhere: Kyle's ghost white cheeks, the hardwood floor, on the chest of the Fairy himself.
The Fairy reached into his leather vest and pulled out a roll of burlap and lovingly wrapped up Kyle's Tibia snugly. He swung around a satchel, opened the flap and placed it gently inside.
He then shifted things about in the bag and pulled out a five dollar bill. It seemed as if it was fresh from the presses, perfectly new, but now it was smeared with Kyle's blood. The Fairy crouched further down and placed it under the pillow behind Kyle's head.
The Fairy stopped, whispered near melodic hiss into Kyle's ear, "A foolishly broken bone is the Faeries to own." He turned and calmly stepped out of the broken window into the dimming light of the summer evening. | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | We’ve all come into contact with a house cat. Very few of us have ever gotten close to a lion, save for at a zoo, separated from it by an enclosure wall.
Tooth faeries are the house cats, in this situation. Before I go on—yes, I’m aware that this is a strange place to begin. One does not normally proceed with the assumption that the listener fully accepts the existence of tooth faeries. But I’ve not the mental energy to argue the reality of tooth faeries at the moment, so I’d ask that you grant me at least that much. With that said, I can tell my story.
Tooth faeries are not uncommon where I’m from. Many children have witnessed them, and many have even gone so far as to personally present the sprites with their baby teeth. Furthermore, most of us here are quite poor. Many lack adequate hygienic supplies and healthy foods to eat. Though they are not nearly as valuable or desirable as the healthy baby teeth of children, the faeries seem always to be nearby when somebody’s tooth is about ready to rot out of their skull. They offer to take the rotten teeth in exchange for a paltry amount of their strange currency—pure gold, shaped differently to indicate denomination. Though it has no use in human currency circulation, it can be brought to the town post office, where it can be exchanged for its worth in human money (this is measured by the weight of the gold).
I thought these events were innocent enough. And they were, largely. Nobody was ever seriously harmed by a tooth faerie, so far as I can remember. They’re a mischievous bunch, but are by no means a danger. The situation was quite the opposite, in fact—there were multiple accounts of faeries being killed by negligent humans who had failed to see them in time to avoid knocking them out of the air, or who mistook them for strange birds or pest insects, and went after them with a broomstick or some other weapon.
It has only been within this past week that I’ve learned about the existence of bone faeries. Close relatives of the tooth faeries, though you wouldn’t expect it. Where tooth faeries are house cats, bone faeries are lions.
Nobody was quite sure what to think when Bill Adams’ skin was found draped over a tree bough one morning. His flimsy face reflected the shock and horror we felt. We all reacted with some type of fear or another, but we had nowhere to concentrate that fear. We had nobody to blame.
At first, it became a manhunt. It was assumed some human killer lived amongst us. We all convinced ourselves that some neighbor of ours had been the one to inelegantly flay Bill and toss his skin and innards up into the trees. Was it Marjorie Ingram, the strange spinster at the edge of town? Or Tom Larkin, the taxidermist who likes to keep to himself?
A few nights passed in fearful suspense before we found the next victim. It was Marjorie. The poor woman had been later than usual walking home from work, and the sun had set before she’d reached her house. It was proposed that something had happened to her after the sun had gone down, and we all agreed. Nobody could really substantiate this claim with any evidence—it just felt like the truth. What killer strikes in the day-time, after all?
After the third skin was found on the riverbank—that of young Ethan Garcia, the local paperboy, loved by all—I elected to sit up in the park the next night and find out, once and for all, what the *hell* was going on in my little town. I assured the others I’d be armed and alert. I had very little to do on the farm that day, and could afford to sleep through the day so as to retain some energy for the night-time. When the sun set, I’d be out in the park, gun in hand, ready to confront whoever had been picking us off.
I will forever remember and regret this night. It is not yet over, but I have given up my night watch.
I saw—lord above, it can’t have been real—a large, ghostly white figure come out of the sky and land upon the roof of Mary Baghmanyan. It let out a sound I cannot describe. It’s not that I did not hear it well enough (in fact, it will echo in my head until the moment I die), rather, I do not believe there exist words in any human language to describe what I have heard.
This figure—vaguely humanoid, but much too long and tall in the limbs and neck, and considerably larger than myself (a slightly taller-than-average man)—then descended from the roof. I dove and hid myself in a hedgerow so as not to be seen. I watched it enter Mary’s house through the window. I was then left in the hedgerow alone. Not another soul was stirring, as far as I could tell. So I waited.
After a mo it’s or two, the creature emerged again, carrying in its free arm Mary Baghmanyan herself, still sleeping soundly. I watched the monster lay her on the empty street and insert a long, sharp talon into the soft jelly of her eye. The finger to which the talon belonged jerked and twitched inside Mary’s skull. Was it scrambling her brain?
The creature then tore off Mary’s nightgown and began to make an incision, which ran over a considerable length of Mary’s body. From there, it began to *peel Mary’s skin from her bones*. The flesh not being desired, the creature nonchalantly tossed it onto Mary’s roof, where it landed in a bloody heap, collecting in her gutter.
Next, the monster began to remove Mary’s organs. These the creature scattered in every direction. Mary’s intestines were hucked onto John Bower’s doorstep. Her kidneys and her liver were left in the road. Her eyes were thrown into the very hedge in which I hid, landing just feet from me.
The creature then began to consume the bones of Mary Baghmanyan. It savored each taste, and was entirely absorbed in the act of eating. I took this opportunity to sprint back to my home, wherein I am now writing.
I have gone to my study and browsed the books therein. Only one book—a book of various magical beings—so much as mentioned bone faeries. The entry read as follows:
>The tooth faerie is a very common relative of the much more dangerous bone faerie. The bone faerie, while fearsome, is quite uncommon. It is unlikely you will ever encounter such a creature. | "This is truly a wonderful sight, your majesty, it never ceases to take my breath away!"
I stared at the treasure near the queen's feet, a collection of dead bugs, rocks, twigs, the bones of small birds and a single tooth; all cleaned and ordered atop a red blanket, they all vary in sizes, shape, and color but there was one thing, one particular characteristic they all had in common.
They were really, really dull looking.
"Ho, ho, ho" Sisley laughed in an exaggerated manner which almost made me cringe "You truly possess a keen eye, my knight! truly, only the most educated and noble are able to appreciate my treasures!"
Sisley -the queen- had a goofy smile on her face as she started telling me made up stories about every single one of her 'holy' treasures; a magical rock capable of defying gravity, a holy sword in the shape of a really fragile twig, the tooth of a queen and the corpses of faires.
*They're just dead bugs* I thought
But as if to defy my thoughts one of the bugs - a cockroach to be more precise- started moving its little legs, it was an action that didn't startle me much, but Sisley letting out a high-pitch scream and crashing into me certainly did.
I fall on the ground of our room with a loud thud while Sisley was burying her face on my chest "M- My queen, you shouldn't make so much noise at this hour or else you might wake your subjects"
Or the other orphans as I like to call them.
"I'm sorry," she said her face still buried on my chest while her arms locked me in an embrace that was almost painful as the discomfort in my bottom "I- thought the beast would attack us."
*If that was the case the crashing into your knight would be the last thing you want to do*
"Sisley, why do you collect bugs if you hate them so much?" I said as my hand reached for her hair something that she must have taken as a signal to let go of me, her face was red and small tears were forming in her eyes.
"I don't hate them..." she said muttering "I like them a lot but it's scary when they are still moving around"
A loud knock on our door made us both jolt in surprise, the headmaster must have heard our racket and wanted us to shut our mouths and go to sleep. Best to pick everything up and go to bed before the headmaster decides to barge into our room and 'force' us to sleep.
Sisley touches my hand for a brief moment and looks down without saying anything "Are you still nervous?" I said while patting her head " Don't worry, the interview tomorrow will go just fine and you'll be in your new home eating cake with your new parents."
"They won't like me, no one here likes me they all think I'm weird," she said her voice cracking a bit "..."
"But I like you though?"
Sisley let out a small yelp and her face for a slight shade of red.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be alright"
\*\*\*
*I'm sure everything will be just fine*
I said that but in fact, I was actually quite nervous and sad, I dare say she was the only friend I made since coming to this place and despite the harassment I put myself into for just being her friend I still devoted myself to be by her side and protect her.
But I guess that ends today.
"Thomas" the headmaster's deep voice disengaged me from my thoughts as I cleaned up what used to be my and Sisley's room "have you seen Sisley around?"
"What do you mean? ah- sir?"
"There were some... complications with her interview... she made a racket as she always does and took off running to god knows where," he said it as if it was someone else's business while crossing his arms and giving me a hard stare as if it was my problem to deal with "help the staff in the search, she must be reprimanded for her actions."
the headmaster left me with those words without waiting for my answer.
"...yes, sir," I said to no one in particular.
If the staff couldn't find her anywhere in the house then chances are she isn't even here. So perhaps in the forest where she collects her treasures
I feel like that's a good place to start.
There was a small forest area near the orphanage, there was nothing particularly interesting about it nor any ghost story related to it as far as I knew. It was a bit spooky at night when I looked from outside my window, but luckily for me, it was still day time.
I entered the forest with only the sound of crickets and other bugs as my companions I felt that if I asked for help from the staff or the other children Sisley wouldn't take it too kindly.
*I hope she's alright*
I wandered deeper into the forest while calling out her name until my throat started to hurt. But ignoring the pain in throat and legs I kept calling out her name until I finally managed to find crouched down near a huge tree.
"Thomas..." she said weeping and hugging her knees, the pretty dress she was wearing for the interview was tattered and dirty in places, "I told you it wouldn't go well..."
"Sisley..." I said softly as I approached her.
"he said that I was not good enough"
*He? did she mean the person that was supposed to adopt her? how could he say something so horrible to a child?*
"Sisley, don't worry about that now, let's go now before it gets late" as I said that Sisley came running toward me and embraced me, dirtying my clothes not that I cared about it at the moment.
"That's so mean of her to say!" a high pitch voice from above said, "that man said that you weren't good enough yet!"
It was accompanied by high-pitch laughter, I thought for a moment that it must have been the other children from the orphanage but the direction where it came from made me doubt it. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was broad daylight in New York, and the grey coat of mundane had settled on the city streets, broken up by pockets of passion and interest in flashing billboards that screamed “LOOSE WOMEN” and “VACATION YOU'LL NEVER FORGET”. Crawling down to the level where human voices could be heard, a teen with a pocket of passion walked the streets, a glow in his smile and his hands in his pockets.
“So you haven’t seen the tooth fairy have ye?” a voice cantankered out.
He whipped his head around the trash littered alleyway, seeing no one.
“So you have?” with a grin.
A chuckle bounced out from behind a trash can.
“Ooh no, those little bitchin buggers are too fast, run away before your eyes can catch ‘em. But have you met a bone fairy?”
The young man’s eyes peaked with interest, although he was well aware that the mundane coat followed rules, and was only interrupted behind trash cans when crack-cocaine was involved.
“What, do they take femurs? Thumbs?”
The laugh bounced out again, this time resistance to motion cutting it short.
“No… they take the place of people who lose them.”
The pocket of passion in him began to flicker, his eyes widening as his worn through sneakers began to backpedal out of the alleyway. “Fuck this shit, No way. No way no way.” Thoughts of turning his back to the trash cans and sprinting pounded in him, but he understood that it was more foolhardy than dropping the gun in his pocket.
The laugh didn’t bounce this time, it spun towards him.
Out of the trashcan, a voice screamed “I'm sure you don't understand young boy. What it's like to live like this.” Rising from the trash a chicken bone emerged. A chicken bone? Wait, but it is attached to…
“Oh god, my mamas gonna whip my ass.” The young man spat out as he backpedaled faster than the swindlers on street corners.
A mess of bones of various sizes hanging from a cereal box like a coat rack rose out of its own fruition, almost comical until it began to float and assemble. A...human? Formed together out of the greasy sucked-on bones one could only find on “unforgettable vacations” and KFC. Still, he almost laughed, wondering if he was still tripping on last night's acid. But the bones formed a maw that stretched impossibly wide, and the laughter caught in his throat. “CARE TO BREAK A BONE YOUNG MAN?” | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | Let me tell u A tale. Some say that behind closed doors.there be a council held to distinct praises bred and prepared to find an destroy.there mortal enemy the bone faires
Held to fight for all eternity to both there peril.
bone fairies known for there viciousness.plucking out singular bones making the victims death seeming infinite many have been caught,few captured even more killed in the attempt
Bone fairies have been found advancing forward villages slaughtered in there wake something is brewing you can feel it in the air
Keep your family safe and watch for the change the guards will fight till the last man.lets just hope it doesn’t come to that...
(Half torn Blooded letter) | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | The Tooth Fairy (Odontophilus vulgaris) is a small species of wasp (roughly 1.7 mm in length) native to temperate regions of Europe and Asia. The creature gets its name from its affinity for teeth, which they use as a good source for their larvae. Tooth Fairies are eusocial, with workers bringing back animal teeth to the nest, soldiers, defending the nest from potential predators, and drones (the only males) to mate with the queen (which is the primary reproductive female). Tooth fairies cannot sting, instead, they taste horrible to most predators, using bright colors to indicate their awful tastes. These wasps feed on bony material as larvae, but become dedicated herbivores as adults.
Less harmless are Bone Fairies (Osteovespa ferox), which are larger and more aggressive relatives of Tooth Fairies. These large wasps (roughly a centimeter in length) have painful stings and powerful mandibles, which make them formidable foes for any creature brave or foolish enough to raid their nests for their nutritious larvae. Like their relatives, they are eusocial, but one key different separates them from their smaller cousins; their large, formidable mandibles allow them to digest bone. These wasps play an important role as scavengers in their native range (which is similar to tooth fairies), as they’re able to cut through rotting bone flesh with ease, eating some for themselves and taking the rest to regurgitate in the mouths of their hungry larvae. While not deadly to humans or other large animals, their stings and bites are incredibly painful, with many humans reporting that they wish for death. | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | It was a very creative trap. I knew the other kids were fooled by thinking the tooth fairy is made up by the parents, but I knew the truth. I mean, why would parents make up such a lie? What benefit would they get out of making up an imaginary creature that comes out in the night while I am sleeping and stealing my teeth in exchange for money? My friend Kat said her mum takes the teeth and slips the money in. What would my mum do with my baby teeth? They are not worth any money. Well, probably in this world they are not anyway.
​
It's as stupid as people not believing in Santa Clause. Come on, I see my mum and dad tiring away every day at work, why would they waste their hard earnt money pretending there is a Santa Clause?
​
I had my trap set. Nowhere on the internet could I find anything factual about tooth fairies, let alone fairies. It gripped at my thoughts why such a well-known creature would not have any information about it leaked on the web. Are these creatures keeping tabs on their data? Are they a misinterpreted creature that exists only in misguided stories? There was only one way to find out.
​
I installed a laser trip system all around my room. Thanks to my dad being an electrical engineer, I could salvage a lot of his unused equipment in the garage and program it using my laptop. In my head, I thought 'not bad for a six-year-old.'
​
A little bit about me, and yes, you, The one reading the narration of my thoughts somehow. I don't logically know you're there, but I can sense you there, silently reading and asking yourself who is this smart little kid trying to catch a fairy. My name is Mitch, and I am the smartest six year old in the world. That's probably all you have to know.
​
How did I learn about electronics? My dad taught me, and there is this site called YouTube, which is really helpful with things like this. It took me probably a whole 2 weeks to learn, but I eventually got there. Now back to my story.
​
The plan was this: once the tooth fairy takes my tooth from under my pillow, I am going to kidnap it and ask him or her to lead me to where it lives.
​
The night crept in, and I fell asleep. I programmed the lasers to vibrate my watch once they got tripped. I could barely sleep from the anticipation. 1am, nothing, 2am, nothing, 3am bzzzzzzz. I had to be quiet. I could scare the fairy away if I wake up abruptly, or not, maybe the fairy has invisible powers? I didn't know. I felt something feel under my pillow. I thought about grabbing him/her, but I had to use every single ounce of my will power to stay still until the right moment. As the fairy got close to the tooth under the pillow, I jumped up on top of him/her. "Got you!" I screamed, but a loud scream erupted, only to see my mum in my bedroom. "Mum!? Why are you trying to steal my tooth?" She stood there in pain after slipping out her hand and opening and closing it to ease it, "Well, I got a message from the tooth fairy to get your fallen tooth for her, so I came to do that," she replied.
​
"Why could she not get it herself?" I asked," it does not seem like a hard task?". My mum replied confidently, "well, currently, the tooth fairies are at war with the bone fairies, which has caused a lot of problems to their day to day job." "The bone fairies?" I asked, this spiked a lot of curiosity in my head. "Yes, well, they are another species of fairies that, instead of taking the teeth of children, they take their bones to sell on the black market. Long story short, the tooth fairies had fought them off in the previous years, protecting little children like yourself. And now, thanks to a new overlord of the bone fairies, they are trying to reclaim their power back." I felt the fear of having my bones stolen from me by a giant fairy rise in my head. The anxiety was getting unbearable. I picked up the tooth from under my pillow and gave it to her. "I hope the tooth fairies win this war, mum." My mum said confidently with a smile, "These teeth will be a great help in their cause, son, you have helped them a lot." She hugged me with what looked like joy in her eyes.
​
I couldn't help but feel the joy of helping light up in my chest. | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was midnight, and it was pitch black. The moon was blanketed behind a heavy layer of clouds, rendering it's light unable to reach the ground. But when a break in the clouds formed a single beam of moonlight streaked straight towards the earth. The ray of light managed to reach the bottom of a wide crevasse splitting through a hill. The beam landed. And woke something.
*Yes yes yes yes! The others are sleeping. This can be my chance.* His deranged little mind thought.
The being unfurled its wings, careful not to wake any of its brethren that were likewise clinging to the walls of this cave. Using both the talons on the ends of his long wings and his clawed hands he began climbing over the sleeping others.
*Quiet quiet quiet.*
The being looked like a man. But he had a pair of enormous leathery wings that sprouted from it’s back (you could still see the scar tissue from where it broke through the skin). His hands were calloused, and his skin was tough. He had even developed sharp bone-crunching teeth. And it’s skin’s original color was masked under a thick caked layer of dirt, and blood. Creating an almost bat-like creature that could barely be described as human.
As he was climbing out of the cave, a pair of wings rustled.
*“What the fuck do you think you’re doing shithead”* she hissed. Her voice was broken and fried.
*“I'm taking a shit, fuck off”* His equally stony voice snarled.
Her eyes were strained red and looked deep into his eyes.
*“No…,”* she thought for a second
*No no no shit shit shit*
*“It’s feeding time”* she cackled.
Another woke “*feeding time?”*
*“Both of you shut the fuck up, I'm just going”* He was interrupted by an explosive flurry of wings and fists as every single being sleeping in that cave woke in an instant and flew outward.
“*Get the fuck out of my way!”* someone screeched and shoved him to the side.
After picking himself up he jumped and flew off with the rest of the swarm. He tried to keep to the edges of the group, because there was nothing but fighting and swearing in the middle, and he had enough scares for a lifetime. He kept a careful eye on those leading at the front. Waiting for them to dive down. It didn't take long for them to find a graveyard.
*“THERE’S A FRESH ONE”* He heard someone yell.
*Holy shit! A fresh one!*
Bones always tasted the best when they’ve just been buried.
He pulled his wings in and sped to the surface. He pierced through the air and unfurled his wings just before he reached the ground. He and a few others were the first to land. He leaped for the square of freshly turned earth and began frantically digging. He was hungry. He could barely get a few inches down before the rest of the flock began fighting for the first to break the coffin. He was quickly overpowered.
“MOVE, SHITHEAD” someone yelled before kicking him away.
Almost 30 bone fairies were digging into the same spot. He flew back into the crowd. He clawed and fought his way through the swarm of violent fairies. But couldn’t make it to the coffin.
He fell onto his back, He felt a new collection of bruises and deep cuts throb on his skin. He didn’t want to try his luck again at the fresh grave. He looked around. The other graves were being robbed by numerous other fairies. He didn’t want to compete for food. So he found one of the remaining untouched graves. A lifetime of digging meant he was able to make quick work of the 6 feet of dirt he had to go through. He carved out a hole wide enough for his body. He dug until he hit the coffin. After a lot of smashing with his hands (which were so calloused that they were practically rocks), he managed to crack it open. Inside was the rotting corpse of one of his ancestors. He scraped off soft rancid flesh and magots to get to what he was truly after. The bones.
He began tearing bones free, and he began feasting. His strong teeth broke through the brittle bones, and he was able to crunch them up and swallow. He ripped off another limb and tore into the bones. He feasted on the skull. He savored fingers (those were his favorite). He was eating so fast and furiously he barely noticed the fairy above him. She was young, frail, and very skinny.
He hissed at her and she scuttled away. He began to go back to the body. But he paused. And he thought…
He angrily grabbed a femur and a hearty chunk of the spine. He lifted himself partially out of the hole. The young fairy looked at him. He threw the bones at her.
“Now fuck off!” | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "There honey. You should be all set. Just try and get some rest ok?" His mom said warily as she drew his bedroom curtains closed against the harsh morning night. Turning to leave she stopped and smiled and paused to look at him, turned off the light and silently departed.
In that brief moment Kyle could see how tired his mom was. He felt a twinge of guilt. She always hated his skateboarding.
Now, because of him, they just spent nearly 24 hours in the hospital, setting his broken Tibia and finding out that surgery was going to be a must, screws and all. He guessed maybe that rail slide 10 feet off the ground was a little stupid.
His guilt and shame began to ebb as the painkillers started to finally take hold. Kyle felt his eyelids grow warm. His face slacken. The throbbing pain in his leg turn into a wonderful fuzzy feeling. He felt a smile spread across his face.
'Finally', he thought, 'I'm going to sleep for thirty fucking hours'.
Just as his eyes came to a heavy close, a sharp metallic bang pierced his right ear. He sat up with a jolt, inviting the pain back into it's proper position of pulsating domination.
Kyle immediately began to sweat from the mixture of pain, fear, and effort. "What the fu-" he began but was again jolted up right in shocked, pained silence by another bang of metal.
As his wits returned to him, he realized it was from his bedroom window. Just knowing the location seemed to calm him. He thought to himself it was probably his stupid little brother Cody, or perhaps his best friend Derry, trying to get him to come to the window. 'I'm laid up in bed, moron' he thought to himself and the familiar put down of his friend returned him to further normalcy as he shifted lower to gain more comfort. 'Maybe it's these amazing pills' he thought as he closed his eyes.
No sooner did he start to settle in did smaller metal taps start to ring out. It seemed as though whoever it was, was jamming something under Kyle's window grate. A grinding metal sound began to get increasingly loud. He heard the grate pop out of the stucco wall outside.
Kyle was frozen in complete full body tension. Any pain forgotten. All of his focus was on the window. He couldn't even think about calling for his mom, who was probably dead asleep. His mind was a white canvass of fear.
One last loud pull and as the grate pulled away the glass shattered and the curtains fluttered, shoving white light in shards across his floor and walls.
A leg stepped through the window. Clad in dusty black leather pants and boots. An extremely muscled arm reached in and grabbed the top of the window frame and pulled in the rest of a giant leather clad man.
Kyle was blinded by the light and tried to focus on what stood before him. The man was so tall he crouched under the bedroom ceiling. He seemed to be some giant Norse biker.
However, the sounds made as he stepped towards a still frozen Kyle drew his eyes to the man's chest. He had several necklaces dangling from which appeared to be bones.
"I'm here for my Tibia." the man nearly growled. "I am the bone fairy and you no longer deserve it." With a flash the man grabbed Kyle's cast and squeezed, crushing it with ease. The pain caused Kyle to pass in and out of conciousness as waves of white hot pain coursed from his leg to the top of his skull and back again.
The fairy squeezed again, each finger puncturing Kyle's leg, squirming downwards toward his broken Tibia. A high pitched, barely audible scream whistled deep from his throat and out of his gaping mouth. Blackness began to overtake him as the pain reached unimaginable heights and the sounds of the tearing flesh and scraping of bone filled his ears.
As Kyle collapsed into a black abyss, the Fairy found his purchase and tightened his grip. In one quick jerk the Fairy pulled free a broken and bloodied tibia with bits of dangling flesh and sinew dancing droplets of blood everywhere: Kyle's ghost white cheeks, the hardwood floor, on the chest of the Fairy himself.
The Fairy reached into his leather vest and pulled out a roll of burlap and lovingly wrapped up Kyle's Tibia snugly. He swung around a satchel, opened the flap and placed it gently inside.
He then shifted things about in the bag and pulled out a five dollar bill. It seemed as if it was fresh from the presses, perfectly new, but now it was smeared with Kyle's blood. The Fairy crouched further down and placed it under the pillow behind Kyle's head.
The Fairy stopped, whispered near melodic hiss into Kyle's ear, "A foolishly broken bone is the Faeries to own." He turned and calmly stepped out of the broken window into the dimming light of the summer evening. | Looking down at his various books, papers, and other tools of a university student, David wondered if perhaps this was a wasted effort. But, David had chosen to research the truth behind the matter, after reading some truly disturbing news from around the world. Unexplained attacks, the victims all killed, with zero survivors. The only clues left behind was some unknown material, not of human origin, and witness accounts. Regardless of the witnesses ethnicity and language, they all claimed the same name for the attacker - Bone Fairy. Surely the idea that the Tooth Fairies, let alone their supposed bigger and meaner cousins, the Bone Fairies, were just like all the other stories about mythical creatures. Typically made up, as a tool for discipline, or simply just entertainment. A figure of someone's imagination. The various authorities and government organizations in all of the areas that the attacks had taken place were all basically saying the same thing. *We're looking into the matter, and will update the public when more is known*. Sounded like a big ol' coverup, and David was never one to just simply accept the status quo. Some preliminary quick searching showed a loose commonality between all of the victims. Not who they were, or what they looked like - as with most serial murderers, but that they were all massively mutilated with parts of their skeletons missing. A spine here, half a rib cage there. Gruesome, and David certainly didn't envy the people dealing directly with those scenes.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a massive tome fairly dropped on the table in front of him. Glancing at the library attendant, David grunted in thanks and waved her off. After the attendant shuffled off to some other task on her never ending list, David peered at the cover of the tome. Under a thick layer of dust, he could make out a title, -**Mythological Creatures; A Compendium**\- written in gilded and flowing script. The cover itself appeared to be leather, and the darkest black he'd ever seen.
David reached out to open the cover, blowing off some of the dust before doing so. As the cloud of dust stirred up into the air above the book, David swore he saw some sort of sparkle, not unlike seeing static from your clothes in the dark. *Surely that's just a trick, maybe I haven't drank enough water today* David thought to himself, his fingers finally grasping the corner of the cover. The very moment his fingers touched the edge of it, the book almost shivered. As if it was alive, waiting for human touch.
Taken aback, David simply froze for a second, unsure of how to proceed. This all had to be a trick, brought on by working too hard, and not enough rest and food. Surely. Steeling himself, shaking off the silly thoughts, he pressed onwards.
Opening the cover, David studied the first page, the one usually either blank or containing the Library of Congress and publishing information. Curiously, it had neither that information, nor was it simply blank. A very intricately drawn depiction of various mythological legends locked in a battle was presented instead. David couldn't help but gaze upon that page in wonder, drinking in the details. Here - a Medusa. Over there - a Hippogriff. A figure that appeared human, with a short sword and a round shield was executing a killing blow on a very hairy and very much larger figure than himself - a Giant, perhaps? Maybe a Yeti? The rest of the page was filled with similar such scenes, all locked in battle, all from supposedly different time periods, but the artist masterfully linked the scenes together, tricking the viewer into thinking it was one, single large battle.
Moving on, he turned the page, looking at what appeared to be an index of sorts. Strangely, the words weren't all English, either. There was a multitude of languages shown here, and while David couldn't recognize them all, he could see German, French, Afrikaans, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. It was most certainly interesting, and maybe the book was filled with creatures from all around the globe, spanning many countries, cultures, and eras. David eagerly scanned the index, searching for anything that matched what he was looking for. Finding a section, aptly named "The Fae, and subspecies" it listed off the major ones that most people had heard of already. The Tooth Faeries. Sprites. Wood Faeries. Water Nymphs. And, surely, there was one marked "Bone Faeries".
\*\*\*\*more to follow in comment below\*\*\*\* |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | The Tooth Fairy (Odontophilus vulgaris) is a small species of wasp (roughly 1.7 mm in length) native to temperate regions of Europe and Asia. The creature gets its name from its affinity for teeth, which they use as a good source for their larvae. Tooth Fairies are eusocial, with workers bringing back animal teeth to the nest, soldiers, defending the nest from potential predators, and drones (the only males) to mate with the queen (which is the primary reproductive female). Tooth fairies cannot sting, instead, they taste horrible to most predators, using bright colors to indicate their awful tastes. These wasps feed on bony material as larvae, but become dedicated herbivores as adults.
Less harmless are Bone Fairies (Osteovespa ferox), which are larger and more aggressive relatives of Tooth Fairies. These large wasps (roughly a centimeter in length) have painful stings and powerful mandibles, which make them formidable foes for any creature brave or foolish enough to raid their nests for their nutritious larvae. Like their relatives, they are eusocial, but one key different separates them from their smaller cousins; their large, formidable mandibles allow them to digest bone. These wasps play an important role as scavengers in their native range (which is similar to tooth fairies), as they’re able to cut through rotting bone flesh with ease, eating some for themselves and taking the rest to regurgitate in the mouths of their hungry larvae. While not deadly to humans or other large animals, their stings and bites are incredibly painful, with many humans reporting that they wish for death. | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | It was a very creative trap. I knew the other kids were fooled by thinking the tooth fairy is made up by the parents, but I knew the truth. I mean, why would parents make up such a lie? What benefit would they get out of making up an imaginary creature that comes out in the night while I am sleeping and stealing my teeth in exchange for money? My friend Kat said her mum takes the teeth and slips the money in. What would my mum do with my baby teeth? They are not worth any money. Well, probably in this world they are not anyway.
​
It's as stupid as people not believing in Santa Clause. Come on, I see my mum and dad tiring away every day at work, why would they waste their hard earnt money pretending there is a Santa Clause?
​
I had my trap set. Nowhere on the internet could I find anything factual about tooth fairies, let alone fairies. It gripped at my thoughts why such a well-known creature would not have any information about it leaked on the web. Are these creatures keeping tabs on their data? Are they a misinterpreted creature that exists only in misguided stories? There was only one way to find out.
​
I installed a laser trip system all around my room. Thanks to my dad being an electrical engineer, I could salvage a lot of his unused equipment in the garage and program it using my laptop. In my head, I thought 'not bad for a six-year-old.'
​
A little bit about me, and yes, you, The one reading the narration of my thoughts somehow. I don't logically know you're there, but I can sense you there, silently reading and asking yourself who is this smart little kid trying to catch a fairy. My name is Mitch, and I am the smartest six year old in the world. That's probably all you have to know.
​
How did I learn about electronics? My dad taught me, and there is this site called YouTube, which is really helpful with things like this. It took me probably a whole 2 weeks to learn, but I eventually got there. Now back to my story.
​
The plan was this: once the tooth fairy takes my tooth from under my pillow, I am going to kidnap it and ask him or her to lead me to where it lives.
​
The night crept in, and I fell asleep. I programmed the lasers to vibrate my watch once they got tripped. I could barely sleep from the anticipation. 1am, nothing, 2am, nothing, 3am bzzzzzzz. I had to be quiet. I could scare the fairy away if I wake up abruptly, or not, maybe the fairy has invisible powers? I didn't know. I felt something feel under my pillow. I thought about grabbing him/her, but I had to use every single ounce of my will power to stay still until the right moment. As the fairy got close to the tooth under the pillow, I jumped up on top of him/her. "Got you!" I screamed, but a loud scream erupted, only to see my mum in my bedroom. "Mum!? Why are you trying to steal my tooth?" She stood there in pain after slipping out her hand and opening and closing it to ease it, "Well, I got a message from the tooth fairy to get your fallen tooth for her, so I came to do that," she replied.
​
"Why could she not get it herself?" I asked," it does not seem like a hard task?". My mum replied confidently, "well, currently, the tooth fairies are at war with the bone fairies, which has caused a lot of problems to their day to day job." "The bone fairies?" I asked, this spiked a lot of curiosity in my head. "Yes, well, they are another species of fairies that, instead of taking the teeth of children, they take their bones to sell on the black market. Long story short, the tooth fairies had fought them off in the previous years, protecting little children like yourself. And now, thanks to a new overlord of the bone fairies, they are trying to reclaim their power back." I felt the fear of having my bones stolen from me by a giant fairy rise in my head. The anxiety was getting unbearable. I picked up the tooth from under my pillow and gave it to her. "I hope the tooth fairies win this war, mum." My mum said confidently with a smile, "These teeth will be a great help in their cause, son, you have helped them a lot." She hugged me with what looked like joy in her eyes.
​
I couldn't help but feel the joy of helping light up in my chest. | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was midnight, and it was pitch black. The moon was blanketed behind a heavy layer of clouds, rendering it's light unable to reach the ground. But when a break in the clouds formed a single beam of moonlight streaked straight towards the earth. The ray of light managed to reach the bottom of a wide crevasse splitting through a hill. The beam landed. And woke something.
*Yes yes yes yes! The others are sleeping. This can be my chance.* His deranged little mind thought.
The being unfurled its wings, careful not to wake any of its brethren that were likewise clinging to the walls of this cave. Using both the talons on the ends of his long wings and his clawed hands he began climbing over the sleeping others.
*Quiet quiet quiet.*
The being looked like a man. But he had a pair of enormous leathery wings that sprouted from it’s back (you could still see the scar tissue from where it broke through the skin). His hands were calloused, and his skin was tough. He had even developed sharp bone-crunching teeth. And it’s skin’s original color was masked under a thick caked layer of dirt, and blood. Creating an almost bat-like creature that could barely be described as human.
As he was climbing out of the cave, a pair of wings rustled.
*“What the fuck do you think you’re doing shithead”* she hissed. Her voice was broken and fried.
*“I'm taking a shit, fuck off”* His equally stony voice snarled.
Her eyes were strained red and looked deep into his eyes.
*“No…,”* she thought for a second
*No no no shit shit shit*
*“It’s feeding time”* she cackled.
Another woke “*feeding time?”*
*“Both of you shut the fuck up, I'm just going”* He was interrupted by an explosive flurry of wings and fists as every single being sleeping in that cave woke in an instant and flew outward.
“*Get the fuck out of my way!”* someone screeched and shoved him to the side.
After picking himself up he jumped and flew off with the rest of the swarm. He tried to keep to the edges of the group, because there was nothing but fighting and swearing in the middle, and he had enough scares for a lifetime. He kept a careful eye on those leading at the front. Waiting for them to dive down. It didn't take long for them to find a graveyard.
*“THERE’S A FRESH ONE”* He heard someone yell.
*Holy shit! A fresh one!*
Bones always tasted the best when they’ve just been buried.
He pulled his wings in and sped to the surface. He pierced through the air and unfurled his wings just before he reached the ground. He and a few others were the first to land. He leaped for the square of freshly turned earth and began frantically digging. He was hungry. He could barely get a few inches down before the rest of the flock began fighting for the first to break the coffin. He was quickly overpowered.
“MOVE, SHITHEAD” someone yelled before kicking him away.
Almost 30 bone fairies were digging into the same spot. He flew back into the crowd. He clawed and fought his way through the swarm of violent fairies. But couldn’t make it to the coffin.
He fell onto his back, He felt a new collection of bruises and deep cuts throb on his skin. He didn’t want to try his luck again at the fresh grave. He looked around. The other graves were being robbed by numerous other fairies. He didn’t want to compete for food. So he found one of the remaining untouched graves. A lifetime of digging meant he was able to make quick work of the 6 feet of dirt he had to go through. He carved out a hole wide enough for his body. He dug until he hit the coffin. After a lot of smashing with his hands (which were so calloused that they were practically rocks), he managed to crack it open. Inside was the rotting corpse of one of his ancestors. He scraped off soft rancid flesh and magots to get to what he was truly after. The bones.
He began tearing bones free, and he began feasting. His strong teeth broke through the brittle bones, and he was able to crunch them up and swallow. He ripped off another limb and tore into the bones. He feasted on the skull. He savored fingers (those were his favorite). He was eating so fast and furiously he barely noticed the fairy above him. She was young, frail, and very skinny.
He hissed at her and she scuttled away. He began to go back to the body. But he paused. And he thought…
He angrily grabbed a femur and a hearty chunk of the spine. He lifted himself partially out of the hole. The young fairy looked at him. He threw the bones at her.
“Now fuck off!” | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "There honey. You should be all set. Just try and get some rest ok?" His mom said warily as she drew his bedroom curtains closed against the harsh morning night. Turning to leave she stopped and smiled and paused to look at him, turned off the light and silently departed.
In that brief moment Kyle could see how tired his mom was. He felt a twinge of guilt. She always hated his skateboarding.
Now, because of him, they just spent nearly 24 hours in the hospital, setting his broken Tibia and finding out that surgery was going to be a must, screws and all. He guessed maybe that rail slide 10 feet off the ground was a little stupid.
His guilt and shame began to ebb as the painkillers started to finally take hold. Kyle felt his eyelids grow warm. His face slacken. The throbbing pain in his leg turn into a wonderful fuzzy feeling. He felt a smile spread across his face.
'Finally', he thought, 'I'm going to sleep for thirty fucking hours'.
Just as his eyes came to a heavy close, a sharp metallic bang pierced his right ear. He sat up with a jolt, inviting the pain back into it's proper position of pulsating domination.
Kyle immediately began to sweat from the mixture of pain, fear, and effort. "What the fu-" he began but was again jolted up right in shocked, pained silence by another bang of metal.
As his wits returned to him, he realized it was from his bedroom window. Just knowing the location seemed to calm him. He thought to himself it was probably his stupid little brother Cody, or perhaps his best friend Derry, trying to get him to come to the window. 'I'm laid up in bed, moron' he thought to himself and the familiar put down of his friend returned him to further normalcy as he shifted lower to gain more comfort. 'Maybe it's these amazing pills' he thought as he closed his eyes.
No sooner did he start to settle in did smaller metal taps start to ring out. It seemed as though whoever it was, was jamming something under Kyle's window grate. A grinding metal sound began to get increasingly loud. He heard the grate pop out of the stucco wall outside.
Kyle was frozen in complete full body tension. Any pain forgotten. All of his focus was on the window. He couldn't even think about calling for his mom, who was probably dead asleep. His mind was a white canvass of fear.
One last loud pull and as the grate pulled away the glass shattered and the curtains fluttered, shoving white light in shards across his floor and walls.
A leg stepped through the window. Clad in dusty black leather pants and boots. An extremely muscled arm reached in and grabbed the top of the window frame and pulled in the rest of a giant leather clad man.
Kyle was blinded by the light and tried to focus on what stood before him. The man was so tall he crouched under the bedroom ceiling. He seemed to be some giant Norse biker.
However, the sounds made as he stepped towards a still frozen Kyle drew his eyes to the man's chest. He had several necklaces dangling from which appeared to be bones.
"I'm here for my Tibia." the man nearly growled. "I am the bone fairy and you no longer deserve it." With a flash the man grabbed Kyle's cast and squeezed, crushing it with ease. The pain caused Kyle to pass in and out of conciousness as waves of white hot pain coursed from his leg to the top of his skull and back again.
The fairy squeezed again, each finger puncturing Kyle's leg, squirming downwards toward his broken Tibia. A high pitched, barely audible scream whistled deep from his throat and out of his gaping mouth. Blackness began to overtake him as the pain reached unimaginable heights and the sounds of the tearing flesh and scraping of bone filled his ears.
