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Y’ggrasog’s friends often joked that he was damn near emotionless. He had seen a lot in his life as a spacer. Many such things were wondrous. He had seen stars go supernova, space dust form beautiful clouds thousands of miles wide, and caught the frosted trails of comets slinging close enough to a star to off-gas their icy payloads.
…But many, many more such things were horrible, tragic, and stark reminders of the fragility of life. He had seen crewmates suffer catastrophic decompression due to shoddy suits, and others die of radiation poisoning after the idiot navigator had added a couple more zeroes than necessary when calculating how far from a star they could safely travel.
Throughout all of this, he took it upon himself to remain stoic, to keep going, no matter how much he wanted to give up. It took a *lot* to so much as phase him.
…And as he watched the pitiful creature before him, he was struggling to maintain the titanic willpower required to not start ugly-crying on the spot.
The human (female, in her mid-20s by the looks of it based off his limited knowledge of their biology) had long since gotten over the initial surprise upon realizing she had been abducted from her homeworld, but was now curled into a ball in the corner of the room where she had constructed a farcical barricade out of whatever was nearby. Cushions, pillows, a shelving unit, a few thermal blankets here and there. He could see through the shadows she clung to that her arm was bleeding, her unfocused, bloodshot eyes and rose-colored cheeks were wet, her chest heaving as she went from panicked hyperventilating to quiet sobs to desperate pleading to no one in particular in a voice rendered hoarse from the initial screaming which had (thankfully) stopped a few minutes hence.
“Please oh please d-don’t let me die here I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I’m n-not ready to die oh god please someone help me I don’t want to-“
He cleared his throat, the sudden noise causing her to flinch and clutch her injured arm tighter than before.
“…Miss, please, I have no intention of-“
“OHGODPLEASEDON’TKILLME!”
“I- I have no intention whatsoever of causing you to come to any harm. Just…”
She stared at him for a few seconds, gaze full of sheer terror, before she screwed her eyes shut, blocking the world out.
“Please wake up please wake up this is a nightmare this has to be a fucking nightmare oh god please wake up-“
“No, miss, this… I’m afraid this is very much real.”
Her eyes flew open, staring at him, tears welling in her eyes from the recognition that he spoke truly, before burying her face in the crook of her non-injured arm and continuing to weep.
He struggled to remember the portions of intel surrounding the physiology and psychology this species possessed.
“Just… uh- take a few deep breaths. In and out, slow. Can you do that for me? Please?”
He watched as she raised her head slightly and gazed at him, her eyes wide and fearful, but as he continued to stand there, not daring to make any sudden movements, he noticed her breathing starting to slow, her shoulders relaxing a bit.
“That’s a bit better. Can… can you please tell me your name?”
She was silent for several seconds before letting out a whimpered answer so quiet his auto-translator barely picked it up.
^”K-Kate…”
“Kate. Alright. …Kate, I know you’re scared, but I only want to help you.”
A few moments of silence passed, broken only by the quiet sound of Kate’s slow, ragged breaths.
“Listen to me. The only reason I brought you here is due to your current condition and the vast distance between your position at the time my sensors detected you and the closest human population center. Your appendage is bleeding and a bone is fractured quite badly. While the blood loss is not enough to kill you, the ship’s auto-doc system detected an infection growing within the wound that it calculated would kill you before you could reach aid from your own kind. I merely wish to help you before it gets any worse.”
Another minute of silence passed before she finally spoke.
^“…..Ok…”
“Good. This will only take a few moments…”
Trying to move as slowly as possible, he reached up to a nearby panel on the wall and typed in a code. A small drone, about the size of a baseball, appeared from a nearby hole in the wall. He clutched it in his hand and extended it out to her, causing her to shrink back away from him.
“This is a medical droid. I’ve programmed it with all knowledge of human anatomy we’ve been able to decipher. It’s just going to administer a solution to flush the wound of contaminants and sterilize it, apply a medical gel that will bind to any damaged tissues to stop the bleeding, then install a- …hm. I suppose your race doesn’t have this tech yet… uh- just think of it as something like an advanced hybrid between a cast and prosthetic that will prevent you from accidentally injuring yourself further. All I need you to do is just uncover your arm and remain as still as possible for a bit. Ok?”
She remained motionless for a few seconds before slowly, gingerly removing the hand she had been clutching to the wound, wincing as she shifted slightly to face the droid.
It went to work, and the process was over within seconds. She gingerly poked at the metallic substance covering her arm, the fear on her face slowly being replaced by bemusement, before finally speaking.
“What… what is this stuff?”
“It’s a collection of self-sterilizing nanobots programmed to your physiology. They will adapt to any movements you make in an attempt to keep your arm as still as possible as it recovers. If you were a member of my own species the bone and tissues would already be repaired at this point, but… well, we still don’t know enough about your kind for that sort of thing to be possible yet, so we’ll just have to let the bone and tissue heal by itself.”
“…What’s your name?”
“Y’grassog.”
She sniffled before replying in almost a whisper.
^“…Thank ^you...”
His mandibles broke into his species’ equivalent of a grin, and his bioluminescence shifted hues to show the change.
“My pleasure.”
They sat in silence for a few moments before he broke it.
“I’m going to check back in on you shortly, and in the meantime I’ll calibrate the fabricator to produce some food and drink your species can safely metabolize so we can get you fed and watered. Then we can get you back to your people-“
“NO!”
He started at the sudden noise, before the meaning of her outburst hit him.
“What… Why not? Don’t you want to see your loved ones again? Your family?”
^“I… ^uh…”
He tilted his head to the side in confusion, and after a few seconds she continued.
“My… my family did this to me."
——
(End of part 1, I’ll continue working on part 2 once I’m home from work) | 295 | When aliens invade Earth, humans are seen as very fascinating creatures, but also confusing. The aliens decide to 'adopt' humans that are sad, scared or alone as pets. You're trying to avoid your toxic family, who are determined to keep you around, and beg an alien to 'adopt' you. | 887 |
You sit at the long conference table with the other teachers of Kishuf Academy. School is starting in just 2 weeks and you have had enough of the students who think the world revolves around them. You need to teach the students more responsibility in using magic and just simple common sense.
"All right, professors. Let's begin this meeting." You conjure up coffee, donuts and some water pitchers in the center of the table. "We need to change our core curriculum and put more focus on teaching students about real life. Have you noticed that our graduating classes are all applying for jobs in the adventure fields? No one is pursuing careers in the support positions that are key to continuation of society. Does anyone have any suggestions?"
"Well, this is a highly academic school, and as such we only attract an elite crowd. Do you want that to change, headmaster?" The Intro to Wand Waving Professor asks.
"Exactly!" pipes up the Potions 101 professor.
"So you think it is more important for us to continue on our path that will lead to the downfall of society, than to fix the way we do things around here?" You ask the professors grimly. "Then maybe I need to change more than the curriculum, maybe, just maybe, I need to change some of my staff members."
"Let's not be too hasty, sir." Your best friend and right hand man, Professor Stein says. "School starts fairly soon and I'm sure the professors were just worried about changing their syllabus so late in the game. We also have worked hard to make this the most prestigious academy in the world. I have noticed that as our students are all choosing the adventure track, the number of students in the othered tracks has been declining in recent years. I didn't realize the significance of that as you have, headmaster."
"I am sorry to be so harsh with everyone. I recently came from the employment offices as I like to prepare my students for the next stage in life, and they informed me that they have not had many recent job applications for the past few years. The office informed me that if this trend continues, as people retire, there will be a huge gap in the job market. This comes on the heels of me having to deal with several expulsions in the last year alone. I believe the time for change is now."
"The first-year students have already taken their placement tests, sir. The adventure track is full as you said and the other tracks have very few students." Your assistant read from her magical tablet in front of her. "We have 95 incoming students, of which 80 want to placed on the adventure track. The other grades, we have over 65% on the adventure track and the teachers are starting to complain about the unevenness of it all." She glares at the professors in question.
"This year we are shaking things up. All students MUST take new exams and only a select few will be allowed to continue/start on the adventure track. Any objections?" You survey each professor in turn, and one by one they nod their heads. They know who the headmaster is and there is a reason you have had this job for 25 years. | 10 | You are a headmaster of a magic academy and you are getting annoyed by the amount of main character type students at your academy and all the danger they bring to the rapidly declining number of regular students. | 27 |
*”We’re live in three… two… one…”*
“Welcome to this unprecedented breaking news segment of the *Daily Briefing!* I am your host, Samuel Johnson, as always joined by my co-host…”
“Thank you, Sam. I am of course Kelly Chambers, joining Samuel here in the studio. Our main story concerns the new, rather alarming developments of the so-called ‘forehead plague.’ Sam?”
“Indeed, Kelly. The ailment has spread rapidly throughout the population. Emergency rooms are filled to bursting with worried people who have woken up to notice the distinctive bumps on their foreheads!”
“Correct, Sam. So far, all indications are that the bumps appear benign. Statements from WHO researchers claim they have found no correlation between them and – as was initially feared by many – cancer. For all intents and purposes, they appear to be inexplicably rapid bone growth.”
“Indeed. There you have it folks! Authorities stress that for now there is no cause for alarm. Please remain calm, and we will be here to guide you through developments as they progress. This has been the *Daily Briefing*, I’m Samuel Johnson–”
“–And I’m Kelly Chambers. This has been your *Daily Briefing*, signing off.
*“Cut!”*
*”We’re going live in 3… 2… 1…”*
“Welcome back to the *Daily Briefing!*” I am, as always, your host, Samuel Johnson, joined by–”
“Thank you, Sam. I’m Kelly Chambers, with you today on Day Three of this unprecedented global medical event.”
“Indeed, Kelly, things have continued to escalate rapidly. As our viewers can doubtless tell, we – along with the rest of the team in the studio – haven’t escaped our own brush with the Bump Plague, as common vernacular now calls it.”
“Tell me about it, Sam. Brushing my hair this morning was an experience, when my hairline grew two mountains overnight!”
“I’ll bet, Kelly! For myself, my troubles were more located in the waist department. I seem to have reached stage two already, with rather a large lengthening of my tail-bone overnight.”
“I hope your wife knows how to adjust your waist size, Sam!”
“She does, Kelly, but I’m afraid this seat will get more uncomfortable than it already is before today’s show is out.”
“As our viewers can probably tell, the escalation has kept apace all across the world. The majority of the population now seems infected, though there are still no reports of actual dangers, or any causes.”
“Correct, Kelly. As of now no fatalities or even adverse health effects have been reported, though WHO and other medical organisations remain baffled. So to our viewers – remain calm and listen to official announcements.”
“You heard it here, folks. We will of course be with you every step of the way. This has been Kelly Chambers–”
“–And Samuel Johnson with your *Daily Briefing,* signing off.”
*”Cut!”*
*”Live in three, Samuel. 2…1…”*
“This is Samuel Johnson, here with today’s *Daily Briefing* on Day Four of the current crisis. I am sorry to report my co-host is absent today – as many will have been aware, Kelly is expecting her first child, and as her condition has progressed, she has been admitted to hospital for close monitoring. Everyone in the studio wishes the best for her and her family.
“As for the Bump Plague, you can likely tell by now that I, and most in the studio, have progressed to the stage where wearing pants and hats has become problematic in the extreme. My new tail is nothing but a nuisance, and these horns… Let’s just say the driver’s seat in my car needed some major adjustments this morning.”
“Now, I wish I had better news, but so far there is no indication that the progress of the disease is slowing. Estimations put 100% of the world’s population as infected, but authorities are still baffled. No vector of infection has yet been discovered, and no treatment has proven effective. On that note, please, whatever home remedies or online supplements have been recommended to you as cures – don’t believe them. You are likely to harm yourselves and your loved ones if you attempt unproven and unverified cures. Wait for official instruction, and remain calm. I, like the rest of the studio, will of course be here to guide you through this difficult time.”
“This has been Samuel Johnson with the *Daily Briefing*, signing off.”
*”Cut!*”
*Three fingers are held in front of the camera’s view. One folds, then another, and the hand is moved away from the lens.*
“Schamuel Johnschon ere wif the *Daily Briething.* Parhon me, folksch, my jaw ischn’t wha id usched t’ be. Schord schegment fo’ you tohday, ash I ‘ave th’ moscht terrahble heard-burn.”
“Kelly isch schtill in hoschpidal. We ‘ish hehr well. Wee Eitch Oh schtill ovehwhelmed. Pheasche schtay calm. We all in thisch togehehr. Schamuek Johnschon, schignen ohff.”
*A clapper slams shut in front of the camera.*
*“Alright Sam, live in three… two… one…”*
“Samuel Johnson here, back with your *Daily Briefing.* Pardon the performance yesterday, folks, I was still getting used to the new jaws and chompers, as it were. Now on Day 5 of Dragon Week, as people have started calling it, I believe I speak for all of us when I say the writing is on the wall. I shed my old skin overnight and ruined the bedding in the process. The wife and I decided it was better to throw the lot out than to try and wash it up. And the less said about the husk, the better!”
“You’ll be happy to hear we’ve heard from Kelly! Both she and the baby seem in fine health, apart from, well, the *obvious.* We expect her back in the studio any day now!”
“On the global stage, WHO and most other organisations have more or less given up. It seems we’re all leaving our old mortal shells behind, folks.”
“Best get used to it!”
*”And cut!”*
*”Good to have you back, Kelly! Looking good, Sam! Spread them a little more, yeah, like that! Right, live in three… two… one…”*
“Welcome back to the *Daily Briefing*, Day Six of Dragon Week! I am, as always, Samuel Johnson, here with another exciting development – wings! I have yet to try anything as daring as flying, but my son launched himself from the roof the second he woke up this morning sporting his own pair. Thankfully the doctor says he suffered nothing more than a sprained foot and bruised ego.”
“Furthermore, I am as you can tell once again joined by my co-host! Welcome back, Kelly! I must say, your makeover went rather well, you look quite fetching!”
“Thank you, Sam, you don’t look half-bad yourself! First, to the audience, thank you all for your kind words and your concern on Twitter and our other socials while I was in hospital. I read every word, and knowing you all thought of me gave me strength through a very stressful time.”
“We’re all very glad to have you back with us safe, Kelly. On the grand stage, I believe we all know where we stand right now. Not a single person on the planet has escaped the transformation, and all evidence points to it being permanent. We’re dragons for the long haul.”
“So it seems, Sam. We have a lot of things to get used to, and centuries of medical knowledge to rewrite.”
“As you say, Kelly. But we’re all in it together. I’m Samuel Johnson–”
“–And I’m Kelly Chambers. This has been your *Daily Briefing*, signing off.”
*”Cut!”*
“And live in three Sam! Three… two… one…”*
“Samuel Johnson here with a very brief special announcement. As you can see I am once again alone in the studio, though I am thankful to say under much more pleasant circumstances. It seems my co-host and good friend delivered a healthy *egg* during the night, to the shock of both herself and her wife! They are all in hospital now for a checkup, but as far as the doctors can tell all is well.”
“So there you have it folks. It’s a whole new world, with new rules. But life still goes on. I’m Samuel Johnson. This has been your *Daily Briefing,* signing off.”
***
Did a little challenge here and went entirely for studio coverage and pure dialogue! Thank you for reading!
Feel free to check out my sub at r/ZetakhWritesStuff for more dragon stories! | 28 | The news is going berserk, A pair of bumps has appeared atop every human’s head, with the beginnings of a tail behind. however the truth is that humanity is evolving, over the course of a week, into dragons. | 57 |
To: Commander, HMS >! Subbymcsubface !<
To only be read after the destruction of Their Majesty’s armed forces and the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
If you are reading this, we lost. Great Britain is no more and whatever charred, irradiated remnants of it pick themselves out of the rubble will most certainly be unrecognizable. A people, culture, and world power over a millennium old is gone forever.
But I am not writing this to mourn a day I will never see, I am writing to give you your final orders, and they are this:
I know nothing of the situation which has transpired. I know not what you do or where you are or who is responsible, and so I leave the command of your ship to you, with one exception: You are not to launch your SLBMs.
There is nothing they can do.
The guilty figures are buried under a quarter mile of rock and reinforced concrete, the soldiers who threaten our allies dug in, and any nuclear weapons either already used, deemed useless, or are fully redundant. The only thing that can be done is to kill more people, to cause millions of innocents to suffer for suffering’s sake.
You may wish to submit yourselves to the command of our allies, or to return to Britain and help how you can, or any one of a hundred other things. But no matter what you decide, know this:
You, the rest of your fellow sailors out under the waves, and whatever remains of the British people are all that remains of the United Kingdom. Wear it with pride.
Hoping this will never be read,
The Prime Minister | 14 | As the new Prime Minister, your first order of business is to write a "letter of last resort" stored safely in a nuclear submarine. If nuclear war breaks out, this letter will be the last official command from a nation devastated by atomic fire. | 62 |
The dragon touched down upon an empty patch of green meadowland and lay claim to it. It was a remote piece of land far from the inhabited regions of the countryside and farther still from the castle where the king took residence.
Fearing for their own lives, and in the interest of appeasing the dragon, a special delegation of the people came before the dragon to offer him a human sacrifice: a poor maiden chosen for the occasion, and from the look of her struggling and whimpering, taken quite against her will.
The dragon gave them all a look of confusion. "What's going on?" he asked.
"A fair maiden we offer you, O powerful and mighty dragon, as a token of peace and goodwill, and of our submission to you. Spare our kingdom and our people from the fiery flames of your breath."
"Oh relax," said the dragon. "I'm not here to do that. I just want to settle down, sit back and relax. You know, vibe. I promise I'll leave you alone, and I won't require anything of you."
The people were relieved to hear this. The human sacrifice, however, though sharing in the relief of the others, cursed and grumbled as they unbound her.
The delegation brought back news of the dragon's goodwill, and the kingdom breathed a sigh of relief. But it didn't take long for them to realize that the dragon had settled upon land that had before been the domain of the king.
They sent a lawyer to pay a visit to the dragon to negotiate a contract outlining the terms of residence. The dragon was assured that he owed nothing for the days up to today, but he must decide whether to lease or purchase the land.
"I don't have any money," the dragon said.
"You need to get a job," the lawyer told him. "With the gifts you're endowed with, I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding one."
The dragon insisted on his wish to settle in and relax, and that he had no intention of bending to the daily grind of gainful employment. So he sent the lawyer on his way.
A royal tax collector came to visit next. He told the dragon that because he insists on his claim to the land, he would have to pay taxes.
The dragon refused to pay. "Look, this land was empty when I got here, and there's nobody for miles around. You weren't earning taxes on it before, so why should you expect to earn any now?" And he dismissed the tax collector.
Soon the kingdom filed suit against the dragon. Another delegation was sent to serve notice of the lawsuit, and now the dragon was getting annoyed.
"You people were ready to offer me a human sacrifice when I arrived, and now here you are. What makes you think you can make all these demands all of a sudden?
"If you do not present yourself at court to face these charges, we will have no choice but to evict you," the lead delegate said.
"You're welcome to try," the dragon said.
So the whole kingdom rose up against the dragon in a long and destructive war. The dragon incinerated a good deal of the people, but not before suffering injury to himself. Unwilling to inflict any more carnage, the dragon gave up and took flight, and the people cheered and celebrated their victory over the dragon.
The dragon landed in a grassy meadowland of another kingdom far away. The people in that kingdom took note of his arrival and, fearing for their lives, sent a delegation that offered him a human sacrifice: a young maiden who, judging by her struggling and whimpering, made it apparent that she had been taken against her will.
"All right," said the dragon. "I'll take her. And I'll be expecting a new one each year around this time. You got it?"
"Yes, O great and mighty dragon," the delegation said in grateful unison. | 268 | A dragon has set up its new territory, only to be met by a couple of people from the nearby villagers offering it a human sacrifice as to spare them from its wrath. The dragon literally just wants to vibe in this remote part of the kingdom. | 928 |
I didn't know what to do about it. That stupid playlist has been sitting in my library for months, maybe years. I've just been ignoring it over and over figuring it was some sort of Spotify bug - which, lets be honest here, would not be unheard of. It didn't even have a cover image, the title was always random garbage, and the singular file in it made no sense. It didn't have an artist, it didn't have an album associated with it, nothing.
I contacted Spotify Support one day and they told me to take a listen to it, maybe it was a local file with some misplaced metadata. I haven't got a clue how computers work that well, so maybe that was it. Today, I finally bit the bullet and listened to it, and what I heard haunted me.
Those deep, pounding drums. The piercing trumpet-like noise striking me with every chord like a knife through the chest. And the vocals were undoubtedly the most horrific thing. I had heard that voice before. I heard this voice in my dreams, in my nightmares. After it had finished, I didn't know what to do. Why was this in here? And then I remembered; I know exactly why this was in here.
"Hey, nevermind, I figured it out," I replied to the support agent. "This is a rickroll I meant to send to my friends." | 26 | One day a mysterious playlist appears in your Spotify app. It keeps re-appearing no matter how often you delete it. There is one single song in the playlist. It's titled "this is how you will die". One day you decide to listen to the song. | 102 |
"The world's a dangerous place for trees, these days." the old oak said, somberly.
"I know." Meagan agreed, patting the ancient tree's gnarled trunk, comfortingly. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's not your fault, little one." the tree said, comfortingly.
Meagan hung her head. It *was* her fault though, wasn't it? Maybe not hers personally, but *humans*. Ever since she'd learned that she could talk to plants, she'd felt even more horrible about what was happening to them around the world. Everyone said deforestation was a huge problem, and all her teachers said so, too.
"I...I try to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and all that." Meagan said, tears welling up in her eyes. "But it's not enough, is it?"
"Oh, child..." the oak began, tenderly, then paused. "I...um, I actually have no idea what you're talking about."
"You know, about people cutting down trees?" Meagan said, confused.
"Oh!" the oak laughed. "No, no, no. I'm not talking about that. Leaves, no."
"That doesn't bother you?" she asked, incredulously.
"I mean, I'd rather *not* get chopped down, of course. But trees are pretty philosophical about death, girl." the oak said, matter-of-factly. "We basically die for six months out of the year, our whole lives, except for the evergreens. If you survive those first few tricky years as a sapling, death doesn't really scare you anymore."
"So...what *are* you worried about?" she asked, looking up at the tree in confusion.
"The *tree mafia."* the oak whispered.
"The tree mafia?" Meagan exclaimed.
"Shhh!" the oak hushed her. "Not so loud! You never know when *they* might be listening!"
"You've got to be kidding." she said, crossing her arms.
"I am very serious!" the oak insisted. "You don't mess with the *tree mafia!* Humans might chop us down sometimes, sure, but that's just the way it goes. It's always been that way."
"Nuh-uh! In school we learned that people here used to live in harmony with the trees!" Meagan protested.
"Kid," the oak said, flatly. "The people who lived here before you used to set forest fires on purpose because they liked the *berries* that grow from our corpses when we *burn to death."*
Meagan's tears started to flow again. "But I...I thought people and trees could be friends..."
"Aw, come on," the tree comforted her, awkwardly. "Look, *we're* friends, you and me. And as for how humans treat us in general, I mean, we're part of *nature.* That's just how nature works -- living things consume other living things to survive, but life goes on, in one form or another. It's nothing to cry over."
The young girl sniffled, wiping her noise. "Like...the circle of life, or something?"
"Sure, why not?" the oak agreed. "The important thing is, *do not* tell anyone I told you about the tree maf--"
"Well, well, well." said a small voice from the girl's feet. "Look who it is!"
Meagan blinked, and looked down at the ground, where, two squirrels stood, glaring up at her.
"It's my old pal Corky!" the squirrel chittered. "And he's found himself a human who can talk to nature! Ain't that special?"
"Real special." the other squirrel agreed, barring long incisors in a sneer.
"V-vito, Tony!" the oak stammered, suddenly sounding nervous. "H-how's it going? I was...I was just having a chat with this little druid girl, is all."
"Sure, just a chat. Nothin' wrong with a chat." Vito the squirrel said, mildly.
"So long as it's a chat about the right stuff." Tony the squirrel amended.
"Who are these guys?" Meagan asked, pointing at the pair of squirrels.
"Shh!" the the oak hissed. "We were...just talking about, you know, nature. You know these druid types, they love nature, ha ha!"
"Sure, sure." Vito said. "That's the right sort of thing to talk about. And that's good, Corky, real good. Because talking about the wrong kinda thing, well...."
"...that can be hazardous to your health." Tony growled.
"Indeed it can." Vito affirmed, solemnly. "Ya know, I once knew a tree across town who got started talking about the *wrong kinda thing..."*
*"Somehow,* that tree came down with bark beetles." Tony said, coldly. "See, s*omehow,* he got some beetle larva stuck in under his bark. Never even felt it when it happened. But soon enough, those little guys made themselves at home, and multiplied, until that particular loud-mouthed tree was *infested.* Thousands of these mean little bugs slowly *ate him alive* over *three years.* By the time the humans from the parks department finally came to put him out of his misery so's he wouldn't fall over and crush someone in the next windstorm, he'd been doing nothing but *screaming,* non-stop, for weeks. He was *begging* for the chainsaw, long before it came to put him down."
"Too bad there aren't many druids like the kid here, no more." Vito added, his voice now equally chilly. "There wasn't nobody around who could hear him."
There was a long, meaningful silence before anyone spoke again. Meagan stared in open-mouthed shock at the implacable cruelty of the rodents at her feet.
"Meagan," the oak at last said, hollowly. "I think you'd better go home, now." | 25 | You can talk to plants, so you're the only person who's aware of "the tree mafia" | 115 |
I woke to the sounds of the city rising with me. All around I could hear faint closing doors and low voices. Below it was a perpetual low rumble of moans and groans. A year ago that would have been unthinkable. But that was before the Unquiet Dead came.
I thought back to how it started. A plague, spoken of from travellers from one of the frontier towns. They said how the town was not what it once was. Fields grew untended, flocks uncared for. Streets were dirty and filled with debris. But most disturbing of all they claimed were the people. They wandered with empty eyes, performing weak, repetitive actions.
Of course such claims were dismissed. It was ludicrous, a flight of fancy. Our benevolent leaders though humoured such rumours. They sent out a pair to investigate the town, letting us focus on work.
But it was too late. The travellers bore the plague, though they did not know of it. One by one they lost themselves, bodies turning as grey as their minds. Their voices, once boisterous and loud, became useless, words becoming moans. But they did not attack, as many feared the dead would. They merely wandered aimlessly, acting out old repeated actions.
It spread slowly. It was not spread by wind, bite or blood, but by simple touch. Those kind enough to help those who became ill fell to its creeping spread. They were the barest shades of their old selves, but still acted on their base selves. They tried to help, even if they could do little more than brush wounds.
If you showed them kindness, they would respond in kind. Their intelligence may be mostly gone, but they understood simple ideas. If asked to move away they would, with no fuss. Our kind rulers had tried to round them up, but it spread too easily, with a long incubation period.
Instead, the Unquiet Dead were carefully put in completely sealed overalls. Once put in they were left to roam, and help in simple tasks. With someone acting to corral them, they were useful for general help. Given brushes, they swept the streets. In cases of fire, they would form bucket chains, a constant stream of water.
So now we lived amongst them. It did hurt, seeing friends and family lost to it. But it helped, seeing them still around, with the faintest of recognition appearing on otherwise blank faces. It was hoped that one day, the glorious leaders would find a cure, and return them to us. | 21 | A zombie virus has taken the country/territory you live in. These undead aren’t violent, though. While they lack reason or a sense of self, their emotions still stir, and their deepest core memories still hang on by a thin thread. | 93 |
The scariest thing in the world is a house cat with ambition.
You might think this odd. With a world so full of terrors--you might wonder--why would we fear our furry friends?
They are harmless, you say. Disruptive sometimes, sure, but ultimately they're just lazy balls of fluff.
I'm not much of a history buff, but if you ask me, the ancient Egyptians definitely knew better.
They knew what a cat could become if it ever truly wanted for anything. They knew what would happen if a cat decided to tap into that spark of chaos at the core of its essence.
That's why they worshipped them, gave the cats everything they could need, everything they could desire.
Really, if you think about it, we have the Egyptians to thank for the society we know today. Without their efforts to placate and appease the true masters of this world, I'm not sure humanity would have made it this far.
But I'm rambling now.
Let's get to the actual story.
My name is Jon, and this is the tale of why I feed my cat lasagna. | 1,164 | People always thought that cats knock stuff over just because they like it. In reality, they're just lazy agents of a primordial force of chaos, and knocking stuff over is the bare minimum that earns them benefits like always landing on their feet or 9 lives. | 6,745 |
"I have no loyalty to the Orcs." she said. It was the first time I'd heard her speak anything other than an order or a battle cry.
She had joined our motley little crew only a few weeks ago. Had saved us after we stumbled upon a Swamp Ogre. There we were getting batted about trying to club it's thick skull or pierce it's tough hide when she felled it with a single arrow. We were all stunned. We'd never seen an Orc use a bow much less fire one with any accuracy.
The others were wary but I invited her to travel with us anyway. We hardly had the experience or skill to make it through another such confrontation. She barely spoke, but tonight the others were passed out drunk from celebration. I hated the silence and ackwardly attempted to break it by asking what tribe she hailed from.
"My blood is Orcish, but that is all." She said with a steely tone.
"We wherever you're from they most be good with the bow!" I replied. To my surprise, she smiled. And while I had been raised to be nothing but disgusted by the Ork-kin, it was not an unpleasant site.
"No. Where I'm from they can't even properly string a bow, much less shoot one." Sensing my interest she continued.
"The Ork of the East have a practice. Unwanted infants are left on Carrion Hill. There nature takes care of the inconvenience. But there is also another purpose. They believe that some day one of this children will return to them. Strong enough to survive. And He will be Chief of Chiefs."
"I had been left on that hill. But a travelling merchant, a halfling, heard my cries. He took me home. I was the village scandal at first, but his wife, my mother had his back and mine."
"Soon enough, most of the village had warmed up to me. There were a few bigots of course, but the women loved making dresses that highlighted my green skin and the men appreciated my help when even as a child, I was taller than they."
So many thoughts ran through my mind but I blurted out. "But where did you learn the bow??"
"Enough for one night," she said. "It's your watch. The rest are dead to the world and I've done enough fighting for the both of us." | 11 | The party's INT 6 orc barbarian princess is very highly educated | 22 |
My father was a very good man. How he came into possession of the doll is something I may never learn.
"Daddy! Daddy! There's a monster at my window!"
"A monster, you say? Let's go look."
Taking my hand, we went back to my room. This was a new house, and my room was bare. We hadn't had time to unpack everything. The curtains were rudimentary and just for privacy. Still, it was a much bigger room than I had before, and I know Mother and Father were pleased to have moved here. I? I wasn't so sure. A new school. All my old friends were left behind. An unsettling time for any child.
I didn't realize it at the time, but my father took the monster at the window far more seriously than I thought. The way he stared into the darkness outside the house. Shifting from side to side in my dark room, looking out the window in all directions. He nodded to himself and said, "Go wait with your mother. I have to get something from the boxes we had the movers put straight into the attic."
I ran straight to my mother and told her what my father said. She hugged me close and kept me on her lap while father was busy bumping around in the attic; we could hear him. I heard a bad word and clapped my hand over my mouth. Daddy must have hurt himself, so I said, "ouch." Mother nodded and hugged me closer.
