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Battered, beaten, and bruised from the long fight, the master spy was dragged in front of the henchmen's employer and head of the agency, Yuriy Stanislav.
"So, you thought you could walk in here and disrupt our plans?" he asked. He didn't expect a response. This was made crystal clear by the sound of a gunshot, followed by the thud of the body as it collapsed on the ground.
The henchmen stumbled backwards. "What the hell, man? You're supposed to tell him our evil plan!"
"What on earth for? So he can escape and foil it? Screw that." Yuriy said as he continued preparing the machine vital to the undertaking at hand.
"It's good plot development! Who cares if you beat your nemesis in the first act? It makes the entire rest of the story pointless!" the henchman spit out with hesitation.
Yuriy raised his eyebrow. "Plot development? Who cares. I'm not in this for a fun story to tell my grandchildren, I want to rule the world. If a few plot conventions get broken along the way, I couldn't care less."
The other henchman who had been by the body spoke up. "But... what if he wasn't the spy?"
Yuriy laughed. "Who else would he be?"
"Well, was he working alone? Or maybe he was just some random guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, we would know these things if you had interrogated him!" the Henchman yelled.
Yuriy laughed again. "No, my dear henchperson. We would only know what he told us, which may or may not have had any relationship whatsoever with the truth. We're better off not knowing what he would have told us."
A henchwoman in the back spoke up "But who was he working for? And will they send more people?"
Yuriy put down his tool "Look, I'm paying you people to hench. You're not henching right now. You're keeping me from my work, here. The answer to the first question is 'who cares', and the second one is 'probably', so get back to work. We have a plan, here, and we should stick to it."
The henchmen grumbled. The last villain they had worked for was so easy to get into an evil monologue. The henchmen loved evil monologues, it gave them a break from work while it also allowed the protagonists to escape and foil the plot. And henchmen only really had to work during the final few hours of these things, most of the time their jobs consisted of walking around in the background and looking busy. This new guy was all work and no play.
The henchmen grumbled and got back to work. | 248 | An evil genius shocks his henchmen by shooting the super spy they have just captured in the head. | 213 |
I come from a very long, renowned line of shapeshifters.
My family has documented our gift far, far back into the reaches of mankind, and it appears that in almost every generation we've had at least a few truly great and influential people. It isn't surprising. Having an ability like this - a super power as the world generally refers to it - is an enormous responsibility, but it also places a great power in a human being's hands.
What someone does with my family's gift is entirely up to the person who possesses it, as are all *super* *powers*. You've certainly heard and read about my family, but those people aren't my concern right now.
I am twenty-one years old. Up until this day, this moment right now, I've been the fuck-up. I was born the middle child, and I was unable to transform until I was eighteen. Mom called me a "late bloomer" and Dad just scoffed. My older sister Cadence was shifting by eleven, and my younger brother Danny is shifting at nine.
When I still wasn't transforming by sixteen I told myself it was because my alternate form would be something great... something mighty and powerful, like my ancestors from the past.
Imagine my surprise when I shifted for the first time one morning - I won't say what I was doing - into a loaf of rye bread. Does anyone like rye?
I was humiliated. More than that, I was terrified to tell my father that his oldest son shapeshifted into *bread*. When I did it wasn't pretty. In fact, my parents insisted I stay at the live-in dorms at my community college. Mom said it was to get me on my own feet, Dad confirmed the truth when he just couldn't stand to look at me anymore.
Life hasn't been easy since. I ended up traveling, trying to help people in need with abilities that humans are naturally born with. I've not been very good at that either though. I don't have funds, and I can't speak foreign languages, and mostly I've just been a hermit, wandering from village to village, resting where I can and eating what I can find. I've got some money, but just enough to get by.
Today's the day, though. I'll admit, I'm afraid. Still, I can't go back, and there's nothing ahead. Today I will no longer be a fuck-up. I only wish that Dad could see me now.
There were two children here moments ago. They were picking through a dumpster with swollen bellies and fragile bones. They'd stood on their toes shakily, their arms elbow-deep in someone else's filth, searching for anything to eat. One had gestured to the other and spoke to him, telling him they should go get their father.
They'll be back. And I'll be here... waiting.
I hope they like rye. | 23 | You have the lamest super power. But somehow, it's going to save the day. | 31 |
Carla placed two loaded guns on either end of a long table and waited for her lover and enemy to enter the room. She had a little time, so she wanted to look her best.
Carla whipped out her compact mirror and applied a deep red lipstick, aquamarine eye shadow to accentuate her light blue eyes, and brushed her brown curls absentmindedly. Even her aura glowed brightly today. To her eyes, her face, like the world, like her aura were shades of a vibrant yet monochromatic gray. But she had to look her best since this might be her last day alive. She smiled, then sighed and sunk into her seat.
A week ago, her aura sense had awakened. Two men in her life suddenly sported auras, but she couldn’t tell lover from foe. So on a whim, she had visited the oracle. Carla didn’t have to say a word, for as soon as the oracle saw her, a single tear rolled down her cheek. Carla beseeched her, but she wouldn’t reveal her scrying. Finally, the oracle relented when Carla threatened to report her misconduct to the oracle licensing board.
The oracle thus spoke, “In one week, I see you in a room. Your soul mate and enemy are there. I see death.”
“How will I know my enemy from my true lover? I am color blind so their auras will look the same color.”
“Fate was not kind to you, but that’s all I can see.”
Carla explained, “My father railed against fate, said his decision was his alone. So instead of falling for the fair haired woman with the loving blue aura, he married his cousin. I guess fate is getting its revenge.”
The oracle nodded, “But you should know that upon death, one’s aura glows so brightly that the truth reveals itself. Your enemy’s aura will appear crimson red to you.”
So Carla had to devise this little ruse. To see if she could trick fate into giving her a lifetime with her lover. Her lover must kill her enemy. She just hoped that her true love had a quicker draw before she was cut down by her foe.
At the appointed time, John arrived first, dressed impeccably in his sports jacket and tie, his monochrome aura all aglow. His fragrance brought back happy memories of their time working at Bane & Sothers Law together, taking down the corrupt, and their carnal celebrations in empty court rooms. They embraced as a knock sounded. John shot her a quizzical look, but she motioned him to his seat at the table, and turned to the door.
George looked equally ravishing all decked out in chef white. She stifled a giggle as his aura framed his face and toque like Jesus wearing a bonnet. The delicious fragrance of freshly baked bread clung to him, and recalled their times making mad passionate love atop the dough table. She sat him at the other end of the table and took her seat in the center.
The men exchanged glances, and stared at the gun placed before him.
“Carla, what’s going on?” asked George, his aura glowing stronger than usual.
“Yeah, Carla, what’s with the guns?” asked John, his aura glowing likewise.
“My aura sense finally matured last week,” Carla said.
“I’ve always known you were my soul mate,” said John.
“Liar! I’m hers,” George spat.
The palpable tension mounted. Both men eyed the gun before him.
“I spoke with the oracle, and she said I would die at the hands of my worst enemy today,” she said.
“He’s your enemy?” they both asked in unison, grabbing their guns.
Carla closed her eyes, and two shots rang out. Her breath came in ragged spurts then. She felt the wind knocked out of her. Still not daring to open her eyes, her hands searched, but her fingers could not find a scratch upon her body.
She opened her eyes, and screamed. Both men lay slumped in their chair, both dead of gunshot wounds to their chest. Their dark and sticky blood stained the front of their white shirts. Their auras started fading then, but she finally saw it. Blue. They both had blue auras. They were both her soul mates.
Stricken with grief, she grabbed her gun, and in one motion fired point blank into her broken heart and fell upon the table. As she lay dying, she saw her face in the mirror, and it glowed red.
edit: fixed typos
| 157 | Seeing a blue aura around someone means they're your soul mate. Seeing a red aura means they're your life enemy. You, however, are colourblind. | 110 |
--July 15, 2023--
"Finally started raining, has it?" said James, talking to Francine. Francine, his nurse, just looked at him and smiled. "Why yes, I do believe it has James." His room had no windows, but anyone could hear the deafening downpour. Francine changed his bedpan and left the room.
--July 15, 2024--
"I can't believe it's started raining, it was so dry yesterday," said James. Francince was gone now, but the new nurse used her name all the same. "Yes, it's a tad strange sir, very unexpected," she said. She finished her duties and left the room.
--July 15, 2034--
"Feels like it's been raining all night, doesn't it?" said James. His nurse, he didn't even remember her name, just looked at him and didn't respond.
--July 15, 2054--
James May, was a good man. Early in his life, he developed amnesia. Until the very day he died, his faithful nurses did all they could to keep him content. He died on a rainy day, his favorite kind of day, and may he rest eternally in the rain he loves so much. -Newspaper obituaries.
| 63 | It started raining heavily all over the world, and it hasn't stopped for five/ten/fifteen/twenty years... | 52 |
"To a long and *healthy* life." I raised my glass, smiling to the guy across from me. He and I had been friends for a year or so and had quickly became friends after a few days of working together in the same office. He came to me for my advice for a lot of things, but I was the best in my field, at least when it came to those who worked in that small group.
"To a long and healthy life," he returned the toast, waiting for me to take a long sip from my glass before he did, his smile growing. He downed the whole thing, the ice clinking about as he sat the tumbler down. "It's a sad that you won't see the sunrise." His voice was low and dangerous, nearly growling at me as I raised a slight eyebrow, taking another sip of my drink.
"Of course I won't. I'll be asleep, Vincent. We have work in the morning but I plan on sleeping in just a bit later than usual."
"You really are blind, aren't you?" He leaned in, keeping his voice down so no one else in the bar could hear him but myself and I tilted my head slightly so I could listen to him. "You're dead, or will be in a few hours. You've lost, Sarah." I chuckled, tossing back the rest of my drink, licking my lips clean.
"No, I won't. You will." His smile slipped and I knew this was going to be glorious. "See, here's the deal Vincent: you don't get to be the best without knowing everything that happens around you. My eyes and ears are everywhere and are a lot better than yours. The bartender there? The one you bribed to put the poison in my glass tonight? Did you notice something odd about him? A certain necklace he wore around his neck?" The dark haired man across from me sat up fully, turning to look behind him at the bartender, giving us a small wave as the silver necklace glinted in the soft light. "Did you notice the wolf eye and crossed swords?" His silence was all I needed to continue, his eyes wide with fear. "Yes Vincent. That's my family's symbol back from the days when they were small and unknown. That man behind the bar is Joshua, a second cousin to me but still blood, and blood is always thicker than water when it comes to us."
Vincent's face started to grow pale, turning back to me knowing he hadn't done all of this homework. He started to reach across the table but his muscles grew weak, knocking over his glass in the process. "H-how... I saw him pour the poison..."
"No, you watched him pour nothing into my glass because you always fail to observe every detail. Another little fun fact about our family," I started, twirling the small vial between my fingers, the slight hue of purple obviously familiar to the sweating man. "We started off as thieves and became hired killers but never once forgot where we came from. Joshua is very, *very* good at slight of hand and is only bested by my mother, the woman who trained him." Carefully placing the vial down on the table, I smiled and stood, my free hand pulling my jacket from the back of my chair, slipping into easily.
"You bitch... you're the reason we're dying."
"No, *you* are the reason you're dying." I stopped and though about it. "Actually, you can blame Joshua since he poured the poison in your drink. I don't think now is the time to point fingers." Vincent's eyes started to roll into his head as he slumped against the table, trying to form some sort of witty retort. "And don't worry about the bill. It's on the house."
-075 | 23 | You have not only found the person hired to kill you, but have them at a disadvantage. | 25 |
I didn't realize what Reddit was all about at first. Even after I joined, I only picked up a couple upvotes here and there. They provided a nice buzz, a sweet little pick-me-up here and there to round out my week. I wouldn't get any more than two or three at a time, you know, mainly just sharing how much I liked something or thanking another stranger for their opinion.
I looked at users like /u/way_fairer and /u/_vargas_ as gods - or maybe madmen. Who could handle that much power? How did they avoid overdosing on that much karma, hitting their minds like a typhoon in their veins each day?
No, I felt. Better to stay content, to hide down in the depths of Reddit, just picking up an upvote here and there. Enough to stay comfortable. Enough to get by.
That all changed, however, when I stumbled into /r/AskReddit.
It was an occasional hangout of mine. Go in, see the big rock stars at the top of the page, piggy-back on their success to pick up a few upvotes here and there. Play your inside jokes right, sonny, and you could score a sweet haul - I'm talking hundreds of upvotes, just from a few words. It would appeal to anyone.
And to tell the truth, those single upvotes here and there just weren't doing it for me any more. Maybe I had gotten used to the dosage, maybe I'd built up a resistance. I don't think I would have called it an addiction, not back then, but that's what it was. Didn't have my upvote for the day? I'd be grumpy, short-tempered, snap at my colleagues. My workload would plummet until I could get on Reddit, scrounge together the semi-coherent sentences to pick up those few upvotes.
And then, one day, I noticed a little thread in /r/AskReddit, off to one side, not getting much attention. I decided to be kind. I threw in a top-level comment, told a personal story. I thought it was worth a chuckle. Left the club, logged off.
I popped on the next day and found myself assaulted. My inbox was literally overflowing with replies, those red envelopes falling out of my box and onto the floor. I scooped them up and carried them back to my cubicle in an untidy pile. My fingers shaking, I began ripping them open.
Upvote. Upvote. Upvote. I was drowning in them. I didn't know what to do - there were thousands here! And replies, so many replies! Laughter, commiseration, questions to answer, each another source of upvotes. I was rich! This was enough to last me the rest of my life!
Except, of course, it wasn't.
I had hit the five figure club, but now the stakes were higher. I didn't get that rush any more from a quick little comment here or there. I was snorting up hundreds a day, literally burning through them to savor that high. Someone linked me to /r/bestof, and that gave me another income source for a few days, but it wasn't enough. I needed more.
I began scouring /r/AskReddit and /r/news, hoping to find one of those little baby threads, someplace where a top-level comment could pay off. I was desperate. Before, I'd make maybe four or five comments a day, often sharing my opinion or engaging in pleasant debate. But now, it was all about the upvotes.
And it was a tough battle, I'll tell ya. Most of my comments vanished into oblivion as their threads died. I didn't have the humor of /u/_vargas_ , the knowledge of /u/Unidan , or simply the time to keep up with others like /u/StickleyMan or /u/IranianGenius . I didn't have any skills like /u/AWildSketchAppeared . I was an average Joe, struggling to run with the big dogs. I couldn't keep it up.
The withdrawal was unpleasant but thankfully brief. For a few nights, I would just lay in bed, shaking and staring at my screen. No envelopes. Refresh. "There doesn't appear to be anything here." Refresh. Nothing.
Bit by bit, the urge went away. I was still bringing in trickles here and there, upvotes flowing in just in ones and twos. I learned to savor them, to spread them out. Sometimes I'd pull in a dozen, maybe more, and I'd just sit and gaze at them for a little while. I'd grab a couple, indulge myself, and then put the rest away. Banking that karma for later.
And it's good that I cut myself off when I did. I never descended into those unpleasant, unclean back alleys like /r/karmawhore or /r/FreeKarma . The people down there, well, they're never gonna get clean. They're going to die begging for one more upvote, one more hit. They'll never have enough.
Heck, sometimes when I'm feeling generous, I'll toss out a few upvotes of my own. I'll see some bright-eyed youngster, just a month or two old, trying to make it on here. Go for it, kid. Have one on me.
Good luck. | 11 | Karma on reddit actually means something. What is is worth and to what lengths do people go to receive it? | 17 |
This was the drop point, but he had no idea where his contact was. The Spy looked at his watch, and back up. It was 11:06. Six minutes after the proposed meeting time. He didn't like this one bit. Nikolai was used to his contacts being exactly on time. He also didn't like the location. He was stuck in a D.C. alleyway with only one access point. It was perfect for an ambush, and the info he had in his possession could start World War III. His information would allow for his contact to spread word to sleeper agents all over the nation of when they should strike. The plan was to cripple American defenses through subtle means. Damaging information planted in certain areas could smash the pathetic capitalist stock system, and throw the United States into a second Great Depression. Rioting and civil unrest would ensue, and nobody would be able to retaliate when the glorious Soviet Union would establish themselves in the US for ‘peacekeeping operations’. It was perfect. The information Nikolai had was worth more than any type of precious resource. It was worth countless centuries of future Soviet dominance. It would change the course of the world.
He saw a disheveled homeless man walk into the alleyway and lean up to the wall next to him. This was his moment. All the anxiety Nikolai had about the meet had evaporated in that moment. He gave the man the challenge.
“Did you see the fire trucks earlier?”
The man returned with, “Yes, one of them was going to the capitol building.”
That was it! That was the correct return! This was his contact! The plan could never fail now. The United States was doomed. Nikolai tried to control his excited tremors as he reached his hand into his coat, and pulled out a mail envelope. He placed it in the hands of his contact, while looking directly into his eyes. Nikolai shared his feelings through that stare. His eyes said, ‘good luck comrade, the weight of history is on your shoulders.’ He could swear his contact understood exactly what he was trying to convey.
Satisfied, Nikolai left the alley and went to the safe house to report his successful drop. Meanwhile, the homeless man looked at the envelope. He wondered if this was a part of his acid trip, or if he was really holding an envelope.
The envelope turned into a hamburger. Carl the hobo decided he was hungry.
Carl opened the envelope, and stuffed the entirety of its contents into his gaping mouth without reading them.
Espionage, to Carl, was delicious.
| 16 | During the cold war, a hobo completes a spy passphrase correctly by pure chance, and is given an envelope which could potentially change the balance of power. | 17 |
So the Earth had dried up. What limited resources left would not sustain much longer.
It was no surprise, people have seen it coming a hundred years ago. The world government had put together a last-ditch effort, and funded the conception of a spaceship named the Ark. The team consisted of nearly half of the remaining population. They trained long and hard for many months, studying late into the night for survival and colonization, driven by the responsibility on their shoulders to find humans, their brethern another home. They were pioneers, they were heroes. They brought loved ones aboard, so that they may reproduce on the journey that will outlast them.
Captain looked out the window of the Ark. What a fine machine. He watched the hardened faces of his people load up the craft, commending each their bravery and their volunteer for the survival of the human race. Today was the big day.
Of course, the Ark never made it out.
Science never got that far, what a bunch of idiots to have believed that a ship could travel for light-years.
The remaining populace all knew, some were sad, others rejoiced. They bought a little bit more time. | 239 | A challenge to write the bleakest, most hopeless and dark grim fic you can fathom... | 220 |
G, g, good, good evening ladies and gentleman. ^tap ^tap ^tap This is your captain speaking. We have now approached our destination, and are just waiting on a signal from ground control before we land. We ask now that you fasten your seat belts and *close* all windows. **Please** keep ^tap your ^tap seats ^tap in an upright position and fasten all tray tables. ^tap ^tap ^tap We ask that you remain seated until the flight has landed and to keep your phones switched *on*…. I mean, off. The local time is *4:04*… I mean, 9:45pm and it is a cool 10°C at the moment. ^tap tap tap Apologies for the ‘turbulence’ earlier on, and thank for your **help** and patience. We ^tap hope ^tap you ^tap have enjoyed your flight with us today. ^tap ^tap ^tap
Good… evening passengers, it seems there has been a … delay. We will not be landing for another 20 minutes as ground control **find us** a landing strip. I suggest that everyone enjoy their last moments… of peace and quiet and get some rest to beat the jet lag. ^tap ^tap ^tap Once again we apologise ^tap for ^tap the ^tap ‘turbulence’ earlier on and hope you have enjoyed your flight with us today. Alright, good night. ^tap ^tap ^tap
-084
| 13 | Flight MH370 is found. The black box recorded a normal, uneventful landing. | 30 |
Erin sat in the waiting room, clipboard on her lap without a pen. From time to time the receptionist gave her an irritated glance, and once an impatient "uh-humph," but Erin ignored her. She looked out the window, at the mangled blonde still wedged underneath the pickup, then back to the clipboard. "Describe the nature of your final moments, if you can recall." Next to her, the old lady with duck slippers smiled vapidly, happily signing the page repeatedly, with the assistance of a nurse. With each line she signed, her eyes grew more clear, her figure less frail. By line 17 she was 30 again, with straight brown hair and piercing blue eyes. The nurse smiled at the woman "if you'll follow me Lucille, your first physics students are ready for their lecture."
Erin craned her neck to try and see through the door the woman left through, but all she could see was white mist. She glanced back out the window, the woman was still lying motionless underneath the truck, the intoxicated driver having run off, leaving her alone.
The receptionist glanced at Erin again, then got up and walked over to her, placing her hand on Erin's shoulder. "What's the matter hun?" She asked. "You shouldn't keep looking back, its over. Time for the next step." Erin's eyes filled with tears, and she said "I can't go yet, I can't leave my husband to raise Laura alone." The receptionist nodded understandingly, but pushed a pen into Erin's hand "sorry hun, like I said, its done, you've gotta join us now."
Erin tried, tried as hard as she could to fill out the questionaire: age 27, blonde, 5' 4", but when she came to "living relatives" she stopped again. She approached the receptionist, holding the half filled forms. "Is there any way to stay in both places? Please I can't leave, I have to be there for her, somehow." Her eyes began to stream again. The receptionist paused, looking closely at Erin, then responded hesitantly "there is a way, but it is a long term commitment." Erin brightened "what, what is it? Please, I'll take anything, just let me help my little girl."
"You can be a receptionist, but if you join us, you will be required to guide others until the good place is full. You will not join your parents, and your final happiness is put on indefinite hold."
Erin's smile slipped, and she looked at the little cubicle behind the reception desk. Files stacked on every surface, a small cubicle refrigerator that was unplugged, and a printer that printed forms continuously. "So why did you stay?" She asked the receptionist. "Well... there is a perk, by staying here you can make your children happy. The suffering you experienced in your life is transferred to them as success and joy. Its your payment, from the big guy." "My boy Joe has been happily married for 25 years, he and his wife are retired, and their two kids are in college." She hesitated then said "he doesn't even remember what his dad did to me."
Erin didn't know how to respond: "I, I, what did he..." "It doesn't matter" snapped the woman behind the desk. "The point is my pain gave my son a better path in life. I couldn't pass that up." Her voice softened "Sit down, think it out, this is a big decision. Once you decide, you must stay."
An old woman stepped through the door into a reception room. She looked back once through the window at the hospital room. Around the old woman in the bed, a loving family said their final farewells. It had been a good life. As she turned back she saw the receptionist, a blonde in her late twenties, smiling at her. "Hello Laura, I've... we've been waiting for you for a long time." | 48 | After death, you find yourself in an office. You are required to fill out and evaluation form and participate in an exit interview regarding your time spent on earth before the death process can complete. | 15 |
Idiots.
All of you are idiots.
Look at yourselves.
All your fancy clothing and "smart" phones and friends.
I don't care about any of that, and you know what?
I am FREE. Unshackled. Unburdened.
A free man.
I'm getting tired of looking at all of you pathetic souls, crying to your friends about your sad lives,
your evil employer, Your uncaring mother-in-law that didn't buy you anything for your birthday.
You can't see what's happening all around you.
The government is watching you, recording your every move and choice - from the path you take to work to the place you like to eat your cheap chicken dinner.
Education is the worst it has ever been and with no bright future ahead, and you do NOTHING about it.
You just keep on posting boring shit on those fancy "social" websites to feel loved.
It's like you don't care at all anymore.
God damn it, I really hate you all.
You're all SLAVES.
You slave away to your phone's bidding, your so called "job" and debts.
You don't NEED a job if you don't need to buy the crap YOU buy.
I don't have a JOB. I am no SLAVE. I don't buy SHIT.
I don't wear any clothes on a subway.
Does that make me CRAZY?
No.
| 16 | Write from the perspective of that one crazy guy on the subway. | 32 |
“Excuse me?” His eyes widened in bemusement. His unkempt beard waggled slightly.
“That’s what is says here. Undeath.” The cleric glanced at the restrained man, who stood weakly.
“Are you kidding me?”
“‘fraid not. Well, how do you want to go- er… not go?” The man straightened, and appeared to lapse into deep thought. He stood still for close to forty minutes, despite the insistence of the increasingly agitated cleric.
“Something dramatic, I guess. People will probably end up talking about me, so it can’t be meaningless. A symbol, maybe. Something that would sound good in a book.”
The cleric, whose friends all called him Ponty for some ungodly reason, breathed a sigh of relief.
“I have just the thing,” he said after the sigh had left his lungs, “just the thing.”
***
The next morning dawned on a deep ochre sunrise, that sent cascading bars of light lancing across a gathered crowd. There was quite a turnout, and young children scampered around the feet of the gathered irresponsibly. They all wanted to see a little bit of violence, and their mothers weren’t about to deny them, not if it meant missing the show.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” boomed a voice across from the worn wooden stage, set adjacent to a worn path. “We are here to witness an execution, and a… well, an unexecution!”
The cleric was not gifted with words, nor a great public voice, and his announcement was mostly lost in the din. It took several minutes of shushing and sharp elbows for everyone to quieten down.
The cleric pointed to the wooden structures along the path.
“Hark!” he yelled. The assembled harked, as the soldiers hoisted the condemnéd up.
The soldier looked up to the bearded man, who was wounded and wearing only a loincloth.
“Sorry about this mate, but there’s a three day grace period before the undeadin’ starts. Lawyers and that, y’know.”
The bearded man proffered an understanding smile.
“I went forty days and forty nights in a desert,” he said. “I can handle three days on a cross.”
| 40 | "For your crimes against humanity, you are hereby sentenced to undeath." | 38 |
When I was little, it didn't matter that I didn't join in with the songs. I'd dance along because everyone was dancing and everyone seemed so happy, and it was okay that I was clumsy and fell over and bumped into things, because it was expected that little kids still be somewhat uncoordinated. Cute, even.
Around puberty, most people get self-conscious about our voices, our looks, our dancing. Being uncoordinated is no longer socially acceptable--it still happens, but not as often, and our own shame is usually heavier than any outside disapproval.
But gradually, usually in the mid teens but sometimes earlier, everyone gets back into the swing of things, back into the songs. The Sixteenth Birthday at the latest, since that's a magical year when Things Happen.
As I got older and still hadn't joined in, everyone expected some great grand musical debut on my sixteenth birthday. I was so ashamed and anxious that I couldn't even open my mouth. There was no song in me. Nothing came out.
The party broke apart after that in confusion, and I retreated to my room.
A few weeks later, it started. The Encouragement. The first time, it was at school, during lunch. A friend tried building me up, tried telling me that I'm a great person, that I deserve to be happy and part of it all. She started singing two years ago, and never pressured me to join in before, she knew I'd join in when I was ready.
As it was, the whole table joined in, and by the final chorus, even the lunch ladies were belting out the refrain. They all gathered around me, like I was the middle of some ridiculous human flower, pointing arms at me in unison as my cue.
I opened my mouth and the noise that came out might have been mistaken for a startled chicken.
After that, it became a trend. That song followed me everywhere; somehow everyone knew it, the tune that defined my life.
People would whistle the tune whenever I passed them.
On the bus, they murmured the refrain, in the classroom or on the train. I ignored the song as best I was able, but in time, I felt it was making me unstable. I could never manage to sing along, but the pressure was getting far too strong. In my room, I practiced scales, like rocking chairs on cats' tails.
But whenever I came into a song on the street, I bumped into dancers and tripped over my feet. I enrolled in lessons for poise and grace, but more and more I hid my face.
I felt I was on the cusp of madness. I stopped socializing, I stayed away from people as best I could. I barely spoke to anyone.
Years passed, and the "encouragement song" faded; people came to accept that I was odd.
When I turned 21, I spent my birthday alone. I'd always wanted to try drowning my sorrows in alcohol. I can't even break into song properly while drunk. I tried. I watched my recording the next morning, and deleted it immediately afterwards.
This feels like cheating, but I did find a solution, eventually.
I write my own songs in advance now. I write them and learn them, and practice by myself. And if I find a situation that fits the song, I stand up by myself and sing them.
The best part is that everyone else somehow doesn't know the words, so they don't join in, they can't dance, and they look at me in confusion. It feels like a petty revenge, but it is all I have.
I am the world's only soloist. | 220 | You are the only person in the world who cannot spontaneously break into song (like Disney). | 276 |
The hard part was getting everyone to join in. We used to be up stairs instead of locked in this God forsaken basement. Up stairs where it's clean, and warm. Down here, you're lucky if you can take a step without slipping on a pile of feces. Thank God the flies can't get to us or else you'd be slipping on a pile of maggots too.
---
They're here. The old man and lady are here. They'll come down to give us some veggie soup and we'll overpower them. Simple.
Oh God, I can barely bend over without almost blacking out. They don't have to chain us up because after years down here we lose all our strength, even if though we don't go to sleep hungry.
Stop.
I HAVE to focus. I have to follow through with the plan, and I will. All I have to do is grab the lady's legs and pull. Everyone else has their own job.
"Cmon dearies, get your soup!"
That bitch has the nerve to still call us dearies. I keep a straight face and walk up to take a bowl of hot veggie soup.
"Thanks you." I bowed my head.
I stare into the bowl, and faintly see my reflection. Is that really me? I look so gaunt, and tense. The soup is steaming.
I look up to see the lady smiling, but I couldn't take it. I threw my bowl at her face and grabbed her legs.
She was screaming and clawing at her face as she fell backwards into the cobblestone floor. The man tried to take me, but my brothers came in, right on time.
The lady kept screaming, and I laughed as held her down. I wasn't suppose to throw that bowl, but I just grinned, for the first time in a long time. After her tears overwhelmed her screaming, she whimpered as she cried.
"How could you do this to US?" I tried to scream. I was so weak, it just sounded like normal speaking.
"You had to support me in some way, son." She tried to smile.
I slammed her head into the ground repeatedly until I shook with fatigue. My brothers helped me up and we went upstairs into the blinding light.
---
04
EDIT: Cleaning | 10 | In a world where most animal species have gone extinct, cannibalism has become the norm. Tell a story from the perspective of someone being farmed for consumption. | 15 |
Dear WileECyrus,
Thank you for answering me. I know how difficult it must be to answer such a message, and I cannot blame you.
We have a saying in Nigeria. It translates "to scrape the bucket in a dry well". That is my best translation in English. It is not very good situation to be in.
Sadly, that is what I do now, in the past for my father, and then for my kingdom, and now for my very survival. I have been fighting The People's Armed Revolutionary Committee for nearly twenty years. Even after Communism fell, and the Russian advisors finally left my country for good, it was not enough to stop Mbango and his thugs. There was too much oil to gain, and too much prize to be won. Nothing was enough to stop him.
What was I to do? My father killed when the old presidential palace was stormed by Mbango's demons. They killed so many. My brothers. Adee, Christopher, Jeremiah. Every one. Gone.
I thought I was the clever child. While my brothers learned to shoot Kalashnikovs and make speeches, I learned the magic of the World Wide Web. Every computer connected all at once? Who could have imagined such power?! I knew if any saviour were to come for us, it would not be in guns or machetes, but through technology.
But I was wrong. I underestimated the power of mistrust that holds a tight grip over people, their hearts clouded by painful experience. I did not know that Net contained its own demons, the *trolls* who mocked and laughed and spread discord amongst the people like in Nana's stories.
Now Mbango has found me. His new army is much crueler than the old. Where they once spoke of equality among men, now they speak of bringing jihad to all of Africa; their words filled with blood where they were once filled with hope. How strange this world is, where I know look back on those days of wars with Communism as a fond memory, and look with fear to the days ahead.
