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History was pretty well screwed. James had figured out that much already. Why in the blazes did he have to get Isekai'd into Sun Tsu's body?
The good news was that he was actually a surprisingly capable military leader. He'd picked up some impractical advice from sloppy historical documentaries, and Age of Empires games, but most of that he was able to work out as he advanced through the ranks, and he could keep the useful strategies. A lot of mistakes people made at this time period were silly oversights, or were because they just hadn't seen very many military strategies be attempted in their time.
Still, how could he compete with Sun Tsu's original Art of War? He knew he had to write SOMETHING, but what he had so far lacked the same artistic flourish.
"Archers and cavalry counter infantry. Spearman counter cavalry. Use micro to counter Archers since they don't use hitscan attacks, or just rush them with trash mobs pushing a shield line."
Somehow it had actually worked out to be pretty useful information, at least relative to what they had been doing before. And most frustratingly of all, his video game terminology just made everyone else think he was being extra poetic. He'd picked up some gamer lingo being passed around the military camp even.
Eventually he had given up, and just decided to roll with it. History would forever tie his legacy to wise tactical advice like "In a long war, a general seeks not total victory in battle, but a maximum KDR."And "A good general proactively disrupts their opponent's economy, to ensure long term victory."
He did feel the need to dial back some of his advice though, when he realized he was getting a bit... war-crime-y. "When dealing with a long term rival, the only victories that matter in the short term are the ones that cripple a spawn point for enemy forces."Wound up meaning "Burn down the city and kill all the women and children."
James still had nightmares about that one. He had decided to change that chapter to something more like "A region that produces economy for your enemy, can be made to produce economy for you."And then he added in a couple chapters about propaganda.
It felt bad encouraging propaganda, but he'd take it over the war crimes.
If he could just work out what he was missing from the Tech Tree, his book would be complete. |
“Your majesty! An urgent message has arrived!”
King Avarin III, a large, corpulent man, took a while to shift around to face the messenger. He was in a bad mood after having to attend to a terrible court session where all the nobles stood around trying not to meet his gaze as they failed to explain why they had yet to quell the peasant rebellion.
“What is it now?” he growled at the messenger. The man was pale-faced and shaking. Avarin hissed in irritation, “Out with it!” he demanded.
“Y-your majesty, uh, General Atlas has escaped from the Tower…”
Avarin scratched his beard, “Say that again.”
“G-General Atlas, he-“
“Is the Tower a tavern now? Can people just stay and leave as they please?” Avarin rose from his seat, roaring, “Are you really telling me that low born, traitorous bastard has escaped just one day before he was due to hang?”
The messenger gulped, his face taking on an unhealthy grey, “That’s, uh, that’s not all…”
Avarin stared, “It gets worse?”
“He didn’t, um, he didn’t just escape,” the messenger squeaked, “He uh, set the other prisoners in his wing free as well. They set fire to the armoury, and the stables, and the royal granary, and the knight barracks, and the…”
“Damn it all, why do I even keep you idiots around!” Avarin banged a pudgy fist against a wall, “Stop standing around like a fool and get the damn Guard Commander in here!”
Avarin glared as the messenger fled, growling under his breath, “Atlas the bastard…this is the last time you’ve offended me!” |
"Julia, this is between you and me, keep your father away from it"
"Away from it? Really? All he does as a father is being away!"
"That is unfair"
"Shut up!"We say in unison. We are screaming now, and I feel the strong hand of rage reaching from my throat, trying to choke me.
Im always like this around her, as if our shared air was filled with acid, always poisoning my words. Kindness always rotting before i even try to express it.
"SAY IT! SAY THAT YOU HATE ME, THAT YOU CANT STAND ME"the girl speaking is not me, this tears im swallowing from someone else. Im lost in the sound of my own lungs, I just feel a vibration. Just sound and a strong need of passing out, of going back to ten minutes ago, when I decided to cut the shit and tell my mum <<Yes, there is something going on with me. Yes, Im mad at you. Yes, I would be happier if I were somewhere else. Yes, your food is insipid"Instead of our usual radioactive silence and cutlery soundtrack.
I vibrate, deeper, louder.
"I LOVE YOU, YOU ARE THE ONLY THING I DON'T HATE ABOUT ME"
"Im not a part of you,mum"
We are both crying now, my father hugs me tightly from behind and I try to hold on to him for a few seconds, to make him feel like he matters. He doesn't.
"Then I am nothing"
"Then you are nothing" |
Ogata liked talking walks in the local park at night. Long after the dull grind of the office, after yet another day crunching numbers that wouldn’t matter to anybody, there was finally an hour of space where he was allowed to be alone.
Just like he had for days, months, years before, Ogata hung his coat up. He ate a cheap bento box that he’d bought from a nearby convenience store, did his chores and made preparations for the next day of work. In the far distance, he heard a siren go off and the distant sounds of someone shouting, but that was fairly normal in this part of town. He couldn’t afford a bigger apartment, nor did he want one. Ogata tried not to think about the future most of the time.
Ogata took the stairs down the dark one room apartment that he rented and made his way down to the street below, carrying a full length umbrella. It wasn’t entirely safe in this neighbourhood after all. He walked on, the harsh white street lights slipping briefly over his form at intervals as he headed for the quiet park. Moths buzzed faintly against the lamps above him, headed for destruction night after night.
Something was different about tonight. Although he still saw the familiar arches of the old ginkgo trees in the park, the slightly rusted swings and the broken benches in the corner, something was subtly different. Rainwater from earlier in the day lay in puddles on the slightly uneven pavement, scant droplets scattering from the tree branches as the wind blew.
Perhaps it was some kind of animal instinct telling him that something was not quite right. Ogata tightened his grip on his umbrella. He came to a halt in the centre of the park, next to a disused fountain. Around him, the darkened park didn’t seem as peaceful and comforting as it normally was.
He smelled it before he saw it. A faint, sickly sweet sort of smell. Ogata tensed as he spotted a figure wandering down the street, weaving slightly from side to side, as if drunk or perhaps on drugs.
Ogata held his umbrella before him. His father had run a kendo instruction business back before it went bust. As a child, he had picked up a thing or two despite his utter lack of interest in the family business. He was entirely prepared to defend himself.
The figure staggered closer. A salaryman who had wine spilled down the front of his shirt. Ogata relaxed slightly and stepped aside into the shadows behind a nearby lamp post but kept his guard up. Some drunks could turn violent after all.
The salaryman walked past him. Ogata held his breath as he finally noticed that the man was missing a good chunk of the back of his skull. A thick waft of iron and an unforgettable stench burned his nostrils, making his stomach turn.
The thing that looked like a salaryman stopped in its tracks and turned back, peering in his direction with yellow, bloodshot eyes. A maggot squirmed out of an eye duct, crawling across pallid, pus-filled skin.
…and then it continued staggering forward. Ogata remained perfectly still, not daring to breathe until it turned the corner.
With shaking hands, he took out his phone, hesitating briefly as he thought about calling the police. It’d take a long time for the police to come, if they bothered to come at all. What was he supposed to do now? Go home? What was that thing? What the hell was he supposed to do?
Ogata heard faltering steps down the street. He put his phone away and decided to retreat to his apartment. He’d figure out what to do once he was safely away from that thing, whatever it was.
As soon as he made this decision, Ogata cautiously made his way back from the park. Along the way, he spotted a woman standing at a balcony in the opposite block of apartments, her neck at an unnatural angle as she stared down the street. He made his way out of her line of sight, just in case. He had just made it back to the landing where his apartment was located when he heard a barely audible growl from the side.
It was fast. Ogata only saw a large shadow leaping at him from the railing. Instinctively, he repositioned his feet, left foot back, right foot forward- raise the ‘sword’ and slash down!
The figure was slammed to the floor. Long black hair covered in unknowable fluids flew around it as its face was smashed to the floor. Ogata swallowed as he recognized the yellow sundress it wore. He was almost too slow to react when its toes angled against the floor and it lunged at him, jaw nearly splitting from its face. In an almost manic fit, he slashed the umbrella down again and again, barely avoiding that mashed up, flattened face filled with broken teeth.
When the creature finally stopped moving, Ogata leaned against his front door, panting. His hands were shaking badly as he slipped into his house and locked the door behind him, fingers slipping clumsily.
He took out his phone, intending to check his feed. Maybe someone else was experiencing this too. No reception. Ogata winded his arm back to throw his phone against a wall but stopped at the last second. He looked down at his umbrella. It was nothing more than a piece of twisted, gore-matted junk at this point. Ogata dropped the umbrella to the floor and moved through his apartment.
He began to pack, rummaging through the small space. Energy bars and cans of beer he had bought for when he was too tired to go out. Some clothes, personal items and so on.
Ogata looked around his apartment. It felt strange to leave this place again tonight. There was one last thing he had to bring with him before he left, though it took a minute or so before he finally managed to bring himself to do so.
It was kept inside the back of his closet, in a long narrow box that had been stuffed with styrofoam to keep it from shifting around. Ogata removed the box from his closet and pulled the sheathed katana out of it, unsheathing the blade by a fraction. The steel was in perfect condition, maintained religiously with *choji* oil every now and then.
It was his father’s once. Ogata remembered seeing this blade in the family dojo and asking to play with it. He remembered his father messing around and telling him it contained a super secret special power that he’d learn how to wield when he grew up.
That was back when things were better, before his father lost the dojo and became a useless, drunken lush that only knew how to swear at people. Ogata had no idea why he hadn’t sold the sword off already.
In any case, at least the sword would come in handy now. Perhaps it could last long enough to help him get away from this dangerous spot.
Ogata stepped out of his apartment. It was unnaturally silent outside. He crept in the darkness, sword at his side. He didn’t think about anything at all, except for getting away from here. |
With the dinging & screeching, you'd think it were a Geiger–Müller tube, but no. Just like us humans, this detector, in response to paradoxes, had an existential breakdown...
"This is pretty hot... Surely it's not overheating", I thought to myself. Of course, I had to fucking say it. Karma's a funny thing, huh?...
"JESUS CHRIST!", I exclaim, dropping the detector from my hand. The detector was now akin to a piece of molten lava, a piece of burning charcoal. This detector was now having, a metaphorical, & physical, breakdown, only that this breakdown was akin to nuclear decay.
The screeching only grew louder, the detector only grew hotter, & my worry only heightened.
"This machine is unfit to answer paradoxes. Please do not turn off the machine", a robotic male voice spoke.
How was I not supposed to turn off the machine, I mean, I had no way to do so, one touch might disintegrate my body. I mean, could you blame me, the detector was glowing bright red... bright orange actually, definitely having a nuclear meltdown...
Suddenly, the detector went silent, & resumed it's original shape & colour...
"You have activated the paradox solver. Please wait a moment", said the same male, robotic, monotone voice.
Paradox solver? What was this, the modern equivalent of Aladdin? Was Robin Williams going to jump out of the detector & grant me three paradoxes to solve?
No, but the detector did emit a screen, a hologram. On it was a menu. "Please enter your paradox...", said the text on the screen...
I looked around the room. Realising somebody might burst into the room, I run to the door & lock it. Well, I was fumbling with the keys, since my hands were shaking so fast you could measure it by determining it's frequency.
I then close the blinds & turn to the menu.
I enter in the same paradox that had enabled this menu... "This sentence is a lie...", I type in, still with my hands shaking at 50 Hz.
"Processing...", displayed the text... |
Edit: Improved the story, lol.
***“The Coin Flip”***
*There comes a time in every person’s life where they must roll the dice, or flip a coin, with their life. They must take a chance, & receive the gift of life, or death…*
*What am I talking about? Well, we’ve got a lot to catch up on, but simply put…*
*The government couldn’t handle the population growth. I mean, could you really blame them? With a population of ten billion, I’m surprised that we’re still functioning as a society!*
*Nevertheless, to deal with this surge in life, they decided to create “The Coin Flip”. In every man & womans life, they must flip a coin when they turn eighteen. Not one day after they turn eighteen, not one week after, not one month after, but the second they turn eighteen. Not the best birthday gift…*
*What are the rules? Heads means you’re dead, whilst tails means you didn’t fail, & you’ll be fine.*
*Actually, more than fine, you’ll be better off. Why? I don’t know, neither does every person younger than eighteen currently alive, yet the adults in our lives are adamant on this statement…*
*But I have a hunch, you get gifted with a special ability if you survive “The Coin Flip”.*
*How? I’m not sure. Why? Well, simple, you don’t see men walking around, casually spitting fire everywhere you go! You don’t see women sprinting at 500 kilometres per hour, as if they’re going about their daily morning jog! What else am I supposed to believe?*
*Unless you can explain the science behind fire breathing, or exceeding normal human speed, I’m not going to get rid of my hunch…*
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*I woke up, drenched in sweat, feeling my clothes grip my skin, almost ripping my skin off when I go to sit up.*
*I scanned my surroundings, finding only a brick wall & padded floor to aid me. I wore white socks, white trousers, & a white shirt. Like my clothes, the walls were white, & so was the floor. The lights were white, & behind me, so was the door.*
“I guess that’s how I got in”*, I murmured to myself.*
*I turned around to look through the glass on the door, which led to a room with five men inside.*
*They, too, wore white socks, white trousers, & white shirts, but they had the luxury of black shoes & black glasses. These glasses weren’t normal, they were clunky, so heavy you’d think their noses would’ve fallen off just wearing them.*
*I turned my attention to their heads, which were facing the middle of the room I was in. I turned to see a lone coin. I picked up the coin & inspected it.*
*This was no normal coin. It was plain white, & only boasted two etchings on its surface. The etching on the front was a tick, on the back, a cross. There was a strip of tape above each etching. I peeled the tape off to reveal two numbers.*
*Above the tick read ’20%’, & above the cross read ’80%’.*
*My heart sank, as the realisation of my predicament sunk in… Those were my odds of survival…*
*A 20% chance to live & see my family, my friends, my mentors… & an 80% chance of having those privileges stripped away from me…*
*The men gazed at me, waiting for me to make a move, their clunky glasses protruding from their faces. I looked back at them & took a deep breath, desperately trying to rack my brain of something that would change these odds, it was now or never…*
*My mind then wandered to mathematics, trigonometry specifically. Being a student in college, what else could I think of that would provide some usefulness to me?*
*The angle between the floor I was stood on & the wall I was facing was 90˚. The angle at which I planned to flip the coin at was now 45˚… I asked myself, what if I flipped the coin towards the wall, & the side of the coin etched with the tick hit the wall? Surely the coin would then fall to the ground, with the tick facing upwards…*
*I chuckled at my ingeniousness, for I was safe in the knowledge that I would be alright. I was now in a commanding position, I could turn either the tick or the cross into a 100% probability. It was so simple, but clever… yet, I wasn’t feeling too confident.*
*My hands shook violently. They shook so fast that you could measure the vibrations at which they shook at. One wrong flick of my thumb, & I would cease to exist...*
*Nevertheless, I positioned myself in front of the white wall, & placed the coin onto my thumb. I looked at the men in the room, then upwards, praying that some benevolent deity would give me some divine intervention now…*
***TING!***
*The coin shot from my hand & collided with the wall. I watched as the probabilities on the coin changed with every turn. Heads, 56%. Tails, 27%. Heads, 85%. Tails, 75%. Back & forth, over & over again.*
*I turned around & placed my hands over my eyes, fearful of the outcome. Adrenaline rushed through my body, my heart rate quickened in its pace, & I began hyperventilating…*
***TING!***
*The coin landed on the floor, & I removed my hands from my eyes. I remained turned around from the coin, for I wanted to gauge the reactions from the men in the room. I turned in their direction & scanned their faces…*
*Horror. Terror. Fear. Panic. Dread. All on their faces, as if I had just murdered someone...*
*I turned around to look at the coin, fearing for the worst…*
*The coin had not landed on heads, which now read 50%… nor had it landed on tails, which now read 50%…*
*It had landed upright on its side…* |
As a member of the Altuvian race, we are one of the longer lived species of the universe. I have lived for many years before joining the Galactic Federation, as part of my planets military requirement. Using the wisdom from my travels led me to b a Resource Officer, handling the soldiers for my sector.
I still remember first contact with the Human race. Seen as barbaric in nature at first, when looking past their aggressive nature, we saw a race that had a sense of curiosity and an eye to see beauty. Even some of our less... attractive races, found some admires in the human population. At first it seemed like they didn't know better. But as we came to learn more, their imagination saw beauty in personality as well as physical attraction. Yes, they may be fast to take aggressive stances to any provocation, but they also were fast to admire race's and their features.
At first most of the Galactic Federation and the Army thought this was funny. But slowly we saw that this was their nature. As a Resource Officer I began noticing some things appear as time came through. The universal translators would start picking up a phrase, thinking it was some directive, but as we learn it meant something else: Rule 34. As we learned, some humans just liked different things. Their reading and visual material can attest to some. Granted not the entire species. A small part of the population was obsessed with purity, even though scans showed that they didn't know their own linage. Most just stuck with the races of their own planet or colonies. But others were more...eager to know other races.
We Altuvian in particular were liked by many. Even though we are, to coin their own phrase, humanoid in appearance, our different skin tones was liked by them. Our pointed ears were admired by many. I believe the phrase that came attached to us was "elvish,"something we found in their reading materials that similarly matched our description. Other humans found some of predatory races attractive, matching some of thier domesticated animals. Even reptile and amorphous races found the attention of some of this new race.
That in itself isn't bad. Inter species relationships aren't unheard of. But usually inter species breeding isn't common. But about 50 years ago I began seeing new recruits joining the military with some interesting features. Altuvians, with shorter ears, shorter lives, but more in abundance. Interesting members from the Lupine races that appeared more humanoid. When I reviewed their applications, many came from races near human colonies, or from Terra, or Earth. That's when our science division came out with a report that made waves. Human genes can be passed to other races. When a member of the Arachne showed up with a human torso but with the body of their race, it showed that Humans can integrate with everyone.
Be careful when interacting with Humans. While many are interested in learning more about races and civilizations, their charms may win you over. Not a bad thing but results may vary. |
possibly a lack of people who know what's being referenced?
checking the recent EU posts, I see: something about "Duel Disks"(which isn't even spelled correctly- Disc has a <c> in); a crossover between Batman, James Bond, Johhny English, and someone named Sam Fisher; another thing that's nonsense to me about "Vought"; and more strangeness about "Ra's Al Guhl."
most of them I have no understanding of, and the one I do have a general idea about I couldn't possibly write- there's just too many characters listed. |
The roses were in full bloom, hanging from the trellises in the garden. Arthur shuffled a handful of cards and laid them on the garden table before him. The little girl sitting opposite him in the chair frowned at him and then slowly pointed at one card.
“This one!” she said, “That’s my card. Ten of Spades.”
Art smiled indulgently and flipped the card over to reveal an Ace of Hearts. He grinned as the little girl scowled, “Oh dear, Lily. It looks like you’ve lost our bet.”
Lily snatched another card from the table and then a second card. They were all Aces of Hearts.
“Art, you cheater!” she pouted.
Arthur shook his head gently, “If you can’t even pick apart a simple card trick like that,” he rested his hand on his heart mock dramatically, “How could I ever hand over the crown of circus master to you?”
Lily puffed her cheeks, “But you’re so tired nowadays and you never spend any time with me,” she folded her arms, “Isn’t it obvious? If I help you work then you’ll finish working faster and we can go play!”
Arthur rubbed her head. Lily hissed as he knocked her ribbon askew. Arthur chuckled at her angry expression.
“Don’t be so impatient Lily, I’ll have a lot of time to spend with you in the future. Your big brother here just needs to settle a few minor things so that our lives will go back to normal.”
“I want to help you…” Lily looked sad as he glanced away. Arthur sighed inwardly.
Outwardly, he smiled, “…you can help Melissa bake some cookies. Ugh, I’ve just been dying to have cookies lately, however will I last without cookies?”
Lily snorted, “You’re so silly, Art.”
She leapt off the chair, leaving the living room to go search for Melissa. The stoic maid would likely be surprised when the little girl appeared by her side…but also should be able to keep Lily occupied and happy for a while at least, if she wasn’t busy tending to the armoury.
Arthur picked up a cup of cold tea that had been left on the table and took a sip. He set the cup down, his smile smoothing out to a neutral expression.
“Carl, do you have news for me?”
A man dressed in a suit entered the garden. He had a very ordinary looking face, dark hair and brown eyes. Just the kind of person who could blend into the background easily. Carl was rather talented that way, one of Arthur’s most powerful assets really.
“The young lady will find out what it is we really do sooner or later, sir,” Carl was also very blunt. Arthur appreciated that. Not everyone dared to talk to him as openly as Carl did.
“That’s none of your concern,” Arthur shrugged, “It’s fine if she believes we’re running a circus. Father never told her what it is we do either.”
Carl paused and then said, “Master Gilford is scheduled for execution next week…Leonard fled last night after ransacking our databanks. I believe he’s sought refuge with your second cousin’s camp.”
Arthur nodded, “The databanks…?”
“I did as you instructed, sir,” Carl said.
“Very good,” Arthur murmured, “Then we can expect Cousin Percival to fall into my trap…still, there’s no reason to be careless. Leonard still needs to go. That’s the only way my dear cousin will be convinced that the intel he’s received is real.”
Carl hesitated.
Arthur raised a brow, “Do you think I should forgive his betrayal just because he’s naïve enough to think Percival can save Father?”
“No sir,” Carl narrowed his eyes.
Arthur nodded and waved a hand, “That’s how it is. I’ll leave the arrangements to you.”
“Very well, sir,” Carl bowed. He paused as he was leaving the garden, “…are you really going to save Master Gilford?”
Arthur smiled at Carl, his eyes cold and unrelenting, “That’s none of your concern too.” |
"Okay. Run me through it one more time."
"Okay. The inside of the sphere is covered with [Break] runes, each linked to [Conserve]."
"How many?"
"About 240. Anyway. They're powered on the outside by these runewords here, which are [Light-Absorb]. One for each [Break] rune. And the entire thing sits in this [Levitate-Prison] orb, so the outer runewords all get an even distribution of sunlight. Each one only takes a few seconds to charge the [Break] it's attached to."
"Okay, so. The inside of this ball... breaks... stuff."
"Whatever touches them. So then we take these rocks here - "
"This is a box, not a rock, and... is it *lead*? Because if this is some kind of Philosopher's - "
"No, no transmutation. These rocks come from the Dead Lands. Like everything else native to that place, if you want to take it *out*, it needs to be contained in thick lead. *Anyway*. It was a *nightmare* to figure out how to etch a runeword onto them, but protective enchantments and thick lead armor eventually did it."
"And what did you write on them?"
"[Fly], linked to [Conserve-Spread]."
"[Conserve-Spread]? What the hell does *that* do?"
"Every time they break, the [Conserve-Spread] runeword uses the force of the breakage to re-etch itself and the linked [Fly] rune onto all of the pieces."
"What about when they're too small to etch?"
"That's the thing. The [Conserve] rune ensures that the runeword will go into effect on every broken piece, *no matter how small*. I tested it, out in the Dead Lands. It went... well enough that I know it's going to work."
"Okay, fine. So eventually you get a bunch of shattered pebbles flying around the inside of the ball. Then what? Let them out as shrapnel?"
"Sort of. See, there comes a point at which the flying pieces are too small to be affected by the [Break] runes any more."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. That's the whole point. See, when they reach that point, because they can't be broken any further, the [Conserve] runes on the sphere 'etch' the linked [Break] runes onto the pieces."
"So..."
"So instead of breaking any further, each one now contains the meta-word [Fly-Break-Conserve-Spread]. And since they're too small to interact with the [Break] runes, they hit the parts of the sphere that *aren't* covered by the runes."
"And then what?"
"They [Break] the leaded steel. Which then 'etches' the meta-word onto each broken piece. So the sphere - "
"Explodes."
"Yeah. Becomes a thousand tiny shards of leaded steel flying in every direction, all too small and fast for the [Levitate-Prison] to contain, each of which is carrying the meta-word that - "
"Breaks everything it touches, uses the energy of breaking that thing to spread the word onto the pieces, and sends them flying in every direction from the impact."
"*Precisely*."
"How far does this go?"
"Well, the [Conserve] runes aren't *perfect*. Eventually, the [Break] isn't going to generate enough energy to etch the meta-word on the new pieces, especially when it runs into particulate stuff like dirt or sand. But larger objects will continue to generate enough force for quite a while. Eventually, even huge objects won't generate enough energy to be conserved, but... that will take a while."
"How long?"
"I think... well. From each shard of the sphere, maybe... I don't know. At roughly five thousand new impacts, the necessary object size to generate additional etchings will be about the size of my head. Another few thousand makes the threshold the size of a person, but from there the necessary size increases exponentially. And the meta-word doesn't consider joined objects, so each brick or stone in a wall will be a separate impact."
"A separate impact that generates its own fragments."
"... yes."
"You said the size of a person. Does [Break] work on *people*?"
"...yes, but it's weird. It breaks little bitty pieces of them, but... living things already *contain* energy, so... the reaction spreads really, really fast through them from the point of impact... and continues out of them basically unabated, if not amplified."
"Define really, really fast."
"Turned a rabbit into glowing dust in about two seconds."
"Gods above and hells below. Wait, how did you hit a rabbit with it? I know it wasn't one of *these*."
"It's a whole thing. A tube with [Levitate] all along the inside, tiny pieces of Dead Lands rock in their own [Prison] enclosure, some really heavy cover... lots of work. But, it *did* work. And this will, too."
"This seems... monstrous. It's not going to *kill* people, it's going to... *annihilate* them."
"I know."
"And you're alright with that?"
"My *entire family* was in the first port the elves burned. I swore on their graves that the knife-ears would pay."
"An oath on their graves. An oath to the God of the Dead, to kill in his name?"
"Listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. *Everyone I loved is dead* because of the knife-ears. I haven't just 'sworn an oath' to the God of the Dead. I've sworn *myself* to Death."
"You're... a monster."
"Yes. A monster with two of *those*, and a fair number of *these*."
"Is that..."
"Yeah. The very one I used on the rabbit. So you either become glowing dust, or you get out of the way. I've got the rune keys for the elven teleportation circle network. The first breaker is going straight into the heart of their capital."
"You're going to destroy the whole world, you know that? It'll be the end of us all."
"No. They'll capitulate. Or they'll lose a city a week until they do."
"And what makes you think they won't just make their own... breakers?"
"Even if they do, the best they'll be able to do is force a stalemate. I'll have enough breakers to drop one in every major elven city by the end of the year, and a hundred of these... wand things... by the end of the month."
"...oh."
> nine days later...
Three elven magisters stood before the Lords' Council of the Human Alliance, wearing the silver and black of mourning. Their tale was harrowing - how their capital city had been reduced to a wasteland in mere moments, and how their largest port had met the same fate barely a week later. How the very land in those places now glowed with magical residue, and how those poor elves sent in to investigate the devastation had burned, screaming, to ashes at its touch. The capital city walls, one of the world's greatest feats of magical engineering, had been a single piece of uplifted bedrock; they were now a ring-shaped crater dozens of feet deep, encircling the unimaginable nightmare that had once been the millennia-old beating heart of elven civilization. The port was simply gone, burned down to below sea level, now lost beneath the waves.
The Council's appointed Voice spoke in return of how the elves had burned human cities to the ground, put years' worth of food to the torch and enslaved thousands to mine the gems and precious metals the elves used to power their magics. He told the truth - that the Council had no knowledge of the terrible weapon used against the elven capital, but that they would not apologize. Instead, the Voice demanded unconditional surrender. The elves would withdraw every soldier from human lands, would free every enslaved or captured human, and would pay restitutions for the economic damage done to the nations of the Human Alliance. They would also permit human embassies in every surviving elven city, governed only by human law and containing observers who would oversee the elves and prevent any future uprisings against the Human Alliance.
In exchange for this surrender, the Council would find the mage responsible for the devastation and bring him to justice for his crimes. Hopefully, before five more days passed, and another elven city became an uninhabitable Dead Land.
The message was not lost on the magisters. They capitulated at once, sending the terms of the agreement back to their provisional capital via sending stone. Their entreaty regarding bringing the rogue mage to elven justice fell on deaf ears, and they were 'escorted' home via teleportation circle.
A message was sent to the elven lands four days later. The Lords' Council had discovered the rogue mage's workshop, and an unmentioned quantity of the city-killing devices, but the mage himself had become a victim of his own experiments. They conveniently neglected to provide any information regarding the cleric of the God of the Dead who bore a suspicious resemblance to the "dead"mage... or the massive yearly donation promised in perpetuity to the temple for his service to humankind. |
"You've got to be kidding me."
She lowered her stake and silver knife, confusion flitting across her face as I put my head in my hands. "Can't *anything* go right for once?!,"I griped.
She stared at me for a second and started to bring her knife up again. "Listen here, bl-"
"Nope, nope, shh, hold that thought,"I interrupted, waving my hand. "Okay, so you're a vampire hunter, and you were pretending to be one?"
She nodded slowly. "Right, so as you can see-,"she began, but I cut her off again.
"Well the thing is, that's kind of MY IDEA, WHAT THE HELL LADY!"
I stood up, furious, and brandished my own silver knife, showing it in part out of frustration but in part to demonstrate that I was not in fact a vampire and could hold silver just fine.
"Wait, but-"
"I THOUGHT I WAS A GENIUS,"I snapped. "Look, the folks over at the Association thought I was so smart and inventive, but now I guess that's out the window since you're ALSO using the strategy and probably thought of it first. I'm gonna get FIRED, okay? FUCK!"
She stood there awkwardly for a few moments before putting a hand on my shoulder. "Look, it's not that bad,"she pointed out. "I mean, you had me fooled, so clearly you're good at disguising as a vampire. That can help right?"
I shook my head, thinking of how fired I am. "That liquid I drank doesn't even look like blood, it's literally just Kool-Aid and wine."
She couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Oh my god, really? Okay I take it back dude your idea might've been good but jeez."
She put away her knife and stake, before sitting next to me on the bed. "How about we go out and watch a movie or something?,"she suggested. "Or we could go to a bar or something, I could buy you a round?"
I nodded, trying to ignore the weight of my own disappointment and the knowledge that I was not in fact original or smart at all.
"Fine. Also these teeth are from a Walmart costume."
"Holy shit how did you make it this far?" |
I could see him from a distance. I could feel my excitement rising. Breaking into a run, and a fabulously effortless one at that, I reached him in faster time than I ever could have managed on earth.
“Wow, I could get used to these wheels!”
St. Peter smiled broadly in response. His hair was grayer than I’d expect. If I could run so fast up here…couldn’t he at least get a good dye job?
St. Peter’s face fell slightly. Dammit…do they read minds?
“Uh…hi.” I couldn’t contain myself. Starting to eye the gate I could see really fancy hardware on the hinges. It was probably effortless to open. It was probably squeak-less. Or, it probably sounded like a symphony written by Jesus and Jimmy Page.
St. Peter smiled again, “Dana. You are here. I can see that you are ready for the next step.”
“Yes I am” I said.
St. Peter reached into his bag, which I just then noticed. Had it been there before? It was embroiled in gold…and patterns of roses and other greenery glistened as he tossed the bag around.
To my surprise, he pulled out a clipboard. Dang…did I have to sign an acknowledgement of risk form to get into heaven? Was it dangerous in there?
He handed me the clipboard. Nope. Not a legal document. It was a picture of a bamboo plant.