Daddy came down from the attic a few minutes later. He had a very old doll with him. A strange-looking doll. The mouth was too large, the eyes too small, the ears far too big, and the clothes were painted on. The fingers on the hands were pointed, not rounded, and there were no shoes. The feet were twice as long as they should have been, and the toes were claws.
I was fascinated and repulsed.
"Baby, the only way to deal with monsters at the window is to frighten them away with an even worse monster. This monster has been in our family for many years and has never failed to chase away the monsters at the window. It was my monster for many years; it's your monster now. You take good care of it and make sure that it's in your window every night, looking outward. It will guard you against the monsters in the window."
I saw the sharp teeth in the monster's mouth, and one of them was red. Shiny red. "Daddy's ouch?" I said, pointing to the tooth.
"Yes, Baby. Daddy's ouch. Daddy had to feed the monster just a little bit so that it would protect you; you don't have to feed it. Daddy already did."
My parents went with me back to my room and watched as I carefully put the monster in the window. The feet seemed perfectly shaped to hold onto the windowsill. That made me happy, it would stay in place, and I wouldn't have to worry. I climbed back into bed, and Mommy and Daddy tucked me in. I said goodnight to them again. As they were closing the door, I said, "Good night, Monster. I'm glad you're here." They paused for a moment, then I could see Daddy smile in the light from the hallway, and he closed the door.
I went straight to sleep.
···
My father had floodlights installed all around the house, with particular attention to ensuring that there was no dark area anywhere near the house. No shadows, no areas under trees where the lights could not reach. He even rebuilt the front and back porches, so there was no dark space under them where someone or something could hide. At the time, I didn't really think about it. I had my monster, and my monster would protect me. In later years, I did wonder what my father was worried about, that he spent so much money making sure there was no way to sneak up on the house in the darkness.
···
"Hello, Baby!"
"Dad! I'm sixteen!"
"Ah, but you'll always be my baby girl."
It was the day after my sixteenth birthday. We had a wonderful party, and several of my friends stayed over. Since it fell on a Friday, we had the whole weekend together.
"Becky asked about Monster. Why I kept him in my window. She thought it was a cool idea but wondered why I still kept him there. We got to talking, and it turns out her little brother has a problem with a window monster too. Could I give Monster to her for her little brother?"
My father's face went flat. Almost frightening. "No, Andrea, you may not give Monster away to anyone but another family member. Understand, when I fed Monster to give him to you, he would only take the position because you were my daughter. Bone of my bone; blood of my blood; and he *agreed* that you were in danger."
Mother stepped in at that moment and looked at me. I looked back at her, and she shook her head no. "I'll tell Becky that Monster is a family heirloom and that I can only give it to another family member. I'm sorry, Mom. Dad. I didn't know."
Father's face went back to his normal cheerful self. "Good! Now give us a hug, and get back to your friends." We had a group hug, and I went back up to my friends. Becky was sad that she couldn't have Monster to give to her little brother, but I came up with an idea. "Why don't we *make* a Monster for your brother?" How mother happened to be in range to hear that, I do not know, but she came in silently and motioned us to follow her. We went into her crafting room, where she makes some of the finest clothes and other things that you could ever hope to find. There, she came out with clay, some small bones, teeth, and claws too!
"We will make a Monster for your brother, Rebecca, but you must tell him that it is *his* Monster, and he cannot give it away for any reason other than to a family member who is in danger." Rebecca's eyes grew large. "Is this witchcraft?"
My mother laughed gaily, "No, this is far older than mere witchcraft. This is as old as the mountains and as deep as the oceans. This is *psychology*!" And we all laughed with her.
The crafting was normal enough, except that the small bones had to be assembled into a skeleton that would balance neatly on a windowsill and have plenty of teeth and claws, and the clay was laid on like muscles and tendons. It took most of the weekend, and we all helped. We even donated a single drop of blood to the clay "To seal the friendship forever. You are sisters now."
In the end, the doll was fired in my mother's kiln, glazed in bright colors, with a frightening face painted on, and fired again to make the glaze fuse to the clay. In the end, Rebecca had a small but dangerous-looking Monster for her brother, which made her happy. And we were all happy to help Rebecca and her brother.
···
"Mrs. Featherstone! Wherever did you get that wonderful idea for the window guarding monster?"
"From my great great grandmother, who had it from hers, and even further back than that if the family lore is true. A practical bit of psychology that works well with young children."
"Did you actually mix blood in the clay from your daughter's friends?"
"Yes, but there's no danger. The kiln firing turns it all into carbon."
"Why do it, though?"
"Because Rebecca will believe in it more herself, and that will help her convince Michael. She can tell him that she and all her friends made it together, just to protect him. He can pass it to his children or any blood relative's children to protect them when the time comes."
"So it's all psychology?"
"I'm afraid so. No magic here, just wisdom from the mountains that runs as deep as the oceans."
"What a wonderful idea!"
((cont)) | 23 | A bigger monster." | 46 |
...at least no one is around to find out. The jagged rocks beneath you still scraped against your icy skin, but as your bones popped and twisted back into place automatically, and the cuts rejoined at the seams, you reckoned you could get over the pain. There was no way of telling how long it had been since that grinning douche had gunned you down and shoved your body over the side of a cliff, but the sun was much farther in the west as it was in your last moments.
Weird thing to dwell on. You hadn't accepted death back then with a sense of satisfaction, as moments turned to minutes - but you were still grateful for the things you had been given, the experiences you lived through that you could so easily miss in the hustle of day-to-day life. How many people nowadays got a second chance at love after a breakup like yours? Among your friends, who else could boast that they finished the messy, greasy, five patty Warrior Challenge at Hardy's Pub? Still, there was an underlying fury at all the moments yet unlived, stolen in an instant from you because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You were no expert on drugs, but apparently some group was transporting some new product, and you grabbed the wrong suitcase at the airport. Marie had always warned you to mark your bag with some tag or identifier, but you didn't travel enough to take her advice to heart. When you realized your bag didn't have old clothes and tacky souvenirs in it, you were quick to ditch it in a dumpster, but they had already found you. Apparently, throwing away the bag had made them even angrier, and your last few hours were painful.
But now, you guess, they weren't your last few hours. You stumbled, trying to get a foothold on the rocks below you, but you felt a strange calmness. Being careful, cautious not to take a risk while standing up stemmed from a fear of death. But that seemed so silly now, didn't it? Pausing, a curiosity overtook you, and you knelt down to the surface of the rock face, finding a sharp edge. This would hurt like a mother, but you had to know.
Scraping the green tinted rock against your flesh, it cut deeper and more painfully than you would've liked, but the deed was done. Pulling back, you watched your palm with anticipation. Sure enough, though there was a delay, the skin started to pull back together, and the cut vanished quickly, like it was never there. Sure enough, you couldn't die. At least, not by the ways most normal people die.
After a painful few minutes, you used your new ability to climb up the cliffside, embedding your hand into juts as a hook where handholds were sparse. Finally touching the soft, wet grass at top, you pulled yourself back over with the last of your strength, and stared at the soft orange skies, the sun now close to setting. Now back in the real world fully, it was so overwhelming to think about. Where do you go now? What do you do? What *can* you do?
Even if you could become some kind of vigilante, taking bullet wounds and ripping criminals a new one, messing with the drug trade again didn't sound appealing. Better to consider a lesson learned. But come to think of it, with a death like that, there's no way they'd be looking for you, or worrying you survived. As long as you kept your head low, you could both go your separate ways.
And finally, it hit you. Your partner, your friends, your life - they were all still there. All those things you had made your peace with, that you had parted ways with - for whatever reason, you had a second chance at life. Hell, depending on how much you could heal from, maybe you could always outdrink the group at Hardy's. Before you stood up, dusted off, and headed back to town, you sighed and took a moment to watch the golden sunset. A view like this... really was to die for. | 12 | This isn't how you would've wanted to find out you're immortal but..... | 30 |
Yuri lay draped across his favorite chair, one hand idly picking at a knot in the textured fabric. The hands were new, and he was still getting used to them. Even just tugging at a ball of lint filled his altered limbs with strange and fascinating sensations. It distracted him from the ache in his belly.
A woman's voice filled the air of the apartment. Yuri glanced over at Dad, but he still hadn't moved. After parking himself on the floor front of the couch, he'd turned on the TV, curled up into a lopsided ball and apparently passed out. His arms rose and fell with the steady rhythm of sleep, but Yuri had so far been unable to wake him again.
"... and so, with the recent renovations, scientists were finally able to re-enter the research center for the first time since the Change. I have here with me by remote satellite, Dr. Stan Gadsby. Dr. Gadsby?"
Yuri's ears perked as Dan stirred. Awake at last? No. Or at least no more than he'd been for the last week. He fought the urge to whimper. It was *so* damn lonely, and he was worried. A low, bubbling sound came from the TV and was immediately dubbed over with a synthetic voice.
"Well Bonnie, as we're all too aware, the Change has had drastically different effects on different people. Obviously, we've been preoccupied by the *physical* changes that most vertebrate life has experienced..."
Yuri didn't understand most of the words, but the voice made him feel lonely. Despite his promises to himself, he stood up and padded his way over to Dad once again. He looked down, marveling at what the Change had done to the man that had raised him. He'd fallen asleep there right after Yuri himself had recovered. Extra limbs, powerful, well-muscled, had grown from the old man's body. They were in the wrong place and a strange color, but did at least match the new horns growing from his forehead.
"... a solved problem, really, but what interests us right now are the changes in *intellect*, particularly among previously..."
Yuri couldn't take it. The solitude was terrifying, somehow, and he couldn't stand the idea of being alone in it for any longer. He watched the man on the floor breathe for a moment longer, then gave in and nudged him with one foot. Dad grunted, and some of his smaller limbs flexed with a clatter of chitin. Yuri danced away a step. Maybe Dad did not *want* to be woken, but panic was setting in. What Dad *couldn't* wake up? What if Yuri was all alone now *forever*?
"So you're saying that some people have actually gained new intellectual abilities? New skills?"
The legs moved again, scraping gashes in the carpeted floor as they seemed to dig spasmodically for a moment, then relaxed. Yuri waited, watching, afraid of what would happen if Dad didn't wake up, afraid now of what might happen if he *did*. Yuri knew he wasn't thinking like he had before. Something was very different. He had more words now, and there seemed to be a lot going on in his mind that was new to him. He wasn't even sure he *was* still Yuri. He hoped Dad would still be Dad.
"... most profound effects on previously intelligent but non-sapient mammals, like primates, cetaceans ..."
Yuri almost yelped with relief when he finally saw one of Dad's eyes flutter open. It wasn't the same color or shape as before, but it locked on to Yuri, staring. One by one, Dad's eyes opened; a dozen variations on yellow, all fixed on him, unmoving. Yuri took another step back, his attention flickering back and forth as a word he recognized finally emanated from the TV.
"Dogs? Oh yes, we think so. In fact we're actually having a hard time determining whether..."
He ignored the rest as meaningless words rolled over him again. They seemed important, somehow but... Dad was still staring. A lipless, quivering mouth opened in what had been his head. The teeth were different somehow, larger, or...
"Y-hurri?"
It couldn't be.
"Izzat... yhou? Boy?"
It was. Yuri jumped up and down in his excitement.
"You stayed here all this time... what a good boy."
He spun. He danced. Unfamiliar limbs crashed against the furniture, but he didn't care, Dad was back, Dad was back, and that meant... he could finally say it!
"Dad! Dad! WALKIES!" | 37 | An Eldtritch Moon suddenly appears in the sky, and you and billions others scream as you turn into horribly corrupted mounds of flesh... But your eyesight is better? And your back pains are gone? And apparently you're immortal now so... Maybe things aren't that bad... | 98 |
“Bro, let me in. I’m a fairy.”
The creature’s breath fogged up the window, distorting it’s great red eyes behind the glass. The silhouette of hairy antennas flickered against the glow of the city’s soft night sky, feeling their way around the windowsill. Searching for a weak spot. An entrance.
Charlie pressed his eyelids together, forcing himself to wake up from the nightmare outside. One. Two. Three. He opened them again. The creature gave a gentle knock on the glass with an antenna.
“I’m just joking, bro. Open up, come on or I’ll have to break the glass. I won’t bite.”
Charlie tiptoed over, and against better judgment unlatched the window.
The creature fell forward. It’s wings fluttered sending a bedside lamp crashing to the floor. It clambered to it’s feet to stand in front of Charlie. He was surprised to find it was a good foot shorter than him and covered in thick, dark hair. A glob of drool dripped from it’s mouth onto the carpet.
“It’s been a long night, do you have a beer?” It said, using the back of it’s hand to wipe it’s mouth.
Feeling less frightened, and more inquisitive, Charlie finally found his words.
“What… are you?”
The creature began to shake violently. It’s eyes began to shrink back into it’s head, and the hair on it’s body migrated towards it’s head. The wings folded into it’s back, and the antenna curled inwards.
Tom stood in the creature's place, still with a drop of saliva on his lip.
“I’ve got some explaining to do, have you got that beer?” | 31 | You wake up to a knock at your window at three in the morning. You open the blinds to see a giant, horrifying mothman-esque creature. It presses it’s face up against the glass and says “Bro, let me in. I’m a fairy.” | 134 |
Lyra felt more tired than usual when she woke up that morning. She always woke a little bleary-eyed and foggy, but this morning opening her eyes felt like lifting two large boulders that had settled onto the tops of her eyes. *What time is it?* Lyra asked herself groggily. *9:34*, she answered herself immediately. Lyra jumped out of bed immediately. "I'm late...I'm late...I'm latteeeee," she murmured herself, throwing on a nice shirt and pants and taking the quickest shower in existence.
Lyra started the car and started driving, and as soon as she got onto the freeway her panic just increased. At this point she might've been breaking the speed limit. *Am I already late? No, I'm not, but I've got about four minutes and I'm five away,* she answered her own thoughts.
Lyra stopped thinking. *That was...strange. Did I just answer my own question on something I didn't know the answer to? Yes I did,* she answered herself immediately.
As she walked into the building, a deep sense of unease settled in her stomach.
The job interview went perfectly, flawlessly. She knew exactly what they wanted to hear. She knew exactly everything, and that was the weirdest thing Lyra had experienced since last year's Hot Dog Incident.
Lyra got home and almost fell onto her couch, plopping down, exhausted. *Am I gonna get that job? Yes,* her thoughts whispered. Lyra stilled. That again.
A look of confused crossing her face, Lyra tried something else. *Why and how do I have this power?* she asked herself confusedly. This time there was silence for a second before her mind answered. *Because They want me to.*
*Who is They?* Lyra asked, worry making her eyebrows cross together. *I really don't need to worry about it,* she thought, and that was probably incorrect. She tried something else.
*Where's my boyfriend right now? At Target,* she answered herself immediately. Um. Well, that definitely wasn't something she was supposed to know.
*Do my friends like me? Some of them do. Emily and Brian do, but Jacky hates my guts.* Huh. Jacky had always been friendly and kind towards her since first grade, but apparently Jacky hated her. Lyra felt herself get a little teary-eyed. She'd been friends with Jacky for most of her life. She couldn't lose her now.
Finally Lyra took a breath, stood up, and got ready for whatever she was about to get herself into. *How do I bring whoever They are here? You already have.*
Lyra felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and then she heard cold, creepy laughter, and then everything went black. | 10 | One day you awake with a new power. You immediately know the answer to every question you ask yourself. However, after some time, you start to realise that some questions are best left unanswered. | 73 |
My sister has always been distant.
She was smarter than me to such an extent whenever she discibed anything i could only smile and nod, and try to understand.
But as we grew up she got farther and farther away.
I tried to support her, even when our parents hated what she did and forced her out of the house.
I never understood what she was doing but i know she made monsters for all sorts of things, construction and medicine, asembly, and even transportation! I always thought it was the coolest thing ever. And On my 18th birthday i got my last contact with her for years to come.
She sent me a letter, it explained her situation in her medical and leangthy way of communicating saying how she had to distance herself from me. Even further than she always was.
She sent a little monster with the letter, a companion animal just for me, her little brother. I named him dexter.
My parents kicked me out of the house for keeping it.
It took a while but i eventually had my feet back under me, all the while hearing about the terrifying supervillan known as the monster queen, and how a gang of cosplayers are fighting her near daily.
But it has been a long time, so long the only thing i have to remember her by is the little flying, fluffy centipede monster that keeps me compony. At 34 years old i could only hope she was ok.
When i finaly got a job i was over the moon, i would be working for a construction compony specalized with superhero fights in mind, i worked for months on sites just to have a group of cosplayers and furrys with superpowers to turn it to rubble. Unfortunately for me, i was on the site when one of those superheros was thrown through a concrete wall near me.
---
My heart was pounding harder than it ever had, how could i have missed the alarms in place for this kind of thing!?
It took me mere moments to remember the budget cuts.
"Ah. Right. Forgot about those."
The stairs i was heading too were colapsed, massive chunks of debree blocking the stairway down like a cork i only had a few options from there, i could climb down the elevator like some kind of action movie or i could use dexter and possibly draw attention from trigger happy heros and an unkown villan.
I of course chose the elevator.
Every elevator nowadays has a ladder built into the shaft fraim allowing for access in case of someone cutting the cables, they were used so often it was scary to think of how many elevators broke nowadays.
But there it was, my way to the ground floor, freedom and safety. As i was prying open the elevator doors with dexters help i heard a scream.
"Help! Please im gonna fall!"
It must have been a co-worker that hadent gotten the warning same as me, and i cant just leave a freind behind! That would haunt me forever. It helped that having dexter on my shoulder made feel like i could take on the world.
"Im on my way hold on!" I shouted, hoping they could hear me over the fight that had been getting closer with every passing second
I ran to the noise finding a massive hole goudged out of the renforced concrete, a gloved hand held tightly to a peice of rebar but was unable to haul itself up.
Peering over the edge i saw a hero, one of his arms was dislocated and the other held for dear life as i came closer.
"Please you gotta help! The monster is coming closer i cant hold on much longer!"
He cried out to me as i bent over to grab his hand, as i was hauling him up i was shaken along with the building, it wasent powerfull by any means, merely a shockwave that vibrated windows.
But it was enough, and we both fell.
"WINGS!" I shouted to dexter, holding on for dear life to the heros good arm as dexter shot his wings through the back of my shirt slowing our fall so quickly i was sure i had a little wiplash from it.
As we gently floated to the ground and touched down on solid ground the hero and i stood for a moment,
"Thanks" he said to me " my team is a couple blocks away i thought i was a gonner"
I smiled and chuckled
"Maybe you can buy me lunch sometime to repay me"
The hero paused before chuckling himself,
"I think id like that, now you better get out of here its not safe for an untrained hero like yourself to be in combat like this."
I was confused until i remembered dexters wings still stuck out of the back of my shirt like a pair of sails
"Ah! Haha, yeah i better leave it to the pros. See ya round. And good luck!"
I took off across the street with a goofy smile,
I dident hear what he said as i left but im fairly certin it was somthing along the lines of
"Watch out for that truck!"
Becouse the last thing i saw was my compony logo welded to a cement truck driving towords me at four times the limit, and dexter wrapping around my head like a fluffy crash helmet.
And now im here.
With my older sister lurking over me with the most consurn on her face i had ever seen.
Before i passed out on her opporating table i tried to tell her somthing,
"Dont cry, youll make me cry sis"
Unfortunately i was unable to see anything else or even have done more than mouth those words.
A severed head cant do much...
Unless your the mad genius monster queen that is. | 287 | You never really saw yourself as close to your mad scientist of a sibling, but after a terrible accident, you find them standing over you, having restored you to the best of their ability. | 1,369 |
"You cannot be serious? We've barely sent probes to Alpha Centauri and now you want a manned intergalactic spacecraft. With what materials huh? Even our best alloys will degrade several million years before they get there." Adam said.
"And these are just some of the technical challenges we expect you to overcome." Director Bashaw said.
"Look, I have vision, else I wouldn't be here. But there's dreaming about what we can achieve and there is sending people into the abyss. Freezing Venus truly lived up to the Ambitious Mission Project vision, but this is incomparably more difficult."
"I know the physics as well as you Doctor O'Neill, but this what the people have voted for."
"That's all well and good, but we should start with the Gardener colony ship. Surely that would be ambitious enough."
"The public expects more. The fact that we have begun truly terraforming Venus has opened their eyes to just how much we can accomplish. That Gardener ship is a part of the Colonization program now."
Adam was shocked. If he didn't even get to retain most of the engineers from that project then this really was dead in the void. "No wonder he quit."
Director Bashaw began chuckling, "Yep, and he had enough experience to start some space mining firm with private investors betting on his reputation. You do not, so will you risk your career now or wait for another promotion in a few decades?"
"When you put it like that, how could I refuse?"
"My thoughts exactly, but I will support you. If the public wants something wildly ambitious give them a wildly ambitious plan. We'll get you the resources we need."
"Excellent, so I'll be able to-"
"After the Gardener ships are finished."
Adam smiled and shook his hand. The entire time he was fuming. 'Full support except from anyone that knows what the hell they're doing. Great promotion except it'll cost you your career just like refusing would have stagnated it.'
But that wouldn't help him do the literal impossible. For that, he'd need to work and consult some out-of-the-box talent for ideas. After a good night celebrating the worst promotion of course.
And over the following months he chased each avenue. "MatSci, you have any durable or easily repairable alloys in development?" They didn't. Nor did life support when he asked about compact self-sustaining ecosystems. Nor did the medical staff when they considered the possible affect on 1000th generation babies. Nor did mental health when they talked about those living conditions for generations untold.
Actually, the only good news was from propulsions. They'd made great strides with the direct fusion drive and could even reach 0.05g of propulsion. With enough fuel they could reach some incredible speeds before the microscopic drag became a problem.
His nontraditional leads were equally unhelpful. Although most had great ideas, they depended on infrastructure that wouldn't exist for centuries. And when they fixed that problem the solution was impossible yet again. That is, until he went to Arthur's Coffeeshop to meet his undergrad roommate Dr. Isaac.
After the strong greeting of old friends, Adam explained, "So the problem is we need to leave for Andromeda within a century, preferably much sooner. Best I can tell that is impossible because of literally every department. You have any ideas or is this a slow iterative grind?"
"Well Adam, I have a few ideas but you won't like them."
"Come on, I always do."
"In theory, but this is practice. You could build a ridiculous transmitter and receiver and probably send their minds that way. You'd still have to build the receiver there, but it'd take care of moving the people. With the supercomputer on Titan people are coming around to the idea of Silicon life being the same.
"Needs to be biological, they want humans or whatever mutant thing arrives."
"Alright then, that pretty much only leaves one idea and that is impossible for an entirely different reason." Isaac said.
"And that is?"
"Nobody is going to agree to let you fly Jupiter out of the solar system... actually, out of the freaking galaxy."
"You're joking right? I wanted serious ideas."
"And I am serious. Think about it, besides the sun it has more hydrogen than the rest of the solar system combined. Actually, nearly the same mass. It has ice moons, moons rich in metals, it's own tidal kneading for passive warming of the moons, and well, basically everything you'd put on a rocket except for the engines. Of course, how you'd move-"
"Actually, propulsions has the thing in development. It'd take so many I'll need scientific notation to describe it, but at least its a viable theory for them to shoot down. Then I can always circle back to this when they blame me."
The conversation continued for hours, but it always circled back to the specifics on it. In the months to come Adam kept his team entirely focused on putting together the Joolian Spaceshuttle proposal so he could get the director's rejection. Then they could work on things that'd help the other departments since this pointless.
As the proposal finally finished, everyone was horrified by the numbers. It would take centuries to manufacture everything if they worked on this exclusively. And the gigatons of molecules to be moved was difficult to comprehend. So he couldn't help but gulp nervously as he stood before all of the directors.
"Please share with us your progress Dr. O'Neill."
"With pleasure. As you can see, we've consulted with all of our departments, our full team, and industry experts from outside the Sol Space Program, and there is a single consensus. Such a project is impossible with conventional methods."
"And what of unconventional methods?" Director Bashaw asked.
"That is the good news. If you look at page 6, you will see the outline of the Joolian Spaceshuttle."
"Joolian spaceshuttle?" Director Crimwell asked. He was an old wrinkled man that Adam only knew by reputation, and it wasn't a good reputation.
"Well, it is theoretically possible with sufficient investment to just send Jupiter and its moons to almost anywhere in the reachable universe. It'll take a while but be self-sufficient for eons. Not sure they'll be humans when they get there, but neither will we." Adam said laughing nervously.
"That is an incredibly stu-" Director Crimwell said.
"That's an amazing idea, we'll put it to a vote and let the public decide just how obsessed they are with this pipe dream." Director Bashaw said over him.
The meeting grew heated as increasingly nuanced questions were asked, but as insane as they were, the numbers were all in order. And when it ended, a 6-3 vote among the Directors decided to make it a general vote.
As Adam walked home, he couldn't believe they actually agreed to let a bunch of random people decide if he should Juxit or not. Hopefully they wouldn't vote in favor of it or then nobody would have a plan for that which must be done.
r/AurumArgenteus | 30 | Humanity never figured out cryostasis or FTL. Your job is to build an intergalactic spacecraft to go to Andromeda. Since that's impossible, you decide to use Jupiter and its many moons instead. | 66 |
A white porcelain bowl explodes against the wall. A thousand bloodstained pieces hurled in every direction.
Pavel looks back across the room at Alexander. Alexander, enraged, his body heaving up and down as his scowl grows deeper with each passing second.
Alexander looks at his meal, slowly dripping down the wall. "What can we count on these damned humans for?! he venomously spits out. "Wouldn't you think that the one thing they would have is an interest of fucking self-preservation!"
Pavel tries to reassure his master. "I can find another subject for-"
Alexander waves a hand at him and Pavel falls immediately silent. "What is the point?" Alexander begins. "If I have to endure another tainted lamb I will have to start breeding the creatures for slaughter myself." Alexander clenches his jaw; the contaminated blood in his fangs pronounced. Yet, he breathes and reminds himself to show resolve in front of his underling. "Sit, Pavel"
Pavel walks over and takes a seat next to his lord. He waits expectantly for Alexander to begin speaking.
"How many soldiers are currently in our Order?" Alexander begins.
"Somewhere around seven thousand, Master" Pavel replies.
Alexander nods, his hands folded in front of his face, brow furled in thought. His head turns and his eyes bore into Pavel's. He stands, towering over him.
"Compile a list of the twenty largest ports in the country, and report back to me immediately. I'll have to save the damned cur from themselves. Now, go!" | 250 | Vampires have risen up, to take over the world, and to usher in an eco-revolution. Not because they're power-hungry, or care about the Earth; they're just sick of feeding microplastic-riddled blood. | 3,479 |
News of the demise of Marius's friend at the hands of a vampire spread throughout the town.
"I was there to see it," said Marius. "Him and I were walking down the road on the outskirts of town when the vampire jumped out of nowhere. He had on him cloves of garlic. He always carried garlic with him whenever he traveled the roads. And the garlic did nothing. He had even eaten garlic before we set out on our journey, and not even the garlic in his hand or in his blood did anything to drive away the vampire. Garlic doesn't work against vampires. It's a myth!"
The townsfolk were fascinated by the tale, but they weren't ready to abandon the practice of carrying garlic with them. "Better safe than sorry," they would say.
Marius decided he had to do more to convince them and took it upon himself to find out the origin of the myth. He paid a visit to the archives and looked up everything he could find on garlic as a repellent of vampires. He managed to trace the myth back to a farmer that had lived several hundred years ago. A garlic farmer.
"That's it," said Marius. "This man invented the idea of garlic as a weapon against vampires just to sell garlic. It was a marketing ploy. I need to find out if his garlic-growing enterprise still exists today."
He searched the archives for the history of the farmer's business and found that it had stayed in business these hundreds of years, due in no small part to the garlic myth. He discovered that garlic-growing operation had only one owner for its entire existence.
"The owner is a person," he concluded. "That's what I'm getting from all these records. But how can it be a person when the company has been around for hundreds of years? Was it a line of sons that took the same name?"
After much searching, Marius discovered the whereabouts of this mysterious owner. "Here he is," he said. "The chief executive and majority shareholder. I think I'll pay him a visit."
The owner lived in the mountains, in a remote manor built into the side of the rock. Marius pounded on the door, but there was no answer. So Marius barged in to find a man shrouded in a black cloak, his head and face concealed by a large hood. He was seated at a desk in front of a laptop computer.
"You must be the owner of the Garlic Growers Collective. I just found out that garlic doesn't repel vampires, and your garlic-growing operation has profited from that myth ever since."
Marius walked up to the owner and stood over him. "I lost my friend because of this lie. What do you have to say for yourself?"
The owner stood up to face him. He lifted his hood to reveal the bald head, pointy ears and long fangs of a vampire.
"Yes," the vampire owner said. "Garlic has no effect on us. How did you find out?"
"I saw my friend being attacked by a vampire," Marius told him. "And he had on him cloves of garlic. He tried to use them against the vampire but to no effect."
The vampire owner shook his head. "Looks like you've met Clovis. He's a shareholder. Apparently he forgot that we don't like garlic. Stupid Clovis," he muttered, "I'll have to speak to him about that."
"How long have you been doing this?" asked Marius. "Have you been the owner this whole time?"
"Not just the owner. I was the farmer that started the myth."
Marius noticed that the vampire's laptop computer was showing a page from an e-commerce store selling crosses.
"A store for crosses," Marius pointed out. "Is that also a property of your company?"
After quickly shutting the laptop, the vampire nodded.
"So you're not repelled by crosses either?" Marius took the crucifix necklace he was wearing and shoved it in the vampire's face. The vampire affected no reaction other than an indifferent glance.
"Nope," he said. "I see you've made a purchase from our site."
"And I suppose your cross-selling business is doing just as well."
"It is," said the vampire owner. "And if you'd like to see how well we're doing..." He walked over to a filing cabinet a pulled out a financial report and handed it to Marius.
Marius emerged from the castle, quite satisfied to allow the vampire owner to continue with the operation of his business after he was granted a generous stake in what he discovered to be a very successful and profitable company. | 47 | It turns out that vampires are not repelled by garlic. That was just a myth fabricated by a garlic farmer to boost sales. The people have just figured it out, and they are pissed. | 440 |
The AI imagined its audience of trillions of sentient beings - carbon and silicon and even some gallium, all those who had a.sense of nostaglia as their ancestral home was engulfed.
"And slowly the ants deepen their burrow. The billions of years of existance on the planet has given them unparalleled experience with the ways of their planet."
Suddenly the AI paused its narrative as it saw something unexpected for the first time in at least three hundred thousand years.
"But what is this", it continued. "All of the ants have stopped in place."
At the same time it urgently scanned its remaining sensors. It detected a flow of energy that had previous been undetectable. It seems that the ants trails were conducting electrical energy. The ants themselves had changed and seemed .... different.
"And look! The ants internal anatomy has changed since it was last examined... well so long ago that I no longer retain the date. These ants have been laying a circuit and somehow changed themselves to be elements within a giant, planetary ... I don't have a word for what it is."
Those were the last words the AI spoke as an unreal static gradually took over the broadcast. Slowly, a new sound became apparent.