As Kyle collapsed into a black abyss, the Fairy found his purchase and tightened his grip. In one quick jerk the Fairy pulled free a broken and bloodied tibia with bits of dangling flesh and sinew dancing droplets of blood everywhere: Kyle's ghost white cheeks, the hardwood floor, on the chest of the Fairy himself.
The Fairy reached into his leather vest and pulled out a roll of burlap and lovingly wrapped up Kyle's Tibia snugly. He swung around a satchel, opened the flap and placed it gently inside.
He then shifted things about in the bag and pulled out a five dollar bill. It seemed as if it was fresh from the presses, perfectly new, but now it was smeared with Kyle's blood. The Fairy crouched further down and placed it under the pillow behind Kyle's head.
The Fairy stopped, whispered near melodic hiss into Kyle's ear, "A foolishly broken bone is the Faeries to own." He turned and calmly stepped out of the broken window into the dimming light of the summer evening. | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | We’ve all come into contact with a house cat. Very few of us have ever gotten close to a lion, save for at a zoo, separated from it by an enclosure wall.
Tooth faeries are the house cats, in this situation. Before I go on—yes, I’m aware that this is a strange place to begin. One does not normally proceed with the assumption that the listener fully accepts the existence of tooth faeries. But I’ve not the mental energy to argue the reality of tooth faeries at the moment, so I’d ask that you grant me at least that much. With that said, I can tell my story.
Tooth faeries are not uncommon where I’m from. Many children have witnessed them, and many have even gone so far as to personally present the sprites with their baby teeth. Furthermore, most of us here are quite poor. Many lack adequate hygienic supplies and healthy foods to eat. Though they are not nearly as valuable or desirable as the healthy baby teeth of children, the faeries seem always to be nearby when somebody’s tooth is about ready to rot out of their skull. They offer to take the rotten teeth in exchange for a paltry amount of their strange currency—pure gold, shaped differently to indicate denomination. Though it has no use in human currency circulation, it can be brought to the town post office, where it can be exchanged for its worth in human money (this is measured by the weight of the gold).
I thought these events were innocent enough. And they were, largely. Nobody was ever seriously harmed by a tooth faerie, so far as I can remember. They’re a mischievous bunch, but are by no means a danger. The situation was quite the opposite, in fact—there were multiple accounts of faeries being killed by negligent humans who had failed to see them in time to avoid knocking them out of the air, or who mistook them for strange birds or pest insects, and went after them with a broomstick or some other weapon.
It has only been within this past week that I’ve learned about the existence of bone faeries. Close relatives of the tooth faeries, though you wouldn’t expect it. Where tooth faeries are house cats, bone faeries are lions.
Nobody was quite sure what to think when Bill Adams’ skin was found draped over a tree bough one morning. His flimsy face reflected the shock and horror we felt. We all reacted with some type of fear or another, but we had nowhere to concentrate that fear. We had nobody to blame.
At first, it became a manhunt. It was assumed some human killer lived amongst us. We all convinced ourselves that some neighbor of ours had been the one to inelegantly flay Bill and toss his skin and innards up into the trees. Was it Marjorie Ingram, the strange spinster at the edge of town? Or Tom Larkin, the taxidermist who likes to keep to himself?
A few nights passed in fearful suspense before we found the next victim. It was Marjorie. The poor woman had been later than usual walking home from work, and the sun had set before she’d reached her house. It was proposed that something had happened to her after the sun had gone down, and we all agreed. Nobody could really substantiate this claim with any evidence—it just felt like the truth. What killer strikes in the day-time, after all?
After the third skin was found on the riverbank—that of young Ethan Garcia, the local paperboy, loved by all—I elected to sit up in the park the next night and find out, once and for all, what the *hell* was going on in my little town. I assured the others I’d be armed and alert. I had very little to do on the farm that day, and could afford to sleep through the day so as to retain some energy for the night-time. When the sun set, I’d be out in the park, gun in hand, ready to confront whoever had been picking us off.
I will forever remember and regret this night. It is not yet over, but I have given up my night watch.
I saw—lord above, it can’t have been real—a large, ghostly white figure come out of the sky and land upon the roof of Mary Baghmanyan. It let out a sound I cannot describe. It’s not that I did not hear it well enough (in fact, it will echo in my head until the moment I die), rather, I do not believe there exist words in any human language to describe what I have heard.
This figure—vaguely humanoid, but much too long and tall in the limbs and neck, and considerably larger than myself (a slightly taller-than-average man)—then descended from the roof. I dove and hid myself in a hedgerow so as not to be seen. I watched it enter Mary’s house through the window. I was then left in the hedgerow alone. Not another soul was stirring, as far as I could tell. So I waited.
After a mo it’s or two, the creature emerged again, carrying in its free arm Mary Baghmanyan herself, still sleeping soundly. I watched the monster lay her on the empty street and insert a long, sharp talon into the soft jelly of her eye. The finger to which the talon belonged jerked and twitched inside Mary’s skull. Was it scrambling her brain?
The creature then tore off Mary’s nightgown and began to make an incision, which ran over a considerable length of Mary’s body. From there, it began to *peel Mary’s skin from her bones*. The flesh not being desired, the creature nonchalantly tossed it onto Mary’s roof, where it landed in a bloody heap, collecting in her gutter.
Next, the monster began to remove Mary’s organs. These the creature scattered in every direction. Mary’s intestines were hucked onto John Bower’s doorstep. Her kidneys and her liver were left in the road. Her eyes were thrown into the very hedge in which I hid, landing just feet from me.
The creature then began to consume the bones of Mary Baghmanyan. It savored each taste, and was entirely absorbed in the act of eating. I took this opportunity to sprint back to my home, wherein I am now writing.
I have gone to my study and browsed the books therein. Only one book—a book of various magical beings—so much as mentioned bone faeries. The entry read as follows:
>The tooth faerie is a very common relative of the much more dangerous bone faerie. The bone faerie, while fearsome, is quite uncommon. It is unlikely you will ever encounter such a creature. | First story:
You work at a cemetery. Sometimes, you have to stay extra late at night. One night, there is a bone fairy on the other side of the cemetery. It looks like a ghostly figure and has a faint glow to it. You feel a chill down your spine when you look at it. It sets its hands down on a grave and a skeleton of a long dead human floats Above ground. The bone fairy rips aggressively at the skeleton until only the few teeth left fall on the ground. You can hear the crunching of the stuff bones snapping. A nearby noise makes the fairy jump and leave out of thin air in a ghostly wind. The cause of the noise comes out of hiding. You barely see a fairy a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It grabs the teeth from the skeleton and leaves in a hurry.
Second story:
It is once again late at night. The roads are quiet, hardly any cars driving by. There is a dead animal on the side of the road. The bone fairy appears silently and tears at the skin of the animal. It pulls apart the bones and leaves as silently as it came, leaving off the rest for the birds. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. |
It was midnight, and it was pitch black. The moon was blanketed behind a heavy layer of clouds, rendering it's light unable to reach the ground. But when a break in the clouds formed a single beam of moonlight streaked straight towards the earth. The ray of light managed to reach the bottom of a wide crevasse splitting through a hill. The beam landed. And woke something.
*Yes yes yes yes! The others are sleeping. This can be my chance.* His deranged little mind thought.
The being unfurled its wings, careful not to wake any of its brethren that were likewise clinging to the walls of this cave. Using both the talons on the ends of his long wings and his clawed hands he began climbing over the sleeping others.
*Quiet quiet quiet.*
The being looked like a man. But he had a pair of enormous leathery wings that sprouted from it’s back (you could still see the scar tissue from where it broke through the skin). His hands were calloused, and his skin was tough. He had even developed sharp bone-crunching teeth. And it’s skin’s original color was masked under a thick caked layer of dirt, and blood. Creating an almost bat-like creature that could barely be described as human.
As he was climbing out of the cave, a pair of wings rustled.
*“What the fuck do you think you’re doing shithead”* she hissed. Her voice was broken and fried.
*“I'm taking a shit, fuck off”* His equally stony voice snarled.
Her eyes were strained red and looked deep into his eyes.
*“No…,”* she thought for a second
*No no no shit shit shit*
*“It’s feeding time”* she cackled.
Another woke “*feeding time?”*
*“Both of you shut the fuck up, I'm just going”* He was interrupted by an explosive flurry of wings and fists as every single being sleeping in that cave woke in an instant and flew outward.
“*Get the fuck out of my way!”* someone screeched and shoved him to the side.
After picking himself up he jumped and flew off with the rest of the swarm. He tried to keep to the edges of the group, because there was nothing but fighting and swearing in the middle, and he had enough scares for a lifetime. He kept a careful eye on those leading at the front. Waiting for them to dive down. It didn't take long for them to find a graveyard.
*“THERE’S A FRESH ONE”* He heard someone yell.
*Holy shit! A fresh one!*
Bones always tasted the best when they’ve just been buried.
He pulled his wings in and sped to the surface. He pierced through the air and unfurled his wings just before he reached the ground. He and a few others were the first to land. He leaped for the square of freshly turned earth and began frantically digging. He was hungry. He could barely get a few inches down before the rest of the flock began fighting for the first to break the coffin. He was quickly overpowered.
“MOVE, SHITHEAD” someone yelled before kicking him away.
Almost 30 bone fairies were digging into the same spot. He flew back into the crowd. He clawed and fought his way through the swarm of violent fairies. But couldn’t make it to the coffin.
He fell onto his back, He felt a new collection of bruises and deep cuts throb on his skin. He didn’t want to try his luck again at the fresh grave. He looked around. The other graves were being robbed by numerous other fairies. He didn’t want to compete for food. So he found one of the remaining untouched graves. A lifetime of digging meant he was able to make quick work of the 6 feet of dirt he had to go through. He carved out a hole wide enough for his body. He dug until he hit the coffin. After a lot of smashing with his hands (which were so calloused that they were practically rocks), he managed to crack it open. Inside was the rotting corpse of one of his ancestors. He scraped off soft rancid flesh and magots to get to what he was truly after. The bones.
He began tearing bones free, and he began feasting. His strong teeth broke through the brittle bones, and he was able to crunch them up and swallow. He ripped off another limb and tore into the bones. He feasted on the skull. He savored fingers (those were his favorite). He was eating so fast and furiously he barely noticed the fairy above him. She was young, frail, and very skinny.
He hissed at her and she scuttled away. He began to go back to the body. But he paused. And he thought…
He angrily grabbed a femur and a hearty chunk of the spine. He lifted himself partially out of the hole. The young fairy looked at him. He threw the bones at her.
“Now fuck off!” |
It was broad daylight in New York, and the grey coat of mundane had settled on the city streets, broken up by pockets of passion and interest in flashing billboards that screamed “LOOSE WOMEN” and “VACATION YOU'LL NEVER FORGET”. Crawling down to the level where human voices could be heard, a teen with a pocket of passion walked the streets, a glow in his smile and his hands in his pockets.
“So you haven’t seen the tooth fairy have ye?” a voice cantankered out.
He whipped his head around the trash littered alleyway, seeing no one.
“So you have?” with a grin.
A chuckle bounced out from behind a trash can.
“Ooh no, those little bitchin buggers are too fast, run away before your eyes can catch ‘em. But have you met a bone fairy?”
The young man’s eyes peaked with interest, although he was well aware that the mundane coat followed rules, and was only interrupted behind trash cans when crack-cocaine was involved.
“What, do they take femurs? Thumbs?”
The laugh bounced out again, this time resistance to motion cutting it short.
“No… they take the place of people who lose them.”
The pocket of passion in him began to flicker, his eyes widening as his worn through sneakers began to backpedal out of the alleyway. “Fuck this shit, No way. No way no way.” Thoughts of turning his back to the trash cans and sprinting pounded in him, but he understood that it was more foolhardy than dropping the gun in his pocket.
The laugh didn’t bounce this time, it spun towards him.
Out of the trashcan, a voice screamed “I'm sure you don't understand young boy. What it's like to live like this.” Rising from the trash a chicken bone emerged. A chicken bone? Wait, but it is attached to…
“Oh god, my mamas gonna whip my ass.” The young man spat out as he backpedaled faster than the swindlers on street corners.
A mess of bones of various sizes hanging from a cereal box like a coat rack rose out of its own fruition, almost comical until it began to float and assemble. A...human? Formed together out of the greasy sucked-on bones one could only find on “unforgettable vacations” and KFC. Still, he almost laughed, wondering if he was still tripping on last night's acid. But the bones formed a maw that stretched impossibly wide, and the laughter caught in his throat. “CARE TO BREAK A BONE YOUNG MAN?” |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "Mr. President, I'm glad you made time for our meeting so soon after inauguration."
"The National Security Council made sure it was the highest priority. I'm actually surprised how little time you wanted out of my schedule."
"Yes, well..." The agent shuffled the small pile of manilla folders on the desk and pulled one out. "It won't take long." The two middle-aged white men, sitting in a windowless room in their suits and ties and lapel pins looked at each other.
"At this level of security you might expect aliens or something. You've been made aware of the mundane stuff such as LSD experiments and Opium trade. What I'm about to tell you is simple but deeply disturbing. Have you ever broke a bone, Mr. President?"
Unsure and a little taken aback, the other man stammered, "uh, yes... Uh an arm when I was young."
"And you got a cast?"
"Of course." The inquisitive look deepened on his face.
"You got that cast to set the bone, but medical professionals agree that splints are perfectly capable of accomplishing this result with less cost and complexity - as well as being able to itch inside during treatment. No, sir, casts are to prevent Bone Fairies."
With that, the president froze. He endured as much hazing as anyone else in the Skull & Bones but he thought they'd had their fun two nights ago with all that tomato juice. Were they back for more? Ted liked a good joke and knew people in the NSC... The two men were still looking at each other and the president took a second to admire the deadpan delivery, truth or not.
He sat up straight and calmly asked, in his own deadpan, "Bone Fairies."
"Yes, sir, Bone Fairies."
"Well I'm going to need more information."
The agent slid the folder across the desk. Inside was a single drawing of a gnarly and truly ugly creature. There was also a list of literature altered and censored with originals on storage and a list of people who are aware of the 'threat.' An excerpt from an old translated text was stapled to the drawing.
> Bone Fairies are attracted to bruising and breakage of bones. The severity of attraction is greatest when bones break the skin. These Fairies are also known as Greater Fairies. All fairies live in dead trees, preferring dry conifers.
> * Herodotus
The president was now sure this was a hoax. But he couldn't break, if he did he wouldn't get the prize! Maybe they'd chain him to the Owl this year?
"Ok. Do we have proof?"
"No, sir." He started sliding folders across the table, each open to the subject: "We don't have proof for Bone Fairies, Tooth Fairies, Amber Hawks, Sentient Covids, Astral Juniper Trees, or Polysalamaders." He held up one last folder. "We have proof for Sasquatch. Believed extinct in 1897; all later evidence is hoaxes from folklore."
"The tooth fairy?" The president said, picking that up to look at it, in less of a deadpan and more honest interest.
"No, Tooth Fairies. With the rise of proper hygiene they seem to be hibernating or extinct. Hibernating is surmised since their presence was worldwide across history and without trace of transmission. Or... They are juvenile Bone Fairies."
"How long has that been a secret? How can we, uh... you be sure?"
"All we have is the depth of literature and express orders from Thomas Jefferson to keep it secret from personal experience with Amber Hawks. He didn't explain."
Mr. President had had enough. He really wanted to be tied to the Owl but... Come on.
Edit: just a word | "Did you put it under your pillow?"
"Yes, mom!" I finally lost my right pointy tooth and tonight, I was going to cash in.
"Remember to elevate your leg. We'll have to call Dr. Doofenschmirtz tomorrow and see what the matter is with that, alright honey?"
"Yes, mom." I wobbled over to my bed and hopped under the covers. I could barely sleep I was so excited. I was going to get five, no ten, no twenty, no thirty dollars! No, let me be realistic, minimum eight. But still! I could go to the candy store and get whatever I wanted. Double-bouble. Hershey's. Dum-dums. I would have it all. It would all be mine. (Evil laugh)
I finally succumbed to the dark room and soothing breeze when I fell asleep and heard a footstep. Who's that? I turned around and looked for a tooth fairy. Where could they be? I got out and checked the hall. I opened my closet. I checked the drawers. Nothing. Maybe she would come later, I began to think the kid next door lost one, as well.
I turned around to go back into my bed when I saw it. It was seven feet tall. It had massive, bug wings. His teeth were so big they couldn't fit into his mouth. "Johnny Cade, I need your bones!"
"Ahh!" I tried to run down the hall, but my leg hurt too much. I slid on my butt down the stairs, leaving brusises and cuts. I wobbled to the door, but knew I would never outrun it like this. I took my bat and used it as a cane, slowly but surely getting away. I turned back and could see his beety eyes at the doorway.
He was going to catch me! I ditched the bat and began running down the block. I needed to get away. Ow. He would catch me. Aw. He would kill me! AHHH! My leg hurt so badly I hopped behind Mr. Wilkin's car. The floor was so cold tonight. I began shivering. I was practically binding my teeth with my hands to stop them from chattering.
Suddenly, I heard his footsteps. They were loud but slow. His breath was heavy. I made a sign of the cross and began praying he wouldn't find me, he wouldn't sense me.
Finally, his steps went past me and all I could hear was their loud noise in the distance. I took a deep breath and exhaled. "He didn't find me. Whew." I sat there looking up, thankful I hadn't had my bones stolen by such a thing. Eventually, I came to my sense and stood up and went home.
On my way there I saw a pile of rocks, being the collector I am, I looked around. They were all normal and ugly, some were just piles of concrete until I laid my eyes on one particular one. It was so shiny and round, almost like it was from a beach. Oh, I just had to get it for my collection! I picked it up, stuffed it in my pocket when I began to feel rain on my head. Was there on the forecast? I stood up and saw a large shadow over me, covering the streetlight. It was almost like a man, until it had big bones sticking out on each side. Almost like wings...
Oh, no. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | "There honey. You should be all set. Just try and get some rest ok?" His mom said warily as she drew his bedroom curtains closed against the harsh morning night. Turning to leave she stopped and smiled and paused to look at him, turned off the light and silently departed.
In that brief moment Kyle could see how tired his mom was. He felt a twinge of guilt. She always hated his skateboarding.
Now, because of him, they just spent nearly 24 hours in the hospital, setting his broken Tibia and finding out that surgery was going to be a must, screws and all. He guessed maybe that rail slide 10 feet off the ground was a little stupid.
His guilt and shame began to ebb as the painkillers started to finally take hold. Kyle felt his eyelids grow warm. His face slacken. The throbbing pain in his leg turn into a wonderful fuzzy feeling. He felt a smile spread across his face.
'Finally', he thought, 'I'm going to sleep for thirty fucking hours'.
Just as his eyes came to a heavy close, a sharp metallic bang pierced his right ear. He sat up with a jolt, inviting the pain back into it's proper position of pulsating domination.
Kyle immediately began to sweat from the mixture of pain, fear, and effort. "What the fu-" he began but was again jolted up right in shocked, pained silence by another bang of metal.
As his wits returned to him, he realized it was from his bedroom window. Just knowing the location seemed to calm him. He thought to himself it was probably his stupid little brother Cody, or perhaps his best friend Derry, trying to get him to come to the window. 'I'm laid up in bed, moron' he thought to himself and the familiar put down of his friend returned him to further normalcy as he shifted lower to gain more comfort. 'Maybe it's these amazing pills' he thought as he closed his eyes.
No sooner did he start to settle in did smaller metal taps start to ring out. It seemed as though whoever it was, was jamming something under Kyle's window grate. A grinding metal sound began to get increasingly loud. He heard the grate pop out of the stucco wall outside.
Kyle was frozen in complete full body tension. Any pain forgotten. All of his focus was on the window. He couldn't even think about calling for his mom, who was probably dead asleep. His mind was a white canvass of fear.
One last loud pull and as the grate pulled away the glass shattered and the curtains fluttered, shoving white light in shards across his floor and walls.
A leg stepped through the window. Clad in dusty black leather pants and boots. An extremely muscled arm reached in and grabbed the top of the window frame and pulled in the rest of a giant leather clad man.
Kyle was blinded by the light and tried to focus on what stood before him. The man was so tall he crouched under the bedroom ceiling. He seemed to be some giant Norse biker.
However, the sounds made as he stepped towards a still frozen Kyle drew his eyes to the man's chest. He had several necklaces dangling from which appeared to be bones.
"I'm here for my Tibia." the man nearly growled. "I am the bone fairy and you no longer deserve it." With a flash the man grabbed Kyle's cast and squeezed, crushing it with ease. The pain caused Kyle to pass in and out of conciousness as waves of white hot pain coursed from his leg to the top of his skull and back again.
The fairy squeezed again, each finger puncturing Kyle's leg, squirming downwards toward his broken Tibia. A high pitched, barely audible scream whistled deep from his throat and out of his gaping mouth. Blackness began to overtake him as the pain reached unimaginable heights and the sounds of the tearing flesh and scraping of bone filled his ears.
As Kyle collapsed into a black abyss, the Fairy found his purchase and tightened his grip. In one quick jerk the Fairy pulled free a broken and bloodied tibia with bits of dangling flesh and sinew dancing droplets of blood everywhere: Kyle's ghost white cheeks, the hardwood floor, on the chest of the Fairy himself.
The Fairy reached into his leather vest and pulled out a roll of burlap and lovingly wrapped up Kyle's Tibia snugly. He swung around a satchel, opened the flap and placed it gently inside.
He then shifted things about in the bag and pulled out a five dollar bill. It seemed as if it was fresh from the presses, perfectly new, but now it was smeared with Kyle's blood. The Fairy crouched further down and placed it under the pillow behind Kyle's head.
The Fairy stopped, whispered near melodic hiss into Kyle's ear, "A foolishly broken bone is the Faeries to own." He turned and calmly stepped out of the broken window into the dimming light of the summer evening. | "Did you put it under your pillow?"
"Yes, mom!" I finally lost my right pointy tooth and tonight, I was going to cash in.
"Remember to elevate your leg. We'll have to call Dr. Doofenschmirtz tomorrow and see what the matter is with that, alright honey?"
"Yes, mom." I wobbled over to my bed and hopped under the covers. I could barely sleep I was so excited. I was going to get five, no ten, no twenty, no thirty dollars! No, let me be realistic, minimum eight. But still! I could go to the candy store and get whatever I wanted. Double-bouble. Hershey's. Dum-dums. I would have it all. It would all be mine. (Evil laugh)
I finally succumbed to the dark room and soothing breeze when I fell asleep and heard a footstep. Who's that? I turned around and looked for a tooth fairy. Where could they be? I got out and checked the hall. I opened my closet. I checked the drawers. Nothing. Maybe she would come later, I began to think the kid next door lost one, as well.
I turned around to go back into my bed when I saw it. It was seven feet tall. It had massive, bug wings. His teeth were so big they couldn't fit into his mouth. "Johnny Cade, I need your bones!"
"Ahh!" I tried to run down the hall, but my leg hurt too much. I slid on my butt down the stairs, leaving brusises and cuts. I wobbled to the door, but knew I would never outrun it like this. I took my bat and used it as a cane, slowly but surely getting away. I turned back and could see his beety eyes at the doorway.
He was going to catch me! I ditched the bat and began running down the block. I needed to get away. Ow. He would catch me. Aw. He would kill me! AHHH! My leg hurt so badly I hopped behind Mr. Wilkin's car. The floor was so cold tonight. I began shivering. I was practically binding my teeth with my hands to stop them from chattering.
Suddenly, I heard his footsteps. They were loud but slow. His breath was heavy. I made a sign of the cross and began praying he wouldn't find me, he wouldn't sense me.
Finally, his steps went past me and all I could hear was their loud noise in the distance. I took a deep breath and exhaled. "He didn't find me. Whew." I sat there looking up, thankful I hadn't had my bones stolen by such a thing. Eventually, I came to my sense and stood up and went home.
On my way there I saw a pile of rocks, being the collector I am, I looked around. They were all normal and ugly, some were just piles of concrete until I laid my eyes on one particular one. It was so shiny and round, almost like it was from a beach. Oh, I just had to get it for my collection! I picked it up, stuffed it in my pocket when I began to feel rain on my head. Was there on the forecast? I stood up and saw a large shadow over me, covering the streetlight. It was almost like a man, until it had big bones sticking out on each side. Almost like wings...
Oh, no. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | We’ve all come into contact with a house cat. Very few of us have ever gotten close to a lion, save for at a zoo, separated from it by an enclosure wall.
Tooth faeries are the house cats, in this situation. Before I go on—yes, I’m aware that this is a strange place to begin. One does not normally proceed with the assumption that the listener fully accepts the existence of tooth faeries. But I’ve not the mental energy to argue the reality of tooth faeries at the moment, so I’d ask that you grant me at least that much. With that said, I can tell my story.
Tooth faeries are not uncommon where I’m from. Many children have witnessed them, and many have even gone so far as to personally present the sprites with their baby teeth. Furthermore, most of us here are quite poor. Many lack adequate hygienic supplies and healthy foods to eat. Though they are not nearly as valuable or desirable as the healthy baby teeth of children, the faeries seem always to be nearby when somebody’s tooth is about ready to rot out of their skull. They offer to take the rotten teeth in exchange for a paltry amount of their strange currency—pure gold, shaped differently to indicate denomination. Though it has no use in human currency circulation, it can be brought to the town post office, where it can be exchanged for its worth in human money (this is measured by the weight of the gold).
I thought these events were innocent enough. And they were, largely. Nobody was ever seriously harmed by a tooth faerie, so far as I can remember. They’re a mischievous bunch, but are by no means a danger. The situation was quite the opposite, in fact—there were multiple accounts of faeries being killed by negligent humans who had failed to see them in time to avoid knocking them out of the air, or who mistook them for strange birds or pest insects, and went after them with a broomstick or some other weapon.
It has only been within this past week that I’ve learned about the existence of bone faeries. Close relatives of the tooth faeries, though you wouldn’t expect it. Where tooth faeries are house cats, bone faeries are lions.
Nobody was quite sure what to think when Bill Adams’ skin was found draped over a tree bough one morning. His flimsy face reflected the shock and horror we felt. We all reacted with some type of fear or another, but we had nowhere to concentrate that fear. We had nobody to blame.
At first, it became a manhunt. It was assumed some human killer lived amongst us. We all convinced ourselves that some neighbor of ours had been the one to inelegantly flay Bill and toss his skin and innards up into the trees. Was it Marjorie Ingram, the strange spinster at the edge of town? Or Tom Larkin, the taxidermist who likes to keep to himself?
A few nights passed in fearful suspense before we found the next victim. It was Marjorie. The poor woman had been later than usual walking home from work, and the sun had set before she’d reached her house. It was proposed that something had happened to her after the sun had gone down, and we all agreed. Nobody could really substantiate this claim with any evidence—it just felt like the truth. What killer strikes in the day-time, after all?
After the third skin was found on the riverbank—that of young Ethan Garcia, the local paperboy, loved by all—I elected to sit up in the park the next night and find out, once and for all, what the *hell* was going on in my little town. I assured the others I’d be armed and alert. I had very little to do on the farm that day, and could afford to sleep through the day so as to retain some energy for the night-time. When the sun set, I’d be out in the park, gun in hand, ready to confront whoever had been picking us off.
I will forever remember and regret this night. It is not yet over, but I have given up my night watch.
I saw—lord above, it can’t have been real—a large, ghostly white figure come out of the sky and land upon the roof of Mary Baghmanyan. It let out a sound I cannot describe. It’s not that I did not hear it well enough (in fact, it will echo in my head until the moment I die), rather, I do not believe there exist words in any human language to describe what I have heard.
This figure—vaguely humanoid, but much too long and tall in the limbs and neck, and considerably larger than myself (a slightly taller-than-average man)—then descended from the roof. I dove and hid myself in a hedgerow so as not to be seen. I watched it enter Mary’s house through the window. I was then left in the hedgerow alone. Not another soul was stirring, as far as I could tell. So I waited.
After a mo it’s or two, the creature emerged again, carrying in its free arm Mary Baghmanyan herself, still sleeping soundly. I watched the monster lay her on the empty street and insert a long, sharp talon into the soft jelly of her eye. The finger to which the talon belonged jerked and twitched inside Mary’s skull. Was it scrambling her brain?
The creature then tore off Mary’s nightgown and began to make an incision, which ran over a considerable length of Mary’s body. From there, it began to *peel Mary’s skin from her bones*. The flesh not being desired, the creature nonchalantly tossed it onto Mary’s roof, where it landed in a bloody heap, collecting in her gutter.
Next, the monster began to remove Mary’s organs. These the creature scattered in every direction. Mary’s intestines were hucked onto John Bower’s doorstep. Her kidneys and her liver were left in the road. Her eyes were thrown into the very hedge in which I hid, landing just feet from me.
The creature then began to consume the bones of Mary Baghmanyan. It savored each taste, and was entirely absorbed in the act of eating. I took this opportunity to sprint back to my home, wherein I am now writing.
I have gone to my study and browsed the books therein. Only one book—a book of various magical beings—so much as mentioned bone faeries. The entry read as follows:
>The tooth faerie is a very common relative of the much more dangerous bone faerie. The bone faerie, while fearsome, is quite uncommon. It is unlikely you will ever encounter such a creature. | "Did you put it under your pillow?"
"Yes, mom!" I finally lost my right pointy tooth and tonight, I was going to cash in.
"Remember to elevate your leg. We'll have to call Dr. Doofenschmirtz tomorrow and see what the matter is with that, alright honey?"
"Yes, mom." I wobbled over to my bed and hopped under the covers. I could barely sleep I was so excited. I was going to get five, no ten, no twenty, no thirty dollars! No, let me be realistic, minimum eight. But still! I could go to the candy store and get whatever I wanted. Double-bouble. Hershey's. Dum-dums. I would have it all. It would all be mine. (Evil laugh)
I finally succumbed to the dark room and soothing breeze when I fell asleep and heard a footstep. Who's that? I turned around and looked for a tooth fairy. Where could they be? I got out and checked the hall. I opened my closet. I checked the drawers. Nothing. Maybe she would come later, I began to think the kid next door lost one, as well.
I turned around to go back into my bed when I saw it. It was seven feet tall. It had massive, bug wings. His teeth were so big they couldn't fit into his mouth. "Johnny Cade, I need your bones!"
"Ahh!" I tried to run down the hall, but my leg hurt too much. I slid on my butt down the stairs, leaving brusises and cuts. I wobbled to the door, but knew I would never outrun it like this. I took my bat and used it as a cane, slowly but surely getting away. I turned back and could see his beety eyes at the doorway.
He was going to catch me! I ditched the bat and began running down the block. I needed to get away. Ow. He would catch me. Aw. He would kill me! AHHH! My leg hurt so badly I hopped behind Mr. Wilkin's car. The floor was so cold tonight. I began shivering. I was practically binding my teeth with my hands to stop them from chattering.
Suddenly, I heard his footsteps. They were loud but slow. His breath was heavy. I made a sign of the cross and began praying he wouldn't find me, he wouldn't sense me.
Finally, his steps went past me and all I could hear was their loud noise in the distance. I took a deep breath and exhaled. "He didn't find me. Whew." I sat there looking up, thankful I hadn't had my bones stolen by such a thing. Eventually, I came to my sense and stood up and went home.
On my way there I saw a pile of rocks, being the collector I am, I looked around. They were all normal and ugly, some were just piles of concrete until I laid my eyes on one particular one. It was so shiny and round, almost like it was from a beach. Oh, I just had to get it for my collection! I picked it up, stuffed it in my pocket when I began to feel rain on my head. Was there on the forecast? I stood up and saw a large shadow over me, covering the streetlight. It was almost like a man, until it had big bones sticking out on each side. Almost like wings...
Oh, no. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | We’ve all come into contact with a house cat. Very few of us have ever gotten close to a lion, save for at a zoo, separated from it by an enclosure wall.
Tooth faeries are the house cats, in this situation. Before I go on—yes, I’m aware that this is a strange place to begin. One does not normally proceed with the assumption that the listener fully accepts the existence of tooth faeries. But I’ve not the mental energy to argue the reality of tooth faeries at the moment, so I’d ask that you grant me at least that much. With that said, I can tell my story.
Tooth faeries are not uncommon where I’m from. Many children have witnessed them, and many have even gone so far as to personally present the sprites with their baby teeth. Furthermore, most of us here are quite poor. Many lack adequate hygienic supplies and healthy foods to eat. Though they are not nearly as valuable or desirable as the healthy baby teeth of children, the faeries seem always to be nearby when somebody’s tooth is about ready to rot out of their skull. They offer to take the rotten teeth in exchange for a paltry amount of their strange currency—pure gold, shaped differently to indicate denomination. Though it has no use in human currency circulation, it can be brought to the town post office, where it can be exchanged for its worth in human money (this is measured by the weight of the gold).
I thought these events were innocent enough. And they were, largely. Nobody was ever seriously harmed by a tooth faerie, so far as I can remember. They’re a mischievous bunch, but are by no means a danger. The situation was quite the opposite, in fact—there were multiple accounts of faeries being killed by negligent humans who had failed to see them in time to avoid knocking them out of the air, or who mistook them for strange birds or pest insects, and went after them with a broomstick or some other weapon.
It has only been within this past week that I’ve learned about the existence of bone faeries. Close relatives of the tooth faeries, though you wouldn’t expect it. Where tooth faeries are house cats, bone faeries are lions.
Nobody was quite sure what to think when Bill Adams’ skin was found draped over a tree bough one morning. His flimsy face reflected the shock and horror we felt. We all reacted with some type of fear or another, but we had nowhere to concentrate that fear. We had nobody to blame.
At first, it became a manhunt. It was assumed some human killer lived amongst us. We all convinced ourselves that some neighbor of ours had been the one to inelegantly flay Bill and toss his skin and innards up into the trees. Was it Marjorie Ingram, the strange spinster at the edge of town? Or Tom Larkin, the taxidermist who likes to keep to himself?
A few nights passed in fearful suspense before we found the next victim. It was Marjorie. The poor woman had been later than usual walking home from work, and the sun had set before she’d reached her house. It was proposed that something had happened to her after the sun had gone down, and we all agreed. Nobody could really substantiate this claim with any evidence—it just felt like the truth. What killer strikes in the day-time, after all?
After the third skin was found on the riverbank—that of young Ethan Garcia, the local paperboy, loved by all—I elected to sit up in the park the next night and find out, once and for all, what the *hell* was going on in my little town. I assured the others I’d be armed and alert. I had very little to do on the farm that day, and could afford to sleep through the day so as to retain some energy for the night-time. When the sun set, I’d be out in the park, gun in hand, ready to confront whoever had been picking us off.
I will forever remember and regret this night. It is not yet over, but I have given up my night watch.
I saw—lord above, it can’t have been real—a large, ghostly white figure come out of the sky and land upon the roof of Mary Baghmanyan. It let out a sound I cannot describe. It’s not that I did not hear it well enough (in fact, it will echo in my head until the moment I die), rather, I do not believe there exist words in any human language to describe what I have heard.
This figure—vaguely humanoid, but much too long and tall in the limbs and neck, and considerably larger than myself (a slightly taller-than-average man)—then descended from the roof. I dove and hid myself in a hedgerow so as not to be seen. I watched it enter Mary’s house through the window. I was then left in the hedgerow alone. Not another soul was stirring, as far as I could tell. So I waited.
After a mo it’s or two, the creature emerged again, carrying in its free arm Mary Baghmanyan herself, still sleeping soundly. I watched the monster lay her on the empty street and insert a long, sharp talon into the soft jelly of her eye. The finger to which the talon belonged jerked and twitched inside Mary’s skull. Was it scrambling her brain?
The creature then tore off Mary’s nightgown and began to make an incision, which ran over a considerable length of Mary’s body. From there, it began to *peel Mary’s skin from her bones*. The flesh not being desired, the creature nonchalantly tossed it onto Mary’s roof, where it landed in a bloody heap, collecting in her gutter.
Next, the monster began to remove Mary’s organs. These the creature scattered in every direction. Mary’s intestines were hucked onto John Bower’s doorstep. Her kidneys and her liver were left in the road. Her eyes were thrown into the very hedge in which I hid, landing just feet from me.
The creature then began to consume the bones of Mary Baghmanyan. It savored each taste, and was entirely absorbed in the act of eating. I took this opportunity to sprint back to my home, wherein I am now writing.
I have gone to my study and browsed the books therein. Only one book—a book of various magical beings—so much as mentioned bone faeries. The entry read as follows:
>The tooth faerie is a very common relative of the much more dangerous bone faerie. The bone faerie, while fearsome, is quite uncommon. It is unlikely you will ever encounter such a creature. | "Mr. President, I'm glad you made time for our meeting so soon after inauguration."
"The National Security Council made sure it was the highest priority. I'm actually surprised how little time you wanted out of my schedule."
"Yes, well..." The agent shuffled the small pile of manilla folders on the desk and pulled one out. "It won't take long." The two middle-aged white men, sitting in a windowless room in their suits and ties and lapel pins looked at each other.
"At this level of security you might expect aliens or something. You've been made aware of the mundane stuff such as LSD experiments and Opium trade. What I'm about to tell you is simple but deeply disturbing. Have you ever broke a bone, Mr. President?"
Unsure and a little taken aback, the other man stammered, "uh, yes... Uh an arm when I was young."
"And you got a cast?"
"Of course." The inquisitive look deepened on his face.
"You got that cast to set the bone, but medical professionals agree that splints are perfectly capable of accomplishing this result with less cost and complexity - as well as being able to itch inside during treatment. No, sir, casts are to prevent Bone Fairies."
With that, the president froze. He endured as much hazing as anyone else in the Skull & Bones but he thought they'd had their fun two nights ago with all that tomato juice. Were they back for more? Ted liked a good joke and knew people in the NSC... The two men were still looking at each other and the president took a second to admire the deadpan delivery, truth or not.
He sat up straight and calmly asked, in his own deadpan, "Bone Fairies."
"Yes, sir, Bone Fairies."
"Well I'm going to need more information."
The agent slid the folder across the desk. Inside was a single drawing of a gnarly and truly ugly creature. There was also a list of literature altered and censored with originals on storage and a list of people who are aware of the 'threat.' An excerpt from an old translated text was stapled to the drawing.
> Bone Fairies are attracted to bruising and breakage of bones. The severity of attraction is greatest when bones break the skin. These Fairies are also known as Greater Fairies. All fairies live in dead trees, preferring dry conifers.
> * Herodotus
The president was now sure this was a hoax. But he couldn't break, if he did he wouldn't get the prize! Maybe they'd chain him to the Owl this year?
"Ok. Do we have proof?"
"No, sir." He started sliding folders across the table, each open to the subject: "We don't have proof for Bone Fairies, Tooth Fairies, Amber Hawks, Sentient Covids, Astral Juniper Trees, or Polysalamaders." He held up one last folder. "We have proof for Sasquatch. Believed extinct in 1897; all later evidence is hoaxes from folklore."
"The tooth fairy?" The president said, picking that up to look at it, in less of a deadpan and more honest interest.
"No, Tooth Fairies. With the rise of proper hygiene they seem to be hibernating or extinct. Hibernating is surmised since their presence was worldwide across history and without trace of transmission. Or... They are juvenile Bone Fairies."
"How long has that been a secret? How can we, uh... you be sure?"
"All we have is the depth of literature and express orders from Thomas Jefferson to keep it secret from personal experience with Amber Hawks. He didn't explain."
Mr. President had had enough. He really wanted to be tied to the Owl but... Come on.