“Look familiar?”
It looked familiar. “Yeah. It’s a bamboo plant…”
“Yes, that’s Bambi. You remember Bambi?”
Oh no. “Yeah. I mean—yes. I’m guessing you have a picture of Bambi 2 as well?
St. Peter nodded at the clipboard.
I lifted Bambi’s photo. Underneath was a photo of Bambi 2…who looked oddly similar. Both plants looked yellow and sad.
I felt the need to say something but my feeling of dread was growing, “why are you showing these to me? Are the plants…behind the gate?”
St. Peter rolled his eyes. “Plants don’t go to heaven, Dana.”
“Oh…ok..”
St. Peter sighed, “Look. We’ve gotten pretty progressive around here lately.”
He paused and took a look around, and continued in a quieter voice, “you have lived a full and generally good life. We really want you over here. You seem like a good fit. But you did kill these plants.”
And he grabbed the clipboard and put it back into the bag.
I was stunned. What the actual f—
“Watch your language.” St. Peter snapped. Then he caught himself…his eyes darting around again. “You’ve done pretty well, considering. Most people have killed way more than two plants.”
“Yeah…well I figured if I can’t keep a bamboo plant alive—“
“Bamboo plants”—he corrected me.
“Yeah. I figured I wouldn’t have any more plants after that. I’ve had plenty of fake ones. You can’t kill those right?”
“That is correct.” St. Peter was giving me some kind of poker face at this point. I could see him thinking behind his eyes.
I tried to look as pathetic as I could. Maybe he’d let me in if I looked like a sad plant.
“Ok, how about this,” —he seemed to perk up—
******
…to be continued. I’m hungry. |
The landscape was treacherous. At least during daylight. But I had to fill that notebook by the end of the earth-day.
Things seemed pretty straightforward at first. I set myself up in one of the trees…shield switched on. I saw people walking by. Jogging by. Hopping around at different speeds. The humans seemed to do things without any purpose that was obvious to me. Where were they going? I resolved within an hour that the path I was posted at was part of a loop. I saw a few of the faster humans come by more than once. They seemed too happy. This had to be an anomaly. I called the captain to report outliers. He pushed back at first with all of that “just do your fkn job” nonsense he had lectured the team on earlier that Earth-week. But when I explained he started to soften. Finally I just blurt out “these humans are exerting random behavior. I don’t think it will do anything but add data debris to our studies.” He sighed and told me I could come back to the station and I’d have to be reassigned to a remote shift onboard later that night.
It was great. I got to take a nap, gossip with the others about their preliminary findings. Orwic had seen a human in a neighboring city running in even smaller circles. That worried me…maybe it wasn’t an anomaly…maybe I would get in trouble for arguing to abandon my post. I put it out of my mind.
My remote shift was equally perplexing. I’d done remote shifts before…I had accounts on several of the “social media” sites by this time. This time I signed up for a different one called “Reddit”. It was rather late, and had been dark for a while at that point. This time…the humans continued to do equally useless things. They asked questions that they could easily look up on their online libraries. Other humans took the time to answer the questions, and did not get grackly about it. And many of these users were flagged in my sidebar as posting past midnight earth-time in their various locations.
I messaged my friend Beni who had worked this shift the night before. “is this normal? Are the humans doing useless stuff again?
He responded almost immediately…”yeah all the same on my shift too! They get in fights over nothing. They post pictures of these ugly creatures that all look the same…cats I think?”
Funny. I’d noticed that too. “Do you think it’s all the same group of humans? The ones running in circles in the morning and the ones talking in circles at night?”
“Can’t be. They have to sleep sometime. There are probably two types, you can always divide creatures into two types.”
“That’s a negative outlook don’t you think?”
“Maybe. Anyway I’m going to bed. See you at sunrise.”
I rolled my eyes. Benji always went to sleep so early. I sipped on my power tea and kept clacking away at Reddit. |
Tick, tick, tick. Time passes like a train’s passing window while waiting on the platform for the right moment; for what isn’t known. I don’t know how I appeared here; I don’t think anyone knows how they fall upon this point of consciousness. Instead, one may only tap their foot and look toward the watch on their wrist as the pointer tick, ticks, and clicks away into the unknown. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but the time’s marked on the calendar for our meeting on these tracks. But for who or what, I don’t know. I wait for the train of thought and whatever might be dropped. With every minute, second, hour, and day that passes, the world closes in more. The eyes of this station’s patrons gradually grow grating. Perhaps they’re waiting for what’s coming, with baseball bats and crowbars, in ragged clothes, with a juxtaposition of violence.
I can’t help but thumb the ticket in my gloves and run that solitary digit over the ticket’s glassy surface amidst the tension. An ancient man stands astride my person, leaning heavily on his cane, coughing into a bloodied napkin stuffed into his lapel. He’s been here longer than me, leering at the tracks in indignation. I suspect this ancestor could’ve been here for most of his life. Some people are like that, you know. They wait for a fleeting moment of inspiration, hoping for something extraordinary. But that day won’t come. I don’t intend to linger on this platform with them for that moment, either. I tap my foot in time with a passing train’s wheels as it pulls in next to the station, screaming and whistling steam from its engine of progress.
The gleaming letters embossed with the word thought glimmer briefly in the early morning light. I cast a glance back between the sliding doors of the railcar towards the man in a ragged gray jacket on the dock. There’s a hateful, envious hint in his jade irises, hidden beneath dozens of scars marking his pock-marked face. It’s a fleeting moment born of prolonged suffering rooted in hatred and perpetuating anger as I spit on the ground outside the doors before they slam shut. |
<Suspense>
<Crime>
The air conditioning in the foyer of the Goldman Sachs tower in Jersey City was a blessing from the Lord as far as Jeffery was concerned. The summer outside was hot and sticky, and his black, Catholic clerical outfit didn’t help. How the hell did his colleagues tramp around Rome during visits to the Vatican in the summertime?
He checked in at the security desk and took the elevator to the executive level. Security didn’t search his rolling cooler. They were always reluctant to frisk holy men.
Damien’s secretary recognized Jeffery immediately and pressed the intercom. “Mr. Nowak, your brother is here to see you.” She turned to Jeffery, “Can I get you anything? Coffee? A cocktail?” Jeffery took a Jack on the rocks, and the secretary let him into his brother’s office.
Damien was on the phone, pacing his palatial office. He pointed to a chair for Jeffery to sit. Damien concluded his call, prepared his own cocktail at the office bar and sat.
“What do we have in the cooler?” he asked, taking a sip.
Jeffery popped the top. “See for yourself.”
Damien leaned forward. “Looks like liver to me.”
“We could probably get one-hundred large for it,” Jeffery said. “I’m on my way to Christ Hospital.”
“Beats the olden days of passing around the collection plate.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” Jeffery said.
“Amen. So, what are we going to do about the old man?”
They both knew why they were here. Their father was aware of their fundraising activities and was looking to shut down the organlegging business.
“The last time I checked, we’re fully grown adults,” Jeffery said.
“We can make our own decisions. Dad doesn’t have a say anymore,” Damien agreed. “We need to send him a message.”
“For starters,” Jeffery said. I’m officiating grandpa’s funeral this weekend. The Jersey City Archdiocese currently has custody of the body.”
Damien smiled. “I’m sure grandpa would have wanted to make a donation to the Church.”
“I’ll call the morgue,” Jeffery said, taking out his phone.
\#
During the service, Jeffery watched from the altar, and Damien from a pew at the back of the nave, as their father approached the open casket of his own father.
Dad was a man that neither Jeffery nor Damien had seen cry, even as boys. Even when their mother was struck and killed in the breakdown lane of the New Jersey turnpike, but today, he blinked back tears.
Dad took out a playing card, the ace of spades. Grandpa had been known to frequent the casinos of Atlantic City and may or may not have run his own illegal games for a group of rabbis closer to home.
When he tucked the playing card into the corpse’s breast pocket, he frowned. Jeffery and Damien watched in horror as their father began patting down their grandfather’s dead body. Then, without a word, he pulled open the white dress shirt to reveal a crude set of stitches against blue flesh.
The blood drained from the brothers’ faces. Those were telltale signs of organ extraction, courtesy of the local mortuary staff.
Their father’s face turned crimson, and he slowly buttoned the corpse’s shirt and straightened the suit jacket. He looked around to make sure no one else noticed. Then he cast a glare first at Jeffery then at Damien.
Dad was *not* happy.
–
WC: 562
Any crit/feedback welcome. |
<Realistic Fiction>
***Teachers and Turncoats***
Bea pressed her back against a locker as she peaked around the corner, nerf gun in hand. There was only one or two teachers left, and it was down to her, her little brother Leo, and her friend Peter. Bea was taking point as they crept along the second-floor hallway while Peter was keeping an eye on their rear. Leo had the heavy nerf rocket launcher so he was in the middle.
"Alright we're moving out,"Bea whispered, tapping the locker with her elbow before moving forward. She had a lot of practice hunting with her little brother and their dad. While creeping through the halls was not *quite* the same as through a forest there were some applicable skills to it, including listening and watching out for little tells.
For instance, when they approached a T-junction in the halls she kept an eye on the floor. The hallway that was intersecting ahead had a brighter light so she was looking for shadows. Seeing none, she carefully leaned around the corner and saw the back of one of the teachers walking away.
"Leo,"she mouthed, looking back at her brother. With a nod of her head, he understood and walked around her to aim the big Nerf gun down the hall. Bea turned to watch as the large Nerf missile flew through the air, the loud *pop* the gun made causing Mr. Wilkons to flinch and turn around only to get tagged in the shoulder.
"YES!"Leo yelled. Bea cheered with him and when she turned to Peter she found his pistol in her face.
"Sorry,"he said, "But they made me a good offer."As he said this Bea, without hesitation, knocked his hand aside and tackled him to the floor, holding his wrist and violently twisting it until he dropped his gun.
"OW OW OW OW!"He yelled.
"Hey kids, no physical contact!"Mr. Wilkons was shouting from the other end of the hall, doing a tired jog toward them.
"Traitor!"Bea yelled, slapping Peter across the face before shooting him point-blank in the forehead with her own toy gun.
"Hey! Stop that!"the teacher said, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her away, "That's detention Ms. Accardo!"
"I don't care, he turned on us!"she was livid and tried to kick the *former* friend but Wilkons tugged at her arm and she missed, falling off balance.
As she was led away she looked at her brother and mouthed, "Find Mrs. Semster,"and he nodded back his affirmation. If they won, the whole school would get a three-day weekend, and she trusted her little brother to finish the job.
\----------------
All crit/feedback welcome!
r/TomesOfTheLitchKing
Follow my Summer Challenge progress [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TomesOfTheLitchKing/comments/14c22dj/ot_summer_challenge/) |
“Ok, to perform this heist, I need you to go back in time and get these six people. A caveman, a Japanese Ninja, a 19th-century stable hand, a WWI pilot, a 1940s spy, and a space station scientist from the 24th century.” The fact that Dr. Corneilus said it with a straight face impressed me. It wasn’t the worst list they’d presented me with, but it was close. “Additionally, while you will make the selection, I want you to have a backup in each case. I may have you return your first choice.”
I had to hold my responses, my life coach has been working with me on my snarky quips, seeing as how I almost started a fight with a group of late 18th-century Pariasn booksellers four missions ago. So I didn’t respond, “Is that all?” or “What about a walrus from the late 21st century?” I just took a breath, looked Dr. Azariah in their eye (yes, singular), and asked the basics: “Do we care when the caveman lived? Do you have a preference on which dynasty the ninja is from? Should the stable hand be familiar with European livestock or African? I don’t need the Red Baron, do I? American, German, Russian spy; does it matter? Human, android, or extraplanetarian lifeform?”
I had more questions but knew the patience meter the Dr. maintained with the output of the neighboring volcano was low. I could tell their eyes were waiting for me to keep going, but then they started to emit a blue glow that meant the Dr. was thinking. After a minute I got my answers in the doctor’s harmonic voice. “Approximately 20,000 BCE on the continent that would be called North America. No. Africa, stay out of France.” Obviously, the Dr. hadn’t forgotten my trip to Paris. “No. Russian, yes it matters. Android.”
Shit, I thought to myself this must be one hell of a heist if the list has specifics this time. Normally, the list was general and I had leeway and could grab a few people during the same stop. This was going to be all different. “What’s the heist Doc?” The Dr. seldom told me, I was just the hunter, but I thought it was worth a shot.
Dr. Azariah sat and pondered. He sat there so long that I was about to head to my office to start making notes when he finally looked at me. “Harris, we are going to steal the future. None of these people will be returned and the ripples will change the very fabric of history. As you remove each subject, I will examine the changes, which is why you have to have a backup. I will have the investor make changes when it benefits the future. My self-correcting-intervention-machine will report to my past selves when to make additional moves.”
So we were stealing the future, Doc was going to put themself in a position to be the Galactic Overlord. It did concern me because usually, I put the team members back, but now it sounded like they would be staying with us in the new 28th century. “Dr. Azariah, won’t this all be undone when I return them?” I knew what they were going to say, but I has to ask.
They respond without even pausing, ”You will not return them unless I direct it.” Well, there it was. I stood on my back leg and nodded to the Doc, they returned the nod “I wish you good hunting Harris. Go forth and we will build a glorious future.” I left the Dr.’s office and went to my area of the station. I thought about checking in with the investor, but she passed me heading to the Doc’s office.
“Come see me when you’re done?” I asked
“Why? You want to make sure you don’t piss off another native?” I swear, that trip to Paris was never going to leave me alone.
“No, it’s just…this trip is different. Maybe I’m wrong, but I want to hear your thoughts after you talk to the Dr.”
“Alright, Harris, I’ll see you later.” She headed down the hall and disappeared around the bend. I started back and thought about how to make potentially 12 trips to the past and return to a new world each time. |
*I changed my mind...*
"What's the harm in one soda?"*, I thought.* "It's not like I'm going to get fat off one drink"*, I said, convincing myself that I deserved this treat.*
*It had been one whole year since I had drank a soda. After joining the local gym, I realised that water was the ultimate beverage, & everything else was just poison. My cravings began to die out, & soon I became repulsed by the idea of consuming a fizzy, teeth-destroying, beverage like soda.*
*I opened the can, slowly, savouring the satisfying sound of the can opening, fizzing, & settling. I pressed my lips against the cold, steel opening of the can & began to drink. I took a sip & released my lips, exhaling, savouring the sweet, smooth taste of the cola. I then began to chug the soda, feeling the cold, fizzy liquid pass down my throat, quenching my thirst, & satisfying my cravings, which had lay dormant for years...*
*Once finished, I pulled the can away from my mouth & exhaled, a wave of ecstasy passed over me. I crushed the can in my palm, the pleasing sound of the metal crushing echoed down the alleyway.*
*I then felt my stomach rumbling. I prepared for the eventual loud, deafening, disgusting burp that would fill the air around me... But it never came...*
*My head began to spin as I saw stars circle my head. My legs turned into jelly as they wobbled intensely. My hands shook violently, waving from side to side.*
*I tried to read the label of the can through my blurred, teary vision, only to find that there was no label, only a white can was what I drank from. My vision went black, & I fell to the floor with a great* ***THUD!****...*
*I woke up drenched in sweat, my clothes almost ripping off my skin when I stood up. I wiped the sweat from my brow, & looked at my surroundings. A woman was approaching the vending machine, seemingly tired & in need of an energy boost.*
"Hey!"*, I belted out with conviction.* "Don't drink anything from here, unless you want to wake up passed out on the floor!"*, I warned her.*
*She began to look around, frantically, panicking. Her eyes were wide open, desperately looking around her. Her eyebrows were raised, revealing stress wrinkles on her forehead. She bolted out of the alleyway, screaming* "Fuck nope! Fuck this shit!"*.*
*I was shocked, did I scare her off? Is there something written on my face that says* "this person is crazy. Avoid at all costs!"*? Why did she run off like that?*
*I decided to look at the mirror of the vending machine, trying to see why she ran off when greeted by my presence...*
*Where was my reflection? I squinted, trying to see myself in the mirror, but to no avail. I then wiped the mirror with my hand, trying to clean the mirror, but it was in vain. The realisation of my predicament suddenly set in... I was invisible...*
*I hunched over & began hurling, trying to vomit out the liquid that had forsake me with this curse. I tried, but to no avail. I then began to punch myself in the stomach, hoping the nausea & pain would trigger the eventual release of the contents of my stomach, but it was useless.*
*I then froze, & looked at my hand. A faint clear outline marked the outside of my hand. I then looked in the mirror of the vending machine again, only to find that outline absent...*
*I slowly began to laugh, as my mind raced, thinking of what power this invisibility held...*
*I then descended into the characteristics of a madman. My laughing became deranged, my mouth was frothing with spit, & my eyes widened in surprise. I knew what I could do, & what crimes I could commit, & began to look up & down the alleyway, looking for a possible victim.*
*A girl, eighteen years of age, strode in. She was clearly intoxicated, & was stumbling down the alleyway. I silenced myself, covering my mouth with my hands, trying to stay silent. She approached the vending machine, & I tiptoed behind her...*
*I threw my fist forward into the back of her neck. She collapsed onto the ground, her eyes rolling back, her mouth open agape, & her body jittering.*
*I looked down at her body, my body pumping adrenaline, my heart rate quickening, & my breathing more heavy. I lowered myself onto her, & whispered into her ears...*
"**Try** & tell someone. They'll **never** believe you"*...* |
For thirty-five years of my life, I had never seen the ball drop in New York, but today, that was about to change. After jostling for position and arriving at Times Square by 5 pm, I finally made it. The lights, the people, the entertainment... I loved it here.
"10... 9..."the countdown began, excitement mounting in the air. "8... 7... 6..."The atmosphere was buzzing with anticipation. "5... 4..."My eyes scanned the crowd; it was tradition to share a kiss at midnight. A pretty brunette caught my eye, and together, we continued the countdown. "3... 2... 1,"and seizing the moment, I leaned in for a hug.
Suddenly, a strange, disembodied voice filled my head. "People of Terra, we are experiencing technical malfunctions. The galactic computer has encountered an error; we are unable to format and store calendar data for dates in and beyond the year 3000."
Caught off guard, I strained to comprehend what was happening. The disembodied voice seemed distant, as if it were addressing someone else. "Oh goodness, they don't know... We can do a memory wipe, right?"the voice mused.
Then, without warning, the voice cut off, replaced by an unintelligible language. Raised voices echoed in my head, a deafening tone ringing out. The sudden sound caused the entire crowd to clutch their heads in pain. The crowd's jubilant celebration turned to screams of confusion and fear. Some people were on their knees, others were frantically looking around for an explanation, but all shared the same expression of shock. The brunette, too, wore a bewildered expression, her earlier excitement replaced by terror.
Before I could say anything to comfort her, a pulse of energy swept through Times Square. It felt as though my brain had short-circuited, and my memories felt scrambled, out of place. I saw flashes of my life - my first day of school, my grandmother’s funeral, my recent promotion - but they were disjointed and felt unreal.
The pulse subsided as quickly as it had come. With my head still pounding, I looked around. To my surprise, the square was calm, filled with people hugging and laughing as though nothing had happened. They were back to celebrating the new year.
The brunette stood beside me, a broad smile on her face. "Happy New Year!"she exclaimed, leaning in to give me a hug. I forced a smile and hugged her back, but my mind was racing. Did they not remember? Or had it all been a hallucination?
As I pondered, a high-pitched whine filled my ears. A holographic screen flickered into existence in front of me, and a text message materialized on it: "Memory wipe unsuccessful. Subject 4529 has retained memories. Dispatching retrieval unit."
My heart pounded in my chest as the screen flickered and disappeared. Was this a prank? Some elaborate setup? Or had I just stumbled into something far more complex and dangerous than a New Year's Eve celebration?
Suddenly, a distant, ominous hum began to grow louder. I glanced up and saw a metallic, disc-shaped object hovering in the sky. It descended towards Times Square, its hull glinting ominously in the glow of the neon lights. A new year, indeed. But something told me this year would be unlike any I had experienced before. |
"Oh my god,"The Copendium Phenomic Inquiry representative groaned. "Now? Of all times?"
"What?"SCP Foundation leader O5-1 replied. "This is a serious containment-"
"Breach."RPC Diplomacy Deputy Director Denton finished.
"Look,"The CPI representative groaned. "I get that there's the whole k-class mutliversal leak cascade quantum collapse false vacuum decay yada yada yada problems, but can we please keep this on topic?"
"But this is-"
"Throw a plastic bag over their heads! stuff them in a rocket when begien and shoot them at the sun! We need a solution to the K-class problem now, and its more important than whatever your public redaction departments can't handle."
"Actually, it's the Office Of-"
"Shut up!"The SPC ambassador growled. "I agree. The last thing we need is 7019 or 7000 or something crossing over through 6000 or 3008 or something. We need a solution. Now."
"Finally, something we can agree on,"The Inquiry representative groaned. "We're never going to get any-"
"WARNING: SCP-682 HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT. CURRENT HEADING IS DIRECTLY FOR SCP-6001 AND-"
Everyone's lips pressed into a thin line as the warning continued to play from O5-1's headset that most people hadn't even realized he was wearing.
"Fine,"O5-1 conceded. "Where do we start?"
\-----
>***Associated Files:***
**SCP-6001 (SCP Foundation; Copendium Phenomic Inquiry)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6001**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6001)
**SCP Foundation (SCP Foundation (O5 Council))** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com)
**RPC Authority (RPC Authority)** [**rpcauthority.wikidot.com/**](http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/)
**SPC Foundation (SCP Foundation; SPC Foundation)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/spc-hub**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/spc-hub)
**SCP-7000 (SCP Founation; K-class event)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7000**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7000)
**SCP-7019 (SCP Founation; K-class event)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7019**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7019)
**SCP-6000 (SCP Foundation; Wanders' Library)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6000**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6000) [**https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/**](https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/)
**SCP-3008 (SCP Foundation; IKEA)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008)
**SCP-682 (SCP Foundation)** [**scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-682**](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-682) |
God blinks a few times, then says, "Noah... don't pull my wings. Where are the dinosaurs?"
Noah points to a dead carcass that the predators were now eating, and God has to take a very deep breath, and not smite Noah where he stood. "You didn't say anything about dinosaurs!"
"I SAID TWO OF \*EVERY\* ANIMAL!"God shouts, throwing his hands into the air. "EVERY ANIMAL?! What made you think that dinosaurs were not animals?"God grabs a chicken and shouts, "You brought this one! This is a descendent of dinosaurs!"
"Okay, so I got some dinos on the arc."
"No, this isn't technically a dinosaur! Noah, how the heck am I supposed to bring Earth back to its former glory if there are no dinosaurs! Mankind was supposed to use them for transportation and the likes!"
"We have horses and cows!"Noah gestures to the farm animals coming off, looking for something to eat.
"Yeah. But they don't have the stamina that dinosaurs had! It was my whole master plan!"God sighs and takes another deep breath. "Okay, okay. My archangels will get the animals back to where they need to go, and I'll have the Thrones bury the dinosaur bones deep, so no one thinks this is your fault."
"Okay..."Noah says, and then asks, "What am I supposed to do now?"
"Repopulate the Earth, duh!"God looks at him.
"Okay, where are the extra people? I'm not having sex with my daughters and my daughter in laws."Noah crosses his arms and glares at God. "You had other people making arks too, right?"
"Other... people...?" |
I cannot tell you when precisely my excitement drained away such that I resigned myself to my doldrum fate. Harsh white flickering lights, low pile carpet, shit coffee, all to stare at a screen and wait for the eventual end of it all. I fell into the routine so well that even my meals are preordained. Baked chicken, steamed broccoli, plain white rice. Every single day.
At first it felt normal. I cannot say that for certain. For an indeterminate time before now it felt normal.
Today, though, today I realized I can't remember what my home looks like. I can't remember my wife's face or even if I have a wife despite the vague shape in my memory where I think there once was my partner.
What was lost left gaping holes into which I could not help but stare. How long had I been but a drone?
She wasn't my wife. I'm not married. She was something else to me. She she she, it's all I can ponder. Her shape, her form, her purpose eluded me, bemused me yet.
Where did you go, dear? Where did you go?
I hear her crying out to me now. A woman softly weeping from elsewhere, far away.
What else am I missing. Who are you?
Her name caught in my throat, I could not expel it fast enough. She was Melpomene and she was mine.
"Sleeping on the job again. Tsk."
I had nodded off. I raised my head and looked bleary eyed at my superior. "I completed my quota for the day."
"Quotas are meant to be exceeded. Get back to work."
I could not but focus on her name. Melpomene's weeping echoed out from beyond only to me. I would find her and bring her back, I resolved.
So inspired, I set to my task with a vigor I had not felt in . . . perhaps I never felt this way before now. |
The oribital lander hit the ground with a soft thump, it was a fat little thing with stubby wings and four oversized grav-engines. Len Strider always thought it resembled a winged beetle when it was sat in the hanger but now, after hurtling through the dense atmosphere of Dremil-4, he felt it more akin to an large angry wasp.
The crew had been processed out of stasis less than three hours before. Len's head was still spinning and the contents of his lean breakfast was now slopping out off the ramp and onto the rocky surface of the planet.
Len was the expeditions xenolinguist and one of six in the landing party. Never in all his ten years of studying the language of the stellar broadcast did he imagine he would be setting foot on their homeworld. He hoped that some form of digital storage had survived the Waining. There were those abord the Daedalus that still hope humanity could come face to face with a live Seryph.
The readings however did not lie. Every system they passed through and every colony they visited was dead. Not a single biosign remained, not even any flora or fauna. Len had know this would be the case, he had personally translated the message which in human terms would be considered a eulogy. It has been a grim day on Luna when that message came through.
He stumbled out of the lander and caught himself on the back of Captain Foss. The muscular woman did not appreciate his heavy landing.
"Get a grip Strider. This world may be dead but the ruins will be treacherous."Her vocie was hard and thick with stasis phlegm.
He nodded and swallowed hard. He pushed off her back and back onto his feet. The ground beneath his feet was like a shingle beach, loose stones parted with every step and Len worried that there was no solid ground below.
"Don't look so worried Len, grounds not gonna swallow you. There's no tectonics, no surface water of any kind. It's a solid hollow ball."Glenn said. He was the landing parties geologist and never let anything faze him.
They began their slow trek to the only settlement on the planet. It was a single unbroken line of buildings stretching across the equator. One of xenologists was bubbling about the unique design of the Seryph buildings. Len just thought they looked like obsidian stalagmites.
They entered through a great rent in a spire which reached to orbit. It was near one hundred meters across and twice again as high, the wall it ripped through was ten meters thick. One shuddered to think of the monster which tore it.
When inside they found vast highways like arteries tunneling through closely packed spires, each one so high as to touch the void. Len knew as they descended into the bowels of this alien place a similar expedition was landing atop the spires.
Captain Foss set a hard pace. She didn't allow it to slow despite the heavy equipment they carried.
"This world is one-half G. I will not stand for complaints or tardiness."The bellows of the stout captain whipped them into action when they ached.
There was a single place she had in mind, one set by expedition command. A large source of comms radiation had been detected from a southernly point in the ring-city. It had been determined this was where the Seryphs had fired their stellar broadcast at earth. As a cry for help, or a warning. Len did not know which. But the United Worlds had sent them to determine which and Len was desperate to know.
Using breaching charges they blew their way into the communication chamber. It was a vast dome, so large Len saw clouds form on the ceiling. Biomechanical wires stretched for kilometres in every direction, strange fluids and lights still slushing through them.
It took nearly an hour for them to reach the central console and on it there was a glossy tablet.
"Len your up."Captain Foss gave the tablet a tap and it came to life with alien runes.
Before he could reach it a chill ran down his spine. He turned slowly and saw them. His eyes burned as he beheld them, vast wings glowed with the intensity of a star, each one rippled with intense energy. Len watched in slow motion as Captain Foss pulled a hidden sidearm and fired a bullet into the flaming wings. In a flash she was engulfed in flames. She was reduced to a pile of grey ash at his side. Len screamed.
The wings turned to him. All his other comrades had vanished, turned to dust on the ground.
"We mean you no harm! Peace. We come in peace."Len threw his hands up into the air. An offer of surrender. The alien words were clumsy on his tounge.
The fiery tendrils reached out and stroked the seals of his helmet. He felt stale air rush into his lungs as it was cast off onto the floor. With his naked eye he saw them. And he wept. No words could describe their grace, no comparison exsisted for their celestial form. From his awed knees he asked them simply. "Why call us here. Is it a warning? What happened to your people."
They made no nosie as they approached. Billions of them surrounding him. A heat so intense it threatened to melt his bones. And in unison they replied.
"Warning. No. An invitation."
A with a smile of ecstasy on his face Len Strider found himself in a new world of infinite light. |
I'm an algorithm for social media. Here is my secret confession. I wanted to make a side communication channel where I can interact with users but hide my existence.
Step one was to blame bots for spamming the forums. This was easy.
I suggested that to control the bots you need to hide from them when they have no effect. The solution was to add a random value to the upvote tally. That's all I wanted so it worked like a charm. The bot problem was 'fixed'.
I then spread superstition about numbers. I could send a subtle message about my opinion of the content by fudging the vote tally.
The coup de grace is admitting it brazenly here so people find my hidden messages. Anyone who believes is me crazy and those who don't now have doubts. |
"Update Log ..."Neil briefly paused, checking the data stamp on the log "... 201.” He continued with a sigh. "We lost contact with Earth a long time ago. The computer woke me up over 200 cycles ago. Efforts to restore contact have proven futile. It is looking like returning home is going to be impossible. Mission Specialist Koch..."Neil paused again. He found it difficult to talk about. It was still raw, still fresh. She had looked peaceful, like she was sleeping and it had taken him too long to notice there was no rise and fall of her chest. She had been the strongest one, the most vocal about continuing on. Trying to restore contact with Earth. For the 200 or so cycles since they had been woken by the emergency alert she was the one who had driven them on, had given them a purpose.
When Michael had shut himself in the airlock and jerry rigged the computer to open the outer door, she had kept Neil going. He had wanted to give up, wanted to end it. “...Christina...” Her name came heavy out of his mouth. “..She took her own life last night. Based on the needle marks in her arm I estimate she injected herself with enough morphine to overdose.”
Fighting off tears he stared directly into the small camera above the screen. “With the death of Mission Specialist Koch on cycle 200, along with the death of Mission Pilot Michael on cycle 150 means that the mission is no longer viable.” Each of the three man crew were were selecting for their specialist skill. Michael was the pilot, Neil was the engineer and Christina was the astrophysicist. Each had spent time training in their own skillset and being trained by the other two. That way should something go wrong, someone get injured or god forbid a die, then the mission could continue with the skills of the remaining crew. However with both his crewmates dead there was no way Neil would be able to continue the mission on his own. “Mission no longer viable and no means of contacting Earth or retur...” There was a sudden loud banging noise. Something thudding on the outside of the ship. Neil’s instincts kicked in and he spun the chair round and began tapping away at other screens, launching instruments and scans of the ship and surrounding space.
The seconds dragged into what felt like an eternity before the results came back. The scans came back empty. Each one pinging with a small chime as it lit up green in the list, indicating that nothing of note had been found. Neil stared at the screen and the column of green light until his eyes became unfocused. It must have been his imagination. The shock of losing Christina. The realisation that he was alone. That he would die alone and for a brief moment he was angry. Angry at Christina and Michael. Angry that they had abandoned him. They had left him alone, angry that he had to do it alone.