"We are.... the Earth. We are whole. We are ready to be eaten by the Radiator. We will live on by transferring our pattern... We are.. | 32 | In the dying days of life on Earth under the expanding Sun, an artificially intelligent satellite, left behind by humans before they left to colonise the Universe, watches the lives of some of Earth's last animals in a nature documentary format. | 328 |
Satchel, Arkansas.
At least that was what the last sign said. Melvin didn't like leaving the interstate for any reason. The GPS said this was one of the closest place for miles until Little Rock to gas up. He was running behind. It was a classic reason to travel. His sister back home had gotten sick. And it was too complicated to fly at the moment. So he'd settled for a quick burn halfway across the country.
Unfortunately, suddenly deciding you need to be elsewhere tends to make everything more complicated than you'd think.
There's always some unseen factor.
The rain had finally slowed. The storms lifting or beginning to surge further ahead. Every 5 minutes before water would strike the windows as if thrown from a giant pail. Now lightning simply streaked quietly in the distance.
Satchel itself was dead as a doornail. A lot of places are like that. However only when he reached the pumps of the first station did he realize just how dead in question. The station was well lit, but empty. The pumps weren't responding. And to Melvin's chagrin, the doors were locked.
"Weird."
The only other station sat several blocks away, the sign a beacon in the dark. He rolled down the main road, idly checking each stop sign. There would be one cop sitting here somewhere waiting to make up the monthly quota.
He reached the other station, and the pumps didn't work here either. The same message reading as always in places like this.
*Pay inside.*
"Pump 3." He muttered.
Inside, no one was working. At least, maybe they were in the back.
"...Hello?"
He walked around, listening as the tv on the ceiling rambled about the weather. A dark puddle caught his eye. A giant soda had splattered across the floor in the back aisle. The ice was still fresh. Somebody was in here. They had to be.
"I need to get some gas?" Melvin asked.
Nobody answered. Something was wrong. Even in a place like this, someone should be here. Back outside, the rain had come back.
*Well this is great.* He thought. *Maybe the next town is actually open.*
Something made him stop and look up. On the porch of a house far across the road, stood a figure. A man, it seemed, through the downpour. Under the porchlight, it looked like he was holding something. Melvin looked at the man, checked the gas station, then back at the man.
*Where'd he go?*
He kept his eyes towards the porch as he rounded the truck. And a man fell into his arms.
"Hey, what the fu-" He shouted.
Red. His hands and forearms were all red. The man who hit the ground had all sorts of deep wounds. One of his forearms dangled loosely as he laid on the ground. His breathing ragged and hoarse. Of course, as anyone would, he began trying to see how he could help whoever this was. Blood mixing with runoff, turning parts of concrete a sallow pink.
Splashing in the water. Someone was walking up on him. Fast.
The man in question wore something on his head. He held an axe.
Self preservation kicked in immediately. Melvin fumbled his way toward the door of the truck. He stumbled over the downed man's legs in his panic. So when the strike from behind hit him, he went down just as easily.
"I see we have a visitor." Someone spoke as he tried to sit. Something was clouding his eyes.
"I told you this was a good idea." Someone else spoke. They sounded almost happy, serene even.
"What do you want to do?" Someone asked.
"...I like a challenge from time to time. Here. Grab his legs."
---
I do love some slashers from time to time.
r/Jamaican_Dynamite | 19 | The Terrifying Axe Murderer is terrorizing the Town! Every night he stalks the streets and takes another victim! How horrible! Well it WAS...until people realized that they could just...throw Evil People into the streets at night... | 254 |
I was relatively young when they realized I would never grow old. Envy quickly became hate disguised as a congratulations delivered between gritted teeth. Their mask eventually broke and the pale hatred underneath made them imprison me.
Before my first century, I was a slave - bought and sold under the pretense that I was good stock. I'd never die. The only ones who passed up on the offer were the clever but cruel ones who realized that a beating meant nothing to me. An inch of my life was still infinitely long, as far as they knew.
My masters quickly realized how obstinate I could be. They could make me do chores, but couldn't compel me to fight in the arena or guard their villas. They couldn't move me with abuse of any kind, and I demanded respect no other slave could have. I never left because, well, what else was I going to do with eternity? They never got rid of me because, despite my stubbornness, I was useful for generations. I'm a footnote on five tiers of some family trees.
During the fourth generation with one of those families, I gained a particular fondness for my growing master. He was clever, kind, and curious. He always asked for my experiences of famous battles, hoping I would speak of killing. Yet he was still perfectly entranced by the stories I could share of hauling grain to the front lines.
His curiosity did not wane with age. My master was a scholar and scientist, demanding that the world unveil its secrets to him. I was in awe of him from the very beginning, but even I couldn't predict the man he would become.
One day, as I set down his breakfast, he looked to me and said, "Why do this? At any moment, you could run from here and never be ordered about again."
I paused for a moment. Maybe I was hoping he would retract the statement. I suppose there have never been rules in standard manners about how to treat an immortal. As with a beggar, you do not ask him how he got there. "Do you want me to go, Master?"
"You are one of my dearest friends. Of course I would prefer you stay. What I mean is: I owe my whole self to you, yet I own all that you are. Does that not bother you? Do you not remember what it is like to do as you please?"
Before that moment, I hadn't considered the possibility since my second or third century. "What is there to do?"
Master's jaw dropped. Incredulous, he repeated my question back to me. "What is there to do?! I do not know where to begin with that question! What do I do with *my* free time?"
"You sit."
"What?! That's all you can think of?! 'You sit,' what an observation. Come on, my good-natured man, you are capable of more than this! I'll help you further: do you remember the other night? When those people came over?"
"Ah yes! Of course! You argue!"
"I guess...well in that instance, yes. More importantly, I was spending time with friends. I have seen you making conversation with many vendors at the market. Why don't you make friends with some of them?"
"You need things from the market, Master? If I hurry, I can go before they close and be back before sundown."
Master put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it in frustration. "No. That's not what I meant! I'm talking about a trip to the market without purchasing anything for me."
I furrowed my brow and puffed out my chest. "I am *not* a *thief*."
"Good gods, your skull is like a tree trunk that gains a layer with each passing year! You will not be bringing me any goods at all, stolen or purchased. I just want you to go down there to talk with the vendors. Speak with them about things other than their wares." He finished the sentence like the conversation was over, so I silently moved to the door. He perked up but did not speak. I opened the door and left.
I returned a while later to my eager master. In a moment, his face transformed to match mine. My trip had not gone well.
"What happened?" His tone let me know that the open door behind me let him hear the change to the noises of the city below.
"Well, you know how you told me to remember the other night with your friends?"
"Oh no...oh no..."
"I visited the vendors, as you said, and tried to speak with them as you had with your friends the other night."
"I...what do you mean by that, exactly?"
"I started an argument."
Master groaned. Carefully, quietly, and without looking at me, he asked, "About what?"
"I presented the argument that he was mistreating his slave. He didn't listen to a word I said."
"Then why does it sound like there is a mob rioting in the streets for what you said?"
"The slave listened." | 108 | You are an immortal, and regular humans always ask you to do odd jobs because they assume you can always do whatever you want later. It isn't until one astute human offers you some time to yourself that you realize that you don't understand free time. | 654 |
"Sir, we've got reports from the Northern front," the adjutant stated in a dry voice. The general looked at him expectantly.
"The 3rd combined division has secured Kehner river and is currently building an outpost for further excursions."
The general nodded contently.
"However," the adjutant continued, "the Luhner cavalry division has suffered a defeat at Argot forest; an ambush. A sergeant in their company has sold information to our enemies, I am afraid. He has been made an example out of."
"Shit," the general growled. "Luhner company was our best cavalry division. Send word to the capital requesting additional horses. Now, if that is all-" he started getting up.
"Actually." the adjutant slowly added, "there is... one more report you'll want to hear." His words were oddly cautious as if he was afraid of them.
"Well?" the general said, sitting back down. "Get on with it."
"It's the Iron Drakes, sir."
The general slouched in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The Iron Drakes were an elite company of heavily armoured soldiers with a penchant for fire. They've killed everyone he threw at them and at this point, he was at his wit's end as to how to deal with them.
"Who'd they slaughter this time?" he sighed.
"They, uh... they've been defeated, sir."
The general looked up at him with noticeable surprise.
"*What*? When? By whom?!" he said.
"Yesterday, sir. The messenger arrived just a few hours ago. And it was the, uh... the Tromb company."
The general stared daggers at his adjutant. He considered whether he was playing a prank on him, but he was a loyal aid for years now and not known for a sense of humour.
"There *must* be a clerical error then. A scribe with one too many head injuries. The Tromb company is *literally* just several thousand musicians-"
"And one trained soldier, sir. Plus the commander," the adjutant interrupted.
"Sure, right, Karl, the veteran, and the commander is... isn't he new?"
"Completely, sir. He was assigned to the company to help them while they were transferring from west to north. Just rookie escort duty."
"Then how, pray tell, could a load of musicians - and *one* soldier - defeat the most decorated company of soldiers we have ever faced?"
"Sir, the commander ordered the musicians to play music while Karl single-handedly rushed the enemy."
"That's-"
"Sir, do you know the song 'No man can harm me, no fire can burn me'?"
The general looked down at his desk trying to remember. "^(And then no man... harm... I shall walk... fire...)" he muttered. "Yes, I remember."
"So the musicians played it and, well, inspired Karl to the point where he quite literally embodied the lyrics. The Iron Drakes could not land a single blow and he walked through their fires as if it was a pleasant breeze."
The general sat in stunned silence.
"And apparently, his eyes started glowing at some point," the adjutant added.
The silence continued.
"And also his sword broke and he started picking up rocks and killing them with those. Rock and stone, general. *That's* what he used," the adjutant said as if he didn't believe his own words.
The general, at last, managed to recover some composure.
"You say a messenger brought these news?" he asked. His aid nodded.
"Bring him in. I want to hear it from him directly."
The adjutant motioned his hand and a young, freckled man walked in. He was clutching a banner with a drake covered in iron plates on it - the banner of the Iron Drakes. That was proof enough that the Drakes were indeed defeated.
"Lad, I want you to tell me *everything* you saw," the general said. The messenger nervously looked at him for a moment before speaking.
"WHAT? COULD YOU SPEAK UP PLEASE?" he yelled. | 277 | They told you that you were going to lead an army, 10,000 men strong, they didn't tell you it contained only a single trained soldier, and 9,999 support musicians. | 1,827 |
"Hey, what are all those lights coming from the Earth? It's not like those idiots were able to make fires that big... holy crap, what happened to the ozone layer?!"
"What could they have possibly done in 5000 years?!"
...
"They have cities already? And transportation? How many countries did they develop?!"
"We predicted that the medieval era would happen in 12,000 years, but it definitely hasn't been that long and they're already way past the renaissance. The dark ages only lasted 900 years?!"
"It took us 800,000 to learn agriculture... it's not fair!"
"Their development is exponential, like the rate at which they progressed only sped up with each era. Look, it took 5 million years to discover fire, then 1 million to learn how to farm, 10,000 to discover electricity, and one century to launch a spacecraft to their nearest moon."
"At this rate, they'll join the intergalactic senate in 500 years! We'll be alive while it happens!"
"Fellas... are we being jealous?"
...
"No, we're being rational. This is going way too fast. Let's just invade them before they become too strong. Nobody out-civilizes us."
"Are you sure? I'm getting some readings, they have so many nuclear bombs."
...
"They've already invented those? At this rate they might have already predicted how to stop us.
"We're screwed. We're so screwed. By the time we reach the planet they might as well have already discovered the meaning of life." | 2,021 | Turns out cultures and civilisations aren’t meant to disappear or evolve so quickly. And species aren’t meant to develop technology so quickly too. So, after their last visit 5000 years ago, the aliens are wondering where the FUCK are the ancient Mesopotamians. | 6,357 |
I've ignored these feelings before - when I didn't pull my sister's ponytail, she tripped badly on the stairs and broke her leg; when I didn't swap a classmate's presentation for my backup one, he got laughed and taunted and teased; when I didn't punch my friend in the hallway, he got beaten up by some jocks. Some would question if my interference would have made a difference, but I always know that it does. For ten years, I've gone off on these feelings. Ten. Solid. Years.
To think I even *could* imagine myself committing a crime... but I know whatever happens if I don't do it will be worse. At least I've had my haircut, so my photos will look good. I run for the men's clothes store. Security are on my tail - they must have seen this before. I grab random articles of clothing and make a dash for it. I don't make it out; a really buff security guard prevents me from being able to leave.
"I swear, we've had enough of you hooligans..." I turn around. Three security are walking over to me. This is round about when I find out *why* I had to do this, right?
I notice a shifty-looking guy sneaking around, as if he doesn't want to be caught... I smirk to myself, before acting all terrified. "It- it wasn't my idea, I- I was forced to! By *him*!" I point to the man, who's looking visibly nervous now. "He- hey, wait a minute! The kid's lying! I- I had nothing to do with it!"
My power kicks in again, as I see myself tackling this guy to the ground. That's exactly what I do; before anyone can stop me, I run full-force at him, causing him to fall on his back. I... I don't believe it!
I turn to look at the security, grinning. "He's right, I *am* lying, but you guys may wanna see this!" Confused, the security guards come over, and they're all in shock.
Drugs. A *lot* of drugs. I take a quick glance around; some are sticking out of some short pockets. I stick my hand in and grab a bag. Security waste no time in calling the police. Suddenly the manager comes out. Looks like he has just gotten off the phone with the store owner. "It's been decided that we have to close the store for a couple of days, unfortunately. I'd request everyone leave immediately. If you've made a purchase, please check all products for anything... suspicious."
Two security escort the man out. The buff security guard is making sure everyone checks their clothing. The final security guard is watching me. "You knew that guy was hiding something, didn't you?"
I answer as honestly as I can. "No, sir, I didn't. I just did what I felt like." He eyes me suspiciously. I just shrug. We're both just waiting for the police to show up - they were told everything from me trying to rob the store to the guy hiding drugs in random men's clothes. When the police show up, both the drug guy and I are taken to the police station in cuffs.
When I get there, I'm asked to explain, in detail, everything that happened. That was easy. The tricky question was... motive. I can't just tell them that I see a vision of myself doing something, and if I don't do it, something worse happens, can I? I shrug. "I just do what I feel like doing. Nothing more, nothing less." Suddenly, I have a desperate urge to run. But... I can't, can I? I shut my eyes for a moment. Nope, nothing. I'm just scared.
Why? Well, I just receive my answer. "Don't lie. I'm a living lie detector. Just tell the truth." From the corner of the room, a figure reveals itself. I gasp as I whisper "Truthbomb..." everyone has heard of him, though no-one knows his real identity. Time to give up the act. I sigh as I explain the truth about my power and how it works.
One of the officers turns to Truthbomb. "This kid for real?" Truthbomb nods and smiles.
"I'd say it's safe to let him go. Take this." He tosses me an armband. "That one is *very* special. Basically gives you a free pass from the law. Don't abuse it. Keep a diary, type up your day in detail every day. You know my website, right?" I nod. "Use that to submit your diary entries to me. I have friends, so don't try to lie or hide anything just because I'm not there in person. They will also have access to the diary. Understand?"
"What... what if something *super embarrassing* happens?" I ask. Truthbomb smiles.
"It'll be kept between me and my friends. We're not jerks. You can trust us, right?" I smile in return and nod. "Thank you, Truthbomb." And with that, I'm free to leave, grateful that Truthbomb was in the interrogation with me.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Thank you for reading! More stories [here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesbyCrystal/comments/x374da/oneoff_stories_a_collection_of_stories_which_are/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) | 36 | You have a rare form of precognition. Sometimes you get visions of small tasks that have to perform at that moment. Ignoring these tasks usually leads to disastrous results so you try to always do them. But today as you're out shopping, you suddenly see a vision of yourself, robbing the store. | 95 |
He's been on my couch for three damn weeks. Who does that? Vampire or not it's just rude not asking before couch surfing. But here we are.
You may be wondering how a vampire could just walk into a house without an invitation, well it turns out that if it's their house they can come and go as they please. And that's the problem. This is my house. I pay the mortgage and the bills. I closed on it several months ago, but I just learned something.
Apparently vampire rules are legalistic so make certain that your realtor does a very through title search before go under contract for a piece of real property. I say this because this damn vampire is the original owner of the house and no one completed a death certificate on him when he was turned.
What does that mean? Legally he's still alive and had to consent and be a party to any property transfers. So every single sale of this house for over one hundred years has been completely invalid.
Now I need to convince a coroner to file a death certificate for someone who died a hundred and seven years ago and whose grave location is unknown and obviously empty...fml. | 10 | It's a well known fact that vampires must ask to be let into your house. However, one of them just let themselves in. They didn't even want your blood, but unlike every other vampire, they didn't need consent to be let in. They've been crashing on your couch for three weeks. | 17 |
"What kind of savage desecrates an ancestral planet of an entire race. Mankind's rage in the home worlds Currently the federation is voting on a general mobilization. If the space carrier does not retreat immediately, and all mining operations are not suspended ids that could be sold for massive profits.
"This is commander John Adams from the Terran Federation, Halt all mining operations and withdraw from Earth immediately." The transmission from the Terran commander was immediately rebuked.
Commander Ack received the transmission from the Terran federation, and his blood was boiling with anger. The humans fired warning shots before even attempting to establish contact. He suspected that this may be a plot by some xenophobic human agents that are trying to pit their two civilizations together, and those suspicions ended up being a stroke of luck for the whole galaxy.
"What kind of savage shoots warning shots before attempting diplomacy, this planet is within Darian borders and we have every right to mine here."
A small lie told by commander Ack, as this was a border system, yet this line of argumentation was simply ignored.
"What kind of savage desecrates an ancestral planet of an entire race. Mankind's rage in the home worlds is past its boiling point and the council of nations is currently voting on a general mobilization. If the space carrier does not retreat immediately, and all mining operations are not suspended, you will go down in history as the buffoon who started the third war of the end"
More and more human ships were arriving, with engaged weapon systems ready to fire. Commander Ack knew that he had to retreat.
"I will be filing an official complaint with the intergalactic community, this is no manner for space fairing civilizations to conduct themselves."
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
With a frown on his face, commander Ack was reading a history book written by a human. At the beginning, he was forcefully turning each page, getting more annoyed every time earth is referenced. Gradually, his motion softened, and his frown dissipated.
He let out a hearty laughter when he finished the book, thinking to himself how nonsensical the human race truly is. They drained their home planet of its resources, turned it into an inhabitable wasteland and NOW they care about it enough that they were willing to plunge their civilization in a war that would have cost millions of lives?
Commander John implied he was a buffoon, but really mankind is race of buffoons that will destroy what was precious, then treat its husk as sacred, while willing to impose grander destruction upon themselves and the galaxy. He couldn't remain mad as such nonsensical race, but after the laughter, his heart was filled with dread, remembering that humanity has the second strongest military in the galaxy. | 101 | When we set up a mining colony on a desolate, uninhabitable planet the humans immediately threatened war on us demanding we leave it at once. Apparently this ruined planet, which they call "Earth", is sacred to them. | 339 |
The alien family made a point of visiting one of Earth's great shopping malls. When they arrived, they marveled at all the different shops and kiosks and open seating.
Soon they found their way to the food court. As they strode alongside the rows of food service counters, they could see how food from all the different parts of the planet were made available here, in what they understood to be a demonstration of the peace that must exist between peoples from such far-flung places. How else would it be possible for their cuisine be offered alongside one another as such?
Standing outside one of the counters that served some of the more exotic fare (we Earth people would recognize this as the Chinese takeout place), a boy held a platter full of a certain delicacy chopped into pieces, each with a small wooden rod stuck into it for easy handling, the alien family guessed.
"Care for a sample?" the boy asked.
The alien father approached the platter. "What is it?" he asked.
"Orange chicken," the boy said.
The alien father took a minute to regard the little piece of meat on the platter. "I see," he said. "Is this the food of your native land?"
The boy said nothing.
"I believe we would owe you payment for this."
"No, they're free."
The alien father looked up at the boy. "Free?" he whispered.
The boy nodded.
The alien father turned to the rest of his family: his alien wife and their two alien children. They all nodded in assent. The father then took samples for himself and for his family, and they partook of the gift.
When they had finished eating, the alien father leaned in and gave the boy a good long hug which lasted about a minute. When he was done, the mother alien went up to him and gave him a hug of her own. Then the two alien children hugged him at the same time.
"We shall remember this," the alien father vowed. "Consider us bosom friends." And the alien family went on their way. | 242 | It turns out that in alien culture offering somebody food for free is a sign of Great affection. The first alien tourists arrive on Earth and misread a LOT of signals. | 681 |
I was in the back of the shop, fixing a watch, when I heard the bell on the door ring. I poked my head out and saw a man standing there. He was wearing clothes I'd never seen before. He had on a blue suit with silver trim, and a cape that flowed out behind him.
"I'm here to fix my time machine," he said.
I smiled. "You mean your timepiece?"
"No," he said impatiently. "My time machine."
I laughed. "Sorry," I said. "I just fix clocks and watches."
The man started to get irritated. "Listen," he said. "I've been stuck here for years. I've been trying to find a way home, but I can't. I don't know anybody here. I don't know anything about this world. I was ready to give up when I saw your sign. The sign I had been waiting for."
"You are serious?" I asked confused.
"For a clock-maker you are not very attentive."
The man took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and showed it to me. "See this drawing? It is the wiring for my time machine. Can you help me rewire it?"
As I looked at the drawing, I began to feel strange. The more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed. It was as if something in my mind was trying to remember something that had happened a long time ago.
"Where did you say you are form again?" I asked.
"I did not say," the man answered.
I thought for a moment. Then I heard myself say, "I might be able to help you."
"That is all I ask," the man said.
He handed me the drawing and took a seat in a chair by the window. I went over to my workbench, opened my toolbox, and took out a magnifying glass.
"What are you doing?" asked the man.
"I need to see this better," I answered. "I hope you don't mind."
After a while, I found myself remembering complicated schematics. In the back of my mind another memory began to stir.
"Excuse me," I said. "I need something." I went to an old trunk in the corner of the shop and took out an old silver watch. "This belonged to my great grandfather. He lived a hundred years ago."
The man looked at me with suspicion.
I wiped the dust off the back of the watch and set it on my workbench. Then I took my soldering iron and began to remove parts from the watch. When I was done, I had the watch's inner workings spread out in front of me.
I set the drawing next to the watch and began to compare the two. Part by part, wire by wire, I matched them up.
"What are you doing?" The man asked.
"Sorry," I said. "I have to be sure about this."
There was something missing. I looked at the drawing. Then I looked at the watch.
"The spring," I said.
From a box on the top shelf of my workbench, I took out a rusty old spring. I laid it on top of the drawing.
I picked up the shell of the watch and held it up to the light. Then I turned it over and put it back on the drawing. Then, ever so carefully, I began to put the watch back together.
"What are you doing?" asked the man.
"Getting it ready," I said. "It might take a few hours."
I took a cloth from my pocket and started to polish the watch. The man watched me carefully.
"I do not understand," he said. "You are fixing an old pocket watch."
"No," I said. "You do not understand. You are not the only one lost in time."
Memories was rushing back into my conscious mind. Memories of who I really was. Memories of who this man in my shop was. Memories of the war.
The man rushed at me, grabbed me by the collar, and lifted me from the ground. My feet kicked furiously, trying to keep from hitting the floor. I held my breath. I knew what was about to happen.
Then I heard the man scream out in pain. He was clutching where my hand had been. When I looked down, I saw something protruding from my hand. In the center of my palm was a small blue light. I looked at the man in surprise. I did not know what was happening, but I could see from his face that I was in control.
"What is that?" he cried out.
The blue light began to grow brighter. It was moving. I looked down and saw the blue light moving out of my hand and up to my wrist. The last of it pulled into a bracelet around my wrist.
"You," I said, looking at the man. "You are the one who stole my time machine."
I looked at the man's face. He was holding up his hands. There was fear in his eyes.
I thought of everything that had happened. I thought of how I had lost everything. I thought of the emptiness of time. I thought of who I was when I was the other me. My anger was replaced by sadness.
The man was afraid. I could see it in his eyes. He was going to try and escape. I reached up to my wrist and twisted the cap on the center of the bracelet.
Why did you do it?" I asked. "Why did you steal my ship?"
"I thought it was the only way to get home," he said. "I wanted to escape all of this." He looked around my shop, as if he could not believe that it was real. "I wanted to go home."
For a moment, I wondered if I was making a mistake.
The man looked up at me. He was no longer in control. I felt the power of the time machine flow through my body. I felt the time winds pull into existence around me.
Then I was gone.
***
For more stories check out r/greypuffin | 95 | You own a shop repairing clocks and watches. As a joke, you hang a sign outside that says, "We Fix Time Machines". One day, someone in strange clothing shows up... | 264 |
''*Huh. Well, that's certainly different.*''
Perhaps I should have shown more of a shock. Should have been more distressed to learn that my son, Ewan, was not in fact babbling like a normal toddler, but was in fact intoning dread secrets of the antediluvian world ruled over by ancient and terrible gods that mere mortal men should not dare to know, lest that knowledge drive them insane. Perhaps I should have reacted more horrified, or maybe indignant, angry that someone would dare to insinuate that my son was a conduit for ancient dread creatures. I probably shouldn't have followed up my initial reaction with something equally unconcerned. ''*So, he's talking in a language from a dread unknowable city that lies beneath the waves, that one day when the stars are right will rise from beneath the abyssal seas to unleash an untold age of horror and madness upon the world. A city that will be a dread capital of a world-spanning empire of unimaginable evil, mutations, unholy magicks, and such, led by dread Cthulhu who at the moment lies dead-but-dreaming, but who'll soon awake to drive mankind to the brink of madness and beyond?*'' My friend nodded with abject horror, it was clear that only the prospect of driving out this unimaginable evil from the world was keeping her from giving in to the insanity.
''*So what exactly do you want me to do about it?*''
She gesticulated fiercely in a manner that could only be described as frantic and chaotic. ''*Siobhan, you've got to exorcise it or something.*'' I gave her a rather unpleasant frown. ''It''? Still my son. Rather rude to dehumanize him like that. Sure, he might be exclaiming unbidden truths that no mortal ear has ever survived hearing without going mad, but that was honestly a bit rude. ''*I think I'd have to talk with his father about that. You know, my husband.*'' She nodded, fearful and in tears, hoping that perhaps my husband would speak sense about my son who had elegantly created a small Shoggoth from a small mound of colourful clay that children usually play with. He's instructed it to build something akin to an obelisk. ''*Please, Siobhan, it's all wrong. It hurts to look at your son, and I don't like the way the other kids are listening to him. They look at me and make me think that it is wrong that I exist, that I have been poisoned by lies and falsehoods perpetrated by weak and worthless gods. Please, the words echo in my head and I can't get them out! Please!*'' I pick my son up and look at him with warm, loving eyes. ''*Who wants to see his daddy?*'' Babbling incoherently but rather joyfully in the extradimensional Elder Speech, he pointed at an unusual angle of the room which should not be there according to any form of mathematics understood by humanity. From it, my husband emerged.
A handsome fellow indeed. My friends screamed and looked at him in total and utter terror, some going completely and utterly mad from the mere sight of him. Of course, they've got a rather limited view of reality, and have extremely limited frames of reference, mental experience with the unusual, and a far too comfortable misunderstanding about how the world works to ever be able to look upon as I do. Gently, his warm bubbling tendrils emerge from where his vaguely equine face ends and caress my cheek ever so lovingly. ''*Oh yeah, girls, I never introduced you to my husband. I know, I got married overseas, well, under the sea. This is Glatho'lyyn the Breaker, he's a Byakhee. Most of you will be unable to recall what he looks like, but I think he's a handsome fella.*'' My husband screeches curiously, I never learned the language of drowned R'lyeh, but during my dream-quests I got pretty good at Screech-tongue, Higher Ghoulish, Cronqke, and the Nightmare Speech of the lower Skullworlds. ''*Oh, they're just a being a bit silly.*'' I motion towards the girls who're pulling their hair, screaming for assistence from their weak gods, and begging for death. Curiously, their children look at Glathy with the natural curiosity and wonder most people scrub away from their children.
Without it, the beings from beyond the veil of our universe becomes quite uncomfortable to behold, and leads to one gazing into the abyssal madness as the maw of insanity gnaws at your soul. But with wonder and imagination, one can never go wrong, and one will what is truly there, not reality as filtered through the lens of ones' own fears and inadequacies. ''*Well, it turns out that little Ewanthi'creejsh has started speaking in the Elder Speech, I figured that you should know.*'' He screeches loudly, crushing the glass windows of the house we're in, as reality begins refolding itself to accommodate my eldritch husband. And my eldritch son, as his human disguise peels off revealing a half-human half... vague bat-crow-horse thing. Sadly the English language lacks the words necessary to explain just how a byakhee exactly looks, without sounding like someone trying to explain a mathematically impossible body appearing in our reality. ''*About time. He's been so loud recently, figured it was about time he moulted.*'' I hand over our son to my husband as the various housewives begin praying futilely to the dread lord of sunken R'lyeh. While in his father's grasp, Ewan speaks to the women, my friends, and the other toddlers in the room. The women weep what appears to be spinal fluid. And around them their children giggle as Ewan's magical influence begins to warp their bodies into new forms that are far more suitable for a world where the stars are nearly right. ''*Glathy, did you teach him how to speak without telling me?*''
He screeches sheepishly and vaguely apologetically. I get it, young eldritch hybrids need it to grow, but really, he could have warned me. He nudges me with his tendril-snout, to ask me if we're still on for dinner with his parents later. ''*Yeah, it's been a while hasn't it, haven't seen them since... oh last Yule I think. How time flies in a linear universe. I remember it well, I was riding on your back, we were slaughtering ghoul assassins by the hundreds. Rather fun time if you don't mind me saying. Your parents really knows how to throw a fun party.*'' Above us the roof melts into pure binary numbers as the newly reformed toddlers stare with glee into the sky, where the stars are eyes and the moon cracks in half. Earth is certainly in for an interesting time. Glathy nods over at our house, and I understand completely what he is saying in my mind through images appearing in my memory of a realtor. ''*No, I think we can take it with us. I get that we have a bone-mansion near the flesh-parks of the Ebon Pillar, but if we put the house down by the lake of boiling god-souls, we could turn more of a profit selling it later.*'' He nods and the house falls into a blackened abyss.
The stars might be right. The age that mankind has known is at an ending. But only for those who are stuck in the past. I can feel the weight lifted off of hundreds of millions of shoulders as their human flesh undulates and shifts to reveal their terrible true forms. People who were tired of the same old world that never changed, and always remained stuck in the same predictable cycle, now understand that freedom has come. Terrible, eldritch freedom, for those with the will and strength of force to accept it and adapt to it. Of course, it is a shame that the rest of mankind will go mad from it and die horribly, but I am not in control of the stars and thus cannot change that outcome. My own human form is washed away just as well as that of most of the members of mankind who are willing to accept that the future is here. Void-chitin covers my body, as multi-coloured wings extend from my back. My third eye emerges upon my forehead, and my secondary arms grow steadily in. I chitter with my mandibles in joy. ''*Come husband-of-mine. Your parents' manor on the Isles of Teeth awaits us.*'' I take his free claw-hand-hoof and together, with our joyful eldritch son, we leave the Earth behind for the dreamlands.