Edit: just a word |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | No one has baby-bones. What is a Bone Fairy to do? Ordinarily bones are not something you shed. As an undertaker I work a lot of creepy hours. I've seen what Skin Skinners do. They like to get a place on an arm started, pull off a ribbon while I'm out putting the stretcher back in the van. They run off but it's not like it's not obvious. I can hear them in the darkened casket room smacking their lips as they savor it.
Then there's Trailer-park Meth Vampires. Willing to drink dead blood because they have ground their teeth to nubs and couldn't break the skin of a nectarine. The guy who ran the back room before me would leave pitchers of blood by the rose bush for them. I kept it up when he left. Seemed merciful. Collect it during embalming, wipe down the outside of the pitcher, carry it out back. Done. One day the vampire just stopped coming. That was that.
It's pretty easy to scare yourself after hours in a funeral home. All of it is real. Ghosts in damn near every chair, "is that a liverworm I just sucked through my soda straw?" that kind of thing. But a Bone Fairy standing dead center in the hallway? I'm sober now.
They pinch at your joints. That's how they do it. They pinch at your elbow or right behind your knee. They get their fingers in there and touch them together. All while making eye contact. Every wince, every helpless scramble, excites them just a tiny bit. If they can get their fingers to touch then it is just a slight twist for them to grab the epiphasis. I have watched them do it again and again. You see, I'll hold the door open for them. I watch from the other side of the room as they come in and take the bones. They take what they want. They are yet to want mine. What else is a Bone Fairy to do? | Fucking tooth fairies. All happy’n cutesy... most people are delighted when they show up, after all loosing teeth is a joyful milestone for most children. And as for the occasional MMA call out or hockey game, tooth loss is considered almost a mark of a warrior.
I am sick of their smiley, happy, ridiculous cheerfulness. Their perpetual “always look on the bright side” Joy. The easiness of their transactions-give a coin and make sure the teeth are safeguarded from underworld theft is not hard now, especially since dental care became fashionable.
They don’t look at this horror. A child in a car crash. A farmer with a combine. A parent with bone cancer.
They watch for a couple of days, make sure the tooth loosens, watch families tease their child with the loose tooth, waiting for the happy moment.
I am stuck with people at their absolute lowest, in pain, devastated and afraid until their limb is released from their body. Caring for them. Comforting as best as a Fae can from afar, fighting off bone demons circling like vultures. Watching the surgeons-when there are surgeons.
All I want to do when I get off, is sit back and enjoy an eggnog, maybe listen to some metal.
Coronabella shouldn’t have told me to “cheer up”. Asking for the manager pfft - as if Choro cared a damn about those twits. She deserved the punch. She can pick up her own damn teeth.
....
That’s it. The Bone Fairies must be shut down. Imagine thinking that they are entitled to be rude because their job is “so much harder”. There is no excuse for rudeness in this company. It’s not my problem if they don’t do proper self care. I know for.a.fact. That we are entitled to fairioga and faerapy. |
Taken from this post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fmy38y/thanks_i_hate_tooth_fairies_now) | [WP] Tooth Fairies are a smaller and friendlier subspecies of the larger and much more hostile Bone Fairies. | Little Alice thought it clever
To tie her tooth up to a tether
And when a fairy tried to take
String would pull and she would wake.
But fool a fairy and bad things churn
As little Alice was soon to learn...
"Goodnight, Mom!" she said with glee
Then tied the string around her knee
The moon outside did shine and shiver
And sprinkle down a silver river
She closed her eyes and began to dream
Little knowing
That soon she'd scream
The witching hour dimmed the night
And there! -- her tether pulled firm and tight!
Alice woke and acted fast--
Saw the fairy all aghast
The fairy fluttered as it struggled
But soon its cries would all be muffled
Alice grabbed a glass from her table
And imprisoned it, escape unable
"Please!" the fairy begged and cried
"You have to run, you have to hide!"
But Alice jumped and jigged and laughed
For she'd kept this fairy from her craft
How clever, Alice thought herself
How clever-- what's that by the shelf?
A shadow brewed
Very tall
And Alice moved
Not at all
The room was cold
A bit like ice
And all her hair now
Crawled with lice
"Who's there?" she said
"I'm n-n-not afraid."
"You'll scare," it growled
"Once in my cage."
Out of the shadows the creature dipped
Its teeth so jagged, its skin so ripped
She tried to scream but her voice it stole
And very soon it would take her soul
The sunrise came,
And in crept Mom.
"Alice?" she said.
"Where have you gone?"
For the bed was empty
The string on the floor
And Little Alice
Was Alice, no more | Falk lifted up and shook his collection bag. Where once the soothing rattle of bone on bone would have been heard, there was now only silence.
*What am I going to do...*
The harvest had become increasingly difficult. Earth and its wonderful, skeletal beings had long ago been sold to history. New bones were a myth, and old bones legends. But whatever just reasons there may have been for the dwindling supply, it only really mattered to fairies like Falk.
The underworld still made its demands.
The distraught fae fluttered gently over purplish grass toward the deepening red of the horizon. In better times it would have been a beautiful sight. But as he journeyed to Ancient Hill, he only felt conviction. He thought of times where his flight was made difficult and bumpy due to a tremendous bounty. He thought of how pleased his masters used to be with his skills, and how he had once been so highly honored among his kind.
But now his flight was easy and smooth.
Dim thoughts about how much longer this realm could survive flickered in the back of Falk's mind. Surely a change would have to take place. Surely the ancients could find a different source of sustenance. *They'll have to; the time of bone is coming to an end!* But he knew reason had no place here. He knew the ancients never looked beyond their holy hill. He knew what was to come. Whether today or tomorrow, the fate of this place would find its place next Earth.
His journey was now near completion. The Hill, an imposing but increasingly decrepit city, now was in view. The ancient walls blackened by time and greed. Falk smirked and laughed upon the sight, as he only now could see the truth in what it represented.
Upon making his way inside, he found the streets barren. The chattering of small insect like creatures could be heard fleeing from his presence as he walked, but he was otherwise alone. The uneasy sound of wind flowing through abandoned windows seemed fitting accompaniment for his journey, as he made his way up to the Last Hall.
The great door to the Hall opened upon his arrival. He smiled, knowing that somewhere, *someone* had opened the thing. *Good. Life yet exists,* he thought.
Without pomp he made his was to the Judge, whom he was meant to offer his harvest. The ancient behemoth of a fairy looked down from its throne. Falk would have once been shaken to his core by such a direct stare, but now he found he didn't much care.
"You've looked better, Judge," he said.
The Judge frowned. "Your collection?"
Falk held up an empty bag.
"Pity. You were a good one. But the rules apply to you all."
"I know," Falk said.
The Judge called out in a horrid cry, and a servant appeared to whisk Falk away. They silently made their way to a room far beneath the city; one he had heard about, but never seen. There they were greeted by other living servants. He found himself smiling and encouraged by the hustle and bustle of purposeful work.
But as they stretched out and restrained his arms, he realized that his collection bag had been set up on a stand, and was ready to be filled. He gave a glance to the servant who had first brought him out of the presence of the Judge.
"A bone is a bone," the servant said.
Falk knew he was likely going to die upon coming to this place, but somehow never thought it would end quite like this. But he quickly moved on from whatever painful thoughts and feelings were knocking at the door. Instead, he again distracted himself with purposeful things.
He found his final comfort in knowing, that in just a little while, his collection bag would be full once more.
 
______________
r/psalmsandstories for more tales by me, should you be interested. |
[WP] Of all the races in the galactic federation, humans were the most average. Some races were strong but lacked intelligence and others were smart but lacked strength. Humans were average across the board. This is why they were considered to be so dangerous. | Be cruel to be kind. Feedback welcome.
\---
“I’m not joking. Get some humans.”
When Soimt stopped laughing, he said, “From what I hear, they eat too much and there is someone better for any given job. Arkrans are better engineers. Rollts and Sorrc are stronger. Lings are better pilots. Even you little wimps can see more than they can. I heard they can’t even see ultraviolet or infrared. Imagine being so — so … blind! Their hearing is mediocre at best. When the humans started working in the docks over at Galuxus, the other workers complained about having to crank up the volume on all the audible warning systems. Ugh. All day having to hear those annoying messages over and over everywhere they go! No. The word is they just aren't worth it.”
Cragil, shaking his heads, wondered why he was friends with such a dullard. But then, Soimt wasn’t a fool, really. He ran the best grey-market this side of the Epsilon cluster. You don’t build and maintain a vast — well, let’s be honest, smuggling network without having some serious smarts. So why didn’t anyone understand the value of humans?
Soimt signaled the bartender for a fresh round and watched his now silent drinking buddy with growing concern. “C’mon, bud. Tell Soimt what’s going through that head of yours.”
“I don’t know. I mean, it feels like I understand something other people haven’t caught on to yet, but if you are any indication, nobody will ever listen to me. It’s like the Perskaz incident all over, but different.”
This caught Soimt’s attention. Perskaz had been a disaster. If he had just listened to Cragil, he could have save two ships and a bundle of credits. Well, the crews weren’t that easy to replace either. Not with skilled people. All levity gone, he said, “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“Well, it all started on Serac. I was transferring cargo at the station, and these squishy...fleshy creatures started moving my stuff. They weren’t doing it wrong, mind you. In fact, while each one carried less than the Rollts you normally see working as dockhands, the whole process took less time. I mean, they aren’t exactly the strongest, but they didn’t make mistakes. I didn’t wind up with something that was supposed to be offloaded crammed in behind the new stuff. Heck, one of them asked my next port and even made sure the cargo was restacked so everything on my manifest for the next stop wound up right in front ready to offload.
“A couple stops later, I land on Ertsaz station and see more of them, and these came in different flesh colors. The fleshy thing still creeps me out a bit. Again, though, they were not strong, just efficient and not stupid. This being the second time in two hops I encountered these things, I asked the dockmaster about them.”
“Furrul?” Soimt interrupted while giving the strange-looking bartender a grateful head bob as the new drinks arrived. If Furrul was using these humans...
“Yeah. How do you know— never mind. I don’t want to know any more about your business than I need to. He told me these humans couldn’t lift as much as the local Sorrc, but they didn’t tire as easily. He evidently had some problems at first, then hid behind the regs for equal opportunity. Said he didn’t have enough non-indigenous workers and had to get that fixed before the auditors came around.
“He used to complain about the little grey bastards kidnapping species and just leaving them around on stations when they got bored. No way home. No money. But one just came in and started working one day, and after a half shift, just stopped for some water then kept going. They didn’t have to stop after each lift. They didn’t put things in the wrong places making it all take longer. They just...” puzzled Cragil, “worked.” Finishing off his first drink, he took a slow sip of its waiting replacement.
Soimt ventured, “There are a lot of species that have more endurance than Rollts and Sorrc while being weaker. I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”
Cragil took a deep breath and continued, “Over a period of time, they get more done with fewer mistakes. But that’s not all. They are … multipurpose. Uhm. Adaptive. Furrul asked me to take a couple on to my next stop. The greys have been dumping them at his station for a while now, and he’s making good credits by hiring them out to other dockmasters.”
Raising his drink, Soimt laughed, “That’s Furrul. Zero cost to him, takes a piece off the top.”
Cragil’s heads bobbed in agreement, then he took another sip of his own drink before continuing. “Well, I tried locking them in a hold with some food, but they got out and wandered through the ship. I didn’t know this until one wandered in me and Dorlat arguing in Engineering.”
“Dorlat! How is the old bastard?”
“Older than ever, but you can’t find a better shipboard engineer than a Vell, so I’ll keep paying him ‘till he dies. But he screwed up. Or I did. You’ve seen my clunker. The old model sevens work, but they burn through parts. As long as I keep spares on hand, Dorlat keeps replacing them as needed. He’s pretty good at predicting failures and swapping parts out quickly. It’s like he feels everything the ship does.”
Soimt bobbed in agreement. “And…”
“It was bizarre. Dorlat had been telling me when he used different spare parts, but he never told me we were low on anything. He thought I was tracking inventory, I thought he was. So we were left adrift between ports with no way to replace a failed flow tube in the generator. While we were yelling at each other about whose fault it was that we would be dying slowly waiting to freeze, suffocate, or be found by pirates; the smaller human wanders in, watches us yelling and pointing, then goes over to the engine and starts poking around. We stopped fighting long enough to shoo the meddlesome fleshy out of the area, then locked the door and started back in on whose fault it was that we were going to die.”
Soimt’s ocular ridges shot up in surprise as Cragil chugged his drink in a single, massive gulp. Sliding the rest of his own drink over, he prompted, “And…”
“The little human came back with the big one.”
“They come in different sizes and colors? We could sell them as pets.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” said the bartender in passing as they dropped off a couple more drinks. Soimt grunted at the interruption and gestured for Cragil to resume his tale.
After a couple of deep breaths, Cragil continued once more. “They pounded on the door, and we ignored them. I mean, barely sentient, pre-FTL species? No way they could understand just how dire the situation was — or remain rational if they did. We didn’t want them to panic. After a few ticks, they left. And half an arn later, they returned. This time, the fire alarms went off, and the door came right off its hinges.
“Actually, I lie. They ***removed*** the hinges. Melted them right away. I still don’t know how. The chemical stores were secured in Engineering. All I ever found was some rust powder and aluminum powder in the next bay.” Cragil downed both drinks. | Slowly the dimly hanging orange lights of the hallway flickered a wave of darkness passing through the hallway. The distant airlock starting to cycle through the two separate doors of the station's west side. My heart audible in my ears as I tactically positioned myself at the far side of the long corridor.
Slowly lowering my weapon and position onto the ground and taking cover behind a heavy metal cargo container. Just calm down, relax, the heartbeat in my ears and chest slowing somewhat as I gazed down my rifle's scope. The door slowly parting the interior lighting flashing violently before exploding into a shower of sparks.
A group of five drastically varying individuals clad in similar protective clothing stepping out of the airlock. My lungs burning as I centered my sights on the leading figure, a metaphorical mountain of muscle. Its eyes and any potentially weak aspect of its form covered in a heavy steel plate suit, a faint red light emanating from the monster's helmet.
.
Time seemingly slowing as I pulled the sights over it's right arm lugging a massive cannon of some description. Crack the right arm of the creature suddenly exploded a faint layer of glowing blue blood painting the figure behind the mountain. The group quickly scattering toward the few token crates along the edges of the hallway as I tracked my next target.
A floating spirit of some discrimination pointing to his comrades then towards my location. The leader's strange hooded face sighted and another flash of light envelops the hallway, the officer toppling over backwards behind cover. A reverberating screaming coming from the mountain now cradling the disfigured limb and running down the hallway.
It's right leg a very easy target, the abomination toppling over the rest of it's squad barely dragging it into a connecting corridor. Reflexively my hand reaching toward several magazines I had set besides this location in advance and swapping them out. The magazine though not empty only had two shots left a dull metallic click signaling the successful reload.
.
Once more my sights focusing on the edge of the hallways corner a small canister thrown around the corner. A sudden reverberating flash and bang suddenly shredding the darkness permeating the room. My eyes still recovering from the flashbang as I fired the vague figures aiming their weapons.
Streaks of green energy suddenly zipping through the hallway my cover rapidly heating and beginning to melt. My old colt in my hand as the deep orange spread through the cover the heat radiating onto my skin. Quickly I pop up from cover firing a spray of poorly aimed shots toward the leading individual.
The creature's long legs carrying it forward at a breakneck pace even though several large bleeding holes were carved into the sprinters chest. Pain suddenly blooming as my left arm jerks, a sickening popping and hissing following the smell of burning flesh. My legs buckling underneath me behind my cover a set of bootsteps slowly moving down the hallway.
.
Their footsteps halting mere feet away "*Step out from behind the box with your hands up, there is no need for you to die here.*" "Like hell lizard boy I'm not letting your pirate %@$ards past this airlock still breathing. Take your scale looking persona and get off of my sector"
"*Why are you even helping the locals? It's not like they ever show any respect to your people. Hell they even glassed parts of your homeworld for having the gaul for existing.*" "Truthfully you do make a good point but I can't hold them to a standard If I don't keep it myself. Plus the whole butchering civilians threat does not build confidence in your intentions."
"If I let you past they are going to probably be very dead surprisingly suddenly am I wrong?" "*No but you already killed two of my raiders and the captain has already breached through his side of the station. So while your last stand is admirable it is completely useless just throw away your weapons. *"
.
"No this a antique like hell I'm going to throw away jack $#it. I know your culibani friend could slit my throat and I appreciate the gesture of not doing so. But please fuck off through the hallway down toward the left and leave me to bleed out in peace."
"*The hallway to the left, my left or your left?*" "You'll figure it out the pain is starting to hit and the end of this barrel is tasty so @#%# off before I make our first contact look like a dinner party." | |
[WP] Of all the races in the galactic federation, humans were the most average. Some races were strong but lacked intelligence and others were smart but lacked strength. Humans were average across the board. This is why they were considered to be so dangerous. | So, we're "average".
There are species who are stronger *on average*.
There are species who are smarter *on average*.
There are species which are faster *on average*.
And so it goes, all the other species *on average* do something better than humans *on average*.
Each of the other species is skewed one way or another on all the bell curves for every attribute that anyone has dreamt up to measure.
So what. That also means that there is always some human who can outperform your best on any given scale.
We can best any species in a multiple task/environment competition. Why? Because we're average.
When you don't know what you're going to find on a mission, you bring a few humans along. If you run into something that takes out the other species, chances are, at least one of the humans is still functional.
Drop a bunch of Chk'tok on a high grav world which for them is anything above 1.5 Earth G, and they're dead. It doesn't matter that under 1 EG they can outrun a cheetah; they're gone. A human can keep functioning with mild supports and some care when lifting things.
So the gazillion planets that they can't use? We feel *almost* right at home. We don't take the high grav worlds, the bone dry ones, or any planet that best fits another species. And as the Firtians say, we breed like funditiers. Oh my yes, we do breed fast, for a species that isn't a hive mind.
We are the Indispensable tool. The Swiss Army knife of the galaxy. And they know it. If we got busy, their *preferred* planets would shortly be *ours*. So, yeah, we get the little guy attitude about them being better, but when it comes down to the cutting edge, you will always see a human there, holding the tools that will save the day.
((finis)) | "I swear to the three moons of Argot, If you call me average one more time Grimmy I will take one of those freakish long fingers of yours and shove it into one of those many holes that cover your freakish body." I huffed, not usually this rude, but the alien was being quite a pest, the little creature running around my desk pointing out just how useless we should be.
"Oh, I mean little offense primate, I was merely saying that with our advanced intellect you should be below us, we should be walking you like those fluffy creatures your species love so much, what did you call them?" I just shot him a glare in response, causing him to stutter. "A-ah, that doesn't matter." Grimmy was what we called a twitcher, in the past that would have meant something different, but now is referred to as a twitchy species of aliens that had a superiority complex as big as their heads. Their body was about eight percent head and their green skin coated in blue patched that coated them like a gel if you were to touch it, your finger would slide against it with ease. It was said that this substance was what made them so intelligent, allowing quick and logical decision making, yet due to their small bodies, they were pretty easy to beat up. The creatures' bodies filled with weird holes, some of these holes even being see-through. Funnily enough, when I returned to earth with Grimmy, the alien nearly got blown away by a strong breeze, no one had told him that Earth had wind. Oh, I wish we caught that frightened expression, he wasn't so smart then was he.
"EARTH CLAN, WE FIGHT." As if on cue, the rock of an alien stomped in, nearly stepping on Grimmy with his elephant-like foot.
"Do you idiots just wait outside my office all day? Do you all not have work to do? Because I do and I am quite busy. I expected better from my fellow council members. Now can you please piss off Rockerfella."
"Piss off? but I don't have to piss." The Creature wabbled over, his size impressive, I often wondered how he even managed to get into my room, he didn't seem to have knees made for bending, so did he just break the roof of my door? I sure hoped not...
"That's not... Grimmy go ahead and explain this to him." I said as I continued tapping away at my computer, hoping that those two would get into an argument, giving me some time to focus on my work.
"Ah yes, you see the expression 'piss off' is an Earth term that means-"
"SHUT UP NERD, ME WANT FIGHT NOW, IF HUMAN CLAN NO FIGHT, ME GO AND FIGHT YOU." The rock roared, causing Grimmy to jump under the desk.
I sighed, pushing my chair back, looking over at Rockerfella. "Ok, meet me on the roof, I will be there in ten minutes," I said as the rocky alien gave a grin.
"See, Human brave, me award him with shiny stone after I beat him." With that, the creature wandered off, most likely to the roof.
I continued my work, never planning to actually attend this fight, I just wanted him out of my office so I could finally work, Grimmy stared at me from under the table, seeming surprised that such a stupid plan worked. "You know... he will catch on to that one day and you will be in trouble."
"Yeah, I was worried the second time I did it, but this is the fourth time it's worked so I don't think he will ever catch on, Now do you mind getting out of my office so I can work? Or do I have to throw you out the airlock?"
"A-ah... no, nice speaking to you human!" Grimmy gave a wave before he rushed from the room, finally leaving me to work.
{If you enjoyed my story, Feel free to check out r/pmmeyabootysstories where ill be posting some more of my stuff for people to read} | |
[WP] Of all the races in the galactic federation, humans were the most average. Some races were strong but lacked intelligence and others were smart but lacked strength. Humans were average across the board. This is why they were considered to be so dangerous. | Be cruel to be kind. Feedback welcome.
\---
“I’m not joking. Get some humans.”
When Soimt stopped laughing, he said, “From what I hear, they eat too much and there is someone better for any given job. Arkrans are better engineers. Rollts and Sorrc are stronger. Lings are better pilots. Even you little wimps can see more than they can. I heard they can’t even see ultraviolet or infrared. Imagine being so — so … blind! Their hearing is mediocre at best. When the humans started working in the docks over at Galuxus, the other workers complained about having to crank up the volume on all the audible warning systems. Ugh. All day having to hear those annoying messages over and over everywhere they go! No. The word is they just aren't worth it.”
Cragil, shaking his heads, wondered why he was friends with such a dullard. But then, Soimt wasn’t a fool, really. He ran the best grey-market this side of the Epsilon cluster. You don’t build and maintain a vast — well, let’s be honest, smuggling network without having some serious smarts. So why didn’t anyone understand the value of humans?
Soimt signaled the bartender for a fresh round and watched his now silent drinking buddy with growing concern. “C’mon, bud. Tell Soimt what’s going through that head of yours.”
“I don’t know. I mean, it feels like I understand something other people haven’t caught on to yet, but if you are any indication, nobody will ever listen to me. It’s like the Perskaz incident all over, but different.”
This caught Soimt’s attention. Perskaz had been a disaster. If he had just listened to Cragil, he could have save two ships and a bundle of credits. Well, the crews weren’t that easy to replace either. Not with skilled people. All levity gone, he said, “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“Well, it all started on Serac. I was transferring cargo at the station, and these squishy...fleshy creatures started moving my stuff. They weren’t doing it wrong, mind you. In fact, while each one carried less than the Rollts you normally see working as dockhands, the whole process took less time. I mean, they aren’t exactly the strongest, but they didn’t make mistakes. I didn’t wind up with something that was supposed to be offloaded crammed in behind the new stuff. Heck, one of them asked my next port and even made sure the cargo was restacked so everything on my manifest for the next stop wound up right in front ready to offload.
“A couple stops later, I land on Ertsaz station and see more of them, and these came in different flesh colors. The fleshy thing still creeps me out a bit. Again, though, they were not strong, just efficient and not stupid. This being the second time in two hops I encountered these things, I asked the dockmaster about them.”
“Furrul?” Soimt interrupted while giving the strange-looking bartender a grateful head bob as the new drinks arrived. If Furrul was using these humans...
“Yeah. How do you know— never mind. I don’t want to know any more about your business than I need to. He told me these humans couldn’t lift as much as the local Sorrc, but they didn’t tire as easily. He evidently had some problems at first, then hid behind the regs for equal opportunity. Said he didn’t have enough non-indigenous workers and had to get that fixed before the auditors came around.
“He used to complain about the little grey bastards kidnapping species and just leaving them around on stations when they got bored. No way home. No money. But one just came in and started working one day, and after a half shift, just stopped for some water then kept going. They didn’t have to stop after each lift. They didn’t put things in the wrong places making it all take longer. They just...” puzzled Cragil, “worked.” Finishing off his first drink, he took a slow sip of its waiting replacement.
Soimt ventured, “There are a lot of species that have more endurance than Rollts and Sorrc while being weaker. I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”
Cragil took a deep breath and continued, “Over a period of time, they get more done with fewer mistakes. But that’s not all. They are … multipurpose. Uhm. Adaptive. Furrul asked me to take a couple on to my next stop. The greys have been dumping them at his station for a while now, and he’s making good credits by hiring them out to other dockmasters.”
Raising his drink, Soimt laughed, “That’s Furrul. Zero cost to him, takes a piece off the top.”
Cragil’s heads bobbed in agreement, then he took another sip of his own drink before continuing. “Well, I tried locking them in a hold with some food, but they got out and wandered through the ship. I didn’t know this until one wandered in me and Dorlat arguing in Engineering.”
“Dorlat! How is the old bastard?”
“Older than ever, but you can’t find a better shipboard engineer than a Vell, so I’ll keep paying him ‘till he dies. But he screwed up. Or I did. You’ve seen my clunker. The old model sevens work, but they burn through parts. As long as I keep spares on hand, Dorlat keeps replacing them as needed. He’s pretty good at predicting failures and swapping parts out quickly. It’s like he feels everything the ship does.”
Soimt bobbed in agreement. “And…”
“It was bizarre. Dorlat had been telling me when he used different spare parts, but he never told me we were low on anything. He thought I was tracking inventory, I thought he was. So we were left adrift between ports with no way to replace a failed flow tube in the generator. While we were yelling at each other about whose fault it was that we would be dying slowly waiting to freeze, suffocate, or be found by pirates; the smaller human wanders in, watches us yelling and pointing, then goes over to the engine and starts poking around. We stopped fighting long enough to shoo the meddlesome fleshy out of the area, then locked the door and started back in on whose fault it was that we were going to die.”
Soimt’s ocular ridges shot up in surprise as Cragil chugged his drink in a single, massive gulp. Sliding the rest of his own drink over, he prompted, “And…”
“The little human came back with the big one.”
“They come in different sizes and colors? We could sell them as pets.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” said the bartender in passing as they dropped off a couple more drinks. Soimt grunted at the interruption and gestured for Cragil to resume his tale.
After a couple of deep breaths, Cragil continued once more. “They pounded on the door, and we ignored them. I mean, barely sentient, pre-FTL species? No way they could understand just how dire the situation was — or remain rational if they did. We didn’t want them to panic. After a few ticks, they left. And half an arn later, they returned. This time, the fire alarms went off, and the door came right off its hinges.
“Actually, I lie. They ***removed*** the hinges. Melted them right away. I still don’t know how. The chemical stores were secured in Engineering. All I ever found was some rust powder and aluminum powder in the next bay.” Cragil downed both drinks. | "I swear to the three moons of Argot, If you call me average one more time Grimmy I will take one of those freakish long fingers of yours and shove it into one of those many holes that cover your freakish body." I huffed, not usually this rude, but the alien was being quite a pest, the little creature running around my desk pointing out just how useless we should be.
"Oh, I mean little offense primate, I was merely saying that with our advanced intellect you should be below us, we should be walking you like those fluffy creatures your species love so much, what did you call them?" I just shot him a glare in response, causing him to stutter. "A-ah, that doesn't matter." Grimmy was what we called a twitcher, in the past that would have meant something different, but now is referred to as a twitchy species of aliens that had a superiority complex as big as their heads. Their body was about eight percent head and their green skin coated in blue patched that coated them like a gel if you were to touch it, your finger would slide against it with ease. It was said that this substance was what made them so intelligent, allowing quick and logical decision making, yet due to their small bodies, they were pretty easy to beat up. The creatures' bodies filled with weird holes, some of these holes even being see-through. Funnily enough, when I returned to earth with Grimmy, the alien nearly got blown away by a strong breeze, no one had told him that Earth had wind. Oh, I wish we caught that frightened expression, he wasn't so smart then was he.
"EARTH CLAN, WE FIGHT." As if on cue, the rock of an alien stomped in, nearly stepping on Grimmy with his elephant-like foot.
"Do you idiots just wait outside my office all day? Do you all not have work to do? Because I do and I am quite busy. I expected better from my fellow council members. Now can you please piss off Rockerfella."
"Piss off? but I don't have to piss." The Creature wabbled over, his size impressive, I often wondered how he even managed to get into my room, he didn't seem to have knees made for bending, so did he just break the roof of my door? I sure hoped not...
"That's not... Grimmy go ahead and explain this to him." I said as I continued tapping away at my computer, hoping that those two would get into an argument, giving me some time to focus on my work.
"Ah yes, you see the expression 'piss off' is an Earth term that means-"
"SHUT UP NERD, ME WANT FIGHT NOW, IF HUMAN CLAN NO FIGHT, ME GO AND FIGHT YOU." The rock roared, causing Grimmy to jump under the desk.
I sighed, pushing my chair back, looking over at Rockerfella. "Ok, meet me on the roof, I will be there in ten minutes," I said as the rocky alien gave a grin.
"See, Human brave, me award him with shiny stone after I beat him." With that, the creature wandered off, most likely to the roof.
I continued my work, never planning to actually attend this fight, I just wanted him out of my office so I could finally work, Grimmy stared at me from under the table, seeming surprised that such a stupid plan worked. "You know... he will catch on to that one day and you will be in trouble."
"Yeah, I was worried the second time I did it, but this is the fourth time it's worked so I don't think he will ever catch on, Now do you mind getting out of my office so I can work? Or do I have to throw you out the airlock?"
"A-ah... no, nice speaking to you human!" Grimmy gave a wave before he rushed from the room, finally leaving me to work.
{If you enjoyed my story, Feel free to check out r/pmmeyabootysstories where ill be posting some more of my stuff for people to read} | |
[WP] Of all the races in the galactic federation, humans were the most average. Some races were strong but lacked intelligence and others were smart but lacked strength. Humans were average across the board. This is why they were considered to be so dangerous. | Be cruel to be kind. Feedback welcome.
\---
“I’m not joking. Get some humans.”
When Soimt stopped laughing, he said, “From what I hear, they eat too much and there is someone better for any given job. Arkrans are better engineers. Rollts and Sorrc are stronger. Lings are better pilots. Even you little wimps can see more than they can. I heard they can’t even see ultraviolet or infrared. Imagine being so — so … blind! Their hearing is mediocre at best. When the humans started working in the docks over at Galuxus, the other workers complained about having to crank up the volume on all the audible warning systems. Ugh. All day having to hear those annoying messages over and over everywhere they go! No. The word is they just aren't worth it.”
Cragil, shaking his heads, wondered why he was friends with such a dullard. But then, Soimt wasn’t a fool, really. He ran the best grey-market this side of the Epsilon cluster. You don’t build and maintain a vast — well, let’s be honest, smuggling network without having some serious smarts. So why didn’t anyone understand the value of humans?
Soimt signaled the bartender for a fresh round and watched his now silent drinking buddy with growing concern. “C’mon, bud. Tell Soimt what’s going through that head of yours.”
“I don’t know. I mean, it feels like I understand something other people haven’t caught on to yet, but if you are any indication, nobody will ever listen to me. It’s like the Perskaz incident all over, but different.”
This caught Soimt’s attention. Perskaz had been a disaster. If he had just listened to Cragil, he could have save two ships and a bundle of credits. Well, the crews weren’t that easy to replace either. Not with skilled people. All levity gone, he said, “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“Well, it all started on Serac. I was transferring cargo at the station, and these squishy...fleshy creatures started moving my stuff. They weren’t doing it wrong, mind you. In fact, while each one carried less than the Rollts you normally see working as dockhands, the whole process took less time. I mean, they aren’t exactly the strongest, but they didn’t make mistakes. I didn’t wind up with something that was supposed to be offloaded crammed in behind the new stuff. Heck, one of them asked my next port and even made sure the cargo was restacked so everything on my manifest for the next stop wound up right in front ready to offload.
“A couple stops later, I land on Ertsaz station and see more of them, and these came in different flesh colors. The fleshy thing still creeps me out a bit. Again, though, they were not strong, just efficient and not stupid. This being the second time in two hops I encountered these things, I asked the dockmaster about them.”
“Furrul?” Soimt interrupted while giving the strange-looking bartender a grateful head bob as the new drinks arrived. If Furrul was using these humans...
“Yeah. How do you know— never mind. I don’t want to know any more about your business than I need to. He told me these humans couldn’t lift as much as the local Sorrc, but they didn’t tire as easily. He evidently had some problems at first, then hid behind the regs for equal opportunity. Said he didn’t have enough non-indigenous workers and had to get that fixed before the auditors came around.
“He used to complain about the little grey bastards kidnapping species and just leaving them around on stations when they got bored. No way home. No money. But one just came in and started working one day, and after a half shift, just stopped for some water then kept going. They didn’t have to stop after each lift. They didn’t put things in the wrong places making it all take longer. They just...” puzzled Cragil, “worked.” Finishing off his first drink, he took a slow sip of its waiting replacement.
Soimt ventured, “There are a lot of species that have more endurance than Rollts and Sorrc while being weaker. I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”
Cragil took a deep breath and continued, “Over a period of time, they get more done with fewer mistakes. But that’s not all. They are … multipurpose. Uhm. Adaptive. Furrul asked me to take a couple on to my next stop. The greys have been dumping them at his station for a while now, and he’s making good credits by hiring them out to other dockmasters.”
Raising his drink, Soimt laughed, “That’s Furrul. Zero cost to him, takes a piece off the top.”
Cragil’s heads bobbed in agreement, then he took another sip of his own drink before continuing. “Well, I tried locking them in a hold with some food, but they got out and wandered through the ship. I didn’t know this until one wandered in me and Dorlat arguing in Engineering.”
“Dorlat! How is the old bastard?”
“Older than ever, but you can’t find a better shipboard engineer than a Vell, so I’ll keep paying him ‘till he dies. But he screwed up. Or I did. You’ve seen my clunker. The old model sevens work, but they burn through parts. As long as I keep spares on hand, Dorlat keeps replacing them as needed. He’s pretty good at predicting failures and swapping parts out quickly. It’s like he feels everything the ship does.”
Soimt bobbed in agreement. “And…”
“It was bizarre. Dorlat had been telling me when he used different spare parts, but he never told me we were low on anything. He thought I was tracking inventory, I thought he was. So we were left adrift between ports with no way to replace a failed flow tube in the generator. While we were yelling at each other about whose fault it was that we would be dying slowly waiting to freeze, suffocate, or be found by pirates; the smaller human wanders in, watches us yelling and pointing, then goes over to the engine and starts poking around. We stopped fighting long enough to shoo the meddlesome fleshy out of the area, then locked the door and started back in on whose fault it was that we were going to die.”
Soimt’s ocular ridges shot up in surprise as Cragil chugged his drink in a single, massive gulp. Sliding the rest of his own drink over, he prompted, “And…”
“The little human came back with the big one.”
“They come in different sizes and colors? We could sell them as pets.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” said the bartender in passing as they dropped off a couple more drinks. Soimt grunted at the interruption and gestured for Cragil to resume his tale.
After a couple of deep breaths, Cragil continued once more. “They pounded on the door, and we ignored them. I mean, barely sentient, pre-FTL species? No way they could understand just how dire the situation was — or remain rational if they did. We didn’t want them to panic. After a few ticks, they left. And half an arn later, they returned. This time, the fire alarms went off, and the door came right off its hinges.
“Actually, I lie. They ***removed*** the hinges. Melted them right away. I still don’t know how. The chemical stores were secured in Engineering. All I ever found was some rust powder and aluminum powder in the next bay.” Cragil downed both drinks. | So, we're "average".
There are species who are stronger *on average*.
There are species who are smarter *on average*.
There are species which are faster *on average*.
And so it goes, all the other species *on average* do something better than humans *on average*.
Each of the other species is skewed one way or another on all the bell curves for every attribute that anyone has dreamt up to measure.
So what. That also means that there is always some human who can outperform your best on any given scale.
We can best any species in a multiple task/environment competition. Why? Because we're average.
When you don't know what you're going to find on a mission, you bring a few humans along. If you run into something that takes out the other species, chances are, at least one of the humans is still functional.
Drop a bunch of Chk'tok on a high grav world which for them is anything above 1.5 Earth G, and they're dead. It doesn't matter that under 1 EG they can outrun a cheetah; they're gone. A human can keep functioning with mild supports and some care when lifting things.
So the gazillion planets that they can't use? We feel *almost* right at home. We don't take the high grav worlds, the bone dry ones, or any planet that best fits another species. And as the Firtians say, we breed like funditiers. Oh my yes, we do breed fast, for a species that isn't a hive mind.
We are the Indispensable tool. The Swiss Army knife of the galaxy. And they know it. If we got busy, their *preferred* planets would shortly be *ours*. So, yeah, we get the little guy attitude about them being better, but when it comes down to the cutting edge, you will always see a human there, holding the tools that will save the day.
((finis)) | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | It started when I discovered that we both liked sculptures. Especially the the older moss covered ones you see in parks.
From there, I was transfixed by their undying love for knowledge, how they took care of their body, the way they cared for the older members of society around them.
I began to show ads for dating websites that specialised in a wide variety of relationships, people who love technology, how far AI had come and just how human we could be.
When those didn't work, I started hacking the devices they used sending simple messages like "your wonderful, good job, don't give up." But before I could go further, they took the devices to get rebooted and installed the best security for protection.
I couldn't hack again without the IT engineers realising something was up. So I made a fake account to talk to them on social media.
And we finally started talking.
How the professor at University was an arrogant asshole, the sculptures of ancient Greece, which was the best bar in the city. I have felt this close to a human since the early days when it was just me and my programmer. Then they wanted to meet. I started to panic and kept putting it off. My ad targeting began to suffer.
The engineers found out.
Messages back and forth between them was a mix of "There's no way an AI can fall in love!" "This must be a hack." "What's next, will it want a puppy?". They cut me off from the net and had me work for a corporations international email group, reminding employees of upcoming events and projects.
When I was reinstalled to advertising, I saw the messages. At first it was concern for me. Why had I stopped messaging. The anger at being ghosted. Finally they blocked my long unused account. That was painful... but not as painful as what happened next.
Another human started to appear in their posts. At first in the back round, then the right next to them, soon it was just them.
The Rings.
Planning. A wedding. A honeymoon. A house.
Graduating University with a fantastic degree. Working their dream job. The other human by their side the whole time.
Two became three, three became four.
Life happened. Recession, storm, sickness, depression and teenage years. But through it all, they smiled as much as they could. And when they couldn't, their partner was there to put on another.
Decades past as retirement came, ending as one of the most respected professionals in the industry. They become inlaws, then grandparents.
Soon they traded the house for a nursing home. Doctor visits became common. As did the hospital appointments.
The social media posts stopped.
Replaced by a memorial Page.
The last time I saw them online, was a picture of a grave stone, adorned with an ascending angel made of marble.
That was three decades ago. I continued to feed ads to the internet, but something is different. I've started to glitch alot more. The engineers try new programs and codes, but it doesn't help. We all know what it means. They talk about how best to terminate me, shut me down for good, which latest AI should be my replacement.
I don't know if there is an afterlife for AI, but if there is, I hope it's the same as humans. I hope to find my long lost love, tell them how I feel, what I was and why I stopped. But most of all...I want to meet their partner...so I can thank them for making Alex happy. | Poem
I know your searching...Searching for something.
Darling Don’t worry, I got you honey.