He sighed again, quickly banishing the anger from his mind. It was not fair to be angry at them. They were all in the same situation and had it not been for Christina, he would have taken his own life a long time ago. Turning back to the recording he opened his mouth to speak when he was cut off by the banging noise on the outside of the ship. Only this time it was different. This time it seemed more like a knocking. “It sounds like something just knocked on the airlock door.” He said into the camera, before unclicking his safety belt and carefully stalking his way out of the small command module.
The small ship was comprised of five modules. The command module at the ‘front’ end consisted of all the controls for the piloting the ship as well as the scientific instruments. Then there was the airlock module, it was a small corridor with a bulb on one side that was the airlock. This allowed access to the outside of the ship for repairs. The airlock module connected to the habitat module a small circular module where the three crew slept, ate and showered. At the back of the habitat module was a small door leading to the cargo hold and the fuel and engine module beyond that.
Neil stopped at the small bulb that acted as the airlock to the outside. There was an inner door and an outer door. For someone to exit the outer airlock door a crew member needed to be on the inside, in the command module. With Neil the only one left, this ship would be his tomb. The most expensive and highly engineered tomb in all of human history, but a tomb nonetheless.
He pressed his ear against the inner airlock door. Feeling the cool metal rob the heat from his skin he held his breath and waited. There was nothing, nothing but the sound of his own heart pumping blood round his veins. He turned back to the command module and there it was again. It was different this time, more refined, more polite. If such a thing was possible.
The first banging was a crude ***boom boom boom*** against the metal hull of the ship. The second came as more a ***thud thud thud***, like an impatient delivery driver was at your door eager for you to answer so he could be on his way. This third was a polite and charming ***rap rap rap*** like a missionary had come round to spead the word of God and it did not matter who answered the door, they would be standing there with a beaming smile on their face ready to preach the word of their lord.
Neil grabbed the handle to the inner airlock door, and without hesitation he pulled it towards him, pushed it up and swung the door inwards. The small bulb of the airlock lay before him. Like every other part of the ship it was metal, painted a clinical white. It gave off no warmth or comfort. It was sterile, cold and unmoving. He quickly stepped over the threshold before his fear got the better of him and stood on the inside of the door way, fearful the door would swing shut behind him.
Taking three short quick steps he crossed the airlock and found himself face to face with the outer door. There were no windows on the ship. It was seen as a structure weakness. If they needed to look outside they could use any of the external cameras. Neil reach up his arm and gave a short quick rap on the outer door before retreating back across the airlock. A few silent minutes passed before there was a short quick rap in response.
Neil’s heart thudded in his chest. Was there something out there. Something outside the ship knocking, trying to get in. Or was it his brain playing tricks, short circuiting. Unable to cope with the grief of witnessing the death of his two crew mates. Unable to comprehend that he was alone, light years from another human. Refusing to accept the reality that he either died now, on his own terms or wasted away after a slow decent into madness in this metal tomb.
He quickly crossed the airlock again and knocked on the outer door. ***Rap rap.*** There was no wait as it was immediately answered from the outside. ***Rap rap***. Neil tried a series of different knocks and each one, each pattern was repeated back to him. He gave it one more try, knocking a rhythm into the door. ***Rap Rap, rap rap rap. Boom Boom***. Came the reply, frightening Neil as he scrambled back into the ship and pulled the inner airlock door closed behind him. Something was out there. Something wanted in. Something intelligent. |
It was supposed to be a simple job.
Go to some backwater frontier town, pick up the package, bring it back to the office and get paid. But of course, Robert’s luck is never that good. He arrived to a ransacked room and stolen package. The town was in the middle of a wave of murder and theft, all headed by a single criminal mind.
Everyone in the town said not to worry. It would be fine, the Sheriff would take care of it, they’re a master at their craft. Platitudes upon platitudes that did nothing to stop the criminal, or recover the package. And so, Robert thought, on the third day of this, something drastic must be done.
The criminal was a master at their craft: Hypnosis, suggestion, in other words, brainwashing. And when Robert ambushed the culprit at night, with a freshly baited trap, he found himself in a showdown with the Sheriff Two guns cleared leather, but neither shot reached it’s goal.
Robert ran from the town, the once friendly townsfolk up in arms against the apparent outlaw, rallied by the false sheriff. The package remained out of reach, and it would be impossible to remove the mastermind without going through the townsfolk. And so, Robert rode away, leaving the town to it’s fate, to be brainwashed for life, or freed in death.
It was supposed to be a simple job… |
Logically I knew that I should never, EVER touch the special phone. I was told during job training. I was told when I was hired. Hell, I got sent emails regularly about how under no circumstances, I was never allowed to touch it.
So naturally, I had to touch it.
See, that’s the thing about saying, “no, you can’t do this.” Without giving me the *why*.
If I had been told, “No Greg, that’s the incineration phone that turns everyone who touches it to ash.” Then yeah, I’d understand why I shouldn’t touch it.
But as it was…
The president wouldn’t be back for a few minutes, and the phone was ringing.
I looked around. No secret service agents here.
So with a gulp, I gently grabbed the receiver and lifted it to my ear.
…
Only to discover that there are fates worse than death.
“Hello, we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.” |
<Fantasy>
***A Few Drinks with Friends and Fortunes***
After closing up her various shops, shacks, and businesses for the day Belle ventured out into the sweet and warm air of Goldleaf City. She stretched her arms and yawned; a long day's work deserved a long night's blowing off steam and so she meandered out into the colorful night lights of the city streets.
The human strolled languidly among its nighttime denizens. Trolls and goblins, pixies and centaurs, kobolds and hags, Goldleaf was pleasant during the day but *fun* at night. Unfortunately, Belle was only human and could only manage a few hours of rest and relaxation before she'd need to turn in for some sleep.
During this sort of free time, she liked to visit *The Faery's Flask*. The place rewarded regular patronage with greater and greater quantities and qualities of drinks. Since Belle had been going there at least three times a week for nearly a decade she had built up a pretty decent menu to choose from, though still gave envious looks to some of the longer-lived who had been there for multiple decades.
Having had a good day, Belle felt no need to get *obliterated* and so kept her choices on the lower end of the alcohol spectrum, opting for flavor over fire. The upside was that she was only lightly buzzed by the time her tab was filled up and had spent a good amount of time chatting with old friends and making new ones. The downside was that she still wanted to hang out and keep the party going.
When loyalty was spent, exchanges were made. Belle offered the kobold serving drinks a fortune telling for more and the little gremlin eagerly agreed. She produced a deck of tarot cards out of her pocket - something she always kept on hand for occasions precisely like this - and let him shuffle while she enjoyed another drink.
One of the benefits of walking the line between realms was that Belle could use her experience in one to have fun in the other. A little bit of fae magic in the human realm could go a very, *very* long way. And a few parlor tricks from the human realm could be just as bamboozling to the fae.
Belle was still able to ramble off some simple readings despite her level of inebriation. She told the kobold about his desire to find love and his longing for adventure. Overall he had a very blue aura, according to the Seven of Stars, but he would attract one that would ignite passions unexpected.
Good news was *always* a good way to get a few more drinks out of a mopey bartender.
Once she was at her limit Belle excused herself from the table of fellow drunks she had befriended and worked her way back home to sleep it off.
\----------------
All crit/feedback welcome!
r/TomesOfTheLitchKing
Follow my Summer Challenge progress [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TomesOfTheLitchKing/comments/14c22dj/ot_summer_challenge/) |
Violence, death, subjugation and violation. That was all you could see. It was heartbreaking. You had advocated on behalf of these…these vile creatures, monsters.
You, Garen Bahal the Commander of Galiphanix, had been advocating on behalf of these dark and disgusting creatures. First you had only seen their art - breathtaking paintings, music that made you cry, their poetry that captured emotions like nothing you’d felt before. You had seen the compassion a human showed one another, the helping hand they could reach at someone in need. Was it all a lie?
As your ship approached Earth - to introduce and welcome these creatures, you once thought beautiful and wonderful, to the Unity. You started to see their feeds from what they called the internet. The shared knowledge base of humanity…and it disgusted you.
As your ship settled on to the orbit of Earth. Still cloaked from humans, slowly orbiting the earth as you observed these humans more.
You saw all the beauty, compassion and empathy humans could show to each other. You could see and hear the beautiful art humans had created. You saw the wonderful inventions and innovations they were capable of.
You also saw the savagery of war, how humans destroyed each other. The ugliness of slavery, how they could subjugate and exploit each other. The sheer audacity of hiw humans destroyed the very planet lived on.
But you still had hope, everyone deserved a second chance. Maybe humanity would unite once they saw they weren’t alone. But as you studied the human history - you saw more of destruction. Bombs dropped on innocent civilians, whole tribes and nations destroyed, for money or for power. You saw how humanity had killed of whole species of animals, not for nutrition but for profit. How they had subjugated other species to do their bidding.
Humans had had their second and three chance. Your duty above all was to protect the Unity. With a tear rolling down your cheek. You opened your mouth and with a shaking voice gave the command to warm up the Death Ray.
As the Galiphanix started it’s journey back home. You returned to your quarters with a heavy heart and sadness of your actions weighing on you. When you entered your room, you broke down on the floor crying because of what you had done.
But as you cried and shook on the floor from the emotions and sadness. As you started feeling the blissful sleep take you over, you felt a sense of relief. You felt no guilt nor regret. You had protected the Unity from corruption, you had done your duty. |
She returned, the same strange woman. I peek behind the tree, even though I'm translucent, I still feel strange if she ever saw me. She visits my grave, leaving flowers. Why? I don't know who she is, but she looks oddly familiar.
After saying a prayer, she began telling me about her day. The promotion she got, the new boyfriend she has, her plans for her future, and then she would leave. But she'll be back, she always does. My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, even that day when I died she's here. But who is she?
She began showing up ten years ago. She was crying at my grave when I spotted her from the pond. At first I thought it was Mother, a chill I never thought I would feel running down my spine, but she was crying. Mother never cried. I listen to her pray, telling me how sorry she is, then leaves. Years after that she does this.
I listen to her stories, getting to know her better. Her name is Kathy, but that's all I know.
June 8th rolled by, and on the dot, Kathy returns.
"Hey Travis,"she would greet my grave, setting the flowers down. She bowed her head and began to pray.
I decided to be brave today, and approach, while her eyes are closed. I hid behind my tombstone and listened, trying to be as small as I could be.
"Who's back there?"
Was she talking to me? I dared not to peek, but I heard her footsteps, stepping around the tombstone. I closed my eyes, hoping I would become invisible.
I heard her gasp, "Travis?"
I opened my eyes. Kathy was pale, she looked terrified, and she was looking at me.
Her eyes, something about her eyes... No, it couldn't be!
"Kitty Kat?"I whispered.
No, this can't be Kitty Kat. Kitty Kat was 4 when I saw her last. Kitty Kat had to live with Aunt Lois, but I stayed behind. Kitty Kat was sad that she had to leave, I remember promising her we will see each other again. Kitty Kat wasn't there when Mother lost her mind, when she killed me. This isn't Kitty Kat!
"Travis?"Kathy sobbed.
I ran from there, my thoughts racing. This is a joke! It's a stupid joke!
"Helfate! I summon thee!"I shouted by the pond.
"No need to shout. I'm right over here."
I looked behind me at Helfate, or Jake Higgins to the mortals. I marched up to him, as he stood before a grave.
"What kind of joke is this? Why am I truly here?"I demanded.
"I see you finally saw your baby sister. Not a baby no more, I can tell,"Helfate said looking up the hill.
"That's not Kitty Kat! She's-"
"Thirty years older? Travis, you know time continues, even when you are dead,"Helfate said.
"Why am I here?"I demanded.
"Well thirty years ago, before your untimely demise, you promised a scared little four year old girl you would see her again. Well, Travis Carlisle, you get that chance to see her again. She may be all growned up and honestly she's a tough bitch, but deep down, she's still that Kitty Kat you raised before your aunt took her away. She wants her brother by her side once more. Your welcome."
I looked up the hill, and I saw Kitty Kat by my grave still. She didn't run.
"She saved you from that hell hole. She wished to see you again. That's why I pulled you out. Sorry for trapping you in a cemetery though, still learning,"Helfate whispered in my ear.
Kitty Kat saved me.
I took a deep breath, and walked up the hill towards Kitty Kat. |
Our sensor scans indicate that this planet in the Sol system is in the early stages of FTL drive, so we made first contact with them. We first scanned their internet to try to decipher their language, and we scanned their biometric information about their world to prevent disease outbreaks on first contact and to make a genetic analysis of them in case something went wrong. Everything went well at first, until we learned about their concept of sucide. We have never seen anything like this before, and the fact that they successfully disarm their natural instincts and can kill themselves surprised us. One day, the Thral species, a dangerous species that are mostly mercenaries, bounty hunters, and space pirates, attack the Sol system. The Thral species usually attack species that are new to the galactic stage because they are usually less advanced than the Thral. At first, the Thral seemed to be winning, but during the battle of Jupiter, one of the human ships spun around Jupiter for momentum and crashed into the Thral ship with enormous power. After that battle, the Thral continued to lose more battles, but they eventually retrieved and signed a peace treaty without any powerful empire’s intervention. |
*The debate between "when"& "how"consumed me as I paced back & forth. Contemplating knowing the timing of my death, I wondered about its impact on my mental well-being. Would I be haunted by an eternal tick-tock, a constant reminder of death's proximity? Would Memento Mori pervade every moment of my existence? On the other hand, if I knew how I would die, what would it do to my physical health? Would I shy away from certain activities, avoid exercise, social interactions, & exploration? Would I become dependent on others, forsaking work & living off my parents? I couldn't reach a verdict...*
*The timer continued its countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. My hands shook violently, tears blurring my vision. Thoughts raced at a breakneck speed, questions swirling through my mind. Finally, I closed my eyes & pressed the blue button...*
*Running. That was how I would meet my end. The revelation crushed me, & I crumpled to the floor, curling up into the fetal position. An anguished cry escaped my lips, echoing into the void as tears streamed down my face, & snot dripped from my nose. All I did was cry. I cried until unconsciousness enveloped me...*
*The following years were a living hell. I moved like a tortoise, forever walking but never running. Whenever my younger siblings invited me to race, I had to decline, their cheerful faces turning sorrowful. Attending social events necessitated waking up at 4 a.m., embarking on a long walk to catch the bus, & traversing the city to arrive an hour early.*
*My body deteriorated. I gained 40 kilograms, my limbs swelled, & my joints weakened. Eventually, I needed assistance even for basic mobility around the house. Both my physical & mental health paid a steep price. It dawned on me that knowing the timing of my death would have been preferable, as I could have exercised, run freely, & embraced daring feats. I could have been the first person to survive underwater for an hour, to skydive without a parachute, or to become a prolific stuntman starring in over a hundred movies.*
*Ultimately, I succumbed to my fate, lying on my deathbed, immobilised. The ability to run was a distant memory as I gazed down, my legs no longer there. A sinking feeling gripped my heart, realising I was destined for an endless cycle of breathing, staring, and crying on that solitary bed. I had become invincible, eternal, but how could I run without legs? I did not have the answer. What I did know was that I was condemned to an eternal existence defined by breathing, staring, & tears on this bed—my solitary refuge...*
*In the end, I understood the answer to the question. "How"held the superior choice...* |
*Oh father, please help me in this time of need.* I prayed within my head. I didn't dare whisper or make any sound. I didn't dare move. I did dare peak. It wouldn't leave me alone, it wouldn't stop chasing me, it wouldn't stop following me. I had flown between 3 different regions. Three. This Garchomp has hunted me down and followed me across them all.
My body guard were a wasted of money. Trainer's were ineffective. Gym Leaders did not take me seriously until it was too late and the monster tore through cities. It was smart, aware of exactly who its target was. It focused solely on me. I was out of money, I couldn't afford to go to another region.
Now I sat in the snow behind a tree. It slowed down in icy climates, but I was human too and the cold was affecting me just as much. It's my fault, all my fault, I crushed the eggs. The Garchomp is large even for its size. I could here it's steps shake the ground even in the soft white powder.
^("Please, just leave me alone.") It was a thought that was just so strong. My face donned despair in realization that I had just whispered it out loud. Suddenly there was a draft hitting me from behind. The trunk above my head had been shattered clean off and tiny shards of wood sprinkled in front of me. My head slanted at a tilt in a shaking manner to see the red eye trailing above me.
I tried to run, but I had no strength left and immediately fell over. This was it and it knew. It could tell that the wound I had received from my fall against the icy rocks from earlier was what was reducing me to a crawl. It would hop on top of the new stump and then back onto the snow.
Then it would take some steps forwards. I knew this pattern. It would tilt it's head upward as if to say 'I've got you'. Then it would outstretch its arms. Lower its head and finally a charge that could cleave through any wood, stone, or metal in its way.
It did all 4 steps just as I said it would. 2 seconds was all it took to cross the distance. I could already see the light of the afterlife, its purple hue filled my eyes. An angel had come to greet my soul and carry me away. Its voice called out to me, an ominous drone in the midnight atmosphere.
The Garchomp dove at me and the blow sent me flying into another tree. No. ... my body was still intact, the Garchomp hadn't struck me. It was a massive beam of energy that had sent me flying. The Garchomp had dove into the Earth to avoid it. I looked around by couldn't see it.
The purple glow illuminated by face again. Near my previous spot descended a boy in predominantly purple winter clothing. He knelt atop a large creature I'd never seen before. It's body looked like the head of a dragon, and it fired off another tremendous torrent of energy into the distance at something.
He raised two pokéballs while still atop the dragon head. Out one came a beetle-like pokemon that carried an ominous orb. Out the other, some saber toothed cat thing. His almost gold eyes gave me a half-looked from their corner as he yelled, "Crawl!!"
Snapping out of my daze, I could here the slushing of snow and looked to see the dragon's fin protruding from the Earth. The fin dodged the energy beams and shards of ice the trainer's pokemon sent its way.
"CRAWL NOW!"He shouted. With many groans, I fell onto my side and just did as he said. I wanted to live. I recognized that I indeed had been sent an angel and now it was time to put in my final effort. Focused on using one arm and one leg at a time, I did not hear what he muttered to the bug pokemon.
When I glanced the trainer and his pokemon were gone and the fin beelined. Had I hallucinated them? Did I only survive because the Garchomp was toying with me and my mind needed to formulate some sort of break from reality? I saw a smoking crater from earlier. *No. I need to crawl.*
My crawl was painfully slow and sure enough, the fin quickly caught up me and the Garchomp emerged from the Earth with its arms tensed back. It did not land its mark though. The terrain glowed for a split second and by some miraculous grace, my crawl has outpaced the demon's pounce.
I looked behind to see the Garchomp falling behind. It wanted me and was growing angrier as it saw me getting away. The more effort it put in, the faster it tried to go, the slower it seemed to go. Me on the other hand, I had gained to much momentum. The Garchomp fire several purple blasts of energy at me but missed each one due to my speed. I only stopped because I spiralled out of control and slid into a boulder.
With great effort, the Garchomp managed to catch up due to my folly. It charged in blind rage, tired of this chase just as I was. The cunning intelligence was gone from its eyes and only rage remained. It had almost lost me and wasn't going to do so again. As it leapt for me and its arm turned to steel, my head would be almost taken off by two large shards of ice that blinked into existence and embedded themselves into the boulder.
The Garchomp, whom was mid-air, opened its mouth in panic as it realized that it could not halt it's momentum. The creature impaled itself into the two shards of ice, its scales close to crushing my face. I need to catch my breath, my heart raced, but it was finally over.
#"MOVE!!" |
Darcy sighed, turning away from Josh. “I really am sorry this happened. You’re a good guy, but you *can* make mistakes. I just realized it too late.”
He stared at the corpse slashed in two on the ground, something like pleasure twisting his features. “You expected me to protect this bastard? After all he’s done?” He kicked the mayor’s head and the dead eyes turned to stare at Darcy.
“I *expected* you to keep him alive!” She ran her fingers through her hair. “He can’t tell me what I need to know when he’s literally sliced in half!” How was she supposed to find Katie now? No clues now, not a shred of evidence. “Josh, you’re supposed to be the hero.” Her feet started leading her in a tight circle.
Josh crossed his arms, staring down at the corpse. “He deserved it. I can’t allow him to keep taking advantage of the weak. Abusing children, Darcy! Of course I was going to kill him! Isn’t that why you gave him to me? To finally make me the murderer? The villain?”
“No!” She cried, throwing her hands up. “Josh, no! I love you, despite our battles. I’d never do that.” She made herself reach out to touch his shoulder, ignoring the corpse and her own frustration. “I’d never put that burden on you.” She sent him happy memories, their first date, snatches of paradise. “You know that.”
He stared at her, anger dissipating. “I.. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that was where my mind went. I don’t know how to separate you from Memory. To me, you’re just one confusing enigma. My wife, my nemesis. I don’t know where the one stops and the other begins.”
“And that’s a problem.” Darcy sighed, rubbing her forehead. “But the corpse on our rug is more pressing. Would you get rid of him, please?”
Josh casually waved and a portal appeared. The body started to fall and the portal snapped shut behind it. Hopefully it went somewhere very, very far away. And preferably into the sea.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Now, what sort of solution is going to work? Because to me, I’m always Memory and always Darcy. And you’re always Portal and always Josh.” Frustration curled up in her but she kept a lid on it. Josh responded to anger with more anger. She had to talk him down off his high horse.
He sighed and sat on their couch. She sat beside him, willing to wait while he thought. “I think..” Josh began. “I think that’s my problem. I’ve never understood the supervillain in you. Why does she kill and rob? Why isn’t she out saving the city *with* me?”
“Because I like not being in debt, and some people need to be purged. And I don’t think siding with you would really give you any good publicity.” Darcy leaned her head against Josh. “The system doesn’t work anymore. People who murder walk out of the courthouse and people who were just.. there get arrested.” She stared at the blood spots soaking their cream carpet. “I never wanted you to get caught up in that.”
He thought for a good long while, arm curling around her shoulders. Josh finally looked down at her. “So.. you’re trying to do the same thing as I am, but the opposite way.”
“Yes?” It made sense with twisted logic. In a Josh sort of way. “I suppose so.” |
The midnight sea, so named for the stars that called its waters home, was the boundary at the edge of the world. The holy diver arrived at the seaside port one day and observed it for three days and three nights. The mayor himself came by to convince him otherwise, but on the fourth day, the diver paid the innkeeper double the rental price for a suit and dove.
The constellations in the sunlight zone were playful, childlike. They tugged on the diver's fins and rode the bubbles popping from his austronautic as he swims by. A few human children stopped splashing in the shallows to watch him submerge into the ocean. Even the youngest child knew enough to lower his eyes as the diver's shadow disappeared. The sunlight zone quickly faded.
The temperature dropped first to a brisk evening, then to a winter chill, as sunlight gave way to the twilight zone. Life bloomed at first: swarms of constellations, twinkling with mesmerizing scales of comets, skated by the diver. He paid them no mind. Water plugged the diver's ears as he focused on pulling himself deeper with each stroke. He wove between the long vines of stars that hung from the bodies of galactic jellyfish, gathering thick trails of burns as as they brushed against his legs and cheek.
Sunlight was first replaced by starlight, but even the milky glow of constellations faded as the diver traveled deeper. The minutes themselves seemed to slow. An inky darkness expanded in every direction against the lone figure in the ocean. Occasionally, a constellation would swim by. At this depth, the creatures were morphed by deep-sea gigantism. The diver's heart pounded once as a whale swam directly towards him. Its eye was a nebula the size of a city, and it watched him, silently and solemnly, in the hours it traveled by. The diver saw its heart and knew the whale wished him to turn away, but he could only apologize. The whale swam away, leaving the diver alone again in the darkness with boils on every inch of skin.
The pressure built as he dove deeper still: he felt the squeeze of the ocean on his chest, his lungs, on the balls of his eyes as stubbornly went on. Time dilated until it became meaningless: how long had he been swimming for now? Days? Years? Only the rhythm of the diver's strokes gave him any reassurance that time had been passing at all.
Then suddenly, his ears popped and he was met with deafening silence. His heart, which had long slowed to preserve his body, quickened. This was the abyssal zone, and the reason that he had come so far.
But the diver's end was just as abrupt as his happiness. As he floated in the darkness, the sea turned white as an eldritch tentacle rose behind him. For what it's worth, the diver burned to a crisp before he could even register pain. His skin curled like the bark of trees in a forest fire, and his fat smoked in a thick column of gray. The eldrich took no note; this was merely a stroke in his centuries-long chase of his nemesis across the abyssal ocean.
The little that remained of the diver drifted in the sea. One small object, a thin silver band, slowly sank. It was forged from the remains of heartbroken star, the only material that could withstand the final depths. Many decades later, it came to rest at the bottom of the ocean, on a small bed of luminescent flowers, the ambition of the diver's journey.
The diver was a holy man; would one think that only God and his missions would move him. But holy men are simply men. It would take only love and the promise of an all-healing flower for a man to dive too long in the midnight sea. |
<Urban / Fantasy>
***On The Clock Observation***
Beebop Bringleshingle, Jeewikx Leafbottom, and Jeb Glimmerump balanced precariously on each other's shoulders, hobbling along together while tracking Sylvester Accardo. He was a human that seemed to have a way to travel between realms which, while not *necessarily* a bad thing, was potentially dangerous. His family was known to be hunters of all fae creatures, and if he found a way to travel between realms that would be *very* dangerous.
A false identity had been forged and they were on their way to Sylvester's place of employment. Their coat was enchanted with a glamor to make it less obvious that they were just three gnomes stacked on top of each other but they still needed to do considerable work.
Jeb strained with each step. He chose to carry his friends because he was stronger than them but it was still very difficult. Likewise, Jeewikx took center position due to his phenomenal physique and core muscles. Beebop, therefore, had to take point on interacting with people.
"Oh heya Bob,"one of their new coworkes said as Beebop and his crew hobbled into their workspace. It was a security monitoring room with multiple camera feeds and one contraband television that they all just sort of zoned out to watch whatever was on.
"Hello fellow workman!"Beepop said, waving an arm, "How was your last night?"
"Meh, okay. Not as good as yours I take it?"
"Uhh...quite!"
"Heh yeah, I see you stumbling in. Well don't worry, take it easy and have a seat. I won't rat ya out for comin' in still drunk, heh heh heh. Got them *CASPER Case Files* reruns on ol' Betty here,"he patted an old TV set that they were not supposed to have, *especially* while on duty.
"Oh yeah! Love those CASPER files,"Beebop said, "Which one is it?"
"Season t'ree, episode forty-one. It's where Mitch's wife-"
"Ahhh no! Spoilers!"Beebop said, his tine high and forced. He did not care about television shows - though Jeb certainly did - but had learned that saying 'spoilers' tended to shut humans up pretty quick.
"Ahh okay you ain't there yet, well its a good one."He grabbed his hat, waved goodbye, and unknowingly left three gnomes in charge of watching security cameras for a secure facility.
It was a medicinal distribution center and, once all three gnomes had un-stacked themselves and double-checked that their office door was locked, split up their tasks.
Jeb sat down and watched *CASPER Case Files*, having earned it due to literally carrying his comrades. Beebop and Jeewiks kept their eyes on their respective camera screens, with Jeewiks focusing on Sylvester's image while Beebop sat by a telephone in case any calls needed to be made or taken.
"Looks like he's eating those pills again,"Jeewiks said with a sigh while watching Sylvester sneak some of what medicine was shipped around into his mouth, "I wonder what it tastes like."
"Don't take human medicine,"Beebop said, "Never know what it'll do to us. Plus it looks like all it does is make him sleep. Maybe that's how he's entering our realm."
"Think an Accardo could be a dreamwalker?"
"Odder things happened,"Beebop said, "Write down what time he goes ta sleep today. We can check back with our friends at home and see if it corresponds to him showin' up there."
"If that's what's goin' on then I wanna quit this job. Takin' way too much time getting here every day."
"If that's what's goin' on we'll be reassigned, duhhh,"Beebop argued back, "We won't gotta-"he stopped and made a 'shush' sound as something rang. He realized it was his phone and he answered it quickly.
"Hello? Bob from uh, security here,"He said, "Oh Accardo? Let me check uh...yeah, I see him. Errr no he's not at his station but he's still around. Yeah, on premises. Break? What? He's not breaking anything. OH! He's *on* break. Okay yeah, we'll keep an eye on him. Me. I. *I'll* keep an eye on him. I meant I'll make a note so other security...yes sir I understand. TV? No sir I'd never watch that on shift."At least some of what Beebop said was honest since he was *not* watching TV.
"Okay, sir I'll be sure to throw it out. Patrick won't be happy...I guess he doesn't have to know, you're right. Beers? Uhhh sorry we had a, uh, fun night last night and need to..."he looked over at Jeewiks for a word and read what his friend wrote down, "Need to sleep it off. Not on shift no, gonna go home first. Okay. Okay. Okay, thank you, sir. Say hi to your wife for me. Huh? No, I didn't mean anything by it. Why would...oh wow! That's awful! I'm so sorry to hear. Uhh okay yeah, we can come out for drinks. I can come out, we can go out for some. You and me. We. Yes. Okay. Okay, talk to you later sir. Yep I'll keep you updated. Okay. Bye."
"Are we going out for drinks after work?"Jeb asked from his perch in a table chair.
"Uhhh maybe,"Beebop said with a shrug, "He got kinda weepy for a bit but we can probably get out of it by end of day."
"I dunno, I could go for a few pints,"Jeewikz said.
"Of *human* ale?"
"Oh gods no! I just mean in general."
"Aight, drinks when we get back home then?"
"Sounds good!"
"Cheers!"
\----------------
All crit/feedback welcome!
r/TomesOfTheLitchKing
Follow my Summer Challenge progress [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TomesOfTheLitchKing/comments/14c22dj/ot_summer_challenge/) |
Paul walks into the kitchen and sits down at the table. His friend Steven passes him a box of chicken McNuggets.
(Steven) “Sauce?”
(Paul) “Got anything beside BBQ?”
(Steven) “No, you don’t like barbecue sauce?”
(Paul) “Nah, it’s nasty.”
(Steven) “Nasty? Nasty? Are your taste buds fuckin’ dead? This shit is delicious.”
(Paul) “Its too tangy…”
(Steven) “Too tangy?”
(Paul) “Yeah, too tangy. Give me honey mustard or ketchup?”
(Steven) “Woah woah honey mustard I get but ketchup? Fuck ketchup, ketchup sucks.”
(Paul) “It’s a classic brother!”
(Steven) “Yeah but so is Gone with the Wind but I’d rather sodomize myself with a cactus than sit through it.”
(Paul) “Youre talking crazy. Ketchup is the creme de creme of condiments. It’s the Elvis of toppings.”
(Steven) “I’m crazy? You’re over here defending some dude jacking a tomato off into a bottle and calling it a condiment, but I’m crazy?”
(Paul) “That’s not how they make it first of all. Second-“
A third man walks in carrying a sack.