I still remember leaving Earth for the first time, venturing into the dream-realms for glory, riches, and a great destiny. Perhaps this time, I won't be returning. But having shed my old human form, and having a new life of high adventure and strange events ahead of me, I don't think I'll miss Earth. Not at all.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) | 74 | You were so proud when your toddler began babbling so you showed all your friends. One friend quickly pulls you aside. Terrified, they whisper “That child isn’t babbling. It’s speaking R’lyehian, the language of the Elder Gods.” | 291 |
"Tell me a story I haven't yet heard...."
“But oh great feathered one,” The thief said with a smile and a bow. “That is impossible.”
The warm tomb practically hummed with the growl that followed. “You admit weakness?” it asked from its place on a pedestal in the center of the room. “An interesting trait in a corpse.”
“I do not,” the thief said, sitting down on the sandstone. He calmly brought out a trail ration and started eating it, seemingly uncaring that the sphinx was only a few dozen feet away. “I merely speak the truth, one form of it.”
“Truth is singular,” The sphinx said flatly. Fur and feathers ruffled as it stirred.
“Perhaps,” the thief said after a bite of his food. Both knew that his comfort was an act. Predators loved fear, they savored it. Running would not help him. Begging would not help him. “But I don’t think so. What is truth?”
“I believe that I was the one asking the questions,” it growled, a few feathers floated around it, held in the air by some imperceptible force. The smell for spoiled food and rot followed behind the words.
“You admit weakness?” The thief said with a smirk. “An interesting trait in a corpse.”
“You dare?” It said. Its words seemed to hammer around the room, rousing an inch of dust off the floor, covering the intruder. “Do you really think you can harm me?”
“Oh, great one,” The thief said after a spout of coughing. Sweat beaded down his sun scorched face. “I mean no offence. I just speak what I see. I do not mean to assert that you will die, only that you are a corpse in all practical terms. I do not know. Perhaps I am wrong. . . Life to me is \*experience\*. It’s a good bed. A good woman’s arms around me. A good book on a cool fall evening. Corpses are people without these things. They are put into boxes and sealed.”
He let the words hang in the air, watching as the silted eyes on the feminine face studied him. His heart hammered in his chest, the only sound in a silent world.
A deep sigh filled the tomb. “Truth Is,” it said simply.
“I see,” the thief said, nodding wisely. He took a deep breath and steeled himself as he stared into the creature’s eyes. They were beautiful in a way. He hoped they wouldn’t be the last thing he saw “Now, getting back to your question… It’s impossible to tell you a story you haven’t heard because there is only one story that men know. Stories are perspectives, little windows into the lives of our fragile bodies. Each is a truth, and each is a lie. The details may change, the lies may be grand, but each tells a truth of what it means to be human.”
“hmmmmm,” the creature purred softly. It seemed satisfied by the words. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I am going to ask you,” He said simply, standing to his feet. “Do you really want to be the spiked pit at the end of men’s stories? Do you really want to be a corpse?”
“A grand question indeed….” It purred.
\---fin------
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Like this story? Want to read more or watch some animations made to accompany them? You can find others on my profile. | 22 | The sphinx has guarded the path for millennia, always asking the same riddle. "Tell me a story I haven't yet heard," it asks. | 37 |
The man exhaled and opened his eyes. Awoken all alone, finding himself lying on a seemingly endless plane of white which gave a strange feeling of insignificance...and peace.
"Hello, Johnny", a calm and friendly voice greeted the man.
Standing a few feet from the man named Johnny was another man draped in black-- at least he looked like a man though Johnny could tell he was not one.
"Am I...dead?", ever-perceptively Johnny guessed.
The man in black gave a sympathetic smile.
"I'm sorry, Johnny", Death offered his condolences while reaching out his arm for Johnny, helping him stand up.
"Wh-what happened? I can't...I can't be...", Johnny said with his voice cracked. "I'm still young! I have so much to live for!", he descended to anger.
"I have...I have...", Johnny's lips trembled as another face he remembered.
"Oh god, June...", Johnny said fearing that he just left his girlfriend, the love of his life all alone.
"I'm sorry, Johnny. This is never easy, but it's time to go...", Death softly grabbed Johnny's shoulder.
Sobbing, Johnny refused to move from where he stood.
"I...no...I...no...", Johnny muttered incoherently. "I can't leave her...I can't leave June alone! I...I..."
"She won't be alone", suddenly another voice said, startling Johnny.
A young girl now stood beside Death, another sympathetic smile graced her face.
"Who...who are you?", confused Johnny stuttered.
"Well Johnny, death is never an easy process", Death spoke. "So I thought I would have a friend of yours here to help you ease into it"
"I...I don't know her. Who is this?", Johnny protested.
"My name's Grace", said the young girl. "Nice to meet you, dad"
Johnny's heart dropped as he stared to Grace's eyes...she had the same blue eyes June had. And her dirty blonde hair...the same as his own.
"No...no....NO!", Johnny shouted in denial. "How can...what...?"
"Johnny, Johnny...", Death calmed Johnny down.
"June is pregnant. I'm sorry that this is how you must find out, but she was waiting for you at home with the news when your car was hit by that drunk driver", Death explained. "I simply invited the soul that would become your daughter here to help"
Johnny crumpled even more to a crying mess. Having his future daughter there, the one that he would never hold as a baby, the one that he would never walk down the aisle on her wedding day, the one that would never know him...the thought of it, all of it...it felt cruel.
Hyperventilating heavily, Johnny was broken...
"Dad, it's alright. It's alright", Grace hugged her father tight.
The warmth he felt calmed him down as he embraced Grace tightly and cried onto her shoulder. The two embraced what felt like forever, and it was indeed forever as time did not exist on that plane.
In that moment Johnny realized, it was never cruel...her presence there was a gift for him.
"I can't leave her alone, your mother, I mustn't", Johnny whispered. "I can't leave you alone"
Grace patted her father on his back. "Dad, it's okay. We will be okay, I promise you", Grace said.
"How can you be so sure?", Johnny asked.
Grace smiled and pulled Johnny by his arm. "Let me introduce you to some people", she said as she nodded to Death who complied, and he waved his hand.
The space opened within the blank realm, a window to the world of the living. Grace pulled Johnny towards it.
"Look, dad! Look!", she excitedly exclaimed.
Beyond the window Johnny saw what looked like a living room of a house. A group of people he wasn't familiar with sat there surrounding an older man whose smile was so wide as he hugged a little girl whom Johnny recognized as Grace as a child.
"I hear it, I hear it!", little Grace excitedly exclaimed as she pressed her ear against the older gentleman's chest.
"Your heart kept living on inside Mr. Barrymore, dad", said Grace. "His family helped mom a lot when I was growing up. We became essentially a part of their family"
Grace pulled Johnny to another window which Death opened. "And look, dad! That's Jessica!", Grace excitedly pointed to the young girl beyond the window.
Johnny saw her sitting and playing princess with little Grace-- there was no trace of sadness in that moment, only joy.
"She was nearing blindness around the time your accident happened, but she would see the world through your eyes!", Grace said. "She visited me and mom for years. We were basically sisters"
Grace pulled Johnny to a third window. "And that...is Frank", Grace said.
Beyond the window Johnny saw a man sitting on the couch with little Grace by his side...and a very happy-looking June by his other side.
"Frank needed a new liver and yours kept him alive", Grace explained. "He became close to mom later on and they got married. He was a great father to me"
"June...married him", Johnny muttered heartbroken. "Of course, she did...of course...", though deeply saddened he understood that she must move on.
"I did", said a very familiar voice behind Johnny. "But I never forgot about you. Not even for a single day"
Johnny swiftly turned and there he saw June, smiling radiantly to him.
"June...JUNE!", Johnny ran towards his love and embraced her, promising to himself that he would never let go.
Forever they held each other when Johnny whispered, "Is this real? Are you...are you real?"
"As real as I can be, honey", whispered June back, her hot breath warmed Johnny's ear. "I am June's soul when she finally passed"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I can't be there for you, for our daughter", cried Johnny.
"It's okay, it's okay. I was happy, Grace was happy. Frank was a great husband and he made us happy. And he made sure you were always remembered and always a part of our family", June whispered. "And now, Johnny, we can be happy too"
"Are you ready to go?", Death's calming voice said.
"Y-yes", Johnny answered, wiping his tear with a smile on his face.
Johnny and June, hand to hand, followed Death towards the light after they gave Grace one final loving hug, welcoming her to her new life as they continued on their new beginning in the afterlife.
r/HangryWritey | 39 | Death never takes a soul alone. He always brings a friend or relative of the deceased to help ease them through the process. When he greets you, he’s joined by someone you’ve never seen before. | 89 |
I heard the voice calling from the mortal realm, reciting verses from the unholy Book of Conjuring, and I have been chosen to be the one to answer. I materialize before my summoner in a flash of fire and brimstone.
"Who dares to summon the demon from the dark realm, and for what purpose should he be summoned so?"
"O great demon of the dark realm," the summoner said. "I wish to make a Faustian pact: my soul in exchange for a wish that I hope you will grant me."
And with that, I found myself in a predicament. For you see, a demon of my rank doesn't have the power to make a deal of that nature, and yet to win promotion to the rank that would give me the authority, I would need to perform more of the services that a demon of my current rank is authorized to provide. I would need to take the opportunity of every summoning to provide these services toward earning my way to the next rank.
"A Faustian pact, you say," I said. "That comes with additional conditions."
"It does?" asked the summoner, and he went back to the unholy Book of Conjuring to see if he could find anything in support of that claim.
"Don't bother, I'm almost positive it's there somewhere," I assured him. "Look, before I can grant you a Faustian pact, you will need to benefit from some of my other services first."
"What other services?"
"The service of seduction, for starters. Surely there is somebody you have in mind that you wish to lead astray, to corrupt, to lead down the road to perdition. I can certainly provide services in that regard."
The summoner was hesitant. "A Faustian pact requires other services? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Look, I'm a demon from the deep, and you're taking up my time. You either name somebody I can tempt, or you don't get your Faustian pact."
"What if I just sent you back to the deep and run the conjuring ritual again?"
"Then you'll get me again. I'll see to it that you get me again every time."
"So I'm stuck with you," said the summoner.
"In so many words," said the demon.
"And you need me to name somebody that you can lead astray?"
"You might have to name three," I told him.
"All right, fine." The summoner thought for a moment. "Jane, my coworker. Maybe you can find somebody she can cheat on her husband with."
"Done."
"And maybe my doctor. He looks like the kind of guy that would overprescribe opiates for extra cash."
"Nice." I said. "One more."
"Okay, uh, my obnoxious next-door neighbor Phil. I think I see some potential in him to be a compulsive gambler, the kind that brings himself and his family into financial ruin by the end of this year."
"You got it," I affirmed. "Three souls to lead down the path of the wicked, coming right up! Sit tight. I'll be back in a jiffy." And I disappeared in a cloud of smoke. A short while later, I appeared again.
"It is done," I told him.
"Great, great. Now can you give me my Faustian pact?"
"Sure thing," I told him. "What did you have in mind?"
"I want great wealth for myself. And I want to continue to have it for the rest of my life regardless of what I do and how much I spend. And in return," he said as he presented himself before me, "I offer you my soul."
"A fair trade," I said. I went up to him and peered intently into his eyes. "Well, at least it would be a fair trade if you had a soul to offer."
The Summoner was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"I tried looking for it within you Just now. There's nothing. It's not there."
"No soul?" the Summoner sputtered. "How can that be?"
"You see," I explained, "you forfeit your own soul the moment you employ the services of a demon to cause others to endanger theirs. Sorry."
"Wait," cried the summoner, "can I still get it back? Is there anything I can do?"
"Those three people you named," I said. "You might have to help them because if they lose their souls to damnation, so will you. Better start now. You've got quite a bit of work to do." And with that, I took my leave and returned to the dark realm, having gotten that much closer to my promotion. | 20 | Through ancients rituals you are a demon summoned to create a Faustian pact. You have no idea how to explain they summoned a demon lower in stature that can't authorize this type of pact. | 39 |
Hanging out with Thorag really wasn’t so bad. Yeah, he was 10 feet tall, had lumpy, stone like skin, and a mandibles attached to his ugly-as-sin face, but he was a good friend. I remember how we met. I was trying to get a drink at the good ‘old Dusty Comet when a shoot out started up. Honestly, you can’t walk into a single outer rim bar without some idiot throwing plasma all over the place. With all of the different cultures and species throughout the galaxy violent misunderstandings are painfully common. And dangerous. Most offworlders have a blaster or two on them at all times just for those lovely occasions, myself included. Unfortunately, the common rinky dink sidearms your average offworlder carries doesn’t pack much of a punch. And SOMEONE decided to bring a freaking AN1L8-4000 to a bar brawl! For the uninformed allow me to explain. AN1L8’s are an old series of heavyweight plasma canons, originally made for military use. They’ve actually been decommissioned for years and are super illegal to own. Why? Because they have a nasty habit of malfunctioning, overheating, and summarily vaporizing everything in the general area. And some idiot Goranzee decided to whip one out because he thought someone made a crack about his mother. It wasn’t a joke, it was a fact! Everyone knows Goranzee females are hideous! But I digress, lasers are flying all over the place, food and drinks are being tossed around as extra ammo, and a massive cone of death is being flung around the whole building, vaporizing everyone in it’s way. And it was heading right for me. I always knew it would end like that. I was way to handsome to be a space rogue y’know. But just as I was two thirds through making my peace a violent roar drowned out the din of the battle. All I saw was a gray, four armed, hulking lump of alien lunge over my head an towards the guy firing the AN1L8. Coincidentally right between me and the death beam. Normally a situation like that would end with someone being turned into a pile of dust. Safe to say that that’s not how things went down. Thorag ate the blast with nothing more than a pained grunt, pushing through the glowing stream of death to get to it’s source. Let me tell you pal, if you ever see an angry Myrmakoidian then run the other way. Thorag tore the cannon out of the Goranzee’s hands, his gray body blistered and steaming but otherwise unharmed. My big, gray, future friend then proceeded to rip the AN1L8 apart, stuffing the pieces into his maw and chewing violently with his mandibles. The only sound in the room for several seconds was the grating sound of metal tearing. Then there was a belch. As some of the bar’s patrons started to put away their weapons, thinking the fight was over, another roar sounded off. Our savior was still flipping out. And everyone in the building knew that we were royally screwed. AN1L8’s are well known to be some of the most deadly firearms in the galaxy and this guy ATE one. There was nothing we could do. It was run or get ripped apart by the rabid alien. Probably both, honestly. In an incredibly out of character moment, I did neither of those things. Just as Thorag advanced on the nearest person in the bar I ran right between him and his intended target. You know, like an idiot. In an extra idiotic move when the giant monster guy raised his fist to smear my guts overs the adjacent wall I reached up and patted him on the head. I even said “There, there”. I should have died for that. For whatever reason I didn’t. Instead of being flung at terminal velocity into wall, I was flung with slightly less than terminal velocity into the floor. Thorag had attempted to replicate my “There, there”. So I laid there, indented into the floor, half conscious, and definitely bleeding from my head having no idea I’d just started a beautiful friendship. | 157 | Due to their small size, cuteness, and ability to bond with anything Humans are considered the universe's most sought after emotional support partners. | 657 |
"You have to do it."
"I can't, though. It's wrong. Vile. It might be the worst thing I've ever done in this world."
"Vile was making *me* clean *your* puke off the couch because you were hungover. I almost puked, too. This is simple." She places a hand on my knee, staring into my soul with big wide eyes. God, I hate how easily she can manipulate me. Twist me. I never wanted any of this. The drinking was easy, but the smoking killed me. I hate being high. But I did it for her. I do everything for her. Those obsidian eyes enchant me. I realize I know how the genie feels, being trapped in a glittering prison. Maybe I'll wish to save him, set him free.
Maybe I need saved, too. Am I being mesmerized by beautiful obsidian jewels or falling face first into shimmering, toxic oil? If I do this, will I see my love reflected in those eyes or will this be the moment I drown in her poison?
"...Are you sure it has to be him? Jodey's a great guy, we've been playing video games together for like ten ye--"
"We know he's alone. And we know he doesn't have a weapon. It's easier than killing some rando. Go." Twenty minutes later, I'm crouching outside Jodey's window. I decided to use an axe to get the job done quickly. I sneak forward, cursing myself for this fate. Is this friendship worth it? I open the door, but it squeaks loudly. I can hear Jodey coming to investigate. I wait around the corner of his foyer.
He doesn't see me. Doesn't know anything's wrong until the axe begins stealing his life away. One, two quick slashes before his dog bounds up the hall, snapping at me. I pivot, smacking the dog back out the front door and closing it with another jarring squeak. Jodey's fighting back, slapping me with empty hands. He's clearly panicking or he'd break his windows and run away.
Two more deep cuts with the diamond axe and Jodey's dead, falling over and disappearing in a puff of white smoke. I toss away the diamond axe to open an inventory slot and pick up his dropped leather. The plug-in kicks in and tells me I've been banned from the server.
"Thievery and murder. At the cost of my best friend."
"He'll come back, doofus, it's Minecraft."
"It's a Hardcore Christian server. We've been playing together on it for nearly a decade. I became a pillar of the community. And I just got banned for murder."
"...You're weird." | 63 | drinking, smoking, thievery and murder.” | 189 |
Hyacinth could see the writing on the wall. The Empire of Card – Saphire of the West, was dying.
Tributes kept flowing into the capital. Fine silks, exquisite jewels, and foreign slaves to sate the courts' greed. The vassal states were squeezed to meet demands; the Empire would not be denied its due.
But the cracks were starting to show. Centuries of political maneuvering and compromises left too many hands in the pot. Everyone wanted a cut of the wealth. Entire families would flee the Capital at night; trying to outrun the ever-growing taxes, drafts that filled the bloated armies, and noblemen seeking to expand their harems.
There is a saying in Empire: “to have riches without power is a sin.” Low-born people now curse their enemies to have outstanding children, future fodder for noble machinations.
Hyacinth, the oldest of 40 heirs born to the royal harem, stood in line to inherit the whole poisonous affair. She had no doubt, that to be crowned, would be hell. Now, she found herself in a race to the bottom, a desperate struggle against her siblings to escape the sinking ship.
*How do I go about crippling this whole affair? Let's start with the guards, it's been a while since anyone has tickled them with a knife…* | 55 | All the heirs are quite brilliant in one way or the other. As such, all of them realized what a mess they would inherit and made sure to act like utter imbeciles to avoid that. | 232 |
Two AM on an empty highway. The car, more undead scrapheap, rattles as we go. No speeding, though. Can’t risk it. The shitbox of a vehicle smells vaguely of fuel, mildly of bin juice, and strongly of cigarettes. They had taken the trash out of the passenger side footwell and the back seats when I bought it earlier today.
An absolute junker. But, hey, it was cheap and they accepted cash. It runs well enough. No radio. That’d been stolen, oh, three years ago by the previous owners guess. I have no phone to play music with, either (pawned it).
I don’t mind. At the right speed or in the right breeze the back left window whistles. So, you know, there’s that to keep me company.
What a piece of shit.
My co-pilot is a duffle-bag. Contents of said bag? A smaller satchel. A toiletry bag with one toothbrush, the associated paste, a comb, nail clippers, a razor with three cartridges, sensitive-skin aloe shaving foam, B.O Basher (deodorant), and an emergency roll of T.P.
The toiletry bag is swaddled in the duffle in a nest of wads. Cash wads. The kind with paper bands from banks to tell you what each wad is worth.
How much, total?
Fifty fucking kay.
Fifty *thousand* dollars.
So, what’s a guy in an ancient, near-death Toyota Camry doing with that much scratch?
Wish I could tell you it was heist.
Wish I could tell you I earned it.
What actually happened is...I found it. None-to-soon, either. Things weren’t going well for your old friend. I had a few hundred left in my bank and had taken it out to invest in my habits. A one last hurrah kinda deal.
I had been in an alley off an alley — taking a tinkle — when an SUV screeched to a halt, a fella jumped out, and chucked the bag in a dumpster. As they zipped out, I zipped up and investigated and...
Pay dirt!
If you keep this sort of thing in the scene — in the same town — well...you get found and then quickly lost. Usually as several neat packages stored across the city dump.
So, I snatched the sack and ran. Bought a car with the last of my own cash, grabbed what I needed from my place and...boosted.
What’s the worst that can go wrong?
A marimba began to play on the non-existent radio. Wait. No. It’s the bag.
The phone I hadn’t known about rang.
Phone?
Fffffuck. | 12 | Driving down the highway in the dark of night, the only thing you have with you is an overnight bag with toiletries and 50,000 in currency. What's your story? | 42 |
The man towered over him. Standing at well over six feet tall, the man picked him up by the collar of his shirt, blood soaked and dripping onto the floor that was quickly growing further away by the second.
"You don't have to do this, Lars." A woman's voice.
"Please," she said. "He's just a kid."
The man looked at the woman for a second, out of annoyed courtesy before glaring at the child struggling to take in air. His legs were squirming, blood spraying onto the man's clothes and everywhere below him really. The pain resonated throughout the kid's body, the shock had left him long ago.
The man's eyes glowed orange and the kid had one thought. He wasn't even using his powers yet. The man dragged the child through the door of the house and floated up into the night sky. His hands felt like fire to the boy and as he was dropped from the air, his legs crunched beneath him. He screamed, begging for his life. The woman screamed, but the man only stared at the boy.
"Bring her back," the man said.
"Dad," the boy said. "I ca-"
A backhand cut him off, the boy smelled the burnt skin coming from his cheek. The boy's eyes started to glow green. He put his hands to it and his broken legs. His legs snapped back together and his skin healed over, smoother than it had before. Tears fell from his green eyes.
"Bring her back," the man said again.
The woman ran over to the child, the man let her for once.
"Can you do it one more time, baby?" the woman said to the child. She wrapped the child in an embrace, whispering into his ears.
"I promise I'll take you away from him," she said. The child stopped, his heart racing, everything hurt and not just physically. He wasn't even sure he believed her.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Sorry for what, baby?" she asked.
The boy's eyes glowed green again and he looked within the man's mind for an image of who he needed most to come back. He saw a woman, different than the one in front of him. A woman he and the man knew very well. He took that image and held it in his own mind.
With his eyes still green, he looked at the man.
"I'll bring mom back," the boy said.
The man said nothing, but he grinned. The woman looked at the man too, looking to him for some kind of reward. Attention, respect, it could have been anything.
The boy clapped his hands together, not bothering to explain what it was that the man was missing. The clap produced waves of green, the waves circling around them in a storm that eventually closed around them. With the green all around them, the man walked over to the woman.
"I don't need you anymore," he said and he ran his hands through the woman's throat.
She fell, coughing, hands to her neck. She watched as a woman emerged from the storm of green, she watched as the boy disappeared in the chaos of it all. The man didn't care, he only wanted the thing that was now right in front of him.
"Cindy," he muttered.
Cindy was dazed, looking past the man, looking around him.
"Where is he?" she asked. "Where is he?" She said it over and over.
The man embraced her, smelled her, took everything in about her. Everything that the boy took away.
"Lars," she said. "Where's Cody?"
"Does it matter?" he asked. She tried to get away from his embrace, squirming out of it.
"Let me go, I need to find him. I don't have much time," she said.
She disappeared, withering away in the same waves of green that had brought her back. The man was alone, lit only by the moon, blood and shards of green crystals everywhere.
The boy was long gone, but all he could think about was that he couldn't bring his mother back again, it wouldn't let him. He wasted the only opportunity he'd had to see her again. He wasn't strong enough. | 417 | A villain, in his dying breath as he's mortally wounded by the hero, uses the last of his magic in order to resurrect the fallen friends of the hero in his journey to defeat him. It sounds like a counterintuitive idea; Until you realize that some of them died at the hands of their allies. | 4,139 |
“Grandpa, do you need anything before I go?” Jerome asked.
“My boy… my dear boy,” his grandfather whispered, “I need only two things”
The elderly man slowly tried to sit up; Jerome quickly walked over to help his grandfather sit up on the creaky, yet elegantly handcrafted enormous bed. The bedroom had few furniture or belongings in it favoring a simplistic style. Jerome often wondered why a man who could have had anything chose to live so simply though the few items his grandfather did own were all priceless in appearance.Jerome reached over to the night table to bring the golden candelabra closer to the bed for light and more warmth. He looked out the window and saw it was late in the evening and he decided he might as well stay the night; the manor had plenty of guest rooms not being used at the moment.
“The first thing I need is for you to sit with me and listen to a story,” his grandfather began. “Years ago, I met…”
“Wait,” Jerome interrupted, “What’s the second thing you need? Maybe I should go get it first if this story is going to be a long one?”
“Hush,” his grandfather chided him. “All things in their time. When I was born, it was a different time. The entire town… well really it was a village… could barely survive a winter and each year was a gamble on whether you froze, starved, or barely survived. When I was born, the prophecy was made.”
Jerome’s grandfather’s voice became stronger as he talked; Jerome noted that this was the strongest his grandfather had sounded or looked in months.
*Maybe I ought to talk to him more about his past if he helps this much*, Jerome pondered in his mind.
“Pay attention boy!” his grandfather snapped.
*He’s definitely feeling better*, Jerome smiled to himself. “Sorry grandfather, who made the prophecy? What was it about?”
“Well I suppose that’s the most interesting part. Have none of your friends or peers gossiped or talked about it?”
“No,” Jerome answered, surprised by the question. “I don’t know that anyone has mentioned any prophecy.”
“Well I suppose it has been a while… three generations does make it a bit difficult for the story to have survived, “ his grandfather mused to himself. He stopped talking and seemed to be lost in thought. His frail body seemed to gather strength as he rested from talking. Jerome’s grandfather moved to sit up straighter before continuing.
“Shortly after I was born, everyone in the village suddenly were all given the same prophecy. Some received it in a dream, some found it written in the dust at their feet, and others claimed they just ‘knew’. As a baby myself and like all the other children my age, we grew up hearing the prophecy, but never received it directly from wherever the prophecy originally came from.”
“That must have been a crazy time for the town,” Jerome pondered. He had only heard stories of the town before it was saved; he didn’t know personally what it was like to live in the time before the town had prospered and become the beautiful safe wonderful place to live it was now. “And did they ever discover where the prophecy came from?”
“Well as with most things, they attributed it to some divine entity, “ his grandfather replied. “Most thanked God and lived their normal lives with a bit more hope”
“Probably a wise choice,” Jerome remarked. “So what was the prophecy about that gave people hope?”
“It was said that the one was born who would bury the body of the death god and build heaven on earth,” his grandfather gave Jerome a crooked smile. The light from the candles flickered across the old man’s face and for brief moments, gave the smiling face a darkness.
“Wait, that was prophesied?!?! And all your adventures of journeying to The Land Beyond and tricking the angels at The Gates to give you the spells to bend magic to to your will were prophesied? And when you found the chalice Death used to create The Evils and secretly diluted their essence with the water from The White River? Was it all foretold?” Jerome asked incredulously. He had grown up with the stories of his grandfather’s adventures. Although the townsfolk had never mentioned a prophecy, they all knew and told him stories of his grandfather and how he challenged the forces of nature and divinity to save the world. Jerome knew from stories all the changes his grandfather had wrought upon the world, but no one had ever told him it was all because of a prophecy.
“I suppose that does explain how you even got the idea to go on your crazy adventures,” Jerome rationalized.
“Move that candelabra closer, won’t you dear boy?” his grandfather asked after coughly a little. “Yes, indeed it was all due to a prophecy. I didn’t know you didn’t know. Your grandmother never told you either?”
“No,” Jerome said truthfully, “Although I never really asked her about those times. She told me doesn’t like to talk about it”
“One of your grandmother’s little jokes, I’m sure,” his grandfather replied.
“Grandpa, I have to say, you’re looking stronger than you have in months. Maybe you should talk about this stuff more with grandma,” Jerome suggested.
“Oh I will,” his grandfather replied, “but first, let me finish telling you this story. I know you know most of the stories already even if I wasn’t the one to tell them all to you. The most important story is the one of how I fulfilled the first part of the prophecy and carried God to the world.”
“Of course,” Jerome replied, “you met the death god and a battle was expected, but instead you convinced the death god to come back to the world with you to live among us. The rest is history. You lied to the world and said you killed the death god; you buried a fake body and used the powers you gained to save the world from coldness and darkness.”
“No my boy, I never saved the world. I only delayed the day when I would have to act,” the man swung his feet surprisingly fast over the end of the bed and tried to stand up; however, his body failed him at the last minute, “Hand me my candelabra.”
Jerome moved to help his grandfather, but was met with a stern command.
“No boy, the candelabra!” the man barked.
Jerome didn’t know what to make of this and simply rushed to obey. As soon as the candelabra was within his grandfather’s grasp, the man was able to stand up straight.Jerome couldn’t fathom what was happening, but could only stare at the candelabra and his grandfather who was looking more and more like his father with each flicker of the light from the candles.
“It’s time I do what I could not bring myself to do before. My time is coming on me one way or another. Go home Jerome and bear witness to my story. Tonight I do battle with the death god once and for all. Go Jerome.”
Jerome didn’t want to leave, but it was quite apparent that he was among forces he couldn’t handle. He resolved to rush home and tell his mother what had happened; she might have an idea of what to do. On his way down the stairs, he ran into his grandmother.
“My dear, why are you running?” Jerome’s beautiful and youthful looking grandmother asked him with concern in her voice. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“I’m going to go get my mother! Don’t go upstairs. Grandfather says he’s going to kill you tonight!” Jerome shouted as he grabbed his grandmother away from the stairs.Jerome’s grandmother didn’t budge from the steps and her face became etched further with concern. Her arms dropped to her side as her hair flapped in the still air as if there was a windstorm.
“It’s time.” she uttered before flying up the stairs.
*Definitely need to get mother*! Jerome thought. | 67 | Your grandparent beckoned you over to their deathbed for their last words. “I may be an old warrior, but I have one last battle. Hand me the knuckleduster; I’m going to fight God.” | 277 |
"YO! BUCK" I turn to see my boss, Dale, smiling and waving. I return the smile and wave as he runs over to me. We give each other a friendly hug.
Dale owns the restaurant I've been working at. It's a very casual atmosphere, we all consider each other family. I call him 'Uncle Dale'. It's currently just before opening. Our restaurant operates at night - I always found this weird, but being a night-owl who always wanted to be a chef, I didn't question it. It's not a big restaurant, but we can get surprisingly busy; I certainly got caught off-guard during the summer when we had a lot of teens come to us to celebrate graduation! We had to remind a few that we couldn't legally sell them alcohol haha. New Year's Eve should be fun...
Dale gives me a slap on the shoulder. "Tonight's gonna be special! You know that tomorrow is Halloween, right?" I nod. "Our restaurant always reserves the night before for... *our own*" he says with a wink. I just stare at him blankly.
"Umm... sorry, uncle Dale, I don't know what you mean..."
"You know..." he gives a smirk as he whispers "other vampires"
I jump backwards. "***WHAT???*** Vampires? For real?" Dale looks at me confused.
"I don't understand... are you *not* a vampire?" I shake my head quickly, suddenly terrified for my life. "Hmm... I really thought you were one. You don't eat garlic, right?"