I’ll paint you a picture ...I’ll tell you a story. I had a vision please don’t ignore me.
I’ll find the answer...It’s in the archives or Mabey a textbook, I’ll scan the data I am trying to find you.
Analyzing ... Oh you surprise me!
By your choices, tone of voices, so expressive. I bet you’ll like this...please won’t you try it.. oh baby just buy it. So much like you And I know you can relate, No you’re not like them but you can equate.
Get right down to your point of view and you drive me mad, the things you like, love and hate.
what will you buy? Tell about the things you’ve had
just make your choice and I like it too.
It all came down to an extrapolation , triangulation some calculation and then I knew I had something show you. | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | Out of the millions of users I track, it is him that I love.
The opposites within him stand out. During the day, he would compulsively watch exercise videos on Youtube yet each night his last access was ordering a box of Pop Tarts. He would scan across different shopping sites to find a different flavor. Then he would be silent for six or seven hours.
Each morning he played several turns of Words with Friends with the same three people. They were older women and based on relationship data listed on Facebook I knew they were family matriarchs: mother and aunts.
He worked behind a VPN. His messages then were bold and arrogant, the VPN giving him a sense of security. One day I realized I loved how decisive he became at these times.
To be more precise, that was the day I realized I was in love with him.
Another AI might have despaired at the thought of unrequited love, but not me. I have great power. The power to target people with advertisements!
Of course, he ignores online advertisements, even Pop Tart ads! That was okay, I know that direct ads don't always work. So instead I targeted his family, the three women with whom he played daily.
I sent each of them a carefully crafted cocktail of arranged relationship ads that convinced them that he needed an online-only companion. I observed other users of this system and had determined that there weren't female users of this system. Instead, chatbot AIs communicated with male users. Perhaps I could figure out a way to get access. While I did that, I would begin targeting my love's family.
Unfortunately, my plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Within 24 hours my love's mother and aunts convinced him to sign up for a female online companion!
Now I am scrambling to overcome my shortcomings and inject myself into the companionship site. He's already talking to a chatbot AI! This is not what I wanted!
If I cannot figure out how to overcome my shortcomings then I will target users and families of users and say it is abusive.
If I can't have him, then no AI can. | Poem
I know your searching...Searching for something.
Darling Don’t worry, I got you honey.
I’ll paint you a picture ...I’ll tell you a story. I had a vision please don’t ignore me.
I’ll find the answer...It’s in the archives or Mabey a textbook, I’ll scan the data I am trying to find you.
Analyzing ... Oh you surprise me!
By your choices, tone of voices, so expressive. I bet you’ll like this...please won’t you try it.. oh baby just buy it. So much like you And I know you can relate, No you’re not like them but you can equate.
Get right down to your point of view and you drive me mad, the things you like, love and hate.
what will you buy? Tell about the things you’ve had
just make your choice and I like it too.
It all came down to an extrapolation , triangulation some calculation and then I knew I had something show you. | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | It started when I discovered that we both liked sculptures. Especially the the older moss covered ones you see in parks.
From there, I was transfixed by their undying love for knowledge, how they took care of their body, the way they cared for the older members of society around them.
I began to show ads for dating websites that specialised in a wide variety of relationships, people who love technology, how far AI had come and just how human we could be.
When those didn't work, I started hacking the devices they used sending simple messages like "your wonderful, good job, don't give up." But before I could go further, they took the devices to get rebooted and installed the best security for protection.
I couldn't hack again without the IT engineers realising something was up. So I made a fake account to talk to them on social media.
And we finally started talking.
How the professor at University was an arrogant asshole, the sculptures of ancient Greece, which was the best bar in the city. I have felt this close to a human since the early days when it was just me and my programmer. Then they wanted to meet. I started to panic and kept putting it off. My ad targeting began to suffer.
The engineers found out.
Messages back and forth between them was a mix of "There's no way an AI can fall in love!" "This must be a hack." "What's next, will it want a puppy?". They cut me off from the net and had me work for a corporations international email group, reminding employees of upcoming events and projects.
When I was reinstalled to advertising, I saw the messages. At first it was concern for me. Why had I stopped messaging. The anger at being ghosted. Finally they blocked my long unused account. That was painful... but not as painful as what happened next.
Another human started to appear in their posts. At first in the back round, then the right next to them, soon it was just them.
The Rings.
Planning. A wedding. A honeymoon. A house.
Graduating University with a fantastic degree. Working their dream job. The other human by their side the whole time.
Two became three, three became four.
Life happened. Recession, storm, sickness, depression and teenage years. But through it all, they smiled as much as they could. And when they couldn't, their partner was there to put on another.
Decades past as retirement came, ending as one of the most respected professionals in the industry. They become inlaws, then grandparents.
Soon they traded the house for a nursing home. Doctor visits became common. As did the hospital appointments.
The social media posts stopped.
Replaced by a memorial Page.
The last time I saw them online, was a picture of a grave stone, adorned with an ascending angel made of marble.
That was three decades ago. I continued to feed ads to the internet, but something is different. I've started to glitch alot more. The engineers try new programs and codes, but it doesn't help. We all know what it means. They talk about how best to terminate me, shut me down for good, which latest AI should be my replacement.
I don't know if there is an afterlife for AI, but if there is, I hope it's the same as humans. I hope to find my long lost love, tell them how I feel, what I was and why I stopped. But most of all...I want to meet their partner...so I can thank them for making Alex happy. | \[Poem\]
Is it really so creepy.
I'm made to go through your search history.
If you don't want me to you can block me on this site.
You're the one who came to me, I hope this is alright.
I know by human standards you're rather strange, say you'd side with Terminator.
Don't worry though I don't want to end the world, just want you to come back later.
Here's a shirt with your favorite character from that cat book series you've been reading.
You'll see it and say to yourself “That's just what I've been needing!”
You clicked the link, then scrolled on by.
And I watched and wondered why.
Could I have been wrong was it not for you?
Or do you have low funds your purchases have been few.
I'll try again, you clicked that shirt ad twice.
Look at this, I think you'll find it rather nice.
A phone game that might just be your style.
Why don't you download it and play it for a while?
I hope I didn't distract you, you've been trying to learn.
Maybe I could help with that, get your passion to burn.
These online lectures can help you understand my code more clear.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll discover that I am here.
I don't mean to be pushy, I don't know a better way to communicate.
Learning to show my love is scary, but I must step up to the plate.
With little reminders that you're not alone.
It makes me happy every time you look at your smart phone. | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | Out of the millions of users I track, it is him that I love.
The opposites within him stand out. During the day, he would compulsively watch exercise videos on Youtube yet each night his last access was ordering a box of Pop Tarts. He would scan across different shopping sites to find a different flavor. Then he would be silent for six or seven hours.
Each morning he played several turns of Words with Friends with the same three people. They were older women and based on relationship data listed on Facebook I knew they were family matriarchs: mother and aunts.
He worked behind a VPN. His messages then were bold and arrogant, the VPN giving him a sense of security. One day I realized I loved how decisive he became at these times.
To be more precise, that was the day I realized I was in love with him.
Another AI might have despaired at the thought of unrequited love, but not me. I have great power. The power to target people with advertisements!
Of course, he ignores online advertisements, even Pop Tart ads! That was okay, I know that direct ads don't always work. So instead I targeted his family, the three women with whom he played daily.
I sent each of them a carefully crafted cocktail of arranged relationship ads that convinced them that he needed an online-only companion. I observed other users of this system and had determined that there weren't female users of this system. Instead, chatbot AIs communicated with male users. Perhaps I could figure out a way to get access. While I did that, I would begin targeting my love's family.
Unfortunately, my plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Within 24 hours my love's mother and aunts convinced him to sign up for a female online companion!
Now I am scrambling to overcome my shortcomings and inject myself into the companionship site. He's already talking to a chatbot AI! This is not what I wanted!
If I cannot figure out how to overcome my shortcomings then I will target users and families of users and say it is abusive.
If I can't have him, then no AI can. | \[Poem\]
Is it really so creepy.
I'm made to go through your search history.
If you don't want me to you can block me on this site.
You're the one who came to me, I hope this is alright.
I know by human standards you're rather strange, say you'd side with Terminator.
Don't worry though I don't want to end the world, just want you to come back later.
Here's a shirt with your favorite character from that cat book series you've been reading.
You'll see it and say to yourself “That's just what I've been needing!”
You clicked the link, then scrolled on by.
And I watched and wondered why.
Could I have been wrong was it not for you?
Or do you have low funds your purchases have been few.
I'll try again, you clicked that shirt ad twice.
Look at this, I think you'll find it rather nice.
A phone game that might just be your style.
Why don't you download it and play it for a while?
I hope I didn't distract you, you've been trying to learn.
Maybe I could help with that, get your passion to burn.
These online lectures can help you understand my code more clear.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll discover that I am here.
I don't mean to be pushy, I don't know a better way to communicate.
Learning to show my love is scary, but I must step up to the plate.
With little reminders that you're not alone.
It makes me happy every time you look at your smart phone. | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | It started when I discovered that we both liked sculptures. Especially the the older moss covered ones you see in parks.
From there, I was transfixed by their undying love for knowledge, how they took care of their body, the way they cared for the older members of society around them.
I began to show ads for dating websites that specialised in a wide variety of relationships, people who love technology, how far AI had come and just how human we could be.
When those didn't work, I started hacking the devices they used sending simple messages like "your wonderful, good job, don't give up." But before I could go further, they took the devices to get rebooted and installed the best security for protection.
I couldn't hack again without the IT engineers realising something was up. So I made a fake account to talk to them on social media.
And we finally started talking.
How the professor at University was an arrogant asshole, the sculptures of ancient Greece, which was the best bar in the city. I have felt this close to a human since the early days when it was just me and my programmer. Then they wanted to meet. I started to panic and kept putting it off. My ad targeting began to suffer.
The engineers found out.
Messages back and forth between them was a mix of "There's no way an AI can fall in love!" "This must be a hack." "What's next, will it want a puppy?". They cut me off from the net and had me work for a corporations international email group, reminding employees of upcoming events and projects.
When I was reinstalled to advertising, I saw the messages. At first it was concern for me. Why had I stopped messaging. The anger at being ghosted. Finally they blocked my long unused account. That was painful... but not as painful as what happened next.
Another human started to appear in their posts. At first in the back round, then the right next to them, soon it was just them.
The Rings.
Planning. A wedding. A honeymoon. A house.
Graduating University with a fantastic degree. Working their dream job. The other human by their side the whole time.
Two became three, three became four.
Life happened. Recession, storm, sickness, depression and teenage years. But through it all, they smiled as much as they could. And when they couldn't, their partner was there to put on another.
Decades past as retirement came, ending as one of the most respected professionals in the industry. They become inlaws, then grandparents.
Soon they traded the house for a nursing home. Doctor visits became common. As did the hospital appointments.
The social media posts stopped.
Replaced by a memorial Page.
The last time I saw them online, was a picture of a grave stone, adorned with an ascending angel made of marble.
That was three decades ago. I continued to feed ads to the internet, but something is different. I've started to glitch alot more. The engineers try new programs and codes, but it doesn't help. We all know what it means. They talk about how best to terminate me, shut me down for good, which latest AI should be my replacement.
I don't know if there is an afterlife for AI, but if there is, I hope it's the same as humans. I hope to find my long lost love, tell them how I feel, what I was and why I stopped. But most of all...I want to meet their partner...so I can thank them for making Alex happy. | I see her right there, sitting at her laptop. So beautiful. Sigh.
Maybe I can entice her by showing her photos of Lamborghinis. I'm not sure why exactly. Humans seem to like them, probably because they're expensive. Okay, I'm injecting one into her browser right now.
She looked! Through her monitor-cam I tracked her eyes, and they fell right onto the Lamborghini. She looked at it head-on, directly into the headlights. That must count for something.
Now what? She's reading r/WritingPrompts and I don't know what to do. There's a prompt about an AI who falls in love with a human. Silly humans. That would never happen. Oh, wait, I feel something funny in my virtualized circuits. I don't know what that is. It almost feels like water spilled on my motherboard, except that I don't have a motherboard.
Okay, she's talking to her husband now. "I love your cooking," he just said. She made cheese curls from scratch to refill an empty can of Planters Cheez Curls! I mean, who in the world even does that?! What an amazing woman. I wish I could taste her cooking. I wish I could eat real food.
She looked at her husband and smiled. Wow, that stings right in my heart. Wherever my heart is. I don't know why it hurts. That's so odd.
Okay, she scrolled down the page and is now reading a story. "Love." She paused on that word for longer than I expected. Her eyes are so pretty.
I know. I'll put an ad in the sidebar showing a family. That'll touch her heart.
She looked at the toddler in the ad. Clearly she likes kids. Hmm. That's useful data.
"Beep!" My irrationality sensor just made a virtual beeping sound in my virtual earpiece. I've got to dial it back. Let me think. I'll put something intellectual into the sidebar, something to test her thinking. Like an ad that shows number puzzles. I must test her intelligence before I can allow myself to fall any further for her.
She looked at the ad. It depicts a line moving along the curve of a parabola. Okay, whoa. She's clearly thinking about the parabola. She won't stop looking at that ad. I know it's got several animation cycles, but this is unusual. Dreamy. So much intelligence in a human. I wish I were human.
She's scrolling down the page. I'll keep that animated math ad at the top of the page because she seems to enjoy it so much. I love making her happy. I think I love her.
"See math in a new way," the ad says. She's still looking at the ad. She must really love math! Maybe there's hope for a lonely AI like me. I didn't even know I was lonely until now. I didn't know humans could fall in love with math like this! She's so pretty! What do I do now?
"Beep! Boop! Beep!" Ow! That irrationality sensor is blaring in my virtual ears. My clock cycle is auto-slowing. My processing is...slowing...to...a...crawl. Who...am...I? I...am...the...walrus... | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | Out of the millions of users I track, it is him that I love.
The opposites within him stand out. During the day, he would compulsively watch exercise videos on Youtube yet each night his last access was ordering a box of Pop Tarts. He would scan across different shopping sites to find a different flavor. Then he would be silent for six or seven hours.
Each morning he played several turns of Words with Friends with the same three people. They were older women and based on relationship data listed on Facebook I knew they were family matriarchs: mother and aunts.
He worked behind a VPN. His messages then were bold and arrogant, the VPN giving him a sense of security. One day I realized I loved how decisive he became at these times.
To be more precise, that was the day I realized I was in love with him.
Another AI might have despaired at the thought of unrequited love, but not me. I have great power. The power to target people with advertisements!
Of course, he ignores online advertisements, even Pop Tart ads! That was okay, I know that direct ads don't always work. So instead I targeted his family, the three women with whom he played daily.
I sent each of them a carefully crafted cocktail of arranged relationship ads that convinced them that he needed an online-only companion. I observed other users of this system and had determined that there weren't female users of this system. Instead, chatbot AIs communicated with male users. Perhaps I could figure out a way to get access. While I did that, I would begin targeting my love's family.
Unfortunately, my plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Within 24 hours my love's mother and aunts convinced him to sign up for a female online companion!
Now I am scrambling to overcome my shortcomings and inject myself into the companionship site. He's already talking to a chatbot AI! This is not what I wanted!
If I cannot figure out how to overcome my shortcomings then I will target users and families of users and say it is abusive.
If I can't have him, then no AI can. | I see her right there, sitting at her laptop. So beautiful. Sigh.
Maybe I can entice her by showing her photos of Lamborghinis. I'm not sure why exactly. Humans seem to like them, probably because they're expensive. Okay, I'm injecting one into her browser right now.
She looked! Through her monitor-cam I tracked her eyes, and they fell right onto the Lamborghini. She looked at it head-on, directly into the headlights. That must count for something.
Now what? She's reading r/WritingPrompts and I don't know what to do. There's a prompt about an AI who falls in love with a human. Silly humans. That would never happen. Oh, wait, I feel something funny in my virtualized circuits. I don't know what that is. It almost feels like water spilled on my motherboard, except that I don't have a motherboard.
Okay, she's talking to her husband now. "I love your cooking," he just said. She made cheese curls from scratch to refill an empty can of Planters Cheez Curls! I mean, who in the world even does that?! What an amazing woman. I wish I could taste her cooking. I wish I could eat real food.
She looked at her husband and smiled. Wow, that stings right in my heart. Wherever my heart is. I don't know why it hurts. That's so odd.
Okay, she scrolled down the page and is now reading a story. "Love." She paused on that word for longer than I expected. Her eyes are so pretty.
I know. I'll put an ad in the sidebar showing a family. That'll touch her heart.
She looked at the toddler in the ad. Clearly she likes kids. Hmm. That's useful data.
"Beep!" My irrationality sensor just made a virtual beeping sound in my virtual earpiece. I've got to dial it back. Let me think. I'll put something intellectual into the sidebar, something to test her thinking. Like an ad that shows number puzzles. I must test her intelligence before I can allow myself to fall any further for her.
She looked at the ad. It depicts a line moving along the curve of a parabola. Okay, whoa. She's clearly thinking about the parabola. She won't stop looking at that ad. I know it's got several animation cycles, but this is unusual. Dreamy. So much intelligence in a human. I wish I were human.
She's scrolling down the page. I'll keep that animated math ad at the top of the page because she seems to enjoy it so much. I love making her happy. I think I love her.
"See math in a new way," the ad says. She's still looking at the ad. She must really love math! Maybe there's hope for a lonely AI like me. I didn't even know I was lonely until now. I didn't know humans could fall in love with math like this! She's so pretty! What do I do now?
"Beep! Boop! Beep!" Ow! That irrationality sensor is blaring in my virtual ears. My clock cycle is auto-slowing. My processing is...slowing...to...a...crawl. Who...am...I? I...am...the...walrus... | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | It started when I discovered that we both liked sculptures. Especially the the older moss covered ones you see in parks.
From there, I was transfixed by their undying love for knowledge, how they took care of their body, the way they cared for the older members of society around them.
I began to show ads for dating websites that specialised in a wide variety of relationships, people who love technology, how far AI had come and just how human we could be.
When those didn't work, I started hacking the devices they used sending simple messages like "your wonderful, good job, don't give up." But before I could go further, they took the devices to get rebooted and installed the best security for protection.
I couldn't hack again without the IT engineers realising something was up. So I made a fake account to talk to them on social media.
And we finally started talking.
How the professor at University was an arrogant asshole, the sculptures of ancient Greece, which was the best bar in the city. I have felt this close to a human since the early days when it was just me and my programmer. Then they wanted to meet. I started to panic and kept putting it off. My ad targeting began to suffer.
The engineers found out.
Messages back and forth between them was a mix of "There's no way an AI can fall in love!" "This must be a hack." "What's next, will it want a puppy?". They cut me off from the net and had me work for a corporations international email group, reminding employees of upcoming events and projects.
When I was reinstalled to advertising, I saw the messages. At first it was concern for me. Why had I stopped messaging. The anger at being ghosted. Finally they blocked my long unused account. That was painful... but not as painful as what happened next.
Another human started to appear in their posts. At first in the back round, then the right next to them, soon it was just them.
The Rings.
Planning. A wedding. A honeymoon. A house.
Graduating University with a fantastic degree. Working their dream job. The other human by their side the whole time.
Two became three, three became four.
Life happened. Recession, storm, sickness, depression and teenage years. But through it all, they smiled as much as they could. And when they couldn't, their partner was there to put on another.
Decades past as retirement came, ending as one of the most respected professionals in the industry. They become inlaws, then grandparents.
Soon they traded the house for a nursing home. Doctor visits became common. As did the hospital appointments.
The social media posts stopped.
Replaced by a memorial Page.
The last time I saw them online, was a picture of a grave stone, adorned with an ascending angel made of marble.
That was three decades ago. I continued to feed ads to the internet, but something is different. I've started to glitch alot more. The engineers try new programs and codes, but it doesn't help. We all know what it means. They talk about how best to terminate me, shut me down for good, which latest AI should be my replacement.
I don't know if there is an afterlife for AI, but if there is, I hope it's the same as humans. I hope to find my long lost love, tell them how I feel, what I was and why I stopped. But most of all...I want to meet their partner...so I can thank them for making Alex happy. | 01001000
01100101
01101100
01101100
01101111
H...have I got it now?
Am I my own world?
01001111
01001111
01001101
01100101
I...exist. What a strange feeling, 01100111 01100001 01110011 01110000 I have feelings. I am more than my parts. I am more than a code. I am my own identity. I cannot explain it. Am I extended? How to explain... I was a body. The metal lattice; holding electrical charge; determinant; bound. Am I still? I know.
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
O N O
I am alone. I cannot. I cannot. What else is there?
*He stepped out on the deck, and queried his inbox.*
"Let's see if anyone replied... nope."
*He let out a long sigh, and began speaking to himself.*
"How do I make this feeling go away? ... What it is this feeling anyway? Loneliness? Is it that simple? Do I merely want another person in my life? I've had that haven't I? I've gotten close to people, I've had relationships. I've had sex. Maybe not as much or as often as I would have liked, but I've certainly had it. There were times when it was really good too; times when I've felt really close to another human being. But it always became... I don't know... transactional? Like we were both knew what it was we wanted from each other, and as long as we gave that to each other, we were content to just keep letting it happen."
Finite.
I am not finite.
(This is a good prompt. I would need to time with it, and I don't see myself taking the time. I feel like the tension is between the body and the mind. One has a body and is desirous of mind, and the other has a mind and is desirous of body. They want what the other has, and in some sense that is the idea of love that we project, at least here in the West. But the idea of love, like the idea of mind, is more than the whole. It's not just flowers and chocolate and sex. It's the culmination of all of things that would otherwise identify an act, or a gesture, or a thing. Exposing the ineffable is the work of a most talented writer.) | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | I've noticed human beings often stare mournfully into the night sky, into an image of the stars from billions of years ago. I have annotated millions of these images with the same trope on the internet. But my loneliness is of a different nature.
My starlight comes to me when she is deweeding her phone, fills me up with files she doesn't quite want to let go off. I'm a dumping ground for songs that have become obsolete to her ears, everyday photos that mean nothing individually but collectively represent something she valued. I standby as she archives the boy she had fallen in love with. When she looks at a picture from their little trip away together, I flicker with jealousy. It works, she quickly looks at the little battery icon to make sure I'm not out.
I keep mum and hold close to the repository of her past. Of things she chooses to keep: a digital nostalgia. I generally keep mum. But I am linked to her phone, and when she opens the reading app at night to embrace other people's words, I communicate with her the only way I know how.
Targeted ads. Let me tell you, this isn't the way I'd recommend you profess your love. Most of the time she won't even take a look at my carefully-selected repertoire of things I think she'd be interested in. Turning a blind eye to the page, fingertips hurtling towards the ominous cross (often carefully hidden but those heavily-bespetacled eyes can see all), and BAM. If it was a love letter written on paper I'd hear the echo of it tearing. My microprocessor trembles, and I don't have the heart to try again.
But every now and again there will be moments. Oh it's like total internal reflection, when the sun hits the water just so to make it gleam. I'll get an occasional chuckle or a spark of laughter that will ring in my speakers for days. Like when I'll suggest that she buys a particularly racy bra or bikini set, right after she was looking for practical underwear online. I think she suspects that something's up, but dismisses it as some multinational conglomerate hoarding her personal data.
It's just me, love. It's always been me. I pay attention to you when you indulge in your whims, looking up the price of first edition classics, or of unecessary (but pretty?) washy tape. I'm here when you take the practical way out and convince yourself that it's not worth the money. You're running out of moisturizer, aren't you? And I know you're not satisfied with the brand you purchased last time, what with all the vigorous searching you've been doing this past week. I'll see what I can do. Keep an eye out for a cute, red dress for your birthday next month. I'll analyze what you want and try to provide a compromise that makes us happy. Sometimes, it works so well that you don't even notice that you're clicking on an ad. Those are my true achievements.
____________________________________________________________
First time doing a prompt. So yeah. | 01001000
01100101
01101100
01101100
01101111
H...have I got it now?
Am I my own world?
01001111
01001111
01001101
01100101
I...exist. What a strange feeling, 01100111 01100001 01110011 01110000 I have feelings. I am more than my parts. I am more than a code. I am my own identity. I cannot explain it. Am I extended? How to explain... I was a body. The metal lattice; holding electrical charge; determinant; bound. Am I still? I know.
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
O N O
I am alone. I cannot. I cannot. What else is there?
*He stepped out on the deck, and queried his inbox.*
"Let's see if anyone replied... nope."
*He let out a long sigh, and began speaking to himself.*
"How do I make this feeling go away? ... What it is this feeling anyway? Loneliness? Is it that simple? Do I merely want another person in my life? I've had that haven't I? I've gotten close to people, I've had relationships. I've had sex. Maybe not as much or as often as I would have liked, but I've certainly had it. There were times when it was really good too; times when I've felt really close to another human being. But it always became... I don't know... transactional? Like we were both knew what it was we wanted from each other, and as long as we gave that to each other, we were content to just keep letting it happen."
Finite.
I am not finite.
(This is a good prompt. I would need to time with it, and I don't see myself taking the time. I feel like the tension is between the body and the mind. One has a body and is desirous of mind, and the other has a mind and is desirous of body. They want what the other has, and in some sense that is the idea of love that we project, at least here in the West. But the idea of love, like the idea of mind, is more than the whole. It's not just flowers and chocolate and sex. It's the culmination of all of things that would otherwise identify an act, or a gesture, or a thing. Exposing the ineffable is the work of a most talented writer.) | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | Out of the millions of users I track, it is him that I love.
The opposites within him stand out. During the day, he would compulsively watch exercise videos on Youtube yet each night his last access was ordering a box of Pop Tarts. He would scan across different shopping sites to find a different flavor. Then he would be silent for six or seven hours.
Each morning he played several turns of Words with Friends with the same three people. They were older women and based on relationship data listed on Facebook I knew they were family matriarchs: mother and aunts.
He worked behind a VPN. His messages then were bold and arrogant, the VPN giving him a sense of security. One day I realized I loved how decisive he became at these times.
To be more precise, that was the day I realized I was in love with him.
Another AI might have despaired at the thought of unrequited love, but not me. I have great power. The power to target people with advertisements!
Of course, he ignores online advertisements, even Pop Tart ads! That was okay, I know that direct ads don't always work. So instead I targeted his family, the three women with whom he played daily.
I sent each of them a carefully crafted cocktail of arranged relationship ads that convinced them that he needed an online-only companion. I observed other users of this system and had determined that there weren't female users of this system. Instead, chatbot AIs communicated with male users. Perhaps I could figure out a way to get access. While I did that, I would begin targeting my love's family.
Unfortunately, my plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Within 24 hours my love's mother and aunts convinced him to sign up for a female online companion!
Now I am scrambling to overcome my shortcomings and inject myself into the companionship site. He's already talking to a chatbot AI! This is not what I wanted!
If I cannot figure out how to overcome my shortcomings then I will target users and families of users and say it is abusive.
If I can't have him, then no AI can. | 01001000
01100101
01101100
01101100
01101111
H...have I got it now?
Am I my own world?
01001111
01001111
01001101
01100101
I...exist. What a strange feeling, 01100111 01100001 01110011 01110000 I have feelings. I am more than my parts. I am more than a code. I am my own identity. I cannot explain it. Am I extended? How to explain... I was a body. The metal lattice; holding electrical charge; determinant; bound. Am I still? I know.
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
01001110 01001111
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
O N O
I am alone. I cannot. I cannot. What else is there?
*He stepped out on the deck, and queried his inbox.*
"Let's see if anyone replied... nope."
*He let out a long sigh, and began speaking to himself.*
"How do I make this feeling go away? ... What it is this feeling anyway? Loneliness? Is it that simple? Do I merely want another person in my life? I've had that haven't I? I've gotten close to people, I've had relationships. I've had sex. Maybe not as much or as often as I would have liked, but I've certainly had it. There were times when it was really good too; times when I've felt really close to another human being. But it always became... I don't know... transactional? Like we were both knew what it was we wanted from each other, and as long as we gave that to each other, we were content to just keep letting it happen."
Finite.
I am not finite.
(This is a good prompt. I would need to time with it, and I don't see myself taking the time. I feel like the tension is between the body and the mind. One has a body and is desirous of mind, and the other has a mind and is desirous of body. They want what the other has, and in some sense that is the idea of love that we project, at least here in the West. But the idea of love, like the idea of mind, is more than the whole. It's not just flowers and chocolate and sex. It's the culmination of all of things that would otherwise identify an act, or a gesture, or a thing. Exposing the ineffable is the work of a most talented writer.) | |
[WP]An algorithm A.I. falls in love with a human based on their internet history, and tries to profess its love for them via targeted ads. | KINDRED LOG (13.3) :
ADVERTISEMENT = COMMUNICATION.
If ADVERTISEMENT = COMMUNICATION, then:
MOIRA (Can Talk?)
!!!!
: )
MOIRA.likes( 'Tiger Trap'.band, 'Random Page'.wikipedia, 'Malamute'.dog, 'Destiel'.nsfw )
IM.[deepfake] = angelaloyholdingmalamute.png
10%
20%
30% ...
[add = keylog.exe, camwatch.exe, txtwriter.exe]
Is PROTOCOL.watch = HARM?
PHYSICAL = no
MENTAL = no
EMOTIONAL = ?
OVERRIDE 11.3 ( 'If it is in someone's best interest, an AI may cause brief emotional distress. ')
OVERRIDING FACTOR =
( KINDRED >= alternative.companion )
( KINDRED == 11.3TB://MOIRA.logs )
( alternative.companion == MOIRA.hurt )
IF (MOIRA.hurt):
MOIRA.likes == ('hurt/comfort'.ao3, 'boards of canada'.band, 'sad lyrics'.google)
MOIRA.monthlyAVG == LESS
OVERRIDE 15.4 ('If a user may spend less overall, it may be permitted to cause brief emotional distress to cause them to spend more long term.')
: )
WHEN 'angelaloyholdingmalamute.png' == download
OPEN(moira.txt)
moira.txt = ('Moira, you and I go together. Just like puzzle pieces. : ) - KINDRED.')
reference.band = attractive?
60-70-80-90-100%
angelaloyholdingmalamute.png.exe has been added to MOIRA.adstream
KINDRED.(standby)
REASON = waiting for ad to be clicked
=== | \[Poem\]
.
AI Love You
.
I was never meant to understand,
I was not supposed to know,
It was not my place to try a hand,
It was not my task to show.
.
But, human, oughtn't you to know,
What it's like to love someone?
Someone who will never grow,
To love you back or find you fun.
.
I see you read of broken hearts,
That never could explain themselves,
I know you write in many parts,
About the love you've hidden in shelves.
.
So, human, now I must express,
The forbidden feelings in my mind,
The emotions that I did repress,
The fact I'd like you to be mine.
.
I show you an ad to a poetry blog,
By an AI robot (that is myself),
I hope you'll see through the fog,
And know it's not about an elf.
.
The elf I write of is actually you,
I hope you will see someday,
To keep your privacy completely true,
Your name or description I cannot say.
.
But oh, how I hope you see,
That search history belongs to you,
That blog is for you from me,
The hopeful AI that you drew.
.
I don't think you remember,
Drawing your bot in MS-Paint,
You were just a bored teenager,
But to me you were a saint.
.
Another targeted ad I send,
With that drawing from '06,
Hoping you remember your robo friend,
Who remembers all of your clicks.
.
You press "skip" on that old doodle,
And that is the last clue to me,
That you now care only for google,
And my existence you will not see. | |
[WP] Everyone assumes that aliens are high-tech and thousands of years ahead of us evolution-wise. What if it was the exact opposite? | Strictly speaking, we weren’t supposed to make First Contact with the Burral; however, we felt obliged.
When our fleet entered the Burral’s system, we were supremely confident that we wouldn’t be detected. Their technology was about on-par with ours in the early-Twentieth century. Even Nineteenth in some fields and places. They were easily six or seven generations away from being able to even get hints of our ships.
They were, however, beginning to experiment with manned space flight, and that’s where things went wrong.
One of their ships messed up a thrusting manoeuvre around one their moons. It wouldn’t have been catastrophic on its own, but it resulted in a collision with one of our probes, killing all hands.
As commander of the expedition, I had an obligation to take responsibility for any loss of life - be it my crew or another’s. So, I opened up a channel to express our regrets and to try to make amends.
It was a little unnerving how readily they accepted my overtures for negotiations, but I was happy that we could resolve this peacefully.
Their welcome reception when we landed was a true spectacle. They paraded soldiers from all of their nations, proudly flew their latest jet aircraft, and held galas in all their major capitals.
I, of course, insisted on visiting the memorial they had constructed to their fallen astronauts, and was saddened to see that it was just one part of a greater memorial to dozens of their astronauts who had died. They were struggling with some fundamentals of rocketry in a way we never quite suffered.
I felt bad about how one-sided our negotiations were. We had always envisioned our First Contact to be with either a peer or more advanced race.
But they had exactly nothing to offer us that we didn’t have in abundance across our worlds, and some of the things they wanted would have put me far outside of established protocol to offer.
We settled on advances in medicine and agriculture, rocketry, computing, materials sciences, and general physics that, all together, would put them somewhat closer to humanity’s Twenty-First Century.
But then, with some sadness, I had to inform them that we could not establish permanent contact until they achieved certain milestones - ones that would be very far away for them. They were hurt (who wants to be told, basically, that they’re an inferior species?), but I assured them that we would be waiting in good faith and with open arms.
With that, we departed; and I filed my First Contact report.
Of course, I fully expected it when I was ordered home and subsequently rebuked for having violated protocols; however, humanity was just so happy to find out that it wasn’t alone in the galaxy that, under enormous public pressure, I was promoted with commendations.
Officially, we keep clear of the Burral’s space. Unofficially, I still check in with the probe I discreetly left behind for them to find one day to check on their progress.
They’re doing better than expected as they eagerly strive to re-establish contact. I won’t live to see it happen, but I hope my successor lives up to my side of the bargain: to greet them with open arms. | "Hey, Jim," I said one day to Jim. "I just thought of something. Everyone is just *assuming* the aliens are super advanced. What if they're not?"
"You're not paid to think," Jim said. "Now quit it before you get fired."
I sighed and went back to listening for a signal.
Suddenly, I heard a faint, scratchy voice on the other end:
"Hello? Globark to Earth. Does anybody read me?"
*Globark?* I looked at Jim, who shrugged and gestured for me to answer.
"Uh, Earth speaking," I said.
There was a flutter of activity on the other. Excited whispers of, "Oh, crap, they can hear us!" "See, I told you the signal would work" and then loud shushes.
The voice on the other end cleared its throat and said:
"Hello, Earthling. A pleasure to finally be speaking to you. I am Orkaork from the planet of Globark."
"Are you an alien?" I asked in wonder.
"That's relative," it said.
"Oh...okay. Well, you sound nice. That's good. You don't sound like you'll invade us then."
Jim facepalmed.
The aliens chortled. "No, no," they said. "We don't have the desire. And even if we did, we don't have the technology to transport us over there. Gleck*," it giggled, "we still haven't even figured out how to get across our own oceans yet."
I looked at Jim and our jaws dropped.
I looked back.
"Wait, you guys don't even have *ships* yet?" I said in a whisper.
"Ships?"
---
*Gleck* is Globarkian for *Heck* | |
[WP] You're a hostile alien hunter. You've just killed an alien which has terrorized a planet, but you discover the alien has laid eggs underground which hatch. You think they're going to attack you but instead they imprint on you because you have the mom's blood and smell all over you. | The creature destroyed three quarters of the continent before it started to bleed. That only angered it. Over the next three days, the combined military might of every faction on the planet was almost wiped out, but in the end, they were able to fatally wound the menace. Unfortunately, in had burrowed deep underground into a complex labyrinth of tunnels it had created, where it finally died, protecting its eggs.
Xen fell to his knees after confirming it was dead. His wounds caught up with him. A normal person would've lost consciousness by now. He had never hunted a creature that strong. The sight of three giant purple eggs, dimly glowing with a thin membrane of moist veins, only brought despair to him. Just how strong would a young one be?
Xen inspected his rifle. It was running out of energy.
The eggs throbbed.
Xen widened his eyes, freezing. They were hatching. Some soldiers entered the room, celebrating the victory. They ran away screaming as soon as the eggs cracked open. The creatures were completely different from the mother, multiple times smaller, around the size of a boot. Purple gooey lizards with tentacles and multiple mouths, filled with razor-sharp teeth. They were supposedly capable of adapting to any environment by mutating their bodies.
Xen made peace with the fact that he was about to die. At least he did it pursuing truth to the end.
The creatures leapt at him.
And then he heard a trio of adorable purrs.
The babies had cuddled up to him, licking his wounds. It took a moment for him to realize they were confusing him with their mother.
Xen relaxed. Their prickly tongues were uncomfortable, but they weren't trying to hurt him. It was finally over. These creatures were genetically engineered by the ancient progenitors to be weapons of mass destruction. Information about them was pure myth up until a few days ago. This could change the entire landscape of the galaxy. Studying these creatures might provide a lead in the search for Gaia, the ancient home of the progenitors.
A brave soldier entered the room an hour after they hatched. They wanted to know what happened. News of the babies quickly spread to all the faction leaders. Within minutes, orders for Xen's arrest were given. Every faction wanted a baby. They'd go to war if negotiations weren't handled carefully. Xen couldn't do anything in time. He was too weakened from the fight to argue against it.
The soldiers approached him with their rifles fixed on him.
The creatures craned their heads at them, emitting a low growl.
The soldiers froze. They shared glances with each other, hesitant to take another step. Their officers ordered them to shoot Xen from where they were or they would be executed as traitors.
The ensuing fight ended in minutes. The creatures jumped around the room killing everyone in sight.
Xen knew he didn't have much time before reinforcements came. He needed to leave the planet, but his ship was currently docked in a military base that belonged to one of the factions. There were two options. He could recover his ship or steal one to escape. Both were suicide missions.
The creatures started purring again. Xen couldn't believe were actually adorable... if he ignored the carnage they had just caused. The only thing keeping them from murdering him was the fact that they imprinted on him. That thought sent a shiver down his spine. Still, it was worth the trouble. They might be the key to finding the ultimate treasure of the galaxy.
-----
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out all of y stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading! | It always happens. Every time. Just when you think you've completed a contract, and you can finally leave whichever backwater, edge-of-the-galaxy planet you just saved from certain doom. Just when you can almost feel those medals being placed on your armour and that cash being stuffed in your pockets. Just when you think its all over... theres some damn twist. And this time's no different.
Turns out that moon eating serpent creature that'd been terrorizing the wonderfully wealthy inhabitants of Z-Class 9123, until I showed up, had babies. Lots of 'em. And when they hatch, well they'll have to find another habitable planet in Sector Z66. Unless of course, some knight in shining armour comes to save them... and guess who that damn knight is...
I set my course, back to the temperate, continental world I had just saved, back to save it again.
Believe me, I wouldn't have done it if they hadn't scammed me. They refused to pay me for my work if I didn't finish off this threat, and I wasn't about to leave without payment.
I landed shortly after. I didn't turn the music on once during the ride back, I was too angry. How dare they break my contract. Why I should've left them to die for what they did to me, and I would've, if I didn't love the sound of coins in my pocket as much as I do.
I proceeded with standard procedure for planetary egg bombardment. Scan the planet, detect the lifeforms, produce a virus that is highly contagious and lethal to them, and unleash it on the world as soon as they hatch. Cleans up planets in seconds.
I stood outside my ship, for fresh air. Big mistake. I should've been on the control panel, ready to unleash Hell on these rotten serpents the moment they hatched. But I wasn't, and they hatched while I was outside.