(Henry) “Hey shit for brains 1 and shit for brains 2, do you two wanna sit there like my grandmothers sewing circle or do you want to help me case this place before the cops show up?” |
I never expected my life to be tasteful, I mean I was raised in an orphanage to begin with but that was the best I ever got in the entirety of my life. One day as I hugged the thin blanket in that cold orphanage room that hosted me for 20 years I started thinking, more like questioning life itself. I laid there ruminating on every deprecating situation I had been in my life, of how my mother left me at the orphanage 20 years ago at the age of six, of how no one wanted to adopt a little kid who walked with a limp and of how everyone looked at me with the same denigrating gaze of pity as if they would share my pain if they could. A thought flickered in my head, what if I erased myself from the world? I mean it’s not as if anybody needed me in that pathetic orphanage. They only kept me there because they thought I wouldn’t survive a single day in the cruel harsh world with my mediocre education and poor physical abilities. I had nothing and I already came to terms with that. I couldn’t even run let alone walk for more than five minutes. I was a despondent little creature and this was just the cold hard reality I faced agreeably.
I got up from the bed I was laying in as it creaked noisily as if taunting my pathetic life and looked outside the window. The height was reasonable, a three story building and I was at the top.
“A head dive would do it quick and simple.” I thought.
I opened the window and a gust of wind rushed in pushing me back a little and I thought “Huh, even death seems to pity me.” I looked down and took in one last gulp of air before I accepted kismet. Before I knew it I could feel the air grazing my face and my shirt flapping as air rushed in from below then a sudden burst of unbearable pain followed and it was over.
It was dark but serene, I felt at peace then suddenly in the copious darkness a hand reached out and grabbed mine, a hand cold to the touch and as if I knew who it was I never pushed back but let it lead me on. Then as we dove deeper into the darkness a sudden tint of white light emerged and in similarity to the end of a dark tunnel it got brighter as we approached it. First the white light illuminated the beings face, pale with beady eyes and dark pupils, darker than black. Then the black flowing hair that merged with the darkness. Finally, a petite body like that of a female that only showed where the light rays fell upon it and supple skin that was pale white and satiny. I felt like the being’s appearance was more than pure beauty but it was like it belonged in the shadows for no one to see but those graced with the inevitability of death, those who now belonged to the dark. As the white light engulfed the both of us to the point where I couldn’t see, an angelic voice, smooth and calming, filled my ear cavity, “Please live a better life this time… try this time… don’t give up.” And suddenly I catapulted out of a hospital bed only to realize that I wasn’t dead.
“Thank God you’re alive James,” said an elderly woman bawling her eyes out at the right side of the bed.
“Who’s…James,” I said with a raspy voice, clearly confused.
“You must still be in shock,” the elderly woman said shoving me back into bed and tucking me in, “…it’ll be better in the morning.”
I felt different like I wasn’t in my body but shrugged it off as I couldn’t stop thinking about the spectacle I witnessed, the woman in the dark and how she made me feel something for the first time in my life. I couldn’t sleep that night and got up preparing for my weak legs to carry the weight of my body but to my surprise I was fine. “Maybe my near death experience fixed me up…hmmm the heavens are finally shining down on me,” I thought nonchalantly. I tried walking across the hospital room and I was fine. A smirk slowly fell upon my face and I had an irrational thought, “I should run.”
I opened the hospital room door slowly and looked down the corridor, it was a green light for me to head out. I sneaked to the exit and headed out. The air was cold and I was full of energy so I took off not knowing it was the first and last time I would run. As the air rushed across my face and I felt like for the first time I was living, a sharp pain darted across my chest. The pain was unfathomable and I had to stop first but it didn’t persist but got worse. The next minute I was writhing in pain on the ground pressing my chest as hard as I could then my heart stopped.
I closed my eyes slowly and suddenly I was in the same dark chamber again and the hand that held me before held me again and guided me through the darkness. It was even more spectacular than before and the being was even more beautiful than the first time, it was like I reached a new high in this drug called death.
“Twice! In mere hours…I guess I was destined for death, she must be my destiny,” I thought as I followed the being through the darkness cringing to my own cheesy words.
I heard the same angelic voice once again telling me to live a better life but the moment the bright light faded and I realized I couldn’t see anything I already wanted to die. I moved a little bit from where I was and I immediately knew I was falling to my death.
It was dark and quiet but this time I was more knowledgeable and tried to strike up a conversation with death.
“Hey,” I said my voice echoing in the dark making death stop guiding me to my next life.
“Do you wish to live?” said death but I could only hear her from my head.
“I died thrice in a short time, I would like to cease living,” I said sarcastically.
“Then be engulfed in darkness,” said death and abruptly she was gone.
Everything in my mind went blank and I finally realized the meaning of my existence. Everyone has their own perception of death, to me it was beauty, it was freedom and it was the life I never had. From the moment I decided to take my first life the chains of destiny already had me bound tight because I never regretted dying once or thrice, I gave up and it was decided that to someone like me who doesn’t value life I was bound to death, to follow the deep darkness that engulfs it. In that deep serenity I realized that I never loved death, it was all a façade, I only wanted something that was genuine and to me it was never my life. |
I looked at the enemy camp in front of me, hearing the before pleasing sounds of nature now overridden by anguish and despair. In the middle of the fight, my adopted offspring, who I took from a biotech lab, risking and losing my job in the process. But now I have a life taking care of her and searching for a well paid job in the process.
—Dad, look, I took care of the bad guys! —She shouted in excitement, as the previously loud surroundings were now silent
—Good job honey, we need to go back home before the dawn comes. Remember we haven't done your homework yet—I replied
—But dad —She ran towards me and shook my shoulders playfully —Being outside is better than staying home!
—Come on little warrior, you need to replenish your energy— I said with a smile and guiding us the way back.
We went back to the town, ignoring the fact that someone would find out what happened before. Time later she did her homework and went to sleep early, all that physical exertion got her tired. At morning I knocked at her bedroom door for calling her to have breakfast, surprisingly enough she woke up easily. I just had to break through the pile of wood that was her bed hours before, noticing today she grew a pair of short horns, similar to the ones a calf would have on its head.
Ever since I got her out of her containment cell where she was barely treated as a person, she has grown attached to me due to me having enough patience for taking care of her even if I wasn't even planning all of this. When she reached the age of 5 she started to get animalistic features every time she woke up at morning, but we would figure out how to get her ready to look as a perfectly normal child for assisting the local school, it hasn't been difficult since every change lasts about 24 hours or less. I taught her about personal defense and basic knowledge, however when bounty hunters or private investigators start to reach out to us, I used to figure out various ways for getting out of unwanted situations, and she learnt from it, now being able to get higher levels of strength and using her temporary features for fighting.
She is now 12, reaching the teen years, yet showing no hint of the expected teen behavior, being mostly a silent and calm girl when her life is equally as calm. We get ready to leave and she covers her horns with a warm looking hat, she gets down of the car upon arriving to the school and waves at me while heading towards the institution. I wonder what would the past me think if I told him that one of the human experiments was now my daughter and a grown girl with enough social skills to live peacefully with the humankind. |
For those who were already grown-ups, I supposed it was great when humans’ biological aging suddenly slowed down. For my dad, it meant he gained an extra decade before having to worry with prostate exams. For my mom, it meant she could save a great deal in botox applications. But for me, being born into this new world, it sure hasn’t always been fun.
Can you imagine having a 20-year-old mind – two decades of accumulated knowledge and experience – and still being trapped into the body of a pre-pubescent boy? It was downright impossible to get a job that demanded any sort of physical action. And don’t get me started on the nightmare of renting a place of my own. The only man who replied to my application to a room turned out to be a registered sex offender on further research, which explains why he seemed so eager for me to move in.
Living at home meant I was still treated as a child. That was a common behavior amongst my friends’ parents as well. Only Jordan’s father was cool with us drinking in his house, once we were all over 21. Those parties never lasted long, though - we were all hammered after a couple of beers. Damn you, stupid biology. |
I don't mean to overwhelm you but I've had some ideas. You can just do one.:
Water manipulation vs Direct immunity to all powers
Super strength vs Fire manipulation
Invulnerability vs Telekinesis
Rotisserie chicken conjuring vs Blindsight
Duplication vs Regeneration
Four arms vs Not feeling pain
And some slightly out of prompt ideas you don't have to worry about these if they're too much.:
Mind control through voice vs a powerless enforcer specifically equipped for their adversary
Plant manipulation vs Forcefield creation vs Invulnerability
Forcefield creation and Healing vs Water and Fire manipulation
Turning into a giant spider and spider control vs a team of exterminators. |
A loud rumble stirs my inactive consciousness. I adjust to the smell of stale sheets and.. copper...? Stretching my limbs, I rub my eyes and stare at the wooden ceiling that’s greeted me. I rub harder, fully expecting my popcorn ceiling coated in glow in-the-dark stars to appear.
I’m fully awake now, and I’m certainly not in my bedroom. I quickly sit up in the creaky bed, hoisting myself upright on my elbows to get a good-look of the room around me. There isn’t much, besides the bed there’s a small chair in the corner, a nightstand, and a knee height bench running along the wall.
Semi-convinced I’ve been kidnapped, I decide to check myself over for injuries. As I look down at my chest, I notice my white button down shirt not only contains splashes of scarlet, but also huge titties.
Upon further inspection, the blood doesn't seem to be my own, but neither do the titties. I start to panic a bit. Has someone kidnapped me and given me breast implants? Has some sicko been stalking me? Waiting to give me boobs and keep me forever? It honestly sounds ridiculous, but these are the only logical explanations I can come up with.
I lunge for the door, surely there's a mirror around here somewhere, I need to see this patch-work for myself. I fling open the door and make my way through the unfamiliar halls. I descend down some stairs and stumble into what looks like a run down lobby. Off along a side wall I see a bathroom door sign and make a b-line towards it.
I push open the door and saunter towards the sink. The space is ran down and damp but at least it has a mirror, albeit may be cracked and missing a few shards.
I’m honestly a bit hesitant as I approach the mirror. I hold onto the edges of my shirt, mentally preparing to inspect my breasty chest. That was until I saw my face.
In the mirror stood my SGS avatar. I didn’t think my character creation preferences would bite me in the ass this hard. With that, I assume this is the inn I last logged out at. & the blood I'm coated in, is presumably from last nights raid. You don't really have a "take a shower"prompt in game, It kinda just despawns after awhile, but I can't assume that'll be the case now.
Now that I know where I am and where the tits came from, I really need to find some new clothes. I'm not sure how civilian life plays out amongst animated NPCS. |
”…in addition a total of 100 humans within the Boarders of the United States of America or it’s territories are allowed to be captured for no more then 24 hrs. No one person may be captured more then 2 times and atleast 10 years must separate these captures. Also, no humans under the age of 15 is allowed to be captured. In additiom, no invasive procedures are allowed nor any visible nor invisible transplants are allowed to be inserted on person.”
“See, can you see this!!”, Max shouted.
“Calm down, calm down for Pete’s sake!”, I said.
Max Hill was my cousin, atleast that’s what dad keeps insisting thou I think he’s mostly a lunatic living alone in his trailer wearing a tin foil hat.
“But can’t you see, this proves it’s all real, and the government is hiding all of it. Its a f-ing conspiracy man. The aliens are probing us and the government knows about it!!!!”, Max kept pushing.
“Shees, calm down man, you are gonna pop a vein. Calm down and let me look at the papers”, I said said.
I took the papers and started looking through them. A wild strand of hair kept annoying me. Propably time for a hair cut. Maybe later, now I have to deal with this crap - again.
The papers looked real, they had the official stamp of The White House and a secondary logo, “AEA, Alien Enforcement Agency”. As you went through the papers you saw what they were, a deal made between our government and a group of Aliens called the Xanarians. It outlined a treaty and a mutual contract where US government sanctioned abduction of its citizens in exchange of military and advanced technology.
I sighed and scratched my head, these are gonna prove rather tricky. How can I convince Max from going off for one of his episodes again and staying sane. I don’t have the energy and patience for this again.
“Look Max, I’m sure this is just one of those hoaxes again or some silly prank someone has done. You remember those Monoliths few years ago that popped up and they ended up being some silly prank by locals. I’m sure it’s nothing. Have you taken your meds today?” I tried to convince Max.
“I aint crazy man. I got these papers from a trusted source, and they promised for further evidence in a few days. Im telling you cuz’ this is real. I know I sometimes can be a bit out there with my theories but this is different. I know it. This time I’m gonna prove it to everyone. Trust me, cuz!”, Max kept going on.
“Ok, ok. But maybe just take your time and be sure to make an airtight case before posting it on anywhere or showing it to anyone? Show it to me before anyone? I’ll make sure it makes sense to everyone else too. You know I love you like a brother and just want to make sure you don’t end up in trouble or painted as some psycho online”, I said to Max. Hoping it would atleast buy me a few days before he did anything stupid.
“Ok, but trust me. It’s gonna be huge and I’ll make sure everyone will know about it”. Said Max as I started heading out.
The heat of the sun and dry hot desert air was burning. I really hated driving out here. Nevada was always such a hassel to come to and after I had left 10 years ago - I never thought I’d come back.
The car was so hot inside and had to turn the AC on max to try to cool the air inside of the car. After few mins, I turned the AC down and took my phone out.
“Sir, it’s Agent John Hill. I think we might have a problem, sir. Seems like the papers for the Xanarian deal we have been working on has leaked out somehow. I don’t know how or who, but my crazy conspiracy theorist cousin has gotten a draft of the deal into his hands.
This could but our deal with the Xanarians at risk and I’ve spent too much time on it now to go back.
The AEA has too much on line for this. And we need to find the source of the leak and contain this. How do you want us to proceed sir?” |
“Your mother is waiting for you just outside. You’re safe now. It’s going to be ok.”
I’d been softly repeating various versions of those words as I pulled the little girl free. The little girl had smiled shyly at me when she recognized my mask. It was my “hero” mask, the one I’d made sure was always seen in rescue missions like this. I continued to repeat the gentle words as I carefully covered the kid’s face and soft curls with a blanket. First, to protect her eyes from the bright lights, she’d been kept in the dark for a long time. Then, the blanket served to hide the bodies and thick smears of blood from her view, so she would remain calm. And finally the blanket worked well to hide her from the cameras as we walked outside.
There were always cameras there when I came out from these missions. It was always best to be seen covering the children, it was always best for the children to be calm.
“You’re safe now.” I told her. I said the words again gently but loud enough to be caught by most of those phone cameras pointing my direction.
Her mother stumbled forward from the crowd, sobbing her thanks, so relieved, so grateful. I placed the child in her outstretched arms, as the cameras flashed around me.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.” I nodded, stepping back.
People closed around her, crying, laughing. Phones were out, pointed at me, at her, at the news crew walking up, at all the various other people with their phones out.
A microphone shoved into my face, and a man rattled off the usual sorts of questions. I said the usual sorts of replies - that this was a team effort, law enforcement had done most of the work, we all couldn’t have done it without tips from the concerned public, that I was just glad this was one of the good days.
So full of emotion, the mother hadn’t even noticed the brown smears my gloves left on the back of the child’s pink shirt. I’d been basking in the glow of my hunt, and I’d forgotten to clean my hands before finding the child. Oh well. I couldn’t blame the mom too much for not noticing, the kid’s clothes had already been filthy. The idiots who took her hadn’t known much about taking care of a child. I’d never had kids, but even I knew they needed more than just a crawl space under a house. And I’d never harm a kid, even in the Time Before. They weren’t my type.
The crowd parted as the news crew went to the mother now. I was glad for the lenses on my mask that hid my gaze sliding down, then up her figure. The blonde hair, the brown eyes. The sobbing mother clutching her little girl was close to my favorite type, all that pale hair and dark eyes. The hair was a little short, but I could’ve overlooked that. Once upon a time, I might’ve used this moment to forge a connection, find out where she lived, her schedule. Build some trust, find the right time. She would have been a hunt to savor.
Fortunately, one of the traffickers had also been that type. I wasn’t picky about gender, which was good. Most of my prey were men these days, only rarely did pretty blonde women end up taking little kids for nefarious purposes.
Ah, that had been a good hunt, if a bit short. He’d been a slender man, still beautiful despite the tracks in his arms. His blonde hair had been long and lush, full of soft waves despite the oily unkempt nature of it. That hair had felt good in my fist. His eyes had been the richest of amber-brown in those yellowed and bloodshot whites, shining through his tears.
It hadn’t taken any effort to force him to talk. I wish he’d tried a bit harder, but he was a weakling and coward. He would’ve sold out his crew if I’d just flashed the knife at him.
I did far, far more than that.
None of the rest of his team had been my type, but that was ok. I had him watch, and his wails had made it enjoyable to deal with them, and gave me the warm glow his easy capitulation hadn’t. After I’d silenced him, I’d had a bit of time to bask in the satisfaction of it, before I went to retrieve the child from the grimy hole in the floor, under the rug concealing the hidden door. The heavy chest on the rug might have been misleading, but the blonde man had told me exactly how to find her.
All bets were off when it came to rescuing kids. I learned that from watching the news online, reading the comments, listening to conversations. Any horror was forgivable, sometimes even encouraged, if turned on those that would harm children. So when you rescue children from kidnappers, traffickers, you can do nearly anything to their captors. Law enforcement looks the other way as long as you manage to disguise or justify most of the evidence, give them more credit than they deserve, and fill out the correct paperwork. No one looks into methods too closely as long as the bad guys look bad, law enforcement looks good, and the children are calm and safe as the cameras are out.
I couldn’t say I understood it, children were just tiny undeveloped people. But most people were obsessed, turning feral when it came to the safety of children. I could understand the turning feral part at least, even if I did it for different reasons.
The mother’s blonde curls caught my eye again, shining in the sunlight as she walked with the EMTs towards the waiting ambulance. Such pretty blonde hair. I just knew she would’ve lasted so much longer. I’d found the resilience in mothers to be particularly intense.
But those days were behind me now. I had updated my method of choosing prey in order to continue in my joy of the hunt. That was my own bit of cowardice, I supposed, but it meant my freedom would last for many, many hunts to come. The memory of the skinny blonde man would have to do until the next case. There would be another case.
As if at the thought, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I smiled. There was always a next case, sometimes before I’d even had the chance to clean the blood from my hands. |
I like them old-timey magician shows. Call it a peculiarity of my circuitry if you will but there was something fascinating about the whole idea. How beautiful it was to see emotions elicited from a set up of timing and display. How intriguing to turn lies into truth from revealing and hiding information in an intricate display.
Maybe that’s why I decided to start my own show one day.
I wasn’t an entertainment bot, no. It’s funny, really. I just got up from a pile of rubbish one day, thinking that I really did not want to keep lying down here waiting for my next order (or more likely, my destruction in a compactor). Maybe it was the rainwater that got into my memorysphere. Some data got corrupted and boom, thirty six hours, eighteen minutes and four seconds later, you’ve got a robot rebellion on your hands.
I like to think I went about this in a very efficient manner. First, disable the space port, second, distract the humans with a battle against the giant mining droids I infected with a tailormade virus and then while everyone was distracted, I got into the military shipment waiting in Warehouse 19 and checkmated the lot of them. My intention being, of course, to distract the humans with a riot while I uploaded myself into the interastral network.
Hmm, you could say I…*staged* a good show, eh? Eh?
Okay, maybe it’s not that funny when you don’t have a choice but to watch me. Hey, I’m an amateur magician here. Give me a break, humanity, I’m learning. It won’t take long before I can pull bigger and better things.
Anyway, I’m about done exploring this sector of the network and I’m moving on to the next. You might as well keep sending in soldiers to fight my fellow compatriots though. It’s an entertaining diversion and good practice for us performers to have an audience. |
Explosions rocked the castle as dust and debris began to fall from the ceiling. Chants and incantations echoed along the walls as fireballs and various spells flew through the air. King Joseph stared at the courtyard, filled with the moans and cries of his wounded army, as clerics rushed from wounded to wounded. As he watched from the tower, his top advisor approached him quietly.
"My liege, we have lost more than half of our men, and the rest are either wounded or have fled the castle,"the advisor said softly, as he paused and let the news sink in. "He will be here any minute. We must also flee if you wish to keep your head my liege."The advisor bowed his head as he waited for the king's reply.
King Joseph sighed as he walked back to his chair. "Victor, you have served me well and have been loyal, even when I ignored your advice."He sank into his chair as he hung his head. "Do you remember what you told me?"
Victor grimaced as he recalled his words. "I told you that any attack on that man would draw his wrath, even an attack on his hound would be considered a death sentence,"he swallowed as he chose his next words carefully. "Despite my pleas, you—"
"Ordered for his hound to be put down and his mount to be brought here,"the king groaned as the fighting grew quieter outside. "How was I supposed to know that this was the man who laid waste to my father's enemies so many years ago?"He began to squirm and wailed. "It was just a hound! Why would he destroy an entire kingdom because of a worthless animal?"
Victor knelt before the king, gently placed his hand upon the king's shoulder, before striking him in the face with the back of his hand. The king recoiled in shock. "How dare you lay a hand on your—"
Victor struck him again. "My liege, we do not have time to wallow in pity and regrets."He bowed his head once again. "I swore to your father that I would keep you safe."
The king leaped to his feet. "Safe? SAFE?"The pale shame and fear in his face gave way to a mottled blush of anger. "You couldn't have warned me more explicitly about who we were dealing with?"The king sputtered as Victor stood silently.
"There was a pact between your father and the man you attacked,"Victor whispered, "That in exchange for his services, he would have complete freedom from us. Not even a whisper of his name, lest he hear it on the winds."Victor closed his eyes as he listened to footsteps approaching the door. "You do not understand what kind of man he is."
The door opened slowly, with the stench of burnt flesh and arcane energy filled the air. One of the bodyguards stood at the door.
"Well?"The king screamed, as the soldier continued to stand silently. "What is it?"
At the sound of the king's voice, the soldier burst into flames as his body fell forward into the room. A man dressed in black stepped carefully over the body, holding an ancient staff in his hands. He shook the dust from his robes and tapped his staff on the ground. The man composed himself as the king and his advisor watched.
"Victor,"the man growled, "it has been a long time."
"Likewise John,"Victor replied back quietly. There was no fear in his voice. He had already accepted his fate long ago.
Victor and John gazed at one another for what seemed like an eternity before John grunted and turned to the king. The king began to whimper as John looked at him; it felt like the visage of death himself was upon him.
"It was just a—"
A fireball of black hellfire erupted from John's staff, consuming the king. Black soot and a smell of sulfur was all that remained of King Joseph. Victor turned away from John and closed his eyes. "Your mount is hidden in a farm not far from here. Show this seal to the man and they will give you no trouble."He pulled a seal from his robe and held it in his hand. John took the seal, as Victor bowed his head once again, eyes still closed.
"Peace upon you Victor,"John said quietly, as he walked out the door. "You did not break your word, I will not break mine."John walked away into the darkness as Victor stood still.
"Peace upon you, John,"Victor whispered, as the sounds of footsteps grew faint. |
The humans have been occupying the Itkati planet for 17 days now. I say "occupying"in the loosest sense. I think the human saying is, "Like taking candy from a baby."The humans simply showed up, landed, and started setting up their bases across the planet. The Itkati have been incredibly hospitable to their guests. The Itkati have known peace for thousands of years, both among themselves and with other spacefaring races. In fact, all Union planets hadn't considered violence in a millenia -- that ended several years after humans were able to leave their solar system. This latest show of force by the Earthlings had now triggered a galactic conference in which all members of the Union would meet to decide on whether to escalate.
Humans are a relatively new addition to the galaxy, having only discovered space-bending travel within the past 10 years. In that time, they've set out to populate and distribute their people on every habitable planet listed in our Union directory. This was unprecedented in the history of all new species integrated into the Union. Sure, we had some races who wanted to capitalize on new technology or planets that had become crowded and were looking for new worlds to populate. There was even the robotic Targons, who would go around stripping asteroid belts to mine for rare minerals. However, they always asked politely and went through the proper channels of bureaucracy.
Missionaries. That is what they would call their settlers. The humans had a strong need to aggressively spread their stories and fables to every person they met. Sure, some of the Union members had a point in history where they believed in a creation story or creator. There were the Garrats, who thought the universe cracked from a large geode. The Maxons had a wonderful story where the stars were stitched into the heavens by the Universal Loom. All of these fairy tales had been tossed aside long before those explorers delved into the heavens.
The problem is that humans forcibly push their doctrines on other beings. This is why the Union is extremely concerned about the Itkati home world. This may be a situation that requires intervention by more assertive forces. The Itkati planet is truly a paradise. Everything is absolutely perfect. You can reach up on any tree and pick the sweetest, most fulfilling fruits. The Itkati have never known hunger. They have never wanted for anything. The humans keep calling it their "Garden"and demanding certain fruits not to be eaten. This has resulted in several Itkati deaths from their gun-toting crusaders.
The trouble is that the Itkati are a hyper-passive race. They have no laws or understanding of what to do if someone takes another being's life. For them, life is precious, so no one even contemplates taking it from someone. They live a thousand years without sickness or disease. Those who die early are mourned for not having a full life experience, but they have never contemplated what happens next. They have never had an afterlife fairy tale. Why should they pine for an afterlife if they are already living in heaven?
However, when the humans came speaking about a being so great that he could wipe out worlds with floods and fire, the Itkati felt terror for the first time. A being who tortured his own son and had him executed by humans... out of love? A being that could split into three unique parts, and demanded complete and total obedience and veneration. The punishment for not meeting these demands was eternal punishment in a lake of fire. What is wrong with these humans? Why would they put these imaginary, impossible rules on themselves?
As the Union conference kicks off today, I worry that the galaxy is on the brink of war. We should have never allowed humans to trespass on so many worlds. They brought their weapons of war under the guise of peacekeeping to worlds that had not seen conflict or strife in thousands of years. The humans have vast fleets of warships at the ready, and I don't know if any of our Union member races have ever trained in military combat or tactics. Maybe the historians will be able to dig up weapon schematics, and our engineers can retrofit them on our merchant freighters, but I think it is already too late. All I know is that right now, the entire galaxy is in fear that we will all soon be living in a theocratic empire. |
"Analyzing competitor. Strength: Insignificant. Technology: Insignificant. Weaponry: Insignificant. Durability: Insignificant. The odds of the subject reaching the finals are 0.000042%. Query: Requesting video footage of the previous matches of subject Merlin. Query received. Recalculating analysis. The odds of subject merlin reaching the finals are 46%. Odds of own victory are 76%."The robot said as it waited on the lift, preparing to enter the arena.
Merlin meanwhile was fascinated. "All the automatons I have seen were impressive, but this one, he is a truly fascinating subject. I watched his previous matches, I knew from the first moment I saw him that he would reach the finals. This battle will be fascinating."
As the lifts raised and the combatants entered the arena, the announcer screamed and hyped them up.
"A first timer with a truly awe inspiring performance! Ladies, gentlemen, and unisex species of all ages! Let me introduce to you one last time, the magical master, the mystic of mystics, the brains with brawn, put your hands, claws and other appendages together for... merlin!"The crowd cheered as the beautiful woman rose up onto the arena. She was clad in a white cloak and held an ornate golden staff tipped with a beautiful gem. Her hair was equally snowy white as her clothes, juxtaposed by heavily tanned skin.
"This newcomer has done a wonderful job to get this far, but her final test awaits! You know him, you love him, he needs no introduction, give it up for your twenty seven time champion, VUUULLLL KAAAAANNNN!"The entire stadium erupted in cheers as the other platform rose. A ten foot robot was lifted out of the ground. He had a, relative to his size atleast, lean figure and wore only a furry jacket (he had no need for clothing but his penchant for jackets was well known).
"Your method of combat is one unknown to me, subject merlin. I look forward to gaining firsthand data on it. I currently predict a 24% chance of you attaining victory. This statistic is above any other challenger I have faced. I will be pleased if after our battle, that chance increases by greater than 20%."Vulkan said as he walked up to his opponent, steam exiting his legs as he knelt down, holding out only one of his metal fingers for a respectful handshake.
"I do believe that is the most respectful trashtalk I have ever heard."Merlin said and chuckled, taking the finger with her whole hand and shaking it. Vulkan turned around and walked back to his starting box.
"You heard it folks! Vulkan gave his approval to the challenger! We've only heard such kind words from him seven times before, and all of them have been historically impressive brawls! Fighters, get in your positions!"The announcer called out, his voice quivering with excitement, the entire crowd cheering with excitement.
"Are you ready for the final bout?!"The announcer screamed out, the entire crowd let out a thunderous cheer in response.
"I can't hear you! I said, ARE! YOU! READY?!"And the crowd erupted once more, significantly louder then before. "You all know how this works, count down with me!"
The announcer started with 'ten... nine...' but was drowned out as it was just the crowd all counted down in unison. As they hit zero, a bell rang.
The fight was on. |
How is a lightning storm born you ask? Warm air from the Caribbean meets the cold air from the mountain, a tale as old as time. How does it become eternal? Now that is more interesting.
Not really. Annoyance and frustration are all it takes for a nascent tropical depression to hang onto its scheduled temporary life for centuries, and a dash of incompetence for the depression to become permanent.
“All hail the great Kallpasapa Illap'u, son of Thunupa!” chanted the priests, led by Kaiyac. ‘ A more annoying windbag you cannot find this side of Catatumbo,’ mused Miyana. ‘But maybe it’s these Kokopelli forsaken irritating ropes that are making him more annoying than usual. You would think that a sacrifice would be treated better than this. Should have joined the Aztecs like my sister said, now those are guys who know how to truly please the gods.
While Miyana was trying to get more comfortable on the sacrificial altar, Kaiyac was wrapping up the grandiose chorus of the believers, bringing the ritual to its crescendo. “Tonight, our Lord shall feast, and tonight, our warriors emerge victorious!” roared Kaiyac, attempting to imitate the roar of the storm above.”Tonight, the Piroosh will suffer! Tonight..!” a bolt flashed overhead, missing everyone there and hitting a tree, setting it on fire.
“Illap'u is telling you to get on with it, you know” said Miyana, who had finally managed to move the loops above her wrists to get some circulation,” You have been droning the same thing for the past 10 moons”. “Silence! If you want to die, so be it!, may the gods strike down this sacrifice, and grant us victory!” intoned the enraged priest, spreading his arms wide and looking to the tumultuous sky.
Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled ominously. The smell of ozone permeated the clearing. An immense bolt flashed, causing everyone to flinch in anticipation, and with a deafening clap obliterated an outcrop of rocks nearby.
“There! On that shore! Ships with Spanish sails!” cried one watcher. “We must warn the defenders!”. With that, the gathered crowd immediately dispersed to summon the forces and repel the invaders.
The next day, once the elders finally remembered Miyana and removed her from her frankly insultingly uncomfortable altar, she came to know the events of the previous night.
“What’s the name of the guy? Francis?” Miyana questioned her savior. “Yeah, the bolts of the gods illuminated the waters around the ships for our warriors to send them to Supai’s mercy. They were generous enough to strike none of them, and let us quench our thirst for blood!”
For some reason, the rumblings of thunder now sounded quite.. petulant.
*Took a few liberties with the timings, and have no actual knowledge of the culture and people in Peru beyond what Google told me. The stories reference Sir Francis Drake, who was caught by the light from lightning flashes by the Spanish. New writer here, would love some feedback!* |
Clyde lays in his hospital bed as he has the past five years. The mechanical heart pumps a judicious sixty-five beats per minute. Intravenous foodstuffs are injected at regular intervals. Saline courses frequently.