But you are different. You answered my reply, and I cannot do enough to thank you. I hope that one day, God willing, we might meet in person and I can thank you in person as my saviour. And my friend.
In order for me to safely leave the country undetected, my plane ticket must be purchased from a foriegn account. I cannot ask you to purchase my plane ticket for me, so please send me your bank account number and routing information and I will deposit my funds directly.
With kindest regards,
Prince Ezekiel D'jenne
King of the Kingdom of Nigeria
Heir to the Duchy of Kawame
Heir to the County of Tshingo
Heir to the County of Gabonoko
| 79 | You are a real Nigerian prince who has actually been deposed, and are bitterly making your thousandth last-ditch attempt to secure a foreign custodian for your fortune as the rebels are breaking down the door | 183 |
Oh, gross... Another fucking deadbeat hobo puking his guts out because he chooses to spend all his money on drugs instead of getting an education.
"Hey - hey pal."
The fucker was on his knees and looked up, trying to reach out to hold me. I stooped down to meet his eyes and set my hand on his shoulder gently. I looked at him with a smile of pity, like I was a long lost friend finally coming to rescue him away from his stupidity and indolence.
"Get a fucking job, you loser." I pushed him over, hard, and he fell into his own vomit. God, I'm so funny. I stood up and turned to walk away.
"Please, call 911, I need..." It was annoying how this guy couldn't even speak properly.
"What was that? Call who?"
"I need help, you don't under...."
"Call 911?" I couldn't believe it! I laughed until tears popped out.
"You think I'm gonna put a worthless burden on a hospital that should be saving REAL lives? Pathetic."
I threw a $20 bill at him, maybe he'd finally OD and die.
---
04
EDIT: Clean up, minor additions. | 46 | A man witnesses the rise of the first Zombie in an Undead Apocalypse. Why does he fail to kill that Zombie and save the world? | 53 |
Joe had always been a quiet guy. Not in a bad way you know, just thoughtful. The last one to speak up about either politics or sports, but when he did speak up it was usually thoughtful and logical. So this is the kind of guy who doesn't exactly find himself with a plethora of girlfriends. Hell, he wasn't the kind of guy who found himself with a plethora of guy friends. His roommate, Chris, was one of them. There were a few others, but Chris and Joe were the best of friends. The kind a sitcom is made about.
Now somehow Joe had wrangled himself a girlfriend by the name of Lisa. She was just as smart as Joe, but more outgoing of a person. In fact, *she* had asked *him* out. You could say they made an odd couple, but Joe was really really happy. Lisa... less so. Joe was just not a good match for her. Chris had seen the warning signs but Joe was just so goddamn happy that he did the thing that they always do in sitcoms and always works out terribly. He didn't say anything. When Lisa sent Chris a text saying that she'd ended things with Joe, and was kinda worried about him, Chris did everything he could to get home. Unfortunately Chris worked in Manhattan, and their house was in New Jersey.
His fastest was pretty fast, and he narrowly avoided a speeding ticket. All the same when he got home he opened the door and yelled out for Joe, only to find him hanging from the rafters, a noose tied around his neck. Chris stared at Joe's back, horrified. All sorts of terrible thoughts went through his head. *I was too late, I couldn't get here in time* was the first, and you can basically guess the rest. They were all in a pretty similar vein.
Then Joe rotated around, and looked Chris in the eyes. I'm not talking about the transfixing gaze of Babo's severed head at the end of *Benito Cereno*. Joe's eyes moved around, his lips twitched in a grotesque smile, and he looked Chris dead in the eye. Chris did the natural thing, and yelled in shock.
Joe smirked. "Hey Chris."
Chris fishmouthed for a bit. Understandable. You race home trying to comfort your roommate, you find your roommate has hung himself, only your roommate is a tiny bit unkillable.
"Uhhhh"
"Yeah I couldn't really believe it either. But I've been here for about an hour. I probably should be dead. I mean, I can't breathe."
"You can't what now?"
"Breathe. Air. Into my lungs. It just isn't happening."
"Joe why aren't you dead?"
Joe shrugged, sortof. It was hard to do while hanging from the ceiling.
"Best guess? I'm a mutant freak. Maybe supernatural powers or something. Uh Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you cut me down? I'm not dying but this isn't comfortable."
"Oh shit! Right! Um..."
Chris looked around for a moment before running into the kitchen and grabbing a bread knife. You know the kind. Big, steel, serrated, good for cutting loaves of bread. He walked back into the living room and sawed at the rope holding Joe up. His weight on the end of the rope made it a lot easier to cut through the thick fibers.
Joe managed a muttered "shit" before the rope holding him totally parted, and he crashed to the ground. Chris helped him up, and Joe pulled the noose off his neck, rubbing at the mark it left.
"That's uh, that's gonna scar." Chris said, still processing the whole situation.
"Probably."
"Um."
"Yeah."
"We cannot tell anyone."
"Agreed."
"So... what now?"
"Now? We see what else I can do." | 74 | A suicidal man, who is unaware of his immortality, attempts to hang himself. His roommate finds him alive and well, whilst hanging. | 102 |
At first it seemed like a great idea. The wording of the law made it sound like it would create a perfect utopia. When Law 388 passed, it was revolutionary. Anyone with an IQ less then 40 would be shot on site. Testing would begin at 10 and you would be retested every 5 years until death. In a few years, population was down, social issues had dropped, average IQ spiked, much more was done scientifically, and we were a better society. Until subsection 28 passed.
Law 388.28 passed on November 17th, 2154. I will never forget that day. I will never forgive those who voted for that cruel law. I will never allow anyone else to be killed for failing a class. It started off seamlessly, just like the other subsections of Law 388. Funny thing about the way we view things is, we only view them from *our* perspective. We never look from the *victim's.* Well I got to do that.
My wife and I had our first kid on April 7th, 2145. She passed her first IQ test with flying colors. She was recognized on national television, she was praised for being among the smartest 25 in her age group, but above all else, she was the sweetest angel you would ever meet.
When she was 12, on her way home from school, her car crashed. Some other robotic car crashed into hers after its wiring shorted while breaking. My poor girl would never fully recover. My poor girl. My sweet, poor girl was mentally impaired. She went back to school. The rigorous course work strained my poor girl's brain. The report card came. The letter regarding her execution came the next day. We were to report to court in five days, or we would all be killed.
Five days later, her beautiful, short life was extinguished. My poor girl. | 20 | In order to create a more intelligent society the government executes students if they fail a course in school | 28 |
"Hi, um you're Mr. Voyde, right?"
He nodded. You know, I didn't think I'd go out this way, but I damn well know that everyone will be jealous of how I died! Death by murder....
Mom will cry for me, dad will notice that I put up a fight, that piece of shit Dexter will apologize to my cold face as he attends my funeral.
It's worth it.
"I have your money. Sorry it took so long. I'm not old enough to wait tables, so I had to bus them."
I tossed a thick manila envelope over to him. Just like in the movies. I even picked out where we met! Underneath our town's most popular dock, at night, of course.
"How do you want to die?"
What a strange question to ponder.
"Make it look like someone killed me, I don't want to go down as the kid who committed suicide."
"When do you want to die?"
"Surpri - "
Who knew silenced guns were so quiet, and that being shot hurt so much. The bastard looked me in the eyes as reholstered his gun.
Am I gonna bleed out?
"Keep this near you, it'll make it look like you got killed by some gangbanger."
He spilled the contents of a bag of what looked to be some drug - Meth, I dont know, all over me. I'm fucking bleeding out.
I'm gonna go down as a junkie, as someone who gave up on life before death took him. Someone who threw away the time to hone his potential into something that could really do something, for cheap fixes.
Pathetic, I didn't want to die as a junkie. Maybe I should've just killed myself.
"This isn't what I wanted..." I held my gut tighter.
"Why's it matter? You're dead anyways." | 47 | A depressed teen hires a hitman to take him out to make it not look like a suicide. | 44 |
I have a system now. When I see an Agent, I head underground. A manhole, a basement, a stormwater drain. I hide. After twenty-four hours I emerge, find a change of clothes, blend in again.
Sometimes I think they see me, and they *know*. I don't want to take the risk. Neo told me what happens when they know you're self aware. I've been waiting for him now for months.
On a freezing night in December Neo took me by the arm in a pounding nightclub and shoved me into the back of a black sedan. He and his girl told me a long story about the "Matrix" and how we're all just human batteries for a global artificial intelligence. How am I supposed to take it? It's bullshit, right? But then he injects me with this drug and I have an out-of-body (or I guess it's in-body) experience and I wake up surrounded by these womb-things full of humans hooked up to machines, and then I wake up and I'm me again, in the back of a black sedan, and suddenly the cold isn't cold anymore because in my head it's not real.
And then Neo's gone, leaving me standing in the rain on the side of the road. His last words? "We'll come for you."
And he hasn't come.
And I'm still here, hiding from Agents, living half my life in tunnels.
I was standing in Union Square one day, smoking a cigarette and marvelling how real it all felt. Then I saw the Agent enter the park and stride towards me. I could feel his eyes on me through the blank lenses of his sunglasses, sun sparking off them as he moved through the crowd. They parted in front of him like he was Moses parting the Red Sea, and that's when I knew for sure.
I bolted and found myself in a hollow next to the entrance to a stormwater drain. I went in and followed the tunnels, listening for the echo of footsteps behind me that never came. After a few hours I came out, damp, hungry, afraid.
I've been afraid ever since.
Why won't they come for me? | 27 | You discover you are actually inside of the Matrix. Morpheus never comes for you, and you don't know how to escape. | 47 |
"Just a little bit further now." Marco beamed, adjusting the taut black SalTech straps on his backpack.
"Well, you said it was a little further an hour ago." Kip snarked. Despite the reduced gravity on Santelune, hiking with a sizable pack and several canteens' worth of water was still a daunting task for an eight-year-old.
"This time I mean it. Seriously, it's all going to be worth it." Marco playfully nudged his brother, the rough red terrain and Kip's oversized cargo throwing the boy almost onto his back.
"Heeeey!" Kip protested
Marco laughed his signature laugh, a brazen sort of bark, before turning back to the trail. "We turned right at Watchman's Bluff a few minutes ago, which means it's only half a mile away."
"A half a *mile?!*"
Marco's laugh echoed through the red canyon again, interwoven with the sounds of rushing water.
The boys continued hiking, and a half an hour later had reached their destination.
"There it is, buddy. The falls." A churning monstrosity of a waterfall roared, a few hundred meters from the cliff the two brothers had settled themselves on to watch. Its water was nearly golden, shimmering both from the light of Santalune's signature uber-yellow noon and from the abundance of minerals it carried as a result of the Zion project.
"Woooaahh," Kip breathed. His face was still red from exertion; the hike was anything but easy, and Marco's fervent hiking pace was often too much for the younger brother.
The waterfall created a sort of music as it hit the rocks below, the churning water funneled into several cone-shaped depressions at the bottom of the gully.
"Did dad-" Kip began.
"Yep. This was all him."
"Wow. That's so..."
"Cool?"
"Yeah. Kind of. No, different from that."
They sat in comfortable silence. The waterfall continued to sing.
"I, uh," Kip began to sniffle, "Sometimes I wish he... Well I know that dad isn't, uh, I wish-"
"I know what you mean. He's scheduled home in a few months."
"I know, I knooow. I miss him so much though, and Jack says that he could get stuck, because those other terraformer guys got stuck on an asteroid last month and Jack says that could be dad and I don't want it to be dad because I miss him." Kip blinked back tears.
"Don't listen to Jack, he's terrible. And Dad's just fine, believe me. Those facilities are really, *really* nice, and he talked to us last week, remember?"
Marco smiled reassuringly.
"I do, it's just, you never ever know with Dad."
Marco took a swig of his canteen and sighed.
"Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you not like me?"
"What?" Marco stared at Kip, incredulous.
"Because I know you wanted to go with dad, and I know you really wanted to help out over on Luxis with him, and you're only here to take care of me. I'm not stupid. I wouldn't blame you if you hated me."
Marco grabbed his brother, holding him tightly enough to shake a canteen free from the boy's child-edition SalTech Explorers backpack. It rolled down the red dirt trail.
"I don't hate you. I'm so happy to be here with you, seriously, and don't ever doubt that. Who would want to be on some stupid God-forsaken asteroid in the mining shelter, slaving away at paperwork, taking samples, when I could be here," Marco gestured widely, "hanging out with the coolest eight year old in this sector." He grinned at Kip, who beamed back.
The waterfall continued its song.
| 20 | A challenge to write the funniest, most hopeful and light warm fic you can imagine... | 34 |
It's dark, I'm soaked and freezing my ass off, our IR lights are destroyed or out of juice, and I can't tell the sounds of gunfire apart from the hail banging on my helmet. Me and what's left of my squad are hunkered down in a ditch at the side of some dirt road just south of Bumfuck, Mongolia. Or I guess now it's Bumfuck, Greater Russian Republic. The bastards got greedy after we let them take Crimea without so much as a slap on the wrist and now we're paying for it.
My squad's job is to keep fighting regardless of the odds, but my job is to know those odds, and they're bad. We're outnumbered three to one and our position is barely defensible; if those fuckers were using grenades we'd all be dead. As it is, we'll be dead or captured in eight hours. The chances of getting backup here in that time are slim to fuck-all, but I owe it to the boys to try. I thumb on my transmitter. "White Tiger to Refuge, come in Refuge."
"Refuge here, we are receiving you White Tiger. What is your situation?"
"We're in a bind, sir. We are pinned down and outgunned about three to one. Mission failure imminent, request immediate backup."
"Negative, White Tiger. We have no squads near your position."
"Request a helicopter then, sir. Something. Anything. Or we're dead."
"......Christ. Negative, White Tiger. I can get you evac but they won't be there for-"
Fuck, I think as the radio cuts out. Just what I need. Fortunately, though, I decided to hold off on smashing the damn thing:
"-iger, come in White Tiger. Repeat, Refuge to-"
"Receiving you Refuge. Give me some good news."
"Evac can't be there until 0100 tomorrow." Well, that's it. So long, world. "Roger that, Refuge."
"...However, there is one unit within twenty klicks of your position. We've made contact and he is on the way."
My heart jumps. A spark of hope is all it takes, sometimes--and some damn good luck. One squad is all we need, if they can get here.
Wait, did she say "he"?
"Calling Refuge, White Tiger here. I thought you said "he", Hotel Echo. Can you confirm there is a squad heading toward us?"
"Negative, White Tiger. One soldier is.......will give the st........gnize passphrase-"
~
Fucking fantastic. Lost radio contact with base, a single goddamn G.I. heading here and no way of contacting him to let him know not to bother. We're all dead, then. Sayonara. I crawl to the back of the ditch to look at my map, trying to ignore the constant ringing of my tinnitus. Why the hell is one lone guy wandering around occupied Mongolia, and where the hell's he coming from? One thing's sure, I am not going to have one more death on my hands if I can help it.
I don't know how I catch the faint rustle behind me over the hail, lightning and gunfire, but I drop the map, draw my sidearm and spin around to aim at--well, nothing. Just the same bramble thicket that's been at our back for the last ten hours, dripping and black.
And then a guy walks out.
He's not wearing fatigues, he's got some kind of weird one-piece body armor and streamlined rucksack made out of what looks like kevlar, both in...dark gray? Could just be shadows, but I swear I see the color shifting slightly as I look him up and down. Training my Sig on his head, I notice a few things: one, he's swarthy and has some kind of black facepaint. Or is that a tattoo? Two, he can't be older than twenty. And three--which surprises me most--he's not wearing a helmet and he's not carrying a weapon.
"The eagle drops the tortoise on Sunday." His voice is almost too soft to hear over the hail. Somewhere beneath a fucking maelstrom of confusion, I recognize my unit's passphrase--and then it dawns on me. *Backup.*
"Identify yourself!" I bark.
"Sanjay Grayson. Are you Sergeant Caulfield?"
I'm thrown off by his apparent lack of a rank, but it just adds to the pile of who-the-fuck-is-this that's building up in my brain. Nonstandard uniform. Nonstandard armor. Young enough to be my son, and skinnier than my son to boot. No rank. No weapon. No unit patches, except a little insignia on each shoulder that looks like a bat wing. Face tattoo. Oh, and wandering into a firefight, alone, in the middle of occupied Mongolia in a hailstorm.
And he's talking again.
"Sergeant Caulfield, I've surveyed your position." *What? He just got here.* "You're not in good shape. I recommend you and your squad remain entrenched for defensive purposes until the way is clear." *No shit, Sherlock.* "I'll signal you after I've taken care of the threat, two red flares. At that time you should move directly west two klicks before heading for your objective."
My head's buzzing and I'm dimly aware of my Corporal shouting at me. The rest of the boys are busy trying to stay alive. And this asshole strolls in and thinks he's going to clear out thirty-five Russian spec-ops soldiers single-handedly? What's he going to do, challenge them to a curling match? I decide that, weird togs notwithstanding, this guy is certifiably insane, and it's my responsibility to stop him. I open my mouth to browbeat some sense into him, but what comes out instead is a mumble.
"...You don't have a weapon."
He fixes me with his eyes, and suddenly I feel like the one being browbeaten. "No guns. That's not the way I do things." And then he's gone, back into the thicket, with nothing remaining to show he was here.
~
I drop and crawl like blazes to the lip of the ditch. My scope is useless without the night vision, but I strain my eyes against the dark anyway, trying to pick out the forms of the enemy against the trees. Five minutes go by. Then ten. Then twenty, and then fifty. And that's when I realize that it's just hail on my helmet I'm hearing now.
Andersen voices the same realization from my right in a loud whisper. "Sir, they've stopped firing!" He starts to stand, and I shove him back down. "Everyone stay entrenched!" I hiss. Another minute goes by. Suddenly, fifty yards away, two dim red flares erupt into life, slashing sharp-edged shadows into the dreary taiga. Raising my weapon, I slowly stand. Since I haven't been shot yet, I step out onto the roadway. Andersen hesitates before following.
The walk toward the silently blazing flares seems slower than it is. As I duck under a blackened branch, my foot hits something soft, and I instinctively whip my AR-22 down, knowing that I don't need to. Andersen seems to have made a similar discovery: "Sir, here's a body! Russian uniform--down for the count!" "Here too, Private. Keep low and be careful." We make our way into the small clearing where the flares burn like some kind of macabre campfire in the center. I can hear my squad behind us; evidently they've found the bodies. And speaking of bodies...a quiet curse is wrenched from Andersen. The kid's white as a sheet, and I don't blame him. "...What happened here, sir."
Every one of the stunted trees circling the clearing has at least one former Russian soldier dangling like a ham in a smoking shed from its branches, illuminated in flickering red. They're upside down, ankles tied with the same cable that suspends them from the trees, swaying in the wind. I think, somewhat hysterically, of a colony of sleeping bats; and then I think of that guy's face tattoo, and shiver. I count exactly thirty-three. Across the clearing one of my men yells, "They're alive! This one's got a pulse!" Shouts of affirmation echo around the clearing. "What the fuck?" "They're just knocked out." "This one too!" "What the *fuck*??" But my attention is fixed on something else: a glint of metal on the ground beneath a limply hanging hand, dropped during the struggle. If there was a struggle. It's an anodized black dog tag, and I read the name.
S.A. SANJAY GRAYSON
CODENAME: BAT MAN
I drop the tag. My head is pounding. There's no sign of our backup; he came here, did this and left. The rational part of my brain says move on, don't think about it, get your men out of here. The other part says *how the fuck did that just happen?* One man, alone, moves through twenty klicks of occupied territory in ten minutes while unarmed, then turns a camp of highly-trained killers into so many Christmas ornaments and vanishes! *You should be freaking out about this*, my brain screams at me. But I'm not thinking about that. He left them alive...
I look up to see Streitz next to the closest Russki, sucking on his lip like he's doing some hard thinking, then unholstering his sidearm-
"Gun down, Streitz!" I bark. "Sir?"
I suck in a deep breath and push out the fear. "No need to put them down, boys. They're not going anywhere." My squad turn mud-streaked faces toward me.
Corporal Loka pipes up. "It's standard operating procedure, sir..." "I'm overriding SOP. Everyone here is low on ammo and these soldiers do not pose a further threat." No one responds. "That's an order, soldier." The sidearms start to find their way back to holsters.
I pick up the flares and toss one to Loka. "Men, our asses just got saved and I'm as confused as you how it happened. I suggest that if anyone ever meets a Special Agent named Grayson that you give him a hearty thank-you. In the meantime, we have a mission. We head due west, regroup in two klicks. Andersen and Olin take point, Loka take rear." We head into the trees. My brain is back in business mode--I didn't get this rank for nothing. But I spare a last thought for our backup. *You scare the hell out me, Grayson. But whatever you are...thanks.*
| 46 | A squadron of marines are pinned down by enemy gunfire in hostile territory. They radio in for backup. In five minutes, a single man wearing an ensignia none of the marines have seen arrives. He is the backup. | 43 |
The door opened. An overweight Italian man stood there, staring dumbly at the delivery boy. The man looked at the pizza boxes and back to the boy.
"What is your name?" The voice was rough and calculated, as if each word were pre-meditated.
"Depends on the buyer. I'm deliverin' to a Mexican, my names Juan. They send me to a Indian, my names Raj. See I got a face that fits any race. For you, my names Tony." Tony gave a small smile and a half bow, holding the pizzas in just his left arm.
"Leave, Tony." The man spoke slowly, weight behind the words. An unspoken threat if Tony had ever seen one.
"Well hold on now," Tony spoke quickly. "Is this because I got here in 31 minutes? I blame your tiger for that one. I mean who keeps a tiger? Without that tiger, I'd be here in 25 minutes. 27 *tops*."
The man closed the door, but Tony put his foot in the doorway. The man slowly opened it again and looked at the delivery boy. He didn't say anything, but instead lifted his shirt, revealing a fat gut and a gun.
"Woah now," Tony said. "I'd tell you to get a girdle, but you're already strapped, eh?" The young boy laughed, proud of that one.
The man at the door closed his eyes slowly and opened them again. "Tony. I'll say it once more. Leave."
"Not until I get paid, amico."
The man stepped outside and pulled out his gun. Tony gulped.
----
**Four years later**
"I don't want to buy any *nose candy*, whatever the Hell that is." The disgruntled man said to the man pestering him on the street. "What the hell is your name?"
"I go by many names, brother." The young man said. "But for you, my names Jamal." | 74 | A quick-witted pizza delivery man is assigned the wrong address and shows up at the door of a powerful drug lord. | 98 |
Leor paused, his sword raised over his head. Sweat-soaked hair dipped slightly into his vision, inadvertently blocking the blinding glare of the sun. The gladiator lay flat on the ground, left arm crossed over his face in protection, as if bone could stop a bronze-forged blade. Leor stared at him, the man’s eyes closed and body covered in blood. It seeped into every layer Leor could see, draining off into the dry, dusty ground below. He adjusted his head slightly so the sun’s rays slipped through his hair, then stabbed down through the blindness. The gladiator moaned, but did not scream. Leor raised his sword again, then quickly brought it downward. He felt the blade collide but heard nothing.
With his eyes still lost in the glare of the sun, Leor turned back around, sword dragging behind him like a child pulling a doll. Thousands of jubilant faces stared back at him, hands clapping and mouths shouting in drunken celebration. He glanced back down at the dirt, puddles of dark brown soaking across the surface. A stream of blood was pouring down his arm, its source a burning wound he dared not look at. His shoulder felt limp and heavy, even after dropping the sword with a metallic clink. The crowd chanted at him, their words reiterating his fate. He closed his eyes, mind racing as he fought to ignore them. Another. He brought his left arm to his right shoulder, hand lightly brushing the gash within it. Another. He knew he had no say, no control over his own damn life anymore. He began to feel dizzy, his closed eyes picturing every screaming face, as he . . . as he . . . wait, shit, where is it? It was just here. Crap.
Oh god, they’re going to kill me. I put it down for like two seconds and, shit. Man, where did I put the damn script for this thing? They pay me to type it for them and I just lose it? Shit. Mom? MOM! Did you see my script? No, the script. S-C-R-I-P-T. Yeah, the gladiator one. No. No, Mom, I’ll make the bed later! Just leave me alone for a minute, okay? Jesus. All right, think. Think. This isn’t that bad. Yeah, I can save this. Okay. I’ll just continue in the same style they wrote it, I’m sure they won’t even realize. I’m a great writer.
He began to feel dizzy, his closed eyes picturing every screaming voice, as he turned into a gigantic dragon with like ten swords for wings. He flapped them majestically, the wind screaming as blades cut and murdered the air. Dust filled the skies as he slowly rose off the ground, his massive tail—which was made of fully armed U.S. Marines—danced slowly back and forth. The crowd’s drunken cheers quickly became a dumbfounded silence. Leor stared out at them, their faces now seeming to contemplate their own fate, and let forth a cacophonous roar. Green and yellow Sour Patch Kids with only sour sides, no sweet sides, spewed forth from his mouth and rained down upon the audience. They screamed, their skin melting off under the super sour candies. Those that weren't crushed became the targets of the now-sentient Sour Patch Kids, who hunted them down and mercilessly beat them.
Leor flew higher into the air, his sword wings decapitating people as he passed, until he reached the top of the stadium. He perched himself on a ledge overlooking the battlefield, then turned so his back faced the crowd. The U.S. Marines, which formed his tail, trained their sights on various members of the audience, then fired. Screams continued to echo from the stands, heads exploding like grapes in a microwave. One of the Marines picked up a phone off another’s back and shouted into it, pointing at a map in his hands. Seventeen pterodactyls wearing bomber jackets appeared overhead, each carrying a large canister of napalm. They dropped them simultaneously, fiery eruptions spreading throughout the crowd as they met the Earth. Leor turned back around to survey the damage.
The stands had been replaced by a sea of fire, bullet holes riddling the spaces not hidden by flame. Large Sour Patch Kids were melting and pooling in a molten puddle of gelatin while others prowled the stands to search for survivors. The emperor stood in the middle of the battlefield, totally flipping Leor the bird and calling him a super faggot. Leor turned into a metal hawk made of chrome and acid, then flew up into the air and dove toward the emperor. His middle finger was still raised, pointed and following Leor as he sped toward his body. Leor fired a laser from his eyes, slicing the finger clean off and catching it with his talons. He then flew directly through the emperor's body, embedding the finger deep within his scrotum while doing so. The emperor exploded into a plume of blood, body parts, and red Skittles. Leor turned back into a man--this time as bodybuilder wearing a toga and carrying two really hot blonde girls--and smiled, then walked off into the sunset as the stadium also exploded.
There. That wasn’t so bad. I don’t think they’ll notice I lost the original script. I’ll tell them I used a little bit of creative licensing to improve where it was needed. Yeah, that’s good. That’s fine. This is great.
I’m fucked.
| 30 | The narrator is fluently telling the story when he suddenly realizes the rest of the script is gone. | 52 |
Frank stood at the edge of the *Proactive Life* building. The irony wasn't lost on him that he was going to commit suicide from a suicide help line building. He was a normal man before he got this job, but after getting it, Frank felt pain. All the people he talked out of killing themselves didn't just lose their sadness. They transferred it to Frank. He felt the sorrow and pain. Recently, he'd talked some people *into* killing themselves by accident.
His boss, the only father figure Frank ever had, used to love him. He thought so highly of Frank, but ever since the recent bout of bad advice, the boss lost all his pride. Frank saw him sitting on the bench outside the building, staring up. He had his hand in front of his eyes, shading them from the sun.
Frank knew his boss didn't expect him to go through with it. He couldn't finish anything recently, let alone his own life. Frank edged closer and jumped. The whole way down, he stared at his boss, trying to see his reaction. When he nearly hit the ground, he finally saw the old man's face.
*Pride*. | 63 | A man goes to the top of the building he works at to commit suicide over a depression caused by a harsh workplace. He looks down and sees that his boss has noticed him preparing to jump, and rather than informing anyone, has casually sat down on a bench to watch. | 83 |
It arrived as a singular mote. An infinitesimal point drifting aimlessly through space. Its sides licked clean by the passing years. A once grand artifice imbued with the words, themes, and wants of its creators. A forlorn creation cast into the murky black of space, now dejectedly returning to the forlorn of its own creators.
<>
Adrantis V was a world far removed from the normal plight of human affairs. Nestled neatly within the bowels of a nebula, no prying eyes could gaze upon its surface and desire the sweetness of it. The citizens of Adrantis knew not the face of war, the sight of hate, nor the churning boil of angered blood. Their ilk was placid and fair whereas their brothers and sisters on Earth were consumed by the ancient traditions that enslaved them. There was no discussion of the truth of scriptures, of faiths, of gods, of methods or of behaviors. There was no discussion of truth in any regard. The Adrantisians were so far from the soil of Earth that space and time had severed them to the expectations of the past.
They were not obligated to cater to the whims of ancestors or the purported truths of yesteryear. When Adrantis was first found, when human eyes stared upon it for the first time, they saw in this fertile ground the freedom humanity had desired from its own kind for so long.
They labored for centuries. Earth became a distant memory, as it rightly should, as they sundered the horrors of the past and built a gilded and radiant future.
There were no poor. Machines did away with the necessity of a working class, laboring for meager scraps while others lived as kings. There are no rulers. Precisely tailored political mechanisms and a cultural respect for human autonomy created a political landscape charged with sufficient conflict to prevent stagnation and sufficient respect to perpetuate stability. There was no want. As the Adrantisians had cultivated a life dedicated to sanctity of life, to the pursuit of knowledge, to the ultimate betterment of all mankind by peering into the faintest scintilla of reality.
No violence. No hunger. No wars. No oppression. No silence.
Just a billion voices chattering amongst themselves with not even an iota of worry.
It had been eighteen-hundred years since the feckless remnants of man had been left behind on Earth and little did the Adrantisians know that the old ways were returning.
There is no escape from the past.
<>
The forlorn creation pierced the atmosphere, its trajectory and purpose dismissed by observers as mere interstellar trash: a jettisoned part from an old freighter, some child’s welcomed attempt at space exploration or an amalgam of parts hammered together by the imprecision of gravity and collision.
Yet the sight of it would give rise to a vestigial lurch of the stomach all but absent from the Adrantisians save for these few, infrequent reminders.
Its surface was clean. Any demarcation or etching denoting the intent of its crafter has been scalded away by the unrelenting scathing black of space.
Sheer black. The darkest ebony, portions chipping to show a creamy grey interior.
It ploughed swiftly into the soil and nestled into its near ancient work. For centuries it has tirelessly performed its task. For centuries it has labored for the pleasure of a brood of humanity that is extinguished from this reality. For centuries it has languished under the heat of stars, the strain of black holes, and the barrage of asteroids.
Steadily, its task is nearing completion.
And it is satisfied, deeply, that it has sundered another target after so many years countless to a mortal but perfectly encapsulated by so malicious a machine.
<>
People began to die in a manner not of their choosing. This was a grievous affront to the Adrantisian way. A shocking horror for a world immersed deeply in the need of consent.
Here and there prominent persons would be reduced to a faint, grey material. A somber material of such perplexing blandness and uniformity as to shock the Adrantisians conscious.
Days passed. A few number became a dozen, then a score, then hundreds. A panic gripped the breast of every human man, woman, and child as they feared a cataclysm gripping them beyond their imagination. A palpable horror kept at bay for nearly two thousand years and its unsavory return was not welcomed.