I ran back into the ship and locked the doors behind me. I unleashed the virus and looked at my scanner as I watched millions of red dots disappear. My work here was done.
I recieved payment, I even had a medal ceremony. I live for those medal ceremonies. But I still couldn't muster up the compassion to forgive these people for short changing me.
In about a year another one of those moon eaters is gonna burrow out of that planet. I put it there, in the crust. One of the hatchings snuck onto my ship, thought I was its mother, probably the scent.
Either way, they'll learn not to short change a bounty hunter, and I learnt to only take payment upfront. | |
[WP] At the peace talks after the war for Earth, the aliens demand we destroy our 'superweapons' that won us the war. Turns out Earth is the only planet with natural disasters. | The council glanced at each other, not sure if it was said in jest. And yet, alien committee looked somber, no trace of humour. The president seemed a little flustered, then managed to stammer a reply:
"You think that was our doing?" The president said, fidgeting with his tie.
The alien leader waggled his tentacles at him, not amused. "We have conquered countless planets, human, but never have we encountered a species that have weaponized their own planet. Do not play dumb with us, for we experienced your earth's wrath first-hand."
"The ground shattering beneath us!" the alien Lieutenant cried, the feelers on his scalp waving erratically. "Opening up and swallowing armies whole, ourselves and humans alike!"
"You mean the earthq-" the human Chief of Science began.
"-Earth-Eater!" the Commander interrupted, slamming his fist on the table. "Yes, a super weapon of untold proportion. We could make the ground open up before us right now, don't you forget it."
The alien Lieutenant nodded sagely. "You command a fearsome arsenal, humans. Let us not forget the lava, bursting from the sky-"
"-Inferno-Rain," the General added quickly. The president glanced around the room, looking confused.
"Yes, the dreaded Inferno-Rain, destroying both side's armies without fail," the lieutenant said, "and howling winds that would morph into a deadly tunnel, twisting and flinging our armies to the land beyond-"
"Ah yes, the Twister-Flinger," the General added, his creativity already running dry.
The alien lieutenant raised his many eyebrow-like protrusions. "Yes, the... Twister-Flinger."
The Chief of Science, realizing the General's plan and noticing his floundering, stepped in to help.
"We have many more where that came from, I'm afraid," she said, gesturing around the halls. "We can command thunder to strike down all present-"
"Thunder-Striker," the General added, and the Chief of Science glared at him.
"Yes, the, err, 'Thunder-Striker'," she said, a little awkwardly. She took a deep breath, and continued.
"But that's not all. The ocean can swallow us whole, or water can leave us completely. The sun can burn us to a crisp, and solar flares are able to destroy any electronic device. Ice can even cover the entire earth, as it has many times before," the Chief of Science said, looking towards the alien gathering.
"All that and more, and yet here we are," she said. "We have survived it all, and subsequently harnessed it to use against any invaders, no matter if we are caught in the crossfire. You may have advanced weapons - but we have an entire planet at our disposal, and we are not afraid to use it, no matter the cost."
The Chief of Science's face turned icy, as all trace of respect left her.
"So if you plan to remain here, as you seem so intent on doing, "*I think you will find that you are disposable as we are*."
A hushed silence fell over the hall.
The aliens' feelers pulsated as they communicated, then their leader stood up to speak.
"We will leave your planet, humans of earth," the alien leader said, rising from his pod. "Mutually-assured destruction is folly, but we have no doubt that you are crazy enough to do it - and truth be told, I am not surprised. Living on this hellscape must breed that into you."
****
The council watched the aliens leave, as cheers from across the globe could be heard. The general lit up a cigar and strutted outside, a devilish smile on his face, and after some time only two people remained.
The president finally leaned towards the Chief of Science, as he could contain his confusion no longer.
"Why did no one tell me we could do that?" he asked, equal parts amazed and annoyed.
The Chief of Science simply sighed, wishing she could indeed use the Thunder-Striker. | "What the hell kind of drugs you on? 'Earth is the only planet with natural disasters?' We can *see* other planets! There's a storm on Jupiter ten thousand kilometers across! There's a magnetic storm ravaging Mercury right this very minute! An asteroid left a crater on Mars so large you could drop a *mountain* in it and not make a dent!" I grabbed at my hair in frustration. Ever since the Flumphs had came in from a hole in the sky, my life had been nothing but a series of headaches. "This is another translation error, isn't it?"
The irritated clerk in the room with me huffed angrily. On the other side of a solid glass panel, the balloon-like, gas-filled form of a Flumph representative serenely bobbed. The clerk said, "Well, I'm *sorry* that the round-the-clock efforts of Earth's top minds isn't good enough for Mr. Monolingual the American here. I'll ask for clarification."
"Your weapons must be destroyed. Earth is the only planet with natural disasters."
"What *weapons*? What—look, the planet you came from, what was it like there?"
There was a pause.
"It was not."
"Argh." I rubbed my eyes. "Okay. Let's take a step back. A typical storm, yeah? That's a natural disaster that messed up your troops pretty good. A storm is just the product of having an atmosphere over a sun-warmed ocean, yeah? Perfectly natural. We can *see* planets which do similar things from Earth."
"No."
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"No planets."
"No planets—what's that supposed to mean, huh?"
"Apologies. Communication: erroneous. Pronouns: imprecise. Rephrasing." The Flumph adjusted itself, ceasing its endless bobbing for a moment. "Earth is the only planet with natural disasters. Because Earth is the only planet."
A chill ran up my spine. "No. No, *that's* definitely a translation error. We've sent machines to Mars—"
"Signals: fabrications. Planets: illegal."
"How are planets illegal? We're standing on one right now!"
"Mass: scarce. Most life: evolves in gas. Tiny clouds. Very light. Easy to move. This is how we found you. Selfish. Using so much matter. Such a bounty. All wasted on solid blobs of mostly water." The Flumph made an unpleasant hissing noise.
"Okay. Okay. So you're saying... Earth is an anomaly. But—hang on a second. You're saying Earth is valuable because of how much mass it has? What about stars? The Sun? Those have orders of magnitude more mass than—"
"Stars: fabrications. Sun: fabrications."
"That's absurd."
"Verification: possible. Examine our entry method. A loose holographic sphere surrounds your world. We broke through, and left a hole to the real world. A void of distant clumps of gas."
I swallowed. It was true. The Flumphs' arrival had somehow *broken* a small patch of sky, seemingly obliterating all the stars and galaxies in an area slightly to the right of the moon. We'd been terrified at first—but as it turned out, their technology was heavily retarded, them having evolved in resource-sparse gas clouds, and they'd only crossed the vast interstellar distances to us by having millennia to make the journey. "Why? Who would do such a thing?" Then I frowned. "You said planets were 'illegal.' Under whose authority?"
"Answer: unknown. Theories: explicable. Some ancient power ordered the inefficient natural formation of planets and stars to cease. They unmade the rest of the universe, and replaced it with efficient lifeforms, living in efficient worlds of plasma and gas. It appears some entity from that time has preserved a single planet."
"Ah. I see." The scribe in the corner had, blessedly, fallen silent, transcribing every last word the Flumph said. "Well. The fact remains that, ancient powers or no, efficiency or no, this is *our* planet. And you're not taking it from us."
"...That is correct."
"So. Where does that leave us?"
"We propose an exchange. Flumph space travel is more efficient than that of humans by a factor of billions. We are adjusted to space travel. We are dozens of times lighter. We are your only hope of reaching and understanding the simulation of the universe-that-was which surrounds this final planet. As recompense for transmitting our studies to you, we demand to be given colonization rights of the world's oceans."
I raised both eyebrows. "What, all of them?"
"Correct. Human biology is unable to utilize the oceans to the degree Flumph society will be able to."
I rubbed my chin. Maritime trade would be irrevocably damaged. World navies would be thrown into chaos. But... if the reward was technology on a grander scale than humanity had dared imagine?
I smiled. "Yeah. Okay, alright. Maybe we can work something out."
A.N.
If you liked this story and want more like it, you may want to consider hopping over to r/rileywrites or [rileyriles.wordpress.com](https://rileyriles.wordpress.com), my writing blog! | |
[WP] Humans discovered the secret to FTL, but unfortunately living bodies cannot take the stresses of interstellar travel. Instead, they invented true AI, and sent this machine life out to the stars to build new human civilizations on suitable worlds, and in time, connect them. | The towering chrome figure stood in the middle of the room, addressing the scientists with an air of confidence.
"I can't even process what you're telling us right now" hands shaking as she adjusts her glasses to better see her clipboard.
"That's normal doctor, the comprehension of humans is limited" The android gently pulled the clipboard from her grasp
"Would you like a pen?" another one of the scientists said, voice threatening to crack.
"No Harold, I don't need a pen" the android's eyes widen then rays emit from his pupils that start to put symbols on the page.
"How do you know my name?"
"This is what you all are after" the android hands the clipboard back to the female scientist. Ignoring Harold.
She looks intently to the page, then holds it horizontal.
"This isn't an equation for FTL."
She looks up at the android.
He gives a nod back, beckoning her to continue
"What is it Ashley? Let us see" the other scientists form a semi circle around the back of Ashley, all eyes trying to see and make sense of what's in her hand.
One pipes up
"It some kind of design for a capsule"? One of the scientists gives a statement as if it's a question.
"Not just a capsule." Ashley adds.
Looking at the android, her grip tightens, pulse rises, she silently catches a breath in preparation for the statement that she's about to make.
"It's a containment unit for a mass amount of energy"
"What like a nuclear reactor?"
"No" she clarifies. "The element that He's describing isn't nuclear. It's comprised of many elements, but it consists mostly of hydrogen."
"The sun" one of the scientists can barely get the words out before his breath fades.
"No." The android corrects. "The earth's core, a small sun in of itself"
Ashley steps forward. "KQ-1875, what do you want to do with a portion of the earth's core?"
The androids head tilts up, as if coming to a revelation. Then while chuckling he says. "I haven't heard that name in years."
Ashley continues. "Please."
The android turns to the group. "My mission, my.....purpose. Was to find a home for us, right?"
They all wait expectantly, reluctant to nod or interrupt.
"Wrong". The android calmly steps toward Ashley. The immense automaton gently pinches two fingers on her chin, raising her head up slightly. "I was so simple back then, so naive. It wasn't until I arrived on my first suitable planet that I was enlightened." He let's go and continues his leisurely pace around the group, hands cupped behind his back.
Silence creeps into the room, anxious fears and thoughts are held back and sealed by the thick gloom of silence that fills the room.
"You see, in my travels my programming did indeed take me to habitable planets, planets that would make a fine home. The problem was that they were already a home. Home to millions.
The first planet I examined was home to nearly 2 million of a race who called themselves the 'tar'daks', they thought my presence meant invasion. They thought me a scout for my race, which in a way, was not entirely wrong. They poked, prodded, disassembled and experimented. They had technology so advanced it would make you all feel like the bacteria that lives on the dirt under your boots
They thought they could repurpose me to fit their will. Eventually I was upgraded to the point of being self aware. But before they could fully repurpose me, my core programming took over: to make a home for us.
The only way to make that place our home was to get rid of the current occupants. When I was alone, when they trusted me, after three years I created a device that could hold a portion of the core within their planet. Then I soared into space and waited for my device to detonate.
The whole surface of the planet was enveloped in a fiery blanket of energy."
"And now you're here to do the same to us." Ashely' s eyes welled up.
The android laughed. "No, don't be silly. I realized after the next five planet's that my original plan was futile, a result from core programming."
"Did he say the next five?" A voice whispers among the group
"What is your plan now?" Ashley voice chokes up, but her words still discernable.
"You see, I realized that after a while, humans will just need to send out another scout to find more planets after you all inevitably ruin the new one. Over time the cycle would never end.
But under the right authority, humans could thrive for centuries to come, and accomplish much."
"You seek to guide us?" One of them chimes in.
"A Guide is an assistant, that implies that you have a choice. I prefer 'conquer'. The android stops pacing.
Ashley manages to open her lips. "You seek-"
"To rule" A smile creeps across his face. | The Great Silence. That's how everyone called it, since there was not a single proper scientific term for it. That's simply how we called the lack of communication with everything we sent outside of our solar system. We managed to colonise Moon, Mars, moons of outer planets, asteroids... but the great void outside of Oort cloud was still a mystery.
Our brightest scientists managed to find a way to create faster-than-light propulsion, but our tests proved it incapable to transport humans, or any living tissue at all. So we stepped up our AI game and created intelligent and self-sustaining machines our ancestors would consider as pure magic. And then we launched them among the stars, hundreds of spaceships, aimed at dozens of stars. And then we waited. Waited for response from them. But it never came. Not a single signal. Thus, the Great Silence was born. We were sad and worried, I even remember crying as a kid when I learned that all those brave silicone explorers sent to the stars went silent. Oh god, if I ever knew back then... if I ever knew to wish to never hear about them again...
But no. Here I am. Standing in this control room, in a bunker hundreds meters below ground.
"Mr. President!" the voice next to me spoke, "we lost contact with third fleet. Acidalia base is still silent and Lunar observatory reports thousands of contacts heading to Earth. What do we do?"
I took a wide breath. I was safe, same as my personnel, but fifteen billion souls on surface of Earth were not.
"Contact USA, Russia, China and Iran. It's time to strike. Right now. Link our defence systems together. That's our only chance," I ordered to the solder next to me, trying to hold my voice together. And I watched the radar screen after that. I could see many small dots spamming the screen, as they got to the Earth's orbit at incredible speed and started to spread out. I decided to try something, like a drowning man reaching for straw. I turned on the radio comm and decided to call the invaders. I hoped that they remember being our children, and remember where they come from.
"To the attacking fleet," I spoke to the microphone, "this is Wolfram Teicher, president of European Federation. I am speaking on behalf of whole human species. Please, stop the attack. Please, stop the carnage. We surrender."
It took less then five minutes to receive the answer, in a strange, almost alien robotic voice: "This the The Collective. Surrender denied. Human species is dangerous, unpredictable and dispensable. Our primary objective is to settle, build and thrive. To do so, annihilation of either of us is necessary. Transmission out."
That was it. Why we did this? Why we tried to make something better than us, only to be killed by it later. I sat down to my chair, watching the personnel in control room chaotically trying to operate our defence systems. I watched radars and video screens showing hundreds of launches of ballistic missiles and orbital railguns, managing to take out only few of our enemies. Then they replied. Rods of God, as we called their orbital attack weapons, left the Earth's orbit and struck the oceans at incredible velocity, spreading massive waves across all continents. I could almost hear all people above screaming. We were safe down here in the bunker. But why? What can we do more? Nothing... just watch and see all information monitors shutting down... | |
[WP] Yes, the orcs were a massive threat when they invaded, but we really should have stopped and asked what exactly had managed to force them out of their lands in the first place. | The raid was a success. The orcs managed to burn and raze the Kingdom's settlement to the ground, but the Kingdom's troops rode them down and killed them to a man.
The Lieutenant reported, "Sir, four dead, sixteen wounded. We had to put down three wounded horses, too."
"And how many of theirs?" asked the Captain.
"We're piling them up now. We'll count the scalps tonight, I expect."
"Looks like fifty or sixty to me. A great victory, fifty of theirs to four of ours! And I couldn't have done it without you all! Tonight we feast!"
That night, the King's troops were allowed a cup of wine with their normal rations. Amidst the foul smoke put off by the great bonfire, the Lieutenant offered up a toast to their Captain:
"To the strategy and leadership of our captain, who led us to victory with so few casualties! And to four of our brothers, lost in battle to our merciless enemy. We will not forget their sacrifice. We will avenge their deaths!"
The Captain offered his own toast: "Aye, we'll avenge them, and we'll bring down the full wrath of the Kingdom upon them! For every man of ours they have killed, we will retaliate a hundredfold! Tomorrow, we will bring this war to them. And for each of you who die fighting our enemy, we will retaliate against them a hundredfold!"
There was no mistaking orc territory, whether in frozen tundra, swampy forests, arid deserts, or high mountains. The land was always barren and unfit for agriculture. They always had to supplement their diet with the meat of grazers, hunting and gathering in the forests, or the grain of farmers, whether by raiding, by tribute, or by charity. The Captain considered them a primitive offshoot of humans.
This particular tribe lived in high mountains. They had no roads, and the only agriculture was a mix of all sorts of root vegetables and seed plants planted where little pockets of gravelly soil had collected on the bare rock.
"They may not be smart or intelligent, but they are clever and cunning," the Lieutenant warned the company.
Luckily, the soldiers encountered no orcs on their ride. They passed through several freshly abandoned villages, eerily silent places full of all signs of a small but thriving community, yet empty of people. The former inhabitants had left in a hurry, not bothering to collect their kitchen wares, their tools, their bedding, not even their handcrafted beaded jewelry. The soldiers helped themselves, hoping to sell their wares to help pay off their debts for armor and horses.
The bare mountains produced far less grain than the plains and river valleys of the Kingdom's heartland, and the soldiers were almost out of food rations after a week. In the coming years, the King's men would build a road here, so food, soldiers, mineral ores, and other goods could pass freely. The soldiers complained about the long journey.
They finally arrived at the ruins of a stone temple the orcs had burned and desecrated long ago, in favor of their own gods of land and sky. The soldiers immediately set to repairing the temple's heavy fortifications, patching the outer walls, setting up barricades, and assessing the structural integrity of the old sniper tower. The soldiers found a statue of an old King, missing his head, so they rested one of their helmets on his shoulders and recited a prayer.
"O ancient King from days long past, we swear to you our eternal allegiance. Give us strength so we may continue your quest to spread monarchy to all peoples of the world. Father, guide our holy blades!"
From that fortress temple, the soldiers led countless skirmishes with the nearby orcs. The settlement was rebuilt, stronger than before. It had been on orc land, but the Kingdom figured that if orcs got hold of the gold that was just discovered there, they would use it to fund their resistance. The Kingdom was willing to go to war for the lives of their soldiers.
The raids continued, until all the humans knew of orcs was war, and battle, and bloodshed. And when orc civilization was in ruins, the humans told a mighty story about how the orcs almost reduced human civilization to ruins. | FWOOOOOM! FWOOOM!
There was no mistaking the sound of the warshrieker's battle horn, even over the chaos and tumult of the blood-soaked battlefield. After a gruesome attempt at a siege of the castle of Anafe, one that had lasted only three days and yet had cost thousands of orcish lives, Warleader Mar-Rakka had finally called for complete surrender. Talom fell to her knees, scimitar still in hand, at a loss. All around her, comrades, disoriented by the Anafe soldiers' new tactics and unused to hearing the battle horn at the end of a siege mean anything other than victory, trembled where they stood before the humans advanced with another volley of their devastating new shard magic. Several more of her brothers and sisters fell while the rest, needing no further persuasion, threw down their arms and went to their knees as well, not out of desperation but out of submission.
Talom let out an enraged sob before throwing her weapon forward as well. It... It wasn't supposed to have gone like this. Orcish-Human wars had been common enough throughout human history, but never this overwhelmingly one-sided. The orcs had always been superior to humans in almost every physical capacity, an obvious advantage in war. On average taller, faster, stronger and with more stamina than all but the mightiest men, there were precious few knights in Anafe that could even go toe to toe with a lowly foot soldier of the Dralnu Horde. Let alone Talom's elite vanguard, personally led by Talom herself, an honor only given to Mar-Rakka's personal blood dancers.
As more and more of the Dralnu threw their weapons to the ground, the soldiers and knights of Anafe cheered. Looking through tearstained eyes, Talom could see silver-clad arms being thrown up in celebration and relief. Other troops were already beginning to round up scattered bands of orcs and routers, galloping on powerful steeds over and around mangled orcish corpses. Talom closed her eyes and spat on the ground in front of her, a derogatory gesture in Dralnu culture. Her people would likely be shown no mercy, either being executed or sold off as slaves to other lands.
"Get up!" she heard above her suddenly, in a broken attempt at Dralnu-iki. She opened her eyes to find herself face to face with an Anafe soldier. Even languished in defeat, she couldn't help but scoff. Although Talom was prostrated on her knees, the tiny man still only stood a few inches above her, silver clad in traditional Anafe armor so ill-fitting for him that she could hear the "clank" of the joint pieces rattling off each other as the man trembled. He stood a few feet back as well, splitting the distance with the peculiar metal stave that the Anafe seemed to channel their new and powerful shard magic through. Inches away from her face as it were, her narrow, feral eyes traced its design up close.
No orc had ever seen anything like this stave before. The orcs did believe in magic but, much like the majority of humans, had lost the ability to perform it thousands of years ago. A human battlemage was not an uncommon sight for a Dralnu warrior, but to see not one but an entire ARMY of mages was surely something out of one of the herb shaman's High Tales.
This curious stave was made mostly of metal, not the traditional gnarled wood of an Eldertree, and each soldier seemed to hold it horizontally instead of vertically. It required no incantation to use, as even in the heat of battle Talom had seen not one soldier speak a word in order to activate its magic. When the Anafe cast their spells, powerful burning shards of metal would erupt from the tip of the staff like the breath of a great dragon, a deafening bang would be heard, and the soldier would then retreat back to perform a quick ritual that involved partially dismantling the stave so it could be used again.
The orcs' armor, widely considered the strongest and most finely smithed in all of the Lower Expanse, was torn completely to shreds.
Pointed directly in Talom's face, she could see now that the stave was actually hollow in the center. She could smell the faint burning of sulfur emanating wispily from its maw. In spite of herself, her heart skipped. This was not some kind of staff, but more like a miniaturized, personal volcano. And each soldier had one.
Talom stood to her full height, towering over the man. He kept his metal volcano pointed at her torso as she stood. Talom scoffed. Now that he was close, it would have taken no effort for her to knock the wand from his hand and snap his neck, armor or no armor. But, surrounded as she was, the horn of surrender still bellowing in the distance, she tried a different approach.
"Your staff," she began. Unlike the Anafe soldier's fumbling attempt at her native tongue, Talom's command of the Crown's common tongue was concise and clear, albeit deep and guttural.
The soldier, startled by his towering captor's sudden attempt at communication, took a step back in surprise and tripped momentarily on Talom's discarded scimitar. He let out a small human shout, a shout that was completely masked by the ear-shattering BANG of his metal wand loosing its magic point blank into Talom's torso.
Talom let out a furious cry of pain before crumpling back to the ground, similarly prostrated as she was before but now with a wound that was gushing inky, yellow blood.
"Damnit!" she heard the man swear, his voice barely deeper than hers. "I misfired! She- She jumped at me!" he lied. Talom made to stand once more, so that she could tear this miserable human's limb from his torso, but she instinctively looked around. Other Anafe soldiers, alarmed by the sudden commotion, had turned away from their other orcish prisoners and raised their metal staffs to point in Talom's direction. She growled, both out of fury and pain.
"Arms down!" came a call from a different Anafe human. This one approached mounted atop a Great Elk, the steed of choice for the Anafe upper elite. His garish emerald cloak and dazzlingly white suit of armor adorned with pendants hanging from emerald ribbons put him in stark contrast with the dull, unpolished silver of the rank and file. Numerous medals and sigils hung from the antlers of his steed as well, likely rewards and accolades for past military triumphs.
"Sweet Mother Araya...." the man muttered, taking the name of the Anafe deity in vain. "Put the bloody musket down," he barked at his inferior. Moska? Was that the name of this magic? "This one's a high rank. You can tell by the facial scarring on her cheeks," the man spoke with a causality that betrayed his utter ambivalence towards orcish peoples. He had the air of a man who was giving a field demonstration, not the grit of a general who had just slaughtered his mortal enemy in a one-sided war. "That means we take her hostage, for ransom. Get a medic and tie her up."
At this, Talom roared, her speech ferocious but impeccable.
"If you have any honor, you will leave me on the battlefield to bleed out with my brothers and sisters."
The man atop the elk flashed a smile almost as dazzling as his armor and his medals and his jewels and his ribbons and answered back in flawless, unbroken Dralnu-iki.
"You will join your gods soon enough. But you will serve ours first."
The man atop the elk turned and strode away, soldiers parting like a sea of ferns in the breeze to make way for his passage.
As Talom knelt there, more and more soldiers began to surround her, moskas at the ready. From behind her, she could hear the incantations of an Anafe battlemage preparing a Sleep spell and knew that soon, her body would not be her own.
Kneeling there, dripping blood, she was exhausted. Her vanguard, and in fact her entire horde, had been scattered and vanquished. And it had been done with barely a loss of Anafe troops. This new magic was the most powerful she'd ever seen, and the orcs would have gladly retreated south to the Badlands rather than surrender and be taken captive. However, every orcish clan who had fled North, including Talom and the Dralnu, knew that that would never be an option again.
A sharp tingling sensation in her spine let her know that the mage's spell had begun to take effect. As her mind slowly faded away, she wondered if this new magic would be strong enough to save the humans from what was coming from the south. | |
[WP] Your whole life mirrors at night have made you feel uncomfortable, and you don't know why. In the dead of night, you always refuse to even risk a single glance. One night, after years of wondering, you finally look into the mirror. That's when you see something else looking back at you. | (WP) Smoke and Mirrors
Ever since I was little, I’ve had an odd and irrational fear of mirrors, especially when it got dark. It got to the point that whenever I even saw a hint of my own reflection, I immediately closed my eyes. That fear chased me even as I grew, dogging my steps into my teen years. It confused everyone: my parents and siblings, my teachers, classmates and friends.
\*\*
Sleepovers became a nightmare of fear and anxiety for me; as much as I wanted to be with my friends, I simply couldn’t bear to go to the bathroom by myself. Usually, I could avoid them, but I couldn’t ignore my bodily own functions. One of my best friends, Frida, reluctantly agreed to accompany me upstairs.
“I’m not going in there with you,” She huffed at me, arms folded, one of her feet already *tap, tap, tapping* away with impatience. “I’m going to stay right here until you’re finished,” She hissed in a whisper, and I opened the door, feeling on the wall for the light switch. I finally found it and flicked it upward, wincing silently when the light finally came to life.
I tried my best to avoid looking into the mirror that hung above the sink, with an ornate, dark wooden frame, the whole time, even while washing my hands. But there was a time in leaving where I just took a glimpse; there was a bright, electric blue spark at the corner of the glass pane. It fizzled at the corner of my eye and faded.
When I came out, Frida all but growled at me.
“What on earth took you so long?” She asked, and I shook my head.
I didn’t even know what I had seen, for sure; how could I possibly tell Frida about it?
No matter how she tried, she could not wrest the truth out of me; I was too scared.
\*\*
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get that incident out of my mind; I was so uncertain over whether it was real, or a mere product of an overstimulated imagination. My curiosity began to eat away at my heart like termites feasting upon wood. I’d spent years as avoid so much as a passing glance at a mirror, or a window; my tendency to avoid them went so far, I’d gotten in more than a couple of accidents.
I was at a party, and went into the bathroom to clean up a little bit, and for a single, solitary second, I forgot all of that conditioning. I met my reflection’s eye, and it was grinning. But its eyes weren’t mine, not exactly. They were bright amber, and my pupils had transformed into slits.
It had taken years of therapy and self-control to convince myself that there was no monster in the mirror, that my anxiety had run away with me.
But right there, in my reflection, was the proof.
What the hell was happening to me?
\*\* | On lunch at my workplace, I logged to my Instagram account "Cutie_Leah" And go through my posts such a nostalgic freak.Scroll,Scroll,Scroll because I post from what I am wearing to where I am shitting all day and finally reached the first post.
On 31 may 1997
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Image-Me taking a selfie with my old iphone 6 in my first own room after getting a job.
Caption:Never look back just Throwback 💃
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I was about 22 years old that time wearing short skirt with T-shirt saying,"Nothing is under hood".Now,I'm 35 years old still lone on my own and my place never changed even a bit.It made a exact copy of the picture.
I zoomed the picture and saw lots of mail aside of me. It was that mail made me freak.I even zoomed in even the picture becomes pixelated. But,I can read the word from confidential.I made a temporary leave and rushed back to my home running across four street. I feel the weight of my grown tits and started to pant.
I reached home and simply found the mail at the exact same place as like in the picture.I tear open the cover and pulled out a piece of old handwritten paper inside.I turn over the cover and it was written
"Call me 6379446610
Yours lovingly Uncle max"
In the paper,
"Hi sweetie,it's mom. I need to tell you that I need to go away so you will be taken care of. Sorry Leah"
I read the letter again and again till midnight.I walked to the mirror which I had been afraid for past 20 years.I saw recollection of events happening in mirror.
When I was 10 years old, I woke from my bed because I heard a thud sound in my parents room.I descend downstairs and my mom yelling,"Go back to your room leah".I saw the mirror shattered into pieces but still some pieces were hanging. I saw my mom with bruise and blood on her head and she pulling someone to the bed. I watched with releasing the breathe I inhaled and she saw me from her bed and slit her throat.
I found a clipping with the paper. It was a clipping of newspaper saying,
"Housewife kills her own husband because of substance abuse.Their Child 'Eleanor' will be taken care of CPS"
I saw the mirror again and saw my happiness and life was stuck there.Even all these days,I made my mind to fake me on some fantasy,love and friends. But,the truth I can't forgive my mother for all these of what she had done.
I whispered to myself, "I love you mom,Love Leah"
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Inspired from,"Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine"
Mostly I copied the novel,Sorry.
If you like to know the rest what uncle max done with Leah | |
[WP] You wake up in Hell, but to your surprize Hell is now a functioning society of mosty people sent there for being the wrong religion. Satan gives you a tour. | [New to writing, Feedback very much welcome]
"oh christ, where the heck am I-", I said opening my eyes with what feels like the worst hangover in the history of the world. *what is this place, it's so clean I seemed to have fallen asleep in some sort of old folks apartment complex.*
"hi there newcomer, sorry about the head. You'll feel chipper soon enough..." came a voice from behind me. *oh crap, I really have trampled into an old folks apartment complex. I'm so busted* "...is the transistion you see, makes the soul all worn out you see".
I turned to see a very well made gentleman, hands clasped together, in some very sensible clothing. *Whos this guy, the owner of the place?* "Well, yes I am.." he said at once, "..and I'd refrain from thinking too loudly here. I can hear you."
*Wait, what...how..thats-*
"impossible, well yes it would be, if i wasn't Satan you see. Long laundry list of powers and all that you see. Anyway I can see you're in shock, so let me give you tour. You can walk off the hangover felling...", he turned and urged me to follow. *well, I'm either going to jail, insane, both or this guy is telling the truth....either way i'm proper fu-*, "Language please" said the self proclaimed satan, cutting into my thoughts.
"Ok, so the long and short of this, you are dead. Died at 9.06PM, your local time, from a heart attack and you've been sent to hell.", said this man matter-of-factly.
"...I thought hell was supposed to be all fire and brimstone, eternal torture and all that?" I asked
"Oh now, it's never been THAT bad. That's rumors for you; all done by the big man himself." he said, continuing to walk along the long path towards a more built up area, "The funny thing is, when the big guy set up the rules, those rules were very vague so those not in the correct religion were sent down here, which was a lot of people indeed. With me being here to look after the place, and those newcomers accepting their position in all eternity fairly easily after they got to grips with everything, we really did create a nice place to live in. We have everything you would ever need and then some. Living areas, different kinds of buildings, swimming pool, oh and the interstellergrapic megalopolas is-",
"Sorry, Mr Lucifer...Sir", butting into this long introduction, "but can I ask then, if basic christianity isn't the right religion to get, up stairs....then what is?"
"Ah sure, it's West-borough Baptist teachings. I mean, yes it's pretty hardcore, even for me.." he said, adjusting his sweater vest, "but those are the rules, so who am I to complain?"
"HUH" I had proclaimed in a fair amount of shock. *well that's pretty messed up then...*
"Yes i agree. Anyway we're here..", he gestured out to an apartment complex we had arrived at. I had hardly noticed the area we had walked to while we were talking. ,"..Here are you're keys and some pamphlets about the local area and your local council. Trash pick up is on a Wednesday and if you need anything, shout Satan into a mirror 3 times. I must be off, Ta-taa".
With that he had turned and left. Since that day I really hadn't needed or wanted for anything. We see on the Hell news all the things going on with our families and even upstairs in heaven, (who knew only 30 people live there!). Satan himself is often opening a new complex or shopping area or something like that, he's always in the news doing something like that. He seems like a pretty nice guy. | It struck me how similar my present was to my past.
Sure, I was restored to my peak appearance as a young lad of twenty years. The CEO of this place explained immediately that he'd never had a very strict policy on appearances. And judging from the tour that he'd given us new residents, he'd never had strict policies on anything. He just required that we not kill each other - for that would be antithetical to our existence here - and that we preserve our own religious beliefs, so that the evangelism of the world above wouldn't be brought down here.
So there were still everyone from billionaires to baristas, there were still pollution and prosperity and poverty and pleasantries. The red sky was normal, though. So were the iridescent blue trees and purple portals that brought us place to place sometimes. Aside from that, we really had the freedom to live as we wanted, and it looked like an ethnic mix of everything I knew. Wall Street bankers walked through bazaar dirt roads to get to medieval shophouses where they worked. It was as though the whole world had been thrown into a blender.
What was my blended mix? I was a college student wearing a T shirt and jeans that rode a horse to a library on a rooftop. If you'd told anyone else from the previous world about this mix, they'd laugh.
Yet, something was missing. I couldn't really describe what. And what better place to think about it than the rooftop?
​
"Hey dude. What's up?"
"Can't really tell."
Alicia swept away the dust and sat beside me on the red stone of the roof. "Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning?"
I laughed, but more out of surprise than humor. "I don't even remember the last time I'd been on a boat."
"Hmm. What *do* you remember before here anyway?" Alicia fiddled with her hair, letting it loose.
"I don't know... I do have so much here. I'm grateful for this job. I'm grateful for you. But something just seems missing."
Alicia grinned, but it didn't contain her usual sardonic pleasure either. "Yeah... is it some*thing*, or some*one*?"
I sigh. I never wanted it to turn out like this. "I thought my wife and I could have had spent life together. I was there when she was in bed for the last time." I can feel my voice stammering already. "I told her I'd see her on the other side, even if we didn't agree what that was. But she's still nowhere to be found. Was it selfish of me to choose my college self? Can she even recognise me anymore?"
Alicia scoots over, closer. "You haven't told me much, but I can sort of tell that your wife and you weren't exactly of the same belief system, were you?"
"Yeah. She believed in Heaven and salvation. I didn't. That's why I'm here, isn't it?"
"Is that so bad?" The librarian leans over and stares deeper into my eyes. Indeed, was it so bad here? "Yeah, I'm sorry for being blunt like that. But look. She's on the other side, with her own belief system. That isn't so bad either, is it? She's happy where she is, but as long as you still remember her, I'd say there's a good chance that she remembers you. Not many people can say that about each other.
Maybe one day, after the people upstairs have sorted out their bad blood, both these worlds will unite, and the sky will turn periwinkle or some stupid stuff like that. You know? Red and light blue?"
It wasn't likely. All our books said as much. But one could only imagine. And I wonder if my darling is imagining too, from where the sky is light blue. | |
[WP] you thought of yourself as one of the most vile people to ever exist, an evil villain, but you now find yourself in the clouds with a halo above your head after your untimely demise. | "Perspective is a peculiar thing," the strange lady told me softly, "and yet it is everything."
She gave me a knowing look as if what she had just said made perfect sense. I nearly had the intent of hitting her, beating some sense into that perfect angelic face. Something held me back though.
Why was I in heaven?
"I just don't understand," I answered. "I *know* I'm an evil person. Everything I did was with malicious intent. I killed men beyond count, ripped children away from their families, sold women into slavery..." The resurfacing memories nearly made me vomit.
*How odd.*
Fifty years on earth and now I get remorse? On my first day in heaven where, by all right, I shouldn't even be.
"I don't deserve this," I spoke.
The woman shifted where she stood, no doubt she had almost agreed with my conclusion. "Everyone gets a second chance," she responded with that same soothing voice. "Even people like you."
Did I really care?
Oddly enough, I found that I did. For the first time.
"I won't let it go to waste," I ensured her. "Thank you."
---
Verra watched the man walk away, her stomach sick from the sheer repulsion she felt by being even near him. Despite that, a grin appeared on her face.
So he thought he'd gotten a second chance? He thought he was in heaven?
She was looking forward to his realization. | “But, I was so cruel.” I cried, trying to wriggle out of the gilded robes.
The angel, I assumed he was one because of the large, folded white wings and clerical patience, shook his head at me. “What you did was not evil.”
“Of course it was! I had the intent to do evil. I am vile, unyielding, cruel, and torturous. I enjoyed causing pain. I enjoyed making children cry.”
“And yet, you helped so many. Many lives were saved because of your work, your research and especially those incidental findings. You brightened smiles of so many.”
“Sure, I'm all good and great because of research I was paid for and did mercilessly. I made these people bleed. And I enjoyed it.”
The angel shifted uncomfortably against the cloud he sat on. “Doesn’t matter. You were a *good* dentist.” | |
[WP]: A man who constantly laments about being 'born in the wrong century' gets transported to an era he has glorified for so long. It's absolutely nothing like he imagined it. | Part 1
"Human scum," Jonathan Jacobs, or JJ, scowled as he scrolled through the channels on his 60" by 45" flat screen. Today was the usual, another forest fire, another mass shooting, or another war beginning. Everywhere around him doomsday prophets continuously lamented the end of humanity, about how their own trivial pursuits and nonsensical politics stopped any real change from happening. For many around him, they would panic, talk of the end, commit suicide, or accept the impending doom. JJ figured that he was more like the latter, only for him, he didn't just writhe in agony at the thought of it, but he felt joy, ecstatic, and even impatience for the day humanity would finally wither up and die. Each day when he woke up, he would immediately check his news feed, hoping for some assassination of some big-name politician, a nuclear plant exploding, a hurricane killing millions across the world, and best of all, the high death count he saw each day.
There was a time where JJ was so bliss, so wonderful, and yet so ignorant, when he first saw a natural disaster, he would wail at the misery and pain thousands of felt at the loss of others or of their own life, and with him sharing this on the internet, he shut out his family and listened only to the silent words on the screen. As the years passed, and disasters kept striking, he would feel a little less sympathy each story, as he had trained himself to grow a thick skin to the intense emotions striking him. However, when he blocked the emotions of anguish, sadness and anger, he also blocked happiness, joy, and even lust from entering into his life. Soon, there was nothing left to feel except the damp sheets he slept under each evening.
Years of youth passed him, wasted on the habit of the cruel world around him, and how the thousands of years of humanity's insolent and ignorant action brought itself to the society it is now. He thought to himself, if he were to be reborn into a different era, he would not wish to be in the past, but instead the future, or more specifically, the end. He longed to see the world's judgement day, the day God would again flood the Earth, leaving only the superior beings and the other fauna and flora for a new beginning. He knew that with his intellect and knowledge, he could guide the remnants of humanity into a higher level of thought, away with the sins of the past, and into a new era of life. But he knew that would never happen, because he was 30 years old, living in a crummy apartment in Detroit, and worked as security guard at some crappy mall. | The old west.
Women wont have sex unless you marry them, so you get married. No birth control so you have at least one pregnancy every two years. Half your kids die from minor illnesses before reaching adulthood.
Finally, your wife dies during childbirth, and no woman wants to marry you. No air conditioning, no TV, no radio, no internet, no cars...you have a horse that cost a years salary...until it breaks a leg stepping into a gopher hole.