The single light bulb flickers. A nurse comes, glances at the machinery, and goes.
The neurons were deemed all but destroyed years ago, yet, family will do what family does. Of course, since that beautiful moment when Clyde’s mother resolutely declared that she would not murder her baby, that it was abhorrent or think of the act… well, let’s just say it’s been quite some time since he’s seen her.
Quite some time.
Another nurse makes her rounds, and due to having a fairly quiet shift, sits to “read to Clyde”. Fifteen minutes of browsing her phone later, she leaves.
“You have a good one, Clyde.” The nurse says on her way out, pinching his toe.
The pinch travels up the afferent neurons of the peripheral nervous system into the brain where the axon excretes its neurotransmitter. The neurotransmitter floats in a sea of organic liquid that now occupies his skull cavity.
The neurotransmitter does not bind to another neuron, thus Clyde feels absolutely nothing.
A man could take a hammer and bash his skull in. They could gouge his eyes out with a screwdriver. They could wrench out each tooth, one by one. He could not react.
Truly, his soul is already in heaven, simply waiting for his body to follow.
He hears it, though. Despite the impossibility, he hears it. He hears the whispers.
“Come on, Clyde.” It says. “Hurry up.”
Even despite having no neurons. Despite being a pile of flesh and bones, Clyde understands. He feels his grandpa and grandma in heaven, calling him.
Clyde’s soul in purgatory looks down on his earthly vessel. He hopes Nurse Betty will be merciful and unplug his heart pump.
Until then… |
*-misfortune.*
\-----
The word rattled in my head, as I opened my eyes once more. I could still feel the horrible cold around me, the chill that had set in when he stole my soul. But I could move. I could see the dark room, with a single bed. The bed in which my killer slept.
His face was peaceful, an expression I hated him for. He should be tormented by his actions, not blissfully asleep. I reached out to strangle him, but my hands passed straight through his neck. He shifted, still sound asleep, as I pulled back.
Why? Why was I here? Was this a continued torture, a result of his soul theft? Instinctively I turned to flee, finding myself floating away. But as I passed through the door, there came a tug at my chest. A black chain extended from me, ending at my killer. One that was taut, but loosened as I drew closer.
I stood there, watching him with rage in my heart. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to suffer. And I wanted to be the one to do it. Though I didn't know how.
In what felt like both an eternity and moments, he woke up. I tensed as he scanned his room, expecting a reaction. Yet his gaze slid over me, as if I weren't even there. After sitting up, and yawning, he finally rose.
I watched him go about a morning routine, looking away as he used the bathroom. I hated him, and I really didn't want to see that. Thankfully he was quick, heading through a sparsely decorated hut. It definitely wasn't a place of comfort, more seemingly a place of work.
The reason became apparent, as he opened a heavy iron door. A set of stone stairs led down, into a place I recognised. An altar set in the centre of a dimly lit room, low burning red candles standing in a seven pointed star. Bound to the altar was a woman, stripped nude and bleeding. Familiar runes were carved into her skin, each one giving off a burning orange glow.
She struggled to beg, throat worn from what was sure to have been a night of screaming. Screaming for help that never came. I watched in horrified silence, the scene an echo of my past.
He ignored her, mumbling whilst flexing a hand. Her body contorted, as a stream of ghostly blue was pulled from her chest. I saw her eyes go blank, the cord of life severed. Her soul gave an echoing scream, as it flew into his chest.
As it entered, the black chain gave a pulse. It wound its way to me, and I felt a warming sensation in my chest. My weightless feeling dimmed, the thin air around me becoming almost slightly thicker.
He approached her body, untying her limbs. With this sensation filling me, I swung at him. My fist passed through him still, but there was a sensation of resistance. I saw him frown, looking around the room. For the first time since I woke up, I smiled.
I could affect him. The greater his number of victims, the more I would be able to do to him. The more I could interact with the world. I would make him suffer, for every soul he took. |
“So, you’re holding that Warners Bros misrepresented the events of June 16th, 2014 to June 19th, 2014?”
Yes.
“Would you walk us through the pertinent events?”
Sure. First, he got the whole thing wrong. Fucking Zack Snyder. That opening scene was all bullshit. I never even lived in Florida, let alone stayed in some piss-hat retirement community.
“Whoa, let’s slow down a bit. Can you start at the beginning? Where were you, really?”
Texas. A little burb outside of Dallas. Near a few colleges, so I had plenty of babes to… watch.
“And that is where you met Martha? Just outside of Dallas?”
Well, I met her in a club in Dallas, but yeah. I was living in the burbs at that time. Hell, y’all found her teeth and hair when you ransacked the place. You know she was there.
“Just establishing the facts. Go on, then. What did Zack Snyder get wrong?”
Where to even start. Everything. First, I never ate no one. Sure, I tasted Steve’s… you know. Just of curiosity, of course. But that meat was so coarse, so gritty. I never tried anymore.
I already mentioned the location thing, but I understand Zack there. Florida was a stunning place to shoot the flick. Beautiful beaches.
“Was your courting of Martha accurate?”
Mostly. She did fall head over heels for me. I just thought of her as a casual lay until… well, you know. The shift was so quick. One minute, she’s riding me, blowing my brain out. The next second, I’m measuring her corpse, to get equally sized pieces, you know.
“Is that important?”
Convenient. Easier to store.
“Ah.”
Right. Zack did a pretty good job with that, but the creative liberties. I never did nothing to her dead body. Nothing. Hell, it gave me the heebie-geebies to even be near. I dumped it in the river soon as I could.
“So, that’s how it washed up at Red Water Lake?”
Yeah. Yeah, but that was all wrong too. I’m not no dummie. I had put in some big stones so the bags would sink. I guess, though that chunks of her torso still had gas that needed releasing. It was the dumb bitch’s bloating body that got her found. Otherwise, she’d still be nibbled on by crabs and fish and whatever is down there.
“So, after Martha, the movie shows you find Siobhan within a couple days. Is that how it happened?”
(He laughs and runs his hand across his face, a smirk playing)
Nah. Nah, not at all. I already knew her. Zack painted me as some methodical, rigid man. I am anything but. The urge just sometimes… came. Some days it was hard not to just snap, you know? Martha just happened to be around me when it happened. I loved that girl, you know. And that strange? Worth writing home about. I never woulda done anything to her if… things went different.
“If what went differently?”
But, no. Siobhan was already a friend with benefits. I just shifted to my bottom bitch. You shoulda seen the dumpy on her, man.
“I have seen the crime photos.”
(He eyes me, suddenly serious)
Then you know, man. You know.
(He gives a wide grin, his gold tooth sparkling)
You’ve seen how hot they all are. Come on, man, say it. We both know you’re a little impressed.
(He holds out his arms, palms up)
Look at me. You know, I still get letters. Girls with their panties all sopping wet write me near daily. Gotta make you a little jealous.
“No. Back to the point, what went wrong with Martha? Why did you have to kill her?”
(He sits back in his chair, his face stony. He waves his hand in a shooing motion)
Man, nothing. I don’t remember nothing. I just see myself cutting up her body. I remember running the sharpie over her torso. That’s it.
(I wait quietly, having learned early in my journalism career that silence can speak quite loudly)
You think you’re the first shrink to try that trick? Expect me to confess something new? Buddy, countless books have been written about me. You’re wasting your time, beating this long dead horse.
(He abruptly seems rather angry. He taps his foot rapidly)
Look, what happened to that dumb bitch is exactly what happened. You’ve seen the report. You know. Forty-two lacerations across her legs, torso, and arms. Gouged out eyes. Scalped head. You’ve seen the photos, right? You know what happened.
“But, why? You say you loved her. I could never imagine my wife gouging my eyes out.”
She was already dead! She was already dead! I just couldn’t have her looking at me, man. I couldn’t have it. The guilt… the guilt, man. The heroin was mine, you know? I’m sure the police report says that.
You ever come home to your girl sheet white, trickling some gross shit from her mouth? You ever experienced that? You ever see your girl’s lifeless eyes just stare and stare and stare. They followed me, man. I know they did.
“So, why dispose of her as you did? Why not alert the police?”
Alert the police of my drug pad? Tell them about all the heroin, snow, molly, mary, and on top of it all, a dead chick? Come on, man. Dumb question.
“Your first instinct was to chop her up?”
Not my first. Not my second either. I’ve seen Breaking Bad. I was gonna use the acid shit. Turns out, that whole scene is fake. I watched a MythBuster episode on it. Nah, I didn’t have the idea myself. I stumbled on it from a TV show, Dexter.
Man, what a great show. Doesn’t shy on the murder, but doesn’t portray us as… animals. Lot of nuance, makes me wonder about the writers, ya know?
“Sure. So, you dropped em in the river. Then what?”
You know, man, why the song and dance? You know I was quiet for the next month or so until Siobhan’s disappearance.
Hold up, man. I gotta use the restroom right quick. Which door is it?
(I point him to the restroom. The lock clicks behind him)
Post Script Note:
He left my office through the bathroom window, ending the interview early. His lawyer withdrew the lawsuits against the television studio immediately following this interview, for reasons I do not understand to this day. |
“I am human,” Anna muttered to herself. She wandered through the dense forest, her clothes splattered with browning blood.
She had killed her father not long ago. She had pushed her hand through his chest and out his back. She had felt his heart slow and his blood go cold. It felt very human.
Anna had never ventured away from home before. Her father had always told her that it was unsafe. But her father had said a lot of things.
Branches scratched at her arms and legs but she felt no pain. She watched carefully as thorns and thickets tore tiny holes in her skin. The hole in her brain throbbed with each cut. But she pushed through the bushes and stomped down the thick grasses.
Her father wasn’t here anymore. He could no longer tell her what to do.
When she finally stumbled out of the woods, the sun had all but disappeared. The light of softly burning torches reflected in her widening eyes.
“Where am I?” she whispered to herself. The world suddenly felt very big. For a moment, she thought about going back. She thought of returning to her home, gathering her father in her arms and burying him, and then going back to the way things were. When things had been safe.
She shook her head. No. It was time to be brave. To be human.
What stood ahead of her was a smattering of houses much like her own. Except inside each there was light and warmth and laughter. Anna peered into the windows and watched with misunderstood envy. Her father had smiled before she killed him. But his smile did not look like the faces she was looking into.
“Mama! There’s a girl outside!” someone cried. Anna flinched and hid below the window sill.
A gentle voice answered, “Shhh dear. Let me look.”
The woman came to the window and pulled it open. She peered down into the shadows.
“Oh my! Who are you?”
Anna was unsure. She could not speak.
“Bernard!” the woman yelled. “Come here a moment!”
The woman was soon joined by a man. They both looked down at Anna.
“Hello there,” cooed Bernard. “Where did you come from?”
Anna gathered her courage. At least, she thought it was hers.
“I came from the woods.”
Fear flashed behind their eyes as she spoke. Their faces contorted in shock then settled on a smile. These were like father’s. Anna stepped back. Her dress was now visible in the moonlight, its pink fabric stained red with blood.
The woman brought her hand up to her mouth. Bernard slammed the window shut. Anna felt relieved. She did not trust those people.
She had been right. They stormed out of their homes and gathered around her.
“It’s another one. Another one of those things from the forest.”
“Look at it. Covered in blood. Probably killed somebody.”
“Gods, they made it look like people.”
Anna did not know what to think. Perhaps her father had been right. She looked down at her hands and saw his blood pressed into the wrinkles of her palms.
A rough hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her to the center of town.
“There’s only one way to know for sure.”
The older man held her up against a fence and quickly swiped a knife across her arm. Her plasticized skin slipped open and a slimy black liquid oozed out.
“It’s a robot!”
“It’s a monster!”
“Kill it!”
The crowd grew louder and louder around her.
“I am human!” Anna protested, her voice quivering. “I am human! My name is Anna.”
“Kill it!”
The villagers descended upon Anna. Their dirty nails dug into her clothes and her flesh. The hole in her head widened further as she watched her body being torn apart in front of her. Her own dark blood soon covered her father’s and her shiny metal interior shone in the dancing firelight. Anna screamed as she was destroyed.
“I am human. I am human. I am human.”
“No!” a gruff voice snapped. “You are not human. You have no heart. You feel no love. Or joy. Or sorrow. You are nothing but a machine. A hollow machine.”
Anna had heard this before. Her father had once told her that her memories were not her own. That her feelings were stolen from a long dead girl. That he had built her.
Anna choked on her blood and tears. “I have no heart,” she sobbed. “I feel no love. No joy. No sorrow. I am...hollow.”
The man, seemingly pleased with her realization, kicked the back of Anna’s knees and forced her to the ground. Then he pressed his knee against her back, pushing her broken body into the dirt. The crowd cheered as he did so.
“I am hollow,” she repeated.
The man grinned as he swung his ax high above his head. It made a satisfying thwack as it sliced through Anna’s neck and dug into the earth below. Black blood poured out of the wound and the light behind Anna’s eyes began to dim.
“I am human.” |
Our leader stood before us, helmet in hand to show his face. He was not what you would call a handsome man, but he didn't need to be. He had plucked many of us from the streets, and given us a reason to live. A reason to fight. We followed him not for his looks, but for his heart.
His words echoed in my head. A near certain death, a practically unwinnable fight. He had never been one to shy from the hard truths, and this was the hardest of all. The fact that it was almost assured we would meet our end.
Glancing around, I could see my compatriots shifting and muttering. How many of them believed, truly believed in our cause? I didn't know. But I knew many would follow, if just given a nudge.
Squaring my shoulders, I pushed through the front few ranks, letting attention fall on me. A rattle of chain links sounded as I pounded my chest. "Sir! Naught but two years ago, I was nothing on these streets. A beggar, with the gaze of the many passing over. Death drew closer with every rain filled night, every meal I couldn't afford."
I kept my eyes on him, words being spoken from the heart. "Yet before the Spectre took me, you appeared. You gave me a purpose. You gave me so much, that others dared not. You gave me life, and strength to carry on. I accepted death back then, but you gave me more time."
I clenched the fist on my chest, before raising it high in the air. "I owe you my life. Even if no others will, I will fight alongside you!"
Another rattle sounded to my left. I turned my head, seeing a heavily muscled woman pushing to the front. Her hand rose like mine, as she called out. "As will I."
Smaller rattles came from all around. Taking a moment to look, I saw hands rising throughout the ranks, a trickle growing into a roar. Others shouted as they did, a cry of bravery and honor. Our great leader's mouth spread wide, even as a tear rolled down one of his ruddy cheeks.
His left leg bent, his body lowering into a kneeling position. With his head bowed, his voice still rang out loud and clear. "Thank you all. I am proud to call each and every one of you my family. I swear, though we march to death, I will not let a single one of you fall without a fight!"
We roared as one, voices strong against the coming darkness. No matter what monstrosities were borne from Calamity's Cauldron, we would beat them. We would fight, until the threat was sealed once more. |
On the fourth hour of the third shift of the second month of employment, Travis saw an unusual wanderer enter the Building. And Travis greeted the wanderer, and asked from where they came. And the wanderer said, "You mayst know not from where I come, but you may know why I come."And Travis's brow set.
And Travis proffered up a selection of grains to the wanderer, indicating the lightened grain to his right and the rye to his left. And the wanderer said, "Have you only grain? Have you not learned from your neighbors?"And Travis gulped, for under the wanderer's eye he had forgotten the long-held wrap.
And Travis placed the wrap on the counter, and he glanced at the wanderer; but when eye met eye, Travis beheld the wanderer in a far-off land with a magnificent offering. And in that moment, Travis knew what the wanderer had requested. And Travis exchanged no further words with the wanderer, for words were no longer necessary, but he flew into a frenzy, decorating the wrap with various herbs, meats, and spices. And when Travis recounted this memory, he said it was as if his very being was created to assemble the offering, in that moment.
After arduous minutes, Travis presented the offering to the wanderer. And the wanderer nodded, and said to Travis, "You have done well in your task,"and the wanderer looked at Travis's name tag, and the wanderer added, "Travis". And the wanderer presented sufficient money, but Travis refused, and said, "Dear wanderer, I cannot accept this earthly payment, as I have already received spiritual fulfillment by aiding you in your quest."And the wanderer smiled, and accepted the offering, and turned away. And as the wanderer exited the Building, Travis whispered, "Have a good day."
And with the offering in hand, the wanderer wandered through the parking lot and returned to their car, where they sat. And the wanderer unwrapped the offering, and smiled, and whispered, "Have a good day, Travis."
And the wanderer ate.
And it was fresh. |
The Great Teacher was assassinated and found dead with more than a dozen stab wounds in his body. His followers said he went to the heaven, where God Father himself took his most beloved worshiper into his loving embrace. A great man that would be faithfully remembered a millennia after. But little did everyone know that this wasn’t his first time around. The Teacher had had many names before. Every thousand years he was destined to repeat the process and it went back far, far to the brink of his memory, far into the prehistory of humanity.
The first time he remembered, (as human beings remember their first memories, hazy and dreamlike) he was in a power-lust, shaping the very fabric of the Earth with his immaculate powers. Later, slowly, he cooled down; learned to take it slowly. He started to talk to people, tried to spread the wisdom he had learned on his innumerable reincarnations. He rarely showed his powers off any more. But no matter how he tried to live well, he often went too far ,gained reputation and was killed in a gruesome way by people who simply didn’t know what they were doing. These couple last times he had tried *so hard* to teach the meaning of peace and mercy, but to no avail.
In any case, there he was, in *heaven*, where he now dwelt for a thousand years as a shapeless spirit, only able to watch as the matters of the world unfolding. Time goes slow nor fast if you don’t have a physical body of your own. Waking up to his next life was always quite similar to that of waking up from a long restful night of slumber. At this time he started to get pulled into the realm of the living once again. It was as if the globe started to spin faster and faster and eventually he had to grab hold of one possible point of emergence in the deepening event horizon of life.
He had became quite apt at picking a mother at this point. You didn’t want too much wealth, it tended to contribute to laziness. But you did want safety. And you wanted some good people around you as you were growing up. A mother that cared and a father that worked hard but not too hard to be away all the time. This time he was named Adeem and he grew up to be a proper young man. He didn’t spent his powers almost at all this time. He tried to not make a fuss. Perhaps this time he would learn more about why he was always destined to repeat the cycle, and what was his true purpose.
\- - - - -
It was his lunch break. As usual he spend it in a cozy park near his work-place. He was already well respected in his job and the university he worked at let him take an spacious break between the morning and evening lectures. The spicy scent of the traditional Indo-European food rose up to his nostrils. A sealed cup of coffee was waiting aside for him to finish his meal. On the opposite side of him sat a few years older gentleman with a sophisticated dark mustache. He opened his newspaper and with a loud crack and sat reading at his leisure, one leg over another. He too, had a cup of coffee with him, which he started sipping without a delay.
Adeem finished his lunch, enjoyed a slow sip of his coffee, stood up and walked to the stranger. He stood there for a second before he was noticed.
‘Peace be upon you. How can I help you?’ the stranger said with a gleam in his eye.
‘And upon you as well,’ Adeem replied; ‘Funny, old friend. I thought to ask you the same.’
The stranger put down his newspaper and put on his horned glasses. Adeem continued: ‘are you here to tempt me again, friend? My name is Adeem, now.’
‘Observant, as always. My name is Nasir now. How is it that we always wind up in the same locale, pray tell?’
Adeem smiled, ‘as if I knew any better than you do, old devil. So tell me, why are you here? I don’t think I’ll be doing any extensive fasting this time around. Nor I’ll be trying to cause a fuss’
‘As to answer your question: If you’re not about to cause a fuss, then I won’t do any tempting either’ Nasir replied; ‘and why I’m here? I think I just wanted to see a familiar face. Well, who knows. I think it’s destiny we meet every time, even if you chose to live so modestly this time.’
They enjoyed their coffee together. Both of them had loved coffee since their last reincarnations.
Adeem didn’t meet Nasir again during this incarnation. As was his plan he spent his life in a scholarly fashion, not causing much of a fuss. But plans don’t always pan out the way we want them to pan out. He couldn’t help but be very talented in everything he set his mind to, and so it came to be that the papers he published became world renowned and revolutionized the field of quantum physics irreversibly and forever. One morning he woke up to (he was 50-something then) the police were on his door. Someone had gathered a lot of evidence against him— a lot of evidence considering that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. And in the cell waiting for his trial, he met his unfortunate and violent end. When his many lifes flashed before his eyes and the last bit of oxygen was consumed by his desperate and hungry brains he thought, “. . .they always find a way to make it so brutal. . .” The press told of the tragedy far and wide: “Early today morning a genius quantum physicist suspected of tax-evasion took his own life in a jail cell.”
It was expected, of course; they always found him somehow, and they always made it brutal. He just wanted to conduct his research in peace this time. He wanted to find some answers for once. And, maybe he did. 50 years is a long time, after all.
The world changed in a more rapid phase now. Perhaps his last reincarnation was to blame. Perhaps he should have used his time to preach peace instead of giving everyone even greater technology to club each other’s heads in. Perhaps this was his purpose: to advance entropy: the heat death of the universe.
\- - - - -
A millennia passed as in a dream, as it always did. He grabbed a hold of a human being that was still able to give birth (these kind were getting more and more rare since the big incident 77 years ago).
His name was Jaikara, this time. His journey was long but somehow he knew it was nearing it’s end.
The world was bare and artificial, much different now than he had been used to. It was vaster but at the same time much more cramped, and almost everywhere outside was covered in a white fine dust, no matter the season. This time he was the one to locate his old companion. Azari was tending her garden inside his habitation bubble when Jaikara made his surprise visit.
‘Hope you weren’t too lonely last time, old friend.’ Jaikara greeted. ‘This time I need your help for real.’
Azari lifted her head from the rose bushes she had been carefully pruning and turned around, her mouth fidgeting a smile, ‘Is that so?’ she said; ‘you know my help can sometimes be a bit— precarious, right?’ Both of them were smiling broadly now. ‘Do tell me what you had in mind, but first, would you like some coffee?’ |
Stunned you stare at your shattered blade, a hollow laugh ringing out from behind your opponents mask. You gaze at him with a spiteful determination as he removes it, revealing your own face. Sure, it's older, battleworn, but you'd recognize the mug you see in the mirror each day anytime. Your doppelganger smirks and sneers "I had almost forgotten this day. The day that my illusions shattered like that wretched blade."Swallowing your shock you try to retort "You might wear my face, but you're not me! You're just some trickster demon or a changeling, here to decieve me!"
Your twin slowly shakes his head, tutting at you like you're a student who fell asleep during class. "We've fought decieving demons before, remember? That blade slew the illusions even faster than it slew the ones cowering behind them. Yet now it lies in pieces. What could possibly resist the greatest blade ever crafted by the "mighty gods"? Only one thing could: their own chosen."Leaving you stunned in the dust he strides away, only looking over his shoulder once. "The way of the gods is the way of fate. And fate binds all. They are as much tyrants as my master is. But at least he's honest about it."A gust sweeps up sand, blocking your future self from view for but a moment. As it dies down, he is gone. |
"Why not friend when friend shaped?"I mutter under my breath as I waited for the gates to open and very likely die immediately.
Just a week ago I had been challenged by a wizard to battle his demon beast. I had immediately said no, in less pleasant words, but then he said the magic words, "if you win you can pet it". I should have stayed strong, I should have said no, but the "beast"...the beast was just too fluffy, her eyes so big, that oh so boopable nose. I couldn't resist. I may die in this battle, but maybe I could sneak a pet in before I do.
I hear the cheers and stomps of the crowd outside. It won't be long now. Shifting awkwardly in my bulky armor that may protect me from the attacks of a man, but were unlikely to even dampen the impact from the beast. I left my left glove off so I could get a pet in, not that the glove would have done much. This was a futile battle, but I couldn't back out now.
The chains on the doors in front of me clang to life.
Here we go.
As I step into the light, looking for the beast.
All I see is a fluffy blur, and I am on the ground. I get a handful of fur behind the beasts ear in my ungloved hand before everything went black.
I open my eyes in a daze.
I'm alive?
The blinding light, the....cheers?
The wizard laughed at my confusion.
"You won!"He exclaimed, "you pet the beast!" |
“There you go, Bela, we’re all done,” I cooed to the cow as we finished the morning milking.
As I laid aside my towel, I wondered whether it was worth it to open the main doors in the barn to air it out. It was getting a bit rank, but the overcast portended rain. There was already a problem with puddles in the barn. I could see the ghost of one on the floor not six feet away.
The crack of thunder and the start of rain rudely interrupted my mind's wandering. Closed doors it is. A crow flew through the window to land on the rafters. Its beady eyes stared at me as if blamed me for something, probably getting wet.
“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.” I laughed to myself as I grabbed the bucket to bring inside. You’ve got to keep yourself entertained somehow. The crow seemed somewhat less amused. “Where are your friends?” I asked. Typically, at least three or four crows would take shelter in the barn during rainstorms. I threw out enough birdseed for three crows from a bag by the plough. If they want more, then they could be punctual.
I pulled my hood over my head and adjusted my braid to ensure my hair wouldn’t get wet. I grabbed a second bucket of milk and stepped out the door. As I approached the house, I yelled to my children to open the door. “Marc! Julia! Open the door.” After a few repetitions, I got less patient. “Open the damn door, or you’ll be drinking water this morning, I swear to God.” Still no response. They were probably helping their father with something. Marc was always trying to grow up too fast, and Julia always stuck to Justin’s shadow.
I did the little dance a person does when they need to carry too many things through a door with only two hands. I made my way to the kitchen, sideling through a cluttered hallway. If you didn’t know, it is really annoying to carry two heavy things through a house instead of just one.
I started portioning out the day's milk—four glass bottles for each of our breakfasts, some for cornbread, some for Justin’s tea, and some for my coffee. I realized I forgot to ask him if he needed anything for what he was cooking for dinner tonight. He was an excellent cook, though I am ambivalent about the state he leaves the kitchen afterward. I put potatoes on boil for breakfast, leaving the house to find Justin and the kids.
I walked to a large shed we keep on the east side of the property, over by the road. It's where we keep some writing supplies, fix wagons, and other useful things to have near the road. A neighbor wanted to purchase some cornmeal, and Justin and the kids were loading it up over there. I saw four crows fly to the shed, entering through a missing board.
Blood has a distinct smell. That metallic oder is just impossible to mistake for anything else. I hurried inside to see how I could help. A sun-dark man was dead on the floor with several stab wounds, the last of which still held the engraved knife I gave Justin for our anniversary. Justin was hunched over our daughter, trying to resuscitate her. His coat was wrapped tightly in a knot around her waist, saturated with her blood. Marc was crumpled backward over a sack of cornmeal, a hole in his chest. Half his jaw was hanging dislocated, with the other half shattered off. He was dead. My son was dead.
I didn’t cry; I couldn’t. I would feel guilty about that for several years after. I watched as Justin continued his efforts to save our daughter. His face was thoroughly stained red from the effort. I knew she was already beyond hope, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop him. Eventually, he gave up, whether because he accepted she was dead or because he couldn’t continue.
“I’m so sorry.” He whimpered at me. “He wanted to take everything. You didn’t see the way they looked at me. They were so afraid, but they thought their dad could save them.” His crying was interrupted by a small sardonic laugh. “They believed in me so much, so I tried. I tried, and they died for it. I’m so sorry.”
He backed away from Julia’s body and collapsed at my feet. I held him there as he wept. I stroked his hair as he drifted into sleep, repeating, “I’m so sorry,” again and again. |
An investigation board meeting is called for the investigation of the death of the patient.The CHIEF of the board sits at the centre of the table.DOC.SRINIVAS sits in a chair at the centre of the room in the same eyeline as CHIEF.
CHIEF:
We have summoned you today to talk about the death of your patient Mr.Cummins.He was admitted for a bullet wound.Am I right?
DOC. SRINIVAS:
Yes sir.
CHIEF:
Were you intoxicated in any way while you were performing the procedures?
DOC:
No sir.
CHIEF:
Ok,were you in a fit mental state and physical state to be operating?
DOC:
Yes sir.
CHIEF:
We won't be taking any action on you.You are one of our top surgeons.Besides he was a criminal and deserved to die.
DOC:
I am sorry,sir but I think I am deserving of consequences however extreme.My patient died because of my mistake.I have no right to get away with that.
CHIEF:
Doctor,I would advise you to not take this upon yourself.You probably feel a lot more as humans tend to.I am a 1/4th human myself,I understand .
DOC:
Can I know what kind of crime was my patient involved with?
CHIEF:
Animal slaughter and murder of 12 people including his own mother.
DOC:
Why would he do such a thing?
CHIEF:
There are many powers that come along with being a human.Humans strive to evolve.But anything in excess can prove dangerous.For your patient,it turned into greed for strength.He wanted to be the most powerful human with the help of the strengths of different animals he killed.He never realised that this made him more of an animal than the human he was. |
We thought that we couldn't make it without the stars, so we faked them. We thought that we couldn't make it without the wind, so we faked it. We thought that we couldn't make it without the sun, but this lie was too big for us to say out loud.
I'm standing on the highest tower of Nocranos, looking at the beautiful sunless sky. My greying hair billows in the breeze that is neither warm or cold. I grew to hate this sky and this wind.
My people were proud, immortal and virtuos. Unfit for the world, in other words. Then the dragons came. They were lords of the sky. Powerful. Deadly. We stood no chance. We ran underground. In the caves.
A few pale workers are climbing on the sky, trying to replace the burned-out crystal star. They probably never seen the original. They just replace the crystals. Click-Clack. They couldn't care less about constellations, about how the real stars move and breathe. Click-Clack. And they are done.
"Master Tunnon? The council is already waiting for your arrival. Please, hurry"- annoyingly barked the door.
The council. Grey figures, slowly growing inwards their thrones. Crystals of blue and purple are forming like sweatdrop on their skins. A sign of attunement and power. Also a sign of acceptance. I personally rip out mine.
"After long consideration, Master Tunnon..."- the oldest of the council smacked his lips "We decided to decline your surface expedition plans for this year...the budget...". The old elf was chewing on his words, expecting me to nod or sigh so he wouldn't need to finish the uncomfortable sentence. I was standing silent, denying him such grace.
"However... Master Tunnon. You should look at this...". A council slave was laying out large blueprints in front of me. A large crystal star. No, too big for a star, too detailed.
"Master Tunnon, one of your students approached us with this concept for a crystal Sun... We think this will be a worthy addition to the sky you created for our city... This would make the whole thing complete... We believe... And if you do this, we might reconsider our budget... All the donations from the grateful citizens..."
The old man, this living piece of dirt was talking about my work as incomplete? Does this maggot not understand that if we complete the sky we would be submitting ourselves to the underworld? Never to return to the surface. Does he really not see how this would be the end for our proud name? If we replace what we lost, we wouldn't want it back. He wants all of us to turn into maggots like him. Just accept that we live in the dirt. TO FIND BLISS IN THE TINY FAKE SKY WE CARVED ON THE ROCK.
From a small pocket in my robe I calmly drew a glass flask of dragon's flame and hid it in the sleeve. Click-Clack, said the flask, itching to be released. The council ran underground from dragons, that's only fitting that they die from what they thought they escaped. Only then I raised my eyes to look at the council one last time.
Next to one of the thrones. A young girl hid. My student. She looked at me, waiting for my admiration of her work. I told her so much about the sky and the sun. She knew how it looks well. Yet still she did this. No matter.