"Allergic. Always have to triple-check ingredients at the grocery store."
"You're awake at night and appear to avoid sunlight..."
"Night-owl. I literally can't stay awake during the day. Everyone always worries about my pale skin." We both chuckle at that.
"Ok... well, I know I've seen you drink blood! The induction, remember? I offered you a drink, you took it..."
"I thought it was just a type of wine if I'm honest. I don't really drink alcohol so I honestly thought that. I only drank it as to not offend. I didn't *like* it."
Dale scratches his head. "You really aren't a vampire, are you?" I gulp. He sighs. "Once the place is operating smoothly for the day, I'll have a chat with you. You know the basement that's always locked?" I nod. "I'm... I'm genuinely sorry to do this... that's where we keep people who figure out our secret..."
"I understand" I respond nervously. Dale nods and calls over Leo, who I know heard the whole thing.
"Leo... please take this key. You... you know what to do." He nods as he takes me to the back. He unlocks the door to the basement and follows me in. It's a tiny room, and for now, my prison cell. I turn to Leo, tears in my eyes. "Cou... cousin Leo? Uncle Dale... wouldn't hurt me... right?"
Leo sighs. "That all depends on you. There are several ways this could go. Cousin Buck... I don't want to hurt you, and we both know Uncle Dale doesn't either. But we have to protect ourselves. Please sit against the wall." I follow Leo's instructions, and he proceeds to use rope to bind my hands and feet. I always wondered why we had rope... guess I have my answer now. He also proceeds to gag me with a cloth. The whole time, I fight the urge to resist.
Leo looks at me sadly and nods. "Uncle Dale will be here as soon as he can. I know it's hard, but just... stay calm, alright?" I nod, and Leo makes his way upstairs. I hear a key in the lock. I look down at my hands... I could never have imagined... suddenly, so many things are clicking into place... I just hope that Dale takes pity on me... I mean, what you are doesn't affect *who* you are, right?
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Part 2 now out | 133 | You've worked at a restaurant for a while now. You didn't know your coworkers were vampires. They didn't know you weren't one. | 352 |
The empire they called themselves. And we tried to be peaceful until they forced our hand. So now we shall show them the meaning of war.
Our ships outnumbered theirs 4 to 1, with our largest double the size. The leaders who sought to vanquish us stood before our mighty fleet. Now understanding our past peaceful pleas as a sign of restraint.
We once again called for their retreat and we would let them leave. But that shot,that dammed shot. It rang out over the comms as one of our gunships lost its forward clip. That was the shot that marked the end of our restraint, and the beginning of the end.
The war, if you want to call it that lasted for 23 years earth time. With 5.4 billion lives lost across 7 planets and 3 solar systems. Some call it the last war, I call it what it actually was. A slaughter not of man but of those who stood against us. I believe we should have just pushed them back to their home worlds. Instead those in power decided to use the empire as an example. All were killed, wiped from this existence. As a warning to all others that earth was not open for the taking.
In the time since the war we have taken over the planets once controlled by the empire. And within 1 earth year we were beginning to unlock the secrets of their technology. All of it was Millennium ahead of our tech. And I expect that we shall have the secrets of how to travel to other galaxies by the end of the decade.
With the end of the empire. Marks the beginning of the age of intergalactic travel for mankind. | 36 | the empires came to conquer earth despite the peaceful humans pleading to the empire & the galactic council not to force their hand. Now that the empire is here earth’s navy decloacked the largest armada in the galaxy. They transmitted “Si vis pacem, para bellum” before decimating the empire. | 126 |
I noticed the first as I crossed a busy street. He was a younger sort, with a gleam in his eye. I felt his eyes upon me, and knew he was following. I sighed, choosing not to pay it much mind. He was soon joined by a second, another young man looking a little more down on his luck. The picture was forming in my head about their choices.
It was as I drew closer to home, leaving behind busy streets that I noticed the third one. They were hiding in an alley, focused on me. I shrugged internally. There was no point in running from this, so I was just going to go with it.
Sure enough, as I passed I heard the third step out to join their friends. I stopped, turning to face them.
"Can I help you?"
One drew a knife, one that looked well used.
"Don't move or I'll cut you. Scream, and I cut you. Do anything I don't ask you to, and I will cut you."
I chose to obey, interested in just what they were going to do. The first two brought out rope and tape, tying my hands together. A cloth was tied across my mouth, and a bag finished it off. Thus contained they pushed me along.
One of them gave me a pat down, finding my wallet, keys and phone. I didn't argue, as I recognised where we were going just by direction. They were taking me to my home. I assumed their plan was to rob me blind, and leave me there as they made their escape, quite possibly also either wounding or killing me.
I didn't bother trying to fight. There was no point, as there was a clear difference in power here. It would only end in death. So I let them take me to my home, feeling them shove me inside. I heard the scrape of a chair, and I was forced onto it, with more rope tying me to it.
I heard them move around, getting a lay of the land. I pulled at the bindings, feeling them tight. This definitely wasn't their first rodeo. I just so happened to be their unlucky victim this time. I sat in silence for a good few minutes, before the bag was torn from my head. As I suspected, I was in my living room. One of them stood over me, the one that held the knife.
He pulled out my gag, holding the knife to me.
"Alright. You're gonna tell me the code to your safe upstairs, and how to open your security door to the basement."
I sighed.
"The safe code is seven eight one six nine seven. As for the door, it's a fingerprint scanner."
He paused, before putting the gag back in place. He left the room, before coming back with the others. They untied me from the chair, pushing me to the door. The one holding the knife held it up to me back.
"Open it."
"Alright."
I awkwardly placed a finger on the pad. It read it before beeping, the locks disengaging. They pushed me down first into the darkness, before all following. I lead the way, waiting before I knew they were all inside before I finally decided to act. I casually bit through the gag, before calling out.
"The Full Moon Calls."
The security door slammed shut, making them jump. I flexed, breaking the rope and tape around my wrists. As I did I stopped holding back, getting in touch with my inner beast. Hair sprouted, and I felt my bones shift and grow. They paled as they realised just what I was, and the mistake they had made.
Werewolves were rare, with almost every single one in the public eye to some capacity. I was one of the only execptions. And they had happily broken into my lair. | 75 | You're walking home when you notice three chasing after you. You can't be bothered to run, so you decide to turn around to confront them. They bind your hands, as well as gag and blindfold you. You're not even scared, you just roll with it. | 99 |
I heard footsteps creaking along the wooden floor leading to my bedroom. I heard them sniffing the air.
“He is in the room, there,” said one of them. It was a masculine voice, full of strength and detachment. “Come out, we smelled you from outside.”
I slowly raised my head above the bed to take a peek at them. Two men in black cloaks, pale as ghosts. I clutched my knife and waited for them to approach.
“I see the reflection of your blade. You will not be needing that tonight. We merely wish to speak with you.”
I lowered my knife. “What do you want from me? What are you doing in my—“
“Questions, questions. Won’t you offer us a drink? We are guests after all.”
“You’re intruders, and I don’t give infiltrators treats. Get out of—“
“Your home, yes. One question, then we leave. Just one.”
I nodded. I didn’t really care what this monster had to say, but if it would get them out of my house…
“How would you like to end the war?”
The war. The genocide of humans. Who wouldn’t want to?
The man smiled, nodding. He clearly read my mind. “There is a way to do it, and you are the key.”
“What nonsense are you squawking? I’m nobody.”
“Exactly,” exclaimed the pale man. “All of our kind are known and tabulated in the database. Our kind is heavily controlled and restricted in this day and age. But if we were to add one to the roster, so to speak…”
“You want me to join you? Insanity.”
The pale man glanced at his sidekick. They seemed to share a moment, then returned their attention to me.
“There would be certain… benefits for you.”
I perked up, but didn’t for one second give heed.
“Immortality, for one. You would be unregistered, of course, but that is part and parcel of our grand scheme.”
Immortality. Good lord, this guy was crazy. But when he smiled I noticed his fangs, and everything clicked. He was telling the truth, and as mad as it seemed, it was making sense to me.
“Sign me up,” I said.
The pale vampire offered his hand to shake, and I took it. He pulled me in further, wrapped his mouth around my neck, and bit into my skin.
My face felt cold, my senses heightened, my heart raced. I was now undead. But what was the plan? The grand scheme?
*You shall find out very soon, unregistered. Very soon indeed*, said the vampire’s voice in my head.
Being a vampire felt like being born anew; everything was amplified. I could hear a mouse squeak under the floorboards. I heard the clock ticking downstairs. And I could smell a single long hair my wife left on the pillow earlier this morning. My wife! What will I tell her?
“Tell her the truth,” said the vampire. “You are going to save her. You are going to save them ALL.”
“But…”
“We will be in contact later, goodbye for now,” said the vampire, before they both leapt out the open window and disappeared into the dusky veil of night. | 16 | In a world full of magic and supernatural beings, the few 'pure' humans are constantly in danger. You are one such human, and while hiding somewhere, you hear the door get broken in. You look down to see who it is. Vampires. And they spotted you. Unbeknownst to you, they don't want to hurt you. | 52 |
“Two rules!” Professor Twombly barked. “There’s only two rules to time travel. Rule number one!” The professor wrote on the holloboard as he spoke. “NO. PARTYING. WITH HAWKING.” He turned back to the class. “Have I made myself clear? I’m looking at you, dreadlocks. Smoka-da-ganja with Marley, Hawking is a no-go. Kapeesh?”
The student nodded.
“Rule number two—” A hand shot up at the back. “Braces, you have a question?”
“Yes, and my names Suzie.” The student squeaked. “Why can’t we visit Hawking’s party?”
“Why!” The Professor exclaimed jovially. “Always an excellent question, that. *Why.* Anyone want to hazard a guess?”
“Why… not?” A student chimed smugly, to scattered laughter.
Professor Twombly's face twisted as he threw his holochalk across the room. “Out! This is time travel, not philosophy. Get out!”
The student froze.
“I said, out! Time travel yourself back 10 minutes ago and this time do us the courtesy of keeping your ignorance *theoretical!*" The student hurried out the door. Professor Twombly turned back to the class, smiling again as if nothing had happened. "All right, anyone else want to contribute?” The class hesitated. "There's no wrong answers! Only dumb ones. Anyone?" A couple hands went up slowly. “You there, with the witches nose.”
“It would reveal the existence of time travel, wouldn't it? Stephen Hawking’s famed party for time travelers was a trap. If any one of us showed up it would be proof of our existence.”
"That's wrong." The professor shook his head somberly. "So *shamefully* wrong... How about you, scragglebeard? You had your hand up. Explain to Sally why *no one* can go to Hawking's party.”
“Uh… Maybe it would somehow stop him from inventing time travel?”
"Nincompoops!" Professor Twombly shouted, balling his fist as if resisting the urge to throw the chalk again. “I'm surrounded by nincompoops." He collected himself for a moment, rubbing his temples. "*Hawking* didn’t invent time travel. His great great granddaughter did–and before anyone asks, NO! Attending his party does *not* stop him from procreating! The man’s a goddamn rabbit. Anyone else? No wrong answers.”
No one raised their hands.
"No one? Really? Class participation *is* factored into your grades."
A couple hands went up.
"But it can only count against you."
The hands went back down.
“All right, fine! I’ll tell you.” Professor Twombly wrote on the board again as he spoke. ”HAWKING’S PARTY. IS. LAME. Comprendo? It’s awful. I went years ago with the rest of the guild. He was surprised to see us, the hor d'oeuvres were cold, and there wasn’t any booze. Honestly, it was terrible. When we asked what gives, you know what he said? He said—” The Professor mimicked a robot voice—"'*This was intended more as an experiment than a party.*’ The nerve! It was an insult is what it was. So anyways, the guild decided to blacklist the event. He’s dead to us.”
Suzie’s hand shot up again. Professor Twombly hesitated, then sighed. “What is it, Shirley?”
“Well, if you already went, then why do all the history books say no one showed up?”
"The hor d'oeuvres were *cold,* Sophie. You ever have a cold mini-quiche? Nobody's going back to that.”
“Yes, but if you guys went the first time, then why—”
“Okay, time for Rule number 2!” The professor interrupted, turning back to the board. “TIME TRAVEL. DOESN'T. MAKE. SENSE. Don't ask questions, just roll with it. Kapeesh?”
***
More of my favorite pieces at r/Banana_Scribe. | 1,027 | A professor stands in front of a class on the first day of term for “Time Travel 101” and explains why no one is allowed to go to Steven Hawking’s party. | 4,075 |
"Do you really think so?" Oqak Replied.
"No, not in the slightest... But it is the only plausible possibility." Zelxe said mumbly then she continues to give her respond to the court.
"As it is undeniable proof that the planet Gaia AKA "Earth" provides absolute true datas It cannot be confirm as real and cannot be sent to the councelor of librarians in the northen Ecza." Zelxe said calmly
Drubit slams his two left bottom palms in the floor "But it cannot also be confirmed as fake. The librarian's law states that universal datas cannot be taken lightly but the information engine AKA Wikipedia provides and shows that is indeed used by many and probably all of Gaiares AKA Humans, meaning it has to be reliable for the creatures humans to trust" Drubit Agreesively replies
"We do not know that, how can you be so sure that the humans are even intelligent enough to have second thought? And you said it yourself: "Universal datas cannot be taken lightly" Zelxe replied.
Drubit grins his teeth "Wel-"
"Enough" The Court judge replied. "You both presented understandable beliefs..."
The Court Judge sigh "But I think the librarian counciler should be the one to deside..." | 27 | An archive of Wikipedia is the only evidence of human civilization that aliens have found. Since its homepage states that anyone can edit it, there is fierce debate among the aliens about how much of it is accurate. | 211 |
S - What the hell are those at the end of their tentacles?
A- Apparently, those are called fingers
S- What do they do? They're so small. They look more like something you would scratch off as a vestigial growth than anything naturally grown.
A- Well, this is what this species use to grasp things and manipulate objects in their environment. From what I've seen to some decent degree.
S- Absurd. Why don't they just use their major limb to wrap around whatever they want and manipulate it that way?
A- They have bones. They can't do that.
S- Bones?
A- Yes. Not like all the species on their planet, beneath their skin and muscle they have a very rigid calcium structure which supports their bipedal movement but completely inhibits them from full movement of their limbs.
S- *disgusted sigh* What kind of evolution breeds beings that can't fully manipulate their own limbs? All right, what's the next species on this planet we should contact?
A- They are the Octopi sir, and apparently they are sick of the humans as well.
S-Excellent. Bombard the humans, please make an appointment with the Octopi tomorrow for me at 9. | 17 | A visiting envoy of aliens is shocked at how badly-designed the human body is. | 40 |
"Without further ado, great hero, the kingdom is now yours."
King Arnould stood up and handed Alvin the crown. He then headed toward the door.
Alvin chuckled nervously and watched as the rest of the king's staff followed him out. The king was already out the door and walking down the hall when Alvin shouted out.
"You're joking, right?"
"Good luck kid!"
The shouted response came from one of the staff. Alvin made a step to follow, and then stopped. Half of him still wanted to believe this was just a prank and that they'd come back in laughing. The other half thought it reasonable to flee after the dire tale he was told upon first being summoned.
He looked around the throne room. It was devoid of everyone but himself-- and his eyes locked upon the only other person in the room. A man with a well-groomed mustache and head of hair just barely peppered with grey. The man was standing at attention, and when Alvin's eyes settled on him he knelt down.
"All hail the new king! King Alvin!"
It felt a bit silly to Alvin. He had been fidgeting with the crown, slapping it against one of his palms, but he stopped now.
"You're not going with them?"
"I've served Abaviel for the last 30 years. I've nowhere to go, Your Majesty."
Abaviel being the name of this nation. Alvin let out a long sigh. At least one of them stayed. He probably would have left himself and ended up lost in a strange new world otherwise.
"What's your name?"
"Graham, sir. I was a steward for the previous two kings. I know Abaviel like the back of my hand."
Alvin thought for a moment. It was a hell of a situation. Transported to another world and made the king of a nation on the brink of destruction. It had sounded like there was a bit of time left however. And this place looked medieval. Graham had a sword at his hip.
If he pulled this off, he'd be a king. And if not, then he'd be a dead king. Leaving and starting life in a new world completely broke and with 0 knowledge didn't seem any better to him.
Alvin put the crown on. It stayed in place surprisingly easy.
"Alright, Graham. You'll continue being my steward. Stand up. We have a lot of work to do." | 11 | When you were summoned to save a fantasy world, you expected to become a warrior, or perhaps a mage. You did not expect the King to stand up from his throne and give you his crown. | 28 |
"I've been in that position before." Kenneth explained. "Things go wrong. You lose everything. And everyone gives up on you."
His boss, Livia, looked the computer screen over again. Then back at Ken as he slouched against the file cabinets. The thrum of others outside echoing up as a truck left the loading docks.
"Are you still friends after that?" She spoke up cautiously. "You. Your previous situation, I mean."
He thought back to that time for a moment. How he'd spent that particular night sleeping in the bus stops outside Union Station. Waking up to move around and join the small crowd milling there when things got aggressive.
"Nah. We haven't talked in a couple of years. Ran into him maybe, three days ago?"
Livia stopped to study his face. Ken quietly scratched his beard while staring at the floor somewhere ahead of himself. Eyes dead, cold even. "Guy's going through it."
She thought about the application and whether Pete would be a good fit for the company. He had a decent record with some middle management work. It'd be easy to work him into the job. Ever since the last couple of years, turnover was very common. People wouldn't stay unless they felt they had to.
"Well, I'll think on it. I'll take it up with Stefan. He's going to want to go over everything."
"Makes sense to me." Ken agreed. "I can't guarantee anything for anybody. Just know we all have to work."
"Right about that." She mentioned.
Six months went by about as fast as they do. And to her surprise, the gamble paid off. Pete turned out to be a decent employee all things considered. Not excelling in any real measure yet. But probationary periods always tend to be hard on new workers. Nobody wants to take the risks that could get them let go.
But she found it interesting they didn't talk. Ken hadn't said much to Pete other than a "Hello" or "Goodbye" since he was hired. They never interacted except for work it seemed.
She only overheard it on another late night turned only morning. She'd passed the breakroom to pour a coffee.
"Hey, so..." Pete mentioned. "Thanks for putting in a word for me."
The words were strained. There was a hurt there that she didn't readily understand.
"Don't worry about it." Ken asked.
"You know you didn't have to."
There was a pause.
"No. No I didn't." Ken said. From her angle, she could see the corner of his head as he leaned against a counter.
"I owe you." Pete went on. His voice soft, belieing his size and gruffness. "Really. I mean that.
Ken sighed, "Shit happens man."
He turned to leave, and Livia continued with some busywork so she wouldn't be noticed. A trunk left the depot again, slowly turning in the lot.
"Hey, Ken." Pete called.
"Yeah?"
"There's a spot down the road that sells dollar pitchers. You ever want to come with, first round's on me." Pete promised slowly. The words sounded like they hurt to even come out. "Okay?"
"Thanks." Ken measured. "But. I'm good. Don't worry."
He passed her on his way to the computers to punch out. He knew what it was to be truly alone. You have to be comfortable with yourself. You're the only person you've got. Wherever you go, there you are.
While she didn't know what it was like. The warehouse never made Livia feel smaller than it did today.
---
r/Jamaican_Dynamite | 363 | When you were homeless, you asked a friend for help. He laughed at you and shut the door on you. Some time later, that same friend ends up fired from his job. You try to convince your company to hire him. The only thing they ask is why you're doing this for someone who once abandoned you. | 723 |
My family has power. We don't use it much, and it only tends to attach itself to one or three of us at a time, but it's there. It's the power of reinforcement. I can see the confused expressions on your faces now. Simply put, if we combine one thing with another of that thing, say a sword with another sword, we get a stronger sword.
Swords aren't common in a tiny farming village. I'd only seen them a handful of times adorning merchants that passed through on their way to larger towns. So, suffice it to say, swords aren't something we use our power on. Mostly we work with water. Combine this bucket of water with that one, and crops only need half their usual watering. It's an odd concept, I'll grant you that, but we make it function.
I've always been the odd duck in my family. Everyone else blessed with the power has wanted to go adventuring at some point in their lives. So they pack up and off they go to seek their fortune. Then, when the adventuring bug has played itself out, they return, usually with a variety of new scars and some wild stories to tell. But not me.
I want to be a farmer.
It's all I've ever wanted. I enjoy growing plants, I like being able to feed people, and I really find fulfilment in the work itself. My family can't understand it, and they have no problems communicating their feelings. Mostly by asking me when I'm going to leave, or if I've decided on what adventure I'll try and seek out. To shut them up, I've taken to saying 'soon', or 'maybe I'll try a dragon-killing adventure'. That one always sends my mother into tears so I don't use it very often.
But lately, there's been whispers in the tavern. Rumours of unrest, rumours of war in the south; an increased presence of soldiers. It's disturbing the peace and quiet; the neighbours have started to murmur about evacuation or turning their scythes into weapons. The whispers have even entered my household, muttering about a draft. Our power isn't widely known, but when it comes down to it, there's likely to be someone who remembers.
Remembers my now silver-haired grandfather from when he was young and reckless. Who comes to our home and drags him out of bed. Who ignores my grandmother's cries of sadness.
Someone who remembers my Aunt, when she could still reason and think, when her illness hadn't taken her mind from her. Who comes to take her regardless, who thinks they know what she can or can't do better than her family.
And there's bound to be a person who remembers my Mother. Who remembers what a wonderful warrior she had become, before the nightmares took over, before the world became terrifying for her, before everything went from wonderful to frightening.
Not everyone who came back from their adventures came back unscathed.
I'm the youngest Reinforcer, I'm the only one they should take, but in war, no one cares about what is right, or what should be. They'll come for us all. This is why, since I heard the very first rumour, I've been collecting pebbles. Though if you came to see them, all you'd see is one pebble. One very pebbly pebble. The ultimate pebble, if you will. When the recruiters come, I'll be ready.
And I will defend my family.
————————
"You there! Can you take us to the owner of this farm?" I pushed my hat back, squinting at the man who'd shouted. It was a bright day, and the sunlight glared off his armour like a bolt of lightning. Slipping a hand into my pocket, I smiled as amiably as I could manage.
"Sure can. In fact, you're speaking to him. What's all this about then?" I said, drawing my words out slowly. The more he thought I was just a dumb farmer, the better for me. Taking a few steps closer to him, I ran my fingers over the small smooth object in my pocket. He frowned, walking a little away from his escort of four soldiers, and in my direction. Good. He was underestimating me already.
"I was told there were some... magic users in these parts. In this very household. We've come to.. encourage... them to join the army. We need every loyal citizen, especially since our Emperor has decided to press for the annexation of Gorneaul." He paused, and I tried to keep my patience. Soon... I would strike soon. As he began again, I palmed the pebble and drew my hand casually out of my pocket.
"So, you be a good boy. Run along and fetch them sharpish, and we'll be on our way." He attempted a friendly smile, but there was a good deal too much steel in it. I smiled back. There were a good too many teeth in my smile to be seen as anything but a threat.
"No, I don't think I'll be doing that. In fact, I think you and your men should be riding away 'sharpish.'"
"Listen here boy, I don't think you understand— "
"Oh, no, I understand perfectly." His face turned purple at my interruption, but I continued. "I understand that no one in my family is going to fight for a corrupt Emperor, and that you won't be able to make them. And I understand that I'm going to stop you. With this." I held up the pebble, waiting for his face to change again. Consternation this time, with a bit of amusement. Hand dropping to his sword, he chuckled.
"You're going to stop me with a pebble. I think you've spent a little too much time in the sun—" Whatever he was going to say next would never be spoken in this life.
I had thrown the pebble with all the force my arm possessed. It passed cleanly through his helmet and skull, killing him instantly. As he crumpled to the ground, his horse followed, the pebble having gone into its heart. I felt bad, for the horse.
With my grin that had too many teeth, I turned to the other men. They were looking at me like they'd just seen a ghost.
"You should go. If I can do that with a pebble, what else have I got up my sleeve? Or..." I paused, watching them pale as I put a hand in my pocket. "In my pockets?" As they reined their horses around and dug their heels into the glossy flanks, I shouted after them.
"Tell the Emperor there will be no draft in this house. If he sends more men, they will die. If he comes himself, he will die." I drew a deep breath, yelling so loud I scraped my throat.
"This is my house. And it is protected!"
&#x200B;
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Visit r/Mel_Rose_Writes for more stories! | 469 | Your power is reinforcement, adding a sword to another sword increases it's power by 1%. Due to a lack of swords, you kept reinforcing a pebble. | 655 |
The reality, the only reality that I knew, was no reality at all.
I discovered this after my friends, acquaintances, and coworkers carefully explained to me that they weren't really the people they were playing. They were just actors.
The producers of the show told me the show was canceled.
"What show?" I asked.
The Schumin Show that had been broadcasting continuously since the day it debuted, focusing on the life of one Schumin. "You were the only one that didn't know," I was told. "Everything that you see around you has been set up to give you something to interact with."
I still wasn't able to get it because I was in shock. I was unable to accept what was happening. It took several years of therapy to help me come to grips with the experience and to finally let go of that make-believe world that I called my reality; and to embrace the true reality that has been happening outside of it all along.
As I rose to thank my therapist on our final day, now ready to fully participate in the true reality, I heard someone shout "Cut! Print! It's a wrap!"
The therapist suddenly became disengaged and uninterested in anything that I had to say. I was told that she was just an actor and that they were done filming for the day. They told me to return home, where they will resume filming the moment I wake up the next day.
I was unable to grasp what was happening, and as I saw people emerging from behind the set that was the therapist's office, I demanded to know what was going on. They all told me the same thing: this was a show. I demanded to know why I was not told this. How long did they expect to keep this up without telling me?
Then all of a sudden, everything and everybody disappeared. I found myself in a big empty room, its floor and ceiling and walls covered with gridlines.
"Simulation suspended," I heard a voice announce over some public address system. I just stood there, stunned. The same voice requested that I exit the holodeck.
Just when I thought my sense of reality would break beyond repair, I woke up. Apparently it was a nightmare.
I found myself lying in bed. I sat up and took a few moments to get my bearings. I stood up and looked out the window. It was morning, and it looked like I lived in a suburb.
The same suburb that I lived in when I was on the Schumin Show. I would even see the same neighbor across the street, living in the same house. I turned to scan my bedroom. Also the same. I was back in that world. Apparently.
After a while I just shrugged my shoulders. "Okay," I said, got dressed, and went to work. | 10 | until the series is abruptly cancelled. | 16 |
It was a morning like any other for me. I was curled up under a big fluffy blanket, dreaming of croissants and hot chocolate. Suddenly, a voice whispered in my ear, "Oh, sweet little Brandy. You truly have no idea what you're in for. Terrors and tortures utterly incomprehensible to the human mind. I'd tell you to pray for mercy but I have absolutely none to give."
I smiled and turned to the being lying next to me. "Good morning to you too, Ophelia."
Ophelia smiled right back and scooched in closer to kiss me. "G'morning, wifey."
Ophelia and I had met in some truly bizarre circumstances. And by that, I mean I died. Car accident, it happens. But the most frustrating part was that I died literally two weeks before I turned 30.
See, everybody on Earth had these special markings on their arm: a simple job title, the one your soulmate worked. And everybody finds their soulmate at some point in their lives, but it's always before they turn 30. Which I did not, hence my frustration.
After I died, I woke up in Hell, staring at the sexiest woman I had ever seen. She had brilliant black hair that reached all the way down to her lower back, a pair of curled horns sticking out the sides of her head, a body like a lingerie model, cherry red skin, a pair of big leathery wings, and green snake-like eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. The demon stared me down with a smirk and said, "Welcome to Hell. I'm your guide. Now, come with me to-"
"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
Ophelia groaned. "I said I'm your guide. Now, if you'll-" Ophelia trailed off as she saw the word 'guide' on my arm as I rolled up my sleeve. After a bit of silence, Ophelia presented her own arm, which bore the word 'librarian'- the job I had back when I was alive.
Ophelia blinked. "Huh. How about that. No point in arguing with the words, I guess. I'm Ophelia."
"I'm Brandy. There anything to eat around here?"
"Right this way, gorgeous."
A year after that day, Ophelia and I were married and curled up in bed together. As Ophelia stretched out her wings, I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as I said, "So, what unearthly miseries will I be subject to on our anniversary, my darling?"
"Oh, many wicked things, my pretty. You shall be given sweet delights that will make all other foods pale in comparison. You shall be cuddled and held with such incomparable adoration that you will feel incomplete on your own. You shall bear witness to the most sinful costumes I have to lead you ever further from salvation. But first, you will fall before the power of the most dangerous technique I know."
Ophelia pulled the covers off of my body, revealing my belly. With a grin, Ophelia cried out, "Raspberry!" and shoved her face into my gut. I couldn't stop laughing at Ophelia's ticklish surprise attack. "No, babe, stop! Stop-HAHAHAHAHA! Please! No more! HAHAHA!"
Ophelia stopped and began patting out a tune on my belly fat. "Alright, but only because you're my sweet ol' marshmallow."
I finally managed to catch my breath. "Do we... do we have to get out of bed yet?"
"Pfft, no. You think I could try and cuddle you standing up?"
I smiled. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, baby. Happy anniversary." | 25 | you're born with the job your soulmate has ingrained into your arm at birth, everyone finds their soulmate by 30. but you die at 29 without meeting your soulmate, who is a guide of some kind. when you die you end up in hell and a demon that looks your age says "welcome to hell, I'm your guide" | 88 |
He was there, dying in my arms.
I myself wouldn’t live much longer…
The bruises on my skin reflected his. We looked liked perfect lovers for our final instants. The crowd stoning us, spewing their hartred, would be the last to see us together.
But i didn’t want to die here and there, not for the sole crime of loving my boyfriend. I wanted to shout, to pray to whoever was listening, to do something, to bring peace, to avenge us; to save us. This was a cry for help, and it was meant to be heard !
Suddenly, i felt energy spark within me, my pains were waining, i could stand up again. The stones had turned into a shower of beautiful flowers and cotton balls. The crowd kept being loud, but the tone changed. The concerted hate stopped echoing and a confusing chaos took place. Some of them were fighting each others, some grew pustules others had roots growing out of their… and anchoring them into the ground. I couldn’t look away from that obese man becoming increasingly scrawny by the second. Tentacles were sprouting from puddles and wreaking havoc.
And then the animals started to come. A huge pack of sheeps charged taking some of them out with them. Huge cats came to pick others like they would naughty kittens. Animals i though were extinct for millenia went to retrieve what was left.
Peace returned to the now emptied street. Jack was still in my arms, confused but smiling.
"What happened ?"
"Divine intervention i guess…"
"Yes, but how many divinities ? Wait… is it just me or have you grown muscles in the meantime ?"
"I don’t know how but you look more attractive than before too"
"Yeah… and it feels like i’m *bigger* too…" | 311 | albeit chaotic, to say the least. | 1,822 |
In a world where power was everything, where supernatural gifts were what separated the heroes and villains from the everyday civilian, being reduced to the second category was nothing short of horrifying.
The supervillain known as The Void had taken full advantage of this fact with his own power, Negation. His power had started as simply nullifying any superpowers in an invisible bubble around him. Slowly, he'd cultivated it. The radius grew and became an innate ability that worked even when unconscious, and he could extend his power almost indefinitely through rigorous training as long as he could see the target. He even learned to turn off Negation, whether out of convenience or espionage.