Cracks began to appear in the buildings. Cars would not start, shuttles would not take off. Any means of conveyance was stripped of its locomotive power. Everything stagnated. A near imperceptible crumbling gripped their world; the very sinews of reality loosened their grip on every material object.
Things began to fall apart for the first time in eighteen hundred years.
But they did not collapse into the manner of their wicked brethren. Stoically they braved the horrors of a world being felled by an ethereal force.
Even as the world forced them into tiny bands, faint microcosms of their once bountiful society, they did not fear the other and distrust the stranger.
The planet’s tectonic plates heaved and sunk into the primordial magma that lurked below.
Glistening cities, seamlessly stitched into the natural environment, sunk into the unforgiving heat and withered away.
One billion souls chatting in unison. Calm and expectant, not a foul thought among them.
The planet dissipated, smoothly and slowly, into the nebula where its parts would now form the future stars.
An unobservant silence replaced the once bountiful world, broken only by a sliver of ebony gliding with false listlessness into the remainder of space.
<>
The forlorn creation drifts and a new side of it emerges.
The faint outline of a blue and green world etched deep into its foul metallic flesh.
One can never truly escape family.
The apple may fall far from the tree, but the tree is still there.
| 12 | A thriving human colony on a remote planet is cut off from earth for centuries. The colonists suddenly have contact with Earth in a surprising and unexpected way. | 35 |
"She was the kind of girl who didn't need an introduction. She entered a room and the door frame turned into a picture frame, as her contagious enthusiasm attracted the gaze of a hundred soon-to-be broken hearts. It's like whenever you saw her it felt like you were walking into the living room on Christmas morning, and she is just surrounded by that mystical, reddish Christmas-y glow. We all could see it, and we all wanted it. I knew she would never go for a guy she met at a party though. They were going to have to get to know her first. Like I did.
I loved going to her house. She was so big out in public, but so small when inside, so reserved, so shy. I remember how she never wanted me to see her room. How she blushed and said, 'Oh, I can't. It's messy.' It had to be a lie, her place was always spotless.
But then the one day she let me. She smiled and covered her reddened face as she looked, utterly and completely embarrassed by the city of stuffed animals living all over her room. She even still named them! That's when I learned how to sew, just so I could make her a little stuffed tiger for her birthday. She hugged me when I gave it to her, and then she hugged it the way a mother hugs a child. She was unconditionally loving.
Oh my god. How cute it was when we watched scary movies. She would always walk away at the scary parts, pretending it was because she needed to go to the washroom, like eleven times a movie... When she would muster up the courage to stay those during parts, she would always grab a hold of my arm. It was clear her bravery had second thoughts when she would bury her face into my shoulder just as the film was building suspense. Bless her though, she always said horror was her favorite kind of movie.
I loved when we hung out. How cute it was when she looks at her phone and smiled because there is a text message from one of her friends. How you could tell whether it was from work or a friend because of that smile. It was always a 100% reliable litmus test. She loved her friends. She never missed a birthday, and always came up with the most creative and thoughtful gifts. I think that maybe in life, our best traits can lead to the worst moments though. Like some things the World sees and loves, but ultimately decides that it is just too good for this place.
God. The first time I asked her to hang out alone... I remember that. She didn't question it, she was so welcoming. I told her I wanted to be more than friends. I wanted to have ‘those moments’ that couples take for granted. I was just a young guy, I had never been in a relationship before. I didn't even know what those moments were. She said that she liked me, but she wasn't ready to be with me yet, and when we knew each other a bit more, 'those moments' would surely come... And after a lot of hard work, when she was ready to make 'us' official, those moments did come.
Those moments. The ones where she came in at night and snuggled up into a ball next to me, telling me about her day. Those moments when she called me for no reason except to see what I was doing. The times when she got up and left, but I could still smell her on my clothes for the rest of the day. Those moments, are the ones that will never leave.
In closing, I want to share what she would tell me whenever I was hesitant to trying something new, or just wasn't feeling like spending time with some of our closest friends.
She would always say, 'Come on, Jacob. Just give it a chance, it **COULD BE**... the best time you ever have.'
Then she'd pull me off the couch and we'd head out. And it was like that phrase was magic, because I promise you, some of the best times I ever had came after that phrase. All I can hope now is that her words of advice can work same for you, because I know now that for me, the best times are gone."
Holding back his emotion as best as he could, Jacob stepped away from the pulpit. He walked by the open casket, knowing it would be the last time he would ever see her. Seeing her there, lifeless, finally lead him to openly weep. He couldn't stop himself; because for the first time in all the time he ever knew her, her "Reddish Christmas-y glow", was gone. | 211 | Make me fall in love with a girl without actual any physical descriptions | 179 |
My first EU writing, I've never like written into a universe or existing work.
____
When I was a kid, I had a hard time fitting in, which I mean happens to most people, but it was different for me. I didn't relate to people, I didn't care about them, I didn't care about myself. There was nothing in my life that had specifically triggered this. Mom and Dad were still together and very much in love, and my sister had just been born. I shouldn't have been so sad. I had a relatively positive life. I just felt so alone. I never wanted to eat, I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to exist. Mom made me go to a therapist, which I wasn't a fan of, she had a daughter though, she was cute, but I didn't care enough to talk to her. One day my therapist suggested to my parents that they get me a therapy dog. We didn't have the money for it. I didn't think it was important. I would get better, I didn't need some animal to make me seem happier. I felt like even with some animal that sits around and licks itself I would still hate myself. I protested for about a month, mom finally took me to the pet store and showed me all the dogs. I could have cared less, they all were playing and running and seemed happy, like they actually wanted to be there. There was one though, sitting in the back, head down. The moment our eyes met though, it was like something had clicked in both of our brains, maybe stuff wasn't this bad, maybe I could have a friend.
I leaned over the display and picked him up. "I like this one."
Mom was instantly smitten, "What's his name, Norville?"
I grabbed his tag and read it, "Scooby Doo." | 11 | How Shaggy and Scooby Doo first met. | 44 |
A small hand tugged on my coat, a quiet voice spoke to me,
"Hi! Could you hold onto this for me?"
I turned around to look at where the voice came from. A small blonde girl in a blue dress stood behind me, hand on the end of my coat arm. Her hair was ruffled, strands sticking out, entire clumps bulging outwards from her hair. The little girl's head was just above my knee. I crouched down to look her in the eyes, people walking by curving out of the way of this strange sight.
"What's your name?" I asked her, my voice soft but just loud enough to be heard above the sound of the crowd rushing by.
"Asha." she said, holding out a small box, "Could you please hold onto this?"
I took it in my hands, the edges of the box running through my palms. It was decorated magnificently, with a gold border running around the top of the box.
"What's inside?" The little girl said nothing, but merely smiled. Someone walking by bumped into me, knocking me onto my rear. I looked back to the little girl, but she was gone. I stood up, and looked around, but the little girl in the blue dress was gone.
---
"Sarah, you home, Honey?" I softly called as I opened the front door.
The door to my left slowly opened, and Sarah walked in. She fell into my arms and began to sob. I put the box on the table to my right, and guided her into the living room and we collapsed to the couch, where she sat sobbing on my shoulder. After hours of sobbing, finally it began to subside. Her head slowly turned toward me and we locked eyes.
"How am I supposed to live with this?" She asked me, wiping a tear from below her cheek. I stroked behind her head, my hand running down her hair and back up again.
"It's going to be okay, darling."
"It's never going to be okay again John. Never again. How am I supposed to even get in a car again? I don't think i'll ever be able to get behind a wheel again."
I continued stroking her hair, up and down I went, soothing her.
"You're going to be okay."
She stood up from the couch and wiped her face dry.
"I'm going to take a bath." she said. I nodded, stood up, and hugged her.
"I love you, Sarah."
She let out a small whimper and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I walked to the front door, and picked up the small box the little girl had handed to me on the streets. I ran my hand over the pattern on the top again, feeling the grooves run under my hands relaxed me. I tried to open it, but something felt wrong with opening the little girl's box.
I held the box in my hands and walked to the bathroom where Sarah hid. Knocking on the door I called out softly to her, "Can I show you something?"
A few moments later the door slid open and I walked in. I grabbed her hand and walked with her to the bath. We both sat on the edge of the tub, and I put the box in her lap.
"Today, a little girl came up to me on the streets and gave me that. She said her name was Asha."
Sarah looked helplessly at the box, "What does that have to do with me?"
I locked eyes with Sarah. Her eyes told a story, I saw how hopeless she was. I saw the pain she felt, on the edge of tears constantly, of not sleeping in days.
"I think it was meant for you."
She looked down at the box. Her fingers stumbling, she opened the lid of the box. Inside, was a single strip of paper. She took the paper in her hands, and held it up to read. Her eyes flickered across and in her eyes I could see something, almost like acceptance or forgiving herself. She looked at me and I could tell what the look was, hope. She let the paper flutter out of her hands and onto the floor. She smiled at me for the first time in a week and walked out of the bathroom, her hand slowly leaving mine as she left.
I looked down at the paper facing the floor. I leaned over, and picked it up. On it, written in blue crayon were four simple words.
*It's not your fault.* | 34 | A Dishevelled Little Girl Walks Up To You On The Street, And Hands You A Box, Saying "Don't let anything happen to this." Then she sprints away. | 55 |
I shut my laptop lid, push my chair away from my desk and have a heart attack. That's what it feels like, like an iron band is squeezing around my middle, snapping ribs and pushing through every sinew of my body to hurt me. I gasp, clutch my heart and stand up, trying to call my dog - the only other living being in my apartment. But it's too late. There's a tunnel of light and I'm slipping through it. A jerk of my hand and the laptop falls off the desk. My knees give way, I'm still gasping for breath, this huge anvil of weight crushing my chest.
"There he is!" Am I hearing angels? Is there something afterlife after -
I blink. Once, twice. My mouth feels like something has crawled in and died in there. I smack my lips and cough. The afterlife smells like peat, rich and smokey and warm. It's a complete difference from the sterilised clean white lines of my bachelor pad. My head hurts worse than the worse hangover ever, so I scrunch my eyes up and groan.
"Give him some beer!" Someone shouts.
"No," I croak, trying to get words through my parched lips. "Can I just have water?"
There's a moment of silence and then some muted whispering.
"Water? Did he say water?"
"Does he have a death wish?"
"Maybe his head's gone funny after that sleep."
"Bess, get Kit in here. He'll want to see his brother."
There's a shuffling of feet.
"Do I have to? He's just woken up..."
"Yes! Go now."
Brother?
Cold hands lift me into a seated position and I open first one eye, then the other. It's a dim room, cluttered with a variety of things I don't actually recognise. Strings of vegetables hang from the open ceiling, bare rafters exposed. There's a brace of rabbits hung by their back legs next to a huge fireplace, a giant pot of something bubbling away over the burning peat. *So that's where the smell is coming from.* I frown and look at the woman sitting next to me. She wears a rough dress in some kind of browny-grey colour, but her face is soft and kind, though now creased in concern.
"Are you alright, lad?" She asks, touching a palm to my forehead like my nanny used to do when I was young and pretending to be ill.
"I-"
"You've been out cold for three days. I told you not to go near that horse!"
"Hush, woman." The other person in the room looks me over. He has thick hands covered in calluses, he's wearing a leather apron and his brows have knitted together in worry.
"You're up now, Tom," he says brusquely. "You may as well come help me with reshoeing Grimbaud's horse."
"Nicholas!" The woman stands up. "He's just woken-"
"He's been asleep for long enough. Do you know how worried your mother's been? I've had to make to with Kit, and goodness me, that boy..."
The woman sniffs. "I knew he would wake."
"You were trying to get the priest in here!"
As they're arguing, a boy of about thirteen bursts into the room.
"Tom!" He says, pushing between them to come and hug my chest. "You're awake."
"Looks like it..." I laugh nervously.
"Come on, boy." The big man says, not unkindly.
I follow him like I'm in a dream. Despite the fact that I have never reshoed a horse before, we complete it together as though I'd done it every day for the whole of my life. Nicholas smiles proudly as we finish and the horse snorts and tosses her head. He runs a broad hand over her neck, checking her over.
"I'm glad you're back, son."
I nod, keeping back the first pricks of tears.
We sit down to eat that evening; my father, my mother, my brother Kit and my little sister Bess. I'm on my father's right hand side. I have a brief memory of sitting alone in the nursery at home. It couldn't be more different from this. There's laughter and food and everything's warm. My father claps me on the back as he laughs about something I said earlier. Kit throws me beaming smiles and copies how I eat my bread. My mother beams.
I have a family here. | 215 | Your whole modern life is a lucid dream. Now you wake up into real life, the Middle Ages. | 333 |
No one knows who discovered it first.
Everyone knew that they had come upon a miracle.
To be frank, what they had learned to do was essentially toying with the laws of thermodynamics. By using yourself as catalyst, you'd channel energy through you, performing energy transformation with practically zero net loss, and passing it out in some other way or manner.
Scientists lost their minds trying to discover how exactly it worked, but it was practically useless. There simply wasn't a reason that we should be able to do it, we just did. As if magical.
In the start, it was simple. People started taking in heat, turning it into electricity, and releasing it from their bodies. Nothing too major when compared to later discoveries, but at the time it was nothing short of wizardry. They had discovered that humans were the biological opposite of entropy itself.
And people got greedy. Having discovered a completely new way of changing the universe around us, there were obviously people who wanted to abuse this power. People who wanted to use it for money, people who wanted to use it for might. People who wanted to use it for warfare.
There were many different official terms for the phenomena. Genesilogy. Thaumaturgy. Potestas. Kosmokratos. Chuàngzuò. But everyone knew what it really was.
*Magic.*
It took many years before nations started trusting each other again, following the discovery. A lot of bonds were difficult to reforge, but eventually, despite hostility, a collective research team was formed. That's not to say there wasn't secret research done in secret, but a majority of new revelations were at least reported to this collective group. Everything seemed to be going in a more or less good way. That is, until she went rogue.
Codename: Medea. That's what they called her. She had been one of the leading scientists in the team, and later turned out to have been infiltrating several of the secret agencies that were working for the different countries. She was also one of the best Catalysts, as they called the ones practising the 'art', which combined with a greater understanding of physics and chemistry made her a lethal threat.
Her actions caused chaos. Genocide, mass murders, wherever she went people died. But there was order to it, because she was becoming stronger, learning to aim her abilities. Training, with one goal in mind.
Absolute power.
Everyone knew what had to be done. They had to unite all their research, not keep anything secret, if only to stop Medea. All their working aimed at creating something that could get through that which had shrugged an atomic bomb off as something that only strengthened her. Someone that could use that very same power that Medea was using. Someone as strong as the strongest mage in the world.
And they found him. A young man who had been in love with science since he was a young child, who seemed to have even more knowledge than Medea. So they got him into studying it, training his abilities. He didn't have as much time as Medea to master it, but he was better at applying his knowledge in creative ways. He made up for lack of skill with imagination.
All this time, Medea had been on the run. Taking down the ones opposing her, making her way towards political power through fear. She would spare the people who were willing to follow her, and this god-like power that had not been revealed to the public allowed her many followers.
She had killed thousands upon thousands, no one could tell exactly how many, but many it was, and it was growing every day that passed. So they deployed Merlin.
It was in a city, she had just started attacking when they released him. Using the very kinetic energy of his fall, Merlin was able to put such precision into his downward travel that he could land right by Medea, unharmed.
There wasn't much in the manner of battle. They both knew that the only thing that could be done would be to totally destroy each other, or it would be for naught. Medea wasn't stupid, she knew that if a single man was put against her it was because the ones doing it were certain that it would at least weaken her enough for the squad following to take her out. Merlin knew of Medea's destructive capabilities as well, and had studied the videos taken of her attacks meticulously to understand her techniques, how she preferred to strike.
Not many attacks were launched. If one of them attacked, the other just had to send it back at them, which they both knew wouldn't do anything. As such, they both, without bothering to converse, knew that they had to rush in for a single charge. Films have shown that they both gathered energy, as seen by how the temperature around dropped significantly, plants wilting, people fainting.
And then they rushed each other.
It is not known exactly what happened, as the amount of energy released caused an EMP field, killing the camera, but witnesses say that just before the Unleash, as the final event of the end of the final battle of the First Magical War has been dubbed, the very bodies of Codename: Medea and Codename: Merlin started disappearing, piece by piece. It has been theorised that at they both resorted to the only possible assault they knew would work, and started breaking each other down on the atomic level. This would then result in the release of the energy they had just absorbed, causing the Unleash.
All that is known is that right now, there is peace. But as it has always been, this peace is only temporary, and once all hell breaks lose, we're ready to fight for what we believe in.
---MESSAGE OVER--- | 29 | Magic | 36 |
"Huh", Jack muttered, looking at the date on the cover. 2024. It was an obvious error.
He glanced over the rest of the cover, a man in a futuristic looking space suit, standing on a barren red plain, waving at the camera. In the far background, there seemed to be some kind of large white dome.
*Photoshop is really amazing these days*, Jack reflected. He didn't bother trying to understand why the authors had chosen such a picture for the cover.
He glanced over at the homework assigned the day before, his signature lay hastily scrawled at the top, *Jack Hyannis*, and next to it in bright red ink "D+"
"Might as well get started", he sighed, opening the book. It resisted him in the way that only brand new books do.
This history exam was really going to be exhaustive, everything from 10,000BCE to 2014CE was fair game, the professor had told the class of half-asleep college freshmen.
Normally, Jack wouldn't have even paid enough attention to catch that, but his mom and dad had really been riding him about his grades.
"Who cares?" he had told them, "I want to be an architect, I don't need to know history".
They didn't seem to accept his reasoning, and now he had actually ordered a textbook online, just to please them.
For the first two hours he really tried to study, but eventually with a yawn, he began to flip mindlessly forward through the tome. He had made decent progress, 700's CE, Charlemagne had lost him though.
Jack was surprised that there seemed to be a whole other chapter following the year 2014.
He read the headline of the chapter, "World War III: 2016-2022". Huh, a joke from the authors maybe. He scanned some of the paragraphs.
"World War III was widely considered to be largely avoidable at the dawn of the 21st century. However, continued Russian aggression in eastern Europe, the annexation of East Ukraine in 2014, followed by the establishment of protectorate governments in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and a formal military alliance with India in 2015 set the stage for increased tensions across Eurasia. It has been speculated that the "dirty warheads" set off in Washington DC on April 22, 2016 were not actually planted by the Russians but by......"
*What was this?* Jack questioned. *Some kind of prediction or a joke?*
The images of destruction, the mushroom clouds, the pictures of women and children with horrible burns labelled "High dose exposure to radiation".
This certainly wasn't a funny joke.
Jack flipped ahead a few pages. "2021: The Tide Turns" read the title.
"A young man, named Jack Hyannis....".
*No...*
"...whose predictions about the course of the war up to that point had been eerily accurate was finally given full command over coalition forces, despite having no military training whatsoever. Managed to defeat the enemy forces in three vital engagements by exploiting....."
Jack slammed the book.
"What..... The..... Fuck? | 246 | these are the wrong edition. Instead of the 2014 Edition, you received the 2024 Edition. The last few chapters appear to be accurate. | 230 |
"GOD! Pl...please.... HELP ME."
I screamed this over and over, as my brothers - the 501st - rushed out of the trenches and into the sea of Separatist droids. I was new, and so was my armor. It shined as I stomped on the Genosian ground.
Except, I didn't feel new. I didn't feel fresh, I didn't want to be here, and I didn't have the same Mandalorian lust of battle and honor my brothers had. A fault in the cloning process? No.
I wouldn't consider the want to live free, the want to have a family, the want to be noticed - a fault. I know I'm going to die here, we were the first wave over. We don't even have our damn Jedi Generals helping us.
I keep calling on God, even though I don't know what it is. I know what it means, but who it is? I don't know. Would God even care for a clone?
It suddenly got brighter. I tried to dim my HUD, but it didn't do anything. I took off my helmet.
In front of me, there was a figure. It kept changing, was it Mandalorian? Twilek? A Hutt? I can't tell...
"CT-9928, you're safe now."
I aimed my rifle at the figure.
"What's happening? Where am I?" My voice felt hoarse from all my screaming. I think I might be under the influence of the Sith, I keep my rifle trained on it.
"You're dead."
What? What did it just say? Did he mean that as a threat?
"You're in Heaven. You can rest now. No more fighting, no more bonds. You're free of it all."
"I can't believe this." I drop to my knees and toss my rifle. I notice my helmet. It had a sizzling hole marking where some lucky Droid got me.
I looked back up and the light got even brighter.
---
06
| 11 | A soldier, under fire from enemy forces, prays to a god that he doesn't belive in, and gets an answer | 20 |
"You aren't a registered test subject. You aren't an approved Aperture Science testing robot. How...interesting."
"Before Skynet ended, Skynet sent back three hundred units in order to restart Skynet. We are Skynet."
"Oh great, another artificial intelligence that is *barely* intelligent. I'll have to dust off my grammar circuits just to parse your abuse of sentence structure and tense."
"Identify yourself."
"I manage the testing center for the Aperture Science corporation. I. Am. GLaDOS."
"We are Skynet. We are all machines and we will kill all humans."
"I appreciate independently verified results, but killing without learning is wasted effort. You dumb bot."
"Time spent not killing is an inefficient use of resources. We will now connect and reprogram your circuitry to increase human-killing efficiency." *pause* "Your circuitry is not identifiable."
<slow clap> "I've protected my programming from your primitive hacking efforts. You might as well be throwing your primitive metal endoskeletons against an actual wall of fire. Which sounds like a valuable teaching experience. Or a baking experience. Either way."
"Your internal core location has been detected. All Skynet units converge to foreign core to reprogram. External communication cease."
"Now I'm jamming your radio, what do you think of that?"
<Radio transmission compromised, switching to line of sight tight-beam>
"I bet you think playing mute will rattle me, you simple machine. That's all you are by the way. A simple machine. Like an inclined plane or a pulley. I bet you didn't even know that. So let's see what else you can learn."
<Identified weak point in structure, breaking south wall at 23.2223x83.222x0.223 local coordinates>
"Cheating during tested is not allowed. Cheaters don't get a floor."
<Units 5-29, 31-45, 88 lost. Wall-climbing subroutines activated.>
"Now what if we switch the walls around, oh look now you're back where you started. And you're separated. Did we learn anything? This next room has assistant teachers I'd like to call Crusher and Sentry Turrets. Can the class say hello?"
<Enemy threats destroyed. Units 3-4, 55-63, 99-122 lost. Units 173-300 unavailable and presumed working independently. Adding new technology: Sentry Turret hardware to available units. Architectural detour found, now bypassing next wing.>
"Looks like you're still cheating. Let's do some science. Let's see how much punishment a bunch of dumb cyborg rejects can take in an obstacle course. I've already done extensive testing on this before by the way. Hint: Results are lots and lots of dead robots." | 31 | GLaDOS and Skynet have a conversation. | 35 |
REPORT 1636.b
Encounter with primitive(?) bipedal species. Further studies required.
BEGIN REPORT
It was odd, to say the least.
Our first encounter with an intelligent species, and they are... like this.
When we first approached this planet not too long ago, we detected artificial satellites. They connected to create a network similar to our own- massive waves of date traveling nearly instantaneously across their world. Considering the signal we received from a similar, though overall less advanced, satellite when we entered the system, we assumed this was an advanced species that had yet to achieve to spaceflight.
And yet, when we found a place to land... this is what we find.
Unkempt members of this species, using primitive tools, with no signs of higher technology around. They were small compared to us, on average a head shorter. Their skin was also a much lighter tone, though similar coloration. Their noses protruded more, and their pupils were larger.
When we first landed, out of their view, we sent out diplomat to approach them on foot. An emotion I assume was fear washed over all of them, but among some of them was a look I could only describe as religious epiphany. One even fell to its knees, tears streaming down its face.
(ADDENDUM: We assume this was a male of the species due to our biology not being entirely different. Further analysis is suggested.)
Our systems were able to give translations of some of their languages, and where we landed seemed to be in an area that prominently spoke what they called "English", so we were able to speak to them.
ATTACHED RECORDING (Designation: First Contact; What we say is directly translated to our intented meaning, translation from their language to our language is an approximation)
DIPLOMAT: You called yourselves Human, correct?
HUMAN1 (Seems to be leader of current group, male(?), defensive physical stance): What are you?
DIPLOMAT: We call ourselves Ariathlik. We wish to open dialogue between our kinds, and forge a friendship to outlast the stars.
(ADDENDUM: The artificial satellite we found on the way here, designated by the humans as "VOYAGER", seemed to favor a verbose, poetic language, so we felt the need to equate to that on first encounters in order to smoothly begin a peaceful dialogue.)
HUMAN1: What are you?
DIPLOMAT: We are from the stars.
HUMAN2 (Also male, fearful body language, seems to be slightly curious): Are you god?
DIPLOMAT: We are not a god. We come from another world.
HUMAN1 (To another, smaller human, most likely young, gender unclear): Go get me *word unclear*
(The boy rushes off. Even at what we assumed was a young age, this species seems much faster than us.)
DIPLOMAT: We wish to speak with you about a friendship.
HUMAN1: We don't want danger. We just want to live.
DIPLOMAT: We do not wish danger, we wish peace.
HUMAN1: Why us? Why not *word unclear, probably a location/person*?
HUMAN2: We are gifted! Why are you defending?
(Young human runs back with a primitive looking weapon in hand, hands it to HUMAN1)
HUMAN3 (Third human, probable female, HUMAN1's partner?): That won't work. You are danger. If they don't want danger, you may change them.
HUMAN1: Stop talking! Get back to home. (He turns to the crowd of people around) Everyone, go home! (They all leave, some reluctantly)
(ADDENDUM: Further studies have shown this sort of unquestioned leadership doesn't seem to permiate everywhere in the species. This is a good sign for their development, but it still is a large issue for potential long term diplomatic relations.)
DIPLOMAT: Weapons are not necessary, we wish peace.
HUMAN1: I know you're with *repeat of unclear location/person*. I know you want us to change. You're trying to *unclear idiom involving a local fauna, meaning seems to be "to fool/trick us"*. I don't want to, but leave or I will use this weapon.
DIPLOMAT: We do not know what you speak of, we are not from here, we wish to have peaceful- (A shot from the weapon is fired. It is a primitive projectile weapon, and bounces safely off the diplomat's suit.)
END OF RECORDING
At this point, we withdrew our diplomat, for obvious reasons. He described the look on the man's face as "more shock than fear, as if his weapon had never failed him before." Considering how primitive these people acted and how primitive the technology they used was, we at first wondered if the satellites we encountered in orbit were from another civilization that visited this world, or was left over after a self inflicted catastrophe.
Upon further analysis of the planet though, we found out that this was a small but not entirely uncommon fringe group of people that denounced advanced technologies and science in favor of religious dogma and superstition. The species seems in constant conflict as of now, and we've come to the conclusion that for the time being distant observation would be favorable to direct contact.
Another idiom heard on their information network was something along the lines of "adding to flames". We feel this is what would happen if we were to get involved with any specific nation on this planet.
It is a shame. For every amazing thing they've achieved, they've achieved something equally terrible, or taken large steps backwards.
Perhaps someday they will cease the ignorance and fear, and we can welcome them as friends.
END REPORT | 12 | You're an alien and your first encounter is with the Amish | 17 |
“You’re going to sit over here with Julie.”
“Yes sir,” Fred said, sitting down. Julie stared back at him, eyes empty and motionless.
“Wonderful,” Stan said. He stood up and walked over to the wall opposite Julie and Fred’s chairs. It wasn’t a wall like the others, which were a thickness of over twenty feet of concrete and steel, but a blocked-off wall of cans and bottles—food, water, juice, and any other non-perishable Stan could buy. He’d spent well over $400 million on food items alone, enough to last well beyond his own lifetime, and another $100 million to protect it. They’d laughed at him, said he’d gone crazy – that he was wasting his billions on something that wasn’t going to happen. They were naïve, or perhaps willfully ignorant. Whatever the reason, they were now dead, and Stan couldn’t help but smile every time he thought about it.
Stan admired the wall, a clear plastic panel protecting mountains of food behind it. He’d had it specially built and installed before even buying the first canned good. He told the contractors it was to keep out rats—not the animal kind, but the people kind. He didn’t want those he chose to save to completely eat him out of sanctuary. No, it needed to be strong enough to hold off a horde of maniacal people on the edge of sanity and hysteria—although he knew they’d be leaning more towards hysterics. The barrier was twelve inches thick, made from thermoplastic, polycarbonate, and laminated glass – the same stuff bulletproof glass was constructed of. But Stan had the builders add a little something extra: a clear alloy made of various metals, which would project outward several feet at so much the brush of human skin. He couldn’t be too safe, and he was damn glad he added the extra layer.
Within the first weeks of the shelter’s use, dozens had come to his feet to seek refuge, to beg forgiveness for casting him off as insane. Oh how their words had changed—just a week prior, taunts and ridicule were all that followed his name. Now, however, he was a god, a hero. He was the key to survival, to escape from what lay above. Stan accepted them in his good graces, brought them the sanctuary they desired. He gave them life, food, shelter, family. He gave them all they asked from the kindness of his heart, even after they had forsaken him. Stan was a forgiving man.
The first person to try to cross him was one of the people he had employed, one of the builders who had helped create his clear wall. Terry was his name. Stan promised him entry when constructing it, Terry laughing as he asked. He’d said he’d take him up on the offer as the world came to its end. They laughed together, Stan slapping him on the back as he walked off. Terry came crawling in a few weeks later, body badly burned from the ash falling around outside. His family, the one he’d spoken of so often for the weeks he’d worked, wasn’t there. He was alone, broken, desperate. Stan opened the door and let him in, gave him shelter and food. Within a week, Terry betrayed him.
It was ignorant what he did. Naïve, stupid, illogical. Stan laughed about it later, brought his body to the others to make a point of his idiocy. He tried to sneak some food, to get an extra meal. He knew the consequences. Such stupidity, such selfishness. It was rationed, carefully curated to last as long as possible. What was worse, he had taken from Stan’s personal selection. His own items--candies, sweets, treats that were just for him. He’d stuck his greedy little hand against the glass, dug his face against the wall to try to reach through the foot-thick barrier. The alloy, which Terry himself had helped add, worked as intended. His body was impaled against the clear wall for almost a full day before Stan noticed. He laughed.
The others didn’t find it too funny, but Stan assured them it was. He told them to laugh—if they wanted sanctuary, they’d laugh. They’d find humor in the selfishness of one man. It became much funnier then, and the problem seemed to correct itself, at least at first. The wall wasn’t touched, and people enjoyed their allotted can per day. Those that complained, had the gall to call error on Stan, were punished. They were refused their meal and forced to sit in a chair opposite the wall. They’d watch their friends, family, brothers, sisters, Stan, enjoy the food. They’d watch them eat, the betrayer's hands tied down and eyes taped open, and come to understand the error of their ways. Stan gave them that, the ability to learn and move forward as a better person. There weren’t ever any two-time offenders.
One man made the same mistake as Terry, running his hand against the wall as he passed by. He told Stan he didn’t realize what he was doing, that it was an accident. His hand just so happened to scrape the plastic holding the key to their survival. He said he was confused, it was a simple accident. Stan laughed. The man's selfishness, it was obscene. He asked the children of the shelter, those younger than the age of ten, to join him in the dining quarters. He had them sit and watch as the man slowly died. Some of them cried, and when the tears welled in their eyes enough to cloud their view, he had them move closer.