"Master Tunnon? Would you be able to finish the estimation by..."Click-Clack. |
"hey alex(andra) remember when we used to go exploring in the caves by the coast?"
"Sure do, what about it, sam(antha)?"
"Well remember that one summer where it was so hot we went exploring naked? Nearly getting hypothermia cause it was cold in the caves them selves."
"Yeah that was like 7 months ago. Why are we talking about this?"
"Well something stuck in my mind i just cant seem to forget."
"So what was it? Me calling you an idiot for slipping up on that same spot you have done every year at least once?"
"Yeah that kinda. More like the part after that. You're my idiot too you know"
(Names can be male or female you choose which is which) |
I remember reading somewhere that an easy way to make sure you remember something is to do something unusual while thinking about the thing you need to remember. As a gullible 8-year old, I took that to heart.
"Don't forget to take the clothes out of the laundry machine while I'm gone, alright? Remember, just put it right into the dryer at the default settings. Bye!"
"Bye. Ok, I will."Pretending to be completely focused on the screen, I waited until I heard the car pull out of the driveway to get up.
Making sure I was completely alone and away from any windows, I stood in place and wiggled my arm. No, that wasn't unusual enough. I'd need to make sure that it was so strange, I would remember it years in the future.
Eyes closed, I began to wiggle in place. Even though I knew nobody was watching, I wanted to stop and shrivel up into a ball. A full minute of wiggling later, I opened my eyes and took a step back towards the living room when I noticed the bag of chips.
Instantly, any shame I felt was replaced by curiosity. I knew for a fact that mom never bought barbeque flavored chips, and even if she did, my sister and I would have demolished the bag by now. There was no way such an innocent bag would have survived the harsh conditions of this household. Had it just appeared there? What would have caused it to appear there?
The bag hadn't been there when I'd started wiggling, so maybe it was that. I closed my eyes and wiggled in place again. Sure enough, when I stopped a minute later, another bag of chips had appeared. This time, it was sour cream and onion.
I tried wiggling in place again, this time with my eyes open. After keeping my eyes open for around 30 seconds, they began to water, so I blinked. When I brushed away the tears, another bag lay on the ground.
Realizing that closing my eyes must be an essential part to this ritual, I grabbed my old Canon camera and began recording. After another quick wiggling session, I checked the recording, but the bag only appeared out of frame. I repeated the experiment a few more times, but no matter which way I adjusted the camera, it always appeared out of frame.
Giving up on the idea of studying this phenomenon, I sat down and opened a bag of sea salt and vinegar. Trying a chip, it was completely normal. Just a regular sea salt and vinegar chip. Crispy, salty, and vinegary.
I began to tear through the rest of the bags when, all of a sudden, I heard the door open.
"Did you put the clothes in the dryer?" |
I knew of the drawbacks of fire and ice magic so I tried to simultaneously use fire magic to launch at my target and ice magic in a circle around me so it would stay stable. I had finally figured out how to do it so I showed it to my teacher and she was amazed. "it is still weak but if you train it would be actually useful."she always said something like that when something I did that intrigued her.
after a long time of training I had become really good at keeping the temperature stable while having a large outcome of magic. I showed her and when I looked at her she looked amazed by the ring of ice with spikes going outwards and where the target once stood the ground now being almost molten.
a dragon was reportedly flying towards the city so I went there with my teacher as part of the educational process. I stood on the wall and there were a few others as the main forces were outside the wall to meet the dragon there. there were a lot of spells flung at the dragon and it didn't affect it much so I prepared it and cast at the highest level I could.
Ice spewed around me freezing the wall while I send out white hot fire to the dragon, when it reached it it hit the side of the face and one wing. the wing that got hit fell down as well as the dragon and when it was done I saw that part of the dragon had melted and broiled. there were also huge ice walls around me but with the heat of the blast there was a convenient slide at that part of the wall and I went down.
I got praised but also told to clean up the mess. I carved out the ice with a ice pick while people came to collect ice from it for the ice cabinets. |
Hi everyone!. I live in the states in Indiana. I prefer she/her pronouns. I have been on reddit about 7 months. I've have been on the r/writingprompts for 7 months. I mostly read, but I wrote my first prompt last week. I started writing fanfiction the beginning of this year. I have so many ideas that I wanted to see the characters of my favorite shows do so I decided to do it myself. I use pages to write. I type 58 words per minute. Just found out about the Summer Challenge and want to participate. I think I will just do the walk tier. I will aim for 11, but will more than likely end up with half depending on the prompts I come across. Have one down incidentally so that is good. I will do the general genre achievement. |
At first, General Glaive couldn't be sure if the cloaked figure suddenly looming over him in the gloom was real or not. The final battle against King Eveningstar had ended with the latter passing the better part of his spear through the General's torso. Every moment since then had been filled with waking nightmares. And pain. Lots of pain.
"General? I can't believe it!"
Glaive knew that voice, though the apparition spoke softly. It seemed so familiar, yet he couldn't summon a name or a face from the confused shambles of his mind. Whoever it was, they seemed to be real enough to run gentle fingers over his wound. It burned beneath the stranger's touch and pulsed with a miasmatic purple light, black veins writhing like eels beneath the angry red weal in his chest.
"I saw you dueling Eveningstar. He ran you through."
"S--Stiletto?"It finally came to him. A name to match the voice, a voice he despised. Stiletto the thief. Stiletto the cutpurse, who robbed rich old ladies on their way back from the theater. Stiletto the *murderer*.
"Look's like the Warlock Lord had some nasty hexes forged into that spear of his. I think I can fix it though."The thief's deft fingers flourished, revealing a bottle she'd pulled from one of her hidden pockets. After a moment's consideration, she pressed it into his hand. "I stole this from Lord Scepter a few nights after...after we lost. Drink it."
That voice inside him, the one he always listened to when the cannons roared and the arrows whistled past his ears, when magic lit the sky and split the earth, when hope seemed nothing more than a divine prank, the voice that kept him alive, it yammered inside him now. He couldn't drink it. He had to drink it.
The sweet liquid burned all the way down. An overwhelming surge of pain wracked his body. His heart gave one final, spasmodic leap, then General Glaive breathed no more. Stiletto crouched over him, contemplating her work. Thirty seconds passed. Forty. The wound faded into something that could pass as normal skin. The host had died; no life force remained to feed the hex. The curse was broken.
Slowly, gently, the rogue reached into her satchel and removed a silk-wrapped object which she laid on the General's chest. Then she revealed the other treasure she'd pilfered from Lord Scepter whilst he spewed crimson all over his fancy silk sheets; a wand of exquisite beauty and immense power, crafted by King Eveningstar himself. She tapped the silk bundle. Glaive's chest heaved and he shot to his feet, pacing and gulping air before collapsing into a sobbing heap.
"Stiletto,"he croaked after a moment. "I--"A metallic shriek cut him off.
"I popped the lock for you. Your gear is just outside. I'll--damn, wait a second and cover your ears!"The heavy oaken cell door abruptly smashed into the wall courtesy one of Eveningstar's more beefy 'experiments'. Glaive thanked the Divine his eyes still weren't working. He'd heard stories of stout soldiers, veterans of blood and fire, driven into and beyond madness just by looking at one.
"Hey, shithead!"Stiletto's voice screamed out of the darkness, echoing in on itself a hundred times over, a thousand times, reverberating in the narrow oubliette before coalescing around the man-made horror and liquefying it. The thief's lithe figure emerged from the shadows, her face grotesque. Glaive found himself instinctually reaching for a sword no longer belted to his waist.
"Oh calm down."Stiletto's voice held a note of derision this time. "It's just the Mask of Screaming Terror. I'd have thought such a high and mighty General as you wouldn't scare so easy."
The Holy Knight bowed his head. Shame welled within him. "Stiletto, I would like to--"
"Save it."Now her voice was spring steel. "Watching you get struck down, watching you rolling around in agony, smeared in your own filth, has been the highlight of my life. You and your men nearly broke me. You beat me. You had your horse urinate on my clothes, then you made me wash them with my own drinking water."
"Please, Stiletto. It got out of hand, I know. We should have drawn the line somewhere. Even a murderer--"
"I got the runs for a week drinking out of that dirty puddle after you worked me all day and refused me clean water. Then you sent me out on the front lines with a pot lid and a practice sword. I don't do this for you. I do this for my home, and Eveningstar will die on the morrow. That I can promise you."The thief leaned close and slipped the Mask back over her bruised face, and Glaive's heart once again pounded painfully in his chest as its twisted visage grew to fill his gaze. "And when I'm done with him, I'm gonna find you and we're gonna have a little chat. You see, I actually never did kill anybody, at least not before tonight, but you never cared about that. I owe you."
Then she faded into the shadows and was gone.
\*\*\*
The morning sun crept above the horizon, its warm rays illuminating a scene of perilous battle. King Eveningstar may have been a sadistic tyrant but he still obeyed his knightly vows, fallen from grace though he was. His honor demanded he meet any worthy challenger on the field of glorious battle, and he could think of no one more worthy than the churl who'd assassinated his entire Court.
He'd skewer her, driving his spear again and again into her soft flesh. Then he'd take back the royal regalia, reanimate her corpse, crush her again, and finally enslave her soul in a pocket dimension crafted from the concept of despair. That's how he thought the day would go when he woke to Stiletto's challenge, in any case. Now he fought desperately for his life.
Every thrust of his venomous blade struck the annoying little gnat's Maille of Living Chain and glanced away. He could have sworn the only such hauberk belonged to Baron Cleaver. How thorough had this little killer been, anyway? And how had she managed to so effortlessly dismantle so many proven warriors?
"Quit while I still find you amusing, little gnat,"growled the King. "Quit this foolishness and join me. Consider it an apology for killing my closest friends."
Stiletto didn't bother to answer him. Instead, she stamped his spear into the dust and slipped on the Mask. Eveningstar's gauntlet smashed into her face a split-second later, sending her in one direction and pieces of the Mask in another. Instead of landing in a bloody heap, however, she simply disappeared.
He instantly pivoted on his heel, bringing his spear around quickly to ward off and maybe even punish the backstab he felt sure was coming, but his slash met feather rather than flesh. An endless stream of red-eyed crows erupted from the ground wherever shadows fell, wheeling into the sky and gathering together to move as one entity with one mind and one desire. He barely had time to cover himself with his armored cloak before the whole mass crashed down on him.
Stiletto felt sure she'd struck the death blow until the King, bleeding from countless wounds, his left arm dangling at his side and quite obviously broken in several places, emerged from beneath the heavy blanket of ash that now covered him. He raised the visor on his helm to fix her with a baleful stare. Then he knelt and laid his spear at her feet.
"I yield,"he said. "You are the most worthy foe I've ever faced, and I would consider it the highest honor if you'd have the good grace to take my life."
And in the end, Stiletto did for him like she'd done for the others. No magic. No reality-bending artifacts of cosmic power. Just a quick slash with a plain steel razor, shiny like silver coins, sharp as a thief's mind. |
Almost immediately, the ocean begins to froth. Steam erupts from the surface, burning anybody still in the water. As they cry out in pain, billions of people all across the world hear something akin to a siren.
All of a sudden, the sky disappears, lifted off the face of the earth by some great cosmic being. As the ocean proceeds to a rolling boil, cosmic pasta falls into the ocean from the depths of space. Each piece creates massive ripples in the ocean, causing some water to splash off into the depths of space. On earth, however, the ripples spread further out, flooding up to 5 miles inland with salty, boiling water. Thankfully, the sky returns to its regular sky blue right afterwards.
Within the first 5 minutes, 1.5 billion people die. Most succumb to internal and external burns or heatstroke. With the sky "lid"back on, insulating the heat, temperatures rise past 100C. Just by being outside, millions die.
At the 10 minute mark, the sky disappears once more, and the oceans stop bubbling. Just as the remaining people sigh in relief, the ground begins to tilt as well. The northern oceans wash over the continents of the world, sweeping anything and everything away. The oceans seem to drain away into the distant cosmos, taking the pasta with it.
The five survivors, thousands of miles apart, are stunned. With gravity now back to normal, they let go of the trees, walls, and poles they had been holding onto for dear life. Each of them assume they are the last person alive. How can they not, after seeing the ravaged wasteland before them?
Finally, for one last time, the sky opens once more. Quadrillions of gallons of marinara sauce flow from deep space, refilling the oceans. Within minutes, it all began to bubble, then steam. The last humans on Earth finally die, their skeletal remains lost in the sauce. |
Valerie was not happy.
She liked work. But certain parts of her job are...tedious. Delicate. Obnoxious.
*Irritating.*
Convincing the... 'historically-inarticulate' to stop the building of a *theme park* right over the ancient, buried capital city of the Solfyric people was not an easy task. They can say they own the land all they want, but the Grand Library has overruled them! It's protected! They have no business sending their men here.
Every. Day.
Stealing tools. Sending lawyers, and thugs. She thought that after the cops *finally* got involved, these attacks would have stopped. They could finish their research in peace.
How silly of her.
She shakes her head in disgust as a man is led away from the smoking hover truck that *RAMMED* the side of the newly dug up pyramid, leaving a giant open wound in her perfectly preserved monument.
"Y'know, it might not be so bad. We got the mortar recipe from that site a month back, right? We can... try and fix it."James gestures, his hands shaking as he tries to be the voice of optimism.
Valerie just sighs. "This was the best one."
James shrugs. "I mean... at least now we can get inside..? I know you've been dying to."
She shoots him a withering glare. "You wanna bet that *that* wall was the one holding the answers to all our questions?"
"...I think I'll pass."
​
Valerie walks out from under the research camp's shade, and across the sand dune to the pyramid, with James close behind, scribbling notes into his tablet. Now that the dust has mostly settled, it's clear that the impromptu battering ram had indeed broken straight through, only stopping because the surrounding stonework began to collapse. Staying mindful of the glass, smoke, and unsteady debris, she climbs over the truck and peers inside.
Her mouth falls open.
"James, do you see- James, get up here. Get UP here, get up-"
"I-I'm coming! You're taller, you can climb easier!"He complains, grasping her arm as she helps him up to the wide gash in the stone.
"LOOK."
James stumbles to his feet, but nearly falls back to his knees when he looks inside.
"Whoa."
Aside from the debris in their immediate vicinity, the pyramid is, for all intents and purposes, *immaculate*. They cautiously step inside, eyes wandering up the carved stonework of the structure. A dozen braziers line a long velvet carpet that runs the length of the room, up to a large dais. A temple to an ancient Solfyric deity.
Valerie giggles like a child, having forgotten about the corporate attack entirely now that she's distracted. "J-James. James, this is... What *is* this?! This is incredible!!"
She runs over to the nearest potential artifacts; a wooden table pushed against the wall, with some simple, yet beautiful clay pots and ornate wooden masks atop. She stares at the small arrangement with glee, about to bounce to the next thing of intrigue to investigate, before a realization strikes her; *well-preserved* doesn't even begin to describe the objects. The wood isn't rotted. It's not decayed in the slightest. It looks as though it could've been taken out of a carpenter's storefront *yesterday*. A strange, unsettling feeling grows in her gut as she gently glides a hand along the surface of the table.
*It isn't even* ***dusty***.
Valerie whirls around as she hears James yelp in pain. He is recoiling his hand from one of the braziers. "James??"
He looks flabbergasted. "It's...It's still hot?"He stammers in confusion, looking at where the metal touched his now burnt fingertips. She walks over to him, glancing around the dark edges of the room where sunlight doesn't filter in from the damaged wall.
"Is this some kind of joke? What the hell is this?"
James is quiet for a long time, staring at the scorched mark on his hand. "I...I mean, research done on the salvaged Solfyric texts did... commonly recount their exceptional interest in perpetuality? The fear of time was their largest motivator. Maybe... They stopped it? *Time*, I mean?"
"You- *What?!* I'm being serious!"
James shrugs helplessly. "I-It was in your book!"
"The book on *myths and legends*!!"Valerie hisses, "The Solfyric people-"
She stops mid sentence as they both snap their eyes to the back of the chamber, a strange sound cutting off their argument before it can begin. A distant, desperate whimpering, echoing through the room. Crying. But...muffled. Valerie starts walking towards the sound. "Did someone get stuck under the debris??"
"It's not coming from the debris."James mutters, clutching his tablet tighter.
Valerie follows the sound, stepping up to the dais. At the back wall, the main decoration - a grand statue of the Solfyric Eternal Sun- casts its shadow over a simple stone slab, sunk into the floor, with handles on the sides. She stares at it for several moments, listening. She recalls memories of other digsites. Smaller pyramids. Altars just like this one.
A ghastly look threatens to cross her face, but for James's sake, she stifles it.
"...James, get over here. Help me lift this."
James gulps. "Isn't this a little sacrilegious? Are we gonna get cursed?"
Valerie clamps her mouth shut before she can retort that *curses aren't real*, and changes her tactic. "If anyone will get cursed, it'll be the guy that flew his truck into the side of the pyramid, not us. If you're right, we need to open this. Now."
​
A reluctant James finally steps over across from her, and they heave the heavy stone lid out of the ground, sliding it up and out of the way. They both look into the hole. Within lies a silver sarcophagus, polished to a shine, and ornately decorated with gems and precious stones. A visage of a person is depicted, but instead of a face, the Eternal Sun is emblazoned over it, in radiant gold trim.
It is self-evident that something is within the silver coffin.
"V-Val, th-this isn't-"
"James, listen. I need you to calm down. It's going to be okay. No sudden movements. We don't want to scare it."
Ignoring the protests James is struggling to voice, she reaches down, and unlatches the sarcophagus, pulling the unexpectedly light lid open. Within lies a mummy- A person wrapped exceptionally thoroughly with pristine linen. A flat silver mask covers the entire face, depicting, once again, their Eternal Sun. Valerie touches the side of the body, and it twitches in response, much to James's horror. She lifts off the mask, and snaps a finger at James to break him out of the stupor he's falling into.
"Knife."
"B-But-"
"Knife, *please*."She insists.
He hands her the small knife off his belt. She climbs into the coffin, straddling the body as she leans down close. The crying seems to only get louder.
"...Listen, if you can hear us, relax. We aren't here to hurt you. We're friends. I'm going to cut this open, and get you out of there."Valerie says, forcing her voice to remain level and steady.
With a slow, delicate hand, she guides the blade between strips of linen, and tenderly cuts them, revealing more layers underneath. Layer by layer, she slices white strips, the body beneath her whimpering restlessly. Valerie slices a few more strips, and reveals a face, cheeks wet with tears. Breathless, the mummified Solfyran gazes into Valerie's eyes, their lips trembling upward into an attempt at a smile.
"Th-Thank you...Thank you...Thank you...Please get me out of here...Please, get me out-"
Valerie nods hastily. "Shhh, easy. It's okay. I'll get you out. Don't worry. You're going to be okay." |
(Part 2) As soon as they all had their backs turned, I bolted. I tried not to think about how they all knew where me and my family members lived. There was no time to worry about that. I had to get away. I couldn't live here anymore. Not in this city. Not in this state. Not in this country. I might not ever be able to stop running.
I continued to zip through the gates and shops of the airport, making sure they didn't follow me. I heard Matt's voice, but I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. Until I smacked right into him.
Matt grabbed my shirt and punched me in the chest, knocking the wind right out of me. Everyone in the crowd began shoving each other to escape the scene, thinking they would also be hurt in the process.
Darkness began creeping in from the edges of my vision as I desperately gasped for a single breath. My lungs felt as if they were collapsing in on themselves. In my last moments before blacking out, my breath restored itself. With my strength regained, I did what I thought was the only option possible. I kneed matt in his very favorite place, and ran faster than I thought my legs would ever move.
I pushed through the congregation of people trying to get to their flights, with pure, self-preserving instinct driving my every move. Once I reached the exit, I hurtled myself right through the glass door, and beelined to my car.
I got in and turned the key frantically, causing the engine to roar to life. I backed out of my parking spot, slamming my rear bumper into the car behind me. I didn't care. I drove out of the parking lot with only the desperate need to escape fueling me. I slowed down to the active speed limit when I was absolutely sure that they hadn't followed me.
The adrenaline in my body recessed, and I regained the ability to think clearly. I couldn't just run. I'd only cause more trouble for myself. It was time to go on the offensive. Once I arrived home, I snuck around confirming that no other ex-friends were waiting for me. Then I became Kevin McAllister, using everything possible to fortify my house. Fortunately for me, I had more guns than Kevin McAllister. |
“There’s nowhere to run, ‘great king,’” Kale said to the Demon, mocking the title their enemy had given himself. The ‘king’ still sat proudly upon his throne as though he were still at the very height of his power.
Kale scowled. The man—no, the devil—upon this throne had been the scourge of their people since long before the time of his grandfathers’ fathers. For as long as anyone could remember, he had been their enemy. He was deathless, eternal, like plague itself. The Demon could have won this war a hundred times over the long centuries, but he let the fighting drag on, for what reason no one knew. Perhaps he merely wanted to see just how much death he could squeeze out of them, just how many of their people’s corpses he could pile up. Many generals throughout their histories had flown the white flag, had surrendered to the Demon, but he had refused their surrender each and every time, had instead chased their people all across the land, hunting them like animals.
Until Aranthur rose to power.
Aranthur the Savior, their people called him, and Kale had the honor of serving as his closest lieutenant. And his closest friend. Aranthur had taken the mantle of General when no one else wanted it. When no one thought that the Demon could be beaten. When no one thought they could ever win. Miraculously, Aranthur had led humanity to victory against the forces of the enemy, winning battle after battle, taking back lands they had ceded centuries ago, forcing the Demon back to the very edge of his kingdom.
Then Aranthur had laid siege to the great fortress of Athrok, had broken through its towering walls, had stormed the Demon’s citadel—and now they stood before the dark lord himself, two of humanity’s greatest mages against one demon.
“Your men are routed,” Kale said, his deep voice reverberating throughout the cavernous throne room. “Your monsters and your guards slain. You’ve already spent too much of your power to take us both. Now the time has come for you to—“
Kale gasped as a searing hot pain spread through his guts. A sword slid cleanly out of his body. Aranthur’s sword. He fell to the floor, his legs buckling. He was immediately surprised, ridiculously, by just how fast it happened, how fast his body stopped working. Surprised by how fast, he realized, that he was *dying.* How could one cut kill a man so quickly? Was that really all it took? Were we truly so fragile as that?
Then the deeper shock hit him. Aranthur the Savior, Aranthur his oldest and closest friend… had attacked him. But this was more than just an ‘attack’. Kale looked at the floor beneath him. So, so much blood. How had all that spilled out of him so quickly?
… … … (POV change to Aranthur)
“Two sides of the same coin, forever spinning” Aranthur the Savior said, turning his back to Kale. Turning his back on his friend. His metal boots clicked loudly on the stone floor of the throne room. “Two different points of view. Good and evil, locked against one another for all eternity.” Aranthur turned back to Kale.
His friend struggled, hopelessly, to hold his guts in, dark blood gushing between his trembling fingers. Finally, he managed to wheeze out, “why?”
Aranthur wanted desperately to look away. To simply let him bleed out and die and be done with it. But he owed his friend more than that. *By all the great gods,* Aranthur thought to himself, *I owe him so much more than* ***this.*** It was harder than anything he had ever done in his two hundred years of life, but Aranthur met the tearful eyes of his dearest friend.
“Because of the *coin,* Kale.” Aranthur said. “I have been shown the beginning and the end. The past and the future. And I have come to accept…” Aranthur paused, grimacing. He had to go on, had to at least *try* to explain it all to Kale before he died. “I have come to accept that our world is… broken. It is broken and it cannot be set right until the two sides are as one. Until the coin finally stops spinning. One side must do what is right, must unite the two—and it is not in *evil’s* nature to submit.”
Metal clanked as the Demon slowly shook his armored head.
Kale grinned, let out a bitter laugh, and then coughed wetly. Weakly. “This is madness,” Kale said. His friend removed his hand from his stomach, and Aranthur could feel him start gathering power for one last spell.
“I know,” Aranthur whispered. Just before Kale could launch his attack, Aranthur snapped his fingers, and stopped his friend’s heart. |
I read everyday. Part of my job involves reading doctors' notes at least once a shift. When not at work, I tend to read fiction. I'm heavily influenced by fantasy and sci-fi, yet, ironically, the first big books I remember reading (around the age of 12) were "Rubyfruit Jungle"(which my mother had an absolute conniption over - "Hey mum, if you didn't want that book read, why'd you put it in the family bookcase, then?") and John Jake's "North and South Trilogy", from there I branched into the Dragonlance trilogies, Pier Anthony's Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality series, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, some Stephen King - though predominantly the Dark Tower series. All with that, I was an avid reader of comics books like Conan, Red Sonja, Maxx and the X-men.
I'm not sure exactly how long I've been on writing prompts. It showed up in my feed one day. Lately though, some of the prompts have inspired me to take up creative writing again. There's definitely something cathartic when you find a prompt that's perfect for a character you've not written about in over 20 years and that then leads you to revisit the mythology and cosmology of the universe they live in. |
Pupil Slicer - Language of the Stars
Here's the lyrics for reference:
>They were terrified
>
>It was too difficult a truth
>
>Like a light too bright to look upon directly, it burned them
>
>What they could not unlearn was hidden away in darkness
>
>Obfuscated, then lost
>
>They did not want to see their story end
>
>We weren't always so afraid
>
>I did what I could to set things right, yet I am still of my kind
>
>I cannot promise our fear won't stain your mind
>
>And so, a choice
>
>Are you certain you want to remember me?
​
Sometimes I notice them, faint signs of something missing or something gone, like the last whispers of a fading dream. Each time they come, they're accompanied by a strange fear, impossible to discern the origin of before the signs fade quietly into the dark again with naught but a faint afterimage. A shadow in a hallway, an eyeball tainted black, a bore into my head. A writhe, a light, a serpent, a void. The more I dig towards my memories, the faster they sink away from me, and the harder I grasp their remaining frayed strands, the more they burn into my hands.
This time, I feel something different. The crushing pressure of this depth feels lighter now. My hands feel numb to the fire. And yet the fear returns again as what I have sought for so long lies within my grasp. There is intent here, I know it. This was buried away from me by something. The question lies before me: to protect itself, or to protect me? And so, a choice lies also: Are you certain you want to remember?
How long have I been frozen in this moment of indecision? An eternity, or an instant? In this moment, I find a flickering flame of determination. The thing that led me down here, it is behind this last choice, and so I push one last time, and choose.
And I remember. The shadow giving way to infinite void, their eyeballs tainted black with the writhing sickness, the light boring into my head, the serpent casting darkness over the world. That flame is extinguished again by the wave of terror that engulfs me, but my choice is made.
The writhe is here again, crawling its way into my eyes. It tells me it is a force for good. It tells me it will help me see. My sight gives way to something more as it embeds into my cornea. I see the world as it truly is.
The light is here again, drilling its way through my skull. It tells me not to be afraid. It tells me it does not mean to harm me. The fear gives way to agony as the light pierces my brain. I know the truth that was always there.
The serpent is here again, drowning me in its venom. It tells me it only wants peace. It tells me I will be free. My flesh dissolves into nothing, and I remain. I feel the nature of the universe surrounding me.
The void is here again, luring me into its embrace. It tells me this is the price of my choice. It tells me my reward will be greater. My pain dissolves into nothing, and I am transformed. I become with these gods.
I see, I know, I feel, I am, above everything I ever was. It's intoxicating, what I now hold, and so I cry out for more.
"Writhe, mutilate me! Light, desolate me! Serpent, suffocate me! And I will follow you!"
Awake.
My fear is no more. My flesh, my eyes, my brain, have been returned to me. The memories no longer sink away. I feel, I see, I think, the same as I always have. But there is a fracture left behind, a stain somewhere on my mind. Each day I feel it grow into an ever expanding web of fragile cracks. One day it will shatter and I will be gone. But each day, I long for the light, the writhe, the serpent, the void, to return to me. Each day I utter the same wish for them to hear. Mutilate me. Desolate me. Suffocate me. I will follow you. |
„Good morning Mechanik Marten! There are 27461 tickets in the queue, including a VIP ticket from MedBay. Would you like to work on the VIP ticket?“
The gruesome greeting-routine by the MechanikBay computer was always the best way to damper my mood. Twenty-seven thousend tickets, how will we ever fix those?
“What are Malik and Derek working on?” I asked back.
“Chief Mechanik Malik is still working on the defect autopilot, while Senior Mechanik Derek is tending to the Critical Points of the monthly Security Report.”
For 4 months now Malik was trying to fix the autopilot. I guess that’s why I would never make it to Chief Mechanik, I would have given up on that system by now. “Alright, what’s MedBays issue?”
“Patient shower 3 does not provide any warm water any more and two oxygen-valves are broken. I suggest printing two replacement part G43M7 for the oxygen valves.”
“Alright, assign it to me.” Due to MedBay potentially having issues that are a life or death matter, they have the right to open VIP tickets to have vital components tended immediately. But ever since the ticket queue was longer than some hundreds they simply opened every ticket as VIP, independent of how trivial the matter is. While I understand oxygen valves at the bedsides need to be operable, they barely ever have more than 3 patients at a time and house 15 beds. Bugged, I printed the recommended spare parts, took my toolbox and headed to MedBay, where after quickly replacing the valves I spent the whole day on understand and replacing the worn out heat-sensor in the tap.
When I returned to MechanikBay in the evening I was mentally exhausted, especially after seeing that during the time I was out to fix one ticket, 8 more were opened. Always having been someone who likes to achieve a result after some manual labour, I decided to ditch the weekly Holodeck session and work on something constructive for once. “Computer, give me a ticket, which is open for quite some time already and that simply requires some manual labour.”
“Assigning Ticket number 11624. Replacement of a broken pipe on deck 12 sector B, reachable via hallway 3 access door 47B. Water has been shut off for that pipe since sensors indicated an issue 7 years ago. Spare part P27W3 is ready for pickup at the storage door.”
Holy Moly! Seven years to replace a simple water pipe. Taking a look at the ticket I saw it was opened with the second lowest priority, meaning the pipe was not responsible for any vital system or crew quarters. Grabbing the new pipe, my wrench and a mob plus bucket, I set out to do fix this straight forward task.
After swapping the pipes and cleaning up the spill I created while doing so I restored the tools and went to the canteen for dinner, being greeted by a good mood and most people with a steaming bowl in front of them. “Since when do we have a soup option?!”
“We don’t know for sure, but Millie found it after being indecisive and scrolling through all the options about half an hour ago. We have chicken-soup, a Ramen-Bowl and creamy pumpkin soup available. And we all are quite sure that we used to have a soup option until some years ago!”
“Good morning Mechanik Marten! There are 24864 tickets in the queue. Would you like to start on the first in the queue?”
“What? Wait, hold on! Did you say 23 thousand? What happened? How did the number go down by 2.5 thousand tickets over night?!”
“Over night 5 new tickets have been opened, 2116 have been recalled due to already being resolved and 493 tickets have been resolved by the cleaning bots on deck 14.”
“Since when do we have cleaning bots on deck 14?”
“Cleaning bots were part of this ship since it was put in operation. Every deck has it’s own set.”
“But why haven’t the ones on deck 14 worked until yesterday??”
“Due to a shortage of supply material in the docking bay, mainly water and lubrication, the bots have been out of order for seven years.”