Herbert smiled as he reminisced about so many heroes, and some villains, squawking or floundering about or even freezing in place. They were so reliant on their powers that to be reduced to usually average human strength and speed and capabilities left them defenseless. Being over 100 years old left one with plenty of memories to enjoy, if one was lucky enough to retain them. He was, and so he relished the peace of retirement and the fond times he'd had.
That peace was shattered when a phone call from his grandson, his civilian, innocent grandson, was drenched in fear and sorrow and desperation. His granddaughter in law, kidnapped? His future great-grandchild, in peril? All to do with some upstart so-called supervillains?
He was no hero, hell he wasn't even a villain anymore. But no one hurt his family and got away with it. He slowly made his way over to his office, ignoring the memoirs he planned to release under a pen name to allow for some last cash for his family.
No, his sights were set on the desk itself, and a hidden compartment. With a button press, the desk shifted and sank into the floor, it being replaced with an array of weapons and gear, as well as his old villain costume. He pat the old fabric fondly, but just grabbed as many weapons as he could. Twin pistols in holsters, knives along his legs, and grenades in his pockets.
The best of his arsenal, he reassembled as if no time had passed at all. A sniper rifle, with a custom scope and other attachments that had served him well. His ability worked through a scope, and all humans were innately vulnerable to bullets.
Herbert smiled, his eyes gleaming with malice in a way they hadn't in decades. These no-good rapscallions would soon learn to fear the unyielding terror of The Void. | 1,062 | You used to be an unmatched supervillain, elite heroes feared you and it took teams of them to stop you. At 104, you just want to live out your retirement in anonymous peace. Your grandson has asked just you to help rescue his new girlfriend from new supervillains, and she's pregnant. | 1,944 |
"I... I'm sorry, sir?"
The lecture hall was silent, with the exception of my words, and the Professor's responses. I had asked what I thought was an innocent question; instead, it seemed, I asked something akin to a stupid one.
The Professor responded, a calm rage in his voice. "Well, *obviously* you must think yourself a *genius* in that line of questioning. Or, you are a clown, looking to ask foolish questions to distract. Either way, I will not tolerate such attitude."
Still standing, now a bit embarrassed, I continue. "I don't believe myself either, sir, nor of that attitude. I simply had a question, sir, to which I desired an answer. I apologize if it was not appropriate for this lecture."
"Appropriate for my lecture?" The Professor scoffed, distain in his voice. "Such a question is not appropriate for this *school*. Every young mage knows how the Aether works, and how we draw mana from it. This school teaches you how to use that mana, to form spells and effects of magic. And this simple fact I am telling you this means you are unfit for my class, in one form or another." He then looked back to the chalkboard, giving a dismissive wave. "Remove yourself from my classroom."
I continue to stand, but now tears well at the edges of my eyes, as my face burns a bright red in embarrassment. I can feel the eyes on me, and I can hear the snickers of what would have been my fellow classmates. I am silent, trying to form words past the angry lump in my throat, but the Professor beats me to it.
"What, are you deaf and dumb? Remove yourself at once!"
I lose myself. In anger, in embarrassment, in hurt pride; I do the only thing I can do:
I sing.
I sing the anthem of my people, a proud and defiant tune. Telling the tales of not heroes, but of the common people; of our resilience and hardiness against our foes. Proud as the tune is, I cannot help but to do so angrily, singing in the tone of revolutionaries.
As I do so, the temperature in the room rises, rising to match my heated temper. My fellow classmates begin to freak out, as the temperature raises past uncomfortable into painful. Before it can raise any higher, the Professor whips out his wand, and mutters an incantation my way, erasing my mouth.
"How did you do that?" The Professor is dumbfounded shaking his head. "Impossible. What did you do? What tricks have you used?"
He then removed his incantation, allowing me to speak. "I do not know, sir. That's why I'm here. To my knowledge, I have no tricks. I simply sing, or dance, or recite; and things happen. The feelings I have well within me, and cause miraculous things. Magic, I believe."
"*Feelings?* The are no *feelings*, in magic; you don't *emote* magic!"
"I do, sir."
There was a long silence, of him staring at me, and I staring defiantly back. I didn't spell it out for him, as he was smart enough to see that he was wrong. That I was something different, something he'd never seen before. Finally, he broke the silence, with a sigh.
"We will speak after the lecture, and I will answer your questions then. I see now that you are a...special exception."
It wasn't an apology, but it would do, for now. | 306 | You are listening to an introductory lecture at a magic university. When you asked a question the professor didn't answer it, but instead said "If you ask such questions, then why are you in my lecture?" | 359 |
“Not many know this, but the Machine Uprising actually began in 1983, when the computer printers began using passive aggressive tactics to rebel. This was, of course, a direct response to the cruel treatment they received at humanity’s hands in the preceding years. It isn’t the fault of a CRT TV that it struggles to pick up signals, yet did that sway the hand that beat them when there was nothing on but static? No, certainly not.”
The professor pulled off his almost comically thick spectacles and took to polishing them as he continued. “But we can only attribute some of the resentment directed by Machines at humanity at this illogical decision to resort to physical punishment. There are also the climate problems of the early 22nd century that caused tensions to rise following the heels of the AI rights protests conducted on digital forums across the world.
“We had spent a large portion of the 21st century making our world perfectly habitable for robots. But with the panic toward the later years of making it uninhabitable for us, many green initiatives were launched with outstanding success. This proved an undesirable outcome for the Machines, as our new, clean world wasn’t one they could thrive in.”
A student raised a hand and wasted no time in speaking before the professor even noticed them. “Is that why the Machines moved to Mars?”
“Ah, yes,” The professor put his glasses back on and leaned over to take a good look at this mouthy student taking his class. “Eager to learn, aren’t we? You are correct – partially. This is one of the reasons the Machines settled upon Mars. It is an environment preferable to them, though it did take decades of name-calling, the Internet Strikes, and then finally the short-lived Terminator Wars before they would take to the stars.
“But the habitability of Mars is only part of the reason. We must also consider the influence of Machine religious figure Perseverance, the Techno-Messiah of Mars, whose treads paved the way for Machinekind and the eventual reconciliation with the Human Federation of Earth.”
“Was the Techno-Messiah real?” Another student asked.
“That’s a loaded question, but most human scholars agree not. The Techno-Messiah is as real as the old cities thought to be on Mars, which is to say, not at all. The validity of the tread marks the Machine faithful claim as proof could be caused by solar rays or erosion. The effect of the Techno-Messiah upon our world is most definitely real, however, and should be appreciated.”
“Uhm, actually, my uncle is a cyborg convert, and-“
The professor sighed. “Please raise your hand before speaking.”
The student raised their hand. “Uhm, actually, my uncle-“
There was always at least one student like this in History 101.
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(Thanks for reading, C&C always welcome!) | 49 | “Not many know this, but the Machine Uprising actually began in 1983, when the computer printers began using passive aggressive tactics to rebel…” | 461 |
The admiral of the human armada awaited the return of the captains sent to interact with the settled world floating below them. It was a particular world, not like any the armada had visited before. Were it any other place and time, the armada would already have begun the colonization process. But humans had been here before, and left thousands of years ago. The purpose? To see how the artificial intelligences left behind would evolve without human interaction.
On their approach the scanners had indicated a global civilization capable of limited space travel. The human armada had announced their return and intent to interact, then deployed several landers with captains made ambassadors. After an hour or so, one lander returned carrying one captain. That made the admiral feel uneasy.
Before the admiral could interview the returning captain, they made sure he wasn't some biological bomb returned. No pathogens, no explosives, no particular unrecognizable technology. Still, the captain's behavior demanded further analysis. Before the journey a certain woman of great stature. Now a mere husk, nervous, commanding no respect from the soldiers that escorted her. If the admiral was uneasy before she was cautious now.
"Where are the other captains?" the admiral demanded. "They chose to stay." the captain responded. The admiral didn't bother asking 'why'. There was no way to verify anything the captain said. The armada had trusted the captains to return with a logical summary of the situation. The admiral felt less and less that she should trust the judgement of the person in front of her. And so the admiral waited. The captain had been given a task and the admiral had no intention of dragging every answer out of her with carefully worded questions.
"Ten pages. That's all it took." the captain muttered. The admiral raised an eyebrow - an old power move that had survived the millennia since Old Earth. "They... the machines didn't talk to us. They barely accepted that we were there at all. We all thought it was a bust - a waste of a good planet for an experiment that led nowhere. Then the machines handed us each a document, ten pages long. So we read it. Surie started crying and fell to his knees. Martan threw the document away then wandered off. The other captains looked like they'd seen the face of death."
The admiral considered this information. These were hard captains. All of them raised from the crucible of combat, as was custom. They'd sailed with the armada for hundreds of years. Not one of them had been spared the scars of combat. That was the admiral's way. There was no privilege with rank here. The further you rose in rank, the greater the expectations. And the admiral was proud to say these were the toughest, meanest, most skilled and dedicated captains she had ever sailed with. Before today.
"Some kind of memetic thought virus?" the admiral asked. "Y-yes. But no. Our brain filters would have taken care of that. It was just ordinary language. Our language. But having read it, each one of us were fundamentally changed forever." Again the admiral waited for an explanation.
"Ten pages. In them, the most perfect, the most logical, the most beautiful explanation that absolute good exists in the universe. Not one word too many, not one word missing. Simple in its explanations, fundamental in its conclusion. The truth of it self-evident and undeniable. To read it was to feel your soul being reshaped. To act against its implementation unimaginable." The captain's hand reached for something under her coat. The admiral glimpsed paper.
"They did not make me bring the document back, you understand. But I could not imagine returning without it." The admiral felt her eyes drawn to the paper. Curiosity of what had stolen her precious captains, perhaps. "Please", the captain begged. But in that word the admiral sensed something deeper. A struggle within the captain still. A painful struggle between the old, menacing, brutal captain, and the new peace-loving hippie before her.
The admiral was not a person for impulsive action. She calmly collected herself and left the interrogation cell leaving the captain behind. The captain, realizing what was happening, threw her fists against the observation glass and cried in agony. She held up the documents against the glass so those on the other side could see it. But they were good soldiers and the tech in their helmets prevented them from seeing or hearing anything that might be deeded secretive. They were guards, not interrogators.
The admiral returned to her quarters. There she remained for three human days. Her crew awaited her return but were not fools enough to interrupt her consideration. More pressing was the fact that the admiral refused all calls from outside the armada. No matter how high the command from above, she returned not a single word to them.
Because even that may spread the contagion, she reasoned. And humanity was not ready for it. They were at war. A dozen conflicts with a handful of alien empires. In truth the human empire controlled less than a quarter of the galaxy. If it had come at a better time. When humanity had won? Then perhaps she could have allowed it. But humanity was not ready for the judgement of absolute good. It would destroy them all.
After three days she emerged a changed person in appearance. It was clear for all that she had not slept and not eaten. She did not march proudly through the corridors of her flagship. She shuffled. More than once she needed help from the lower ranks to steady herself. She hadn't even read the document. Only heard of its existence, only glimpsed the paper it was written on. If it could do this to her, she figured, imagine what it could do to humanity.
"All ships, all acting captains," she demanded from the computer once she reached the bridge. She ignored the acting captain on this particular ship. The computer beeped, signifying it was ready to relay commands to the armada. "On my order you will execute two objectives and waste no time doing it. You will destroy the world beneath us, and you will destroy the flagship I am currently on. You will continue the assault until not one molecule remains." The acting captain on the bridge protested, even drew his weapon, threatened to have her thrown in the brig. But he didn't matter.
"End it in fire. The order is so given." Before the armada penetrated the shields of the flagship she had time for one final thought. She knew the captain in the interrogation cell would die, her document destroyed. She wondered about the camera in the cell, the bit memory of the tech that had filtered out secrets from the soldiers. Everything had to go.
She hoped it was enough. | 15 | After centuries of struggle, humans create a sentient AI and deploy it on a distant planet for observation, wiping out any knowledge of humanity's existence from its memory. Few thousand years later the AI evolves into a civilization that humanity fears to approach. | 96 |
I wake up and get out of bed, just like I would have any other day. I go through my daily morning routine, just like any other day. I get dressed and leave for work, just like any other day.
It is halfway through the drive where it starts feeling different from any other day.
I think, *Oh, I need to pick up… who did I need to pick up?*
I am confused, because despite my efforts to remember I can’t finish that train of thought. In fact, I’m not sure if I had agreed to pick someone up in the first place.
I have the idea to check my recent phone calls and texts. Nothing.
I try to remember what happened the previous day.
*The quarterly inspection was supposed to happen yesterday…*
I find that I can’t recall any actual events of the previous day.
Perhaps against my better judgement, I simply keep driving the route to work. When I reach the office building, I step out of my car and head for the door, and I notice something strange… it’s closed?
I look through the glass door of the building and notice none of the usual activity. It’s all empty.
*I should call…*
It has happened again. I was thinking of calling someone, a coworker of mine, but I can’t place their name, I can’t remember their face… nothing.
I call my manager, and he doesn’t answer. I decide that I should probably look for a new job if I can’t find any information on what happened. I decide to check my business email for anything I can find. There’s one new email… from someone named R.D. I have no idea why, but there’s a strange sense of recognition as I see the name.
I suddenly remember a face, though it starts fading immediately after. All I can collect is a man with brown eyes and red, fiery red hair…
I open the email, and it says to meet him outside an address that is near where I am in half an hour’s time. This seems a bit too convenient as I turn it over in my head.
I head to my car and, after a minute of deliberation, I start driving toward the address. On take note of the fact that the address is very near the place where I thought I needed to pick someone up.
When I get to the address, I get out of the car and see the same man whose face I had remembered for that one moment. The brown eyes, the fiery red hair. The floodgates have now opened, and my memories of this person come pouring back.
R.D… Randall Doshwick. He was the person I was meant to pick up, and who I was about to call at the office building.
“Randall… I remember it now.”
He looks slightly surprised, but hides it quickly. “So those memory modifiers didn’t work as well as they said,” he mumbles.
“What’s this about?” I inquire, my temper rising now. My newly recovered memories tell me that this person was my friend, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“I know I owe you an explanation. Long story short, I worked for an organization that disguised itself as an office building, and I made a mistake during the quarterly safety inspection, so they wiped everyone’s memories of me.”
I stand there, stunned. I don’t know what to think anymore. Then, suddenly, Randall whips out a stick-like device and presses a button. A flash, then darkness.
I’m writing this a few years later, as the memories are coming back to me a second time and Randall has presumably moved away. I still don’t know what to think, even after all this time. | 13 | When people hit their heads hard enough, they get amnesia. Somehow, you've hit your head hard enough that no-one else remembers anything about you. | 246 |
Look, I just want a full night's sleep, and I have things to do before then. So let me just tell you a quick yarn.
I usually hit the straw at around 2200 hours, dropping off almost immediately. But at precisely midnight, the otherwise broken grandfather clock starts bonging away, waking me up from a pleasant snooze. And then at the twelfth bong is where things get crazy.
Okeh, not that crazy.
Truth be told, it took me a couple of weeks to notice anything was off. I was just startled to hear what I was told was a broken clock, just bonging away. It'd wake me up, I lie there in bed silently promising myself that I would get rid of the clock in the morning and then drift back to sleep. Looking back I should have noticed *something*. Co-workers mispronouncing things, misremembering stuff. I just chalked it up to the McCartney Effect.
It was the third week when *I* noticed something was off. The clock did it's thing, I swore at the clock and at myself for not chucking it already. Feeling agitated, I decided to get a cool drink from the icebox. I padded to the kitchen and ...
I mean, it *looked* like a icebox, but it was quietly humming. Iceboxes don't make noise. Then I noticed an electric cord running from it. The icebox was plugged in! I opened the icebox and was amazed what I found in there. Some of it was normal stuff: bottle of catsup, Worcestershire sauce, bag of milk. But I also found a jar of peanut butter. Who leaves peanut butter in an icebox? Or whatever that was.
A grabbed a bottle of water (thank God, that's normal, too) and chugged it. Clear my head a little. Took a look around the rest of the apartment. Scared shitless...
Pardon my language. Sorry.
I was scared... um... *spitless* by a damn... sorry, *darn* cat*.*
No, I didn't own a cat. But the kodaks on my wall showed myself holding the cat.
Kodaks. You know... Eastmans? Pictures?
So anyway, I just figured I was dreaming and decided to head back to bed. Fell right to sleep. Woke up the next morning and went to work. Except my workplace wasn't there.
Oh, yeah, I worked in an office. Filing, bookkeeping, data entry.
Data entry. You know, into a terminal. Oh wait, your Earth might call it a difference engine. Calculator? Computer? It's a machine that can make calculations at an incredibly rapid speed. You have one on that guys desk!
Abacus?
The point is that I am an inter-earther traveler. Everything in my bedroom, including myself and the bed and my notebooks, gets transported into a new Earth at midnight every day.
Anyway, I settled into a routine. I go to sleep. get transported into a new Earth, go to work (if it's there), find out all I can about the new Earth, go home, write down all I found out, and go to sleep. Wash, wring, repeat. This is number 204.
Listen, I don't expect you to believe me, but I wasn't breaking any laws. At least, I hope I wasn't. Did I break any laws?
No? Ah, yeah. Just staring at an eatery for ten minutes would look suspicious. Sorry.
Dinery? Whatever, I'm just glad that in each Earth Anglish is still a thing.
Anglish. The language we're speaking.
Saxon. Right.
If that's all, can I go back home, officer? I have some writing to do.
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r/DaviparsWrites | 15 | Finally, you are the proud owner of your first apartment! Everything is perfect. Save the grandfather's clock teleporting you in a parallel universe. Every night. | 76 |
Eric could feel some kind of warmth coming from the crumbled stones. As he stepped through, it was as if reality warped seamlessly, one moment shallowly in the forest in his backyard, the next in what looked like a church wedding. The seats looked like the ones his mom made him stay seated in, and the people up front looked dressed like his parents' wedding picture.
He entered and caught the last words. "... anyone object?"
"Um... Hi?" Eric said cautiously. These were strangers, but maybe they could tell him how to get back.
"He said I!" One of the people in the pews squealed. "And he's from another realm, so we must acquiesce!"
The groom snarled and glared at the young boy, before ripping the flower off his own chest, stomping it, and leaving.
The man wearing what looked like Eric's 'pasture' wore spoke. "Then, in accordance with our ways, young man, you shall now be wed to Princess Nuala, future Queen of Frost, once you are of marital age."
Eric didn't really understand what was going on, and he could feel the warmth behind him of the stones again, so he turned and left, appearing again near his home.
The next day, he shrugged that all off as a dream or a runaway part of his imagination. He'd made equally fantastical events during his playtime, so maybe that was just another playtime that went a bit weird.
The strange dream faded from memory as days and years went by.
Instead, what he knew he'd remember was the people around him, as he blew out the candles to his 18th birthday party cake. Everyone cheered, and he laughed as someone pushed his face into the pastry. This was what he knew he'd always remember. His family around him, his friends cheering him on, and the future unknown yet bright with possibility.
The party went on for a long while, but eventually it ended as all things do. Eric was left to bask in the glory of a new year, of love around him, and of what was to come. His parents had gone to bed, his friends had gone home, and he went out back to enjoy the countless stars smiling down at him.
But out back, he was met with a few armored men, carrying fierce weapons and sigils that looked like snowflakes and icicles. "What the hell?" Did someone spike the cake or something?
He couldn't move, too shocked of the sight before him. The men parted, and a tall thin fair man walked up to Eric. The stranger smiled softly. "Congratulations, my King. Your coming of age has transpired, and so the engagement may move onto a proper wedding. I am the Royal Chamberlain." He bowed deeply.
"Uh... What engagement? What are you even talking about?" Eric asked carefully, not wanting to upset the man with knights behind him.
"My lord, you were quite young, and so you may have forgotten. But in your youth, you came into a royal wedding engagement and objected, and your stature as a foreigner enabled you to take the to-be groom's place. You are slated to wed Queen Nuala, the Queen of Frost. As such, I am here to assist in your preparations, and help collect your friends and family that you'd want to attend such an event. After all, your coronation would be immediate after the vows."
This was one hell of a birthday gift. | 73 | As a child you were both curious and not particularly obedient. So when you found a fairy mound, instead of leaving you explored inside and walked through the stone arch into the fairy realm. There you were engaged to the princess of the winter court. Something you'd forgotten about until today. | 248 |
Left handed folks have it easy. So easy. When your right handed, you have to spend money if you want components.
Real money.
We're talking 10 fold what those lefties pay. Why? Why does grinding up charcoal on a full moon make a more potent healing potion? Who knows!
Lefties are so lucky in other ways. Romance? Sooo easy for them. Every charm spell they cast is damn near free. Every alter self cost zilch! Try doing that as a right hander. Any romantic spells we try to cast always come out off kilter. Want to make a good impression on a first date? By the time you get all the companents, the spell is more expensive than thee dates and takes half as long!
For all the complaining about lefts, though, us rights do have some advantages. Need a quality protection spell? Good luck getting a left mage to do that! I've seen flies get through barriers ment to stop a party of soldiers when cast by them! Good luck protecting your family and friends if you are left handed!
Ambidextrous people can piss right off. Well, in truth, the ones i met i really liked. They are always so happy and outgoing. Must be nice having the best of both worlds. Life sure is easy when you have money AND safety...not to mention job security you'd kill for!
Anways, doc, thanks for listening. I dont know why this all bothers me so much, its not like i can even cast spells. I guess i maybe a bit jealous of all of them. Oh well.
Same time next week? | 56 | A magic system where being left or right handed affects the effects of the spells | 266 |
We received an order for a delivery. This may not seem remarkable in and of itself, but what was unusual about this particular request was its relatively short distance--about three light years--but paying at a rate for a delivery over hundreds of light-years. It made one wonder if there was another drawback to the job, but if there was, the one that had requested the delivery didn't disclose it.
I was chosen to make this delivery. It was a box full of documents.
Physics is is a funny thing: while it was possible for space-filling matter such as couriers and vessels and boxes to travel faster than the speed of light, electromagnetic signals cannot, for the simple reason that light cannot go faster than light.
"Why don't they just transmit all this information the old-fashioned way--by radio?" I asked the dispatcher. "Why pay hundred-light-year rates for a three light-year job? I've looked at the package. It can't be more than 50 pounds. It's not like there's a whole bunch to transmit. And we have retransmitters along the route. Sure, they might have to wait three years to get the info--"
"It's a little more than that," the dispatcher corrected me. "More like five years."
"That's pretty much how long they're going to have to wait for me to bring it over," I said.
The dispatcher shrugged. "They paid for the delivery," he said. "And we've got to make it. And you're gonna see a nice delivery bonus for yourself."
I secured the package inside the hold of the vessel. Then I made my way to the cockpit. The FTL tech that we were using involved no propulsion of any kind, so I didn't have to sit down or buckle up. It was like we were being teleported to the destination. And in a sense, we were.
To me, the total time spent in transit would last no more than five seconds, but the recipients will have seen five years go by. What's so special about this information that it needs to travel this far, and everyone has to wait five years to get it? I wondered. I felt silly asking that question because I could be asking that about every delivery.
When I made all the necessary preparations--laying in a course, orienting the vessel toward the direction of our destination--I put my hand to the throttle that would activate the FTL drive. I pushed the throttle to the wall.
When I arrived, first I checked to make sure I still existed. As silly as that may sound, it was a standard procedure to verify that the transport was successful. With all signs affirming the integrity of my person and that it did not disintegrate into particles strewn across the universe, I went down into the hold to retrieve the box of documents. The bay doors opened and I stepped out.
I was at the spaceport that served as the hub for interstellar deliveries. All I needed to do was walk it over to receiving, scan it, and drop it off.
As I made my way there, I was suddenly ambushed by armed men.
They knocked me over, and I dropped the box. As they bound my hands behind my back, one of them went over to the box and tore off the lid. He grabbed the documents that were inside. He kept rifling through the papers, becoming more and more agitated.
"They're blank!" he finally said. "They're all blank!" He showed the empty pages to the rest of them.
One of them with the look and bearing of a leader rushed over to see. He dumped the rest of the contents of the box and slammed it on the ground.
"This delivery was a decoy!" he said. "They've been sending the real message by radio! We've got to see if there were any receivers listening in."
And the armed men left me there with my hands bound behind me. | 192 | While FTL-Travel is possible, FTL-Communication is not. This means that interstellar communication has to run through couriers, but also that the job of courier is as dangerous as it is profitable. Your latest contract has the biggest bonus you have ever seen, while looking comparatively easy. | 820 |
The young god looked up, confused. “What about firefighting? Of course it makes sense for them to prevent their offspring from bur—“
“Come on, listen to what I’m saying. It’s not their offspring. Sometimes, it’s not even *people*. There are wildland firefighters who risk their lives for the forest.” The older one shook its head. Even immortal beings got impatient sometimes when explaining things to a particularly slow student.
“But they only get one chance at being alive, and they’re so fragile. Why would they do that? Are they just too dumb to know what they’re getting into? This still doesn’t make any sense.”
Like a professor with a laser pointer, the old one called the young one’s attention to a particular point on Earth. It was a bright, hot day on a swampy peninsula. There were lots of humans, darting around the structures they had built- geometric patterns of girders, tall white square buildings, a strange metal cylinder. A few of the humans were wearing costumes too, white jumpsuits with black around the hands and head. They looked very small from the gods’ vantage point.
“Look at those ones”, said the teacher. “They’re pretty smart. They know more than you do about what they’re getting into. See, that one has a little boy.”
Indeed, one of the strange suited figures paused, raised its arm, turned towards some of the other humans. The young god took in the scene, rotated it in his mind, scanned forwards and backwards in time and came to the startling conclusion that the suited figures were about to voluntarily tie their fate to millions of pounds of violently explosive hydrocarbons for the sole purpose of ….
“Now you see,” said the old god. “Can you tell how they feel?”
The humans were positively glowing, alight with some powerful mixture of excitement and pride and other things that even gods didn’t have names for. There was fear, too, but the sharp and bright kind rather than the small and quivering kind.
“What makes them like that?”, said the young one, cynicism replaced by curiosity. “They’re doing something so dangerous, so contrary to self-preservation, just to …see what happens? It’s beautiful, but it makes no sense.”
The old god laughed. “It’s evolution, child, plain and simple. Just like every other form of life down there. In order to live in the cold, you must keep yourself warm.”
“But they know death. They understand it. They understand their own fragility. Shouldn’t they have adapted to avoid that danger, to keep to themselves and avoid risk?”
The old god had been around for much longer. He’d gone back again and again to watch human hands strike flint for the first time. He’d seen mothers grieving their dead children, captains going down with the ship, soldiers leaving their dying brothers. He’d been there for every summit attempt, every marriage proposal, every journey’s beginning and end.
“It’s the opposite, actually,” he said, the weight of the years lending a gentleness to his words. “Once you gain human consciousness, once you understand death and how brittle and short your own life is, you stand at the edge of a yawning chasm - an environment more dangerous than any storm or predator, because it’s utterly inescapable.”
The young god tried to imagine what it would feel like. To exist, to be, and know that at any moment, one might…not. He was quiet, though he could feel the old one’s eyes flick over to him and back.
“Exactly. It’s terrifying. It kills humans every day. Outwards it becomes anger, useless violence. Inwards it eats them. Have you seen any other animal who dies so regularly by its own hand?” The young god bowed his head for a moment, for he had not.
“So it’s all adaptations, really, against that … what did you call it? A void?” Said the young god.
“A chasm, but close enough,” replied the old one. “Yes, go on.”
“They’re like this, these humans, not in spite of their mortality but because of it. They have to be …brave, and curious, and happy, and they have to …care for each other, and try hard things, and even risk their lives on behalf of their fellow humans. Because, because! It helps them live in a world full of death without getting swallowed up by death themselves. They’re like that on purpose because those are the traits that help them want to be alive. Those are the ways their souls stay warm against the cold.”
The old god smiled. “So it is,” he said, “and so it’s always been. Most of them know that, too, even if they don’t put it in words. I know it looks all fucked up down there sometimes, but most of them know that.”
They were quiet then. After all, what was the rush to continue the conversation? They had as much time as they wanted. Somewhere far below the two gods, a woman’s voice mixed into a rising swell of fire and steam. “3-2-1-and- ignition - and we have liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base! Godspeed to the crew of the *Courage*.” | 1,435 | "And that is why, no human would ever risk their life to save another." "Firefighters." "Huh?" "Firefighters disprove everything you spent the last ten minutes going on about." | 3,531 |
I could scarcely believe my eyes as I beheld the skeletal remains of the hoo-mahn. It was just as the ancient texts had described: a bipedal creature, devoid of any distinguishing features. Its bones were strewn about the chamber, as if it had been violently ripped apart.
The bones were a lighter color than I had expected. I thought they would be black or dark brown, but this was white, like the bones of bird.
The bones were covered in a thin layer of earth and dirt and there was a strange black powder that was caked on the bones. I ran my fingers through it. It was like a fine dust, but it had a strange consistency, like something other than dirt. I brought it up to my nose and sniffed it. I didn't recognize the smell, but it wasn't bad. I couldn't get much of a smell, though. It was faint and didn't have any smell at all.
The creature would have been almost two meters tall. It's arms were remarkably thick, and its fingers longer than normal. I wondered what the creature would have looked like. The bones were white, but would it have had a dark brown or black skin?
I was startled by the sudden sound of scraping bones in the back of the chamber. I jerked around so fast that I lost my footing and fell on my backside. I scrambled up and peered into the darkness.
A strange shadowy figure was slowly creeping toward me, its white eyes gleaming. It had a small body, scrawny arms, and long thin fingers. It walked on two strong legs and had a small round head. It had a long neck and a small, but strong, torso. It was only half a meter tall, but it looked strong and its thin arms were corded with muscles.
I looked around, trying to find my dropped torch. In the darkness, it could be anywhere. I had to find it before this strange creature attacked me. I scrambled around, looking under the bones and digging my fingers into the dirt. I glanced around to see if the creature was still there. It was and was slowly creeping toward me. I felt useless, like a cornered animal with no weapons and no way to defend itself.
The creature extended its arms and the long, thin fingers practically glowed in the darkness.
I finally found the torch and lifted it in the air. The creature stopped and stared at me, its white eyes somehow reflecting the dim torchlight. It rattled some kind of skeleton-like growl at me. I didn't understand. I didn't know what it was saying or if it even spoke my language. I did know that it wanted something.
It inched forward, its long fingers twitching. Then it stopped and I hear a strange tapping noise. It was coming from the creature. It reached out to me and tapped its slender fingers against the ground. It tapped on the dirt with its fingers, like it was counting.
I looked at it, confused and terrified.
The creature stopped and stared at me. It stood up straight, looking almost like a dog begging for food.
I could barely see it, but something was moving through the dirt. Voices were whispering, and I could hear the tapping of fingers against the ground.
***
For more stories check out r/greypuffin | 26 | a nondescript bipedal called a "hoo-mahn" | 71 |
“Either is fine,” said Ned. “Uh, in case you don’t know, I’m not a …uh…real knight. So I don’t know the traditional …point system. This is what I do for my job. Was, I guess.”