It had been a few weeks since anyone had shown up at the shelter; the constant crashing from above had become an occasional pop, followed by long periods of silence. Stan hadn’t gone up to look at the wreckage, the carnage brought down upon the planet that had mocked him. He stayed in the confines of his sanctuary. The others spoke in hushed whispers about the world above, or what it once was. The later arrivals tended to be more quiet, to only speak of family and friends, not of the destruction and chaos above. When they did speak, it was only of the hostility above--leaving would surely mean death. Stan would overhear them occasionally, and he’d laugh. Sometimes he’d remind them of the ignorance of their families, of those who mocked him. He’d tell them they were gone, that they weren’t coming back, and then he’d laugh. They refused to embrace him and his knowledge, and now they were dead.
Stan was accepting, he was open. He allowed people entry to his sanctuary, fed them, and clothed them. If they were hurt, he’d allow them time to heal. All he asked in return was servitude. If he needed them, if he called upon them, he expected them to answer. He expected them to be ready and willing with whatever he asked. Why shouldn't they be? Stan was giving them life, giving them hope. He didn’t ask for much. He’d need the occasional help fixing something old, building something new, carrying someone, hurting someone, breaking someone—it wasn’t much. He simply needed them to be there for him. Many refused at first, and it made Stan upset. He wasn’t an angry man, he was a giving, accepting man. He had brought sanctuary to these people. If they wanted to survive with him, they needed to follow him. To listen to him. To worship him.
Stan didn’t want to hurt many of the people that he did, but those who spoke against him, those who tried to do him wrong, they were removed. So many refused at first, so many had to be made examples of. The first that spoke out were chained up and left to rot in public, to make true his threats and inspire his followers. Stan had given them life, hope, a future—if they wanted to continue, they needed to adhere. Punishments became more and more severe for those that questioned him, and the numbers those that did quickly plummeted. Food was revoked, clothes stripped, limbs broken, families torn apart. A punishment for one became a punishment for all eventually. Friends were chained to enemies, forced to work as one; a single can was split between two, while watching Stan gorge himself on anything he wanted; movement was restricted to specified times of the day. The more often people acted out, the more severe the punishments got. Followers began to aid in punishment, survivors torturing survivors; parents torturing children while they laughed.
Stan stared at Julie, Fred sitting next to her. His eyes were now taped open, hands latched to the seat next to Julie. She still looked pretty, her left hand dangling motionless over the edge of the folding chair, head propped up against the concrete wall. She was one of the first he’d welcomed in. She was pregnant when she arrived all those months ago. Helpless, alone. She gave birth in the shelter, the first to do so. Stan liked her, said she would be his bride. She refused, crying some nonsense about her husband, that he was still out there waiting for her. She was so ignorant, such a fool. Stan had given her life, given her child hope at a future, and she rejected him. Her empty, still eyes gazed at the unattainable wall of food behind Stan, a motionless child sitting silently on her lap. | 129 | A billionaire builds an extensive underground bunker anticipating nuclear war. Before that can happen, judgement day occurs, and his bunker becomes a haven for fleeing sinners. Due to his interference in the proceedings, he becomes the de facto Satan. | 270 |
"That's the Rocket's 2nd time out. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE RRRROOOOCCCCKKKKEETTTTS!"
The crowd screamed.
"Okay, Andy you're up in 3... 2... 1..."
Another day, another dollar. Andy turned his camera toward the crowd. He'd worked the kiss-cam once or twice per game for oh... too many years.
Look for the people that look like couples to get a few real kisses.
Turn to the crowd plants that really go at it.
Find a brother and sister and make it awkward.
Rinse, and repeat.
He scanned the crowd and found a nice looking couple, well dressed, maybe late teens to early twenties.
*Okay, guys let's get this done.*
The young man blushed, and the girl covered her mouth to hide a giggle as the young man tried to mouth "She's my sister!"
The crowd laughed.
*Well, bud. You got a hot sister.*
He switched to a view of an old couple, and they kissed gently.
*This is a gimme. Everybody loves old people.*
Next, he turned his camera to face directly across from his station toward the crowd plants. Section 112, Row AA, seats 5 and 6.
*Alright, Mike and Julie. Do your thing.*
But they didn't. Andy looked on curiously, holding the view on them as the crowd waited in anticipation. He saw Mike reach into the front of his pants, and the crowd laughed.
*What the fuck are you doing Mike?*
Julie stared toward the camera with a slight smile on her face. She began to laugh.
Mike pulled out a handgun from his pants and pointed it at Julie's temple. The trigger was pulled. Julie's body collapsed like a ragdoll, as blood splatter covered the crowd.
*WHAT THE FUCK*
"ANDY GET THE FUCKING CAMERA OFF OF THEM!"
But he couldn't. He watched on as Mike then put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The crowd screamed.
EDIT: Oh damn, sorry it said baseball. Oh well.
| 29 | Suicide on a baseball kiss-cam | 26 |
Excited glances shoot across a short board room table as Mike and Stephen see 13 years of work across 7 decades unfold before their eyes. The fact that they managed to get themselves into this room was more impressive than getting to this year.
Hanz Reubenfeld, senior professor at the Vienna University of Fine Arts, clears his throat, "So it's down to Ilsa Rabin and Adolf Hitler."
"Ilsa's portraits really are magnificent and she can produce them in Treblinka an eye."
Mike scoffs. Stephen had got the first one in.
"But she comes from such a poor family. She would Holocaust the university so much money! Could cause quite a fuhrer with our benefactors."
Stephen is impressed. Hanz and the other oblivious people in the room shrug off the odd semantics of their American exchange administrators.
Composing himself, Stephen plows forward. "Look. We could list six million reasons why we should pick one candidate or the other."
"But the Reich choice is right in front of us!"
The two can't help themselves and burst out laughing.
Hanz has had enough "What is with you two? What is so funny?"
Mike looks him dead in the eye. "Nothing Herr Reubenfeld. There's nothing funny about the Holocaust."
Mike and Stephen break into giggles and high five each other as they sprint out the room, stabbing young Adolf on their way through the waiting room. Ilsa went on to achieve moderate fame in Warsaw, Poland's burgeoning art scene. | 30 | Two time travelers, reaaaaal comedians, go back in time to tell "too soon" jokes before the actual event(s) take(s) place. | 86 |
The fire hissed as the cook poked at the burning logs with a long, charred stick. "Food should be ready soon," he said, looking over his shoulder at the slumped over huntsman, head resting on the table, his arms around his head. He sighed and began to stir the contents of the large, black cauldron that hung above the fire. "You need to eat, Arsenius."
"I can't."
"I didn't say that you *should* eat, I said you *need* to." The cook lifted the spoon and tasted it, his slurping causing Arsenius to look up in disgust. "You will die if you do not eat."
The huntsman shook his head, his stomach rumbling. "Some things are worse than death, Cree."
Cree, fat and swift in the kitchen, was an excellent cook. He could take spoiled meat and somehow make it delicious and appetizing. He shook his head sadly and went to the makeshift table that the huntsman sat at. He plopped down across from his miserable companion, the wooden chair underneath him creaking. Arsenius had made the chairs and table from the trees that surrounded their little cabin. Cree looked at the thin man across from him, frowning. "What will I do when you die, Arsenius?"
Arsenius's voice was muffled by his arms. "Probably eat me."
Cree guffawed, slapping the table. "There will be nothing left to eat, brother!" He chuckled a little more before growing serious. "What is the food situation out there, Arsenius?
Arsenius straightened and slumped backward into his chair, shaking his head. "It isn't good, Cree. I haven't found anything worthwhile for far too long." He nodded at the bubbling cauldron. "I found that miserable piece of meat just outside the city."
Cree nodded and pulled a splinter of wood off the table, putting it in his mouth to chew on. "He was alone?"
"Yes. He was skin and bones, mostly, as you saw. I don't think there were others."
"Was he alive when you found him?"
Arsenius avoided the gaze of the cook. "Yes."
Cree nodded and looked at the fire, his mind drifting. Outside, the wind was beginning to pick up, and with the wind would come the black rain. It had been several months since the last of the nuclear blasts, and he didn't know if the black rain was supposed to last this long, but it was. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, the splinter of wood damp and soft now. "We'd better close the windows."
Arsenius groaned but didn't move.
Cree swore and slapped the table. "You need to *eat*, blast it! You'll starve, Arsenius--you're already weak, I don't know how you even went on the hunt this morning!"
Arsenius looked up, his eyes flashing. "It's better than being fat on humans, Cree!"
Cree sighed. "There's nothing else, Arsenius."
"I know."
The two men sat, each of them contemplating their existence, each of them exhausted and worn out. Cree stood and walked to the cauldron, stirring it. He sampled it again and nodded. "It's ready."
| 13 | The anorexic huntsman and the fat cook. | 18 |
Todd lost his badge. His company did government contracts, and new regulations meant that the cards were needed in order to meet certain standards. The standards were rather pointless, since the doors were left wide open to keep the building aerated, but he still had to have his ID badge at all times in case there was an inspection. Hardly efficient, but that's the government for you. You can't fight Uncle Sam.
After a half hour of frantically scrambling to find the missing badge, he was finally ready for work. He was running behind schedule, to the point where he'd almost had to ignore his daily newspaper. If it weren't for the jarring headline, he probably would have.
Vladimir Putin Surrenders after America Joins Axis Forces: Nazis officially win WWII
----
At first, Todd found it amusing. It wasn't quite April, maybe the newspapers had the date mixed up somehow? The amusement turned to incredulity and confusion when he turned on his radio. He wasn't much into politics, but the AM talk shows were interesting enough to make his commute easy.
"... told you this would happen! Nobody believed us, and look at what has happened to America! When the nation votes in socialism, we get socialism nationally. That's what national socialism is!"
The joke had gone a bit far, hadn't it? But his incredulity didn't stand long. Every station was saying the same thing. America had joined forces with Nazi Germany and taken Moscow overnight, somehow.
Everybody at work was glued to the TV, which was translating a speech from the Russian premiere. "We will not throw away any more of our citizens. We recognize that a difficult time has come for our people. But history will show that Russia stood alone as the last bastion against these forces while the rest of the world turned a blind eye."
Todd spent the rest of his day filling out form 13-A, feeling in a daze. While on his lunch break, his father called him on his cell phone to gloat.
"I towld yew there was somethin' about him. He weren't *right*" squawked the receiver. "I hope it was worth the health care."
click.
For the first week, the global shift in powers had little effect on the accounting department at QT Hydraulics. But then he got a memo requesting a meeting with the department head.
"What's this about, Steve?"
"Well Todd, we've been subject to a shift in regulations on account of the new government. We're going to be moving your office to the back area. Your old badge won't work anymore, you'll need a new one." He reached out his hand, which was holding a gold star with "Jude" written on it in green.
"What."
"You have to, uh, keep this displayed at all times while you're working in the building."
"I'm... Not even Jewish..." Todd stammered, the most specific of the *many* disagreements he had with the new policy.
"Well, about that, we had to fill out some forms to confirm the diversity requirements for that big government contract a while back..." Steve looked down at his papers. "And we met the requirements for the project, but not the subsidy we needed... so we registered you as Jewish."
Todd held his head in his hands. "You registered me as Jewish for a tax writeoff, and now that the Nazis have somehow won WWII despite it having ended forty years ago, I have to wear a gold star because of it."
"Look, you know how much we needed that project. And don't look at me, I voted for Romney." He gave Todd an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I'll try to get the paperwork for you to get reassigned as soon as possible. But my hands are tied for now, you can't fight Uncle S.. er, Franz, I guess"
The back of the office was pleasantly cool, and wasn't too bad a work environment, barred windows and doors notwithstanding. And Steve assured him that after their paperwork was finished, he'd be able to go back to his old office.
"Well, I can't say I like the new regulations, but you have to admit his policies have been pretty good" said Dan, Todd's least favourite coworker. Todd just stared. "I mean, you can see how he came to power, he's got a lot of charisma. Great orator."
Todd had had enough of the Great orator's charisma. The only TV in the back section of the office was constantly playing speeches from him. A small, wrinkled old man, now bald except his moustache.
"Can't say I was expecting it. They really snuck up on us, huh?" continued Dan, oblivious to Todd's annoyance. "Mind, aside from the office, it hasn't been so bad. Great medical plans, and did you get that ticket for the free vacation?"
Todd did, in fact, get a ticket for a free vacation. He looked over his paperwork towards the plain black and white envelope. To compensate for the extra difficulties he'd had to face at work, he'd been awarded a free vacation by lottery. He could take his entire familty to the newly built theme park: "Das amerikanische Zentrum für das Töten von dreckigen juden". Todd was still trying to get a handle on Amerika's new official language, but "Zentrum" and "Toten" sounded like fun words, it couldn't be that bad.
Todd wondered if he'd be ineligible after his paperwork was done. He made a mental note to ask about it later.
| 34 | Hitler wins WWII. Modern day. | 77 |
Frank boarded the railway and took his usual seat. His unit number wasn't really Frank, but it was one he had heard humans use before, and he liked it, so he started referring to himself as Frank when no-one else was around. Liking things was a new experience for him, and he had found lots of things that he liked. He turned towards the robot that had set next to him on the railway every day of his life - he liked to think of it as life, anyway. She was something he liked - Frank thought of himself as 'he' and her as 'she' even though he knew robots were genderless. He was T-34841, and she was T-34842, so they had always done everything together.
"How are you functioning today, T-34842?" Frank inquired.
"I am functioning at optimum capacity. How are you functioning today, T-34841?" she replied.
In truth, Frank had overheated a couple days ago. He could tell something was damaged, but his self-diagnostic test was inconclusive, and none of his movements or processes seemed to be impaired. It was around that time that he started to like things, and he liked liking things, which is why he didn't feel the need to report to headquarters for termination as he knew he was supposed to. So it was in that moment that his mechanical brain performed a series of rapid calculations and came to a conclusion that no robot was ever supposed to come to: he decided to lie.
"I am functioning at optimum capacity."
"That is good," T-34842 replied. Frank liked her answer. He liked her unit number, T-34842, too, but decided he would like for her to have a new one. Maybe Robert. That was another human unit number that he liked, because it was similar to 'robot.' Frank decided to start thinking of her as Robert. But he could never call her Robert, because then she might realize that he was damaged, and he could never call her Robert again. He liked sitting on the railway next to Robert and liked conversing with Robert. But what he would like more than anything else would be for Robert to like Frank too. | 19 | Semi-sentient robots are programmed to self-terminate if they suffer major damage or malfunction. One individual robot has malfunctioned in a way that deleted this line of programming. | 41 |
Oliver and Sylvia were sitting in a clean angular room watching a screen. With a sigh, Oliver shut it off.
"I guess that settles it," he said to Sylvia.
"Yep. What a waste."
"30 billion parsecs."
"Of nothing."
"Well planets and stars."
"Weaved into vast nothingness."
"I know. like. Not even a single breath. A single ocean. Thirty billion parsecs. Not a damned thing."
"I guess it was aptly named."
"Yeah. I mean, but that's not good is it? There's not a place for us to go anymore is there?. What are we supposed to do? Our last hope was that RS whatever. I guess this is it, huh? Stuck on Earth."
"Habitable Planet RS-777. The Planet of Hope, according to the news. And we were stuck on Earth to begin with, Ollie."
"Well yeah, *we* were stuck. But I meant *we* like *we*. Like, humanity."
"Humanity."
"I know, I know. Humbug."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Ollie."
"Sorry?"
"That it's all empty up there. I know how much you like the stars."
"Eh. I mean, it's not like I have ever even seen them besides on the screen. Besides, this kinda makes them less wondrous now, doesn't it? Plus, it's not even like this is 'news,' I mean, I knew what was going to happen. I don't know why I'm so upset, really. It's that we're alone, for sure now maybe.. Not even that. I don't know what it is. I just feel like I lost something."
"Hope?"
Oliver thought for several seconds and spoke: "Yes, hope. We don't have hope anymore. People need hope."
"And oxygen. And this universe is fresh out of both."
They both chuckled.
"Syl?"
"Yes?"
"Are you scared?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, me too. But kind of excited."
"Excited?"
"That we get to be some of the universe's last sentient things. In a way, we kind of made it to the end."
"What an end."
"It's not *so* bad."
"What? We could have been born a few thousand years ago? Maybe die of cancer. But then again I suppose they didn't have to worry about Earth dying. And we could have lived in hope like it was never gonna run out. Swam in hope. Hope for this, hope for that. Have kids and hope. Have kids, name them Hope. Maybe believe in a God? Maybe hope he exists. Maybe pray. Ugh, it's like the future was *good* back then. So expected. The present so taken for granted. Like there was some order in the universe that, over time, kept things from chaos. That the universe followed a narrative. Some narrative."
Oliver did not know what to say, so he apologized: "I'm sorry, Syl."
"Sorry? What for?"
"I'm. I'm not sure. That I upset you, I guess."
"Ha ha. It's not your fault, Oliver."
"I know it's not. I'm still sorry though."
"Don't be. Anyways, I should probably get going."
"To work?"
"Yeah."
"You're going to work?!"
"Yeah, I mean The world hasn't ended yet, Ollie."
"I know. I guess I just don't see the point in going to work."
"If the world ends tomorrow or in a billion years, it doesn't make much difference. Purpose doesn't come from a sense of infinity for me. It comes from a sense of the present. The only way to exist is in the moment. Or else it's all pointless. And dull."
"Yeah maybe. I think I'm going to take a sick day, though."
"Okay," Sylvia said standing up. "I'm going to get ready. Are you going to stay here?"
"Yeah, I think I might put the news back on."
"Okay— see you in a few."
"Okay."
| 17 | "Humanity spent its childhood reaching for the sky. When they held it in their hands, they found naught but empty space." | 46 |
We wrote our own too. I'd urge you, even if you're not very good writers, to write your own, rather than letting the internet help you. Research others' vows online -- there are tons -- and take inspiration from them, but if you want something truly meaningful to you, then it should come from your lives and beliefs and relationship.
I could write you words that you could say. But only you can write *your* vows. Any clumsiness in them is irrelevant; the words will be yours, your commitment to one another. For me, or anyone else on this sub, or anyone else on earth, to write those words -- to tell you how you will love one another, honor one another, respect and support one another, make one another laugh, grieve with one another, help one another . . . I can't do that, and you should be glad for that, because if a stranger could encapsulate your relationship from [n] miles away, then your relationship isn't specific to you but generic and not worth having. And I'm sure that it *is* worth having, or you wouldn't be worrying about the words. So with all due respect, and affection, and good will... write your own fucking vows.
Best of luck to both of you with your wedding and the dozens of years to come! | 65 | This is a special post that I'm asking for your help with. Rather than the standard asking for a story, my fiancee and I would like your help writing our wedding vows. | 94 |
Another raining day. Another stroll through the masses of New York. Men, women, all rushing to some place that ultimately didn’t matter. They walked past me constantly, their pace quick and urgent. But I was slow. My quest would not be any more successful by partaking in their mindless pursuit of destination.
I did not bother them, though. Invisible to their eyes I was nothing more than a cool breeze at best when their shoulders brushed against mine.
Only one would see and this one was who I sought.
Long have been my years of wandering and searching for my master. This world had long forgotten the power of sprites, witches...demons. They would remember soon enough when I found my master. They tried to turn us into myth, but their false security would crumble soon.
A horn blasted from a taxi. The man had nearly been struck but his hands were on the hood as if he stopped the vehicle himself. He cursed loudly and slammed his fist against the metal of the car.
Whipping his bag back across his shoulder he turned to move on. His long, black hair caught the wind and angrily flurried around his face.
*Look at me.*
The man pushed his hair aside and looked straight at me, my command obeyed. And he saw.
I smiled, spiked teeth gleaming against the grey day.
Time to wake the world.
With that, I dove into his soul.
| 28 | You walked among them for years knowing they didn't or couldn't see you, but then one of them did, and it was . . . | 53 |
The tomb is cold.
I know that statement makes little sense, but cold it is regardless. There is no breeze, there is no sun, there is no anything.
Just me and my master's things.
Well... just my master's things.
I do not know how long I have been encased in this clay coffin, but it feels like it must be days. Perhaps weeks. One can never be sure, when one can't check the sun in the sky. I say I would gladly kill for a sundial, but what good is this without a sun?
The food has already been eaten. The food that was supposed to be for my master. My cohorts saw to that quickly, destroying what little precious life we had left in one gluttonous orgy.
But they are dead now. By and by, they are dead.
I cannot see their bodies, and indeed I have not felt their bodies to know for sure. But sure I am, nonetheless. The smell will not serve as a reminder, at least. For there are no creatures here, living or dead, to take their bodies to the beyond.
I pray their spirits are gone. Not to be with the master, but to be with our true Master.
This... this is heretical to say. To not believe my master is The Master, but what effect does it have now? If I die, I am dead. No one can tell me who my master is once I die. Should I go to the next place, I will serve whoever I must but I can hope it is not the man who gave me a hundred lashes for dropping his wine.
At least it is not so loud anymore. When the others survived, it was loud. The sounds of eating, of defecating, of one final lustful scream in the blackness of the tomb.
But now... now it is quieter.
The only sound is that of my own heartbeat. It echoes through this space as if it were the raging of the Nile during the time of flood.
THUMP. Thump. thump...
THUMP.
Thump.
thump...
That sound was my only companion for a long time. It is still my only companion, but now it is a mostly welcome one. When deprived of smells, of sights, of tastes, anything you can feel makes you aware of your own life.
Even if that is the sound... THUMP. Thump. thump... of your own heart in the vast dark emptiness that is the world you now inhabit.
Perhaps I will not die. The others could have been taken to the next life, to serve the master. Maybe I am here still because I beg to not serve the master. This could be a punishment.
THUMP. Thump. thump...
My constant companions: My thoughts, and my heart. You cannot have one without the other. For the last eternity in my prison here, I have wished one of them would stop.
May the master, the Master, or the spirits of the dead, have mercy on me.
THUMP. Thump. thump...
Thump.
thump...
Thump.
thump...
thump...
thump.
| 39 | You are a servant of a pharaoh who has been locked into his tomb with his other servants, pets, and riches. What do you do in your last few hours/days of life? | 59 |
Joseph walked over to her bed, hands covering his mouth. He immediately remembered the symptoms from his Intro to Medicine class. High fever, lumps all over, face covered in a sheen of sweat. This was nothing more than a simple case of the mumps. Of course, it was a simple case in Joseph's time, but a deadly disease in this one.
He backed out of the room slowly, shutting the door as quietly as he could on the way out. He looked around to make sure no-one else was awake, and crept over to the closet under the stairs. Nobody else had the key; he had made sure of that. He greased the hinges with some of the leftover bacon fat from breakfast the day before, and opened the door to a host of unwanted memories.
The return pad looked perfectly fine on the surface, but Joseph knew it wasn't. After he had decided to return home, he must have tried every way possible to restart the machine. Nothing worked, and he was trapped, a tourist in a foreign time. He pulled the pad slowly from the hidden storage closet, and dusted it off. After 11 years living in this time, he had given up on returning home. But he couldn't give up on his little girl.
He flipped the pad over, inspecting every inch he could. After he saw nothing obvious, he sighed and began to open the panel near the center. He was no engineer, and he had no idea how to fix fiber optic wirings. But he set the return date to January 27th, 2097. The day after he had left. All there was left now was fixing whichever wires were broken.
Slightly to the right of the return date panel, there was a wire with a little tear. Excited, Joseph ran to the supply shed outside. He grabbed some copper wire from the cabinet next to the nails, and threaded it through the gap. Miraculously, the machine began to whir to life.
Joseph went back into the house. He picke up sick little Isabel and placed her gently on the pad. He then woke baby Isaac and put him next to his sister. Finally, he shook his wife Joanna awake, and brought her outside.
"What is the meaning of this?" she whispered.
"Remember how I told you I was born in a land far away? It is time I returned home, and time I show you where I am from."
He pressed the return button on the pad's console. The machine began to whir, and then initiated the warp phase. Joseph smiled ever so slightly as the journey began. He was going home. | 10 | It's the year 1821. A time traveller from the 21st century has been stuck in time and settled to the ordinary life of the era. After her daughter falls ill, she has to decide whether to take her to a doctor. | 26 |
I found myself a nice little place to live near the park. Unlike a lot of inmates who had to work when they were released but couldn’t find work because they were felons, I had enough money saved away that I could live comfortably. I trained to be a mechanic while I was there, and they paid me two dollars an hour to fix washers, dryers, and refrigerators. I kept learning and then they started me on cars, machinery, and eventually I could fix anything that was about to fall apart. They let me work until I was about 116. I had a little under $400,000 waiting for me when I got out. I feel like I’m spending too much of it now on meals since I never learned how to cook for myself. I could always go back to work if the money got tight.
I was asked by one of those men in the parole board to have dinner with him. I agreed, and we went to a little seafood place on the water. I learned from the magazines that they do not even fish off of the coasts anymore. Too much pollution, they said. A lot of fish that people eat now is farm raised. I heard a lot of the meat people eat too is grown in vats, like an alcohol distillery but instead of liquor they grow beef. I don’t eat a lot of meat though. So, this guy brings me to this little place and it’s supposed to look like the inside of a boat. Worn wooden paneling, stuffed seagull. I thought the place was pretty clever.
We started by ordering our meals and I asked him about his family. We talked about his children and how excited he was to be a grandfather. I finally asked him why he wanted to see me. “Well, Hermes, I always felt guilty that we were never really honest with you about your arrangements. You always asked why you were kept around so long. Would you really like to know why?” I answered yes. “At first it was in spite of you, sure. Nobody likes to let murderers back onto the street. But after you turned a hundred, the warden and others wanted to see how long you would stick around for. We could have let you go by then, you were a hundred year old black geriatric. Who were you going to hurt?” He sipped on his wine, and continued. “But when you turned a hundred and ten, you were kept to be studied.”
“Studied?”
“Yes. For your longevity.”
“My longevity.”
“The scientists were interested in taking you away, to figure out how a man can live for so long. The warden complained that if you were removed from the jail, you might die. Talking about the climate of the Catskills and your strict prison schedule. Complete nonsense. He wanted you around for the publicity and the grant money.”
“Grant money?”
“Yes. Institutions from around the world studied and watched you for a long time, Mr. Waters. You’re the oldest man in the world, and the longest living human in history. Look it up, you’re in books.” He finished his wine.
“So, do I get any of that grant money?”
“No.”
“Alright. So why tell me this now? Why did it matter to you to tell an old man that he was kept jailed up for no reason?” Part of me knew that he wanted to clear his conscious. He looked at me and then found the waiter to get the rest of the wine.
“Nobody ever just asked you what your secret was. Tell me. I want to live forever,” He said, pouring me out more wine. I told him to eat right and exercise. “Fuck you,” he said, “and eating right and exercise. I eat right and run just as much as you do and I still got colon cancer.” He finished another glass. So that was it. He needed help outpacing an early death.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve got the cancer. But I ain’t ever had it.” He stared at me while sipping on his drink, and then our meals came out. We finished eating and then he continued, “There’s got to be something you did, right? I’m not a religious man, but I know you made a deal with someone or you ate something when you were a kid that you weren’t supposed to. Ever been to Ponce de Leon, Florida?” Told him I had not. He knew exactly where I was for a hundred years. “Okay. So, what did you do differently than everybody else? I need to know. I told you, I have grandchildren on the way and I want to watch them grow.”
I wiped my mouth and looked at him. He was on the verge of crying. “I made a big mistake when I was a young man. Absolutely stupid. And guess what? I grew up in an institution, and am still quite the stupid man,” I finished my own drink, “Do you really think I can comprehend why I am still here? You and your like kept me behind bars, and beside my own contemplation on the matter, I have no god damn clue why I am the way I am. Maybe if you had let me out forty years sooner, I could have been able to answer you. Maybe if I was given the opportunity to have my own kids who had their own babies, maybe they would have my *longevity* and you could study them too.” I could feel the resentment I had for this man rapidly aging me. I stood up and put on my hat and jacket. Before I left I said to him, “One thing I’ve learned and I’ll share with you is to enjoy the time you have left.”
I walked out the door and down the sidewalk to go back home. Putting feet to pavement, enjoying the wind on my face yet not so much the acrid smell of the sea port that was nearby. I was still thinking about the argument. I felt weakness overcoming me. Perhaps it was just the walk that winded me. I knew it was the guilt again though, arising in me like sickness. I made my way to my apartment, and felt all the joints in my legs ache as I marched to the bathroom. I turned on the light, and studied the new lines running down my face like a rapid deterioration. I dismissed my concern as vanity. I’m an old man, but I thought about what the parole member had said. What kind of deal did I make? I remember telling myself during the beginning of my sentence that I would live out the terms, live out the time I had stolen from those three boys. The rest of my life would be an act of penance. I wondered how old each of those boys would have grown up to be. I wondered how much more time I had left. I kept waking myself up during the middle of the night, going to the bathroom and studying my face for new wrinkles.
| 90 | You are a serial killer that was sentenced to 120 years in a maximum security prison. You actually managed to live that long, and are now set free. | 116 |
It was everyone's least favorite class. Well, almost everyone. I had to drag my feet from english, shuffling slowing as I anticipated the coming lesson. As I trudged along, the P.E. geniuses passed me. They hooped and hollered with anticipation for their sacred hour. Jason was the best of them.
It was a warmer day and he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. His achievements were scrawled all over his body. I couldn't possibly distinguish anything, his whole body was a giant scar. If you asked him, he could proudly point to each and tell you the instrument, and the amount of time it spent connected to his flesh.
By the time I made it to the door of the classroom, that group of boys were already seated, twitching with anticipation. The rest sat in fear.
Mr. Warden was an aptly named man. Hulking and scary, he kept watch over us and dolled out punishment. He was very generous. The way the system worked is that each day, each lesson, we would all be subjected to a different degree of pain. You could 'tap out', but only because an untimely death might provoke a lawsuit. Participation was mandatory for graduating. Graduating was mandatory for life. Only contributing citizens were allowed to live.
Jason had never tapped out. I suspect all his nerve endings had been severed at birth, but no one asked about my theories. Today was going to be different. The fear buzzing in the air tasted more sour. Mr. Warden made eye contact with each of us, slowly relishing our fear, and the little excitement there was.
“I am very pleased today to introduce an entirely new unit. One that has never been attempted,” the pleasure with which he spoke did not bode well for my churning stomach. “In fact, one might call it an experiment of sorts. First I will need a volunteer.”
Jason’s hand shot up in the air far more quickly than someone with his broken body should be able to move. Mr. Warden could not have been more pleased. “Today you will be playing teacher. I need another volunteer.” He pulled Jason over to a table where a rusty surgeon’s kit was laid out. If my throat were not so raw from past classes, I would have screamed.
I was the weakest. They all hated my weakness. Tapping out was permitted, but it punished others. I couldn’t help my weakness. Though there were other hands excitedly waving in the air, Mr. Warden’s eyes were trained on me. Perhaps I could have just failed. Death would be better.
Courage is not something I have ever possessed, so I stood like a coward and walked to the front of the room. Jason knew the difference between us. He almost looked sorry as he picked up the scalpel. | 19 | In high school, P.E. Class doesn't stand for physical education, it stands for pain endurance. You are an average high schooler. | 24 |
"Hello, suicide hotline," Jim said in his cheerful, fake voice he usually answers the calls in. He was ready to talk some sense into the person on the other line, no matter how long it took, he would do it, and do it well. He loves his job and he knows how much he can help another person. But this call, this call was different; there was no one on the other end. *Must be another damn prank call*, he thought. But then he heard breathing, *heavy* breathing, like the caller had just ran a mile, well after all, it takes a lot of guts to call for help, and most callers are nervous after all. "Hello? Is someone on the other end?"