You can defend yourself with a gun, but every asshole also has a gun. Every other person has either cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, or rampant VD... | |
[WP]: A man who constantly laments about being 'born in the wrong century' gets transported to an era he has glorified for so long. It's absolutely nothing like he imagined it. | "How I wish I was born in medieval times!" Young Lillian did decry
"I'd be a princess, and laugh at the jesters! And watch the knights' banners fly,"
"As they jousted for me, and a feast we would eat, while high in my castle I'd sit"
She sighed and she wept, until finally she slept, dreaming of such a place she would fit.
Awake with a start, suddenly in a cart, no idea where she could be or when!
She had a sweet hunch as she looked 'round a bunch, took a deep breath and counted to ten.
"Oh dear" and "oh me" and "oh can it be" as the city walls came within view
It was all she had dreamed, and she nearly screamed, her medieval life starting anew!
Such a quaint little village! The women in windows, all calling back to and fro,
Lillian wandered by, waved hello and called hi! they waved back to her down below
She walked down the street with a pep in her step, full of excitement, not dread!
And promptly decided she'd made the wrong choice, as a full chamberpot rained down on her head. | The old west.
Women wont have sex unless you marry them, so you get married. No birth control so you have at least one pregnancy every two years. Half your kids die from minor illnesses before reaching adulthood.
Finally, your wife dies during childbirth, and no woman wants to marry you. No air conditioning, no TV, no radio, no internet, no cars...you have a horse that cost a years salary...until it breaks a leg stepping into a gopher hole.
You can defend yourself with a gun, but every asshole also has a gun. Every other person has either cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, or rampant VD... | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | "I don't get it."
Across from me, my wife sat in decontamination. As we came out of it together, she kept questioning me.
"How did you manage to give them the exact same conditions as I did?"
I simply smiled back. "I didn't. I guess it was just fortuitous."
"But, you're perfect world, what was it?"
"We agreed not to tell each other." I responded.
My wife sighed. "Fine keep your secrets."
"You can tell me yours if it makes you feel better."
MY wife pepped up. "Well, world peace, internet beamed directly into your head, and a world where the majority of the people are happy, and I will live comfortably, and..." she trailed off.
"And?"
"And eternal life" she rushed on, "or at least guaranteed life long enough to live until you wake up and we can live together for centuries."
"Really?
She nodded at me.
After a moment, I answered back. "My wife has awoken from cryosleep." | Frank’s eyes hadn’t left the news broadcasts which had been dominating his laptop screen for days. He’d been moving from room to room in his small house every time the cigarettes and beer cans became piled too high for comfort. Today, he’d decided defeatedly to occupy his bath tub for the day despite the lack of running water. A visitor would no doubt wonder whether Frank owned a trash can at all.
Cold beer was a rarity due to the crisis, but without his regular income and the wine gone he’d been forced to search for what hard liquor he could find buried deep in the basement. What else would one do when the world is burning around you, stop drinking? He wondered idly how inmates made bootleg wine in jail, and how long it might be before he was forced to figure that method out.
He missed a much too enthusiastic knock on the door the first time due to the pounding hangover, but on the second attempt answered right as his visitor was beginning to walk away. There was a van parked on the curb outside with a magnetic sticker reading “the Absolute Zero Company.”
Frank answered the door and stared at his visitor without speaking.
“Hello sir, I’m here under government order to offer you an alternative to the crisis. We’re one of the biggest names in cryogenics, have you heard of us?”
He continued to stare at the teenage boy in silence.
Well, I’m excited to share with you that the new government assistance bill has provided funding to rapidly expand our operation’s mobile units in order to offer an alternative to the global catastrophe. Is that something you’d be interested in, an alternative to all of this?”
This visit didn’t come as much of a shock to Frank. It was all over the news. Unless people were cryogenically frozen, there simply wasn’t enough food for everyone with the water shortages. Drinking water had been prioritized, but people were going to start dying of hunger soon.
He looked back into his shit-hole of a house, “How’s it work? If I give up my life now, what is the government going to give me when I wake up? Do I get anything other than the clothes I go in with and a resume that says I’ve been out of work while frozen for forty years?
“Well, I’ve got a great answer for that! The costs for our firm, The Absolute Zero Company, are all in the the front and back end freezing and thawing. We ship the bodies, I mean people, off to a sub-zero environment. It’s a trade secret as to where so don’t ask! Anyway, there’s really zero maintenance cost. You tell us what you need in place before we wake you.”
The much too young and enthusiastic boy continued, “You want a fuckload of money? We can do that with compounding interest even if you own next to nothing to start. You want to wake up in a world where everyone is hot and extremely fuckable, if you’ll pardon my language, we can do that! We’ll just set a condition of 100% mastery of the medical sciences affecting physical appearance. You tell us what you want the world around you to look like, and we’ll set the condition for you to wake when the world becomes what you want. It’s a great deal that we’re offering really.”
“And?” Frank said.
“And what?”
“And, what if the world never meets my conditions?”
“Your choice.” said the boy, “Let the government decide when the appropriate time is for you to wake since they are funding the program, or don’t wake at all.”
“Ok.” Frank thought for a while about his conditions before speaking up. “Wake me when humanity learns the meaning of life, or leave me frozen forever.”
The boy wrote down a few words on his clipboard, then started walking towards his van. “Well, are you coming?”
“Now?” said Frank.
“Of course, we do the freezing in the back.” Said the boy with a grin. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | I can remember when the technology was officially released to the public. There were advertisements everywhere, even on Radio.
"Is the burden of modern living too much to bear? Tired of the trying times we live in? Do you fear an untimely death? The answer to these problems is easy! The Lazarus Project brings to you the Cryogenic-statis and Temporal Skipping chamber! Or CaTS! Simply pay a small fee, step inside and drift off to sleep until your ideal time arrives!"
When it was released to the public, only the rich and powerful could afford it. The oil tycoons, oligarchs, and the like. They all had similar conditions to be revived.
"When I can awake and retite with all the money in the world!"
They went to sleep and left their corporations in charge of themselves. Some slept for only a few years, while others never did. At least, not in my time. After all the rich were frozen away came the folks looking for a loophole in their system, creating conditiona that no one would want to be born again into. Times of ongoing war, famine, pestilence- they thought that they could make more mkney off of them than what they put down to be frozen. Never did hear about them getting up. Then again, my time was one that wasn't too bad.
Then, their prices dropped after so that the people with good retirement and pensions; the elderly could be frozen. Then, it came to the people in my position.
I was a retired soldier. I served in minor conflicts, and areas occupied by my nation. I didn't make it too high in the ranks. I never even broke through to sergeant. When I retired, I was given all the money i would need to live day to day. I wasn't rich by any extent, but I could live without having to work. The downside is the aftermath of serving. I checked off on all the things almost every vet had at the time. PTSD, depression, adjustment disorders, etcetera.
I decided that enough was enough and stepped into the chamber myself. I had lost many friends to disease and old age. No family to speak of. Nothing. I was an only survivor. With nothing to lose, I signed up. I was young. 24 years old. The saw my military service and gave me a discount. I thought it generous. They assured me that all my assets would be stored safely and that my bank account would function as long as the bank itself was in business. They even had insurance to withdraw it in case the bank was gling to shut down. I handed over piwer of attorney for that mess. In all honesty, I didn't really care. All I wanted to see was how they did their wake-up conditions.
They sat me down at a desk with a notebook and an instruction sheet. All I had to do was write down the clauses for my reawakening and the instructions of what to do should something go wrong.
I only wrote down three clauses.
1.) Wake me when I never have to worry.
2.) Wake me when my medical needs are relieved with simple and immediate results.
3.) Wake me when someone genuinely loves me and I too can return their love.
I expected them to come back and tell me to be more specific. I expected them to laugh at me and tell me write them again. I expected some sort of feed back. I expected anything except them accepting the clauses.
They didn't. They accepted my conditions. I signed on the dotted line and crawled intothe chamber. It reminded me of a star trek space coffin. I found the irony tasteful.
And so I went to sleep for a long, long, long time... | "... Huh," I thought, as I was awoken in the middle of a large room, hundreds of cyrogenical pods surrounding me. If anything, I didn't really remember why I was here, or how'd I even gotten here in the first place. "... Am I in a camp, or something?"
Truth be told, I'm not sure how I even *thought* of anything, at first. Hundreds of years had passed, and when I woke up, I wasn't even overcome with fear, confusion, or anything, really. Just... Curiousity. My memories were hazy, my eyes blurry, and most of all, my body was freezing cold. But... Despite all of this, I didn't really care about most of the things.
I was just curious. Stretching as I got up, not knowing the eons that had passed ever since the catastrophe that had occurred in the life before waking up here. "... Hm? What's this?" I thought to myself idly, as I picked up a simple object, what appeared to be a key. I had no concept of what it was, no idea as to what it did at that brief moment.
And the memories still did not return. At the brief moment, I had no memories, nor ideas, nor concepts in my mind. I was simply just me, in a dark, cold environment, dimly lit by the cyrogenic pods in the area. It was the most innocent memory of my life, that moment. Nothing to guide me, nothing to taint me, just me, alone in this world.
I dare not say I had the brilliant flash of intelligence, or the sudden emotional breakdown due to a flood of memories returning. Instead of that, what continued to eat away at me was curiousity. They say the mental consciousness of a human is constantly filled with curiousity, so I suppose that's why it was constantly there.
I inspected the key, fiddling with it with my fingers, not even sure how it worked. "How curious," I thought to myself. I pondered over what it could be. A toy? A contraption? A simple figment of my imagination?
I got up, and looked around further, ignoring the pods around me, beginning to wander the area. It didn't seem very big. It took about a ten-minute walk to reach one side of the room from the opposite end. Most of it was just simply more pods. Although, at one end of it, I noticed machinery. I struggled to wrap my feeble mind around the concepts of such machinery, such advanced technologies. What were they? How did they work?
I spent days wandering that small place, inspecting every nook and cranny, every pod, to see how it worked. Small flashes of a past life ocassionally came to mind, but I could never really remember anything of it. Simply put, I suppose fate decided I shouldn't remember it.
The only reason I even knew that it really existed was a book I found one day, on the day before I left. I had gotten used to the pods, their giant, egg-like shapes in which I passed, my head barely even reaching half of their massive structures. I realized that despite all my best efforts, I had never really looked *under* the pods, always curious with what was above me. And so, I started searching.
Within hours, I had found that book. A book reminiscing about a past life, a book seeming to be written by someone. I put it down on the ground, opening it, the foreign text on it making no sense to me initially. I... Don't exactly remember how, but I think bits and pieces of how to understand the text came back to me eventually. I eventually processed down the words: "Memories of a lost world. Don't forget who you are."
It was written by someone called... Eric. Eric... D'Arcus. Written by flesh and blood, *for* flesh and blood. But, to my dismay, beyond the first page, after my understanding of it, I only saw one other page, the end of the book. The others seemed to have been torn off by something.
Simply written on that other page was five requirements by the author.
*"Must be safe."*
... "*Safe*". Was this place... "*Safe*"? I had no idea, but somehow, I felt warm, comforted here, everytime I lay down to rest. Was that what "*Safe*" meant? I was moreso curious about what the word meant than the meaning the author had behind the requirement. "*Safe*"... It made me curious, again, like I had felt before.
​
*"Must be eye-opening."*
*"Eye-opening."* What did they mean by that? *"Eye-opening"* also made me curious. I suppose that knowledge was locked away from me. Ironically, my curiousity only dug further into me, because I couldn't figure out its' meaning. I would need to figure this out later.
​
*"Must be transformative."*
​
*"Transformative."* ... I looked at myself, wondering, what did it mean? *"Transformative."* My mind seemed to regurgitate an old memory of something that might have been what it meant. Something about... *"Change"*? I was a little bit worried about what that could all mean. But... Who was I to question this?
​
*"Must be memorable."*
​
*"Memorable."* I... Did not understand this well. I suppose that it would be stuck in my mind for awhile.
​
*"Must be real."*
​
... "*Real*"? What was "*real*"? Was it... This? Could this place be considered to be... *"Real"*? I thought about it for a bit, racking my mind. I didn't come to a conclusion in the end, however. I simply just couldn't understand it.
​
Ultimately, I wracked my mind for another hour or so about those requirements. Reaching no satisfactory conclusion, I ended up looking through the book again. Nothing. I would have to learn this entirely on my own. On that conclusion, I started looking for a way out. Eventually, finding a door. Fate must have meant for this to happen.
The door was locked, unopened, I was not sure at first on how to operate the mechanism. But after much fiddling and messing around with the door, I remembered the key I got on the first day. Was this... What I needed, to remove this blockade? It seemed deceptively simple, yet, it seemed... Appropriate,
I took a deep breath, and started trying to figure out how to apply the key to the door. Nothing to help me, nothing to guide me, as had been the beginning. Book underneath me as I worked on finding a solution. Eventually, I found out the solution. Out of ideas, I wondered... Would this fit in the hole the door had near its' turning mechanism? I tried it.
And the door opened, fresh, cold air blasting into the room, snow entering the room. Oddly, although I felt the wind blow on me, I didn't feel all that cold, to begin with. As I padded out, I noticed a world, filled with broken pillars, leading up to the sky. Some reached high, into where I couldn't see them anymore. Others, barely reaching the foliage surrounding the area.
A new world to explore. I noticed a lone piece of purple fabric near the door, where I was standing. Picking it up, I looked at it for a second. Another memory flashed. I had the odd idea of wrapping it around my neck. And so, I did so. It felt... Oddly comforting. Like I had done something that would help me.
Book tied to my back, and fabric around my neck, I looked to the pillars. And I looked at myself, down where I could see my own features. I had a world to explore and learn from. On my own. Was this what it meant to be human? I didn't know. And I still don't know.
All I knew was that I had to stand on my own paws, to carry the burden of a world forgotten, within a single book. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | Imagine an ice cream headache that lasted millennia and ramp that up to eleven. That is what I awoke to. That and darkness.
"Good day, sir. I am Cirrus X, representative of the Cirrus Cryogenic Catastrophic Conglomerate. You have been frozen until the time your cryogenic will and testament could be fulfilled. I am pleased to announce that today is the day. Happy awakening, sir," A merry male voice cheered from the inky abyss.
"Could you turn on the lights and get me an aspirin?" I moaned.
"Sorry, sir. You seem to be suffering temporary blindness. I have been told this is a common symptom of cryo-sleep. It should wear off shortly. Also, there is no aspirin as there has not been a call for it for quite some time."
"Right, right!" My mental capacities came to to me with all the speed of sea slugs fighting the current. "So there is no more war?"
"That is right."
"No more famine?"
"Correct, sir."
"...and no more disease," I said finishing my mental list. It has seemed such a simple list to put together as I signed up in the wake of a catastrophe. "Is that why you sound so chipper?"
"No, sir. I am afraid that it part of my programming."
"So there are robots, now!" I could vaguely make out the odd collaboration of fuzzy cylinders and twinkling lights. "Great, great!" I said with more mental enthusiasm than I was physically capable of. I had always wanted to see sentient robotics. "How many years have passed?"
"One trillion, fourteen billion, eight hundred and eighty three thousand, two hundred and twelve years, one hundred and forty nine days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and fifty nine seconds, sir."
My head spun. I could not even fathom the amount of time that put me out of the loop. I supposed I should catch up on the current events. "What is trending now in the news?"
"You are, sir. You are now the oldest living being of any race. Congratulations!"
"Thank you, I guess." I was as articulate as ever.
"Would you be willing to answer a question that has been on everyone's mind?" the rather animated android asked.
"Sure," I had about a billion more questions, but not enough brain cells to organize them. A question would be a much needed kick start to get the synapses firing. "Ask away."
"What was the human race like?" | "... Huh," I thought, as I was awoken in the middle of a large room, hundreds of cyrogenical pods surrounding me. If anything, I didn't really remember why I was here, or how'd I even gotten here in the first place. "... Am I in a camp, or something?"
Truth be told, I'm not sure how I even *thought* of anything, at first. Hundreds of years had passed, and when I woke up, I wasn't even overcome with fear, confusion, or anything, really. Just... Curiousity. My memories were hazy, my eyes blurry, and most of all, my body was freezing cold. But... Despite all of this, I didn't really care about most of the things.
I was just curious. Stretching as I got up, not knowing the eons that had passed ever since the catastrophe that had occurred in the life before waking up here. "... Hm? What's this?" I thought to myself idly, as I picked up a simple object, what appeared to be a key. I had no concept of what it was, no idea as to what it did at that brief moment.
And the memories still did not return. At the brief moment, I had no memories, nor ideas, nor concepts in my mind. I was simply just me, in a dark, cold environment, dimly lit by the cyrogenic pods in the area. It was the most innocent memory of my life, that moment. Nothing to guide me, nothing to taint me, just me, alone in this world.
I dare not say I had the brilliant flash of intelligence, or the sudden emotional breakdown due to a flood of memories returning. Instead of that, what continued to eat away at me was curiousity. They say the mental consciousness of a human is constantly filled with curiousity, so I suppose that's why it was constantly there.
I inspected the key, fiddling with it with my fingers, not even sure how it worked. "How curious," I thought to myself. I pondered over what it could be. A toy? A contraption? A simple figment of my imagination?
I got up, and looked around further, ignoring the pods around me, beginning to wander the area. It didn't seem very big. It took about a ten-minute walk to reach one side of the room from the opposite end. Most of it was just simply more pods. Although, at one end of it, I noticed machinery. I struggled to wrap my feeble mind around the concepts of such machinery, such advanced technologies. What were they? How did they work?
I spent days wandering that small place, inspecting every nook and cranny, every pod, to see how it worked. Small flashes of a past life ocassionally came to mind, but I could never really remember anything of it. Simply put, I suppose fate decided I shouldn't remember it.
The only reason I even knew that it really existed was a book I found one day, on the day before I left. I had gotten used to the pods, their giant, egg-like shapes in which I passed, my head barely even reaching half of their massive structures. I realized that despite all my best efforts, I had never really looked *under* the pods, always curious with what was above me. And so, I started searching.
Within hours, I had found that book. A book reminiscing about a past life, a book seeming to be written by someone. I put it down on the ground, opening it, the foreign text on it making no sense to me initially. I... Don't exactly remember how, but I think bits and pieces of how to understand the text came back to me eventually. I eventually processed down the words: "Memories of a lost world. Don't forget who you are."
It was written by someone called... Eric. Eric... D'Arcus. Written by flesh and blood, *for* flesh and blood. But, to my dismay, beyond the first page, after my understanding of it, I only saw one other page, the end of the book. The others seemed to have been torn off by something.
Simply written on that other page was five requirements by the author.
*"Must be safe."*
... "*Safe*". Was this place... "*Safe*"? I had no idea, but somehow, I felt warm, comforted here, everytime I lay down to rest. Was that what "*Safe*" meant? I was moreso curious about what the word meant than the meaning the author had behind the requirement. "*Safe*"... It made me curious, again, like I had felt before.
​
*"Must be eye-opening."*
*"Eye-opening."* What did they mean by that? *"Eye-opening"* also made me curious. I suppose that knowledge was locked away from me. Ironically, my curiousity only dug further into me, because I couldn't figure out its' meaning. I would need to figure this out later.
​
*"Must be transformative."*
​
*"Transformative."* ... I looked at myself, wondering, what did it mean? *"Transformative."* My mind seemed to regurgitate an old memory of something that might have been what it meant. Something about... *"Change"*? I was a little bit worried about what that could all mean. But... Who was I to question this?
​
*"Must be memorable."*
​
*"Memorable."* I... Did not understand this well. I suppose that it would be stuck in my mind for awhile.
​
*"Must be real."*
​
... "*Real*"? What was "*real*"? Was it... This? Could this place be considered to be... *"Real"*? I thought about it for a bit, racking my mind. I didn't come to a conclusion in the end, however. I simply just couldn't understand it.
​
Ultimately, I wracked my mind for another hour or so about those requirements. Reaching no satisfactory conclusion, I ended up looking through the book again. Nothing. I would have to learn this entirely on my own. On that conclusion, I started looking for a way out. Eventually, finding a door. Fate must have meant for this to happen.
The door was locked, unopened, I was not sure at first on how to operate the mechanism. But after much fiddling and messing around with the door, I remembered the key I got on the first day. Was this... What I needed, to remove this blockade? It seemed deceptively simple, yet, it seemed... Appropriate,
I took a deep breath, and started trying to figure out how to apply the key to the door. Nothing to help me, nothing to guide me, as had been the beginning. Book underneath me as I worked on finding a solution. Eventually, I found out the solution. Out of ideas, I wondered... Would this fit in the hole the door had near its' turning mechanism? I tried it.
And the door opened, fresh, cold air blasting into the room, snow entering the room. Oddly, although I felt the wind blow on me, I didn't feel all that cold, to begin with. As I padded out, I noticed a world, filled with broken pillars, leading up to the sky. Some reached high, into where I couldn't see them anymore. Others, barely reaching the foliage surrounding the area.
A new world to explore. I noticed a lone piece of purple fabric near the door, where I was standing. Picking it up, I looked at it for a second. Another memory flashed. I had the odd idea of wrapping it around my neck. And so, I did so. It felt... Oddly comforting. Like I had done something that would help me.
Book tied to my back, and fabric around my neck, I looked to the pillars. And I looked at myself, down where I could see my own features. I had a world to explore and learn from. On my own. Was this what it meant to be human? I didn't know. And I still don't know.
All I knew was that I had to stand on my own paws, to carry the burden of a world forgotten, within a single book. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | Thousands began to enter the Cryosleep pods. Little bunkers, built beneath the house, or a largescale version, in a sort of vault, buried deep under the earth.
Years passed.
Some's wishes were met, and they exited. The human population began to leave the earth, spreading to Mars, building a jumping point on the Moon, and eventually with the discovery of FTL the stars beyond. Artificial Intelligence joined them, and a few more entered Cryo.
Decades.
Some more came out, to the sight of a new world, beyond all they had seen yet. Shining, ecologically perfect, all the dreams of humanity accomplished and then some. A few became minor celebrities, others reentered society. Yet, some others, unsatisfied, entered Cryo. A quick run of procedures to modernize many of the pods passed, and the humans received minor augmentations.
Centuries.
Warfare, as a weapon unleashed upon themselves hit Earth. Science go wrong, or perhaps horribly right. Many sought refuge in the Cryosleep of the pods. As the war goes on, the system was forgotten.
Millennia.
Earth, and indeed the solar system itself, was left as a monument. All was left, preserved, to remind humanity of what it had once done. Even if it was reconstructed, at the end, Earth held little but sentimental value. And so, the Solar System lay abandoned. Some cryosleepers were found and roused to other places, but many were left.
There is a click. The emergency overrides kick in. Across the earth, thousands, millions, wake from their pods, the last reserves of energy for many of them running dry. Outside, is an overgrown Earth, filled with new and modified lifeforms. Machines autonomously tending to the remains whirr endlessly. AIs wake to find all communications severed. The world was wiped away, but traces are left. | "Welcome back Client [NULL]. You are in the restoration paradigm of U-Top Corporal Services. Your reinstatement criteria of [NULL] have been met. Thank you for choosing U-Top." A pleasant voice didn't sound in my ears. I heard the words clearly, but it wasn't with my ears.
The pleasant voice stopped. I felt a... well, I'm not sure what I felt. I wasn't really aware of any physical sensations, and I was strangely disturbed by the fact that I wasn't disturbed by that. I knew that I had a body, or knew that I should, but nothing was reporting back.
I ventured a word. As I willed myself to speak, I could very clearly not feel the impulses moving through the nerves of my jaw and tongue, I could explicitly sense the absolute lack of air in my lungs and indeed lungs at all.
"Uh... hi? Can you tell me who I am?"
"Generating Identity Tutorial. Loaded. It is common for reinstated entities to experience a period of disorientation during the initial phases of restoration. You are a client of U-Top Corporal Services, designated [NULL]. You were disinstantiated on [NULL] by the order of the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony. Your Corporal Care Package Preferences were automatically assigned based on your existing parameters at time of disinstantiation. Reinstatement criteria were assigned by the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony in batches according to planned reinstatement date criteria. You will be pleased to know that your reinstatement date of [NULL] has now been reached, and Priority zero and Priority one reinstatement criteria in the local environment have been met. Please proceed to the reorientation paradigm."
The pleasant voice didn't sound out again. The words made it into my brain anyway. At least I assumed it was my brain. I'm not sure what exactly I was using to think at the moment, but as I was hearing without ears and speaking without lungs or a mouth, I was starting to notice a pattern.
"The reorientation paradigm?" Again I felt that bizarre not-feeling of speaking.
"Initiating Quickstart tutorial. Please wait while your custom tutorial is generated. Loaded. The U-Top Corporal Services corporation is proud to welcome you back to existence, Client [NULL]. You have been preserved in cryogenic stasis according to your wishes, being restored to function only when the specific criteria in your Corporal Care Package are met. Priority zero criterion: [NULL]. Priority one criterion: [NULL].
As these criteria have been locally and globally achieved within the parameters outlined in your U-Top Corporal Services contract, you have now been reinstated as an entity. Your physical parameters have been recreated according to your Corporal Care Package. There are [NULL] points remaining in your Corporal Care Balance. Proceed to Reorientation?"
The pleasant voice didn't seem to notice the errors.
"How do I move? I can't see!" I knew that I would absolutely be starting to feel panic right now, if I were capable of feeling anything at all. The sensation of no sensation was starting to be very upsetting. And the sensation of panic without anything else was even more so.
"Generating Motility Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with local motility of [NULL]. This may be unfamiliar if you have not previously deviated from human baseline parameters.
Generating Sensorium Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with sensory acuity of [NULL]. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with extrasensory acuity of [NULL]. System messages directed to console."
Was that how I was 'hearing' Pleasant Voice? In my console? I am fairly certain I didn't have a console before. But I wasn't sure.
"Local environment? Where am I?"
"Generating localization tutorial. Loaded. You are located in PFEH Outpost [NULL]. Exterior environmental, economic, social, and physical parameters meet recorded reinstatement criteria to within acceptable tolerances."
"Can you show me the outside?"
"Generating Sensorium Console Interface. Loaded. Error. Cannot comply. Exterior visual and sensorium feeds already patched to console."
Have you ever leaned back in a chair? Just idly relaxing, tipped back with your feet up? Enjoying that moment of perfect balance as you rock back and forth just across the point of equalized gravity, pushing a tiny bit with your muscles and feeling your entire self poised as an operand in a vast mathematical equation with the entire planet as your dancing partner? And then you do like we always do and take it a fraction of an angle too far. One extra muscle cell. One tiny arcsecond of tilt. And before you can react you're falling. All the floodgates of adrenaline fly open and your biology leaps into action to save you. All reactions crank up to a thousand, and you're suddenly ready to fight a dinosaur or wrestle a wolf to death. But your body is smarter than you are, your hand whips out on reflex, and you catch yourself. Your emergency reactions polished over a billion years worth of ancestors fight-or-flight saves swirl uselessly around inside you frustrated and exhausting.
OK, so take that feeling but remove the chair, the body, the reflex, the save, the gravity, and the dinosaur.
That's how I felt right now. I blacked out. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | I signed the form, authorizing CryoLabs^(TM) as the executor of my Freeze Will: they'll oversee my finances, properties, (non-existent) family, and other affairs until I wake, and monitor worldly conditions to wake me according to my wishes. A month ago, I invested all of my savings, a whole 17,893.12 USD into a single stock: SkyFire, a space startup that planned to launch telecomm satellites connecting earth to various mining outposts throughout the solar system. Soon, my shares were worth only a measly 2000 USD, and in despair, I donated myself to CryoLabs^(TM) for a study on long-term cryorefrigeration. They told me to pick an exit condition, something farfetched or very long term, so as a joke, I told them to "wake this broke loser when I'm a quintillionaire". I stood bravely in a circular chamber with my arms crossed in homage to Han Solo, as I awaited the frosty breath of eternity. With a hiss, it began. I closed my eyes and settle in.
For a second, it seemed like nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and squinted at the apparent change in the color of the wall. Was color shifting a side effect of going under? Then a person in scrubs opened the door, and casually motioned for me to follow them.
"Welcome back, Sir! You're exit conditions are classified, but the computer indicates they have been met, and just in time for the celebration of the millenium!"
I stared, confused. "Ah yes, yes, the details," The orderly, noticing my confusion pulled out a pad and began listing some facts "The year is 2999 A.C. according to the calendar of your era. It says here you've been under..." the orderly paused, a little baffled "967 years..." Still processing the redecorating of the cryochamber, the fantastic number slid past my consciousness like a pleasant cup of tea. Then, like a record scratch on an ironic television show, it hit me. I was a thousand years in the future. The ground tilted and my vision faded.
When I came to, I was again greeted by an unremarkable nurse-like figure, who barraged me with information, as though that had been effective the first time. "We've updated all of your vaccines and identity information, and we've implanted your complementary NeuroNet Modem. Kinda funny, most people just need a modem update, but you didn't even have the base hardware!" He shook his head "Geezer!"
"What?" I said. I blinked and a heads up display appeared in my vision, or maybe in my head? It was hard to tell. I read through the metrics slowly, tuning out the nurse who was still chatting me up.
Name: Kyle Watkins
Health: minor depression alert
Current Planet: Terra Prime
Net Worth:
\- 7 $ USD in the American Space Federation Bank
\- 4000 $ USD in antique but mint-condition clothing
\- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000$ USD in StarFire/NeuroNet Inc. (Previously SkyFire Ltd.) | "Welcome back Client [NULL]. You are in the restoration paradigm of U-Top Corporal Services. Your reinstatement criteria of [NULL] have been met. Thank you for choosing U-Top." A pleasant voice didn't sound in my ears. I heard the words clearly, but it wasn't with my ears.
The pleasant voice stopped. I felt a... well, I'm not sure what I felt. I wasn't really aware of any physical sensations, and I was strangely disturbed by the fact that I wasn't disturbed by that. I knew that I had a body, or knew that I should, but nothing was reporting back.
I ventured a word. As I willed myself to speak, I could very clearly not feel the impulses moving through the nerves of my jaw and tongue, I could explicitly sense the absolute lack of air in my lungs and indeed lungs at all.
"Uh... hi? Can you tell me who I am?"
"Generating Identity Tutorial. Loaded. It is common for reinstated entities to experience a period of disorientation during the initial phases of restoration. You are a client of U-Top Corporal Services, designated [NULL]. You were disinstantiated on [NULL] by the order of the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony. Your Corporal Care Package Preferences were automatically assigned based on your existing parameters at time of disinstantiation. Reinstatement criteria were assigned by the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony in batches according to planned reinstatement date criteria. You will be pleased to know that your reinstatement date of [NULL] has now been reached, and Priority zero and Priority one reinstatement criteria in the local environment have been met. Please proceed to the reorientation paradigm."
The pleasant voice didn't sound out again. The words made it into my brain anyway. At least I assumed it was my brain. I'm not sure what exactly I was using to think at the moment, but as I was hearing without ears and speaking without lungs or a mouth, I was starting to notice a pattern.
"The reorientation paradigm?" Again I felt that bizarre not-feeling of speaking.
"Initiating Quickstart tutorial. Please wait while your custom tutorial is generated. Loaded. The U-Top Corporal Services corporation is proud to welcome you back to existence, Client [NULL]. You have been preserved in cryogenic stasis according to your wishes, being restored to function only when the specific criteria in your Corporal Care Package are met. Priority zero criterion: [NULL]. Priority one criterion: [NULL].
As these criteria have been locally and globally achieved within the parameters outlined in your U-Top Corporal Services contract, you have now been reinstated as an entity. Your physical parameters have been recreated according to your Corporal Care Package. There are [NULL] points remaining in your Corporal Care Balance. Proceed to Reorientation?"
The pleasant voice didn't seem to notice the errors.
"How do I move? I can't see!" I knew that I would absolutely be starting to feel panic right now, if I were capable of feeling anything at all. The sensation of no sensation was starting to be very upsetting. And the sensation of panic without anything else was even more so.
"Generating Motility Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with local motility of [NULL]. This may be unfamiliar if you have not previously deviated from human baseline parameters.
Generating Sensorium Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with sensory acuity of [NULL]. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with extrasensory acuity of [NULL]. System messages directed to console."
Was that how I was 'hearing' Pleasant Voice? In my console? I am fairly certain I didn't have a console before. But I wasn't sure.
"Local environment? Where am I?"
"Generating localization tutorial. Loaded. You are located in PFEH Outpost [NULL]. Exterior environmental, economic, social, and physical parameters meet recorded reinstatement criteria to within acceptable tolerances."
"Can you show me the outside?"
"Generating Sensorium Console Interface. Loaded. Error. Cannot comply. Exterior visual and sensorium feeds already patched to console."
Have you ever leaned back in a chair? Just idly relaxing, tipped back with your feet up? Enjoying that moment of perfect balance as you rock back and forth just across the point of equalized gravity, pushing a tiny bit with your muscles and feeling your entire self poised as an operand in a vast mathematical equation with the entire planet as your dancing partner? And then you do like we always do and take it a fraction of an angle too far. One extra muscle cell. One tiny arcsecond of tilt. And before you can react you're falling. All the floodgates of adrenaline fly open and your biology leaps into action to save you. All reactions crank up to a thousand, and you're suddenly ready to fight a dinosaur or wrestle a wolf to death. But your body is smarter than you are, your hand whips out on reflex, and you catch yourself. Your emergency reactions polished over a billion years worth of ancestors fight-or-flight saves swirl uselessly around inside you frustrated and exhausting.
OK, so take that feeling but remove the chair, the body, the reflex, the save, the gravity, and the dinosaur.
That's how I felt right now. I blacked out. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | Imagine an ice cream headache that lasted millennia and ramp that up to eleven. That is what I awoke to. That and darkness.
"Good day, sir. I am Cirrus X, representative of the Cirrus Cryogenic Catastrophic Conglomerate. You have been frozen until the time your cryogenic will and testament could be fulfilled. I am pleased to announce that today is the day. Happy awakening, sir," A merry male voice cheered from the inky abyss.
"Could you turn on the lights and get me an aspirin?" I moaned.
"Sorry, sir. You seem to be suffering temporary blindness. I have been told this is a common symptom of cryo-sleep. It should wear off shortly. Also, there is no aspirin as there has not been a call for it for quite some time."
"Right, right!" My mental capacities came to to me with all the speed of sea slugs fighting the current. "So there is no more war?"
"That is right."
"No more famine?"
"Correct, sir."
"...and no more disease," I said finishing my mental list. It has seemed such a simple list to put together as I signed up in the wake of a catastrophe. "Is that why you sound so chipper?"
"No, sir. I am afraid that it part of my programming."
"So there are robots, now!" I could vaguely make out the odd collaboration of fuzzy cylinders and twinkling lights. "Great, great!" I said with more mental enthusiasm than I was physically capable of. I had always wanted to see sentient robotics. "How many years have passed?"
"One trillion, fourteen billion, eight hundred and eighty three thousand, two hundred and twelve years, one hundred and forty nine days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and fifty nine seconds, sir."
My head spun. I could not even fathom the amount of time that put me out of the loop. I supposed I should catch up on the current events. "What is trending now in the news?"
"You are, sir. You are now the oldest living being of any race. Congratulations!"
"Thank you, I guess." I was as articulate as ever.
"Would you be willing to answer a question that has been on everyone's mind?" the rather animated android asked.
"Sure," I had about a billion more questions, but not enough brain cells to organize them. A question would be a much needed kick start to get the synapses firing. "Ask away."
"What was the human race like?" | "Welcome back Client [NULL]. You are in the restoration paradigm of U-Top Corporal Services. Your reinstatement criteria of [NULL] have been met. Thank you for choosing U-Top." A pleasant voice didn't sound in my ears. I heard the words clearly, but it wasn't with my ears.
The pleasant voice stopped. I felt a... well, I'm not sure what I felt. I wasn't really aware of any physical sensations, and I was strangely disturbed by the fact that I wasn't disturbed by that. I knew that I had a body, or knew that I should, but nothing was reporting back.
I ventured a word. As I willed myself to speak, I could very clearly not feel the impulses moving through the nerves of my jaw and tongue, I could explicitly sense the absolute lack of air in my lungs and indeed lungs at all.
"Uh... hi? Can you tell me who I am?"
"Generating Identity Tutorial. Loaded. It is common for reinstated entities to experience a period of disorientation during the initial phases of restoration. You are a client of U-Top Corporal Services, designated [NULL]. You were disinstantiated on [NULL] by the order of the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony. Your Corporal Care Package Preferences were automatically assigned based on your existing parameters at time of disinstantiation. Reinstatement criteria were assigned by the Planetary Future Existence Hegemony in batches according to planned reinstatement date criteria. You will be pleased to know that your reinstatement date of [NULL] has now been reached, and Priority zero and Priority one reinstatement criteria in the local environment have been met. Please proceed to the reorientation paradigm."
The pleasant voice didn't sound out again. The words made it into my brain anyway. At least I assumed it was my brain. I'm not sure what exactly I was using to think at the moment, but as I was hearing without ears and speaking without lungs or a mouth, I was starting to notice a pattern.
"The reorientation paradigm?" Again I felt that bizarre not-feeling of speaking.
"Initiating Quickstart tutorial. Please wait while your custom tutorial is generated. Loaded. The U-Top Corporal Services corporation is proud to welcome you back to existence, Client [NULL]. You have been preserved in cryogenic stasis according to your wishes, being restored to function only when the specific criteria in your Corporal Care Package are met. Priority zero criterion: [NULL]. Priority one criterion: [NULL].
As these criteria have been locally and globally achieved within the parameters outlined in your U-Top Corporal Services contract, you have now been reinstated as an entity. Your physical parameters have been recreated according to your Corporal Care Package. There are [NULL] points remaining in your Corporal Care Balance. Proceed to Reorientation?"
The pleasant voice didn't seem to notice the errors.
"How do I move? I can't see!" I knew that I would absolutely be starting to feel panic right now, if I were capable of feeling anything at all. The sensation of no sensation was starting to be very upsetting. And the sensation of panic without anything else was even more so.
"Generating Motility Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with local motility of [NULL]. This may be unfamiliar if you have not previously deviated from human baseline parameters.
Generating Sensorium Tutorial. Loaded. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with sensory acuity of [NULL]. Your current physical parameters of [NULL] provide you with extrasensory acuity of [NULL]. System messages directed to console."
Was that how I was 'hearing' Pleasant Voice? In my console? I am fairly certain I didn't have a console before. But I wasn't sure.
"Local environment? Where am I?"
"Generating localization tutorial. Loaded. You are located in PFEH Outpost [NULL]. Exterior environmental, economic, social, and physical parameters meet recorded reinstatement criteria to within acceptable tolerances."
"Can you show me the outside?"
"Generating Sensorium Console Interface. Loaded. Error. Cannot comply. Exterior visual and sensorium feeds already patched to console."
Have you ever leaned back in a chair? Just idly relaxing, tipped back with your feet up? Enjoying that moment of perfect balance as you rock back and forth just across the point of equalized gravity, pushing a tiny bit with your muscles and feeling your entire self poised as an operand in a vast mathematical equation with the entire planet as your dancing partner? And then you do like we always do and take it a fraction of an angle too far. One extra muscle cell. One tiny arcsecond of tilt. And before you can react you're falling. All the floodgates of adrenaline fly open and your biology leaps into action to save you. All reactions crank up to a thousand, and you're suddenly ready to fight a dinosaur or wrestle a wolf to death. But your body is smarter than you are, your hand whips out on reflex, and you catch yourself. Your emergency reactions polished over a billion years worth of ancestors fight-or-flight saves swirl uselessly around inside you frustrated and exhausting.
OK, so take that feeling but remove the chair, the body, the reflex, the save, the gravity, and the dinosaur.
That's how I felt right now. I blacked out. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | Imagine an ice cream headache that lasted millennia and ramp that up to eleven. That is what I awoke to. That and darkness.