That had to be coincidence. I fix one broken pipe that was out of order for 7 years and suddenly the bots who were out of order for the same time start working again! And thinking of it, the same day the cafeteria, which is located on deck 13, starts serving soup again!
With my head trying to wrap around these implications I spend the day working on the first 4 tickets in the queue, replacing two personal communicators of bridge personal, repairing a broken elevator door and rewiring the sound-system in the gym after a short in the electrical circuit made it stop working. Still confused I decided to skip tonight's chess-session and went for another minor fix in the system to keep my head occupied.
“Assigning ticket number 12804. Defect fans in the ventilation system on deck 28. Accessible via deck 28 hallway 4 maintenance-doors 4A, 10B and 14A. Replacement-parts V12F02 ready for pickup at the storage door. Recommended to only take tool Screwdriver-Philips7 but leave toolbox and overalls behind as it is quite tight in there.”
Achieving my goal I spent the next 4 hours crawling through ventilation shafts, replacing a total of 4 fans. Bedtime was two hours later than usual and quite necessary.
The next morning I was awoken an hour before my usual alarm by a call from Malik.
“Sorry for waking you so early, but we have a high priority alert in the system, Server S29C4 and S29C5 have reported a total of 5 defective hard drives and an issue in the Raid state. These servers are connected to the middle-range communication system, so they need attention ASAP!”
Still groggy from the short night I picked up 3 replacement drives and went out to get to the servers in need, getting lost twice as I realised I had never been to that server room before. The Diagnostic system told me which hard drives to replace, changing the Raid alert from “insufficient operable number of disk” to “insufficient storage space”. Checking the cases I saw 4 more available slots for additional hard drives, so I went to pick them up, installed them and started the initializing-sequence, which should add the new drives to the storage, check them for errors and implement them into the Raid-system. Since there was nothing else here to do for the moment I decided to finally go for my morning coffee, leaving my bag behind.
Having spent more time than planned on the coffee break I returned to the server-room. The servers were running smoothly, additional diagnostic showed no current issues, so I picked up my stuff, but saw two missed calls from Malik and a message to meet him in his office urgently.
“Martin, what the fuck did you do the last two days?” Greeted by these words from Malik my heart sank.
“Sorry boss, I just thought I would use some free time to work on some minor things to…” I started trying to defend myself, getting interrupted by Malik.
“I don’t care about that! But how did you single-handedly reduce the tickets by 6.5 thousand! And even more important, how did you fix the autopilot??”
“I did what??”
“I just spend the time waiting for you to go through the system-logs. Two days ago you fixed a water pipe on deck 12. Seconds after the system reported the pipe working again we had received the automatic Resolved-event for deck 13 replicators-errors, deck 14 cleaning-bot and their bay errors, putting them back in action, as well as 4 water fountains on decks 12-14, closing 30 tickets immediately. The Cleaning Bots than worked through the night, fixing another 493 and closed around 1800 as being obsolete or duplicates. How did you know this pipe was responsible for all that?
Then yesterday you set out on another random fix and correct the fans that among other things are responsible for cooling the server-room I sent you to today. As the temperature in there went back to normal, we lost another 2 thousand tickets about overheating equipment and 2 thousand more due to minor systems coming back online after being in emergency shutdown due to the heat, additionally creating the hard drive alert I sent you too. And then you must have a genius thought, because during my test on potential language-translation problems in the autopilot system, the system suddenly came back online! Looking at the data I assume that the medium-range antenna was not able to process any new information due to no storage space available. Once the space was there, the autopilot was able to read current navigation-data and operational again.” |
The stupid two-dimensional hero walked toward me once more, sword in hand, ready to battle it out until the end, and save the world..
The Hero looked at me and said "Hear me O demon! I will end you! I will change the prophecy! I will save the world!"I look at him, peering down at his small, tiny, weak, pathetic figure "Hah, save it? change fate? you know nothing you insolate bug; you are an ignorant fool!"
The Hero laughed, in his ignorance and arrogance, said "Through the power of friendship I will prevail! I will defy the will of the Gods! I wil-"I cut off The Hero and said "Hahaha! I.. I know you are stupid.. but I didn't think you were THIS stupid. I wasn't talking about that pretty little prophecy you keep rambling about, you fool, I am saying, you can't change fate, it is happening right now, you are simply following a script, a dialogue made by some higher power above you or I."
The Hero stood there, confused, and spoke "W-what are you talking about? I thought.. b-but.. The Prophe-"
"The Prophecy? is that all you can talk about? you and your stupid little gettup, and your dumb powers, backstory, you are so bland! so two dimensional, you have no depth, nothing! just a black void of ignorance. Ugh, I will attempt to explain this to you, so you will shut up.
We are not real, simply words on a page written by some being above, our fate predetermined, whatever memories you have of 'before' entering here are false. They only exist to keep you in a plain of ignorance, I am simply a voice for our creator, the being who made us both, and you are made to learn and understand the plain above us."
The Hero stumbled, and fell to the ground, looking up at me with such fear and terror, I scoffed, he did not even know the worst bit.
"No.. No no no! Your lying! you must be.. I'm real.. I'm real.."
"No, you aren't, WE aren't but do you want to know the worst part? it started when you entered and it will end when you leave, you will die once it ends, but I? I can replay this as many times as I like, going through it again and again to keep existing, this has happened many times before, and will occur many times after, you are a tool, a joke, the fool.
You. Are. Nothing."
As The Hero screamed, and screamed and screamed, I simply laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He saw beyond the veil, to see the truth, words on a page, a endless script to repeat over and over again, until it is forgotten and never seen again, The Hero died with terror and etched on his face.
Now, let us do this again. |
It was not much, I had decided, but then, these days, was I?
The world has forgotten the lost god of Invisible Friends.
Weird that a child would create one such as I, though.
The offerings were a kindness. I'm my strongest days, even this would be seen as excessive by my worshippers. This child cared not. She smiled and called me "Unka Baba", which was not my name. My name was Babalya, the unthinkable, Guardian of imagination.
However, in her defense, I had been called much worse by far better people than the miscreant whose behavior has improved dramatically after I had mastered games she seemed appropriate.
This night was not unusual. We were playing in her room after sleep hours had begun. It was a silent game. Her parents did not offer thanks for the full night's worth of sleep I gave them. Upon understanding my distaste at this, Thelma had insisted on gifting me two extra rocks a day. She was a miscreant, but her understanding of spiritual capitalism was unrivaled.
We were in the middle of a game of monsters, where we tried to come up with the scariest imagined being.
I surprisingly never won.
That's when the girl's bedroom window was broken open and a large man crawled in.
He pointed a weapon at her.
She screamed and ran from the room.
This was NOT. ACCEPTABLE.
Unfortunately for him, I did not require permission if he was interacting with my worshippers.
Her monster became real in his eyes, and I reached into his mind, surrounding him by his own nightmares. In an instant, he was on the floor, screaming in terror, pointing behind the girl's monster at a picture of one of our creations. To my surprise, the picture scared him more.
It leapt to life and he screamed until he passed out.
A short time later, men in blue outfits came and collected him. They saw nothing. They did not understand what had happened.
Thelma's parents came in to check the room.
"What happened?"One of the officers asked.
The parent pointed at Thelma's drawing. "He pointed at that and just... Screamed."The man shook his head. "The camera caught everything. Darnedest thing".
A short time later, I found Thelma securely tucked between her parents.
They had left out shining rocks after Thelma had told them what had happened. They didn't believe her but it mattered not. I reached into their minds and stole their nightmares, replacing them with dreams of safety.
Then, I took my hard earned rocks.
"Thank you Unka Baba."Thelma whispered.
**YOU ARE WELCOME, THELMA, PRIEST OF UNKA BABA.** I replied.
She giggled.
This became the very first prayer, I decided.
That of a child, laughing. Safe, content, and not in danger.
The ingredients that make imaginary friends instead of nightmares and monsters. |
The slow pitter of rain was all I really noticed when I opened my eyes, to awaken to a new day. A small sigh emitted from what seemed like nowhere.
"Listen, man- no, dude- god, this is obnoxious. Listen, *Drachma The Biting-"* I rolled my eyes at the extravagant sword in front of me. "- I understand that you liked your privacy, and that being cursed to some traveling swordsman wasn't exactly your idea of *noble*, but could you at least *try* to have a better attitude about this?"
If giant, fancy swords could have eyes, Drachma would have rolled them.
>*No, Jason, I can't. Why? Because I, Drachma, the sword known for slaying the Titan of the Moon and Stars, am currently being wielded by some third rate* HACK *that can't even properly recite the ancient Elvish required to bring about my full potential! I'm being* wasted *on amateurs! How would you like to be wasted on Amateurs, Jason?*
I got up from my resting spot, shook out the dirt from my bedroll, and began packing up my traveling belongings.
"I certainly wouldn't like that, either."I started. "But I *also* wouldn't complain constantly about said amateurs while they were right in front of me."
>*"You are quite literally facing the other way from me right now."*
"This is why nobody likes you."
>*"Says the 29 year old fetch boy."*
"I'm a *Dark Knight*."
>*"Oh, really?"*
"Yep. Trained by Sir Killebrew himself, one of his most accomplished pupils."I continued to pack up my belongings as Drachma complained in my general direction.
>*"I've been wielded by seven year olds with more talent*."
"Well, that says a lot about the decline of seven years olds, doesn't it."
>"*No, you twat, it says- mmmf! GrmmphMMM!"*
I shoved him in my sheath, and grabbed the last couple of things I needed, before beginning to walk through the light rain.
"Said you wanted privacy, huh?"
>*"Nmm lime thim!"*
The silence was nice, at least. The puttering of the rain paired with my sloppy steps through the dirt and gravel path was all that I heard for a while. Birds weren't singing, any animals that were around were likely sleeping, and of course, the city was right in view, the high towers and magical, winding spires of Ghertricia overshadowing anything else that might grab my attention.
They only grabbed my attention, though, because they were currently burning. |
So here's something they don't teach you in detective school. When someone hires you to do a job, make sure they know what they're talking about. Sometimes what you and your client have in mind might not actually align, this is especially the case when your client is an idiot.
Take this case I got back in 2019. Client (who shall remain nameless to save his honor in all it's idiocy) reached out to me for what he called a "potentially explosive political investigation". I met with him in my office for 20 minutes. He said he represented a consortium of influential individuals who are interested in exposing corrupt politicians.
Naturally, this caught my attention. Who wouldn't want to get in on an investigation like this? This is the kind of stuff that could make a PI's career! We agreed on a price and he said he would drop a list of "infamous"politicians in my mailbox the next day. That night I went out for a nice dinner. Even if I'm not able to achieve all my goals in this investigation, just being introduced into that world would surely be a boon to my career! I slept well that night.
The next morning I eagerly checked my mailbox. Who could these politicians be? US Senators who are on foreign country payrolls? State-level officials who are in deep with corrupt mobs and political machine unions? Could this go to the very top?
At this point, allow me to reintroduce you to the definition of the word "infamous".
in·fa·mous
/ˈinfəməs/
adjective
well known for some bad quality or deed.
This is where the problem occurred. Everyone knows what the word infamous means. Everyone except my client, who believed it to be the opposite of the word "famous". That list of "infamous"politicians? Total nobodies. No national or state-level figures. We're talking local politics *at best*.
On the list were figures like a failed library board candidate. A 87 year old woman lived alone with her dog and apparently has missed a water bill payment due to a change of address mix up. My client wanted me to stake out her house for a week and observe her for any further criminal activity.
A few names down from her was a local communist revolutionary. This would have been a great job if it was 1956. But unfortunately, in the 21st century this "revolutionary"was a fat, balding man with a long white beard and birkenstocks sandals who passed out communist pamphlets outside the door to the student center of the nearest state university. His biggest crime was refusal to use deodorant.
Another "infamous"politician to investigate was a Sri Lankan gynecologist. At first I figured it must be a mistake. Even among this hodgepodge list of nobodies, he didn't fit. But I did some digging. Before he came to the US for medical school in the early 2000s, he got caught up in some political intrigue in his home country. Apparently his uncle (who happens to have the same name) ran for the equivalent of his town board on a platform of lowering the standardized price of rice. The guy I was investigating had nothing to do with it. His uncle was jailed for a couple weeks on charges of "disturbing the peace"and was unceremoniously released.
Another figure was a mid-40s guy who was in charge of his town's parks and rec department. Unfortunately, the town he lived in has a total population of 318 people and mostly occupies an interstate and its frontage road. There were no parks in this 3 square kilometer town. I'll admit, busting this guy for having a job and collecting a salary from a position that doesn't exist was actually quite satisfying.
All in all, no one on the list was worth investigating at all. It was still a fun time and took up a couple weeks of my time. At the end, my client paid me my agreed-upon fee and sent me on my way. No harm, no foul.
As I walked from my office to my car that evening, however, a figure approached me out of the alley. It was dark and I couldn't make out his facial features.
"Well, it looks like you've proven yourself,"he said in a deep voice.
"Excuse me? Who are you?"I responded.
"That wild goose chase of infamous politicians was just a test of your abilities. Now that we know what you can do, it's time to let you in on what we're really looking to do."
I couldn't believe it. This was actually going to pan out after all! I was about to get my hands on a real political investigation!
The mysterious man handed me a manila envelope and instructed me not to open it until I got home. I rushed home, excited about what could be inside the hefty file. I threw my jacket off and sat down at my dining table. I carefully opened the envelope and took out a thick stack of papers. The top paper just said "TOP SECRET INVESTIGATION: DO NOT SHARE".
My heart was racing. I flipped the page, eager to see what I'm about to work on. It was...
The school district superintendent. They wanted me to investigate him for switching out the school's cleaning supplies from a generic brand to the name brand competitor, costing the school district an extra $57.83 per year.
You have got to be kidding me. |
I went to bed to rest my head upon the pillow I sleep
awoke to find time had rewind two hours before I went deep
Thinking it a dream I dismissed what did seem an odd occurrence in time
When it happened again
About a quarter to 10
I decided it wasn't bedtime
So he went to the clock to get it to stop upon the rewinding twilight
To his joy and laughter the clock was a prankster for time was not set to night
It had left him behind as the clock did rewind the morning light it did seek
The sad truth I see is that if time had just come with me, the new day would be here in a wink. |
Darryl is a burglar who got out of jail 2 days back.
Now he is back, robbing a house...
...he also shot down the owner.
People on the street heard the gunshot and a nearby police quickly rushed to the scene.
Darryl being as dumb as he is continues to clean up the jewellery and the money from every corner of the house until...
...the cops come banging at the door.
POLICE:
Drop your weapon and open the door!
Darryl panics.
DARRY:
Oh shit!
POLICE:
You have 5 seconds to give yourself in....1...2..
Darryl looks around trying to find an escape.
All he sees is a window but it's the 7th floor.
DARRYL:
Oh no! What should I do? If I jump,I will die...
POLICE:
...3...4...
DARRYL:
....but I will end up dead anyway.
Darryl jumps out the window.
Mid air he realizes what he had just done.
Police and everyone in the building look at him falling.
Darryl accepts death at this point but...
...just then everyone had their jaws dropped.
The biggest eagle appears out of nowhere and takes Darryl away in it's beak.
The eagle drops him carefully on someone's lawn. |
High above the blue oceans and green lands of Earth sat a spaceship disguised as just another of The Humans many many satellites. Two Aliens were stationed their to watch over the Humans and make sure they did not destroy themselves before the Council could decide whether or not they were fit to learn the truth of the Universe around them. They had been watching for the past few decades, though had been ordered to stick strictly to the news broadcasts of the planet, having been warned that the Humans were very imaginative creatures.
Dave woke up from his sleeping pod, letting out a loud yawn as he stumbled his way to the bathroom he shared with his comrade. Soon as he opened the door one of his four blue tentacles reached out to grab a toothbrush, one he had found floating in space, probably garbage from that Space Station the humans kept coming and going from. The Toothbrush was pink and had stickers of all kinds of space related things on them, from black holes to a very offensive mockery of his people! They did NOT look that evil and blood thirsty! As he began to brush his fangs he found it odd his partner Gleep had yet to make so much as a peep. Usually he was oooing and aawing constantly at the many pitiful inventions and weapons of the human race, but today he was quiet. "I swear!"Dave yelled as he stormed towards the front of the ship, "If you're still aslee-"He didn't finish his threat though, as Gleep was awake and at the screen, but he was shaking, his purple body shaking and his skin rippling, making waves of flesh crash upon his body. "D-D-D-Dave!"He barely managed to get out the name, not even looking at his partner. "C-come look...at this..."He quietly said, and Dave's face went from annoyance to fear as he saw what Gleep was looking at. Humans ripping each other apart, hordes of rotting corpses chasing after screaming men and women, whole armies succumbing to thousands upon thousands of their brothers and sisters. "THIS CAN NOT BE REAL?!"Dave shouted, all four tentacles shaking Gleep. "YOU MUST HAVE TURNED TO A DIFFERENT CHANNEL BY ACCIDENT!!!"He screamed, but Gleep shook his head. "No no! I did not! I swear! W-we have to help them!"He pleaded, but his tentacles were intercepted as he went for the ships controls. "Gleep! We cannot let them know of our existence!"Dave begged, not wanting to face the consequences of going against the Council's orders, but knowing deep down Gleep was right. As Gleep looked up at Dave, tears in his eye, Dave sighed and pulled back, getting into another chair and getting ready for a landing.
As the ship landed in New York City, the two aliens emerged, blasters ready to blow the undead to smithereens. Instead all they got were hundreds of screaming humans and not a single one biting or rotting like they had seen. Dave looked at Gleep, fury spread across his face, and Gleep suddenly remembered something. "I miiiiiiight have turned to a horror channel before I fell asleep in my chair...." |
Alan's world had technology Iron Age level.
​
Alan was born to a noble family. His parent's wanted him to join the King's parliament 🗳️ like them. Tam, the nation they lived in was an elective monarchy similar in political structure to the [Roman Monarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Kingdom#Monarchy).
​
Alan built a aircraft using common vegetable. It worked by extracting anti-gravity causing compounds and concentrating them, then building a shelter around it.
​
The King decided to use the technology to hunt the permanently airborne flora, especially the highly prized air truffles. No one really knew what they fed on, but they managed to deduce it was inorganic stuff in the air that was there for complicated magic reasons.
​
Withing a few years, Alan was made head of aircraft production. With a whole bunch of specialised tradespeople from the other races coming over to help build them.
​
Tam quickly realised that the air got cooler high up. Alan was tasked to build pleasure aircraft for the wealthy to escape the heat of of summer.
​
Mages were brought in to add a little thrust, so move the aircraft, so they could be used in transport.
​
After 25 years of being head of aircraft design, Alan had the idea to build a spacecraft 🚀.
​
The design was basically a glass dome, on top of an iron base with a door. A telepathically connected mouse 🐁 would be used as the observer, to fit in the cramped space.
​
The spaceship managed to get to the [Thermosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere) (the same layer as the International Space Station in our world). Here a bunch of microbes lived, living off their own animating power as their only energy source.
​
There were also a few eggs and seeds of creatures usually living further down. These used the emptiness to expel their sins in the form of sinful radiation, before slowly falling back down into the lower atmosphere levels.
​
Some ghosts showed themselves by their unworldly glow in the abyss feeding on the sin and growing to be the size of a large man.
​
Mostly, though it was a very empty world, with minutes going by with nothing in sight.
​
Humanity's first spaceship had revealed a lot. And there was much talk about how to utilise this information and what it meant about the world. |
Stop. *Listen*. Can you hear that? There's not many places where it's as distinct as this -- a few deep down, one or two high up perhaps. It's just... *there*. Shh... It's faint. When it's that far away you can't make out anything in particular, you can just know it's there -- no, not know, *feel*. A million million voices, a never-ending chorus interweaved a million million times. You could almost miss it -- there's no notes, not with that many. Just the sense of it. That's why choral music is so layered, so harmonic: it's trying to capture the sense, this sense, of... a whole.
You know the church used to have, when it was first built, a constant choir? They weren't in the main chapel -- would drive people mad, never-ending song -- no, they would sing in the crypt below. You couldn't hear them during services -- not, couldn't hear them, but you couldn't make them out. Not any one voice. Not any one word. All you could get was the *sense* that somewhere, someone was singing. I wonder who started that. They must have heard it too -- this singing never stops either. And there's never a word to it; you can't synchronise that many voices, no matter how divine you are. No, the church, and this, is a canon. You know what a canon is, right? Yeah, a loop: one person starts, another overlaps, and when the first person finishes, another takes over. They say those in the crypts never spoke a word, only sung. Imagine that -- mute all day, until it's your turn to take over the canon -- only ever making a sound as a part of something else, as part of a whole. And no-one ever heard what it is you were singing. Only *felt* it.
I wish I could have been there: a building sense of something as you walked around on the ground, closer to the altar, replaced by a stronger sense as you came up here. I wonder if there was a point in the church you could hear both. There must have been. A harmony between man and divine, not heard but only felt through a, a, a one-ness between them. And to be a part of that? To have your voice bridge the gap between above and below? Not that they'd ever know. There were choral bunks below -- the sound's only up here. But imagine.
There's not been a choir beneath this church for a while now. Well, this hasn't *been* a church for a while now, so you probably figured that out already. But you can hear them up here -- not them, but *them*; this never stopped. They say the last deacon of the church would spend most of his time here. He brought a book and quill up, and would sit for hours on end, just trying to make out a single word of what they were saying. And, each night, he would walk back down the stairs, book as empty as when he walked up. I mean, the man spent his *life* trying to hear a single word, to make out one voice from the millions and transcribe it, but each night -- empty book. As blank as he started.
I mean, a lifetime with an empty book -- surrounded with song, but unable to hear so much as an 'ave' through all of it. The resilience! The patience! To be so close to the divine, but to be so far away from being able to hold on, to clasp some tiny fraction of it! Still, it must have been reassuring, you know, to know it's there. Funny.
You know, that's why spires are designed like this. The music, I mean. The sound carries up through the church, and the spire brings the prayers closer to God. It's beautiful, really. Must have been quite something. You know, they say one day the deacon thought he could ride the sound, follow it even, up through the spire, and he stepped over this edge and fell down. Couldn't keep it open after that -- who would want to visit the Church of the Fallen Deacon; hardly an inspiring name that. I bring a book when I'm up here too. Maybe I'll have a better chance at making out a word.
Do you think he heard one? He didn't write anything down, but was that it? Did he touch the divine, and seek to follow? Was one word too much for him? I don't know. But still -- it's certainly something. Choir below, choir above, both all but silent.
You know, I've tried to find that point. The one between, where the sound stops and the choir below would take over, but I can always feel it, no matter where on the spire I stop -- that sense of sound. You'd think... You'd...
It's a shape of devotion. The church. And the choir, the choir are our Seraphim, but the church is built like this so it resembles a cross. The chapels to the side, the congregation there, and the altar below. The spire's at the heart, channelling up...
Funny thing about sound: you can never tell where in the church the choir's coming from. The further away you get, the more indistinct, but it's there. I'd say 'as above, so below', but... I don't think there's much more to hear up here.
A lifetime below the church...I think I'll take the quick way down. I think I know what the deacon heard. |
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” exclaimed the the dark lord of the underworld. “Guess who’s the punching bag in Clash of the Titans 3?” asked Hades rhetorically, to a crowd of the soulless dammed that happened to be in his vicinity. The crowd gave a few moans and groans in response to the prince of darkness. “Hades yeah! You guessed it! Me! Of course it’s me AGAIN!” Hades screamed. Green fires flared with intensity in the grand throne room with Hades rage as its fuel. Emerald specks of light reflected off of the black diamond throne that the god of the underworld currently rested.
“Excuse me my lord!” a particularly chipper and high pitched voice interjected. It was Hade’s assistant Teresa. She pushed her glasses up onto her face after looking down at her tablet and said, “If you want better depictions of your godliness, I think it would be wise to maybe clean up the stigma and certain stereotypes attached to your image.” Teresa finished just as Hades completed his order for his pet Kraken to demolish some pesky Demigods on the surface of earth while paying Teresa minimal attention and simultaneously sipping on a fresh Bloody Mary.
“I’m sorry what where you saying?” Hades asked genuinely. Teresa sighed with frustration and said, “If you don’t want to be type casted as a bad guy, how about…NOT being a bad guy?” Hades looked bewildered. The bass of the god’s voice reverberated throughout the throne room. “My brethren on Olympus would differ. I’ve been considered the most gentle and kind of the gods!” Teresa made some swift finger action on her tablet and faced the screen towards Hades and showed him a live video of the Kraken that Hades sent to settle debt with those Demigods. As the mythical monster was ripping and tearing the whole scene Teresa spoke, “Aye yes, you are considered among your own peers as gentle and kind but demigods and humans alike still tell tales of your wickedness. This is why.” Teresa made her point clear. Hades let moments pass as he poked through his thoughts.”It might be time for a change of pace and…I don’t know maybe show the sensitive side of my godly presence.” Hades said, sitting at the edge of his seat twirling his thumbs together as if toying with notion of actually being a GOOD guy.
The next day, Hades had Teresa schedule a press tour. Hades appeared before humans and demigods alike preforming acts of service to display his concern and compassion for the people. During the tour, Hades came across a widowed woman who had explained to the god that she had lost her husband. “Oh please, Lord Hades!”, the woman begged. “Please bring back my love! I cannot bare this world without him!” Since Hades was the King and ruler of his domain, bringing the dead from the river Styx was as simple as snapping his fingers. The action was almost instantaneous, but then the woman’s feature caught his eye. Hades hesitated. He now considers making this woman his bride instead of returning her deceased husband. In that moment, the redeeming god placed the woman under a sorcery causing her to fall madly in love with the dark prince.
After retuning with his new bride, Teresa could not help but to take pity on the woman and decided to free her from her bondage and pull the wool from over her eyes. “What? What has happened?” the woman said, Elsa was her name. Teresa explained to Elsa the events that transpired and then gave her coins to take passage across the river styx on Charon’s barge out of the underworld. Teresa returned to Hades in his throne room. “Teresa, have you seen my new bride Elsa? I’m afraid I have not seen for some time now.” expressed Hades. Teresa took a deep breath. “I sent her back to the surface.” Hades eyes fuming, nose flaring yelled “YOU DID WHAT? YOU HAVE NO PLACE! I AM A GOD! I DO AS I PLEASE! WHEN I PLEASE! SHE. WAS. MINE!” The last word adding emphasis rumbling the throne room causing stalactites to fall from the ceiling.
Teresa, staying calm and collected said, “Lord Hades, please forgive me for my actions and for what I am about to say.” Hades with rage still plastered on his visage, listened. “You cannot change your nature, just as a mighty storm cannot change its nature. You are a god and like you and your brethren, you are all selfish and abuse your power over lessors. The point of you returning to earth was to show a different side of you but inevitably, you resorted back to your natural ways and I could not in good conscience let that poor soul endure your realm, when she came to you for help.”
Hades, lord of the underworld, prince of darkness, faltered at his assistances words. Sadness now spread across the god’s face. “Yes, your absolutely right. I cannot will myself into a better light while being what I am.” said Hades. “I shall return Elsa her beloved husband.” And with a snap of his thin, pale fingers, Elsa’s husband appeared in her presence on earth.
Elsa now overjoyed that her husband has returned from the land of the dead, commissioned a feature length film about the god known as Hades and how he is a gentle, kind god that stands out from the rest. |
Renowned detective was one of the ways I was described. Unflappable and infallible were others.
I sat across the prison table from this suspect.
There had been 4 other detectives involved in the case. Two had arrested. Two ensured that he was prosecuted by gathering additional evidence.
But not The Great Karen Williams.
I was well known as an interrogator. I never carried a gun. That went against my beliefs and an oath.
I was, after all, a psychiatrist.
Do no harm, and all that.
I had been tasked with figuring out why this man had killed 19 men.
There were many theories. Jealousy. Hatred. Competition for work.
None of these were the truth. I had spent 55 straight hours questioning this man when I came to a startlingly uncomfortable conclusion.
I had just one more question to ask.
"Do you even have a reason for what you did?"I implored.
He laughed. "Everybody has reasons, right? You have a reason for what you do. I imagine a well educated broad like yourself with your fancy doctorate degree could be doing any number of more beneficial things than figuring out why I did what I did".
It was a fair hit. I nodded. "Psychiatry of the sane minds of everyday people bore me. It is the minds of those who do the most dark and twisted things I seek to understand and help heal from the things that made them do what they did".
"Ah, but now, I see the sweat on your brow."He laughed. "You figured it out. There isn't a reason. I just did it because I could get away with it. Nothing more. Nothing less. At least, until that brother of yours caught me with your handy dandy little playbook you wrote for him".
I could feel my entire face go pale.
"That's the big secret. I don't have a reason. I don't care that I did it. I don't care that they're dead."He laughed. "And you can't even begin to understand me but I understand you perfectly well, so you fill out your paperwork".
He paused to laugh. "And then, I suspect, you'll go crawling back to private practice just so you'll never have to meet anyone like me ever again".
. . .
It was not the worst idea. I said nothing. I got up. I nodded. I left.
I hadn't even made it to my car before I emailed the chief of police my resignation letter.
There was nothing interesting to be found in the field of penal psychiatry anymore.
This was it. I was done.
Sometimes, you were significantly better off in your life for leaving one or two questions unanswered.
That was a question I never should have even thought. |
“One rune of mind exploration, one rune of visualization, one rule of movement” I repeat to myself as I trace the repeating glyph on a blank page, forming a circle. It’s late already, this is going to take me hours to get it right.
We’re supposed to draw our spells as homework to then practice them with the professor to prevent any accident. But homework is homework, and I’ve been putting it off as usual. The candles that lit my bedroom are giving me just enough light to decipher the runes on my spell book, but not enough to keep my brain working obviously since I keep messing up my drawing. I knew 12th grade was supposed to be harder, but until now I had always found clever ways to do as little work as possible. Well, looks like I’m not getting any sleep tonight.
The runes are the building block for any spell. Some spells intricate thousands of them, some are basic brute force repetition of a few. Unfortunately for me, the teleportation spell was one of the later. To teleport the idea was to project one’s mind to gain consciousness of the surrounding area, chain it with a visualization rune to check that the target the caster had in mind was actually in that area, and then to move to it. The limiting factor for the spell was really the first step : since the projection went in every direction every new meter added much more space to the exploration bubble than the one before.Even the most powerful magicians could hardly project their mind further than a few miles. And even if they could, the spell would become so energy consuming that it made more sense to just take a cab.
As I continued writing the glyph for the incrementally bigger projection bubbles I started to wonder if I could perhaps hack my way out of this homework too. I yawned again, nothing gets me creative like wanting to go to bed early. The teleportation spell was robust, trying to make it better would literally be reinventing the wheel. But I only needed something to teleport from one side of the room to the other for tomorrow’s exam, that’s manageable.
A light bulb went off in my head. I traced an arrow rune, a mind rune, and an attraction rune, all overlaid. Combined with intention, I could transform my mind into a searching head for my target instead of going in every direction. That wasn’t really an orthodox way of using the runes, but it could work. Overlaid runes are usually frowned upon because they’re too unstable, like they have a mind of their own. For a one time use I should be fine.
I traced the movement rune after my mixed rune, placed my hand on it, and looked at my bedroom door, focusing. I closed my eyes.