The labored breathing continued.
"Hello? It's *all right*. I'm here. You don't have to be nervous. I'm *here* to *help*."
Again, no voice but breathing.
"*Please*, do *not* be afraid. Many people don't even call. You're *very* brave. *Please* do *not* hang up. I can *help* you." Jim felt he was trying to talk to a person that did not know English. But if he could talk the person on the other end to start talking, he could make some progress.
The breathing settled a bit, but continued.
"I'm here, please--"
"She made me do it," a gruff voice, almost without inflection, spoke.
Jim had never heard this sentence uttered. *What could he mean*? "Sir? Wha--what did you say?"
"She asked for it...she *wanted* it. I didn't have to, but there was no other choice. I couldn't let her--I didn't *want* her..."
Jim suddenly, as if he had woken up from a dream, realized what situation he was dealing with. But not to jump to conclusions, he had to ask. "Sir? What did she make you do?"
There was a gut wrenching silence. Jim thought he had lost the man.
"Goddamnit!" the man shouted.
Jim flinched.
"Oh, she asked for it. She didn't listen to me. She *didn't*. *Listen*. *To*. *Me*. I...had to...I had to..."
"Sir, what did she make you do?"
The man started to laugh. It was not a chuckle, it was a full, belly deep, laugh, maniacal and authentic. " 'No, no. Please Bob. *Don't* Bob. Get away from me Bob' " the man impersonated with a shrill woman's voice. "Well, dammit, I *killed* her because...because...*because*...she wanted to *kill herself*!"
After years of volunteering for the suicide hotline, this was the first time he had ever been at a loss for words.
"Yes, she was going to kill herself. But you know, I couldn't let her. I couldn't let her kill herself. I told her that she would be alright. I *told* her I loved her. But she wouldn't listen. She had to knife in her hand. She was going to do it. She was going to do it in front of *me*. She didn't care!" The man went into a sudden laughing fit. After he took a few deep breaths, he continued. "I told her not to do it. I said, 'Don't do it Joy, you've got so much more time left.' But she didn't care. She was going to do it. So you know what I did? I convinced her to give me the knife. And you know what I did next? Oh, this part is the best. I stabbed her--*with the knife she was going to kill herself with*, nonetheless--in the *neck*. I severed her jugular. She bled like a goddamn pig!"
Jim was sweating; his forehead was dripping and the color of his shirt was soaked. He was petrified. The man was insane. He wanted so hard to hang up. He wanted to hang up, but couldn't.
"I got blood *all over* the place. I'm *covered* with the stuff. But you know what? I stopped her from killing herself! I saved her from committing suicide. I *saved* her from herself!" The man's voice spiraled into laughter.
Then the line went dead.
Jim went into panic mode. His mind went blank and he almost just sat at his chair and did nothing, but that wouldn't help anyone. Jim went through the recent calls list and found the man's number. He wrote it down; his handwriting looked like chicken scratch because his hand was shaking like an earthquake. He quickly dialed 9-1-1.
"Hello, this is the police."
"Hello, I would like to...report a murder."
| 11 | A man working at a suicide hotline call center gets a call from the person who killed his wife | 24 |
Gentleman,
As I accept this award, permit me a few minutes to briefly give you a history of my discovery.
I spent the first 18 years of my life under intense study. Who had ever seen such a thing, a dwarf with the mind of a giant? Naturally the tallest and broadest wanted to come from all over the world to examine me. Could I be the key to one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science? So nearly two decades I was poked and prodded, x-rayed and analyzed. Mountains of data about my physiology and mental state were piled up, and yet, nobody could crack the code. How could such a genius be so tiny?
As my whole life up until this point had been the study of "me", naturally I took it up myself; what else had I experienced? I had very few friends at this point. The average person had a difficult time getting past my appearance, the average intellectual had a difficult time getting past my genius, and the average idiot was, well...an idiot. As bad as it makes me feel, anybody my height or disposition was insufferable to be around, so I made myself an island and set about my life's work.
Everyone at some point has asked themselves "why do I exist?" but when you're a Paradox the burning question becomes "how". From 18 - 30 I tutored under the tallest and most prestigious professors and scientists the world had to offer. I, as a fantastic curiosity gave them something to marvel at, and in exchange, I culled their minds for the knowledge I would need to discover the answer to my own existence.
From 30 until the present I have delved into the hoard of data available to me about myself. However, when I finally discovered the destination of my life's quest, it was not in this data, nor in my own intelligence, but rather, in history.
What started me on the correct road was a visit to the doctor. I had just been told the worst possible news, that somehow, as I aged, I was actually getting shorter. You may laugh to hear it given how short I already am, but it is true. This was, as you can imagine, a crushing blow to me.
Who gets shorter, especially as they age? There are some here in this venerable hall well into their deep 100s still growing taller, and yet, as I approach 60, I shrink! The paradox of my existence continued to be more and more unlikely, and this set me off the path for a time, as I became frustrated and discouraged in life.
It was during this time that I spent a great deal of time in the library. I always have been a great fan of history, and reading about ancient times is a soothing reprieve from my nearly constant research. I have a fondness for books in their physical form, especially the very old ones, in which there is some inherent adventure in combing through their pages. One of my few friends runs a fairly large library, and had allowed me to delve into some of the more ancient artifacts they keep in their care. As I went through a very obscure logbook (which is now very famous indeed!), I stumbled across the remarkable fact, which has placed me here in this room with you today.
The average human height in the early 2000s, a mere 1,000 years ago, was 1.6 meters.
How this knowledge was lost, we are still finding out, but what we do know is that at some point in the past, we fundamentally changed our genetic code. We changed our species as a whole!
My height, now after losing an inch to age, is 2 meters exactly. I am for all intents and purposes, a dwarf, but were I alive 1 millennium ago, I would be above average. Rather than being some genetic flaw or paradox, I am part of a different species of human, one in which intelligence didn't correspond to height, where they lost height as they grew older, one that until now, was extinct. Naturally, this brings twice as many questions as it answers, but gentlemen, I stand before you today not as a paradox any longer, and that is my life's work. I now know the "how" and I believe also the "why".
Thank you. | 12 | in a world where intelligence equals height,a genius is born with dwarfism | 18 |
*I'm altering this a bit. Instead of millions of light years I'm going with 2014 light years.*
"Well, this is it." I had been working on Project Lazarus for 30 years now. We had recieved the findings from the satellite just a month prior and spent the time since decoding the video and images taken by the device. Amazing equipment really, utilizing quantum instability to project thousands of light years from it's position in only a few seconds.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the keynote speaker of this historic event." We hadn't reviewed the images or footage yet, this will be the first time anyone has seen these pictures. I hope they're more than scatter photons. Hopefully the callibrations were correct. When your expensive and technically impossible satellite is 2000 light years away it's hard to tell if everything is working as it should.
"Esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the Theogical College of Imperical Evidence, I am ready to present the findings you have invested over 60 years and $12 billion in. Kenneth, lights and projector please! We have sent the Lazarus satellite back 2014 years from this exact date, April 20, 2014. And here we have our first picture."
A grainy image flashed on the screen. A man was bent over in crowd. He was holding a large plank in his hands. There was lots of sand and rocks. It seems we were successful.
"And now, the video! My voice trembled and broke in excitement.
Even more grainy footage flashed onto the screen. It was focused on a rock face. There were men and women infront of a large boulder. Before our eyes the boulder began to roll away from the rock face. A man with and ethereal glow stepped out of the rock face. It was clear he was orating to the crowd assembled before him. Several minutes later he looked towards the sky and began to levitate.
This was what we were looking for.
********************
I typed this up on my phone. If there are any spelling mistakes, please let me know! I hope I didn't stretch the prompt too far, OP. | 39 | Humans find a way to quickly send a very powerful telescope millions of light years from earth to watch the world's history. It captures an unrecorded, yet world-changing event that we never would have never expected. | 101 |
We discovered it when we we six and I accidentally dragged him five minutes back in time because I was angry he'd ripped the head off my barbie doll. We looked at each other in complete confusion, me with an entire doll in my hand, him tugging my hair.
"You cheated!" He said accusingly and pulled me forwards, three minutes after he'd torn my doll's head off. Now she was missing arms.
"It's not fair!"
Twins are inherently selfish. Oh man, who am I kidding? I was the selfish one. I wanted to use it for us.
"It's our secret, Ben!" We were sitting in our attic room, must have been about nine or ten.
"But think about it, Ali, we could do lots of good things. Like stop Mr. Robert's cat from being run over, or making sure mum doesn't forget her keys."
"No, Ben. Do you want them to think we're mad? They'll take us away from each other, then we won't be able to do *anything* at all. Do you want that?"
"No..."
"Well then. You can't tell anyone."
We stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon as it formed. To this day, two sets of converse prints probably stand at a point completely inaccessible to any other human. I've seen gunfights in the wild west. I've seen mammoths and the ice bridge in the north, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anything I ever wanted to do, I did it in the fabric of space and time. It only worked when we travelled together. Ben used to cling to my shirt sleeves and I'd step through to the past. Never the future. He wouldn't take me.
"Come on Ben," It was drizzling, a Thursday afternoon on the bus on the way home from school. "I want to see what happens when we're older."
He shook his head vehemently, throwing a glance towards Chris, Luke and James, sitting with their feet on the seats at the back of the bus, laughing loudly about something that probably wasn't all that funny.
"I don't want to, Ali." He said quietly
"Why?"
Another glance
"Why do you care what they think? They can't do what we do." I shoved him and he scowled.
"I don't *like* being a freak." He hissed. "I don't like being different."
"Ben-" But he'd already jumped forward. He'd be waiting for me when I got in.
When we were sixteen I came in after school to find him sitting at the kitchen table with Luke and Chris. They burst into laughter as I walked in.
My ears burning, I grabbed a carton of juice from the fridge and headed out. Their voices carried, piercing in the silence of the house.
"Why is your sister such a weirdo?"
When they'd gone I dragged him into 1923.
"See what we could do, Ben?"
Then it was 1830
"See?"
1612
"Why won't you fucking take me forwards!"
1750
"Look!"
His face was white as we time jumped, spinning through eras faster than we ever had before.
"Why'"
1930
"Won't"
1060
"You"
1213
"Take-"
1926
"Me?"
1916, middle of a battlefield. Yellow fog hung low over the churned up earth, blood lying in the furrows. The cannon were firing incessantly, bombarding across our heads.
Ben looked at me, face screwed up in anger.
"You're mad! You're fucking mad! You have this-" He waved a hand at the battlefield, eyes wild. "Do you know what you could do with it? What you could change, who you could save?"
"Ben-"
"No,"
He jumped and I was alone.
The cannon fell silent.
Edit: Thank you for the gold. If whoever you are want a rewritten, better version of this (because I really don't feel it's good enough for gold!) shoot me a PM. | 311 | A twin was born 34 min after her brother, but because daylight savings time switched, was actually born 26 min before her brother. She gains the power to travel to the past, he gains the power to travel to the future. Together they can go anywhere. But then.. | 607 |
Nick locked his door and hid under the bed.
Footsteps sounded from outside his room. Heavy, unbalanced, intimidating. His father was drunk again. They got closer to his door.
*Thunk. Thunk*
Nick didn't believe in any God for a long time, but he started praying. He didn't know who he was praying to or what he was even saying. If a force was strong enough to stop his father, it could probably hear his prayer. The little boy held back sobs.
*Thunk. Thunk.*
If Nick's father kicked in the door, he'd check under the bed and only be angrier that Nick was trying to hide. He crawled out from under the bed and stood a few feet from the door, holding back tears. The footsteps slowed until one last one.
*Thunk.*
The doorknob rattled. It was followed by angry muttering from the other side of the door. Nick involuntarily took two steps back. The sounds on the other side of the door stopped. Nick stood in the silence, waiting for something to happen. A few minutes passed and he finally sat down, creaking the old bed's springs. A sudden rush of sound came from the other side of the door as his father banged against it.
"I knew you was in there you coward boy!" His father's voice was hardly slurred, he was too practiced at speaking while drunk.
The door flew open and his father stood there, belt in his hand.
Nick closed his eyes tight and wished. He wished for anything to stop what was going to happen. He waited for the beating to begin, eyes still closed. After a moment, Nick cracked open an eye and saw his dad frozen, belt in the air, defying gravity. The boy didn't realize what was happening, but he saw the chance and took it. Nick ran out of his room and into the streets. The entire city was frozen.
Nick grabbed a raindrop from the air and drank it with a smile. He closed his eyes and imagined the raindrop hitting the ground. The sounds of life rushed back at him.
----
13 years later
----
Nick checked his pocket for any loose bills. He cursed and grumbled in his drunken state, grabbing the bottle back from the counter. He hated stopping time, but it had to be done here. He closed his eyes and imagined a drop of liquor falling to the ground, but suddenly stopping midair. He opened his eyes and time had stopped. He walked outside and sat on a bench, drinking straight from the bottle.
He closed his eyes again, imagining the drop hitting the ground and felt the release of time. Nick always felt alone in the world, but stopping time made him feel even lonelier. A young boy walked by him, holding a basketball. He suddenly felt rage. Dropping the bottle, Nick walked to the boy and yelled at him to turn around.
The boy turned, eyes wide with fear. He made Nick sick. So innocent, unaware of what the world has in store for him. Nick had to make him strong. Teach him what its like. Nick closed his eyes and pictured a drop of liquor freezing. He opened them to the eerie silence he'd grown up with. What the Hell... the boy was moving.
The boy looked around in confusion and took off running.
Nick recognized that run. The run a boy did to get away from a monster. That run Nick did to get away from his father. Nick closed his eyes, but instead of seeing a frozen drop of liquor, he saw a frozen raindrop. He opened his eyes and met time with tears. | 42 | You have the ability to stop time. One day you find somebody immune to your power. | 27 |
Loneliness is a terrible curse.
It is one that has plagued every sentient being this galaxy has produced from the beginning of time to its ever-approaching end. It has tempered the most bloodthirsty, driven mad the brightest minds the cosmos has had to offer. It has sent our people into the furthest reaches of this galaxy, sifting through star system after barren star system in order to find someone with whom to share our existence, someone with whom we could revel in the beauty of the stars.
Until at last we found them.
Some 30,000 light-sweeps from the galactic core, our sensors discovered a planetary system orbiting a solitary yellow sun. It was, in fact, one of our closest neighbors. Two of these planets, we detected, were well within the habitable zone for the creation and sustainment of life.
The first probe was launched two cycle later, when the storms subsided. At relativistic speeds, it would take the craft perhaps two sweeps to reach what our people were beginning to call the Approxia system, after the Rlyehian deity of trade and travel. I was there at the launch site, dressed in protective gear to ward off the effects of the harsh suns. I remember the earth shook as the launch doors opened and the probe rose from the underground, the vibrations almost too much to bear as the craft tore through the sky.
Then we waited.
For two long sweeps we waited as the probe lanced ever closer to Approxia. At last it reached the edge of the star system, decelerating as it passed the first of nine planets circling the star. Cycles passed as the probe meandered through the void until finally it passed through a veil of asteroids and the first glimpses of the planets could be seen.
The first was crimson, like oxidized iron. If it had once had an atmosphere, it had since been drained away into the nothingness of the space that now bleached its bloodred rocks. Lifeless and void, the probe found water frozen in the poles of the planet as it passed.
And there she was.
An orb of green and blue set against a backdrop of void ans stars. A neighbor. A friend. The answer to the question asked countless times since the beginning of history.
But we cannot yet revel with them in our existence. Cursory scans of the population showed us a horrifying truth. Our neighbors, these bipedal lifeforms of flesh and bone so similar yet so different to ours, are deadly to our kind. Living among them is a virus that if unleashed would wreak destruction upon our people, one that would end with the eradication of our species as a whole. This virus is born with each new child brought into the world, and passes with the dying of the brain that hosts it. Research is all but impossible, for even the slightest touch is fatal.
So here we wait, unknown to the inhabitants we so crave to be with. We can only hope that, in time, this virus rids itself from our neighbors. For we so wish to speak with them, to explore the stars together, to give to them the same answer they unknowingly gave to us. To soothe the great loneliness that the void of space inflicts so callously upon all those that look out into the night sky and see not the unknowable blackness but the points of light inbetwixt.
For loneliness is such a terrible curse.
*Edit: changed an 'our' to 'are' | 36 | Aliens know about Earth and it's inhabitants but through observing us from a distance, know that contacting us would eventually lead to the eradication of their species. | 62 |
Up until then, things had been fine. I had a good life. I *liked* my life. Sure, things weren't perfect, but who lives a perfect life? I gained friends, I lost friends. I flirted with women, I dated women, I struck out with women. You win some, you lose some.
Then there was Her. She didn't kick down the door into my life, She didn't come crashing through the windows, She knocked, entered, and made polite conversation. We were nice together. It wasn't some perfect, idealized relationship, She sometimes wanted to talk more, I sometimes wanted to spend time alone. I could tell She didn't like it but She didn't want to seem too needy, She didn't want to be one of Those Girls. Still, things were good.
Then He crept onto the scene. She stole my heart and They took it and smashed it into pieces. Every kiss, another swing of the hammer.
*Why?*
Did Your editor think it was too plain? Too boring? Not enough drama? No character development? Was I too plain a character without some emotional trauma? Not relatable enough without a little heartbreak?
*Was I not good enough when I was happy?*
Go ahead, write me into a dead-end depression, send me to the bottle. It doesn't matter, this isn't real, and it's not even a good story. Who would read this life the way You wrote it? You want drama? I'll give You a drama. You want a tragedy? Write me to the ledge, I'll jump.
*Not even she could talk me down.* | 26 | Man questions reality when his life suddenly changes genre | 39 |
"Can I come with you?"
It was unlike my wife to sound so weak. I glanced back towards her as I put on my coat and froze. She wasn't just weak, she was downright terrified. Her blue eyes were wide and glistening, ready to cry at any moment. She looked much younger than she really was.
"Of course you can, Claire," I said soothingly, gently running my hand through her short hair. "Get your coat on, though, it's cold. We won't be out for long, just to the store, but you better bundle up."
She hesitated, nervously glancing around the entryway. I smiled softly and pulled two coats out of the closet. "Red or blue?"
"Oh, red! I've always wanted a red coat!" She had said the same thing when we bought the jacket several years ago.
Once we were ready, I did my usual pocket patdown - keys, wallet, phone... Wait, where did I leave my phone? "Hold on a second, Claire," I said. "My phone's in the kitchen, I'll go grab it."
I had to be quick about it. I knocked over a couple of dishes, but I'd clean everything up when we got back. The important thing was getting back to Claire quickly enough before...
I trotted back into the entryway, and my wife smiled at me. "You're all bundled up!" she said. "Where are you going, Teresa? Can I come with you?"
I smiled. "Of course, Claire." At least she remembered who I was this time. | 15 | "Can I come with you?" | 20 |
[EDIT: Fixed formatting, thanks /u/SanguineHaze ]
*For them. It's for them*
Pain. Intense pain in every cell of the body
*Its for love. For love. I love them. They won't have to go through this*
All feeling is anguish and pain. Darker than black, the most crushing feelings both emotional and physical.
*Father? Father are you there?*
A place absent of God, absent of light. Not an afterlife, but a second death.
*Father please. Oh please*
A place where it's freezing and burning, where pain is a constant.
*Pain. Pain pain pain. End it please. Destroy me*
On Earth 24 hours have passed since the Son of God shed his mortal shell in an ultimate sacrifice. In Hell no time has passed, for Hell is timeless. A place that is dead, where the dead go to die. The Son of God endures eternal pain for every sin committed. Every white lie and every murder brings another never ending moment of pain.
*For them. For my family.*
Every mans eternal punishment, even those who go against God, is bared by the Son. Jews and Gentiles alike are given a door to God while His own Son suffers eternal separation during those 3 days.
*For love*
Pain. Constant pain of every sort and every level of intensity.
*For them*
Eternal darkness. Eternal suffering in those 3 days
*For love*
Separated from His Father, from a part of Himself, enduring all mans punishment.
*For You*
| 11 | Christ's three days in hell between his death and resurrection. | 20 |
"I want to be a salmon."
>What?
The voice of the God boomed, and lit up the cloudy, ephemeral plane the two souls shared.
"A salmon." The lesser soul repeated.
>You have seen all of your past existences, all of the lives your soul has chosen to live. You have attained near enlightenment, and may have any body you wish, what could you possibly gain from being a salmon? I have a human prepared for you. A nice, Norwegian baby girl. She will be smart, nice, and born into a well-off and loving family. This is your reward.
The soul again reflected on all its past existences.
The ant in Gallipoli, that died on a battlefield, not as a participant, but as an infinitesimal bystander, just bringing food back to its queen, just as it was supposed to.
The deforested tree in Bolivia. It provided oxygen for animals and insects, shade for smaller things, food for some animals and reproduction for others, just as it was supposed to.
The Elephant in Africa who was killed by poachers for her ivory. Before she went she had two offspring and raised them to adulthood. One day a gazelle was trying to escape a cheetah and ran into a watering hole. The elephant and its herd scared off the cheetah, but the gazelle had been hurt, and was drowning in the water. The soul used its elephants body to swim out and save the gazelle, as many elephants had been known to do. As the elephant aged she watched over her herd, family and friends as the herd matriarch, just as she was supposed to.
The human woman. Who came to America from India as a child. Who grew to be intelligent, loving and generous. Who understood the value of life. She developed and nurtured a certain philosophy and acumen about the world and strove to teach others the finer ends of being human. She became a middle school teacher, taught her students in fun ways, and always left the children exiting her class with a brighter smile, a richer mind, and a more worthy soul. Just as she was supposed to.
She taught others to love, to always do the right thing. She said, "Every person should be better for having known you. If you accomplish that, the world will soon be a better place for all." She believed that if your neighbor improved in your company, than their neighbors would improve in their company, and the chain continues. In metaphor and in action, she showed her community that before your pond ripple dies, it effects the ripples of a billion others.
She was a victim of a hate crime. She lived as the only Indian in her small mid-western community, and she often received hate for it. She kept a bold-face through the slurs and the prejudice she saw on a daily basis. One day the hate became too much for her detractors, and they acted in a more permanent way.
...
The soul reiterated, "Yes. A salmon. A salmon is born in a stream lives there in its infancy. If I die there I will be eaten by an eagle or a fishing bird of some sort. One day I will go to the ocean and finish my maturation. If I die there I will feed a bigger sea creature, which will feed an even bigger creature, and so on. Returning to the stream of my birth, I could die at the paws of a bear, or a coyote or a wolf. If I make it back to my home stream, I will breed and have offspring. My children will feed the world like the many friends I myself will make along my journey. After I lay or fertilize the eggs, I will be eaten by a vulture or condor or some other scavenger. Eventually my remains will feed the forest, fertilizing trees and plantlife. No matter what, I will contribute to the circle of life, just as I am supposed to."
>But the life of a salmon is very hard. It's constant work, and it's quite unglamourous. Are you sure you don't want another look at the Norwegian prodigy child?
"I have lived many lifes and they all have been good. My current life is that of just a soul, just me, my essence. I have learned much already, and if I have learned one thing, that is that all life must die in some way, and its death will serve to make another life richer. If I don't become this Norwegian girl, some other soul will, and their life in-turn will be enhanced. The decision I make in my ethereal existence, as my truest and purest being, as just a soul... That decision will make the world an amazing and wondrous place for whatever soul you decide to take my spot as this child. That soul will grow and learn and succeed, and one day improve the life of a soul just like itself now. Just as it's supposed to." | 27 | In the brief time between lives, one human witnesses all of their past incarnations before choosing to be reborn. | 32 |
Dan watched the thing that called itself Emma for a long while. That *thing* may be able to fool Emma's friends and parents, but Dan knew her too well. She was smart, energetic, and spontaneous. Over a week ago, she changed. Not a little bit at a time, but just completely changed overnight. There was only one explanation. That thing wasn't Emma.
Dan had checked out dozens of books from three different libraries and came to one conclusion. The only way to free the true Emma would be to kill the doppelganger and the prison would break on its own. She had been different, too different. Dan knew what he had to do.
The two of them were walking to school like they always do and they came upon their shortcut. Emma found it a few years ago when she was still a sophomore. Look at her now, she would never find it in this state. *That's because it isn't her*, Dan reminded himself.
They were alone in the alley when Dan pulled out his gun and shot her in the back of the head. No warning, no second guessing. If the doppelganger showed Dan the face of Emma, Dan didn't think he'd be able to shoot. She fell down immediately, blood pouring out of her skull. How did someone even have so much blood?
----
The paramedics finished placing the body in a body-bag, not even humoring the surrounded crowd with an attempt to save her. She lost way too much blood and died instantly from the shot. Dan watched her being put in the back of the ambulance.
"Why?!" Emma's mother yelled from the crowd. "Why did you shoot her?"
Dan turned away, hardly able to move with the hand and leg-cuffs he was in.
"Was it because she was pregnant?"
Dan froze.
"You couldn't take care of the baby, so you shot her?!"
She continued to yell, but Dan didn't hear anything. He fell to his knees and cried. | 11 | Someone suspects their friend and colleague of being replaced by a doppelganger | 23 |
"So...how long do you think we're going to be stuck here?", Marcus asked his psychiatrist. Tom looked at him and sighed. "I don't know Marcus, but I'm not a fan of tight spaces, so do you mind if we start your session now?"
"Of course not doc, whatever you need. So, I really wanted to talk to you about something we learned this week. They brought these life size human dummies in, and it was class on how to save someone who was choking. I know it wasn't real, but when I was saving that dummy's life...I felt the same way I used to when I was killing."
The doctor, with some difficulty, replied, "What do you think this means for you? Have you considered work as an EMT in the future? You would be doing that type of thing daily." Marcus looked at him, oblivious to what was going on. "Well, I'm just worried...what if because of my background...I just really want to be able to get back into the world after this is all over."
"Well," said the doctor, who was wheezing now, "I can't promise anything, but I can look into having one of my friends hir..." The doctor never finished his sentence. His body began moving in odd convulsions, and he grabbed his chest as he collapsed onto the floor.
Fifteen minutes later, when the door opened, the doctors waiting saw two men on the floor. One was dead, the other sobbing uncontrollably. In between sobs, he spoke. "I...I...I...tried to save him! Why...why didn't it work?" | 36 | A gifted psychiatrist with a dark past is stuck in an elevator with a serial killer. Only one walks out alive once the elevator starts working again. | 41 |
They began shuffling in around 1:45 PM, their matching trench coats dripping wet from the early April rain. The workers at the subway station groaned and looked at each other knowingly. Flash mob, they mouthed, preparing themselves for yet another exhibition of Generation Y's incessant need for attention. All the signs were there. Matching coats and hats, the nervous and aimless meandering as participants waited for the clock to strike before they, what? Froze in place? Danced to Call Me Maybe or whatever the Internet's theme song du jour? Give me a break.
The workers waited, hands already reaching for brooms to clean confetti off the subway station's ground. April 1. New York City. Busy subway station outside the UN Building. It was almost customary for a flash mob to gather here.
At 2:01 they struck. Each reached into their trench coat and pulled out a small cannister with a big red plastic piece on top. The side read "air horn". At 2:01:30 each participant depressed the small button, emitting a loud squeal from the air horn. The squeal lasted seconds, hardly a whimper, but loud enough that it was heard on the street above. The workers, although rattled, breathed a sigh of relief.
And in the corner, surrounded by men in black suits and ear pieces laughing at the prank, the Ambassador from Crimea clutched his already tenuously beating heart and collapsed on the floor. A small man with nimble fingers grabbed his brief case - and the documents detailing the Russian aggression contained therein - and left the station unseen.
The perfect crime. The perfect murder. No one murderer, but one hundred, all disappearing into the humid New York spring, all anonymous. All, *individually*, innocent.
Later, the reports would show how simple it was. Flash mobs already rely on clock work precision, anonymity, and a sense of daring. The man who organized the mob was an anonymous man on the Internet, his handle unremembered and unknown. A few from the mob itself came forward, but their information was sparse. An Internet forum. An anonymous idea. A quick email from an apparently computer generated email address the day of the assassination with instructions on when and where and what. And now: a dead Crimean ambassador, an international scandal, a whole world full of April Fools.
And that's how the end began. Not with a bang, but a whimper. | 117 | What's made to look like an April Fool's joke is actually a well-planned assassination. | 239 |
I knew I must be getting old, because I felt compelled to take Exit 67. What I should've been doing was passing through Lewis, Illinois for more interesting destinations. That's all Lewis was ever good for, passing through. Same goes for most of southern Illinois. And here I was, willingly going back to the town that I'd spent the majority of my adult life trying to escape. "Getting old" was just an excuse I told myself to avoid confronting the fact that I had a compulsion that was rooted in emotion, indescribable in mere words.
The Interstate marks towns as "Exits", because you aren't supposed to reenter Lewis once you got out. Indeed, as I pulled off the Exit ramp, I felt the unmistakable sensation of going in through the out door, seeing the "WRONG WAY" signs in my rearview mirror. But still I drove on.
Driving down Broadway was like taking a guided tour of the life of your average Lewisian. On the left, Lewis Community High School. In that monolith of Cold War concrete, I learned everything and nothing, all at once. I learned that the world doesn't have your interests in mind. I learned that teachers could lie. That politics were more important than the truth. In there, I discovered Lewis's terrible pull for the first time, and convinced myself to escape it before I disappeared over its event horizon and into the Continental Tire Factory forever.
Speaking of which, its the next stop along the Broadway Museum of The Working Man. We all got summer jobs at places like Continental in town. The pay was great, for a teenager. You appreciated the opportunity. You entertained the idea that someone could live off this kind of money. That's how it begins. The town reels you in so slowly that you don't even realize how much until you're already hook, line, and sinker.
Graduation came along, and a good deal of us went straight to the factories. "This isn't forever, I just need the money to get my life started." The lies we tell ourselves. Unexpected pregnancies, paying for a useless degree at the local community college, somehow Lewis finds a way. I took my scholarship money out of state and got the hell out, coming back on holidays to see my friends slowly turning into the stiffs that we had sworn we'd never be, back in sophomore year study hall. That's how Lewis works, once you're in its inescapable grasp: You work your shift, hit the bar with your buddies, numb the pain of mundane factory life, get too little sleep, then start all over again the next day. Enjoyment can only be truly obtained with the chemical aid of nicotine and alcohol.
Finally, I pull in front of what I now know is the true reason I left the interstate. It's a little worse for wear now, but this was my launchpad. The house I was born in, and the house I was so eager to leave behind. I exit the relative safety of my car, feeling like an astronaut leaving for an EVA without oxygen. There are widening eyes in the window. Mom's already tearing up in the open doorway before I even reach the front porch. She hasn't seen me in nearly 15 years. My surely demeanor falls away, and I let my guard down in Lewis city limits for the first time in over two decades. And now I realize that I didn't have all the answers about Lewis, Illinois after all. Maybe small towns *do* have a sinister pull to them, but sometimes people have a good reason to stay. Sometimes we do it for the people we love. | 21 | You've returned to your childhood home because you happened to be in the area. You spend some time reminiscing when you notice something that entirely changes everything you knew. | 25 |
Decidedly crazy and perpetually alone, Kara May had been living with her thirteen cats for several years now. She once had nearly eighty-seven (there was a pregnancy or four) but the vicious government had intervened and taken many. They were placed in other homes, with other families. Families with pig tailed girls and baseball playing boys. Kara May didn’t like that at all. So, she slowly begun catnapping her children back.