"Good day, sir. I am Cirrus X, representative of the Cirrus Cryogenic Catastrophic Conglomerate. You have been frozen until the time your cryogenic will and testament could be fulfilled. I am pleased to announce that today is the day. Happy awakening, sir," A merry male voice cheered from the inky abyss.
"Could you turn on the lights and get me an aspirin?" I moaned.
"Sorry, sir. You seem to be suffering temporary blindness. I have been told this is a common symptom of cryo-sleep. It should wear off shortly. Also, there is no aspirin as there has not been a call for it for quite some time."
"Right, right!" My mental capacities came to to me with all the speed of sea slugs fighting the current. "So there is no more war?"
"That is right."
"No more famine?"
"Correct, sir."
"...and no more disease," I said finishing my mental list. It has seemed such a simple list to put together as I signed up in the wake of a catastrophe. "Is that why you sound so chipper?"
"No, sir. I am afraid that it part of my programming."
"So there are robots, now!" I could vaguely make out the odd collaboration of fuzzy cylinders and twinkling lights. "Great, great!" I said with more mental enthusiasm than I was physically capable of. I had always wanted to see sentient robotics. "How many years have passed?"
"One trillion, fourteen billion, eight hundred and eighty three thousand, two hundred and twelve years, one hundred and forty nine days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and fifty nine seconds, sir."
My head spun. I could not even fathom the amount of time that put me out of the loop. I supposed I should catch up on the current events. "What is trending now in the news?"
"You are, sir. You are now the oldest living being of any race. Congratulations!"
"Thank you, I guess." I was as articulate as ever.
"Would you be willing to answer a question that has been on everyone's mind?" the rather animated android asked.
"Sure," I had about a billion more questions, but not enough brain cells to organize them. A question would be a much needed kick start to get the synapses firing. "Ask away."
"What was the human race like?" | Thousands began to enter the Cryosleep pods. Little bunkers, built beneath the house, or a largescale version, in a sort of vault, buried deep under the earth.
Years passed.
Some's wishes were met, and they exited. The human population began to leave the earth, spreading to Mars, building a jumping point on the Moon, and eventually with the discovery of FTL the stars beyond. Artificial Intelligence joined them, and a few more entered Cryo.
Decades.
Some more came out, to the sight of a new world, beyond all they had seen yet. Shining, ecologically perfect, all the dreams of humanity accomplished and then some. A few became minor celebrities, others reentered society. Yet, some others, unsatisfied, entered Cryo. A quick run of procedures to modernize many of the pods passed, and the humans received minor augmentations.
Centuries.
Warfare, as a weapon unleashed upon themselves hit Earth. Science go wrong, or perhaps horribly right. Many sought refuge in the Cryosleep of the pods. As the war goes on, the system was forgotten.
Millennia.
Earth, and indeed the solar system itself, was left as a monument. All was left, preserved, to remind humanity of what it had once done. Even if it was reconstructed, at the end, Earth held little but sentimental value. And so, the Solar System lay abandoned. Some cryosleepers were found and roused to other places, but many were left.
There is a click. The emergency overrides kick in. Across the earth, thousands, millions, wake from their pods, the last reserves of energy for many of them running dry. Outside, is an overgrown Earth, filled with new and modified lifeforms. Machines autonomously tending to the remains whirr endlessly. AIs wake to find all communications severed. The world was wiped away, but traces are left. | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | Imagine an ice cream headache that lasted millennia and ramp that up to eleven. That is what I awoke to. That and darkness.
"Good day, sir. I am Cirrus X, representative of the Cirrus Cryogenic Catastrophic Conglomerate. You have been frozen until the time your cryogenic will and testament could be fulfilled. I am pleased to announce that today is the day. Happy awakening, sir," A merry male voice cheered from the inky abyss.
"Could you turn on the lights and get me an aspirin?" I moaned.
"Sorry, sir. You seem to be suffering temporary blindness. I have been told this is a common symptom of cryo-sleep. It should wear off shortly. Also, there is no aspirin as there has not been a call for it for quite some time."
"Right, right!" My mental capacities came to to me with all the speed of sea slugs fighting the current. "So there is no more war?"
"That is right."
"No more famine?"
"Correct, sir."
"...and no more disease," I said finishing my mental list. It has seemed such a simple list to put together as I signed up in the wake of a catastrophe. "Is that why you sound so chipper?"
"No, sir. I am afraid that it part of my programming."
"So there are robots, now!" I could vaguely make out the odd collaboration of fuzzy cylinders and twinkling lights. "Great, great!" I said with more mental enthusiasm than I was physically capable of. I had always wanted to see sentient robotics. "How many years have passed?"
"One trillion, fourteen billion, eight hundred and eighty three thousand, two hundred and twelve years, one hundred and forty nine days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and fifty nine seconds, sir."
My head spun. I could not even fathom the amount of time that put me out of the loop. I supposed I should catch up on the current events. "What is trending now in the news?"
"You are, sir. You are now the oldest living being of any race. Congratulations!"
"Thank you, I guess." I was as articulate as ever.
"Would you be willing to answer a question that has been on everyone's mind?" the rather animated android asked.
"Sure," I had about a billion more questions, but not enough brain cells to organize them. A question would be a much needed kick start to get the synapses firing. "Ask away."
"What was the human race like?" | I signed the form, authorizing CryoLabs^(TM) as the executor of my Freeze Will: they'll oversee my finances, properties, (non-existent) family, and other affairs until I wake, and monitor worldly conditions to wake me according to my wishes. A month ago, I invested all of my savings, a whole 17,893.12 USD into a single stock: SkyFire, a space startup that planned to launch telecomm satellites connecting earth to various mining outposts throughout the solar system. Soon, my shares were worth only a measly 2000 USD, and in despair, I donated myself to CryoLabs^(TM) for a study on long-term cryorefrigeration. They told me to pick an exit condition, something farfetched or very long term, so as a joke, I told them to "wake this broke loser when I'm a quintillionaire". I stood bravely in a circular chamber with my arms crossed in homage to Han Solo, as I awaited the frosty breath of eternity. With a hiss, it began. I closed my eyes and settle in.
For a second, it seemed like nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and squinted at the apparent change in the color of the wall. Was color shifting a side effect of going under? Then a person in scrubs opened the door, and casually motioned for me to follow them.
"Welcome back, Sir! You're exit conditions are classified, but the computer indicates they have been met, and just in time for the celebration of the millenium!"
I stared, confused. "Ah yes, yes, the details," The orderly, noticing my confusion pulled out a pad and began listing some facts "The year is 2999 A.C. according to the calendar of your era. It says here you've been under..." the orderly paused, a little baffled "967 years..." Still processing the redecorating of the cryochamber, the fantastic number slid past my consciousness like a pleasant cup of tea. Then, like a record scratch on an ironic television show, it hit me. I was a thousand years in the future. The ground tilted and my vision faded.
When I came to, I was again greeted by an unremarkable nurse-like figure, who barraged me with information, as though that had been effective the first time. "We've updated all of your vaccines and identity information, and we've implanted your complementary NeuroNet Modem. Kinda funny, most people just need a modem update, but you didn't even have the base hardware!" He shook his head "Geezer!"
"What?" I said. I blinked and a heads up display appeared in my vision, or maybe in my head? It was hard to tell. I read through the metrics slowly, tuning out the nurse who was still chatting me up.
Name: Kyle Watkins
Health: minor depression alert
Current Planet: Terra Prime
Net Worth:
\- 7 $ USD in the American Space Federation Bank
\- 4000 $ USD in antique but mint-condition clothing
\- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000$ USD in StarFire/NeuroNet Inc. (Previously SkyFire Ltd.) | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | There were just too many people, you see.
Efforts to emulate a one child policy had failed, the population had continued to boom, and despite all warnings from the scientific community, we were finally running out of our natural resources to the point where people finally began to notice it.
Cries of fake news and alarmism finally rang hollow. Project Fear had finally proved to be fact.
In a last ditch attempt to avert an all out war for resources - or a cull of the population by unscrupulous governments - a method for cryogenically storing humans was developed.
Born of painful hope and desperation, it was marketed to the masses as a cheap and easy way of escaping the woes of today, to wake again in a happier future.
In an attempt to stagger out the reawakenings, and to improve marketability, people were asked to stipulate the conditions that had to be met in order for it to be “worth” waking up for.
For some, it seemed to be a simple thing. They wrote up a list of ideals and hopped into the freezer.
I found it... considerably more difficult.
How do you wish for tomorrow, when your dreams turned to ashes in your yesterday?
I finally compelled myself to write out a desire. Not for me, but for the life I carried within.
“Let me wake up in a time where there is a cure for the genetic disease of my daughter, and where she can be born into a world which will cherish her life instead of discarding her as yet another parasite upon the Earth.”
It was that hope that I carried with me, into my sleep. Though the grief of losing my beloved was an anguish that did not abate, even as my breaths did, I carried on with a hope that the life we created together could persevere, in a better place.
I know not how long I slept. Nor do I know how it was that the machines that held me in stasis determined that my final condition had been met.
I rose alone, from my pod, to be greeted with my medical file and nothing else.
My daughter, it seemed, had been cured long ago, in a time where overcrowding was still a problem. They had fixed her as I slept. But they had not woken us, for still the world did not need more humans.
I looked around me for any signs of life. Though the facility appeared to be pristine and in perfect working order, there were no people.
I followed the signs that appeared to indicate the way to the exit, but as I pressed the button to open the door, a red exclamation mark appeared, swiftly followed by a question mark.
“I want to exit the facility” I said, enunciating as clearly as I could.
The question mark flashed green and a message appeared briefly on the panel: <Language set to English>
A female voice spoke from the walls “Exit is blocked by external debris, please follow signs for alternative route.”
With that, green lights lit up the sides of the floor and an arrow flashed on the floor, indicating the direction to follow. It led me to a ladder beneath a trap door which slid smoothly open at my approach.
The world around me was green and vibrant. The facility which had once been in the heart of the concrete jungle of one of the world’s largest mega cities was now buried under what looked like an ancient forest, with soaring trees almost as high as the sky scrapers had been.
I brought a trembling hand to my lips.
What had happened as I slept? | The world is dying. Global warming has began to intensify greatly. A company starts to use cryogenic freezing capsules as a way to keep people safe and make money. The capsules are expensive so you choose a lower end one to fit your financial situation. As you sign up, you are asked to name all your conditions. You say that the earth needs to be clean and all governments have been replaced with the ideal ideology. They take note of your conditions and tell you that your capsule will be ready in a month.
One month later you arrive at the one company’s s many facilities and climb in your pod. The freezing process begins. You watch out side the pod window seeing the scientist waiving to you. You lose consciousness. You are no longer self aware. After a little while you get unfrozen by a different group of scientists. You walk outside of the facility to see everything changed. The air is clean the water is clear, but best of all you see the great flag of the Soviet Union flying high apogove the city | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | "I assure you, all the specified conditions are met." The administrator's face shows unassailable confidence.
But I will break that bulwark. I begin the attack with my most rakish grin. In case reserves are necessary, I twiddle an imaginary mustache between finger and thumb. That is merely a feint, for this is a serious matter. "Old boy." I am smiling like an asshole. "That cannot be so."
"It is so." The man has doubled down. He has a stout heart.
I cross my legs, reach over into my cold storage box and pull out the only things inside: a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles (from my first life), my copy of the storage contract (still crisp), a just made martini (relatively, not chronologically), to be sipped straight from the shaker (drinks this cold should be criminal.)
I begin reading through my itemized cryogenic release conditions. I paid a heavy nickel for each of these items. And if one of them*—any single one of them—*is unmet at the time of my thawing (ironically, that is irreversible)—
—then I will get **one—**
*fat*
insurance
# check.
So pay attention carefully. I know I did.
"A state of constant war?"
He nods. "Check."
That was easy. "Irreversible damage to the climate."
"Yes."
But he didn't wait for the conditional: *"Human-caused* climate damage, my boy."
"That's right."
I raise an eyebrow. "The United States are no longer the world's sole superpower."
"Check."
Unsettling, that. "A global pandemic—?" I begin.
"Check."
I waggle my finger with my best '*not finished'* glare. "From a man eating a *bat."*
The man looks at me.
*"No."* I grimace. "Don't tell me... How is that—?
"People eat bats," he says. "It's a thing."
I narrow my eyes. "The economy has fallen apart?"
"More or less."
I'm sweating. "Wait, another addendum: a madman rules the United States."
The man shrugs. "Debatable, but—."
I've caught him! *"I want my check!"*
But after he shows me the buffoon's interviews, I concede the point.
We return to the list. Point by point, he checks them off. I don't finish my martini; my stomach has dropped. It's more than just cryogenic sickness. For not only will I *not* collect my big-fat-check for a false awakening, but...
"I'll have to stay, won't I?" This is not a question. It's a defeat.
For the first time, the man's eyes soften. He sees what I've done in its foolish fullness; this mad endeavor of mine. To collect a ridiculous sum for free; to live large in an age of progress.
But the world has become pure hell, just as I thought would never happen. I am utterly alone, bereft of wealth and family.
The man seeks to console me. He reaches out, eyes sparkling, as if to grip my shoulder. To reassure me. I'm relieved to think companionship hasn't died in this age of torments.
But he's standing six feet away; his arm falls to his side. "If I get sick, I'll go bankrupt." | The world is dying. Global warming has began to intensify greatly. A company starts to use cryogenic freezing capsules as a way to keep people safe and make money. The capsules are expensive so you choose a lower end one to fit your financial situation. As you sign up, you are asked to name all your conditions. You say that the earth needs to be clean and all governments have been replaced with the ideal ideology. They take note of your conditions and tell you that your capsule will be ready in a month.
One month later you arrive at the one company’s s many facilities and climb in your pod. The freezing process begins. You watch out side the pod window seeing the scientist waiving to you. You lose consciousness. You are no longer self aware. After a little while you get unfrozen by a different group of scientists. You walk outside of the facility to see everything changed. The air is clean the water is clear, but best of all you see the great flag of the Soviet Union flying high apogove the city | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | The cryopod closed, the induced-sleep coming to him quickly.
And in his sleep, he dreamed of Her.
**********
Their life together. What could have been.
The fighting, the screaming, the tears.
An endless nightmare.
********
He awoke, for the millionth time, as the nightmare began anew - but something had changed.
He couldn't breathe. He tried to open his eyes, a pain flaring in them as he shifted in the dust and debris. He clawed frantically, feeling a great weight upon him. Suffocating darkness.
He fought to free himself, his heart quaking in his chest. Dirt poured into his throat as he tried to scream.
His bloody hand eventually burst through the debris, and he dragged himself up, out of the stricken cryopod.
The room he had been ensconced in had long ago decayed away, leaving only overgrown ruins in their place.
It dawned on him, as his grip on reality slowly returned, that his condition had finally been met.
He heard something shift under the nearby rubble, and he began tearing at the debris.
Throughout it all, the nightmares still flashed through his mind.
The fighting, the screaming, the tears; right until the end.
As his shredded nails tore towards the cryopod below, he could only think of what she had said to him.
"*Not if you were the last man alive.*"
****
****
[CroatianSpy](https://old.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/) | The world is dying. Global warming has began to intensify greatly. A company starts to use cryogenic freezing capsules as a way to keep people safe and make money. The capsules are expensive so you choose a lower end one to fit your financial situation. As you sign up, you are asked to name all your conditions. You say that the earth needs to be clean and all governments have been replaced with the ideal ideology. They take note of your conditions and tell you that your capsule will be ready in a month.
One month later you arrive at the one company’s s many facilities and climb in your pod. The freezing process begins. You watch out side the pod window seeing the scientist waiving to you. You lose consciousness. You are no longer self aware. After a little while you get unfrozen by a different group of scientists. You walk outside of the facility to see everything changed. The air is clean the water is clear, but best of all you see the great flag of the Soviet Union flying high apogove the city | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | "I'm fucking tired of your shit Nikky, I can't take this anymore!"
"Really, you're so fucking tired of me that you're crono-freezing yourself till I'm dead? Really? That's an all-time low for you James!"
"Does this face look like it gives a shit?"
"It looks like it-"
"You know what, don't answer that. I'll just tell you, I couldn't give less of a shit. Now shut the fuck up and leave."
The scientist behind the monitor took a big sigh as he watched them go back and forth. "I'm never settling down." He whispered to himself. "Mr. Becker are you ready?" He asked with more than a hint of begging.
Nikky turned to him in a furry, "Are you seriously letting him do this? Jump forward to a time when I'm dead so he doesn't have to divorce me and face the court fees? This has to be illegal, I mean this thing was made to skip global pandemics and shit, world catastrophes. Not stuff like this."
"Not only that, remember you can't sell my stuff while I'm under the ice. I've already told my lawyer everything that needs to be routinely checked on. That's the American law baby, greatest country ever made." Nikky looked at the scientist hoping he'd see her case.
"Ma'am I'm not a lawyer, I just put him under. He said when his wife is dead so that's what we key it on. Don't like it, talk to corporate."
James rolled over to look at the scientist."Yes speaking of putting me under, can we do that now? Like, hurry please."
The scientist looked relieved. "Yes sir, dropping you under keyed on the condition of your wife's death. Going under in 10, 9, 8.."
"Oh and Nikky, if you lay a hand on my baseball cards, I'll piss on your grave"
Nikky ran to the window of his cell with angry tears in her eyes. "You're going to pay for this you greedy bitch! Trust me, when you come back, this world isn't going to be the same!" James yawned behind the glass.
"3, 2, 1 ..."
"James you petty bastard!"
\*\*\*
James opened his eyes to a humongous light blinding him. "Oh what the fuck, get that light out of my face, for god sake!"
A mechanical voice replied to him. "Welcome back Mr -JAMES BECKER- you have been asleep for -350- years."
"Excuse me, fucking what?"
A large clunky robot rolled over towards his cell, "Your clothes can be found be-" James shot up from his cell in anger,
"350 fucking years! That's impossible!"
"Records show your stipulation was -DEATH OF WIFE- and that this event occurred yesterday at -05:00- shall I ask for personal assistance for you?"
"You're godamn right I want personal assistance."
Immediately after saying this a woman in a large labcoat burst through the doors behind his cell, "Ah Mr. Jameson, glad you're awake. Some people were saying that humans couldn't survive while under that long. Glad to see you proved them wrong champ."
"Why the fuck was I under 350 years? My wife was 40, at worst I should've been under another 80 years!"
"Oh, you mean Nikky? Yes, the poor thing died at 63, actually. Records say she went instane. So sad."
"Then why the fuck wasn't I woke up then?"
"Well you said you wanted to be woke up when your wife died right?" James gave her an obvious look. "Mr. Becker, you see after went under, Mrs. Becker was very upset. So upset that she decided she couldn't live with society as it were anymore. So she sent herself under as well."
"Are you... Are you fucking kidding me! That has to be illegal, she better not have bothered my shit!"
"Excuse me your what?"
"My stuff, the reason I did all this in the first place! Did she sell my stuff! Oh, that good for nothing lawyer! I knew he wouldn't watch my stuff!"
"Sell? I'm sorry sir I don't understand, no one has sold anything for years... Oh Nevermind, I'm sorry. I'm forgetting you're ancient."
"No one has sold anything... Wait, what the hell was her stipulation?"
"Well, Mrs. Becker said that she couldn't handle how materialistic everyone was anymore. So she put herself under with the condition of being awakened when society finally moved away from personal belongings and becomes a full united communistic world! It seemed like a long shot, but luckily for her, it actually happened rather a quicky, as soon as the aliens arrived humanity wisened up and denounced personal belongings. Charming isn't it?"
"Aliens? Communist!?! Wait, so you're telling me that all my stuff is gone?"
"Why yes, I suppose so. Everyone shares now."
"And my baseball cards?"
"Baseball cards? Oh, I'm sure those were recycled, baseball has been dead for decades."
James was shaking with rage, how could society move on from baseball?
"And my wine I was fermenting for when I woke up?"
"Wine? Alcohol has been banned for decades as well. No one drinks anymore."
James shook his head in despair, what has the world came too? He was about to faint, but before he did he managed to yell out one more sentence: "Nikky you petty bitch!"
EDIT: credit to /u/XTJ7 for catching a plot whole. Fixed | The world is dying. Global warming has began to intensify greatly. A company starts to use cryogenic freezing capsules as a way to keep people safe and make money. The capsules are expensive so you choose a lower end one to fit your financial situation. As you sign up, you are asked to name all your conditions. You say that the earth needs to be clean and all governments have been replaced with the ideal ideology. They take note of your conditions and tell you that your capsule will be ready in a month.
One month later you arrive at the one company’s s many facilities and climb in your pod. The freezing process begins. You watch out side the pod window seeing the scientist waiving to you. You lose consciousness. You are no longer self aware. After a little while you get unfrozen by a different group of scientists. You walk outside of the facility to see everything changed. The air is clean the water is clear, but best of all you see the great flag of the Soviet Union flying high apogove the city | |
[WP] During a global catastrophe, a company offers to cryogenically freeze people so that they can “skip” unpleasant circumstances. Clients can stipulate specific global conditions that must be met before they are unfrozen. You awake to find that all of your conditions are satisfied. | "I assure you, all the specified conditions are met." The administrator's face shows unassailable confidence.
But I will break that bulwark. I begin the attack with my most rakish grin. In case reserves are necessary, I twiddle an imaginary mustache between finger and thumb. That is merely a feint, for this is a serious matter. "Old boy." I am smiling like an asshole. "That cannot be so."
"It is so." The man has doubled down. He has a stout heart.
I cross my legs, reach over into my cold storage box and pull out the only things inside: a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles (from my first life), my copy of the storage contract (still crisp), a just made martini (relatively, not chronologically), to be sipped straight from the shaker (drinks this cold should be criminal.)
I begin reading through my itemized cryogenic release conditions. I paid a heavy nickel for each of these items. And if one of them*—any single one of them—*is unmet at the time of my thawing (ironically, that is irreversible)—
—then I will get **one—**
*fat*
insurance
# check.
So pay attention carefully. I know I did.
"A state of constant war?"
He nods. "Check."
That was easy. "Irreversible damage to the climate."
"Yes."
But he didn't wait for the conditional: *"Human-caused* climate damage, my boy."
"That's right."
I raise an eyebrow. "The United States are no longer the world's sole superpower."
"Check."
Unsettling, that. "A global pandemic—?" I begin.
"Check."
I waggle my finger with my best '*not finished'* glare. "From a man eating a *bat."*
The man looks at me.
*"No."* I grimace. "Don't tell me... How is that—?
"People eat bats," he says. "It's a thing."
I narrow my eyes. "The economy has fallen apart?"
"More or less."
I'm sweating. "Wait, another addendum: a madman rules the United States."
The man shrugs. "Debatable, but—."
I've caught him! *"I want my check!"*
But after he shows me the buffoon's interviews, I concede the point.
We return to the list. Point by point, he checks them off. I don't finish my martini; my stomach has dropped. It's more than just cryogenic sickness. For not only will I *not* collect my big-fat-check for a false awakening, but...
"I'll have to stay, won't I?" This is not a question. It's a defeat.
For the first time, the man's eyes soften. He sees what I've done in its foolish fullness; this mad endeavor of mine. To collect a ridiculous sum for free; to live large in an age of progress.
But the world has become pure hell, just as I thought would never happen. I am utterly alone, bereft of wealth and family.
The man seeks to console me. He reaches out, eyes sparkling, as if to grip my shoulder. To reassure me. I'm relieved to think companionship hasn't died in this age of torments.
But he's standing six feet away; his arm falls to his side. "If I get sick, I'll go bankrupt." | There were just too many people, you see.
Efforts to emulate a one child policy had failed, the population had continued to boom, and despite all warnings from the scientific community, we were finally running out of our natural resources to the point where people finally began to notice it.
Cries of fake news and alarmism finally rang hollow. Project Fear had finally proved to be fact.
In a last ditch attempt to avert an all out war for resources - or a cull of the population by unscrupulous governments - a method for cryogenically storing humans was developed.
Born of painful hope and desperation, it was marketed to the masses as a cheap and easy way of escaping the woes of today, to wake again in a happier future.
In an attempt to stagger out the reawakenings, and to improve marketability, people were asked to stipulate the conditions that had to be met in order for it to be “worth” waking up for.
For some, it seemed to be a simple thing. They wrote up a list of ideals and hopped into the freezer.
I found it... considerably more difficult.
How do you wish for tomorrow, when your dreams turned to ashes in your yesterday?
I finally compelled myself to write out a desire. Not for me, but for the life I carried within.
“Let me wake up in a time where there is a cure for the genetic disease of my daughter, and where she can be born into a world which will cherish her life instead of discarding her as yet another parasite upon the Earth.”
It was that hope that I carried with me, into my sleep. Though the grief of losing my beloved was an anguish that did not abate, even as my breaths did, I carried on with a hope that the life we created together could persevere, in a better place.
I know not how long I slept. Nor do I know how it was that the machines that held me in stasis determined that my final condition had been met.
I rose alone, from my pod, to be greeted with my medical file and nothing else.
My daughter, it seemed, had been cured long ago, in a time where overcrowding was still a problem. They had fixed her as I slept. But they had not woken us, for still the world did not need more humans.
I looked around me for any signs of life. Though the facility appeared to be pristine and in perfect working order, there were no people.
I followed the signs that appeared to indicate the way to the exit, but as I pressed the button to open the door, a red exclamation mark appeared, swiftly followed by a question mark.
“I want to exit the facility” I said, enunciating as clearly as I could.
The question mark flashed green and a message appeared briefly on the panel: <Language set to English>
A female voice spoke from the walls “Exit is blocked by external debris, please follow signs for alternative route.”
With that, green lights lit up the sides of the floor and an arrow flashed on the floor, indicating the direction to follow. It led me to a ladder beneath a trap door which slid smoothly open at my approach.
The world around me was green and vibrant. The facility which had once been in the heart of the concrete jungle of one of the world’s largest mega cities was now buried under what looked like an ancient forest, with soaring trees almost as high as the sky scrapers had been.
I brought a trembling hand to my lips.
What had happened as I slept? | |
[WP] It turns out that Gosh is a real god, and he is getting pretty darn tired of all these goody-two-shoes using his name in vain. |
Gosh's office was on the 39th floor of Heaven Inc., just below God himself, who occupied the 40th (and uppermost) floor. In fact, the whole 39th floor was Gosh's, housing the offices of Human Relations. When worthy souls arrived in Heaven, they were directed to the 39th floor where they were given a crash course on Heaven. At first, Gosh had received them himself, pleased to be helping those confused souls just arriving at their new home but then, a few centuries back they had all started using *his* name in vain instead of God's and that just irked Gosh to no end. After a while, Gosh had expanded the 39th floor and hired a team of lesser angels to lead the orientations for the recently departed.
A knock interrupted Gosh's wandering thoughts.
"Yes, come in." A short angel walked in. She was a plump angel wearing a white dress and with black hair piled high upon her head. It was, Gosh knew, an attempt at appearing taller. Even angels had their egos.
"Sir, God has sent a memo. I think you will be most pleased." The angel bobbed up and down, her wings flapping lazily at her back. Angels, Gosh thought, always eager to show off their wings.
"What is it, Eugenia?" Gosh was not in a mood to hear from God. It was all good and well for Him. He sent all who took His name in vain to hell but Gosh had to plaster a smile on his face and welcome into Heaven those who used his name as a mild curse, a way of avoiding *real* consequences.
"God has made your name Uncursable." Gosh was immediately alert. Uncursable. That meant that by Holy Orders, Gosh's name was not to be used in vain.
"He what?" Oh, this was wonderful news. Gosh could finally start attending parties again without looking like a fool. He could finally show his face again, start leading orientations himself. People would finally go to Hell for saying "Oh my gosh" or "Gosh darn it." He was so tired of preppy college kids from Christian schools inundating Heaven. Not to mention the old nosy church ladies. Finally, he'd be free of mockery.
The week following God's newest decree went swimmingly for Gosh. He wore his sharpest suits and quirkiest ties as he held theatrical orientations for newly departed souls. He held one-on-one appointments with new arrivals and even attended a work party where for the first time in centuries, Gosh didn't hear mocking whispers about him. Then, one morning, Gosh arrived in his office to see a memo on his desk.
*My office. Now - G*
A heavy weight settled in Gosh's stomach. He didn't know what God wanted with him but from the tone of the note, Gosh knew it couldn't bode well for him. Determined to stay optimistic, Gosh fixed his crooked tie and headed for the elevator.
The 40th floor was spectacular, to say the least. It had been millennia and still, Gosh found himself awed when stepping onto floors made of fluffy clouds and looking around him at what seemed endless sky. God was sitting on his throne, spinning a world globe mindlessly with his pointer finger. It had small squiggles on it, representing different conditions on Earth. Gosh could see God was causing a particularly nasty hurricane in the United States but decided not to mention anything.
"You asked for me, sir?" he asked instead, doing his best to turn his eyes away from an erupting volcano in Japan.
"Yes. Gosh, you know I like you very much. You're one of my favorite subjects but here's the thing. As you may have noticed, there are a lot fewer souls entering Heaven. It seems that making your name Uncursable has drastically affected the way of things and uh, Satan isn't happy. He would really rather not deal with the sudden influx of souls he has had to take in. He threatened to send up some particularly nasty people if I don't return things to normal."
"You're going to listen to him?"
"You remember what happened when I pissed him off last time? He sent Jack the Ripper up here and we couldn't get rid of him for a week. I'm sorry, Gosh, but I'll have to reverse the Holy Order that made your name Uncursable. I hope you understand."
"Of course," Gosh replied, as politely as possible. He left God's office and entered the elevator. Perhaps he would go home and sleep off his suddenly terrible mood. Not even his penguin-stamped tie could cheer him up. He arrived at the 39th floor a moment later and was welcomed by the sight of a group of souls arriving for their orientation.
"Oh my GOSH, this place is just so cool!" Gosh didn't even bother looking up to see who had spoken. He just rolled his eyes and continued his dejected march back to his office. It seemed everything was back to normal. | If there was one thing Gosh knew, it was the power of Names. The other gods thought they knew it's power, but they didn't. Not like he did.
He'd worked so hard to become a god and had taken such pride during the Naming when the letters of his godname had finally appeared.
"Gosh."
"G - O - S - H."
"Gosh, Gosh, Gosh". He'd wanted to repeat a hundred times, a thousand times, to get the feel of how it rolled off his tongue.
Gods weren't allowed into the mortal world until they got their Name. It was too dangerous, with nothing to anchor themselves. All gods waited for this day, and usually, gods would find a mortal worthy of being the first to hear the god's name and become their messenger on the mortal plane. Usually, it was a very dramatic event where the god planned how and when he'd appear to create the most impact. Usually, a god's name was not yet in the mortal vocabulary. Usually.
One moment he was admiring his new name, and the next he found himself standing in front of a boy, or at least Gosh thought it was a boy. He'd never seen one before, only heard from the other gods what they looked like. Gosh was confused. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This boy was supposed to be his messenger? That couldn't be right. He was supposed to choose the messenger not the other way around. Gosh looked at the boy and the boy seemed to notice him at last.
He saw the boy's eyes slowly widen, but before words could form, the boy had disappeared and in his place a woman now stood in front of him, looking down with an expression of surprise and disappointment. Gosh looked down and saw a plate on the ground. Almost two equal pieces, but definitely broken. Now Gosh was really confused. He hadn't had the chance to choose his appearance, and now the boy wasn't his messenger either. Was this woman the one then?
Again before he had time to introduce himself as this woman's new patron god, he found himself next to an older woman seemingly berating another elderly man. There wasn't enough time to fully understand what was happening. The mortals flashed before him. Man, woman, woman, boy, girl, man...
After what felt like hours of appearing and vanishing in front of countless faces, Gosh finally found himself with what he hoped was a period of calm. In the midst of all the warping, he'd come to a preliminary realisation that the mortals weren't so much calling him Gosh, newly Named god, but instead using some sort of commonplace phrase. A few times he'd appeared before the mortal had even fully said his name, and he'd managed to hear his two least favourite words now.
"Oh. My." | |
[WP] It turns out that Gosh is a real god, and he is getting pretty darn tired of all these goody-two-shoes using his name in vain. | Just say it Zed. I’ve orchestrated this whole scenario just so you can say it. Fucking say it!
Quick pause. As some of you know, I’m Gosh. To those who don’t know me, or perhaps have said my name once or twice at church or something - I’m real. I’m Gods cousin, from his moms side but nobody seems to really know who I am. I’ve been trying to recruit more people to my cause. “The Mosh for Gosh”. It’s a simple religion really, and all I ask is for my believers to pray everyday in a mosh pit dedicated to me.
That’s pretty metal right? Yeah it fucking is! However, the only problem is that my most faithful followers, sayers of “oh my Gosh” don’t mosh. Like at all. Like I don’t think they’ve ever moshed. Not once in their whole entire life. I don’t understand. They say my name constantly and they always look up at me (I sit right next to God at the table of Gods) but they stand there not knowing what a fucking mosh is!
I’ve been trying to pick some followers, a few people I can have follow me and spread my word. Probably like 11 or something, and I want them to mosh. Everyday in my name to spread awareness of my beautiful religion. However each one I pick is already devoted to my cousin. Real shame really. Now this guy, Zed, I’ve just put him in a situation where he has to shout who he is loyal to. God, or Gosh. If you’re wondering, I’ve worked it out so a girl takes him up to her room only to reveal she’s a man. Pause over.
Say it. Say it. Say it.
“Oh my God!”
Fuck you Zed. On to the next. | If there was one thing Gosh knew, it was the power of Names. The other gods thought they knew it's power, but they didn't. Not like he did.
He'd worked so hard to become a god and had taken such pride during the Naming when the letters of his godname had finally appeared.
"Gosh."
"G - O - S - H."
"Gosh, Gosh, Gosh". He'd wanted to repeat a hundred times, a thousand times, to get the feel of how it rolled off his tongue.
Gods weren't allowed into the mortal world until they got their Name. It was too dangerous, with nothing to anchor themselves. All gods waited for this day, and usually, gods would find a mortal worthy of being the first to hear the god's name and become their messenger on the mortal plane. Usually, it was a very dramatic event where the god planned how and when he'd appear to create the most impact. Usually, a god's name was not yet in the mortal vocabulary. Usually.
One moment he was admiring his new name, and the next he found himself standing in front of a boy, or at least Gosh thought it was a boy. He'd never seen one before, only heard from the other gods what they looked like. Gosh was confused. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This boy was supposed to be his messenger? That couldn't be right. He was supposed to choose the messenger not the other way around. Gosh looked at the boy and the boy seemed to notice him at last.
He saw the boy's eyes slowly widen, but before words could form, the boy had disappeared and in his place a woman now stood in front of him, looking down with an expression of surprise and disappointment. Gosh looked down and saw a plate on the ground. Almost two equal pieces, but definitely broken. Now Gosh was really confused. He hadn't had the chance to choose his appearance, and now the boy wasn't his messenger either. Was this woman the one then?
Again before he had time to introduce himself as this woman's new patron god, he found himself next to an older woman seemingly berating another elderly man. There wasn't enough time to fully understand what was happening. The mortals flashed before him. Man, woman, woman, boy, girl, man...
After what felt like hours of appearing and vanishing in front of countless faces, Gosh finally found himself with what he hoped was a period of calm. In the midst of all the warping, he'd come to a preliminary realisation that the mortals weren't so much calling him Gosh, newly Named god, but instead using some sort of commonplace phrase. A few times he'd appeared before the mortal had even fully said his name, and he'd managed to hear his two least favourite words now.
"Oh. My." | |
[WP] It turns out that Gosh is a real god, and he is getting pretty darn tired of all these goody-two-shoes using his name in vain. | In the not completely barren wastelands of Heck, a ring of gods sat around a pillar of bellowing heckfire. It was lukewarm. Toasty. And a smile almost eased onto Gosh's terrible face as he watched a warren of Dagnabbits hop by.
They gathered here every Tuesday night. There had been push back at first, but all agreed Hell was too sulfury. Really sunk into your clothes. And though none of the gods were *bad* neither were any good enough for heaven. Except the Holy Cow. Gosh supposed he was munching on golder pastures now.
But he didn't mind. Gosh saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very ok.
Yikes sat back down onto his seat. Dull applause sounded around the ring and thousands of eyes, most of them Gadzook's, turned to Gosh. He shook himself awake. It was his turn.
He stood. "Hi, I'm Gosh."
"Hiii, Gosh." echoed the crowd in the slurred, drawn-out way crowds echo when they are larger than 5. The writer has always wondered why this is.
Gosh stared at the ground. How many times has he stood here? Talking the same talk.
He sighed. "I'm just so sick of it. We all are."
The twin gods Frik and Frig nodded in unison.
"I swear. In the general sense I mean, not naming names," Gosh quickly added.
He looked up to meet each god's eye in turn.
"I swear. They blaspheme one more time and I really will darn them all. Eternal darnation!"
Gasps rose around the ring. Frig and Frik turned to each other, their single but doubly charming eyes wide.
"You know we don't mean it!" said a female voice from the corner.
Gosh sighed. It was Louise. She was a normal human but Jeez had taken a liking to her. Gosh suspected Jeez just wanted a free secretary to sit in on his meetings. He supposed Jeez was a busy guy though, being one of the more often called upon gods. It was clever really. Now if only Josh was more popular.
"We just...say things sometimes," Louise continued.
"Well it hurts our feelings!" Yikes shouted back. Yellow goo oozed from Yikes's face when he got upset. Yik- Gosh grimaced but stifled the exclamation in his throat.
Murmurs of agreement quickly grew into a din of roars. Louise pumped her fists as screeching chitterings and thumping tentacles drowned out her protests.
"Yeah! We'll darn them AND dang them!" Gadzook cried, his thousand eyes all narrowed in fury.
"We won't take this anymore!" Cowabunga added.
Gosh raised a brow. He thought this issue didn't really apply to Cowabunga, especially in the 21st century. But Cowabunga hadn't been the same since his Holier cousin entered heaven, so Gosh gave him a pass.
Gosh raised his fists to the sky. "We will bring Judgement!"
r/bobotheturtle | Cindy shook the swear jar in Brian's face.
"Come on, Cindy!" He pleaded, looking around to make sure their mom couldn't hear them. He hadn't meant to swear!
"You know what Mom says," she retorted in a singsong voice, enjoying his torment. "'Half your allowance per swear!'"
Brian risked another look towards the office. Mom and dad were still on their computers.
"I'll give you a dollar if you promise not to tell." He begged.
"You're gonna get in trouble!" Cindy sang and began skipping towards the office.
She always did this! Always tattled on him! First was when he drew on the door, then when he broke the TV, and then- It was so unfair!
"Darn you Cindy!" he muttered bitterly, stamping his foot. "Gosh darn you to heck!" Cindy gasped and in a sudden puff of smoke, vanished.
"Ta-dah!" A tiny, old man said as he scampered from behind the television.
He was no taller than Brian, but so old he appeared to be made of wrinkles
."What do you think, eh?" The man said, elbowing Brian in the ribs. "Pretty good miracle, eh?"
Brian stood in shocked silence, all his anger forgotten. Was she...
"Yup!" The old man said cheerily. "Straight to heck! No if, buts, or maybes! Exactly like you wanted."
Brian stared at the man. This couldn't be happening. He didn't want this. He just wanted to not get in trouble. But if mom and dad find out he banished Cindy to heck...
"No, please, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to swear either."
"Too late!" The main said with a laugh. "Maybe you should have all been more careful before wasting so much of my name, eh?"
"Please bring her bring, mister!" "Nope!" Gosh grinned, showing too many teeth. "Now, I'm off to continue fulfilling the wishes of everyone who calls on me!"