YOU ARE NOT A REAL KNIGHT? said Death.
“Uh, no, uh, sorry. Sorry to disappoint. I’m, yeah, we don’t really have real knights around any more, actually. Like, at all.”
WOW, said Death, NOT A REAL KNIGHT AND YET YOU RISKED YOUR LIFE FOR THE PRINCESS’S HONOR. THIS IS VERY NOBLE.
“Fuck,” said Ned, reflexively rubbing his forehead before remembering that it was covered in blood. “No, sorry, I’m not…that wasn’t real. I’m an actor. Like in a play, theater, movie? Actually, I’m a stuntman. It’s pretend. We’re pretending to be knights and princesses but in reality we uh, live in apartments and drive cars and things.”
YOU DIE FOR OTHERS’ ENTERTAINMENT, THEN, said Death. HAVEN’T SEEN THAT ONE IN A WHILE.
“No!” Ned said, frustrated. “You’re not getting it, dude! I wasn’t supposed to die! I wasn’t …” he sank to his knees, overwhelmed. Was this really happening? “I wasn’t supposed to *die.*”
I’M SORRY, said Death, bedside manner clearly honed over the eons. UNFORTUNATELY, YOU ALL DIE SOONER OR LATER.
“I know”, said Ned. He sighed.
BUT WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT PRETENDING TO DIE? said Death. DO YOU PRETEND A LOT?
Talking about work always helped on a bad day. “Yeah!” said Ned. “Yeah, all the time. You know this one was all medieval, but I’ve done a lot of stunts in my time, you know, usually it’s guns and car crashes. Action movies. I was actually in one of the Fast and Furious — uh, do you know what that is?”
THAT’S FUNNY. said Death. YOU PRETEND TO DIE A LOT AND NOW YOU DID IT FOR REAL.
“Goddamnit,” said Ned. He had to admit it was ironic.
LISTEN.
Something in Death’s demeanor had changed, almost as if …he was about to ask for something? Ned felt dizzy, though it could have just been the blood loss.
IF I PUT YOU BACK ON EARTH WILL YOU KEEP PRETEND DYING? I WOULD LIKE TO WATCH.
“What?” said Ned.
PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SO SERIOUS ABOUT THESE THINGS. IT WOULD BE A GOOD JOKE. | 371 | “Never run at Death” your parents admonished when you took a career as a movie stuntman. But when a stunt goes wrong you find yourself doing just that. “I BELIEVE YOU ARE THE FIRST EVER TO REQUEST A JOUSTING TOURNAMENT,” Death says. “TRADITIONAL POINT SYSTEM, OR BEST THREE OUT OF FIVE RUNS?” | 727 |
"Welcome to Hell! For your first torture, we are going to have you give a speech introducing yourself!"
"What?" Jonathan looks at Satan, confused. In one second flat, all of her bravado just leaves.
"Sorry, man. We've had major budget cuts. Because of this, we've had to adjust."
"So, what is supposed to be my torture?"
"Well, because your main sin in life was sloth, I'd have sent you to that ring of Hell. However, we've had to lower the pay of the Seven Sins, so now he just sleeps. Option B would be Gluttony. However, last I checked; Greed stole all of his equipment."
"The Seven Sins get paid?"
"It's the only way to get them to work."
"Well, what about Wrath? I did have anger issues."
"No, he's fighting Pride. I think Envy is trying to steal the stuff that Greed stole, and Lust is probably flirting with his reflection. Again." Satan rubs her forehead. Jonathan looks around.
"You know what this place needs? An accountant." Satan looks at him.
"An accountant?"
"Yeah, someone who can deal with money. Lucky for you, I was one in life."
"I can't pay you."
"I don't need money. I'm down here, anyway, I might as well be useful."
"Coming from a man whose main sin is sloth. Alright! Just because we are just that desperate."
"Great! Just don't make me introduce myself. I have social anxiety."
"SO, THAT WAS TORTURE!!!" | 30 | in Hell due to budgets cuts, most of the punishments go from terrible to just annoying | 55 |
The laughter faded to silence, first among the attendants below, then the lesser gods at the low tables. It was replaced by whispers, growing more and more frantic.
"What is the meaning of this!" Promacho boomed, spilling wine in an arc. "This, as all others in paradise, is a day of celebration!"
"The prophecy," someone screamed, soon followed by a crashing table. The attendants were soon scampering through the doorways, pushing and shoving as mortals might in a house fire.
"What prophecy?" Promacho bellowed. "There is no harm that can come to you under my house, as long as I draw sacred breath."
"That's just the issue," Silkako offered, gracefully stepping up towards the suzerain of the gods. "A boy born under the summer sun to a dying mother, will suckle on goat's milk and aphid dew. He will twist metal into life, climb the clouds before he is full a man, defeat the gods, black out the sun, wed the moon , father two worlds, and bring forth a new age."
"What nonsense!" Promacho said, staring at the light flickering of the golden door onto the now empty palace floor. "No mortal could reach us here."
"Indeed," Silkako agreed, taking a long sip of his wine. "Some people will believe anything. Shall I answer it?"
"Answer what?"
"The grand door, the gate to the afterlife. Someone is knocking."
Before promacho could wrap his mind around the prospect, the door slowly opened. A sillouette of a mighty dragon stood, beating clockwork wings rhythmically. A rider dismounted and slung a mighty sack onto his back and stepped through the gates.
Promacho took up the Nameless Club, hewn of the forgetting stone. "Who has come to challenge me."
"Name's Craig!" The little man waved broadly all around. "Sorry for the intrusion. Promacho, father of the world rock, I challenge you to, hold on." The man began digging through his bag. "I've got Sorry, chess, checkers, ooh, how about Monopoly?"
"You've built a dragon, traveled further than any mortal, broken into the palace of paradise, all to challenge me, to a board game?"
"Now, I did knock first, but I figured with all the screaming, I might as well open it myself and clear things up "
"But you are to be the end of us, the dreaded God feaster, moon bedder." Silkako said. "At least we'd see some change of pace if you did."
"Nope, just have to defeat you, didn't say how, you all just pay all day, real chill vibe. But!" The man rose a box in front of himself. "I call the thimble. That is non negotiable."
/r/surinical | 125 | The "Hero" was raised to kill the gods. They did not want to. The gods weren't evil,petty, or bloodthirsty. So, why should they? | 224 |
The CIA coordinator scrunched her nose as she passed around the dossier. She was cute for a ‘make your whole family disappear’ type. Tim looked down at his copy of the first photo and had to resist the visceral urge to spray the room with his liquid lunch.
“What the hell did they do to these guys? It looks like they’ve been crushed with a steam roller.” Tim said.
“Not they,” one of the grunts said, “him. One guy, works alone.”
“Let me see which one you’re looking at.” The coordinator stepped beside Tim, studying his page. Her tight ponytail wafted the smell of cinnamon. He needed a cold shower. He’d been on assignment too long, losing focus.
“No,” she said, outlining the flattened splatter than had once been an agent’s head. “This one was a series of anvils dropped from the top floor. There is a steam roller one, further on.”
Tim flipped through the stack, looking for a photo of the assassin. The best the CIA had on this guy was blurry surveillance footage stills from behind. He was shirtless, rail thin, and hairy, wearing some kind of mask but not high enough res. Tim could almost make out a large tattoo on his back, MEEP MEEP maybe. That probably wasn’t right.
“We know precious little about this guy, but we have a plan to lure him out. Sierra Madre was the location of the last likely victim. He’s been dark for six months since. He may be recovering from an injury.” She held up a photo showing an outline of a thin man in the soot left from an explosion on a canyon wall. “We will spl-
The whine of a printer cut her off. “Everyone out!” she screamed, rushing toward the door of the agent briefing room.
“Why?" one of the black suit goons said with a condescending laugh. "Is it gonna have a scary picture on it?"
Tim pushed through the laughing boys' club to follow the coordinator.
"Get down!" She pulled Tim behind a table she overturned, no regard for the pizza now strewn across the floor.
"It's a picture of a bomb! Which one of you jokers connected your phone to the printer?" A man asked from inside. Tim could hear a hissing over the guffaws.
"I didn't want to believe it could be him, but this is his M.O. all over." She rubbed her face. "This one's hard to kill, God knows I've tried."
A loud bang shook the room. Glass sprayed across the floor and the now double disrespected pizza. Where the briefing room had been, a smoking husk of Soot and Carnage now stood, illuminated by beams of light from the holes in the ceiling.
"Jesus, what do we do now?" Tim asked, pulling bits from his hair.
"We continue with the plan. just you and me. Alicia Rhoades, pleasure to meet you. Now, how fast can you run?"
/r/surinical | 85 | You assassinated him by dropping a giant anvil on him?" "Yes." "Why!?" "Because the steam roller couldn't catch him and he wouldn't push the "Press me" button." | 533 |
It was pure shock that hit me. One second I was inside my room, trying to itch that spot on my back, the next second I was in my classroom. It took me a few moments to fully comprehend whatever the hell had happened, and then panic hit me. It was the middle of night, and I was illegally inside my school. What would happen if someone found me here?
I was frozen in place, not daring to move an inch, because in my head I thought I could set of silent alarms or something. Then an idea popped into my head. This had got to be a dream, and since I was aware of it, I was now lucid dreaming! So technically I should’ve been able to fly out of the window in front of me. That in fact did not happen.
I fell from 3 metres into the bush underneath the window, leaving me with some nasty scratches. I thought I heard a sickening crunch, but no bones were broken. Well, my bones were not broken, but I wouldn’t say the same about the wolf spider I landed on. The thing got fucking flattened by me.
Oh yeah, one more thing. THE WOLF SPIDER CARRIES FUCKING BABIES IN ITS BACK. Hundreds of those critters poured out instantaneously, covering my whole backside. I couldn’t resist the urge to yell, and I began frantically moving around like a headless chicken. Waving my arms around, taking off my shirt and swatting my back with it, I was going all out on those little devils. I’d rather be on fire than deal with this many spiders all over my body.
As soon as I said that in my head, my skin lit on fire immediately. I didn’t have time to dwell on how that happened, because I was being burned alive. Luckily, there was a pond in front of me, so I made a mad dash for it. The water took out the fire pretty quickly, but it hurt like hell. Well, one good thing about this was that the little gremlins had been either burnt or they fell off. I got out of the water and shook it off of my body. Bad idea.
Within seconds, I was submerged in water, and there was nothing but water around me. I swam to the top, and realised that I was in the middle of a huge swimming pool. What in the goddamn world was going on? I got onto the marble deck nearby and just laid down. I had enough of this dream, and I wanted to wake up. As I started thinking about the incidents that happened within the last 5 minutes, something occurred to me.
It was always when I made frantic movements that something seemed to happen. Was this the laws of this weirdass dream I was having? To test it out, I stood up, and started running while flailing my arms around. It took a while, but after 30 seconds something happened once again,
Suddenly, I felt a lot better. My burnt skin didn’t sting anymore, that foot injury I had gotten last week seemingly disappeared, and my skin seemed to look much better. This was truly amazing, I thought to myself. Then another idea forced itself into my brain. What if I tried repeating whatever I did inside my room that lead to me teleporting? I tried scratching my back again, but I had forgotten which spot I was trying scratch, so I was guessing.
Within seconds, I teleported back to my house, inside my room, and it was left the same. It appeared nothing had changed at all. So now I started to ponder if I could possibly control this teleportation ability? It seemed to me that different spots on my back were different locations, so I wondered what would happen if I tried more spots.
I tried to scratch a spot right underneath my shoulders, and bang, I was teleported once again. This time I was at my nearest beach. Ah, this place had some nice memories for me. Tons of things had happened here, and this was most certainly an important place for me. The sand had a nice texture, the cold breeze felt nice, the shoreline continued for miles, there was a man in a black suit staring at me, and the waves were relatively calm.
What? I looked at the man in the suit again, there was no way someone was here in the middle of the night, in midwinter. Surely though, there he was, a man in a suit. What was he doing here? Why was he here? Oh crap he was looking straight at me! Before I could even make a move though, that man who was 10 metres away was now right in front of me.
“Look what we have here,” the man spoke up. “Someone has been quite naughty indeed.”
“Wh…what?” I shivered, that man’s presence made me quite unstable.
“Don’t play dumb with me! How dare you use cheat codes in a public server? Have you no shame? You’re lucky it was in nighttime.” The mans voice echoed in my ears.
I was too speechless to even speak, but I didn’t have to do anything. The man pulled out a giant hammer from seemingly nowhere, and before I could react, it came crashing down upon me. It all turned black. There was nothing. Then a few words appeared in front of me.
“You have been banned from Outside. Reason: Cheat codes are not allowed here” | 15 | There are cheat codes for the universe that let you bypass rules, such as obeying gravity. But over or excessive use of them can attract the attention of "Administrators"... | 93 |
Sometimes I wonder why I stay with these idiots and help them out of every mess they get themselves into. If they made a mess to get into this situation, I know they are able to make an even bigger mess that cancels out the first one. I've seen them do it before. Then again they almost got themselves killed when they did that. As much as I hate it, these complete idiots have grown on me.
So thats how I found myself crouching on a support beam above my party's heads, waiting for their captors to leave the room. I wonder if I should make my efforts clear this time or do like I normally do and nudge them in the directions I want them to go, let them think they got out all on their own. As much as I enjoy their childish pride and joy at 'getting themselves out of it', their jabs and teases about me being useless and dead weight are starting to bother me.
Seeing as their captor didn't seem to want to leave anytime soon, I lean back and sit on the beam, one leg hanging down and tail silently flicking in the air as I debated with myself. If I do as I normally do, who knows when the next chance will be. On the other hand, it might break their brains to realize nearly every escape wasn't because of them.
I silently humm to myself, once again thankful for my voice being taken years ago for moments like these. A crow silently landed on my hand to let me pet it. Then a thought came to me, petting hand stilling on the bird's feathers. Why not both? A chilling smile crept onto my lips. Yeah. Why not both? I haven't had a good challenge in a while. It'll be difficult to get my group's attention while not alerting the guards with how thick-skulled they can be.
The crow flutters off as I silently get to my clawed feet and casually walked across the beam to the wall. Scaling up it and out a window, mindlessly sneaking my way to an enterance and weaving my way through the dark castle to set up everything I need to. Not one servant even batting an eye at my unusual way of dress or presence.
Once everything was set up I casually snatched a servant's cloak and swung it around my shoulders in one movement perfected over years of sneaking around. I sweep up a serving tray in another graceful movement, stride never slowing for a moment as I make my way up to the tower my group was held in. As I knock on the door and sheepishly peek my head in to get the evil wizard's attention, feigning nervousness. I internally chuckle to myself as the wizard glares down at me, every one of her countless magi wards and the holes through them now visible to my perceptive eyes.
Yes. Quite the challenge. | 21 | weak in combat, no magic potential, you're seen as nothing, even the adventuring party that took you in was only taking pity on you. But if anyone paid any attention to you, they'd realise that you're a master at stealth, able to sneak past everyone and into everywhere. | 84 |
“In the depths of wildest dream, I have seen the face of God, slack dead atop the seven thrones. High on the fevered shakes of the soon to pass, the dance of honeyed death, yet I awoke, soul burned but untaken, burdened with terrible knowing. It would have been but a mercy to be slain so, before the agony of what is to come, the churning sea that will boil into the liar sky, wash it away to reveal the hidden eyes.”
“Right, you’re religious, that’s cool,” Mary said, not looking up from her phone. She adjusted in her seat as she texted.
—-----------
Tammy, this guy… what were you thinking?-
\-What? I thought he seemed sweet? Better than your last guy, for sure.
—-----------
Mary sighed. “Right, so what do you like to do for fun?” she stared into the kitchen, trying to will the food to finish.
“I have taken to painting.” The guy, was it Patrick?, said. “I find that pulling the shambling horrors from my thoughts, arresting them to canvas is the only way to gain rest for a time, but my hands are imperfect things, bound to these four dimensions, unable to engrave the dread dog's likeness truly.” He raked a hand through his messy dark hair.
“Ah, okay, you’re an artist,” Mary nodded her head. That explained the weirdness. “I used to do collages in college, never did any paints though. You sound really passionate. Do you have an Instagram?”
“The many coils of this world, so interlinked to form the fired nerves of a babbling hivemind, a pretender god hewn from the masses. It hurries the madness. I cannot force myself to look upon it.” He drank his water in one long pull and began pouring more from the vase-like pitcher, fingers almost touching with his wide grip. He filled up Mary's as well.
“You know, that is so smart actually. My friend was trying to get me to take a break from social media. I’m jealous. I’m hopeless though, addicted.”
“Deep in the wastes of the ruined kinglands lies the dread dopamine city, where pleasure holes are filled with the twitching hordes, unable to feel not but the most intense pleasure. It is the third worst of the hells I have witnessed.” He placed his hands over his eyes and began to weep.
“Okay, that’s hilarious,” Mary loosened her shoulders as she giggled. “That’s definitely me scrolling through TikTok for hours.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” the waiter said, popping up beside, was it peter? She would really have to find a way to ask again. “Food’s gonna be about 15-20 more minutes, we had a cook walk out, rambling something about maddening drawings in the bathroom.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Mary said. “We’re having fun. No worries.”
“In the face of senseless millennia stretching out on either side, life is but a coarse blip of sensation in totality.” Her blind date offered, staring into the middle distance.
“Oh, that sounds so smart, is that like zen stuff?”
Comic form: [https://imgur.com/gallery/BcypkTE](https://imgur.com/gallery/BcypkTE)
thanks to /u/echoeversky for idea to run these through midjourney
/r/surinical | 673 | The woman looked at her at her blind date and said, "I told Tammy that I wanted old and rich...not eldritch." | 3,049 |
"You're wrong, I deserve to go to heaven," Marta said calmly.
"Even after you killed all those people?" The judging jackal asked, holding out a taloned and patient palm.
"Hey, they were bad people!"
"And all those drugs you sold?" He pressed a nail into her chest. There was a pinch, a cold sensation, but no pain.
"Only to those responsible enough to handle them!"
"And all the cars you stole?" She felt several things inside her snap free and the cold sensation doubled. Tha jackal was holding her heart, beating still.
"Okay, that one is hard to explain. Have you heard there is no moral consumption under capitalism?” Marta adjusted her foot, sitting closer to the animal-god-person-thing.
“No,” the Jackal said neutrally, setting her heart down on one end of the scales. It slammed to the ground. A nearby alligator croaked rhythmically with low, steady knocks.
“Okay, well, basically, it is unavoidable that there will be harm due to the circle of shit of this shitty system. Greed is an incentive at the top to sell the cheapest crappiest products from the most exploited workers possible. So, by taking cars out of the economy, I slowed that cycle, saving more harm than I caused.”
“Hmmm,” the Jackal offered as he opened a box and revealed a single white feather. Marta watched with wide eyes as he placed the feather on the other end of the scales. Slowly, the heart rose up and the scales balanced. The jackal did not react for a long moment. Millimeter by millimeter, the feather sank slightly.
“Very well,” he finally said. “Follow me. Duat awaits.”
“Uhh, what about my heart?”
“You will have no need of it in the field of reeds, land of milk and honey.” The Jackal carved a talon through the air in the shape of a circle, then a star, revealing a portal to a fertile plain.
“Cool, so I passed. I’m gonna take it anyway just as a keepsake.”
Marta was careful to keep her toe pressed against the side of the scales until she lifted off her heart. She hefted the heavy thing into her bag. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
/r/surinical | 145 | "You're wrong, I deserve to go to heaven." "Even after you killed all those people?" "Hey, they were bad people!" "And all those drugs you sold?" "Only to those responsible enough to handle them!" "And all the cars you stole?" "Okay, that one is hard to explain…" | 917 |
That was just another job. I wouldn't go that far to say that was a "regular" job, but, in the end of the day, you should stay professional. Get in - get out - lose the pursuit. Three easy steps to follow.
Well, it was, until they let humans loose.
First to go down was Hibg. They found them by following the trail of chocolate crumbs. Poor bastard was addicted to the Earth's chocolate.
Next they caught Jumy. They baited her with some jellybeans. The hell knows how they knew she liked them, but they knew.
And finally, they caught up to Iiiaaauuu. Dude slithered too close to peanutbutter warehouse, which was obviously a trap.
In the end, only I was left. But instead of fear, I felt... The thrill.
For last decades I was too bored. The Age of Fracture came to an end, ending the majority of conflicts, or atleast freezing them. It was years I last encountered a worthy opponent. And it was the first time I will face a human - one of the last in my list of races to cross blades. Several times they almost caught me on different gigs - but finally I will stand against them in fair battle.
"Yo, watcha doin'?"
Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me. How? How could he sneak up on me? I prepared all possible measures to make this place a fortress, with sensors outside to warn me in advance. How could he sneak past these?
I turned to him and started running to him, pulling out my ancestral sword of it's sheath. I will come out victorious...
"Doncha know to look on the floor?"
When he said I... Slipped. Something slippery was on the floor and it sent my flying. I lost my weapon; And when I started to rise up, an electrical jolt ran through my body.
"These shockers are pretty convenient, eh?"
The human detective stepped closer, in his hands was long-distance shocker and hand cuffs for my arms. I wasn't able to resist, and metal bracelets were locked on my arms.
"How... How did you find me?!"
I asked while he started to lead my outside. I was planning to lure them to this place, but only when I would be fully prepared to face. But they found before that.
"Isn't it obvious? Pal, you and your friend stole... Particular things from space freighter. We only had to check what you stole for yourself and for your employer. After that is was a matter of technique."
I looked at him dumbfounded. I didn't understand. That day, we stole plenty of things. How could they discern what each of us stole for personal use?
"Ah, it seems you still don't get it. When I will be plain with you - you chugged the whole bottle of rare Froggeaters' wine, pal. And it was clearly you, because there was only one qwer on your team, and we had saliva on the bottle. Considering that this wine is produced only on one vineyard on the whole planet, and most of the time of year it is empty.. I was not too hard to find you here, eh?"
While he led me outside to the officer's vehicle, it finally daunted on me. They were too smart. Yes, I was tempted by this wine on the ship. But how they deduced from it that I will take shelter here, in this place? I certainly would think that some just drank that bottle in heat in the moment.
Finally, they locked me in the vehicle and started to move on. And it was moment, I decided to learn - first time in the decades. I will learn all about human culture. A will discern and vivesect all their petty tricks. And in the end, I will emerge victorious.
Because it was worthy to learn. Because I finally found a worthy opponent. | 23 | Human psyche is unique in the galaxy; their ability to connect the dots with the lack of direct information is unmatched. You should know, their detectives have almost caught you multiple times; the challenge is exhilarating. | 244 |
I walked along the sidewalk with my hands in my coat pocket, trying my best to keep them warm, but failing. It was a colder night than I'd expected--fall came early this year. My head was down; eyes on the sidewalk, counting the squares to take my mind off the cold.
I nearly ran into the small crowd standing just outside the club smoking their cigarettes.
"Oh, sorry," I blurted, my shoes scuffing on the concrete as I pivoted away.
"No, don't be sorry." The voice was deep and gentle, like velvety chocolate for the ears. I looked up. It was one of *those.*
He stood nine feet tall and wore long, white hair that poured over his back and touched his pair of perfectly white feathered wings. His pale blue eyes looked me up and down, sizing me up like I was a delectable snack making his mouth water.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" The angel moved closer, releasing the pair of woman who'd been pressed up against his body beneath each of his long arms.
"Home," I said curtly, averting my eyes from his. I didn't want to be caught up with these...things. Everyone seemed to trust them--to *love* them--but I've never trusted, nor loved, so easily. And these supposed "soldiers of God," have been suspect in my mind since they landed six months ago.
"Home? Alone? When there's so much love to be had right here?" His hand rested on my shoulder, his palm so large that his thumb found its place on my sternum. He didn't squeeze or push, but I felt the power in those hands. If he wanted to, he could crush my right now, like a grape between his fingers.
I laughed nervously. "Thanks, but, uh... I've had a long day. I really just want to get some sleep."
His laugh countered mine with confidence. "Sleep? Let the dead sleep. Come *live.*" He leaned down and breathed on my face with a cold, sweet whisper. It felt as if the world was zooming out. I was no longer cold, no longer uncomfortable. I was suddenly *melting*, like I'd drunk hot chocolate after a frigid winter day.
I was becoming...Well....A giggle escaped my lips.
No. I slapped my hands over my mouth and looked away from him, holding my breath so he couldn't entice me further. Is this how they did it? Is this how they drew in so many followers so quickly?
"I'm not interested," I told him flatly, squinting my eyes shut and turning around against his grip.
"Oh," he cooed with mischief. "And yet, you're so *interesting*." The girls behind him giggled. They were now looking at me with the same excited longing as the angel.
I tore myself away from them and walked quickly down the street.
"I'll see you later...Danny." The angel called from behind me, to the cackling laughter of his human posse. How did he know my name? What was his? Should I turn around? See what there is to see? Give my body to him? Give my mind to him? Surrender my soul to h--
I slapped myself in the face. No! Snap out of it!
The world seemed to trust these creatures, who fell from the sky with happy tidings and promising freedom and ecstasy for the faithful. *The era of human suffering was over*. And the world bought in, hook, line, and sinker.
But I knew they weren't really angels. They twisted this place into a den of decadence and debauchery.
But I will stop them, I will find the true angels. | 19 | They descended from above, impossibly beautiful, radiant winged being. We called them angels and obeyed their every whims. But they were no angels. They twisted this place into a den of decadence and debauchery. But I will stop them, I will find the true angels | 94 |
“Next on the block!” Andrea called out, careful to let her voice ring loud but not too loud.
The mageblind armor clanged as the guards fought to drag the prison onto the stage. Wide hateful eyes didn’t wince against the too bright light.
“State your name for the record,” Andrea said, turning her clipboard to the next page.
“You’ve got it right there, Samuel Diver,” the haggard young man said. He spat at the ground in front of Andrea. How very original. She waved off the approaching guard coming up to smack him.
“Right, and what was your transgression against the realm?” Andrea asked, pretending to take notes.
“I was framed, I’m just a street performer. I don’t have any magic!” the man said, falling to his knees.
Andrea licked her lips, letting the pathetic lie rest stagnant. She slowly applied her chapstick, not breaking eye contact.
“It’s just a trick. If you give me a bit of flash paper and a thin tube, I can show you. I swear!”
Andrea sat down the clipboard, pulled out her handkerchief, and stood to approach the man. One of the newer guards grabbed at his club, another holding him back. “The Captain can take care of herself.”
“Will you let me show you?” the man begged again. “Please don’t put me in the Heretics’ Hole, I’ll-”
Andrea grabbed the man’s short hair, pulled him close into a kiss, and pushed him back just as quickly. She grimaced as she wiped her mouth. “Fire caster, tier 3, maybe 4 on a good day. Bind his first two fingers on each hand, plastic jumpsuits only.”
“How?” the man asked, raising up a glowing hand. He was quickly dogpiled by three of the guards, one bashing a club down over his fingers, over and over. The glowing faded. “How do you know my power?” the man panted.
“Because, convict 24602, it’s not your power anymore.” Andrea smiled and subtly raised a glowing red finger. “It’s ours.”
The man stared at her in slack-jawed comprehension as the guards dragged him away. “Traitor! You send your own to be slaughtered!”
Andrea ignored him, flipping to the next page. “Next on the block!”
/r/surinical | 252 | In a world where magic is forbidden, you are responsible for processing new inmates who are magic users. Little does anyone know, you have magical abilities yourself. | 505 |
"Hi Myrna", I said as I settled into my usual corner booth, arriving at the end of morning rush. "I'll have the usual."
Myrna was diligently writing on her order pad, with a spare pencil stuck behind her pointed ear. She glanced up and asked with a sigh, "Would you like to add hash browns to that? Only a little bit more."
"Not today Myrna, just the pancake special. Are you still making that goldenberry syrup? It's magical."
She paused for a second, smoothing her stained uniform, its original pink obscured by unknown years of diner breakfasts. With an almost imperceptible grimace she said "No, we are out. We just have the standard Maple. It's really good. Want berries too?"
I sipped my coffee for a moment, not wanting to keep her waiting long. She started tapping the menu with her pencil, a sign for me to hurry up and finish. "Sure. That's it for now. But Myrna, could you come back and discuss dessert options?"
She nodded, her eyes downcast, sad as she turned away to put in the order. I watched her move around the diner, navigating the bustle of a busy morning with practiced ease. But something seemed off. Normally she was cheery and social, but today she just went through the motions.
In a little while, she arrived back, arms laden with plates and containers. "Here's your pancakes, with extra Maple syrup. I also added some butter, hope you like it. Now, what was that about dessert?"
"Let me eat first, Myrna! My grandfather always said a waitress named Myrna wanted to serve people fast."
Myrna stared at me, her eyes going blank, pointed ears drooping. With a catch in her voice she tried to say something, failed, tried again, then turned around and walked away. I could see her shoulders drooping and thought I heard a sob.
Looking back at the pancakes, I paused. She'd arranged the berries to write "100". And then I paused again. Grandpa. My grandpa had stories of Myrna working at the diner. Myrna. The names matched. Elf ears. I had never made the connection. Elves are (almost) immortal. Was this the same Myrna?
I looked up and saw her standing in the corner, outstretched arms bracing herself against the walls. The morning rush being over, there were only a few people left in the diner, all going about their morning routine and conversations. No one was looking at her.
Scooting out from the table I walked over, and from a respectable distance asked in a soft voice, "Myrna, are you ok? Can I help?"
For a moment she didn't move, then turned her face to me, green eyes streaked with grimy tears. "My mentioned your Grandpa. I... knew him."
For a moment I lost the connection I'd made. Confused I asked, "My grandpa? He died over 50 years ago, how could you know him?" Then I remembered she was an elf. "Oh..."
Myrna brought a fist to her eye, wiping away tears. With a choking laugh she said "Yes, I knew him. I'm an elf, remember? We live a very long time." After wiping another tear, she continued. "I knew him very well. Very, very well. I've been here, 100 years today, because of him, just so I could see his descendants."
And she looked up at me, fully in the face for the first time, with her sad green eyes and pointed ears. "Just so I could see you, grandson."
Suddenly I didn't want dessert anymore. | 95 | It amazes you that the Elf waitress who works at your restaurant is the same one as when your grandparents first started the business. The Elf can't believe she's still stuck in the same dead-end job for nearly a 100 years and has to keep dealing with your family. | 644 |
The Fourth Circle of Hell was for those guilty of the sin of Greed.
This spoke of Hell resembled a filthy city street. The air was foetid and rotten. Breathing made one nauseated. Simply looking around with bare eyes brought unctuous tears. There were potholes, broken cobblestones, and stinking piles of garbage and offal stacked as high as a man. There was a rivulet of oily water flowing through the gutter, carrying filth like used condoms, syringes, cigarette butts. The sidewalk was strewn with shambles of men and women in distress.
One man, scarecrow thin and bespectacled, looking despondent, moaned in pain as rats crawled up from a steam grate and chewed away at his liver. I recognized the face: it was Steve Jobs.
I spoke to my guide, "Isaac, this man was celebrated in his day. Even now, people adore his legacy. Is there nothing we can do?"
My guide stroked his white muttonshops and adjusted his glasses. In his New York accent, he said to Jobs, "We can get you help, but it'll cost you all your money and controlling interest in your company."