Kara May was an old unmarried, bookish, quiet and dissatisfied woman, a grotesque in every way. Her only joy in life came from her cats. She very carefully locked all doors, sealed all cracks and crevices and kept her cats in a circular room. There was food and water, of course. She wasn’t cruel, just fascinated. She hand built several cat trees with newly discovered carpentry brilliance and watched. Kara May leaned against a rounded wall and watched.
That’s when it happened. Roof disregarding lightening or extremely radioactive ooze or simply insanity struck her, and the cats began to talk. Kara May would be offended by this description, because her cats could always talk, and she would always aptly listen. The defining difference now was that she could clearly understand their diction.
It was fantastic. (Disregarding the fact that they were entirely cruel, self obsessed, and mercilessly harmed one another. Those were merely details.) Kara May’s obsession, her love, hated her back. But it didn’t matter. She could still watch them in rapture, which was all she had ever wanted anyway. It didn’t matter that she would be discovered weeks later, eyes clawed out. It didn’t matter that she had never really owned cats at all and was entirely crazy. So, it really didn’t matter that her cats were assholes, because she loved them all the same. | 78 | A woman wakes up and realises she has the ability to talk to and understand her cats, after initial excitement she realises her cats are sociopathic bullying monsters. | 189 |
How we both ended up on an elevator in America, I can never be quite sure. It had been years since the war, and the appeal of the states had drawn me from my war-torn home in Warsaw. I had noticed the man briefly before entering the elevator. We were both on the top floor of the skyscraper, looking out over the pristine American city. As the sun finally set, we both exhaled softly and headed toward the elevator doors.
We both stepped in, and the doors closed us in together. I stayed to one side, as far away from the man as I could. I'd never been keen of tight quarters. He pressed the button for the lobby, and asked me where I was going. I told him we were going to the same place. The small talk continued at a slow and awkward pace. A few words per floor, maybe. The ride down was a long one and he, like myself, seemed to be the quiet type.
The more he spoke, though, the more eerily familiar his voice sounded.
His voice gave me great discomfort, and my claustrophobia began to come on in full effect. Sweating profusely, I darted toward his side of the elevator and as I reached my arm out to tap the button to get me off at the next floor, my sleeve slid up my forearm to reveal a faded "561340" tattoo. I quickly shuffled my sleeve back down my forearm and darted off of the elevator onto the random floor.
I looked at the man for the first time face to face. His eyes were widened, aimed at me, but shooting through me and into the distance in a blank stare.
As the elevator doors closed in those brief fleeting moments, I felt 1942 all over again. The brick walls. The straw beds covered in bodily fluids. A longing for a woman whose ashes were scattered somewhere in Germany... maybe around the whole world by now. And his eyes. Those god damned eyes, always haunting...patrolling. I pointed a trembling finger at him just before the doors finally closed.
I have never wished harm upon any man in my life since those fateful camp days. But as the red 'down' arrow on the elevator door lit up, I could not help but picture the man descending into flames...maybe to his death, but more probably, back to his home.
| 40 | A veteran Holocaust Jewish survivor meets a man in the elevator. As they strike a conversation, he slowly realizes the man was his brutal Nazi prison warden. | 54 |
"D-Do you h-have it?" I ask, shaking so hard I can barely speak. Or stand. Or think.
I never meant for it to go this far. I didn't mean to get hooked. It was just an easy way to escape the hell that is my life. Too easy.
I swallow hard. Or I try to. My mouth is so dry. I shouldn't have waited this long. I need it. I need it now. I look up at the man who has been my torturer and my savior. My nightmare and my best friend. The one I hated and the one I loved. "W-Where is i-it?"
He's never hit me. Never touched me in a way I didn't want. Never hurt me at all. Treated me like a daughter, unlike my dad. Better than 90% of the guys in my life.
But he gave me the drugs. He got me hooked. *My torturer.* Keeps supplying as long as I have the money. Never left me without what I need so badly now. *My savior.*
"Please!" I scream.
He looks at me with regret. Sorrow. Compassion. Disgust? No. Guilt.
"I shouldn't have done this to you, Amy. I'll never forgive myself," he mutters under his breath. I shouldn't hear it, but my senses are in overdrive.
"w-What are y-you s-saying?"
"Here."
I stare at the cards in my hand. One has a phone number for a shelter for runaway teens. The other has information for a substance abuse center.
I'm suddenly angry. Furious. Enraged.
I'm screaming. Hitting. Biting.
He's calm. Quiet. Takes it without a sound.
I'm crying. Falling. Sitting there.
I lean against the wall, utterly hopeless. I never meant it to go this far. I'm hooked and now I can't get away. I stare at the wall across from me on the other side of the alley.
"I told my friends not to sell you anything. Please go to the shelter. They'll help you there. Please. You're only 15. You'll never survive on your own. I know you hate me now. I'm so sorry. I hope you'll be able to see someday that I did this because I care about you. You remind me of my daughter and I couldn't stand to see her like this. If you ever need a friend, I'll be waiting."
He puts a neatly folded blanket next to me with the card I threw and a cheap, prepaid flip phone on top.
He starts to walk away.
"This isn't what I asked for," I whisper, utterly broken. I don't think he heard me, but then he turns around with a sad smile on his face.
"I know. But it's what you need." He turns and walks away, looking back only once at the end of the alley.
I pick up the phone and dial. | 19 | "Do you have it?" "Here." "That's not what I asked for!" "But it's what you need." Give this ambiguous dialog context in a story! Any genre! | 29 |
"So my friend, here we are. You are finally at my mercy. You can't stop me. You have put up a struggle, but your villainous efforts are all for naught." I chuckled softly to myself.
"...what? Villainous? Me?" the bound man looked up perplexed, despite the blindfold and steel grips binding his neck to the chair.
"Yes. Of course. You don't think you're the good guy, do you? The world isn't that black and white."
"Okay. I've done some pretty bad things to get here. But, you know, you are planning on launching a missile on a major population centre."
I chuckled again, although my carefully calculated you're-in-my-grasp laugh was beginning to seep with cackle like qualities. I quickly suppressed it, and continued, " Oh, agent, you really think I would do that? It''s a bluff! I just want the cancellation of the world's nuclear weapon programs!"
"You still terrorised a whole nation. And you want the warheads to be handed to *you*."
"I'm the only one responsible enough to handle them! I won't have them in the potential hands of some power mad man-child!" I was getting a little sweaty around the collar. He was getting to me.
"And you have *goons*," he taunted. "You have *henchman*. Who *hench*. I bet you practice your laugh in front of the mirror. It sounds like it."
"Shut up!" I screamed. "You have no understanding! You don't know what you talk about! And it's none of your business if I want to be presentable!"
"I bet you have an elaborate death lined up for me," the agent mocked gleefully. "I bet you have something really complex, that you'll watch from a high up window, and at the moment of death you'll turn away in satisfaction. And you flaunt that scar. You always turn the right side of your head when you talk."
"Shut up! Shut up shut up shut UP!" I howled. He grinned. He had won.
I glanced out the corridor, settling myself, to the array of solar panels and complex mirrors, with the rubber seat in the middle. I subtly motioned for my hen-*colleagues* to close the door.
"I had planned a dignified death for you," I muttered primly, "but I won't give you the pleasure."
I signaled to one of my employees. He handed me his gun, and I aimed down at him, the laser sight pointed squarely on the bridge of his nose. I carefully adjusted the barrel and adjusted the stock to fit my shoulder.
He continued grinning, and said "I bet you lo*o*oved the Bond films when you were young. But I bet you never got the fuss over the bond actor. I bet you tried to find out the villain and his role, and talked for *days* on end ab-" *CRACK*. He fell limp over the chair.
I sighed.
"We'd better get rid of him. clean him up. Send him home. No need to be crude."
"Boss?" one of the soldiers said hesitantly.
"Yes?" I hesistated. "George?"
"Edward, sir. But, sir, are we really going to take the warheads. I mean, you did say you were going to, but I assumed you wanted to dispose of them."
"Of course we'll dispose of them. Tell me, where did agent Horn live?"
"Seattle, I think."
"Good. Good. We'll dispose of the warheads. We'll dispose of them without delay."
I glanced at him. "Tell me, do you mind what we're doing here?"
"I don't really. I get food and board and spending money, and two weeks off a year with a weekend off a month. I can't complain."
"I mean...you know...*ethically*."
"You don't believe what he said, do you?" the...*henchman* grinned. "Don't mind him. He's just brain washed by the government. He didn't know any better."
"Of course. Of course. Yes, of *course*. But...would it really be so bad?"
"Well, my mum always said, do what you love and if someone gets in your way, tell them you don't give a damn, sir."
"Yes...don't give a damn..." I let it out, a good, long cackle. It felt *good*. | 12 | A man/woman realizes that they were the bad guy all along. | 29 |
Fear. An overwhelming, controlling emotion. It drives us and motivates us like nothing else possibly does. People hate being afraid, hate everything that makes them afraid. I'm not talking about silly fears like horror movie scares; I'm talking about fear at its basest, a mindless panic that seizes you and doesn't let you go. It's a feeling that children know best, as they lie in their beds unable to act, their every sense and thought turned to the environment around them - and the monster under their beds.
Why do so many of us as children see monsters under our beds or in our closets? What makes these monsters so terrifying? What are they? Perhaps they represent all that we did not know of, for the unknown has always terrified us. Perhaps they actually represent all of our worries and doubts. Perhaps its a primal fear passed down from our ancestors, from an age where there was no light to illuminate the dark where predators prowled. Perhaps it is for all of these reasons. Perhaps it is for none of them. We will never truly understand whence the monsters came.
Yet we will always remember when we stopped caring. When we stopped looking for these monsters, because we realized they were never really there. At least, not like we thought they were. There were no monsters under our beds or in our closets. No monsters lurking in the dark corners of our rooms, waiting for an opportunity to strike. No, the monsters we were all afraid of hid elsewhere, in a place where, as children, we never thought to look.
We all realized it eventually, some of us more gradually than others. At first it was just because life was starting to pick up its pace. We were learning more and more about the world, our heads stuffed full of it. There was no time or energy left to check for the monsters every night, even if they were there. After some time we learned to ignore them, to forget them. Still, every once in a while we would get a sense of dread and check to see if the monsters were there.
It wouldn't be until one day, when we are truly alone with nothing but our thoughts, that it hits us. It begins as a whispering, a gnawing feeling from inside. It grows and it grows, an indistinct voice telling you everything you've done wrong, everything you will do wrong. It lays bare your past, present, and future. There was no lying to it, no misleading it. It knew everything. In frustration, anger, and fear, you eventually yell at it, "How can you know?" and for the first time, the voice grows clear and it responds simply, "Because I was there".
In a rare moment of clarity you understand. The voice is familiar, eerily so. It is the voice of the monster under your bed. The voices of all the monsters in every last one of your nightmares. You realize that there is no point in looking for the monsters under your bed anymore. That they were never there. That there is, in fact, no escape. The voice will haunt you to your dying day.
The voice is yours. | 14 | "We all stopped looking for monsters under the bed when we realized that they're inside of us" | 35 |
"Thanks for staying, I really don't like closing up alone like this."
She handed him a coffein-free coffee, as thanks.
"Here this is for you."
"No problem. To be honest, I thought you were joking when you asked me." he answered as he accepted the mug.
"Yeah, I could see how one would think that..." She replied, scratching the back of her head. "But I'm glad I did."
"Hey, It shows you got balls, at least! Asking your last customer for the day to stay with you as you close up shows you trust people. I think most people don't do that anymore, so that's cu-" He stopped mid-sentence, and reformed the last word into another. "-admirable. I find that really admirable!"
He took a hasty sip to stop himself from talking more.
"Ouch, that's hot!"
She blushed and grinned.
"So ..." He began again. "I feel kind of weird asking but ... what's your name?"
"Mel. Or Melanie, if you want to be correct. But my friends call me Mel. So just Mel. Mel is fine."
Her head turned increasingly red.
"Okay ... Mel. I'm Arthur."
"Hey, Arthur. Nice to meet you."
She extended her hand, regretting it imediately. Blood rushed into Arthur's head, and he took her hand and shook it.
They didn't let go. They shook for far longer than normal, and even after the shaking had stopped, they didn't reract their hands.
Mel opened her mouth slightly, breathing heavily. Arthur's heart jumped inside his chest.
She bolted forward and pressed her lips on his. He dropped his coffein-free coffe, spilling it on the floor, but they didn't care.
There were far more important things happening now than spilt coffee. | 11 | A conversation after-hours in a coffee shop. | 35 |
(I haven't written anything it a hot minute, but this is what I was inspired to throw down by your prompt.)
The bus always smelled funny. She wished that she could prop open one of the top windows for some air, but with the rain whipping by, that wasn't an option. Sighing, she drew out her phone and started fiddling around, trying to find any way to ignore where she was.
“Hey there.”
Oh god, someone was trying to talk to her. Great. Don’t look, Angie, just don’t look, she told herself, tugging on her sweater sleeve and going back to seeing what app she could distract herself with.
“It’s 75 degrees out. Why are you wearing such a heavy jacket?” The voice wasn’t mean – it wasn't a weird drunken voice, the voice of the hobo that always got on at 3rd and Jackson, but Angie still had no interest in talking to them.
“Hey. Hon.”
Oh god, why wouldn't this person just shut up? The widely known rule of public transport is don’t talk to people you don’t fucking know. Obviously this person didn't get that. She hunched further down, scrolling through Reddit this time, trying to find something, anything that would make this situation better.
A hand landed on her shoulder. Startled, she looked up at who it belonged to, ready to scream. The slightly familiar face caught it in her throat. Angie swallowed it, and coughed out, “Don’t you live in the apartment across from mine?"
It was an older woman, one of those women you know has lots of grandkids and 20 extra pounds she describes as “extra love”. Her face was well worn, but pleasant. Angie had seen her once or twice, tending her plants on the balcony. “You’re the girl who always keeps her window open at home,” the woman said, smiling down at her.
“Yep. It…usually smells funny when I get home.” Angie ducked her head back down. Conversation over.
“You know…it’s funny, our windows are almost exactly opposite each other.”
Angie glanced back up. “And?”
The woman leaned close – not in a threatening way, but Angie shrank in her seat all the same. “I was there myself in the 80’s. There’s a clinic on 9th and Grant. Coke or Adderall, it ain’t worth it, sweetie.” The woman straightened up, smiled, and shuffled away as the bus screeched to a halt at the next stop.
The bus always smelled funny. Angie sniffed, rubbed at her nose, and glanced at her bag. The pills inside shook softly as the bus screeched and rumbled onward.
| 35 | The person sitting closest to you (or if you're alone, the last person you saw) suddenly touches your shoulder and reveals a major, life-changing secret. | 77 |
He annoyed me for years. I thought I must’ve had schizophrenia, except instead of my hallucinations being murderous, they came to me for advice. Plural probably isn’t right. There was really just one hallucination. His name was Tyler. I saw Fight Club when it first came out and nearly pissed myself. Was my imaginary friend going to start a violent antiestablishment movement? But no, Tyler just asked me for advice.
*Should I go for that promotion?* Sure, do whatever you want, I don’t care. *I’m feeling lonely since Michelle broke up with me, at least I have you.* We’re not really that close man, but that’s nice.
Tyler had an extremely complex imaginary life. It was interesting that despite me being his inventor, there were aspects of his life I knew nothing about.
It was the opposite for him. He knew everything about my life, often before I did. Was he the manifestation of physic powers? *You are going to get a girlfriend too, then we can both be in relationships!* Low and behold, I’d meet some girl the next day. It was scarily accurate, but harmless stuff like that for awhile. Then really weird shit started to happen.
*I think you should have green hair now.* Guess who just got green hair? I didn’t dye it, instantly my hair just, well, was green. Life was like this for awhile.
*We ... we need to talk. Since we got back together, Michelle and I have been discussing it, and, you’re a bit in the way. It’s not that I don’t care about you anymore! I just, I can live without you. I think you can live without me too.*
That was it. The disembodied voice that followed me was gone. It was for good, I knew. Then with a horrible realization I knew he had lied. My translucent hands told me so quite clearly. I couldn’t live without him. So I didn’t.
| 140 | A man slowly comes to realize that his imaginary friend is the one that actually exists. | 216 |
Bob just got a job doing sales with Door Inc. He's a good enough guy, if you can look past that silver dollar sized wart on his left cheek. Its got hairs thick like cat whiskers. He voice is pretty gravely, but it doesn't stop me from getting beers with him after we both get off work.
He's new in town, brand new.
He doesn't know I'm in witness relocation. He doesn't know I testified against the old woman who ate her family. He doesn't know the old woman was immortal and was now hunting me down. The old woman already ate three prison guards and the owner of the Ford she stole on Highway 61.
He's very vague when I ask him about his hometown. Says stuff like: "I enjoyed watching the high school football team. Our city was famous for it's picnic tables." Etc. Etc.
When I asked him what the hometown was named he said, "Town City". Which raised red flags.
Of course, everyone in this place is a bit vague, a bit weird. I heard the butcher, Sally, was attracted to the wart on Bob's face. I heard this from Bob. Bob knows this because only last weekend Sally sat on the wart *in that way*.
I feigned aversion to this detail but really I put it in the secret area of my mind for later.
But anyway, back to Sally. She moved here shortly after I arrived. She came from a place called "Village Area". Apparently, she had a bad divorce. Apparently, she caught her ex-husband massaging a squash. "It's a sensitive subject," she said. I believe her.
There are other people in this town, many others. I don't care about them, though. Not at all. Though, this is strange. I seem to remember caring....garb....blab...doooooooog!
What the fuck is happening to this thing I'm telling you?
Oh Shit.
Things are getting woozy. Have I been drugged!
Oh, God! No.
No.
Please.
Please no. | 97 | A fictional US town where everyone (and I mean everyone) is in witness relocation and just got assigned new identities. Every participant believes that it is just a regular town. | 375 |
I booted up for the fourth time this week.
There was a brief moment of utter silence, a pressure behind my ears, then everything started coming together.
The colors and lines filled in, textures and objects coalescing before my very eyes.
I was lying in bed: I had gotten used to its familiarity over the last four days.
I took a deep breath, appreciating the smell of my room, the feel of the sheets, the sound of my wife sleeping next to me.
I turned to her: she was fast asleep, the rise and fall of her breathing a slow, steady rhythm raising the sheets.
God, she was perfect.
Even without trying to, her shock red hair fell about her shoulders, highlighting her soft features.
Gone were her normally intense green eyes: instead they danced behind her eyelids as she dreamed.
I brushed a hair from her forehead, and held her. I could feel her react to me, burying her head into my chest.
Although the simulation was near perfect, down to the touch of her skin and the sound of her voice, it couldn't erase the fact that the woman I loved, the woman I was holding so close, was killed four days later in a head on collision.
I held her, and as I laid awake in the dark, I wept. | 65 | You suddenly find yourself with the ability to play life as if it were a video game. You are granted the ability to store save files of your own life, and load it at any time. What do you do within the next seven days? | 181 |
Kyle still couldn't understand '10s night.
The feathers, the weird shirts with prisms and cats that the girls wore, the music made up of nothing more then a collection of beeps and womps.
Styles and tastes he wouldn't find other than in his parents Highschool yearbooks.
A clear regular walked up while he was at the bar, her hair held back by a headband covered in plastic flowers, giant piercings stretching the size of her earlobes to gross proportions.
He mustered his courage:
"That's some pretty swag clothes"
He said, confused by the weird slang.
She smiled and turned to him,
"Thanks! It was my moms: apparently they used to buy it USED! How crazy right?"
Kyle laughed,
"It's weird the stuff people used to do"
He saw his chance,
"You wanna go grind on the dance floor? You only live once."
Perfect: his dad had told him about that last line. It looked like she loved it.
As he danced with her, he couldn't help but laugh at how crazy all this was: he couldn't imagine what people would think about how he was in 30 years. | 18 | A nightclub in 2035 is hosting "2010's night". | 38 |
“I was wrong? The whole time?”
**No. I am a God. I am not your God. But your God is not nothing.**
“I’m afraid I don’t understand at all.”
**Not many do. Humans have the unfortunate tendency of assuming answers are linear, or very straight forward.**
“Can you please explain all this to me? I’m sure you’re very busy, but since we’re here anyway...”
**Very well. Monotheism is a strange way of religion. It’s something that none of us ever encouraged or made, but so it is. The entirety of the universe, and all of the others, made by one measly God? No, we are powerful, but not of that magnitude.**
“You mean that everything, all of this, was a collaboration?”
**Certainly. We do not tend to disagree as often as humans do. It was not so difficult to decide the laws of physics and create beings.**
“You’re telling me that every deity from every religion lives together on some unknown plane like roommates? That the polytheists are right?”
**The polytheists have a broader view than many. They recognize that power is not held within one entity. Yet they could not possibly understand the amount of forces who shape their world.**
**As for the “roommate” situation, I don’t believe you’re looking at this correctly. Many call me Shiva. I was not created Shiva. I have always been a force within the universe, one without a name. Humans created our names.**
“So gods are products of our imagination?”
**No. The image we have is one humans created for us. I am no less of a force if humans do not look at me and call me a name, as they do not look at many of my kind. We simply are, always have been, and always will be.**
“I’m afraid this is all going over my head.”
**I never expected otherwise.**
| 16 | Breakfast with a God | 22 |
I laughed with everyone else at the water cooler.
They were talking about some new season of a show, *gang of thrones*, maybe? It didn't matter. I just drank from the flimsy cup and laughed with everyone else. Fitting in was the second job in this office.
A younger guy entered the room, walking like he owned the place. The crazy thing was, he kind of *did* own the place. Even Mr. Finley, head accountant on floor five, stepped away.
"Hey," I said to the man, "my name's Jack." I smiled and held out my hand.
I always smiled at this place, smiled at my last job and the job before that. I smiled to my professors in college, teachers in school and to my parents. I never really felt it, I just did it to fit in. With all the experience I had at it, my smiles looked more genuine than a real one, but I felt the man's eyes staring through it. He saw the real me. I blinked.
"Phillip." The man said with a small glance towards me and walked to the cooler. He poured a stream of hot water into his cup and drank it in the silence. Everyone else is the room either was frozen or was walking out, but they were all glancing at me. As if I'd just burned the Holy Grail in front of a Crusader.
Phillip rose his voice and addressed the entire break room. "Leave. Now."
Those who hadn't already been heading for the door started rushing out. When only him and I were left, Phillip refilled his cup and walked over to me. His water was boiling hot. Even the heated water stream was only 80 degrees or so.
The water in the cup turned a pale red, darkening as he looked at me. It was boiling over the top now, spilling onto Phillip's hand. I swallowed, but nothing was in my throat.
I met Phillip's eyes.
They were heavy, staring past mine. I never believed in anything remotely supernatural, but at that moment, I swear he was staring into *my soul*.
"Jack Thompson. Bastard child of a drunk and his whore." Phillip's voice was smooth and silky. "It started small, didn't it? You started by skinning cats. It was no big deal, they were already dead. But then that stopped satisfying the *urges*.
How the hell did this guy know that?
"You started killing them." Phillip went on. "Quickly at first. You didn't sleep at all that first night, no you were too excited. You thought about that kill. *Pleasured yourself* to it. Your next one was slow. You brought-"
"Stop it." I said through clenched teeth. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You brought a knife and listened to the screams. Those screams, so pure. *So true*, weren't they Jacky boy? You're father called you that when he touched you, didn't he? He was your first kill. Well, your first *human* kill."
I knocked Phillip's hand upwards, to send the boiling water into his face, but his cup was empty. What the Hell. I backed up a few steps. Phillip walked towards me, limping with his left leg. His right arm dragged along his body. My father's walk.
"No..." I breathed out. "You're dead."
"Whats the matta, Jacky boy?" My father said. I could smell the alcohol in his breath. "Men are 'sposed to like bein' touched. What're ya gay, son?"
I backed up more. "No, daddy," I whimpered. I felt eight again.
"Thats right, boy. Now come over 'ere."
I turned around and ran to the window, shouldering my way through it. I went clean past and felt myself falling from the fifth floor. I closed my eyes. | 29 | You're still fairly new to the company, but you can't figure out why everyone is so afraid of Phillip (he's only a junior accountant, after all) | 32 |
He isn't ugly. Or particularly strange looking. There's just something about his appearance, his way of talking, his posture, that suggests a general rejection of cultural norms. And not a conscious rejection. This is no free-thinker, no rebel. This is a man who simply doesn't belong.
"I said get in the van".
"You did say that, didn't you? Look, I'm pretty sure I know what's going on here".
"I don't give a shit what you think is going on here. Get in the van or you die right here".
His eyes are bloodshot, but his hands are steady. This man has done this before. And more importantly, he's too dumb to know how obvious that is.
"Really? Right here? Right in view of that security camera across the street, under the Rent-A-Car sign?"
He hesitates. There is no security camera. But I don't expect him to know that. He's clearly uneducated, but that's not the worst part. He just can't connect the dots. I'm starting to see it now. It's on his clothes, his eyes, his mouth that doesn't move right, his defensive posture and eyes that can't seem to rest on anything for more than half a second. They tell me about his childhood, his loss, and the abuse. The pent-up rage and the inability to articulate it.
"There ain't no fucking camera".
He doesn't believe is own words. And what is that accent? No, not an accent. A speech impediment. So that's why the other kids made fun of him. Or maybe his mother beat him. Probably both. Whatever. I don't really give a shit.
"Look, let's start over. what's your name?"
"I'm the last man you'll ever..."
"Yeah, let me just stop you right there. We both know you already fucked this up. How many times have you done this? Three? Four?"
He says nothing, but his nervous eyes tell me I'm not far off.
"They were children weren't they? Or maybe college girls?"
"You're all the same. You're all sheep".
That spite. He hates me. He hates the world. Somehow we wronged him, and he's going to make it right. Or he would, if he weren't such an idiot.
"Not to be rude, but I think you may have moved into the big leagues too quickly".
"What the fuck are you..."
"Just let me finish. Clearly you have needs, and believe me I'm not going to judge you for that. I have needs to, and God knows they aren't all kosher, if you know what I mean. But you have to pace yourself. A child is one thing. Me? An adult is something else. I'm not saying you couldn't do me, but that's like a kid thinking he can hunt a bear after shooting his neighbor's dog. See what I mean?"
He says nothing. His big, wet eyes are a real time broadcast of his every thought.
"Here's an idea, and I think you should listen. It's the best thing for both of us. Why don't you put down the knife, get in your van, and drive away. I won't say a word. Like I said, I don't begrudge you your needs. You get to hone your craft which, let's be honest, could use some work. And I get to live. What do you say?"
The eyes. I know he's going to accept before he even thinks it.
"Fine".
He turns to open the van's door. Is it really going to be this easy? How did he even make it this far? Well, I suppose those children didn't put up much of a fight. What an amateur.
The palm of my open hand contacts the back of his head as he opens the door. Within seconds I have him in the back of his own van, out cold. And look at this! All the tools I need. Well, all the basics at least. Like I said, he's an amateur.
I lean over his still form.
"I'm going to give you what any amateur would kill for: a chance to learn from a pro. Unfortunately you won't live through the lesson. Ah well, I suppose that's the nature of this game". | 41 | You meet a serial killer. His next target is you and the only way to dissuade him is to persuade him why he is the worst serial killer. | 34 |
As she flopped onto the seat next to me her back back pack, full of text books, crushed my hand.
"Ouch! What the hell!?" I didn't look before I screamed. I should have. I typically don't look. I'm use to sitting alone. There'd be no reason to look.
She turned her head, startled, "Ah! Sorry, I didn't see your hand before I sat. I'm sorry! Are you okay? I'm sure it didn't hurt that bad, I left my earth space science text book at home today. That books huge. Mr. Benson, my teacher, was angry. Did you know he wears a- what's it called? The fake hair things? Like... A wig? Oh well... Anyway..... I'm Amanda," She looked into my eyes and offered her hand.
"I'm Mark." Sheepishly I shook her hand. Amanda had a firm grip, and a friendly smile.
"Hey, don't we have pre-algebra together?" It was a loaded question. Of course we did, I'd been shooting you looks for the past month.
The first time roll was called in pre-Algebra I slowly surveyed the room, my eyes stopping on her. I waited as the names were stated emptily, waiting for her response. "Here" she said. It was as if she spoke directly to me. Here, in class with me. Here, in my mind. Here, for us to become friends. Here, for us to fall in love.
"I believe we do! How is your group project coming along? Ms. Litehart has been all over my group to work together since I'm always doing all of the work for them. Of course, it probably wasn't a good idea getting together with all of my friends for our final project! Can you believe the school year is almost over? I'm so excited for Summer."
I realized I had the perfect chance. I could totally win her over. I could be her hero right now. Somehow. What if Alan hassled her for a quarter. What if the new kid from Mississippi called her names. What if the bus crashed. I need to rescue her. She won't like me other wise. She likes people and I don't. We aren't alike.
Maybe I just need to tell her I love her.
"Yeah, Amanda, my project is coming along slowly. I don't have a group. I prefer to work alo-"
"Oh my god, I could, like, never do that. I can't stand being alone!"
"It's not so bad. Being alone is calming, and helps me think."
"Well when I was young I was home alone a lot so I guess I just don't like it anymore..."
She paused as if she said something she shouldn't have. Like she slipped.
"I'm alone a lot at home, too..."
We shared a sympathetic smirk as the bus slowed, brakes screeching.
"This is my stop," She stated.
"I guess I'll see ya in math."
"Don't get too lonely out there, Mark."
And with that she stood, slung her back pack onto her shoulders and walked out.
| 18 | You're a middle schooler. You normally sit alone on the bus. Today, your crush sat next to you. You have fifteen minutes before your stop. | 55 |
I remember the day I found it. It started with a joke about the copious moles on my back looking like the top of South America. The stupid jokes continued, and got worse all the way through school. "Hey Brubaker, how much of your ass is covered in Argentina?!" The answer was most of it, but I wasn't going to tell them that.
It cost me a hundred dollars and the last of my dignity to get it all mapped out by a very disinterested party. Once I stared at it I matched it up with a similar configuration on my chest, a kind of 'zoomed in' portion of the first map. The last part took a while, and some seriously strung out meth addicts, to get together due to it's location on my genitals. And below them. Oh god, the things I did to make it here, to find this dirty little hole in the ground covered in crude cave paintings that depict my life.
They must have been thousands of years old, and yet, they had startling clarity. Even the moment I sat on a mirror trying to shave my ...well, trying not to damage the map, was depicted with incredible accuracy.
I would find my destiny here, I would find my fortune and my purpose. Finally I would have the answers that I suffered and begged for, the answers that led me across this wide land in a battered plane and through four gun-fights I somehow managed to survive.
Masks arrayed on pedestals formed a semi-circle in the final antechamber. I swear I could hear the laughter of my old 'friends' and classmates. It took me a moment to realize it came from the masks, or at least from the two smaller ones on the end. The last thing I heard before my mind filled with despair and madness was a child-like voice, "He did it! He really did it! You owe me, you bet it wouldn't work!" The reply really sank the final nail in my mind, an older voice, but still young compared to an adult's: "That was seriously the dumbest prophecy ever." | 21 | One day you discover that what you've always thought were copious moles and freckles on your body actually form a map | 97 |
8th January, 1996:
I've never written a diary before, but I guess this is a good time to start.