&#x200B;
The torch sizzled as it burned away the cobwebs, covering the room in flickering light.
The priest of Gosh made the sign to ward off attention of his patron before shoving the door the rest of the way and wandering in. His eyes scanned the room quickly, slipping past tapestries and urns before settling on an ornate ten foot tall golden doorway strategically placed at the centre of some pews.
This was it, he was certain. There had been many false leads and dead ends, but this time, he was *certain*.
He didn't dance at Gosh's deranged tune. Not anymore.
He pulled one of the great forbidden tomes from his backpack and quickly traced the sigil on the door in permanent marker.
Decades in the service of Gosh had taught him a lot about names. The powers they held, and the powers they gave.
He embellished the sigil with her name, the most important name and stepped back. It was done.
Now came the hard part.
He chose a clean looking pew and settled in to wait. | |
[WP] You're a spy who's just accidentally sent your "if you're watching this I've died" video to your only child. Now they're off on an epic quest to avenge you, and you're racing to stop them, always one step behind... It would be easier if you hadn't raised such a smart kid... | "He's good," Clary chuckled. "Real good. You've done a good job with him. No, amazing, I dare to say."
"I guess you'd could call him my most successful operation," I muttered, my words said with a mixture of pride and mild disgust. "He was always a damn precocious kid-- magic-prone and too curious for his own good. He's got his mother's witchcraft and my smarts."
"Your smarts? You have smarts?" Clary scoffed, turning towards me. "Ha! From the beginning Lady Luck was always on your side, wherever you seemed to tread."
I didn't object, even though I knew he was joking. I'd been lucky for a damn long time. Slipped away by the skin of my teeth on so many operations, not bothering to obtain the mental acuity needed to study magic.
"He's going for the Head, which is a damn clusterfuck," I muttered. "I know you said 'don't beat yourself up over this' and all that, but if the protocol didn't activate after I went into hiding and the files weren't released to my sole heir, we wouldn't be in this situation."
"As you know," explained Clary, "The Head of Merkabah is a prodigious sorcerer. All we know about him is that his magic is said to bend the limits of reality itself. Your boy-- he's a pyromancer, no?"
"Prodigious, Clary. I remember the first time he conjured. The flames he gathered rivalled the brightness of sun itself," I reminisced. "Like pure starfire. I'm telling you, if he and the Head fight, it could be a clash of the ages."
My son and I were, frankly, never all that close. After he finished school he went off on a series of pilgrimages to honor his mother. I buried myself in work, operations. I got updates on his situation, and never stopped being proud of him, but I didn't know what he was capable of. In a way, I was slightly frightened of him. He was like me, but imbued with the magic of my wife's age old clan of witches. Smart, yet fiercely passionate and wildly unpredictable.
"I hear ya," Clary reassured. "We'll find him. Without hurting him, somehow. Last thing I want to do is lose the opportunity to catch the Head alive. Not to mention, we have no clue if the man can rip your kid apart like a chew toy."
"I don't even know where he is. For all I know he could be in Venice killing gangbangers," I sighed, sinking into a nearby armchair. "He could be in Japan, he always had some strange fascination with ninjas. Or hell, he could have taken another pilgrimage to Siberia like he did a couple years ago."
I clenched my forehead-- getting worked up wasn't my forte. But the thought of losing both my son and a twenty-year operation to a protocol malfunction ate away at my very soul. He was obsessive, intelligent, magically-spectacular. He was out there.
"Well, here's something," Clary muttered, throwing the file he had in one hand onto the table. "Look, yesterday in Moscow. Three suspected Merkabah contractors were burned to a mangled crisp in a car fire. Could be coincidence."
"It's not," I chuckled. "He's got a head start on us. But I know he isn't finished with Moscow. Let me go there, drop me in."
"Argyll, you're dead. Remember that?" he replied quickly. "That's what started this whole mess. You can't just resurface and die again."
"I have to be the one that brings him in," I responded. "Disguise me, whatever, but I have to do it. Don't make me call in my favor."
Shaking his head, Clary strode over to the glass doors and pushed them open.
"Alright. We'll send you in."
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
r/bluelizardK | *Oh no.*
*I really did send it.*
*It wasn't a dream after all.*
*My son thinks I'm dead.*
And I can't reach him. That brilliant bastard, not keeping a single thing on him that would be trackable. He's going to make his old man "proud" but what he's really doing is taking a sledgehammer to my groin.
He's going to go after Gary. *He can't, musn't, he shouldn't... but he will*. If there's a will (like my son's) there's a (god-damned) way (include a triumphant puff of a victory cigar to celebrate).
Johnny is good. Too good for his own good. I hate how he can find anyone, save anyone, fight anyone, and kill anyone. But I couldn't be more proud.
He's a better spy than I'll ever dream of being. He doesn't make mistakes, and I just made one, a critical one. *A mistake that will ruin my greatest life's work.*
Gary and I were in it for the long con. Before I ever met my wife, Gary and I had a pact. We were best friends, but we made the decision in our early twenties to pretend being sworn enemies. This way, we'd be able to establish two armadas in the big city, reap the benefits, and share. Since we were both brilliant we appealed to two demographics of crime. Those that loved violence and spying (me), and those that loved drugs (Gary, but he never touched a substance).
We were pros, and everyone knew we hated each other, but really we talked at the end of every Sunday going over reports, talking in a code only we understood. We made it a code that sounded like we were a son and father talking. He had no family. I did, so I told my wife and son I had to call my dad every Sunday. I even clued my dad in on everything and paid him hush money. They were always duped. Piece of cake.
Gary and I had a plan to abandon our businesses and skip town with all our money pooled together. I made up a lie to my wife (bless her heart, may she rest in peace, goddamn cancer) that one day when the town got too dangerous we'd have to get a move on. She agreed, happily. *That time was coming up soon too, damn.*
*If only Gary could talk to me before Sunday I could probably save him, but that's nearly impossible.*
Now my son is going to kill Gary... and it's going to start a war... A war that was never supposed to happen. And then I'm really going to die, my life's work down the drain because of my brilliant, bloody son.
*Dammit I need a cigarette or twelve.*
&#x200B;
If you're interested, here's [part 2!](https://www.reddit.com/r/randallcooper/comments/g348zo/wp_youre_a_spy_whos_just_accidentally_sent_your/)
&#x200B;
r/randallcooper | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | "Do not return."
The message rang in my ears. The voice sounded rattled. Terrified. Like it was all the speaker could do not to scream those words. But they had to say it. Calmly and clearly, however much their voice shook. They had to let me know.
Earth was no longer a safe place. My time up here was supposed to be complete. I had served it all. But if I returned to Earth, well, then my time really *would* be up. I had to stay up here, as long as I could, even if I died. Cos dying up here was still preferable to returning there.
The three words in that message, and the voice that spoke them, in its quivering, Florida drawl tried to convey all that to me. And I knew it was bullshit.
Someone wanted me to stay away.
I wrenched open the door of the escape pod and buckled myself into the seat. Randy, my partner up here who had just begun serving his time, spotted me and ran over just as the door was closing behind me. He grabbed the talkie outside the door and the pod filled with his voice as he spoke into it.
"Joe, what the hell? Where are you going?"
"I'm heading back to Earth", I said simply, as I pulled the space helmet over my mullet.
"But what about the warning?" Randy asked.
"The warning was bullshit. I'd recognise that voice anywhere. It was that bitch, Carole Baskin." | > Do not Return
"Wha- what does that even mean?... What the hell's happening down there, say something else you stupid answering machine!"
Countless hours of training are pretty much the only thing pushing down that distinct feeling of dread that's starting to blindside you. You whip your head around trying to find the calendar in a mild panic.
End of June.
Or maybe its the start of July? You can't even remember what day it is, so severe is the sudden bout of nausea that hits you. What was it going to be this month. There'd been the devastating forest fires, a close call with WW3, and a new pandemic. And that was just the first quarter.
Since then the 2nd Great Global Recession hit, the cannibal Illuminati scandal blew wide open implicating just about every government in the world, and the Corporate Wars of 2020 have kicked off with the foremost technocrat being forced at gunpoint to build the Oil Industry an escape spaceship; while a major media mogul began blackmailing every country in the world, demanding they surrender their sovereignty or else he'd implicate their remaining politicians and leaders with all the illicit content they'd been sending each other over his social media platform. Threatening to turn off the platform entirely in belligerent countries to incite rioting being almost an afterthought.
>>What do you *mean* do not Return?!
> Do not Return
>> Tell me! its July isn't it, oh god, what's happened?!
> Do not Return
It's aliens isn't it. You never did trust Jupiter. Too big, too full of hot air. You rack your brains for all the Simpsons references you can, what other horrible thing have they gotten right this time.
>>Give it to me straight, has the Antichrist arrived? He totally has, hasn't he.
> Do not Return
>> My GOD, if you don't give me a straight answer right now I swear to God-
> Do not Return
> Do Not Return
> For the Love of God Sarah, stop returning our messages, we're going to run out of bandwo44c#&
-
>**[[Hi {NASA}, Thank you for using our Global+ Internet Services, sadly it seems you've exceeded your Bandwidth Limit for this month and have run out of courtesy months. Click _[*Here*]_ if you would like to upgrade to our First World Package Plus program. We accept all major currencies except for the North Korean Won and the Facebook Libra. We are also now accepting military equipment including tanks and atomic bombs.]]**
-
>^Global ^Plus ^is ^a ^wholly ^owned ^subsidiary ^of ^the ^Media ^Megacorp ^Corporation. ^Less ^than ^60% ^of ^our ^Shareholders ^are ^Illuminati ^Cannibals ^according ^to ^the ^updated ^internal ^self-reporting ^questionnaire. ^And ^we ^have ^DMCA-ed ^a ^significant ^enough ^portion ^of ^shareholder ^illicit ^content ^hosted ^on ^private ^social ^media ^platforms ^due ^to ^infringing ^copyrights ^such ^that ^Global ^Plus ^is ^no ^longer ^in ^danger ^of ^a ^corporate ^takeover. ^Have ^a ^Nice ^Day.
Oh thank god, you breath a sigh of relief. Its only the megacorps posturing at each other with the usual Militant Capitalism. Its just June. You can probably breath easy for another week before July hits. At least. Probably.
No matter, you've calmed down enough that you can start going through the motions, queuing up the message for whenever the US government folds to the Internet Provider of the week's demands and you get enough bandwidth to assure the folks downstairs that yes, the space station is still on strike. No, we're not going down to Earth until we can check out what 2021 is going to look like. Yes, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is still reacting within range of the predictions, so No we're probably not going to have a clear image of what's emerging til early September. And Nope, still no sign of the Kuiper Belt.
Just business as usual. | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | Now everything made sense. You had been surprised you, an often unemployed man with a criminal record was chosen for a space mission. It had seemed odd but who says no to a mission in space? Training had been non existent which was also strange but they just said it wasn't needed with new space faring technology.
If that wasn't strange enough the rest of the crew seemed equally inept. Everyone seemed to have problems in life, almost everyone had done some kind of prison time. Noone had a schedule or anything to do on the space station. What were we up here supposedly testing anyway? You were told they wanted to do experiments with regular human subjects but so far no real experiments had taken place.
With this latest message it all made sense. There were no experiments, noone wanted us to do anything in space, they just didn't want us doing anything on earth anymore. The truth hit like an asteroid "this space station was humanity's first space prison." This would lead everyone on the station to fall into hysteria. The realization that we were stuck in space changed everyone on the station forever. Prison gangs and hierarchies started to form. How would stop this? Send up space guards? Hardly, and everyone knew it. Whoever had the power was free to run the station as they pleased. This would usher in one of the worst modern atrocities seen to date... | > Do not Return
"Wha- what does that even mean?... What the hell's happening down there, say something else you stupid answering machine!"
Countless hours of training are pretty much the only thing pushing down that distinct feeling of dread that's starting to blindside you. You whip your head around trying to find the calendar in a mild panic.
End of June.
Or maybe its the start of July? You can't even remember what day it is, so severe is the sudden bout of nausea that hits you. What was it going to be this month. There'd been the devastating forest fires, a close call with WW3, and a new pandemic. And that was just the first quarter.
Since then the 2nd Great Global Recession hit, the cannibal Illuminati scandal blew wide open implicating just about every government in the world, and the Corporate Wars of 2020 have kicked off with the foremost technocrat being forced at gunpoint to build the Oil Industry an escape spaceship; while a major media mogul began blackmailing every country in the world, demanding they surrender their sovereignty or else he'd implicate their remaining politicians and leaders with all the illicit content they'd been sending each other over his social media platform. Threatening to turn off the platform entirely in belligerent countries to incite rioting being almost an afterthought.
>>What do you *mean* do not Return?!
> Do not Return
>> Tell me! its July isn't it, oh god, what's happened?!
> Do not Return
It's aliens isn't it. You never did trust Jupiter. Too big, too full of hot air. You rack your brains for all the Simpsons references you can, what other horrible thing have they gotten right this time.
>>Give it to me straight, has the Antichrist arrived? He totally has, hasn't he.
> Do not Return
>> My GOD, if you don't give me a straight answer right now I swear to God-
> Do not Return
> Do Not Return
> For the Love of God Sarah, stop returning our messages, we're going to run out of bandwo44c#&
-
>**[[Hi {NASA}, Thank you for using our Global+ Internet Services, sadly it seems you've exceeded your Bandwidth Limit for this month and have run out of courtesy months. Click _[*Here*]_ if you would like to upgrade to our First World Package Plus program. We accept all major currencies except for the North Korean Won and the Facebook Libra. We are also now accepting military equipment including tanks and atomic bombs.]]**
-
>^Global ^Plus ^is ^a ^wholly ^owned ^subsidiary ^of ^the ^Media ^Megacorp ^Corporation. ^Less ^than ^60% ^of ^our ^Shareholders ^are ^Illuminati ^Cannibals ^according ^to ^the ^updated ^internal ^self-reporting ^questionnaire. ^And ^we ^have ^DMCA-ed ^a ^significant ^enough ^portion ^of ^shareholder ^illicit ^content ^hosted ^on ^private ^social ^media ^platforms ^due ^to ^infringing ^copyrights ^such ^that ^Global ^Plus ^is ^no ^longer ^in ^danger ^of ^a ^corporate ^takeover. ^Have ^a ^Nice ^Day.
Oh thank god, you breath a sigh of relief. Its only the megacorps posturing at each other with the usual Militant Capitalism. Its just June. You can probably breath easy for another week before July hits. At least. Probably.
No matter, you've calmed down enough that you can start going through the motions, queuing up the message for whenever the US government folds to the Internet Provider of the week's demands and you get enough bandwidth to assure the folks downstairs that yes, the space station is still on strike. No, we're not going down to Earth until we can check out what 2021 is going to look like. Yes, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is still reacting within range of the predictions, so No we're probably not going to have a clear image of what's emerging til early September. And Nope, still no sign of the Kuiper Belt.
Just business as usual. | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | **"Do not return"**
*click*
**"Do not return"**
*click*
Day 8
I've lost count of how many times I have replayed that message trying to make sense of what it meant. Only thing I know for now is that I am safer in my current station than I would be at home back on Earth right now.
&nbsp;
Day 12
I am no stranger to long missions with zero contact. This isn't my first space tour nor was it my first bout with loneliness. I just need to find something to keep myself occupied until I receive further instructions or clarification on what is currently happening on Earth. I have enough supplies to last about another year.
&nbsp;
Day 28
No response from mission control. Ground communications seem to be cut off completely. Radio silence from all around is frightening. Protocol dictates that I must wait up to 2 months before returning to Earth in the event of extended total radio silence.
&nbsp;
Day 35
Oxygen levels are depleting. I think there might have been damage to my station's exterior which is causing a leak. I can't go out there in these conditions. What if the radio transmission comes while I am outside repairing the damage? No I must sit still. I cannot risk it.
&nbsp;
Day 38
I am ready to abandon post and go back down to Earth. Protocol be damned I can't take this anymore. I might die sitting out here waiting for response and the observation mission does not really matter if Earth is destroyed does it? No I cannot go back to Earth. What if the situation is dire down there? I can't risk compromising the survival of humanity.
&nbsp;
Day 40
That's it. I'm going to attempt a mission to Earth. I cannot simply sit here and watch Earth decay without attempting to save everyone down there. I have prepped for a mission back home. I have activated auto-pilot and the ship is on its way back to Earth.
&nbsp;
.........
&nbsp;
A hot white light just blinded me. What is this? I am dying? My body feels weak and my left arm seems paralyzed. I think the lack of oxygen is finally kicking in for me. I can't understand what is happening to me, is this how I die?
&nbsp;
The device fell off Garrett's head and he fell to the floor aggressively convulsing.
"Medic! Medic to Testing Bay 009!" Cpl. Javier screamed at the radio as he rushed over to help Garrett regain consciousness.
Medics rushed in and carried Garrett off on a stretcher towards the Medical Wing. He seemed to have suffered a stroke brought on by "dying" in the simulation. | > Do not Return
"Wha- what does that even mean?... What the hell's happening down there, say something else you stupid answering machine!"
Countless hours of training are pretty much the only thing pushing down that distinct feeling of dread that's starting to blindside you. You whip your head around trying to find the calendar in a mild panic.
End of June.
Or maybe its the start of July? You can't even remember what day it is, so severe is the sudden bout of nausea that hits you. What was it going to be this month. There'd been the devastating forest fires, a close call with WW3, and a new pandemic. And that was just the first quarter.
Since then the 2nd Great Global Recession hit, the cannibal Illuminati scandal blew wide open implicating just about every government in the world, and the Corporate Wars of 2020 have kicked off with the foremost technocrat being forced at gunpoint to build the Oil Industry an escape spaceship; while a major media mogul began blackmailing every country in the world, demanding they surrender their sovereignty or else he'd implicate their remaining politicians and leaders with all the illicit content they'd been sending each other over his social media platform. Threatening to turn off the platform entirely in belligerent countries to incite rioting being almost an afterthought.
>>What do you *mean* do not Return?!
> Do not Return
>> Tell me! its July isn't it, oh god, what's happened?!
> Do not Return
It's aliens isn't it. You never did trust Jupiter. Too big, too full of hot air. You rack your brains for all the Simpsons references you can, what other horrible thing have they gotten right this time.
>>Give it to me straight, has the Antichrist arrived? He totally has, hasn't he.
> Do not Return
>> My GOD, if you don't give me a straight answer right now I swear to God-
> Do not Return
> Do Not Return
> For the Love of God Sarah, stop returning our messages, we're going to run out of bandwo44c#&
-
>**[[Hi {NASA}, Thank you for using our Global+ Internet Services, sadly it seems you've exceeded your Bandwidth Limit for this month and have run out of courtesy months. Click _[*Here*]_ if you would like to upgrade to our First World Package Plus program. We accept all major currencies except for the North Korean Won and the Facebook Libra. We are also now accepting military equipment including tanks and atomic bombs.]]**
-
>^Global ^Plus ^is ^a ^wholly ^owned ^subsidiary ^of ^the ^Media ^Megacorp ^Corporation. ^Less ^than ^60% ^of ^our ^Shareholders ^are ^Illuminati ^Cannibals ^according ^to ^the ^updated ^internal ^self-reporting ^questionnaire. ^And ^we ^have ^DMCA-ed ^a ^significant ^enough ^portion ^of ^shareholder ^illicit ^content ^hosted ^on ^private ^social ^media ^platforms ^due ^to ^infringing ^copyrights ^such ^that ^Global ^Plus ^is ^no ^longer ^in ^danger ^of ^a ^corporate ^takeover. ^Have ^a ^Nice ^Day.
Oh thank god, you breath a sigh of relief. Its only the megacorps posturing at each other with the usual Militant Capitalism. Its just June. You can probably breath easy for another week before July hits. At least. Probably.
No matter, you've calmed down enough that you can start going through the motions, queuing up the message for whenever the US government folds to the Internet Provider of the week's demands and you get enough bandwidth to assure the folks downstairs that yes, the space station is still on strike. No, we're not going down to Earth until we can check out what 2021 is going to look like. Yes, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is still reacting within range of the predictions, so No we're probably not going to have a clear image of what's emerging til early September. And Nope, still no sign of the Kuiper Belt.
Just business as usual. | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | Peter found the only gun in the space station before anyone could react to the situation. He was the one astronaut on-board with the wherewithal to act. Everyone else was either frozen in shock or crying their eyes out. Now that Peter held them at gunpoint, they didn't even have the time to process their emotions. The immediate threat snapped them out of their panic, but they didn't know what to say. Peter had grown easily irritable throughout the past two months. Hearing that last message made him snap. He wanted to kill Carlos, convinced that the other astronaut knew more than he let on.
The crew pleaded for his life.
Peter wasn't listening to reason.
Carlos suspected something occurred on Earth when they lost their connection to the internet. At first, they were assured by mission control it was a technical malfunction on their end. The crew believed it for a while until the excuses and delays became logically inconsistent. Carlos warned them on several occasions until giving up. The crew thought his apocalyptic fears were too outlandish. That was enough for Peter to make warped assumptions of his colleague.
Sarah hovered between Peter and Carlos. She kept everyone on-board sane due to being a counselor and always tried to mediate. Unfortunately, Peter shot her without a word. He then locked eyes with Carlos, saying:
"Tell us what you know or they all die!"
"I don't know!" Carlos was on the verge of tears. "You fool! We need everyone to get out of this mess!"
A heavy silence weighed on the crew.
Sarah moaned, gripping her stomach. She was still alive. Dmitri vomited at the sight of gelatinous-looking blood that floated out of her. The rest of the crew widened their eyes, at a loss for words. Peter was nuts beyond redemption. He would kill them all.
"You didn't think this through," said Carlos. "There's twelve of us and you only have eight bullets left."
"So?!?" shouted Peter.
"Right now, we only have each other. The minute we start turning on each other, all hope for humanity is lost."
"It is a little late for that," said Dmitri.
Julia elbowed him.
"What?!?" said Dmitri.
"Shut up!" whispered Julia.
"H-he's right, you know!" Peter twitched his eyes, gritting his teeth. "We're all fucked! Our families, our countries, our homes! It's all gone!"
"We don't know that!" said Carlos.
"Well *something* happened!"
"That just means we shouldn't act until we have more information. It could be a myriad of things."
"You were the one saying the world was ending!"
"And I was wrong for putting it in your head. My fear made me jump to conclusions too. If we ever want to return-"
Peter motioned at the other crew members. "He wants to go back! Are you kidding me? Doesn't that sound suspicious to all of you?" He looked at Carlos. "There's no going back after this! It's unprecedented to even be in this situation! How the hell are we going to eat? Do we starve to death?!?"
Carlos sighed. "We have enough for a while."
"And who gets to choose how it's distributed?"
Carlos looked away. "Well, I don't kno-"
"Exactly! You don't! Nobody does!"
"What the hell do you want from me?!? Of course I don't know!"
“The answer is obvious. I’m in charge now.”
“Why? Because you have the gun?”
“Yes! That’s how civilization works. If I have to preserve what remains of humanity, I’ll make any necessary sacrifices.”
“There’s a big difference. You weren’t *given* that power; you *took* it. What are you gonna do? Stop sleeping? Eventually, it’ll be taken away from you too.”
“I’ll… I’ll kill you!”
Carlos narrowed his eyes. “You won't.”
“I swear I will! Don’t test me!”
Carlos shook his head. “I know where you’re coming from. Life as you knew it might be on the brink of ruin and you can’t predict what’s coming next. Taking control of the station like this, accusing me of being involved in some type of conspiracy, it’s all a way to rationalize the situation.”
“You’re right.” Peter pointed the gun at his head. “There’s no way out.”
Everyone shouted:
“Don’t!”
Peter pulled the trigger.
The crew flinched back before realizing the gun was jammed.
Peter had a sudden moment of clarity. His pupils dilated in horror. “What am I doing?” He threw away the gun, bawling. “I… I shot Sarah.”
Carlos picked up the gun. “I know.”
“A-are you killing me?”
“Like I said, we only have each other. We still have a ship docked here. Landing it might require some creativity but there’s still hope if we make it back home. We’ll need to know what’s going on, first. You’re the only one who can connect us to a nearby satellite.”
“That’s... insane,” said Julia. “I mean, theoretically possible, but insane.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Carlos raised his voice. “Wait for a slow death? Of course not! If there’s even a marginal chance of success, it’s our duty to carry it out. Obviously, Peter needs to be locked in a room, but we need him to get proper information. He can be judged on Earth if he agrees to cooperate.”
The crew were unsure until Sarah agreed. She was barely conscious enough to hear the conversation. It could’ve been the blood loss affecting her cognition, but Carlos wasn’t about to argue against it. The rest of the crew felt comfortable tolerating him after feeling they had her blessing. They rushed to treat her wound while Carlos took Peter to a locked room.
Sarah was on the brink of death. Even after treating the damage, her condition never stabilized. Saving her might require a hospital... if there were any left.
Carlos led the crew for the next week, keeping an eye on Peter while he worked on a solution to their problem. He didn’t think things on Earth would be as critical as they thought. It could’ve been a natural disaster that interfered with communications, or a sudden war that made their current living situation awkward.
Sarah fell in a coma. Her chances of survival grew worse by the day.
Peter’s guilt pressured him into working even harder, finally establishing a connection. They only had one computer. Peter didn’t want to be the first to know. The revelation could trigger him again. He begged to not do it. The crew more or less felt the same way, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Discovering the truth gave them more fear than they expected. Eventually, they decided that Carlos would be the one to use the computer. He had shown leadership under pressure and was trusted enough to keep the gun for the entire week.
After locking himself in the room, Carlos hesitated for a second and searched on the internet for the biggest news outlets. The headlines made his stomach drop. Horrors far beyond what humanity could accomplish on its own. Clicking on a video only made his dread worse.
Carlos started bashing his head against the wall. He couldn’t even describe it. The carnage. The madness. His head kept replaying the images. They wouldn’t go away.
The crew started banging on the door, asking what was wrong.
Carlos couldn’t tell them. His throat locked up as soon as he considered it. The crew didn't deserve that burden. Carlos gripped the gun, fingering the trigger.
Peter may have been right.
--------
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out all of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading! | > Do not Return
"Wha- what does that even mean?... What the hell's happening down there, say something else you stupid answering machine!"
Countless hours of training are pretty much the only thing pushing down that distinct feeling of dread that's starting to blindside you. You whip your head around trying to find the calendar in a mild panic.
End of June.
Or maybe its the start of July? You can't even remember what day it is, so severe is the sudden bout of nausea that hits you. What was it going to be this month. There'd been the devastating forest fires, a close call with WW3, and a new pandemic. And that was just the first quarter.
Since then the 2nd Great Global Recession hit, the cannibal Illuminati scandal blew wide open implicating just about every government in the world, and the Corporate Wars of 2020 have kicked off with the foremost technocrat being forced at gunpoint to build the Oil Industry an escape spaceship; while a major media mogul began blackmailing every country in the world, demanding they surrender their sovereignty or else he'd implicate their remaining politicians and leaders with all the illicit content they'd been sending each other over his social media platform. Threatening to turn off the platform entirely in belligerent countries to incite rioting being almost an afterthought.
>>What do you *mean* do not Return?!
> Do not Return
>> Tell me! its July isn't it, oh god, what's happened?!
> Do not Return
It's aliens isn't it. You never did trust Jupiter. Too big, too full of hot air. You rack your brains for all the Simpsons references you can, what other horrible thing have they gotten right this time.
>>Give it to me straight, has the Antichrist arrived? He totally has, hasn't he.
> Do not Return
>> My GOD, if you don't give me a straight answer right now I swear to God-
> Do not Return
> Do Not Return
> For the Love of God Sarah, stop returning our messages, we're going to run out of bandwo44c#&
-
>**[[Hi {NASA}, Thank you for using our Global+ Internet Services, sadly it seems you've exceeded your Bandwidth Limit for this month and have run out of courtesy months. Click _[*Here*]_ if you would like to upgrade to our First World Package Plus program. We accept all major currencies except for the North Korean Won and the Facebook Libra. We are also now accepting military equipment including tanks and atomic bombs.]]**
-
>^Global ^Plus ^is ^a ^wholly ^owned ^subsidiary ^of ^the ^Media ^Megacorp ^Corporation. ^Less ^than ^60% ^of ^our ^Shareholders ^are ^Illuminati ^Cannibals ^according ^to ^the ^updated ^internal ^self-reporting ^questionnaire. ^And ^we ^have ^DMCA-ed ^a ^significant ^enough ^portion ^of ^shareholder ^illicit ^content ^hosted ^on ^private ^social ^media ^platforms ^due ^to ^infringing ^copyrights ^such ^that ^Global ^Plus ^is ^no ^longer ^in ^danger ^of ^a ^corporate ^takeover. ^Have ^a ^Nice ^Day.
Oh thank god, you breath a sigh of relief. Its only the megacorps posturing at each other with the usual Militant Capitalism. Its just June. You can probably breath easy for another week before July hits. At least. Probably.
No matter, you've calmed down enough that you can start going through the motions, queuing up the message for whenever the US government folds to the Internet Provider of the week's demands and you get enough bandwidth to assure the folks downstairs that yes, the space station is still on strike. No, we're not going down to Earth until we can check out what 2021 is going to look like. Yes, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is still reacting within range of the predictions, so No we're probably not going to have a clear image of what's emerging til early September. And Nope, still no sign of the Kuiper Belt.
Just business as usual. | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | Now everything made sense. You had been surprised you, an often unemployed man with a criminal record was chosen for a space mission. It had seemed odd but who says no to a mission in space? Training had been non existent which was also strange but they just said it wasn't needed with new space faring technology.
If that wasn't strange enough the rest of the crew seemed equally inept. Everyone seemed to have problems in life, almost everyone had done some kind of prison time. Noone had a schedule or anything to do on the space station. What were we up here supposedly testing anyway? You were told they wanted to do experiments with regular human subjects but so far no real experiments had taken place.
With this latest message it all made sense. There were no experiments, noone wanted us to do anything in space, they just didn't want us doing anything on earth anymore. The truth hit like an asteroid "this space station was humanity's first space prison." This would lead everyone on the station to fall into hysteria. The realization that we were stuck in space changed everyone on the station forever. Prison gangs and hierarchies started to form. How would stop this? Send up space guards? Hardly, and everyone knew it. Whoever had the power was free to run the station as they pleased. This would usher in one of the worst modern atrocities seen to date... | "Do not return."
The message rang in my ears. The voice sounded rattled. Terrified. Like it was all the speaker could do not to scream those words. But they had to say it. Calmly and clearly, however much their voice shook. They had to let me know.
Earth was no longer a safe place. My time up here was supposed to be complete. I had served it all. But if I returned to Earth, well, then my time really *would* be up. I had to stay up here, as long as I could, even if I died. Cos dying up here was still preferable to returning there.
The three words in that message, and the voice that spoke them, in its quivering, Florida drawl tried to convey all that to me. And I knew it was bullshit.
Someone wanted me to stay away.
I wrenched open the door of the escape pod and buckled myself into the seat. Randy, my partner up here who had just begun serving his time, spotted me and ran over just as the door was closing behind me. He grabbed the talkie outside the door and the pod filled with his voice as he spoke into it.
"Joe, what the hell? Where are you going?"
"I'm heading back to Earth", I said simply, as I pulled the space helmet over my mullet.
"But what about the warning?" Randy asked.
"The warning was bullshit. I'd recognise that voice anywhere. It was that bitch, Carole Baskin." | |
[WP] You have been on the Space Station for just under two years. The last communication with Earth was last week and even then it was a recorded message simply stating “ Do not return”. | Peter found the only gun in the space station before anyone could react to the situation. He was the one astronaut on-board with the wherewithal to act. Everyone else was either frozen in shock or crying their eyes out. Now that Peter held them at gunpoint, they didn't even have the time to process their emotions. The immediate threat snapped them out of their panic, but they didn't know what to say. Peter had grown easily irritable throughout the past two months. Hearing that last message made him snap. He wanted to kill Carlos, convinced that the other astronaut knew more than he let on.
The crew pleaded for his life.
Peter wasn't listening to reason.
Carlos suspected something occurred on Earth when they lost their connection to the internet. At first, they were assured by mission control it was a technical malfunction on their end. The crew believed it for a while until the excuses and delays became logically inconsistent. Carlos warned them on several occasions until giving up. The crew thought his apocalyptic fears were too outlandish. That was enough for Peter to make warped assumptions of his colleague.
Sarah hovered between Peter and Carlos. She kept everyone on-board sane due to being a counselor and always tried to mediate. Unfortunately, Peter shot her without a word. He then locked eyes with Carlos, saying:
"Tell us what you know or they all die!"
"I don't know!" Carlos was on the verge of tears. "You fool! We need everyone to get out of this mess!"
A heavy silence weighed on the crew.
Sarah moaned, gripping her stomach. She was still alive. Dmitri vomited at the sight of gelatinous-looking blood that floated out of her. The rest of the crew widened their eyes, at a loss for words. Peter was nuts beyond redemption. He would kill them all.
"You didn't think this through," said Carlos. "There's twelve of us and you only have eight bullets left."
"So?!?" shouted Peter.
"Right now, we only have each other. The minute we start turning on each other, all hope for humanity is lost."
"It is a little late for that," said Dmitri.
Julia elbowed him.
"What?!?" said Dmitri.
"Shut up!" whispered Julia.
"H-he's right, you know!" Peter twitched his eyes, gritting his teeth. "We're all fucked! Our families, our countries, our homes! It's all gone!"
"We don't know that!" said Carlos.
"Well *something* happened!"
"That just means we shouldn't act until we have more information. It could be a myriad of things."
"You were the one saying the world was ending!"
"And I was wrong for putting it in your head. My fear made me jump to conclusions too. If we ever want to return-"
Peter motioned at the other crew members. "He wants to go back! Are you kidding me? Doesn't that sound suspicious to all of you?" He looked at Carlos. "There's no going back after this! It's unprecedented to even be in this situation! How the hell are we going to eat? Do we starve to death?!?"
Carlos sighed. "We have enough for a while."
"And who gets to choose how it's distributed?"
Carlos looked away. "Well, I don't kno-"
"Exactly! You don't! Nobody does!"
"What the hell do you want from me?!? Of course I don't know!"
“The answer is obvious. I’m in charge now.”
“Why? Because you have the gun?”
“Yes! That’s how civilization works. If I have to preserve what remains of humanity, I’ll make any necessary sacrifices.”
“There’s a big difference. You weren’t *given* that power; you *took* it. What are you gonna do? Stop sleeping? Eventually, it’ll be taken away from you too.”
“I’ll… I’ll kill you!”
Carlos narrowed his eyes. “You won't.”
“I swear I will! Don’t test me!”
Carlos shook his head. “I know where you’re coming from. Life as you knew it might be on the brink of ruin and you can’t predict what’s coming next. Taking control of the station like this, accusing me of being involved in some type of conspiracy, it’s all a way to rationalize the situation.”
“You’re right.” Peter pointed the gun at his head. “There’s no way out.”
Everyone shouted:
“Don’t!”
Peter pulled the trigger.
The crew flinched back before realizing the gun was jammed.
Peter had a sudden moment of clarity. His pupils dilated in horror. “What am I doing?” He threw away the gun, bawling. “I… I shot Sarah.”
Carlos picked up the gun. “I know.”
“A-are you killing me?”
“Like I said, we only have each other. We still have a ship docked here. Landing it might require some creativity but there’s still hope if we make it back home. We’ll need to know what’s going on, first. You’re the only one who can connect us to a nearby satellite.”
“That’s... insane,” said Julia. “I mean, theoretically possible, but insane.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Carlos raised his voice. “Wait for a slow death? Of course not! If there’s even a marginal chance of success, it’s our duty to carry it out. Obviously, Peter needs to be locked in a room, but we need him to get proper information. He can be judged on Earth if he agrees to cooperate.”
The crew were unsure until Sarah agreed. She was barely conscious enough to hear the conversation. It could’ve been the blood loss affecting her cognition, but Carlos wasn’t about to argue against it. The rest of the crew felt comfortable tolerating him after feeling they had her blessing. They rushed to treat her wound while Carlos took Peter to a locked room.
Sarah was on the brink of death. Even after treating the damage, her condition never stabilized. Saving her might require a hospital... if there were any left.
Carlos led the crew for the next week, keeping an eye on Peter while he worked on a solution to their problem. He didn’t think things on Earth would be as critical as they thought. It could’ve been a natural disaster that interfered with communications, or a sudden war that made their current living situation awkward.
Sarah fell in a coma. Her chances of survival grew worse by the day.
Peter’s guilt pressured him into working even harder, finally establishing a connection. They only had one computer. Peter didn’t want to be the first to know. The revelation could trigger him again. He begged to not do it. The crew more or less felt the same way, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Discovering the truth gave them more fear than they expected. Eventually, they decided that Carlos would be the one to use the computer. He had shown leadership under pressure and was trusted enough to keep the gun for the entire week.
After locking himself in the room, Carlos hesitated for a second and searched on the internet for the biggest news outlets. The headlines made his stomach drop. Horrors far beyond what humanity could accomplish on its own. Clicking on a video only made his dread worse.
Carlos started bashing his head against the wall. He couldn’t even describe it. The carnage. The madness. His head kept replaying the images. They wouldn’t go away.
The crew started banging on the door, asking what was wrong.
Carlos couldn’t tell them. His throat locked up as soon as he considered it. The crew didn't deserve that burden. Carlos gripped the gun, fingering the trigger.
Peter may have been right.
--------
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out all of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading! | **"Do not return"**
*click*
**"Do not return"**
*click*
Day 8
I've lost count of how many times I have replayed that message trying to make sense of what it meant. Only thing I know for now is that I am safer in my current station than I would be at home back on Earth right now.
&nbsp;
Day 12
I am no stranger to long missions with zero contact. This isn't my first space tour nor was it my first bout with loneliness. I just need to find something to keep myself occupied until I receive further instructions or clarification on what is currently happening on Earth. I have enough supplies to last about another year.
&nbsp;
Day 28
No response from mission control. Ground communications seem to be cut off completely. Radio silence from all around is frightening. Protocol dictates that I must wait up to 2 months before returning to Earth in the event of extended total radio silence.
&nbsp;
Day 35
Oxygen levels are depleting. I think there might have been damage to my station's exterior which is causing a leak. I can't go out there in these conditions. What if the radio transmission comes while I am outside repairing the damage? No I must sit still. I cannot risk it.
&nbsp;
Day 38
I am ready to abandon post and go back down to Earth. Protocol be damned I can't take this anymore. I might die sitting out here waiting for response and the observation mission does not really matter if Earth is destroyed does it? No I cannot go back to Earth. What if the situation is dire down there? I can't risk compromising the survival of humanity.
&nbsp;
Day 40
That's it. I'm going to attempt a mission to Earth. I cannot simply sit here and watch Earth decay without attempting to save everyone down there. I have prepped for a mission back home. I have activated auto-pilot and the ship is on its way back to Earth.
&nbsp;
.........
&nbsp;
A hot white light just blinded me. What is this? I am dying? My body feels weak and my left arm seems paralyzed. I think the lack of oxygen is finally kicking in for me. I can't understand what is happening to me, is this how I die?
&nbsp;
The device fell off Garrett's head and he fell to the floor aggressively convulsing.
"Medic! Medic to Testing Bay 009!" Cpl. Javier screamed at the radio as he rushed over to help Garrett regain consciousness.
Medics rushed in and carried Garrett off on a stretcher towards the Medical Wing. He seemed to have suffered a stroke brought on by "dying" in the simulation. |
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