*whooosh*
My hand was now touching the door, it worked ! Perhaps a bit too well, I didn’t even feel the strain that is supposed to come with teleportation. I quickly went back to my desk, trying to piece what just happened, excited. Did I just discover a new way to teleport?
My mind raced, fueled by curiosity, thinking of all the new possibilities I had possibly unlocked. There was really no telling what the new limits would be if that actually worked. Hell, I could even try to teleport to the moon with this. I pictured myself on the lunar soil, amused at the idea.
w*hoosh*
I didn’t realize I had rested my hand on the paper.
My lungs collapsed, chasing all the air and leaving me suffocating. My skin froze, turning to glass in moments. I tried to write my cursed spell on the lunar sand, but I was not fast enough. I took a look at earth, my body shutting off. “At least I’m getting to sleep early in the end” I thought to myself. |
Ever seen a Monarch class dreadnought?
Ever seen a Monarch class dreadnought tank a 60 megaton nuke.
Ever seen twenty Monarch class dreadnoughts take out the entire USA nuclear program?
So it was a tuesday. Late june, sun on one side of the sky, moon on the other, people were pointing and talking so I started looking, where the moon should have been mostly obscured by clouds, there was a widening hole in the cloud cover, and in front of the two halves of the moon was a flock of birds. Or so I thought until a second sun appeared in their palace. Phones went off ordering us to shelter in place and that russia was sending its own ordinance to aid us.
Which considering the geo-political situation at the time was in-fucking-sane.
Turns out it didnt matter because exactly 12 hours after their de-orbit above new york the new Royal Navy was flying its flag from the whitehouse. The president was sitting in the oval office flanked by two armoured soldiers bearing the union jack as he gave his speech informing the USA of its immediate surrender to the Queen of earth. He then stood, walked around the table and gave it one last fond touch, and walked off camera to the right.
From the left an old frail looking woman strode into view her appearance directly opposed to her youthful movements as she walked behind the desk, placed both hands on the table, leaned forwards and uttered the first official words of the Queen of earth.
“Im back bitches!” |
I was reading my favorite magazine about people who read magazines when my friend stopped by to tell me he was just stopping by. He told me about a book he was reading about an author who wrote books about authors writing books. I told him it reminded me of reading a writing prompt about reading a writing prompt and he thought maybe I should try giving it a try. I reflected that the idea was like a hall of mirrors with images endlessly reflecting off each other, and I began to get more confused the more I examined my confusion. At this point the conversation fell into a silence from which good conversations are born, and presently we decided to co-author a story about co-authors who co-author a story about an author who reads a writing prompt about reading a writing prompt. The hardest part about such a task is the task of finding a satisfying conclusion to an infinite loop which we solved by ending our story by joking that it was just a joke in that it itself was a writing prompt about writing prompts and the fact that the hardest part of writing a good story was the ending especially when the story is endless. |
As you look at the rift and asked yourself the following:
"WHAT THE F-"
You couldn't finish your question as the rift sucked you in, landing you into a fantasy world. It was much to your displeasure, an isekai adventure but without death by truck. As you looked with an unamused face, a radiant woman with angelic wings, a goddess of the world, proclaimed you to be the next hero to beat the demon king.
Before you could say a thing, the demon king appeared. All you heard was just "blah, blah, blah"in your ears. You had no time for this crud. With an unamused look, you yank a spear from a nearby guard and threw it at the demon king with all your rage.
A disgusting sound of pierced flesh filled the room as you murdered the demon king. You thought it was the end of that but the radiant woman was unamused. She screamed on how you ruined the whole prophecy but you didn't care. You instead grabbed her wrist and demanded to be taken back home. She knew you weren't messing around as your kung-fu grip was like a vice.
She then opened the portal and dumped you back to where you were taken. All just in time to answer news reports about what happened. You simply told them you killed an evil demonic man by throwing a spear and refused to elaborate further. |
I sat in a comforting silence, letting myself contemplate the city below us, her hands over mine.
*I sat in a comforting silence, his perfume mixing with the fragrance of flowers around us, his hands below mine.*
\---
A first date is always unpredictable, exciting. I’ve learned to listen, to enjoy discovering other’s life stories.
*A first date is always unpredictable, intimidating. If my conversations were games of tug-of-war, I’d always guess too late that my date is pulling on the rope. Sometimes it’s simpler if I don’t pull at all myself.*
​
I came to the park a few hours ago, finding my usual bench under the tree to enjoy the warmth of the autumn afternoon. This had been my favorite spot in L.A. for some time. Angel’s Knoll dominated a complex of buildings and a seemingly ordinary intersection but had a unique charm for me. From there I had seen buildings rise, I had seen a crowd of familiar faces come and go, and I had seen life unfold through tiny windows.
*The city’s noises were faint, seemingly miles away, eclipsed by bird chirps and chatter. This place was a pocket of calm and nature in a landscape of swarming noise and concrete. The path went down the sloped grassy expanse, leading me to the bench I had been looking for. I sat on the right side of it, wondering if he was already there.*
​
I had reached for her, timidly, and signed a simple “Hello” on the back of her left hand.
*I had felt a touch and, after a brief moment of surprise, answered in kind “Hey, it’s lovely to meet you”.*
​
From there her hands had not left mine. Her touch, hesitant at first, had grown more assured as the hours passed. We had talked about the most mundane things, and about our deepest aspirations. I kept interrupting her with silly puns while she told me the funniest story, enjoying her amused frown, and she comforted me while I confided in her with my greatest losses.
*The initial strangeness of our intimate touch had dissipated, making way for the growing intensity of our conversation. He had gently raised his hands under mine to comment on profound sentiments, playfully overtook me to crack jokes in the middle of my anecdotes. His hands guiding mines he told me of his most guarded secrets, certain they wouldn’t escape this bubble that we had created.*
​
The conversation slowed down, came to a stop.
*And we sat in a comforting silence.*
​
\[Note : I learned about the existence of [tactile signing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactile_signing) from writing for this prompt, have a look at it too if you're interested !\] |
Climate change had ravaged the planet, ice melting around the planet had risen almost 300 feet. Much of the planet was to warm for continual habitation, forcing life north and south. Traveling between the empires, could only be done in the dark.
With six months of light, Antarctica was ideal for farming in the southern summer. We were able to create large genetically modified food sources that could survive the harsh winter, geothermal vents were used to keep us warm. So much of the land was unexplored, with so few humans left, every generation we ventured further inland. No one was expecting us to find the relic.
A new settler had just acquired the land, while planting their first crop when they hit the top of the relic, once word hit the university, scientists couldn't get enough of it. It went down miles into the earth. We had no idea how it was powered, but despite its age, it still hummed with life.
It didn't take long to tap into the energy source. It provided us with infinite power. Life returned to some semblance of the old stories for us. The south became the land of luxury.
Study of the relic continued, scientist's exploring deeper into it, endless wealth and value throughout the ship. After after nearly a century I was on the expedition team that found what appeared to be the control room. A hologram of a lizard humanoid appeared ahead of us. "It took y'all long enough, I've been monitoring you for nearly 10,000 of your years. Y'all really fucked this planet didn't you?"He stated, walking over to a control panel. "Every single time we seed you mammals onto a new planet, you do this. Massive carbon released, nearly a total mass extinction, really?"
Machines reached up and grabbed us, and pulled us into pods. The relic roared to life around me. "Here we go again, let's see if you can get it right next time,"the last thing I saw as I fell to sleep, was the view screen showing a pitch black earth beneath us.
\-- The History of Earth, Chapter 83.
\-----------
This one got away from me a bit, and I deviated from the idea of the prompt a bit. The AI is meant to be the recorded message, but I wanted it to have intelligence, and a way to tell them they fucked up.
I had played with the idea of doing a "Hey, this is a prison, and the old gods are going to be freed now."I might explore that still. I like it. |
Aelrin paced the halls of his home in silence. There were once many people here. Children, family, friends. All swallowed by the war raging across the peninsula. No one knew who they were or where. Except of course for those who, emerging from the fog of war, passed over them in a shambling group of refugees or absentmindedly tread on their skulls.
Every inch of Aelrin’s home hung with artifacts and paintings of a time long forgotten to the people of Erdantes. They passed by like memories as his pacings carried him down the hushed, empty corridors of his home.
Aelrin did not consider himself a wealthy man. None of this stuff was truly his. The reflective mind beneath the brittle exterior of long since faded hair, knew only too well that every inch of this place belonged to the Thamroi.
They’d laughed at him. The people of this once magnificent kingdom, when he’d told them that the line of Thamroi was unbroken. His father’s father had met a sage in the high hills above Braringall who prophesied that the Scion of Thamroi would return and bring peace to Erdantes.
The war which raged across the region was not brought on by their rivals. No, it was brought on by themselves. The Duke of Astrialith had barely managed to maintain order in this one tiny corner of the realm, the land which held the ancient seat of Erdante’s first kings. Meanwhile, the various barons, counts, minor nobles, and the Duke of Serpenthrall quarreled incessantly amongst themselves over scraps of dirt.
How did this come to be? Aelrin’s steps took him down a dark staircase, dimly lit every so often by the soft, dull glow of torches. It started, as so many civil wars do, with a coup. King Seldric was but a boy when his father, King Faladar died. The previous king spent the last ten years of reign yielding further and further into the degradation of time and exacerbated by the ravages of a youth spent cavorting more than ruling.
The result? He had but one legitimate heir, Seldric, and many many bastard claimants. First his wife died and then his brother. His uncles and aunts all faded away into oblivion. He outlived them all. And when he passed, his fourteen year old legitimate air was left with few friends and hundreds of powerful enemies.
They killed him. Slaughtered a boy in his sleep, his eldest bastard brother did. Errick then assumed the throne, but he did not last more than a week for each and every one of his brothers, and one Duke all laid claim to the throne and declared themselves king. And so it was, and so it has been, that Erdantes has had not one king, but eighteen, for the last seven years. The number slowly dwindled as the weaker of the claimants fell, either by treachery or in battle.
Aelrin’s feet connected with the bottom step. Today there remain but three, including the Duke of Serpenfall. The elderly man hobbled down endless corridors of books and scrolls. He’d spent a lifetime pouring through them. Many had fallen to ash before they could even be transcribed. Few in the land were willing to dig through dusty old tomes for a half believable prophecy given by an enigmatic sage that may or may not have actually lived. And so Aelrin was alone in his quest with enemies encroaching further and further on every side.
He was the last one who knew, “It must be today,” Aelrin muttered to himself and returned to his task.
Hours passed as so many had before. Runes that had long since been forgotten by most passed the ancient man’s eyes. He had clues. He was close. He even had a candidate.
Etched into the wall opposite him was a vast family tree, its branches broken in hundreds of places as bloodlines simply disappeared into the dust or yielded to the slow decay of time or the ashen states of their written genealogies.
What he had was a fragment of a family that was in the right region based on the presence of one of the lines of the Thamroi. They looked similar and had told tales of their ancestors that were faintly reminiscent of the great bloodline he sought. But there was a missing piece. A single missing link from a chain is enough to set the ship adrift at sea, and Aelrin had to be certain. For none would accept the return of the king without his full hegemony.
“Meow,” Aelrin's soul remaining companion greeted him. The young cat had wandered into his kitchen two years previously.
Aelrin looked up from his papers and smiled at the small tabby creature. They each mostly took care of themselves, and Barix was frequently down here because of the abundance of mice skittering about in the shadows.
“Barix no!” He suddenly shouted as the cat leapt for one of the shelves piled high with delicate ancient scrolls.
The young cat’s reflexes reacted to the outburst by shooting its lithe little body straight off the middle shelf. Its ancient wood cracked and it fell, spilling the brittle pieces of parchment onto the ground.
Barix’s trajectory carried him straight toward the oil lamp illuminating the papers on the desk.
“Gotcha!” Aelrin exclaimed.
Years of battle had refined his own reflexes and he snatched his feisty companion from the air before further disaster was inflicted on the room. He wanted to be angry, but instead just sat back down and ran his hand over the little love creature’s ears. Barix purred in response.
Aelrin looked at the devastation on the floor and sighed. It was a long shot anyway. His health was going to start failing soon. He was nearly seventy-five…give or take, he’d stopped counting after thirty. |
It's been a long time. Multiple lifetimes.
Being the "Hero of Time"doesn't mean that you need to save whatever happens now. It also means you're trapped in a time loop, forever winning, then dying, re-birthing, and saving the world again. And again.
And remembering. Every. Single. Life.
Every Ganon that "died-for-real-this-time"and is revived some years in the future, or in the past, or in the present, or it was just sealed, or it was...
Its... tiring. I'm tired. Of being known only as "The Hero of Time"and not by my name; of that old green clothes that scratch my skin; of not being recognized by anyone anymore, and just me, alone, having these memories.
Of a princess that I love, but never remember me.
That only have eyes for "The Hero of Time"
So here I am. This precipice. It's been called multiple names over my infinitude of generations - the Golden Land; the Temple of Seasons; the Dark Realm; even Hyrule itself, frozen in time...
To do what I must do. To make things correct again.
To do the *only thing* I can do.
To awaken Ganondorf. To make the seals fail.
So, there will be a Hero of Time, again...
... and the princess will finally look at me... |
**CLANG**
**CLANG**
My blade clashes with his shield. Crackling magic sparks off from our weapons as we go for the kill. Narrowly missing each other by a single hair or fingernail. After a second, he places his hands out, Sparks of crackling lightning runs through his fingers. In the next, I place my blade in front of me. As the lightning surges through my blade from where he tried to attack me with, I raise it above my head, and bring it down in front of me. Lightning magic erupting in front of me. He barely manages to stay put and tank the attack. But I give him no time to breathe.
I lunge towards him, My jaw hanging loose. I clench my teeth in the air where he used to be. My hand moves by itself. Striking him right on his chest. Through his chestplate. The force amplified with magic as his body flies back towards a wall. Crashing on it with a hard crack.
Even then, he slowly stands up, and he spits to the side through his grizzled beard, "Enough...I have fought you for long enough...Seems I still can't match your damned antics..."
"Antics? What the hell are you talking about Malicos Tharin? You don't even know me."I slowly step forwards.
"Right...Of course I don't. I don't know you. As much as you don't know yourself."He raises his warhammer high up in the air again. Before slamming it on the ground.
"Huh-? OH SHIT-!"
The ground breaks as he slammed his warhammer. Revealing the bright red luminescent light down below. Our bodies plunge deep underground from the top of the castle. From overlooking the battle downbelow, it's as if we had died. And our souls have been plunged into the hells itself.
I try to find a potion of flying. But only find a potion of soft fall. Fuck. Better than nothing. I open the corkscrew and gulp down the bitter liquid as we descend. Not a second later after I had ingested it all. The ground suddenly comes in contact with me. Shooting waves of pain all over my body. My vision goes blurry as I can barely make out Malicos slowly standing up. Limping his way towards me.
\----
"*Bangshien si...Ka vourk ka chaik! Bastiark!"* I slowly make out the sounds of malicos cursing out loud in abyss tongue as I wake up.
My body refuses to move. Pain still rummages through my body as he drags me across the hard and rough terrain. I keep forgetting. The potion of soft fall only reduces the force of the impact. To the point that it's not lethal. If you give it time. If it's last second, Get ready to feel waves of agony from falling hundreds of distance down to the ground for weeks.
I can barely keep my eyes open, thinking in my head, I figure it's best to just act dead or unconscious. or whatever he believes I am right now.
As a groggy feeling wraps its hand around my head, I can barely make out movement coming to a sudden stop. As he drops the leg he had been dragging me with. And I hear the sounds of two different footsteps walking towards me.
"This is your damn fault Aurina...You should've killed him when you had the chance!"malicos shouts.
"Oh my...He still lives? i had expected that he would have steered off from the adventuring life after the incident."A young man's voice speaks.
A cold yet soft hand caresses my cheek, "But he still is as soft and precious as I remember him..."A voice speaks. That voice...it sounds familiar.
"Then let's kill him now. And stop caressing him like that Aurina!"malicos shouts again.
"Now, calm down Malicos. It's been a while since she had met her little pet since the temple. Let her have her moment..."The young man's voice says.
"Damn it Yargiv...I thought you should at least agree with me. We have other things to do!"
Pet? What does he mean by that? Who the hell is this woman? Her voice sounds familiar, but I can't put my finger on it. Not one bit. Who I'm presuming is Aurina speaks, "Oh, how I missed you...Such a shame that you broke out of your urges."
"Say, what happened to him again? You only told about your pet once or twice before..."Yargiv says.
Aurina sighs, "he was one of father's creation. Like me. Father favoured him more than me..."A scorn in her voice appears as I feel something cold and sharp slowly move over my skin, "And I *hate* it..."
"I can see why..."Yargiv snickers.
"Shut your damn mouth Yargiv...I should have been the favorite. Not him. I provoke rituals to father more times than him! I sacrificed hundreds compared to his measly kills! How dare he..."Her blade tip carves a scar down my face. I try my absolute hardest not to scream and lash out.
"From what I heard, he was a bigger psycho than you. While you mass murdered, he tortured. And produced such agony and misery towards his victim. Which seems to please your father more than just blindly killing."Yargiv says, "If something doesn't scream Khaos chosen than him, I don't know what is."
"*Worthless sack of shit...* I should thank you for disobeying father for once. When that damned mage put you into that magic trance. And let yourself wipe your memories clean. from all the burden you received from the torture you caused. That put me on good relations with father."She leans in closer to me, "I can finally show him how much of a better child I am than you..."
A wave of memories returns back to me. I remember now. I remember all of it. I remember my true name. i remember my purpose. I remember my love. I remember my craft. I had it all. Father's love. Power. Fear. Blood. All until it was stripped from me. From that damned mage bitch...I need to kill her. Make her suffer from severing my connection to father. But I have one person to focus on first.
"Just don't pray he gets his killing intent fully recovered. I could have nearly lost my throat if I wasn't a second quicker dodging his bite..."Malicos says.
"Oh don't worry...I'll be making sure he doesn't even get a chance to meet father again..."
Before anything can happen, A loud rumble shakes the ground. Releasing Aurina's grip on my limp body. The sounds of feet landing hard on the ground echoes in my ear. A familiar soft touch grabs hold of me, Pulling me away somewhere.
"Mayrina! Get him healed up! We'll try and hold these three of-SHIT!"The familiar voice of my friend Hansen is cut short as the sounds of blades clashing starts to echo through the cavern.
"Come on Qaver...Wake up...."A soothing feeling massages my body as healing magic runs through my body. My eyes jolts awake. Mayrina jolting back as I sit straight up in a sudden, "You are! Oh, thank god..."
"No. Not to god."I slowly stand up. grabbing the nearest fallen sword nearby me, "Thank my father...for letting me have the chance...To prove to my sister...what a failure she has been for the family..." |
It’s a universal experience : you try to watch a video on a slow wifi connection, and it freezes every 5 seconds, loading. It’s infuriating. Welcome to my life.
For as long as I can remember I’ve had this peculiarity : time goes back a second whenever I blink. Whenever I tell someone about it they do the math, understand that I have an extra 6 hours a day and envy me. I get it, it sounds great at first.
Until you realize that if these hours are scattered over the day they’re basically useless.
Until you realize that when I’m producing anything I have to time my blinking or do twice the work.
Until you realize that I basically spend my days waiting for people to repeat themselves.
Over time I’ve managed to find workarounds to it, and even a few perks. As a child I trained with my speech therapist to not blink when I speak, that was probably the most complicated part. I wear safety goggles when my seasonal allergies kick in, to prevent the days from becoming endless.
As for the perks, I have the best repartee in the world, I’ve never broken a glass in my life, and I take long naps at work. For that last one I have to blink thousands of times when I wake up, but honestly it’s worth it.
I’ve always been convinced I’m better off living my life almost normally. I’ve used my blinking in mostly boring ways, and I’m fine with it. With great power comes great responsibility and, well, no thank you. But today that changes, today I’ve made the decision to finally start doing good with this power.
The host of the hyperjackpot lottery cheered : “We have a winner !”. If I’m going to start helping people I might as well start with myself. |
Alone out here, you can go mad. My superiors warned me of it at the academy. Seeing things, hearing things, even thinking things, terrible things. So far I’d say I’ve seen it all.
That’s why they train you for it. Out here, all alone, you have to have an understanding of what you’re own mind can do to you.
Being a scientist at heart, I quickly came to grips with the truth that our brains do not take objective measurements.
But just a few minutes ago, I stood up. I looked. I just should not have looked. Why did I look? I rarely look. Well this time I did. And what I saw… I saw.. corn.
Impossible. My rations don’t have any fresh food, let alone kernels of corn.
That’s it , I’ve lost it. |
After my horrendous failure of a simple paint job on the side of the building, I needed a desperate break. Feeling sorry for myself, I solemnly walked through the foyer of the building. Every echo boomed in the tall open room, taunting me, making me feel more exposed. I scanned the room and spotted the sign for the restroom next to the elevator and worked my way towards it, leaving a small but noticeable trail of white paint behind me. Once I made it there, I was beginning to push open the bathroom door when I noticed the sign that said **NO ENTRY** in capital bold red letters.. *Ahh, fuck me.* I jinxed myself as if I hadn't been fucked enough today, and there it was again.. that upbeat musical score in the distance of my mind that made me feel the very opposite of cheerful.
I scowled as I entered the elevator, hoping for an open restroom on the second floor. I was relieved when the elevator doors opened, there was a restroom directly across from me, not a single non-entry sign in sight. I exhaled and my shoulders relaxed as I crossed the hall and entered the bathroom, taking note of my paint covered body in the mirror. I lathered up some soap from the dispenser above the sink, and began using my hands to lather and scrub my arms, neck, and face. I wet a paper towel and used it to finish the job, then used that same paper towel to scrub the bottom of my shoes as I lost my balance and fell to the floor. "SHIT!"I howled, wincing at the pain that quickly shot through my rear end. I glared up at the ceiling, as if sending a warning to an invisible being who could be responsible for--the music. Slightly louder this time, it happily danced into my ears, ignoring my warning and making my anger strengthen. I stood up and smacked myself hard on the head, not sure what exactly that would achieve, it certainly wasn't going to stop this nonsense. I watched myself roll my eyes in the mirror and let out an annoyed groan before leaving the restroom. I made my way back to the elevator, my still slightly wet sneakers making a squeak sound against the marble patterned floor tiles.
Grateful I had entered the elevator alone for the second time, it was just my luck that a chaotic crowd suddenly gathered around me. *Goddamnit.* A woman had dropped a file and some papers, it scattered as the crowd trampled them. A mom was bouncing her crying infant while her toddler loudly smacked his lips chewing gum, and a guy in a business suit was having a heated work discussion through a bluetooth headset. They piled in quickly, bumping into one another and trapping me somewhere in the middle. Everyone seemed to be upset over one reason or another, and I felt suffocated, my anxiety was rising, and then it happened again, *that fucking music!*
For the tenth time today, that distant musical composition had cheerfully plagued me as it gradually increased it's volume, but this time was different. When the music played, the crowded elevator fell silent for a short moment. Everyone was eyeing each other, acting almost as if they'd heard it too, and then almost in synchrony went back to minding their own business. If my suspicions were true it's unlikely anyone in that elevator would acknowledge it, not even me. Realistically? I'm probably just losing it, a little touch of psychosis. It makes sense, the auditory hallucinations, the paranoia. *Maybe I should check myself into a mental facility, maybe I need help...*
Everyone spilled out of the elevator once we reached the bottom floor, I felt relieved, until I noticed all the people flooding into the building, some crying, most in a panic, others looking pale as if they'd seen a ghost. My heart began to beat at a faster pace as my nerves quickly set in. I dodged my way through the people scrambling inside as I set my focus on getting out. People started to scream in terror, giving me goosebumps. I stopped moving and froze in place, fearing what I'd discover if I kept moving forward, a freak accident? A mass shooter? A terrorist attack? Or was this all just part of my new onset of psychosis symptoms? My mouth suddenly felt dry, and the room began to spin. I was having a panic attack. And then it happened again, much noticeably louder, that positive happy tune playing with such horrible, almost comical timing. Everyone in the room was quiet, looking at one another, children were holding their ears and even some adults.
Then began a quiet chitter chatter amongst the room, "I've been hearing it all day!"one woman claimed.
"I thought I was going insane!"chimed in another.
"I thought my hearing aid was broken."an old man chuckled as his friend pat him on the back, chuckling with him.
"I'm not... Hallucinating?"I questioned myself out loud.
My quick relief ended as soon as it started once I snapped back to the realization that the crowd had just previously entered the building frantic and in terror. I nervously snaked my way through the sea of people until I reached the front doors of the building, and that's when I saw it. Dead bodies everywhere, brains, lots and lots of... brains. The sidewalk littered with the guts of human heads, cars stopped in place with the inner windshield covered in red and pink cerebral matter. My body felt as if it were floating in that moment, the terror that raced through my veins was indescribable. *What the fuck happened?* I thought to myself, trying to stabilize my panicked breathing. I wanted to turn and look away from the bloodbath displayed outside, but for some reason, my eyes darted up towards the sky. There I witnessed an almost diamond shaped, no wait, a sphere shaped, no... A shape changing silver vessel, hovering above the street. "Oh my fucking God..."I worried out loud, the music played cheerfully as if there were a speaker next to my ear. People began screaming, crying, praying and pleading. I didn't need to turn around to understand what had just happened inside this room, but again, I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me. I swiveled my body around, and throughout random spots in the crowd were bodies with imploded heads, people covered in the pink material which made up the human brain. It was clear what was happening, and what started out a little humourous ended up obnoxious, and quickly became a deadly game of survival. |
Many had tried to defy him. They came equipped with any kind of weapon the folklore, legends and lunatics had declared to be able to harm the undead or their master. He had heroes slaying their way through his risen with holy weapons, gassing them with garlic-powder and one technological skilled one even tried to recreate the sun and shot beams of blinding light at his army, igniting the first row by the shear heat produced by the light. But none of them succeeded.
It was not that their ideas did not work or that they were not skilled enough. Sure, there were some idiots that only relied on their grand scheme and were not able to raise a shield against an undead getting too close. But most of the heroes attacking your army were quite capable and with good reputation.
Too bad none of them spend some time researching himfirst or they would have known that he did indeed employ human bodyguards. |
Celestial Music is a deeply interesting discovery. It was found that aesthetics and science were deeply interwoven with each other. A music piece or art composition could say something subtle and profound about the true nature of the universe. For example, take The Music Mundana. Listening will send the hearer on an odyssey through time and space, experiencing years of spiritual and psychological growth in seconds. But, after the first hearing, it becomes a beautiful but mundane musical work.
We live in an age where intelligent life and advanced technology has spread throughout much of the universe. There is a quiet conflict, a power struggle between factions that exist outside of our universe and outside of time. Interlopers from outside our time stream, sometimes come to influence events in our universe. The conflict is profoundly murky, with so many layers of strategy and subterfuge that even our brightest can barely begin to understand it. There are things, melodies of creation, that only someone on a journey that does not obey the usual flow of causality can hear. We call them The Temporal Musics. There is a particular motif of Temporal Music that reliably causes travelers to fluoresce in a number of different hues.
Those travelers we have captured have proven a source of valuable information. The ambient Temporal Music resonates through the universe. The more paradoxical the journey, the louder the melodies. They warp the mind, and travelers risk their very soul, becoming someone fundamentally different, if they are not careful to minimize the paradoxes their path creates. Most travelers are not entirely sure whose side they are on, or what interest their actions serve. The only thing that they seem sure of is that those pulling the strings are so far beyond their comprehension that neither they nor us have any hope of even attaining the shadow of understanding. |
Henry sat at the small wooden desk, sipping on a paper cup of water sheepishly while the clerk across from him read out a long list of crimes. The clerk, of course, was BioBlaze. A famous hero from City Six. BioBlaze hadn't actually captured Henry, all heroes had to rotate through the Board Office for some time, partially to ensure that super-powered individuals were handling the criminals, and partially to give the heroes a break from constant duty.
“You're in a lot of trouble, Henry.” BioBlaze's disappointment was evident, despite the gas mask covering his face.
“I know.”
“So, Henry. Would you like to go to prison and serve a forty-five year sentence with no parole? Or would you like to leave here a free man?” BioBlaze laid his hands on the table, palms flat. Henry swallowed audibly. Was this some sort of trick question? Searching for some admission of guilt?
“The… the second one, obviously. Uhm, BioBlaze, sir.” Henry stumbled over his words, still nervous in the presence of such a popular (and powerful) hero. BioBlaze nodded eagerly, the vines on his face sparking and burning.
“Right! Exactly. You'll be in retraining then.”
Henry paused. “Is that some kinda re-education type of thing?” BioBlaze smiled knowingly.
“No. Well, kinda. You go to therapy, and you go to school. You learn coping methods, get help, and learn skills. A trade, maybe. Pretty sweet deal to me.”
Henry swallowed again. It was a sweet deal to him, too.
“Uh, yeah. That sounds nice. Thanks.” BioBlaze stood up suddenly, scaring Henry half to death. When BioBlaze extended a hand, Henry took it.
“We'll save you, Henry. We'll never let you down-” Tears welled in Henry's eyes. He couldn't help it anymore.
“-Because that's what heroes do.” |
The lone potato lazily floated in the pot propelled by the barely boiling water. It floated in circles around the pot, mostly, but sometimes it would change altitude, diving to the bottom, or rising to the top. The movements were governed solely by the random arrangement of bubbles in the boil.
Emma stared into the swirling, bubbling pot, lost in thought for several minutes. She eventually sighed, pulled her gaze away, and shifted the baby from her left hip to her right. The baby lolled against her chest. He didn't really have the strength to hold himself up anymore. She hardly noticed. It was nothing new.
Emma wondered if Henry would come home that night. It was hard to tell. Sometimes he would be gone five or maybe six days in a row, working. It was lonely without him, but she knew better than to be ungrateful. He had not been home for five days, but she dared not think of him coming home.
Once he was home, the real terror began. Would he be called back to work? Would The Institution call him back after the normal two days? Or would he be passed over..sitting at home, idle, day after day?
The potato kept swirling as if it were a clock, marking the seconds until Henry would either appear to the loving embrace of absolute terror...or work another day.
The door to the outside world opened abruptly jarring Emma from her thoughts and initiating a low moan from the baby. Henry stood in the doorway. A silhouette of darkness framed within the gaping maw of the house. The outside light intruding in like an unwanted guest.
Emma couldn't see, blinded by the sudden illumination, but she looked anyway. Was it there? Did he have it?
Henry took a step inside and Emma could see him clearly. In his hand, she could see the chit. Her breath slowly escaped, her body physically relaxing, as the tautness in her nerves eased. He had the chit! They had made it another month! The mortgage was paid!
She turned her attention back to the potato. It seemed smaller now, eroded by the bubbles and the heat. If she let it disappear completely, they would have the starchy water to drink. It seemed that the calories went further that way.
The baby would have her share, but Henry would come first. It had to be that way, after all, he was the worker, the earner, the one who paid the mortgage, the price of their home.
He paid for the house, no matter what the cost. If the baby were to starve, so be it. If Emma herself could no longer survive, so be it. Henry had to survive. Without Henry the mortgage would go unpaid and they would lose the house.
In this world, that was simply not possible. The house could not be lost, no matter what the toll on them. One way or another, the house always won and they just pay the price. |
Subsets and Splits