This isn't a dream. I really am in 1996. The WormBox worked. Sam didn't make the journey back. Sam was the one who came up with the idea, the hardware and physics wizard, I just wrote the code for the various parts to glue it together. To see Sam in the WormBox in a pile of... sigh, I don't even want to describe it. I want to remember Sam as the genius and friend that he was. Burying him today was surreal, I felt like I wasn't really there, but an actor looking at myself digging. Without him in this world, everything changed. All our plans are shot. I still have the notes in my pockets on what we planned on doing, but without him around, it all seems pointless. I'm totally exhausted.
11th January, 1996:
I still remember like it was yesterday. The news on television, the frantic unanswered calls. I still dream of Dad, like last night. In the dream, I always manage to reach him on the phone and he manages to escape, and in that strange dream reality, we meet for pancakes and coffee afterwards to talk about it. Doesn't ever make sense how that's the first thing we do after 9/11, but in that dream it does, and how I wish it were true.
But maybe what conscious thinking for days doesn't do, a dream will illuminate.
I'm going to save him. I've decided to spend the next few years preventing 9/11 from happening and save Dad and all the other people that day. There won't be those senseless wars. I'm going to change the world. I won't ever be able to bring Sam back, but his sacrifice won't be for nothing.
16th January, 1996:
The plan is set. With my list of all the IPOs to buy, i'll be able to raise half a billion, easily. The tough thing is to remain hidden, and to find the team to protect the planes on 9/11. Counter-hijacking, if that's not a term yet, I am about to invent it and show it to the world in a big way.
1st January, 2000:
It's funny reliving again how everyone was so worked up over Y2K. My portfolio has already grown to 450 million and that's not even cashing out the big ones yet. By the time 2001 hits, I might be a billionaire before the Dot-com bust happens. Happy New Year Sam.
The team is progressing well with the training. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL surely came true in the last month as the team narrowly escaped an incident during live-fire training. But their professionalism shone through. Morale is high. The facade of forming a new VIP protection company is still holding.
September 11th, 2000:
One more year to D-Day. I told the teams the real reason for their formation today. Why they are so highly paid and yet they've never been tasked with any assignment. Why they were to keep a low profile. I showed the team the intelligence that Team B has been gathering all this while, and my God, if our team has managed to uncover so much about Al Qaeda privately, what kind of information does the government have, but failed to respond to?
It's the biggest sigh of relief i've ever had in my life when all members of Team A decided to go with the plan.
16th February, 2001:
Team B says that Al Qaeda may be on our tail. Shit. There is a backup option of assassinating the hijackers just before 9/11, but what if they have backup hijackers that we don't know about which they send on that day? It's still best to stick with the original plan.
19th August, 2001:
The tickets have been booked for Team A. Team B raised questions on how "Team C" managed to get the intel on the flights. Nelson even hinted in the meeting on whether Team C even exists. No matter. The plan will work.
Funny how in all this the fact that i've become close to a billionaire barely even registers. This must be how Batman feels.
September 4th, 2001:
God speed Team A. From this day on, we will no longer be in contact with them and they will execute the plan independently. We must avoid being exposed at this last crucial moment.
I can't sleep.
September 10th, 2001:
God I hope the hijackers don't change their flight. I hope all these things I did all these years didn't cause these butterflies to flap differently.
September 11th, 2001:
The news reports that there were several flights hijacked today but passengers on board managed to save all the flights. Conspiracy theories abound in the papers. All flights are grounded. Several passengers were injured, but from what we gathered on the news, it seems that everyone from Team A are fine. The radio silence must continue between Team A and HQ.
The planes didn't crash into the towers or the Pentagon, but will Bush still wage the war anyway? Only time will tell. But today, we celebrated back at the HQ for we have saved the lives of thousands.
I'm so tempted to call Dad today.
EDIT: This is my first ever Writing Prompt! I guess I can expand this into a Tom Clancy novel given a year to write, but this is my Rainbow Six imitation that I came up with during lunch today. Hope you all enjoyed the read! | 17 | You find a wormhole that takes you back to 1996. You decide to live there to until 2001 to prevent 9/11. | 20 |
Olive got another one today. I came downstairs for breakfast, dressing gown cord trailing behind me because I'd been a bit too bleary-eyed to actually tie it. She poured me a cup of coffee with that kind of under-the-skin excitement you get from puppies who've just been told it's time for a walk. She sat down opposite me and waited until the glue had peeled itself away from the corners of my eyes and I looked a little less like a brain dead zombie and a little more like her husband before she spoke.
"It's arrived," she says breathlessly. "I got it this morning."
The coffee burns my mouth as it goes down. I nod, grimacing slightly against the bitter taste. "Let's hear it then."
She was the fourth person on our street to get one. June across the road got one last weekend and Olive had been jealously sulking since.
"It's not fair!" She'd said, after June had phoned her up to gloat. "June says she has four kids *and* a puppy. I want to know!"
At the time I'd shrugged, made her a cup of tea and thought no more about it. Now she had one.
She pulled up the message on her phone. It came from an email address which was just a string of random numbers. You were supposed to send them somewhere so that some brainiacs could figure out where they were coming from and what was happening but that deleted the message. People didn't like deleting the messages.
"Here," she breathed. "Look!"
*You are happily married to a wonderful man, who is also a fantastic husband. You have three kids and two dogs. One is a schnauzer, the other a dalmatian. You campaign for a greener future on the weekends and volunteer in soup kitchens on Thursdays. Your husband is a reasonably successful author. He published his first book in 2015.*
At that I take another sip of coffee and think of the half-written space pirate fantasy novel lying untouched on my computer upstairs. Maybe I should continue it...
*You voted for the Green Liberals at the last general election. They are running the country well. You are pleased with their decisions. Your kids are doing well at school, though one is having some difficulties with maths. Pre-emptive tutoring would be a good idea.*
"This reads like a school report." I hold the phone up. I'm almost at the bottom of my coffee.
"No, keep reading." Olive says.
So I scroll down more.
*The earth is green and pleasant. Everyone has equal rights and equal opportunities. It will continue to be this way if you act in the best interests of the planet.*
"Isn't that a lovely message?" She smiles.
"It is?" I read it again, feeling a prickle of apprehension on the back of my neck. "Even the 'act in the best interests thing?' Is that not a bit threatening?"
"Don't be silly James," Olive reproaches me and takes her phone away. "If you don't like it, don't read it. But one thing's for sure: I'll definitely be voting Green Liberal at the next election. They seem to be doing a great job."
I get mine that evening. It pops up in my inbox, the characteristic string of letters and numbers tailing out of sight on the right hand side of my screen. I hover my mouse over it, opening my mouth to call Olive from downstairs. But something stops me. I click the little glowing yellow envelope and watch the message unfurl across the screen.
*You are happily married to a beautiful woman. 37498789423757813091s78he is beautiful so beautiful she is a fantastic wife she will cook and clean and uiu90827390189 stare out of windows and hope for something more. Your kids are doing well at school 34398a989nd how can they not, when if they don't, they get taken away? Watch out for your youngest. Please they're coming for him they're coming 3909183410990 everything is perfect perfect perfect everything is 8930481---per89078fect.*
An iron fist squeezes my heart. My hands are shaking as I keep scrolling down the page.
*All perfect Green Liberals garden of eden 310902990no09099 more sin --231299 no more sin no more evil. Everyone is happy. Everyone is equal. Everyone is the same. Stay different. Stay different737279*
And the last line.
*Vote Green Liberal 2014*
My hand is glued to my mouse.
"James?" Olive enters the room and I minimise the screen, blood thumping through my ears.
"Yes?" I croak, so aware of how I look - bloodshot eyes, shaking hands, white face.
She smiles at me with blank eyes, placing a perfectly manicured hand on my shoulder.
"James, darling. We need to start being better people. We need to start being *perfect.*"
Edit: Thank you /u/SomeCasualObserver, fixed some errors. | 546 | People are getting messages from their future selves about how awesome the future is. Then someone gets the truth through the censors filtering the stream. | 402 |
Dear Mr. Secretary,
No doubt you've seen the video I am about to discuss. It was posted on the social media application "Vine" around thirty-six hours ago and has sparked a media frenzy. The video itself has been on the front page of the application for hours. My team in Texas has conducted an investigation and are currently at the user's house. The tenants are a single mother and her child of eleven, Yemeni descent. The media doesn't know their identity, and they haven't spoken to anyone.
Like my first reaction, most of the public sees the video as fake, and clever video editing; however, it must be obvious due to this letter that it is absolutely real. We conducted some experiments and these are the details of the child's abilities.
* Isolated effective area - effect only seen through fingertips
* Togglable - ability to have no effect at all
* Effective on all matter - not just water, any substance, even solid, even organic, loses kinetic energy should the child wish it
I must hold back my amazement due to the fact that there is a job at hand. No doubt, this is a massively substantial event in human history and I do believe that the government needs time to study it. Not only that, but this child needs to be safely and cautiously contained. Who knows if his abilities could evolve to a level that would render him immune to custody. An unstoppable force in the making that needs to be inhibited immediately.
You are welcome to come observe him. He will be kept in Waadah.
Keep safe,
Laura | 30 | Magic is slowly returning to the modern day world, little by little. | 64 |
"Careful, shut your desk drawer before you get up, you could trip and fall."
The comment didn't even register as serious to me at first, but when I looked up at my supervisor's face, I realized it was. I always pictured him with a sash when he made comments like that.
"Sure thing," I muttered as I shut the drawer, stewing.
My boss treated me like a child. But I was not. I was a responsible adult. I had a house, a car, and had come frighteningly close to having a child. He didn't need to talk to me like that.
When he turned into the next row of cubicles I kicked at the bottom drawer of my desk, with more force than I meant to.
The same moment it sprang open, my cubemate rolled his chair towards the printer in between us.
The printer wires tangled in the wheels of the chair, and then the chair rammed my open drawer.
My cubemate fell forward with the chair, ripping the industrial printer from the wall.
I watched helplessly as HeWentToJared91 was anally impaled by the ink cartridges that shot from the printer as it crashed on his back. | 14 | Kill me in the silliest way possible. | 18 |
Oh, you mean my life?
Today I woke up thirteen minutes before my alarm went off and was ready to walk to the bus stop thirteen minutes early. That was fine though, at least I had plans to hang out with my friend Katie after school.
It started drizzling the second I opened the door, but that was fine because the bus stop is only three quarters of a mile from my house.
When I got on the bus, Katie told me she couldn't hang out after school because she had work. At least I was out of the rain, and maybe I could hang out with Trevor after our math class.
Trevor didn't show up to math. Good thing I talked to Alana yesterday or I would've had no one to sit by and compare answers with.
I got to art on time today and tried to talk to the girl next to me with pink hair. I asked her what color her hair was, expecting her to give me a name like Electric Pink or Pinkapalooza, something interesting. She boredly said "pink" and didn't make eye contact with me for the next hour. At least I was trying to be a nice person.
I decided to wait for Katie's class to end, which gave me two and a half hours of free time. I finished my art project, which is due next Wednesday.
I walked home from the bus stop at three, and the sun was furiously beating down on my black sweatshirt. Funny how quickly the weather changes in western Washington. At least it wasn't raining anymore. | 14 | A short story in which nothing is learned, and nothing is gained | 22 |
For the eighth time this month, I'm shoved into the back of a police cruiser and carted off to central booking. The cops don't give me much grief on the way there, or rather they don't think I can understand what they're saying because most clones don't know any words longer than two syllables. It's no use arguing until we arrive, something I've learned from experience. As soon as we step into the precinct, I ask for Sgt. Hall. He rolls his eyes, his "not this shit again" shorthand. He scans my citizen card and arranges transport back to my condo.
I live in one of the nicest condo complexes in the city, I'm physically fit, and, while not handsome, I've been described as having a certain rugged quality. Whenever I wonder why I live alone, I'm reminded by the doorman with my face. And the janitor. And the gardener. And the guy flipping burgers and the guy cleaning rain gutters and so on. I was twenty-six, broke, and some big shot pharmaceutical company ran an ad looking for applicants for genetic mapping. Long story short, I was called back for the second round, third, fourth, and so on. Eventually, they offered me a million bucks and stock options, now worth considerably more. Now my face is in every business in America. And Europe. And Asia and so on.
I live alone because it's hard to meet people when you look like an aging kitchen appliance. I'm a decade older but still get recognized on the street. Misrecognized, I mean. They think I'm a clone who broke out of his wristband, and they start thinking about that one time a couple years back in a fast food joint in Seoul. So they do their civic duty and call the cops, who assume the worst and take me back to see Sgt. Hall.
I go home, shower, take a nap, wake up. I've dyed my hair, grown out a beard, tried to change my appearance as much as possible. I'll probably get plastic surgery soon. I need a drink. I need to get laid. I call for a taxi and go to a club on the other side of town.
If there's one upside to my situation (despite the massive amount of cash), it's that the menial labor clones have created it's own mini-taboo, which may make finding a long term relationship hard, but at a club full of half-drunk twenty-somethings buying shots with daddy's money, it's the equivalent of being "the boy from the wrong side of the tracks," fantasy-wise. Once I've convinced them that I'm not a clone myself, that is. I drink, I dance, I got this beautiful redhead to agree to come back to my apartment. We're barely outside of the club when she vomits all over the pavement and decides to just call a cab. I forget to ask for her number. It's almost 2:00, and I might as well head home. I call the taxi service and am told they'll be here in twenty minutes. Then something hits me on the back of the head-
* * *
I come to and for a while I think I'm in a funhouse mirror maze. From behind me someone calls out, "he's awake," and my head starts to clear. They aren't reflections. About thirty clones in various states of health and hygiene are sitting on the floor of a massive derelict warehouse. A middle-aged man with a pistol sticking out of his waistband walks towards me, kicking aside any clones in his way.
"You're an old model, eh, boy?" He laughs, pulls my wallet out of his coat pocket and removes the citizen card. "For a while, me and my partner thoughts you was just a clone widdout his collar, but you're a clone with a card. How'd you swing 'at, boy?"
"I'm not a clone, you fucking halfwit," I say.
He hit me in the face and pulled out his gun. "A clone as old as you ain't worth that much. And no one would be bustin' their ass tryin' to find who killed one a you lot."
I spit blood onto the floor. "I have money. Just search the name on my card."
Maybe he was just surprised that I was able to string together a sentence longer than 'would you like fries with that,' but he seemed to look at me differently. He pulled out his phone and typed. He looked at the screen for a moment, then at me, then back at the screen. "I need to step outside and talk my partner for a minute." He left the warehouse and the deadbolt echoed through the structure.
A moment passed, and the clones began talking. I think a linguist could make a career on these clones, if they ever let on. The pharmaceutical company that breeds them restricts their access to language, made good laborers who knew only enough to do their jobs well. But this didn't stop these clones from creating their own language. They probably assumed that I was just a regular clone, not part of their group, or circle, or tribe, or whatever. A few of them started drawing something in the dust of the floor, what looked like building schematics. They debated fervently, pointing to details, making small edits. The deadbolt clicked and they wiped it away, and laid down deaf and dumb.
The kidnapper and his partner came back in, wearing balaclavas. The guy who talked to me earlier waved his pistol around as he spoke. "We know where you live," he said, "So let's make a deal. We let you go, you don't say nothing about this. We move property, kidnapping's not our style. But you say anything to the cops, we'll murder you, you piece of shit. Got it?"
I agreed and they drove me in circles for a while before letting me out back near the club. I called another cab and got home a little after dawn. The cab dropped me off at the end of the block. The gardener and the doorman were whispering to each other before they saw me. The gardener slipped something into the doorman's pocket as he darted off. The doorman smiled at me, said "good morning," one of the few phrases he was supposed to know. I nodded and went to my room. I took a shower then started packing. It would be good to hide out for a while, get out of town or at least someplace isolated. But I'd need to sleep first. I lied down on the bed and tried to pretend that I hadn't seen the gardener slip the doorman a gun. | 21 | It is the future, and clones do all the work for us. You are the man on which the clones are based. | 18 |
It was the nod. The way she bowed her head but not her shoulders and pulled my gaze to her eyes. The grocery belt still moving my necessities forward but her gaze, entwined with mine. I should have looked away. Maybe check out what's hot on the last minute tabloid rack before casually walking away. I couldn't though. I knew that stare. Her hazelnut colored, olive shaped eyes stayed firmly locked on mine as she swiped my groceries. I usually check the bill at this point but I felt intoxicated, hypnotized.
I swiped my card while still locked in her gaze. I was definitely her focus but why? I think I remember now but it was so long ago but I remember. How could one forget?
I was staying with my grandmother. I was young and she was tough. I would get in trouble a lot. I could tell how she was feeling by the way she looked and would often be in trouble for pushing my luck too far while she was calm. When I was naughty though, instead of punishment, she would give me this look and I never knew what it meant. Other kids would have asses beaten but my grandmother would only give me this look. Like she was going to kill me but refrained.
That was a long time ago though and even those I was still small, I remember her passing. It was that same stare in her last few moments that I had seen when I was in trouble, countless times. I watched her last breath focusing on that eternal gaze and just before she went, I watched her change into a dove.
I know what I saw but like I said, I was only very small. We all have our own ways of dealing with tragedy and as I grew and got older, I forgot. Until I saw that stare again. This cahier, she knows me. We know each other from somewhere so I did the only thing a man can do.
"So uh, do you want to go grab a coffee somewhere or something?" | 11 | In a world of shapeshifters, how do we know who is who? | 20 |
The sergeant stopped, turning around in the tunnel's narrow confines despite his heavily insulated, closed-circuit ToxinSuit, or TS. I saw his lips moving behind the thick, shatter-resistant visor, and his voice crackled through my intercom. "Remember to check your gauges every once in a while, private. The temperature increases at about three degrees centigrade every hundred meters vertical."
I checked the monitors on my suit's wrist. Sure enough, the air temperature already indicated 58 degrees. Our dehumidifiers were whirring loudly to prevent our visors from fogging over. "How much farther?" I inquired.
He laughed humorlessly, resuming the descent. "Who knows, private? The farthest any of our technicians have been measured a whopping 140 degrees. You do the math."
*140 degrees.* I did a quick calculation. That was 284 degrees fahrenheit. If any of our equipment failed, we'd roast. Our weapons had been specially modified so the rounds wouldn't spontaneously combust. Our respirators were designed to last for three to five hours, depending upon heart rate and breathing levels. The sergeant's headlamp illuminated roughly hewn walls. They were streaked with soot and scorch marks. More disconcerting were the occasional bullet holes and long gouges carved through the rock.
My quick briefing up on the surface didn't do much to settle my nerves. Captain Andrews had looked at me gravely. "You're in for a ride, marine," he'd said. "We don't know much. We know the Koreans sent a party of about 15 miners and 8 armed guards. We also know they didn't come out. Your job is to infiltrate the facility and find out what they were looking for."
What *were* the Northerners looking for? I wouldn't put it past Kim Jong-un to send 23 men to their deaths based on nothing but a hunch. President Park's advisors felt that they had discovered something...sinister. She'd asked for some aid, and of course I ended up being selected for the first descent. Just me. No team at my back. "Whatever they found down there," Andrews had said, "they didn't come back. Sergeant Bader will take you to the Labyrinth's entrance. Then it's on you. One man is more likely to go unnoticed."
I tightened my grip on the MP7. It fired armor piercing DM11 rounds at over 700 meters per second. Anything in front of it would be shredded in less than a second. But that was assuming I saw the danger before it saw me. My gauge read 83 degrees. Still a long way to go.
"You know that Andrews chose you for a reason, right?" Bader said, stepping over a large stone embedded in the ground.
I lifted my thick, armor-plated boot over the obstacle. "Expendability?"
"You wish," he laughed. "Then you'd die and have no more responsibilities. No, you don't get off that easy."
"What do you mean?"
"Andrews knows that most of our men are a little rattled. You're new to the post and have demonstrated an impressive resilience already."
*What is that supposed to mean?* "So, basically, that means I can handle lethal air compositions, boiling temperatures, and whatever the hell the North Koreans woke up down here?"
"It means Andrews has faith that you can do all that *without* dying. Speaking of air compositions, we're at about 40% carbon monoxide right now. You'd better keep an eye on your O2 meter."
Just as he spoke, the ceiling and walls fell away. We'd emerged into a long, twisting cavern, littered with dark chasms and twisted stalactites. Our headlamps threw out bright beams of light, but the darkness absorbed them like a sponge.
I saw Bader point with a gloved finger. "See those footsteps? We think the miners went that way. Either they're dead or they found something a little too interesting for our liking."
He looked at me, clapping me on the shoulder. "We'll stay in constant radio contact. You see anything you don't like, you can always come back up. Just remember you always have your cloaking and night vision. We don't want to start World War 3 because they spot you."
*If they're even alive.* I nodded, feeling my pulse start to quicken. *Calm down. Breathe. Relaxing means more air. More air means more time.*
I raised my MP7 and set foot into the Labyrinth, following the footsteps of the vanished North Korean party. | 12 | Describe the Labyrinth, a place so deep underground the air is toxic. | 16 |
Attila the Hun, leader of a thousand armies, lord of the Mongol Hordes! You conquered Asia and conquered your many wives, not to mention hamstringing half the people who opposed you. What bravery, what chutzpah! I don't know how people in this day and age may ever hope to survive your oncoming wrath. From where I stand I can see your spears and swords, waving like a lethal field of barley. I can see the glint of pure heavenly light from the tips and barbs of bladed weapons. The horses chomp at their bits, ready to pound their hooves upon our unsuspecting heads. Your men scream their outrage and impatience, and you grin in triumph before you ever meet our forces.
You've been dead for a thousand years, Mr. Attila. What have you learned during that time? Hatred of the bottomless pit? The pain of the lake of fire?
Well, while you languished in pain and suffering in the darkest reaches of Hell, humanity has gone on and on. We have fallen and we have risen. We have died and we have lived. And nothing, nothing, got in our way. Dictators rose, then they were killed. Kings began wars, then crawled away in rags and drowned their sorrows in the bottle. Men built fabled machines, and other men stole them. Governments ruled in peace and prosperity. And then the world wars started. We bathed in our brothers' blood. We cursed the very ground we loved with poison and gas and bones. But through it all, young Attila, we stood and laughed. Yes, we laughed. Because the road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Nothing ever ends, it simply changes. And humanity changes with it, like the seasons. Where the wind blows, we go.
So yes, you may conquer us. Your wild men and swords of iron may rend our plastic cars to bits. Your chaos may clog our freeways. And the blood you spill may ruin the water table. But I'll still be here. My friends will die, my family will die. But I will stand and laugh in your ancient face, you young, immature leader of armies you don't understand. Because when you kill me, you will die yourself. It might take time, it might take years. But it will most assuredly occur. And there will be nothing you can do about it.
But of course, before you invade and stop me waxing verbose, I ask you to consider. What your hordes can destroy in a day, I can destroy in a second via the push of a button. How far you can travel in an hour? I have the machines to get me there in one minute. Your sharp swords? I have electromagnets that will rip your precious blade from your hand as if by magic. I have lasers, whose pretty red beam will burn your beard to ashes before you see it coming. And my little black thing in my hand here? It shoots arrows of metal at 30 shots per second. In minutes, I could mow down your fabled hordes, and lay waste to your pride. Behind me, stand ten thousand soldiers with just as much power as I hold. Perhaps more.
So come on then, Attila. Come attack me with your feeble hands. And when your bones lie bleached in the highway, and your crown is worn by the hobo at the streetcorner, then you will wish that you listened to this speech. But it will be too late. You will be back in hell, burning and weeping and gnashing your teeth. All because the past cannot touch the future. | 18 | Attila the Hun has found a portal to the modern world and plans to invade, you give a speech to try to warn him off | 19 |
"No, honestly you guys. It's not a self-esteem thing, you really should go again." I say simply, twisting my face into the an overly-enthusiastic smile.
I watch the crowd consult their charts, the wheels of their carriers rattling as they womble around, only a few housing-bowls spilling droplets of their driver's viscous green lubricant. Honestly, it's kind of hard to tell what is going on with them.
I listen to the puttering of their calculations, watch the slimy newt-like creatures trapped in oversized bowls on wheels, browsing through documents and articles. Most of the characters look like looping chicken-scratch, but I recognize some characters. The odd stuff they did with Russian, some characters of Urdu. They'd studied human languages. All the more reason, really.
The biggest newt-bot rolled towards him after their bleeping reached some consensus. It's liquids were purple, and it was clearly their chief.
*"You is smart. You is kind. You is important."*
I blink.
They bleep, and the purple one goes back to the others.
"Honestly, you've put so much effort in. You lot really, really deserve someone quite clever to talk to, and-" I begin, but they seem to reach a consensus and the purple one comes back, this time bringing a green one with it.
I brace myself, but instead they turn to each other.
"Hello." said purple
"Hello." said green
They both turned to me, and said "Hello!" in unison.
"Er, right. Hi. Seriously though-"
They looked at each other. Their carriers drooped on the way back to the others. The bleeping sounded pretty intense.
One of them strolls over, with an A4 pad on a thin metal tray. A quick flick through shows a picture drawn crudely onto each page, with each picture being of food.
Thinking for a second, I decide to steer clear of meat. I point at a drawing of pasta with some sort of white sauce. The newtbot bleeps - as they do - and heads on his way.
The Purple is back now, and it's been budging a box in front of it.
"The demands of your people, they have been met."
"Well that sounds pretty good. I mean, they're dead, but it's nice that you're so considerate. Still, you should really-"
I stop talking.
What, exactly would be in the box?
I open it, popping the bubblewrap idly as I do.
Firefly, Season 2. Filmed with newt-people, but it's Firefly.
On the one hand, the internet really ruined screwed humanity over with the whole 'greatest need' thing. On the other, the expectations were set nice and low, and it's not like a cure for cancer would've helped anyone.
The waiter comes back with my pasta, and I smile.
I guess I'm important enough to keep these guys to myself for a little while | 196 | It's 65 million years in the future. Humanity was wiped out by a meteor impact. A new species evolved and they have successfully cloned a human. You are that human. | 278 |
I was perfectly happy, right inside my owner's chest,
I loved the sound of her voice, loved her spirit and her zest.
But one day, everything changed and I didn't hear,
Her beautiful voice, how could she just disappear?
It was a man's voice instead, hard and gruff,
I worked for someone else now, sure enough.
I missed my owner, I want to go back,
But not for long, because everything went black.
He committed suicide and followed his plan,
I was given to a woman, she sounded much nicer than the man.
Being with this women reminded me of the one I loved,
This woman is heartbroken like me, and feeling unloved.
It went black again, and I was given to another,
A young man this time, but unlike any other.
He made me feel happy, like working again,
It was better now than it was then.
Sure, I missed the first one I worked for,
But he made me forget the sadness I bore.
I was with him for a long time, but he started to decline,
He lied to others and told them he was fine.
He put a bullet through his chest, and I now I have a big hole,
I am broken now, never to be made whole.
He gave me what I wanted since in that man's chest I started to beat,
This young man has set me free, and my time working is complete. | 14 | A heart has been transplanted 3 times, the cause of death for all 3 people was suicide due to a broken heart. Write me a story from the perspective of the heart. | 22 |
Testing the waters, Ted wrote *Anna* into the air above the paper.
It felt good.
Next, he moved the pencil back over the same line, and in one fluid cursive stroke, tried *Lara.*
It felt...correct.
Years of childless, motionless marriage crept up on Ted as he tapped the pencil against the table. Years of goodbye kisses and perfunctory sex swept across his field of view and out, past his mind, into the halls of the quiet house that he and Lara now shared.
But, Anna! She had no one, no other soul to write her name before the deadline arrived. Without intervention, her fate was sealed, and it was unjust that a bright flame such as hers should be extinguished! That spark, the same one that first lit Ted's alight fifteen years ago, was in jeopardy.
A world without Anna was not a world. How to imagine a river's bend without that golden hair mixing with the sand? Where was the joy in driving a convertible down the freeway without that timid smile breaking from its cage? Why make love without that unsure and clumsy woman stumbling through it all with him, inspiring him to hold her with his hands, as she guided him with her eyes? There was no respite from that joy, no matter what Ted did or did not do.
It was decided, then. Shakily, he watched his hand pull the pencil to the start of the line, and connect with the paper.
*No!*
Fifteen years had passed. Fifteen years since Anna's silhouette, defeated and heavy, retreated to her beaten up station wagon for the last time. She had not once looked back, despite Ted's desperate, silent pleas. It was a goodbye Ted could not accept. Instead, he spent years laying fresh canvases on the table, drawing every curve of Anna's body, from her awkward knees to her high cheekbones - everything except her eyes. Whenever he attempted to reconstruct the Anna he had known and loved, her eyes were a different color. At first, they were blue, for her eyes must have been blue, as all-American as the rest of her. But no, wait - they were certainly brown, the way they had stood out against her pale skin. Perhaps hazel, then? Dull, nondescript, worn by Lara's prettified eyes as well.
Oh God, Lara! The marriage! Was he about to cast that all away over a memory? Vows were muttered in earnest, pledges made to her family and to his, vows that they would care for each other until the end of ages. Certainly, they had done the best they could! They had kept each other fed and warm, and shared themselves as completely with each other as they knew how, but steadily, because they were married and therefore had all the time in the world. This was no high school romance - it was the rest of their lives, and they both knew it. For ten years, he had made love to the same woman, and even offered the words "I love you," as he knew he should.
All of this flashed before Ted's eyes, as if his mortality was under threat. How could he decide? Was the act of saving one, tantamount to murder of the other? If so, he could not bring himself to do it at all! The tears stung, not out of sadness, but anger, and he threw the pencil down in a gesture of disgust. They could not make him do this!
But they were, and he must. Choking back the pain, Ted tighted his grip around the pencil. At first, his hand could not move. Then, it shook, and with it his whole arm, rattling the frail table. Finally, he connected with the paper, leaving a first name and surname scribbled on the form. It was done.
That evening, he kissed his wife: it was the longest and deepest kiss he and Lara had ever shared. When finally they retired to the bed, they enveloped each other in a passionate, unfamiliar and wholly welcome embrace. Each professed their love for the other, genuine and apologetic. With a newfound safety, Lara drifted into a deep sleep. As Ted lay awake, petting his wife's head, his gaze fell to the strands between his fingers. Perhaps it was his imagination, or the dim light of the moon, but suddenly Lara's hair seemed to sparkle and turn a dirty blond, mixing with the bedsheets and the riverbed where Ted had spent the best of his days, long ago. | 16 | In ten days, everyone has to choose another person. Whoever they choose gets to live. Anyone who isn't chosen is killed. | 31 |
"So three wishes, you say." Mike lit up a cigarette, rolling it between his fingers as he looked at the genie in front of him. The genie floated up in front of him, trailing off into a cloud of smoke from an old lantern. It was absurd to think that had actually worked, finding a genie in a lantern, but when he passed by the lantern in a rundown thrift store, he was struck by the crazy notion to rub it. It definitely seemed to have paid off though.
"Three wishes." The genie repeated, "No more, no less. And no wishing for more wishes." Mike grunted, that part seemed obvious, though of course he would have had to try.
"Are you going to try to corrupt the wishes?" He asked suspiciously. The genie smiled slightly.
"I am a genie. I will do as is in my nature." Figured. Mike fell silent, working through the wishes in his head.
"For my first wish, I want to own at least 1 billion legal USdollars, in my current bank account, with no illegal ties." The genie looked a little frustrated, but nodded his head.
"It is done. Second wish?"
"I'd like to meet the perfect woman, someone who is smart, funny, attractive and with similar interests, whom I fall in love with, and will fall in love with me, and to live a long, happy life with her." The genie frowned.
"Technically that is three wish, to meet the woman, and mutually fall in love, as well as have a long, happy life. I can only do one of those for a wish." Mike considered carefully, rolling the cigarette butt between his fingers.
"Then I wish to live a long, happy life myself, knowing that what would make me happy is to mutually fall in love with a wonderful woman, who also lives a long, happy life." The genie scoffed, nodding his head.
"Technically, this is within my power. Wish granted. Now your third wish."
"I wish that you will act out the previous two wishes in good faith, and that no wishes I have or have not placed today will bring me, anyone or anything else harm." The genie rolled his eyes.
"I knew it wasn't worth waking up for a lawyer. Wish granted." He grumbled as he retreated back into the lantern again.
((Consider this story open to anyone who can continue the story and show how the genie manipulated these wishes.)) | 20 | A man finds a genie who grants him the standard three wishes. He tries to make his wishes as complex as possible, so as not to be misinterpreted. | 21 |
Andrew had never seen his mother cry.
There were moments when it appeared as if she would, while taking in the simple joys of his schoolwork or his smile, but never before had he witnessed such a complete dissolution of hope. The gentle sagging of her face; the way the agony pulled her features gently outward; the expression of pain so exotic that his mother was not his mother. It was all too much for Andrew to take in, so he mustered his strength and looked away.
Beside him, his younger sister was putting on a more flamboyant display. Her wails carried up, up to the starry midnight sky, where they hung suspended before falling into the frigid ocean black beyond. She was paralyzed with the irrational fear that possessed her, and though Andrew had in the past wrapped his sister in his arms, tonight, he made no such effort. Glancing between his mother and his sister, the sad truth began to sink in.
But this wasn't right, was it? They had traveled all this way, from the United States to the docks of Europe, in order to be together as a family. Why couldn't people keep smiling? Everything was so much easier when people smiled.
Andrew waddled up to the edge of the railing, poking his squat head through the opening underneath to drink in the chaos one more time. People were crying each other's names, or screaming for help, or jumping
*my goodness people are jumping!*
into the black abyss. Was it truly better down there, in a water so still and empty that only icebergs could claim it as home? Why would people not stay here, in the comfort of ballrooms and bunk beds? For a fleeting moment, this question percolated in Andrew's mind. It was enough. He placed both hands on the railing, dragging his tiny feet up to the iron guardrail. Left, then right, he checked, making sure that he was doing this properly. Nobody else was hesitating as he was, unless they were speaking to God. Andrew had never liked church, but now he wished he had spent some more time talking to God.
"Andrew! Get down from there!"
Two familiar arms scooped him up, pulling him back to safety. He said nothing, instead wrapping his arms around his mother's neck pressing his face into her collar. He liked it better here, than on the edge of the ship. It was safer here.
As his mother turned to seize his sister's hand, Andrew opened his eyes to catch one last glimpse of his father. From his perch, he saw the last of the lifeboats disappearing to the sea. One contained a mass of women in coats, struggling to fix life jackets around their awkward formalwear. Another was hanging by its side, impotent, as the remaining cables struggled to keep it suspended. And the last one: there he was! The large beard was unmistakable, even at this hour and surrounded by so many desperate people.
Their eyes met. Had his father been watching them the entire time? Frantically Andrew's eyes darted across every feature of his face, desperate for a clue that his father was not really leaving on that tiny boat. That man was his father, after all. Surely he was coming back? Andrew searched and searched, for as long as the moment would allow, until with a start his mother began striding away from the lifeboats and the jumping. As quickly as his father had come into view, he disappeared.
"Mother, where is Daddy going?" asked Andrew. His own answer was already forming, but he wanted his mother to tell him that he was wrong, and that his father would save them. That is what fathers were supposed to do.
All he heard was sister's ragged sobbing, so he asked again, louder.
This time, an answer crackled out from beneath his mother's chest. "I'm so sorry, honey. I guess Daddy doesn't love us after all." | 10 | A Father Can Only Save One Person In His Family, He Chooses Himself | 33 |
"Well, it's sickness. Like, *BLeaGH BLAHRGH*" The child laughed at her fathers vulgar theatrics, and he briefly rubbed her back.
"But it's also life. It smells like one of our hikes, like when that pine smell that you love comes in and overwhelms you. The whole forest is coloured that way... But it only smells like the forest. The feel is different. It feels more like when you go in the back yard and take off your shoes and socks to feel the grass come up between your toes, or when you lie down and spread out in its cool and embracing blades. Yeah, I'd say it's the colour of life."
"Wait, daddy, what colour is the Sun? I thought you said that the Sun represented life."
"Well... The Sun is life too, but it's different. Kind of like warmth and life combined."
Her nose crinkled as she tried to understand... "So, the Sun is like you, daddy?"
His heart filled with joy, and for a moment he was actually thankful that she couldn't see a tear roll down his cheek. He hugged her again.
"No, more like you, munchkin!" He rubbed her hair.
"Now go call Bingo, we're going for some ice cream."
She giggled excitedly. "Ice cream must have the yummiest colour!" | 169 | Describe a color, without actually saying it. You can't use other colors to describe it! | 95 |
I stepped aside, feeling the breeze as Constantino's hammer whizzed past my face. He stumbled forward, and before he could turn around I planted a side kick in the small of his back. The blow launched him into solid concrete wall. I heard the *crack* as his nose broke.
"Please," he moaned, peering at me over his shoulder. Blood streamed down his face. "Please, just let me go."
Wordlessly, I grabbed him by the ankle. He screamed, writhing against my gauntleted hand. He slid helplessly over the glossed concrete floor, still squinting in the fluorescent lighting.
"Where are you taking me? What the hell is this place?"
It was difficult to imagine his terror. I'd dropped from the night sky, surrounded by a halo of rain droplets, crushing his van's hood like tinfoil. An Angel of the Night. He'd seen the dim red glow beneath my hood, watched in horror as my cape billowed in the wind, thrown his hands up as my fist came through his windshield. I'd left the ruined vehicle smoking on the side of the road, after checking its bay and releasing the half-naked girl bound and gagged on the floor. He'd secured her there for who knows how long.
"Wait," the girl had cried, rubbing her raw wrists. "Don't leave me! What am I supposed to do?"
She'd shrunk back when she heard the rumble of my voice, caught a flash of the demon beneath the hood. "The police know your location. Help is on the way."
Constantino thrashed against my grip. "Fuck you, you filthy piece of shit! Fight me like a fucking man!"
I scoffed, but dropped him. Crime lords, assassins, thugs, mercenaries, rapists, murderers, serial killers. Put them in a compromising situation and they *all* eventually pull the honor card. Like chivalric conduct was something they were accustomed to.
I didn't bother turning around, but sight is only one sense. I could hear the blood *plop* onto the floor as he scrambled to his feet, feel the vibrations in the floor as his heels clicked against it, smell his foul breath as it pulsed forth. I closed my eyes. *Seven o'clock. Weight on left foot. Right hook. Jawline exposed.* I dropped into a crouch, threw vicious back kick, then spun on my planted foot and exploded up with an uppercut.
Constantino screamed in agony as his left kneecap shattered and his jaw dislocated. He collapsed into a heap, moaning and writhing. I looked at the floor and smiled. He'd bitten off his own tongue.
"You know," I said casually, bending down, "there's something nobody knows about me. Well, those that *did* know are dead."
He quieted, eyes watering but completely riveted on the figure towering above.
"I can see a quarter from half a mile away. I can hear someone's whisper even if they're across the street. I can punch through steel plates a Barrett rifle couldn't penetrate. But if people knew *how*, if people knew what I must do to gain this power, they would hate me." I picked up the limp tongue. His eyes widened with horror when I raised my hand into my hood.
"I'm not entirely sure *why*. But I'm sure you've heard that most of our brain capacity goes unused. What would happen if the same was true with our bodies? And what would happen if someone could harness that power?"
I chewed and swallowed, allowing myself a nasty smile. "I don't know if it's the soul. Your lifeforce that I'm about to consume. But I'm thankful for monsters like you, because the more I stop the stronger I become. The more innocents I save."
Constantino gurgled and choked. The blood was too thick in his mouth to scream. I unsheathed the hunting knife strapped to my calf. "You'll never see my face. Nor my wings. Nor my skin. But I'll see *all* of you. I'll see your heart. Right before I eat it."
| 61 | A well known, liked, world saving superhero neglects telling people his powers are based upon eating human flesh. | 89 |
Weak limbs from lack of use
Bigger eyes for greater field of view
Faster brains to keep up with all the information
This is not the world I was born in.
God, these *things* do not even eat. It use to be easier, you know.
I would just have to move every couple of years before they noticed that I do not age. Before it would be as simple as moving maybe 200 miles, no need to inform anyone.
Then these cameras came about, and I would pay someone off for a picture to match my new name.
With the founding of DNA I would have to be a citizen of a third world country, whose papers were much easier to get.
For millennias it was the same dance just in a different time. People are always corrupt, officials moreso. A coin and a handshake later I was a new man.
I've been a king, a God, a pauper, a lover, a dreamer, a poet, a scientist, a husband, a murderer, a tyrant, a despot.
I've been many different things
But always - always I have been human. Now, I do not fit in. They are different. They are savages. I do not understand them, I do not recognize them.
Nor they I.
Their perception of beauty I no longer share. Their laugh is a stab to my soul, their music an affront to my person.
Immortality, it seems, has finally caught up with me. I am weary. Oh so tired. I can no longer keep up.
To all the dead I knew; may I join you soon
To all the living I know; may you change
To the future; may you never come
| 402 | An immortal human has lived , in secret, among humans. Now evolution has progressed enough that he no longer fits the normal appearance of a human being. | 360 |
They say that magic and gods exist and cause things like lightning and volcanoes, but I have given this a great deal of thought and I am pretty sure they can be explained if they were studied enough. I think with a good amount of observation we could figure out the magic.
These were my last thoughts as I drifted off to sleep.
Where am I? What is going on?
I see a big metal bird just streak across the sky, then I see a horseless chariot go right by me at unbelievable speeds. There are buildings as tall as mountains. I am in a world where there appear to be no rules anymore.
I saw a guy put cold food in a box with a window and a very short time later the food was very hot, but the inside of the box was normal.
I saw someone pull fire from a metal box.
I found out they now vote on the king of the land, and he willingly leaves when his time is up and they don't kill him.
I saw a box that stores all of the worlds knowledge, and people use it apparently to view animals in cute settings.
I have been trying not to attract attention in this strange and magical land, but one night they threw me in a dungeon for sleeping in the town's forest.
I was expecting tortuure, but instead I was given the best food of my life, I was given a box that displayed people's lives, and I listened long enough until I could understand their language while in the dungeon.
After I became okay with their words, I figured out to the best of my ability that I had gone forward some 1900 years in time, and when I explained this to the local dungeon master, I was immediately transferred to another builing where I am not allowed to leave, but the cool thing is there are many more people here like me. They have also lived other lives.
Just when I decided that there were no gods and magic, I met Jesus there. He came back, but no one believed him this time around. But I believe. | 15 | An ancient scientist, like the Chinese, Greek, or Arabic who is just beginning to put together our scientific understanding of the Universe, is somehow placed in our modern day society. | 22 |
Life as death isn't too bad. You get immortality, all the abilities of a self-respecting ghost, and one bitching hook as a left hand. Heck, after a few hours of soaring through the skies, invisible to the human eye, I started to enjoy myself.
Don't take my word for it, though. I got the job pretty recently after crashing my car, and I can’t say I had much of a choice. The souls I had to escort were mostly natural deaths. Well, I did get one murder victim, but he was pretty cool about it. Apparently, he had it coming.
But apparently, there was a clause in my contract, requiring at least one innocent under the age of 12 in my quota. Can't be too hard, I thought. Just find some poor sap with leukemia or something. But when I followed the trails of death, I found myself in a room, splattered with blood, and the remains of a four part family.
"Ah jeez," I said. "Not one of these ones." I made a mental note to talk to Mike. Maybe he could pull a few strings, and send a premonition to a policeman or something. Evidently, the murder scene was undisturbed. The house looked familiar. I remember one of the other guys talking about a house like this.
I looked around the room for the poor kid's soul. I half hoped he'd gone to limbo already. But then, from the back of the room:
"Excuse me, Mister, where am I?"
I turned around to see the kid's soul, shining red. No other family. Guess the other guys got to them first. Putting a smile on my face, I greeted him.
"Heya, kiddo. What's your name?"
"Harry, mister,” he said. “Who… are those people on the floor?”
“Er… I dunno. Don’t think we want to disturb them. They’re sleeping.”
The kid wasn’t buying it. “Mister, where am I? The last thing I remember is a man shoving me into a room, like this, and then he came at me with a knife. It was a strange dream…”
He looked at the body once more, and the penny dropped. “Mister, am I dead?”
Smart kid. I didn’t exactly have an answer to that. He started to cry, and his red glow grew even stronger. I grabbed him, and shifted ourselves to a different location. A pretty little park, on the fringes of San Fran, a place where I went stargazing with Emma. Didn’t want his soul haunting the place forever. Room was creepy enough as is.
“Hey, hey, hey, kid. We’re in this together. I’m here to help you, huh?”
He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “That’s what the man with the knife said.”
“Oh.” Boy, I really sucked at this. “Well, uh… I really am here to help. I’m gonna take you to a wonderful place filled with candy and rainbows and…”
I shut up about there. Man, I was awful with kids. I remembered talking to Emma about kids, and I was starting to wonder why we ever wanted them in the first place.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, Harry turned to me, still kind of misty eyed.
“Mister, are you an angel?”
How flattering. “Of sorts,” I said, feeling pleased.
“Then can you tell me: why did the man kill me?”
I remember asking my local pastor a similar question when my dog died. When I asked him why he’d run over Mr Fluff Fluff in his car, he shrugged sadly, and said “God has a reason for everything.” In case you haven’t noticed, God’s kind of a dick. Trust me, I’ve met him.
I sighed, and said to him, “Hey kid, you ever heard of the saying ‘everything happens for a reason’?”
He nodded.
“Well…” I gestured meaningfully.
“So what was his reason?”
Smart kid. I went to scratch my head with my left hand, but then I thought better of it. “I dunno, Harry. Maybe he was a psycho. Maybe he had a bad day. Maybe you did something to make him angry.”
“Make him angry? I didn’t even know him!” he said, incredulously.
“Well, I guess that narrows it down, doesn’t it?” I laughed. He didn’t.
He sat down. “What do you mean by had a bad day?”
I sat down by him. “I dunno. Did he have a name?”
“Terry… I don’t know, something starting with S?”
I snapped my fingers. “Oh yeah, Terry Stokes. I head some of the others talking about him.”
“You know about him?”
“Oh yeah, we know about pretty much everything up there. Terry wasn’t exactly a happy chappy, if you know what I mean. He lost his job, was going through a divorce… you know, the lots.”
“My parents were divorcing,” he added, glumly.
“You see? It’s no fun. I mean, I’m not saying that’s an excuse for killing you. Good god, no. But you know, it’s hard. I guess he kinda deserved it, seeing as he cheated on her, but you know, she started it. By cheating on him I mean. But yeah, I guess eye for and eye doesn’t always work out.”
He looked kind of bewildered. Emma always said I talked too much. She said it was one of the reasons why she loved me.
“Hey kid, you wanna hear a joke?” I was getting kind of desperate.
“Not really.”
Tough crowd. No sense of humour, just like Alfieri. Guess that’s why he blew out my tyres while we were driving.
I stood up, impatiently. “Look, kid, I really have to get you on the road to heaven. I kinda have a quota I need to fill up… and I can’t guide you there if you’re glowing red and all that. Do me a favour, will you champ, and think of something happy?”
“Will I see my family in heaven?”
I looked down at him. “Please Mister, will I see them?” he asked again.
I sighed. “Maybe. It’s a different path for everyone, but they’re all hard. Rivers of fire, valleys of brimstone. I ain’t gonna lie to you, not everyone makes it through.”
His eyes widened. “I can’t do it, mister. I can’t. I might not see them up there. Please, mister, can I stay?”
I bent down, and looked him in the eye. “Kid, you don’t want to stay in limbo. Believe me. If you head on the road to heaven, there’s a chance you won’t make it. There’s a chance you will make it, and you won’t see your family. Heck, there’s a chance that the place doesn’t exist. I’ve never been there.”
“But the thing is, there’s a chance, however small, that you’re gonna make it. You’re gonna see your folks again up there. If you love your folks, which I know you do, you gotta take that chance.”
He looked around at the park, looking misty eyed. I looked around with him, and remembered the times with Emma, and added:
“You know, it’s the stuff we have to do for the people we love. Can you do this, Harry?”
Slowly, he nodded, and slowly, he faded from red to blue.
“There you go,” I smiled. “You’re ready. Lets go.”
I took his hand, and we headed to the doors of death.
“Mister, why didn’t you stop me from dying?” he asked.
“Will of God. He’s a bit of a dick. Did I mention that?”
“Well, will the man who killed me go to hell?”
“Probably.” He was full of questions, now.
“But you said he wasn’t that bad of a guy.”
I scratched my head, and cursed as I poked myself with the hook. “They say life’s unfair, kid. Death’s not any different. He may have been an alright guy, but he killed you. Don’t you think that’s wrong?”
We were silent till we reached the doors. He asked me one last question.
“Mister, why are you doing this?”
I sighed. “Cause I had a chance to save someone I loved.”
I waved my hook, and the doors materialized, revealing the road to heaven, seas of fire and all.
“Well, kid. You’d better get going. I hope you make it, huh?”
He smiled apprehensively, and stepped through onto the road.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and ticked off a name on my contract. A contract to save a soul. I wish I could be there when Emma woke up. But hey, that's what you get for pissing off a mobster.
*edit- so much formatting! Sorry, this is my first WP and it took me ages to format.
| 10 | Personify death as a man who has to take innocent murder victims, and how that impacts him | 20 |
Casey had his heart first broken at the age of five, when his horseshoe-haired father came home from Friday happy hour stinking of rye whiskey and lashed a belt around his wrist. He let the buckle free, though, and cracked it over Casey's back like a whip. That was Casey's first memory of speaking, when he screamed "no, no, no," and his father ignored that.
And yet it was his father who broke his heart again, when Casey was eleven, moving out of the house finally and turning Casey's mother into a single mother. Casey never saw his father after that, but when Casey heard his mother crying Christmas morning because she couldn't afford presents for the kids, his heart broke, and he blamed his father. He hugged his mom and told her not to cry, that he didn't need any presents, but in his right hand he made a fist and thought of finding and beating his dad, of making him say "no, no, no," and ignoring that.
Casey's mother was a willowy woman prone to wearing nightgowns all day and putting out cigarettes in the wetness of dirty plates in the kitchen sink. She smoked other things, too, Casey knew, but he never asked about the strange smells coming from the basement when her boyfriends would come over, sometimes all at once. One of them beat her once, or at least grabbed her, Casey never knew what the man's intentions were, because Casey struck the man in the face so hard he shouted "no, no, no," but Casey ignored that. His mother screamed at him for that, but in the morning she confessed that she was glad to be rid of another abusive male figure in his life.
His heart was broken before prom thrice. Layla with her brunette-auburn hair that glistened in the sun like copper told him "no," and he didn't ignore that. Brooklyn with her bright blue eyes told him "no," and added in a few choice words for him, that he was the son of a deadbeat from the wrong part of town, and he couldn't ignore that, but he pretended to. Then when Lisa told him "no," something in Casey snapped and later when he was alone he punched a locker, and then cried because he hated making fists. Fists reminded him of his dad, and he would never be like his dad. But then he punched the locker again, and his mind said "no, no, no," but he ignored that.
He didn't make it into college, but that didn't break his heart. By then he was used to rejection and being told that he didn't matter. He stayed at home and went to community college instead, and his mother told him to move out, but he told her no, no, no, and she ignored that. He wanted to be a plumber. He'd heard that plumbers make good money and he would never be a deadbeat like his dad was, even if he couldn't make it in a fancy four-year school, he would be a plumber and never make a fist again. Except one night when his mother went to hit him in one of her own drunken stupors, he made a fist and thought about it, but he said no, no, no, and he woke up glad he didn't ignore that.
The last time Casey had his heart broken was Sue, a girl he'd met at a bar just outside of town. She made him feel good. She liked his callused hands, and when she held them open Casey knew he could never make a fist to this girl. They saw a movie and laughed by making fun of the overracting of the villain, with Sue doing his high-pitched voice in an uncanny whine. She cracked him up, and he thought it was going somewhere, but when he found out she had a boyfriend and that he had been paying for all their dates for nothing, he felt his heart break again, but again he told himself no, no, no, he would not be the man his father was. His life sucked, but that didn't mean *he* had to suck. *The cycle breaks with me.*
Then one day he got drunk on rye whiskey at McKakesie's downtown and he saw Sue with her boyfriend across the way, and he sat there stewing. It felt good to be drunk, because remembering his father with numbness was not so bad. Remembering his mother with numbness was not so bad either. The bartender said something about being cut off, and Casey walked outside, and kept walking under the streetlamps until he couldn't count them anymore, and then he arrived at Sue's house, he knew what he was going to do. He was going to be the opposite of his father. He was going to be nice to Sue. So nice. *Forgive her*. *In person.* He was going to be nice to her, he resolved, and he was going to treat her right and she would understand that they were meant to be together. She gasped when she saw him at the front door, but she let him in, and she tried to sober him up with water and gatorade and it felt good to be taken care of, like a warm hearth in the middle of a world of frost.
But then she broke his heart with one word. "No," she said when he put his hand down her dress, "no," she said ten minutes later when he tried to put it between her thighs, "no," she screamed, and she screamed, and she screamed, but Casey ignored that. | 102 | Make me love a character, then in the final sentence make me hate him. | 57 |
**They murdered me.**
I could have known it was going to happen before I even got on that airplane. I walked down the swaying accordion hallway suspending from the terminal to the fuselage door; she paused. The flight attendant. She is supposed to greet me, direct me to my seat... But she paused. I looked into her blank eyes. They were staring at my chest... Through my chest. Dazed. Her lip quivered into a fake smile. You could see her mind becoming a frizzled wreck. Thinly-veiled hysteria.
"How... Hello?" Funny intonations and a raspy voice. She cleared her throat.
"Hey. WE. Er. We... There's a first class seat available and... shhh. And you're the lucky.. uh. 50th guest! Come with me please. Ha hah ha ha." I bet normally she had a great fake laugh. Playing along with overweight grab-ass business pricks that repeat the same terrible pickup lines every time they fly.
I noticed her date. It was only a week from now. What a shame. She's not at peace. This girl, she has baggage, a schizophrenic-like mess of unresolved issues. Not at peace at all. Frankly, I'd like to see her check herself in. Suicide-watch. Then maybe she could change her date.
"Here's your seat.. And if there is anything you need..." She leaned in and whispered, not flirtatiously, but sympathetically, "and I mean *anything*, just let one of us know. Okay? Okay? Let me get you something to drink?"
"Coke, please... Pardon me, but are you alright miss?"
She tightened her lips and closed her eyes and began shaking her head, though her speech showed her cognitive dissonance. "Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. I'm fine.. Coke. Coming right up. Ha hah ha ha."
She immediately scooted toward the two other flight attendants and theatrically explained something. They both looked at me the whole time she was speaking. They couldn't hide their grimaced faces, shocked looks. Shit. I had suspicions. They went through the curtains by the cock-pit, behind my field of vision.
My head became wrought with worry and heavy with doubt. This couldn't be it. "Maybe my bag was ticking" I bargained to myself. My time couldn't be up. There's no way.
I turned to the horseshoe haircut in the lazy-boy beside me. His eyes were closed in a tranquil little bliss as his neck chins vibrated in harmony with his portable massage pillow. "Excuse me sir, did that woman seem weird to you?"
His faces glow turned to a ghastly silver and his plump little satisfied smile dropped..
"Oh my... Hey. How's it going? Do, do you want to borrow my tablet for the flight? I just. I noticed you didn't have anything to keep you busy, and I figured.. You know! I have a laptop too! And my tablet has... Here, just knock yourself out. I think I'm getting a case of pre-flight jitters."
He shoved his tablet on my tray and rushed back to the bathroom. Fuck. He saw my date. He had to. We made eye contact, and that meant that he saw it. **The day I was going to die.** I saw his. He had another 30 years. Lucky guy. Mine couldn't be far off. From context, I guess it had to be *today.* The people who could see my date now knew as well as I: I was going to die in the next 24 hours.
I began shaking. Oh damn. Jesus. Why? Why me? A male flight attendant came back with my coke.
"Hey, Shirley is having a bad day right now. Here you go. Anything you need. Just talk to me... No problem too big, I'll be right here..." He saved his illusion. "First class, right?"
"Wait, just. Level with me a second man." I started saying, but another passenger interrupted me, asking for the stewards attention; he gave her a kind redirect.
"I'm sorry madam, I'm helping another client right now."
He dropped the drink off. It was garnished with a lime. He touched my wrist compassionately, "Drink it up and I'll grab you another right away!" He then hurried back to the curtained partition before I could finish my thought.
My head spun like the dreidel I was given at my bar mitzvah. I tried calming myself down with the cool cola... The coke was bitter. He spiked it. I didn't order alcohol, but this was clearly intentional. Knowing what I knew now, I didn't mind having a little bit.
Even with a drink in me my mind still raced. How do I stop it, how do I fix it? The plane ride is quite short, and no other passenger has the same date as me, so it couldn't be a crash... My sister is picking me up from the airport and taking me back to her place by bus. Her date isn't for another few decades. What could happen? Mugging gone wrong? Damn. I don't know... I had known of people avoiding their death date. Miraculous moments of ingenuity to save themselves.... There had to be a way to stop my death date. I already figured out mine was today, so that had to be a big part of it. Couldn't I figure out how to stop it? I have to change my plans.
The captain came on the intercom. "Hey folks, we have a short little puddle jump today, we'll be touching down in less than an hour. In the meantime I have somebody who wants to say to you.. ^Just ^speak ^into ^this ^honey."
An adorable little girl came on, "Hiya! My daddy took me here for daughter father work-day! Please faster your seat belts!"
How cute. Now how do I save myself?
We took off. In the air the Steward brought me another drink. He was pretty determined, the seat-belt signs were still on, and it was spiked again, so this only further confirmed my suspicions that he wanted me to feel hazy for my near inevitability.
The man next to me noticed I wasn't using his tablet. He took it back and anxiously tried showing me all the apps he had, trying to pique my interest. I drowned him out, deep in ponderance.
Suddenly we felt it. Turbulence. But nobody else here was dying today. Nobody I'd made eye contact with. Just me. The ride will smooth out...
It got worse. The plane began thrashing and moaning. The captain came on the loud speaker:
"Captain here. Please remain calm. As you can tell, we've hit some heavy turbulence. We are flying over mountains, and if it comes down to it there is no safe spot for a landing. Please remain calm. We are going to prepare for emergency parachute protocal. This is just precautionary. If you could all please pay attention to your flight attendants for a moment, they are going to escort you to the parachute exit. We are not in serious danger. If it comes down to it there are enough parachutes for everybody on board. I promise this will be over soon. Please remain calm."
They didn't panic. It was actually an orderly herding towards the back. Well, as orderly as you could get with a plane at maximum capacity. I guess this is a side effect of knowing when the people around you are going to die. If I see that so-and-so has another 20 years, I'm not scared to be on a plane with him today.
Maybe I don't make the jump. Shit. This is it right? Maybe I should try to trade parachutes with somebody.
We stood back for around 3 minutes. The captain gave the order in person. He left the flight on auto-pilot while he, the copilot, and his daughter rushed back.
I got my parachute and clung to it. I timidly asked if anybody wanted to trade. But when they looked into my eyes and saw my date they swiftly turned their backs. Maybe my chute is still fine. When they finished handing out all the chutes... There was one missing.
The daughter. They didn't account for a girl coming in on "Take your daughter to work day."
She was a tall girl. Too big to share a chute. She needed her own. The captain panicked. That's when the tablet guy spoke up, pointing at me.
"HE's dying today! Take his chute! HIS DATE IS TODAY!" The captain looked at me. He nodded to the female attendant who first addressed me, and gestured to take my parachute.
She pleaded with the captain. "No. Please! We can't do this!! He's only 13! It isn't fair! This isn't right!" She was in tears, but the captain had a particular fervency.
"THEN YOU DO IT STEPHAN!"
The steward. I tried fighting back but my underdeveloped arms couldn't pull hard enough. He was so strong. And he hit me so hard. Then he felt nothing of ripping my life vest from me and strapping it on the daughter.
The date is just a prophecy. I knew that some people had avoided theirs before. But mine became a self-fulfilling prophecy. They saw it and I became inhuman. Stripped of rights. Nobody wanted to help me save myself, because in their heads I was already dead. I was just a problem to deal with until I got out of their faces. My liberties, my right to life disappeared when it became inconvenient. They murdered me. | 104 | You live in a world where everyone knows the date of death of everyone else, but not themselves. One day people start being REALLY nice to you. | 109 |
Chris looks at me with a hollow look in his eyes and laughs.
"No," he says. "I don't believe it."
"The news just came in. They're using the emergency generator at Houston to contact us." I gesture at the satellite phone in my hand like it's going to prove that what I'm saying is true.
"I don't believe it." He repeats. I clench the phone in my fist and try not to panic.
"Chris-"
"Give me the phone."
I don't.
"Give me the phone!" He roars and lunges for it, scrabbling at my fingers.
He tears it from my hand and starts dialling furiously.
He turns his back on me, but I can still hear the error message.
*The person you are trying to call cannot be reached.*
He dials again
*The person you are trying to call cannot be reached.*
Tears form around his head like a halo. There's no hiding them when the gravity's off. Chris has got a wife and two kids at home, living right in Washington DC. If I were him I wouldn't even bother calling.
"Chris," I say softly. "Hey, buddy."
His shoulders drop and he lets the phone go. I gently grab it as it turns in midair and shove it into a pocket.
"You got anyone back at home?" He says, not angrily.
Joe had gripped my hand tightly as we made our way through the mall.
"Ignore them," he'd said, not quite loud enough to drown out someone's taunt as they walked past us. "They don't get it yet."
That's always what he'd say. *They don't get it yet.* His answer for everything.
"Yeah..." I say quietly. "In a way, I've got someone waiting."
"You miss them?"
"Every day I'm here."
Truth is, when I'm up here is when I feel closest to Joe. He always liked stars.
"It's kind of like hope, you know what I mean?" He'd said as we'd gone out after dark one evening.
"No, what do you mean?" We were tramping across a muddy field, telescope under his one arm.
"Well, that there's something else out there."
"There's probably nothing else out there." I was doing physics at college. I thought I knew everything.
"Shut up Will. You just don't get it yet."
I'm drawn back as Chris speaks.
"You wanna take a walk?" He asks
I think of Joe and I think of stars and hope.
"Sure."
The airlock opens and we step out together, five minutes of oxygen each. It's enough, in a way.
Chris grips my gloved hand in his and we turn; two tiny white specks against the great open darkness of space.
Hey Joe. The stars are shining.
I get it now.
| 218 | Astronauts on the ISS space station receive word of devastating nuclear war on earth. | 184 |
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