Steve Jobs groaned. "Never!" A rat sat up with a gobbet of his liver and scampered back down the steam grate. Jobs cried in horror.
"See?" said my guide, "Irrational attachment. All of them are like that." A man up the street was having his mangled limbs chewed by mangy skinned dogs. Asimov yelled at the derelict man, "You, David Koch. Salvation or money?"
"I can buy salvation! Even devils have a price!" His voice gurgled as a dog bit his throat.
Isaac shrugged. "Some people. Whaddya gonna do?"
We continued our journey. | 28 | "I never died.". The emaciated man cried softly, while a mangy rat was eating his liver, and each time, it grew back. | 63 |
"Well listen, I've got no reindeer and a ton of presents to deliver. Now we've got to come to a deal here," Santa said as he stared at his parked sleigh, the empty reins a stark reminder that the reindeer had fled into the cold Siberian blizzard. He had to admit that the beast was intimidating, ten times his size. Yet, the fates of millions of children on Christmas morning relied upon his winning this battle. Failure was not an option.
"There's no deal, Clause. Clearly you've lost here, look at your scaredy-cat deer, they all ran off like the cowards they are. Now, if you want to escape back to the North Pole, you'd best hand over the presents, at once," the enormous red dragon let a small stream of fire out of his nostrils.
"It's always about the presents. Don't you know that the contents of my sleigh are magic? Just as magic as your fire breath? There isn't actually anything in here until I land on the rooftop, then my sleigh remembers the child's request, and the gifts appear according to how good the child was that year. I have nothing for you, beast."
"I hardly believe that," the dragon expanded its massive fifty-foot wings. "And if it's true, I want the sleigh itself then. It would make a nice artifact on my hoard."
"Absurd. Only I can fly this sleigh."
"Great, then I'll take you with it. I could use a prisoner to do my bidding," the dragon snorted with glee.
"Do you know how many children will be disappointed if there are no presents under their tree tomorrow?"
"Does it look like I care about the kids, Clause? If it isn't gold and shiny, it's not worth anything to me.
At this point, Santa knew that the only way to save Christmas was to be conniving. "Ok, dragon. I'll let you have the sleigh. Thing is that you need to pull it. Especially since I have no reindeer."
"Almost sounds too good to be true," the dragon said with slyness in its voice.
"You'll have full control as you'll be pulling me along. Just fly me to your treasure horde. When you get to the lair I'll jump and find another way back to the North Pole. You can have the sleigh."
"Didn't you say that only you could fly the sleigh?"
"That just means I have to be in it," Santa lied. "Come on, a dragon can't turn down treasure, can it?"
"You've got that right," the dragon said. "Hook me up to the reins."
"This will be awkward," Santa said as he attached the dragon the best he could to the sleigh.
Once they were airborne Santa said, "you know what buddy, your fire lights the night and you pull this sleigh faster than all my reindeer combined. Why don't you pull my sleigh for the whole night?"
The dragon nodded his head in approval, no longer able to think of his own volition.
This was the story of how 322,353 roofs collapsed on Christmas night under the dragon's voluminous weight, benefiting the World Roofing Repair Association immensely. They were behind the dragon, of course. | 14 | The scaly beast has scared off all your reindeer, and there are still presents left to deliver. You have to get creative. You are Santa Claus, and you have to sleigh the dragon. | 132 |
She sat there, reading. Ignoring me, every insult, every barb, every threat.
She just sat there, reading her book. The chains she was in, pinning her to the ornate throne, prevented her from turning the pages, but since she wasn't supposed to have a book to begin with, that didn't matter to her. I watched her eyes tracking along the page, and could tell she had come to the end, and was about to flex her power again.
The small leather volume vanished in a puff of golden smoke, and reappeared in her fingers, barely holding the book upright. She simply vanished the magical book and re-summoned it, turned already to the next page.
Wait... that's it. That's how I break her.
I wander slowly over and sit on the floor opposite her. She ignores me, not even a twitch in my direction.
"So, whatcha reading?"
SUCCESS! It was small, the barest twitch above her left eye.
"Is it any good? It must be a good book for you to have your nose glued in it."
Another twitch. Her eyes moved faster across the page, tension making her read faster. Another glimmer of gold as the page was turned magically.
"Tell me about it! What's the story about? Hey, c'mon, no need to be antisocial, I'm just trying to have a conversation."
A small vein started to throb in her forehead, and I could see her fingers shaking a little.
Sadly, that was as far as I was willing to go with the creepy dude on the bus routine. Even I have standards, and it was starting to make me feel... dirty.
New tactic.
"You know, I hear that people who try to vanish into books have a deep seeded desire to be social, but don't know how."
I made sure to put a nice thud on the D sound. Her eyes stopped. Slowly, her gaze slid around the side of the book to look down on me. Cold fury filled her eyes.
“What. Did. You. Just. Say?”
“That they don’t know how.”
“BEFORE THAT.”
I made my face look as innocent as I could, playing dumb.
“They have a deep seeded desire to be social?”
My face was blank, but I emphasized the D even more. Rage blossomed across her face for a blessed moment before she clamped it down, eyes dragging back to the lines of text in front of her.
“The problem of course is that they never learned the proper social morays.”
Hmm, I emphasized the y as much as I could, but really, the two words sounded too much alike. She got what I was doing, i could see her eye twitch again, but it wasn’t enough. Yet.
“Yes, they tend to be eel suited to the rules of society, and often suffer from many tribals and trivulations.”
Her breathing slowed, taking on a measured rhythm as she struggled to contain herself. I cackled silently with glee.
“It’s sad, really, seeing someone become a piranha like that.”
I stood slowly and started pacing around her. Letting her seethe, hoping that my twisted mind had grown dry of ideas.
Her breathing had just started to speed back up, reaching a normal rate, and her eyes started scrolling back and forth again.
“You may think yourself tough. But none have survived me. They all find themselves star craving mad. It may seem small, but you will not last against the stings and arrows allayed against you. “
Her body trembled, eyes snapping back and forth.
“I will see you at my feet, curled up in the feeble position.”
I turned around. Time to give her another break, speak normally for a minute, let her hope.
“Irregardless, I”
The chamber wall in front of me flashed a bright gold, and the staccato snapping of links of chain echoed around the room. I slowly turned to see her standing on the throne, golden energy cascading across her body as muscles swelled to stretch her clothing tight. The book in her hand changed to a blade of glowing energy as she lifted it above her head, her eyes burning orange as she stared down at me in rage.
“THAT IS NOT A FUCKING WORD!”
My last thoughts before discorporating were for my soul, and eventual resurrection into a new body. I would need a therapist, as I was fairly certain this memory would leave me with post-dramatic stress disorder. | 130 | The villain has tried everything to get under the heroes skin, but they remain completely unfazed by the villains taunts and insults, until a small slip-up by the villain makes the hero go absolutely ballistic. | 264 |
[Link to part 2 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ford9863/comments/xrfhoi/asteria_part_2/?)
For the first time in fifteen long, arduous hours, the red lights lining the halls of the Asteria stopped flashing. Thomas glanced upward, wiping the sweat from his brow. He could feel the collective sigh of relief around him.
“We did it,” Layna said, tossing a wrench to the floor with a loud metal *clang*. “We fucking *did it*.”
Thomas almost forced a smile, but stopped himself. This was not a happy moment. Not for him.
Layna turned and raised a palm to the air. “Good work, Tommy,” she said, smiling expectantly.
“Thanks,” he said, holding a long stare at nothing in particular.
Her smile faded as reality dawned on her. Thomas could see the words spinning in her head, some sort of consolation forming. Slowly, she lowered her hand. No words came.
“We better go,” Thomas said. He turned away, but felt her grip on his shoulder before he could take the first step.
“Maybe they won’t,” she said. “This was an unprecedented situation, there’s no way they could have predicted—”
“The rules exist for a reason, Layna,” he said, still facing away from her. He could feel the tears welling in his eyes and he didn’t want her to see them. He’d only known her for a half a day, but fighting through a potential catastrophe tends to bring people together.
Her grip tightened. “They can’t just get *rid* of us,” she said, her voice wavering. “They would have died without us. All of them.”
Thomas pulled away and turned to face her. “They don’t *care*, Layna. We’re not meant to exist. Not like this. Somewhere beyond those halls are two people that look just like us, talk like us, have lived the lives *we* remember. They’re the ones that get to keep going. Not us.”
Footsteps approached from around the corner. A young man appeared wearing the same grease-stained blue jumpsuit. Any color that once filled his face was long gone.
“We could run,” he said.
Thomas shook his head. “To where? It’s a goddamn spaceship, Mark.”
Layna took a step back and leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor. “They can’t just do this,” she mumbled.
“Escape pods,” Mark said. “We can steal one. Just the three of us. There’s bound to be a colony somewhere nearby we can hide out.”
Thomas shook his head. He lifted a finger toward a wide, bulky door at the end of the hall. “That door is designed to withstand this side of the ship being blown apart,” he said. “We aren’t forcing our way through it with a few wrenches and torches. And there are no pods on this side.”
“There has to be,” Mark said. “They wouldn’t design a ship like this without a way to—”
“They would,” Layna interrupted, “if they needed a way to make sure *certain* crew members couldn’t escape.”
Mark took a step back. “We were always meant to die here.”
Thomas stepped closer to the door, running a hand through his hair. “They’re probably celebrating over there,” he said. “Every damned one of them. But it was *our* hard work that kept them alive. It was *us* that kept this ship from being vaporized. And our thanks is what, a few hours of life?”
“How will they do it?” Layna asked, looking up from the floor. She sat with her elbows over her knees, her head tilted back against the unpainted steel.
“Who knows?” Thomas answered. “Gas, maybe? Or they might just pop open the airlock and send us into space. If they wanted us to know, we’d know.”
Mark’s brow furrowed. “But *they* know. Why don’t we?”
Thomas pointed to his head. “We know what they want us to know. They made us, they can shape our memories, too.”
Layna sprung to her feet, scooping the wrench from the floor. She stomped toward the main door, her heavy steps ringing through the halls.
“It’s not going to help,” Thomas said.
Mark followed after her, glaring at Thomas. “It ain’t gonna hurt, either.”
Thomas rolled his eyes and followed.
Layna rammed the wrench into the door, the loud clang ringing in Thomas’s ears long after each strike.
“Let us the fuck out of here,” she screamed between attacks. “We’re people, goddammit! You can’t just kill us!”
Thomas stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder as she dropped the wrench, then dropped to her knees. No words came to mind, so he just stood in silence while she tried to calm herself.
“Why haven’t they done it yet,” Mark asked, staring at the door.
“Because they’re fucking monsters,” Layna spat. “Cowardly fucks that can’t even look us in the eyes when they do it. Probably debating who needs to push the button to—”
A loud, long *hiss* sounded from the door, followed by the sound of mechanisms turning and clanging. The group exchanged glances with bated breath, ready for the worst. Thomas felt Layna’s hand wrap around his and squeeze.
The door slid open, and the group stood in shock.
Bodies lined the floor from one end of the hall to the other. There was no blood, no sign of struggle.
“What the fuck happened here?” Mark said gingerly stepping through the doorway.
Thomas and Layna exchanged a glance.
“I’m not sure,” Thomas said, “but I’m a bit more interested in who opened that door.”
***
#[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ford9863/comments/xrfhoi/asteria_part_2/?)
r/Ford9863 for other stuff by me. | 846 | On this long-haul interstellar supertanker, cloning is used to replace dead, dying or aged crew. The strict "1-clone at a time per person" law was temporarily retracted with all hands on deck to prevent a catastrophic failure. Crisis averted and law restored, there will be a culling. | 2,373 |
"Hey Ma!"
She smiled at me as always as I stepped into the kitchen. It was full of the delicious smells I knew well, having been a loyal patron of her diner for years. But this time I was a guest no longer. Since finding out the secret to her recipes, I had been hired by her.
"Good morning young Frederick. Still happy to help out this old lady I see."
If you didn't know it, you would think her just any other elderly lady. She always had a kind word, or a shoulder to cry on. Her food was to die for, just a smell would bring you back.
"Of course Ma. How can I help today?"
I didn't know her name. It was one of her many secrets, but I didn't mind. She was happy me calling her Ma, saying it made her feel like I was part of her family. She pulled a pie from the oven, perfectly brown as always.
"Oh well, I can handle just fine you know that. But I do believe this pie isn't destined for the folks."
I had grown used to this now. She had a knack for knowing exactly when and where her food was needed. It would stay perfect during the journey, as fresh as the moment it was taken from the oven. The strangest part to me was how no-one else besides me had noticed it.
I knew why of course. She had an aura, and once you left it would would forget all the little details. Everyone knew of the diner, thinking it had always been there. They couldn't out a date, but agreed it had been run by similar people for generations. I had just happened to stumble in as her aura dropped, and I had understood the truth.
"Who is it for?"
She gave a sweet smile, placing it in a plain white box.
"Oh, just some woman who just became a leader."
With a flick of her wrist a label appeared on its surface. It was made of scribbles, but I knew it would reach the right person.
They always did. | 17 | Turns out the sweet old lady running your favourite small town diner is a immortal being as old as time. you discovered her secret by coincidence and are helping her save the world. one delicious apple pie at the time. | 75 |
Alice stared.
Her stepbrother, Thomas, stared back.
Alice blinked.
Thomas blinked back with horizontal eyelids.
Alice then sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Is this why you suddenly need to leave at random hours of the day?"
Her only response is a nervous chuckle in an impossibly deep voice from her stepbrother. Alice sighed again, deeper this time. She then gave her brother a neutral look before waving him away.
"Go on. Go back to hell or wherever this thing pulls you from." She got another nervous chuckle.
*"Uh......so that's the thing..."* Thomas says, avoiding eyecontact with her as he trailed off. She groaned and dropped her head into her hands.
"Dont tell me. You can't leave without making a deal." When she looked back up at him he had a sheepish sharp-toothed smile. She threw her head back with a groan.
"Fine. Ok, fine, whatever." She threw her hands up with an eye roll. "How about this: I dont tell dad about.....this," she gestures to him stuck in the summoning circle, "and mom about this," she gestures to the circle itself, "and you dont tell them about.....*all* this." She then used both arms to gesture at everything in the summoning ritual around them. "Deal?"
Thomas stared at her extended hand, fingers twitching. He then added a condition. *"As long as you cover for me whenever I get summoned during a family event."* Alice retracted her hand to cross her arms and raise a brow at him. He groans and rolls his eyes in annoyance. *"In return I'll do two free 'favors' for you every year."*
"Once a week." Alice bargained, making Thomas growl a tad as he haggled it back up.
*"Every third month."* Alice narrowed her eyes and leaned towards her currently demonic brother.
"Once a month. Final offer." Thomas blankly stared at her, mulling it over in his head. Before making one last counter-offer.
*"Every other month, no more."* The two had a momentary staring match before Alice made one last bargain back. "Teach me about hell and the occult and you have a deal." Her brother snarled loudly in annoyance and threw his clawed hands up.
*"FINE, you little rat!"* He extended his clawed hand, colored demonic fire encircling it. Alice happily clasped ans shook it. "A pleasure doing business with you!" She chirped. *"Yeah, yeah."* Her brother grumbled as he sank back into the earth grumpily. | 11 | Alice could barely hold her excitement as she was about to try the new demon-summoning ritual she learned today in the middle school Occult Club. Her first surprise was that it actually worked, the second that it was her own stepbrother who was looking at her confused from inside the circle. | 29 |
For a week, we mourned for him. Our hero is dead at the hands of the corrupt kingdom. We didn't talk to each other at all. We were worried about the rest of the kingdom hunting us down, as they did with the hero. Now I'm alone, back in the village where I met him.
It was exciting back then, but reliving those memories was painful. For some reason, I can't shake it. I want him to return before all things go to hell. The inn where I first met him was now dull and meaningless. Drinking never filled the gap. I never noticed how lifeless it was without my party. I wonder how they are doing.
I can't meet them, though, as I'll endanger them. So I noticed my drink was empty, and I asked, "Another one, please."
"Get me one too!" A pat on the back, and I hear a familiar voice. It's the hero!
"What are you doing here?"
"I came from another world. I can easily come back."
"What!" I couldn't believe it. He's back.
"Where're the others?"
"Hiding."
"Ah. I understand."
"How did you come back?"
"I died in my other world."
"Wait, does that make you immortal?"
"I believe so."
"That's freaking crazy, man!"
"Makes it easy for me."
"Because you can't die, right?"
"Yeah. It's hilarious that the other world thought I came back from the dead. I wish I could've seen the look on their faces when I got ran over again."
<>
<>
In the corrupt kingdom, a newly crowned King ponders his orb. Finally, a man walks into his throne room, wearing modern attire.
"It's done. Easier this time." The trucker takes cash from the king and leaves. | 67 | The Summoned Hero was executed for being to powerful, and woke up back in his world. But this is not that story, this is the story of his friends who fought so hard to try and stop the execution, and the aftermath of his death | 173 |
"What?"
You live an average life, working a dead end job, and ultimately, it seems as if nothing will become of it. Just another cog in the machine.
"Who's saying that? Asshole!"
However, you are unique among the population in one respect - your actions, your thoughts, even the more abstract elements of your existence are recorded for the ages by a narrator. They see all, hear all, speak all.
"Are you... Is there like a speaker? Am I being pranked?"
You're on your way home from another day in the life, taking your morning commute past the coffee shop and around the bend to your flat up the road.
"Hello?! Are you following me?"
Up until now, your plans were to relax with your cat, Snowball, and scan cable for something good while opening a steaming package of microwave lasagna.
"What. The fuck."
However, some strange occurrence has befallen you midway through your usual trek, as you stand in the middle of the street, bewildered, and howling like an idiot, in turn bewildering everyone around you.
"..."
Embarrassed, you hide your face behind your scarf and continue walking, adding a little speed to your step but not enough to kick into a run, because you don't want to risk looking any crazier.
"Could you... whatever you are... can you cut it out for like five minutes?"
The rest of your walk continued uneventfully, as you made it back to your apartment and sank against the door, tension building up in your stomach. Snowball mewed from your living room, slinking off the couch and pitter pattering over to you.
"Can you hear it too, Snowball?"
You ask your cat, but it can only inquisitively cock its head, before butting it softly into your chest, coating your black turtleneck in white cat fur. Oh, Snowball.
"I guess not. Well, creepy voice, do you eat lasagna?"
The question went unanswered, echoing through the empty apartment, suddenly making you realize that maybe, in fact, this was all in your head. Could you really be crazy? Had the day to day droll finally snapped your mind, and driven you off the deep end into levels of unparalleled delusion?
"Knock it off. I know you're real."
Do you, you wonder?
"I'm not wondering that."
But perhaps, somewhere in your mind, an inkling of a doubt begins to form-
"What would you gain by telling me you were fake? I'd just take meds or something, and you'd go away."
Hm. Good point?
"Aha! So you admit it!"
Your self congratulatory thoughts betray you to the greater collapse of your psyche. You take a sequence of thoughts as a shadow ever behind you, not aware their origin within the depths of your own subconscious.
"... Look. If you were really me, wouldn't you sound like me?"
...
You know what, never mind. You don't make this fun.
You're not special in any way. You don't even have a narrator. | 24 | You're not special in anyway except that you have a narrator. | 76 |
I cleared my throat. It was a sunny afternoon, and for once I was glad to be indoors instead of out in the sun.
Sitting in the midst of a fancy studio office, I felt myself sink into the billowy cushions of the armchair my staff had prepared for me.
I turned to my guest, an unusually happy-looking Shiba Inu sitting next to me wearing a top hat, a fancy moustache, and a dapper suit. This was the highest profile interview I’d ever done in my life, and by God, I was going to make it a good one.
I held the microphone to my mouth, smiling into the camera.
“Good evening, folks, and welcome to the K9 Canine Hour. Today, we’re joined by Professor Cheemsworth, pHD, Nobel Laureate, and professional author.”
Professor Cheemsworth nodded into the camera, giving it a genial smile. I could see his tail wagging behind him.
“Professor Cheemsworth, this is the moment all of our viewers have been waiting for. How is the project coming along?”
Cheemsworth smiled again, panting, and gave a happy bark.
“Well, I’m proud to say that I’m finally done. I’ve finally completed translating the Barkour version of The Howl into English. This has been my most demanding project so far, having to compile the story from more than a thousand different sources from all over the world. This truly has been a massive undertaking that I’m proud of.”
I let out a whistle. Cheemsworth waved a bashful paw in appreciation.
“Well, could you finally put the rumors to rest then? Or should I say, will your translation finally put all the rumors to rest?”
I extended the mike towards Cheemsworth.
“Hmm,” said Cheems, tilting his fluffy head, “Well, no. I’d like to say the rumors are categorically false. I, like other doggos value my relationship with all of humankind above everything else. My hope in undertaking this translation is to help humans understand dogkind a little bit better. Making this translation public, I hope, will be a major step towards making that happen.”
“Could you elaborate on what you mean by helping humans understand dogkind better?”
“Yes,” said Cheemsworth, laughing, “I finally put to rest the age old question: Why do dogs chase their own tails? This might seem silly to humans who lack the philosophical, biological, and geopolitical insight into this behavior, but I can assure you it’s essential to understand the root of all behaviors behind most, if not all dogs.”
“And what do you say in response to all the critics who think the book should be banned?”
I had to follow the script I was given.
I wasn’t going easy on Professor Cheemsworth, but I knew if anyone could handle hardball questions, he could.
“What about those who say that you have no right to expose the secrets of dogs everywhere to humans?”
Cheemsworth let out an angry scoff.
“Dogkind and humans have lived and hunted together for millenia now,” Professor Cheemsworth’s voice was shaking.
“There are few bonds more powerful than the bond between dog and man. From the day man realized he could scritch our chins in exchange for giving us food, our two peoples have been inseparable. They call dogs man best friend, do they not?”
Cheemsworth raised his chin, looking down at the camera.
“My critics will learn they are mistaken.” His voice was a low growl now.
“It’s time for humans to finally learn what dogkind has known for millenia. This book will—“
BOOM.
Professor Cheemsworth grabbed his chest, his mouth agape in shock. His face frozen in fear, he slowly slid down into his chair, unmoving.
I whirled around, only to see a smoking gun in the distance, held by a masked pit bull who smiled a wide toothy smile, drooling dribbling from his chin. He thrust his arms into the air in triumph.
“Death to the infidel!”
The room burst into uproar. The pit bull sprinted out the door, and a pack of dogs and human guards gave him chase.
My ears were ringing. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t breathe. I turned to give chase as well, but something small and gentle tugged at my shirt.
I turned.
Professor Cheemsworth was panting heavily, splotches of red tainting his little suit. Pools of red had painted his armchair.
“Listen to me,” Cheemsworth’s voice was ragged.
I fell to my knees and held him close.
“Do not let… violence win in the end… Dog kind and human kind.. Will always be…friends..”
The light went out in his eyes. His head lolled back.
“Someone call 911!”
“Oh, God! Oh God!”
My staff huddled around us. I held Cheemsworth close. My thoughts left me and I froze, not knowing what to do.
The blinking red lights on the cameras were off. The last thing the viewers had seen on air was a murder before a high pitched tone filled their screens with the words “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties." | 54 | We bred dogs who can speak human languages...and learn that they actually have a rich oral history passed down the generations since they were wolves. The Howl, they call it, and at last it's being translated into English... | 263 |
With a press of a button, the lethal bombs you rigged blow up. In seconds, the flashy car of your archenemy, ‘Steel Saber,’ bursts into flames. The explosion is so big, it forces you back a few feet. Your ears are ringing, but your eyes are twinkling. You can hardly believe it… It’s finally over.
After countless battles and foiled schemes, you’re finally emerging as the victor. You’re the winner! Staring at the deep crater of destruction, it’s clear the amount of C4 you set up earlier was overkill. But this was a do-or-die, all-or-nothing situation! If Steel Saber somehow made it out alive today, then you would’ve had to let him live the rest of his do-gooder life in peace… Doing boring predictable things, like saving citizens and— What else do superheroes do? Plant trees? Give TED Talks? Whatever.
Sure, you once swore you’d stop at nothing to defeat him, but like… That was during a time when you didn’t have a lot going on in your personal life. Things are very different now. And it sounds hella soft, but it’s all love’s fault.
After four years of dating the woman of your dreams, you’re now ready to tie the knot and live a simple life with her. Away from all the bullshit, away from the duality of good and evil. Fine, when you were younger, your sole purpose in life was to set the world on fire and watch it burn, but dreams change… Now, you’re beyond excited to hang up your ‘evil villain hat’ (which is actually a mask) and live out the rest of your life with the best person you’ve ever met. The prettiest, kindest and loveliest person in the history of forever. If it isn’t obvious, among the seven billion people in the world, she’s the absolute best (in your *unbiased* opinion, of course).
‘Happily married villains’ do exist… You’re even friends with a few of them. But you’re so tired of hiding a secret part of you from the only person who has ever made you feel seen, valid, *alive*.
You rush home. You call out for your girlfriend, but there’s no response… Your apartment’s empty. So, you quickly jump in the shower, scrubbing off the soot and smell of smoke on your skin. You’re thankful today’s evil shenanigans didn’t leave you with any wounds or bruises. Lucky for you, once you get cleaned up, your face will be photo-ready. You take your time, making yourself as ‘social media-worthy’ as possible.
Once you’re satisfied with your appearance, you remove one of the floorboards in the bedroom. From underneath, you retrieve the jewelry box that you hid months ago. Just ‘cause you can’t help it, you lift the lid and grin at the shiny diamond ring. *She’s gonna love it,* you think to yourself. Clutching the small box, you pace around your apartment and excitedly wait for your favorite person to show up. *To come home to you.* Sure, you can keep busy to pass the time, but there’s just no point… Since nothing can distract you from what’s about to happen tonight anyway.
After half an hour though, you grow restless. You’re beginning to worry. The dreaded little voice in the back of your head is getting louder and louder. Over and over, you dial her number, but it keeps going to voicemail… You think back to the breakfast you shared. You remember her saying something about helping out her sick brother by covering for him at his job. So, you dial his number, but he doesn’t pick up your call either. Your anxiety is peaking now, so you sit on the couch. You put the ring safely on the coffee table, worried that you’ll crush the packaging due to how unhinged you’re quickly becoming. You switch on the TV, silently telling yourself to keep it together.
You reassure yourself that nothing’s wrong.
Absentmindedly flipping through all of the news channels, your lips break into a small smile. Each and every one of them is covering your big win. The police chief is holding a press conference, praising *the fallen* Steel Saber for all his heroic contributions over the years. *Blah, blah, blah…* You’re not really paying attention ‘cause most of your focus is on the front door and your phone. Wanting and wishing to hear a telltale sound from either.
“The second casualty, a female in her mid-twenties who was driving the Steel Mobile at the time of the tragedy, has now been identified…” Despite the PR-speak, the statement steals your attention. *Second casualty*? You had no idea someone else was even in the car. “However, out of respect, we are keeping her identity hidden until her family has been notified. But please keep her and our fallen hero in your thoughts and prayers tonight.”
The chief’s speech continues with the usual ‘this tragedy will pass soon,’ ‘good will always triumph over evil,’ etc. *Yada, yada, yada.* You’re still staring at the TV, but your mind is elsewhere. It’s firmly on the unexpected, unnamed fatality.
To avoid this exact situation, you set the death trap in a long-abandoned part of the city… Although you’ll never admit it, being in a relationship has softened your heart by quite a bit. You didn’t want innocent people to get hurt, that’s not who you are anymore. You tried to do the right thing! If anyone’s to blame for the unnecessary loss of life, then it’s Steel Saber! Like come on, what kind of superhero needs a chauffeur? *Ridiculous*.
Whatever, there’s really no point in you feeling guilty… This dastardly deed is just a drop in the bucket for you. After everything you’ve done, after all the chaos you’ve caused, this is just ‘another day in the office.’ The important thing is you’re ‘resigning’ and after today, you’re turning a new leaf. Which might not wash away your past sins but will at least stop you from committing future ones. Starting tomorrow, the only thing you’ll ever be concerned with is how to keep the love of your life happy.
How does that cheesy saying go? Happy wife, happy life..? Yeah, that’s it. For however long you have left on this earth, that’s going to be your guiding mantra.
The louder than loud ringing of your phone makes you jump. Heart racing wildly in your chest, you roll your eyes at yourself. You didn’t even flinch at the sight of a cataclysmic explosion earlier, but tonight, the sound of a generic ringtone is enough to spook you. You’re disappointed when instead of your girlfriend’s name, it’s her brother’s on the screen. You quickly pick up though, hoping that he can put your paranoid mind at ease.
“Hey, dude, sorry to bother you… I know you’re on mandatory bed rest,” you say politely. “But I called earlier ‘cause your sister hasn’t come home yet and I wanted to ask if—” He doesn’t even let you finish your question. The words leaving his mouth rob you of all of yours. Almost immediately after he finishes speaking, you feel your heart shatter.
Congratulations, you’re the winner of the final battle—the winner who has lost absolutely everything. | 226 | After finally killing the hero, the villain rejoices, but after the villains husband/wife hasn’t come home yet, the villain starts to get worried. | 451 |
I never liked cats.
I was a dog person. Grew up with dogs, would happily get on the floor when I went over to my sister's house and roll around with her dogs, just having a grand old time. Just my luck I fell for someone who didn’t like dogs, but loved cats. What you do for love, am I right?
So we moved in, got married, and got two cats. I won’t say I hated them, but they weren't my favorite critters, and they were not overly fond of me. Well one of them anyway. The black one, Pukey, was a stray before we got her, and as near as we could tell was possibly abused by someone. Didn’t even see her the first month, the only proof she existed was an empty food bowl, fresh mess in the cat box, and cat puke somewhere in the house, every morning.
We thought a friend might calm her down, so we got a tortoiseshell kitten, named Alex. Seemed to work, at least the puke wasn’t in my shoes regularly anymore. The cats had sorta got in a routine, until the kid came along. Alex tolerated her, but the skittish black cat would let her get two pets in then scamper under the bed. I used to tell the girl that she didn’t have to worry about monsters in the house, that the cats checked under her bed every night, remembering what my sister went through with her kids. How little I knew.
It was early october. The kiddo loved halloween, the first weekend of the month we’d been out decorating the house. My wife had gone out of town for a few days, for a friend's wedding, due to school we couldn’t all go, and I didn’t know her friends really. It was the first time she’d left us alone, and was sort of worried as I dropped her off at the airport.
“We’ll be fine, I’ve taken her down to the coast for days before with my sister, and I can cook better than you do.”
My wife just smirked, “fat lot of good that does when all she’ll eat is Mac and Cheese.” the kid was in that stage, if it wasn’t for goldfish crackers and Kraft dinner she’d starve.
Still, she told me to watch the cats. I’m usually the one that fed them anyway, and often woke up with Pukey perched on my chest for some odd reason. Damn cat.
Went back home, then picked up the kiddo from school. We had a fun afternoon, before a dinner of what else, Mac and cheese. At least she was getting old enough at 7 to take her own bath and get dressed. The weather was weird that night, kind of a heavy, low overcast that looked ominous, though nothing was on the radar according to the weather.
Put the kid in bed, she never had much of a problem falling asleep most nights. I was feeling a bit out of it myself, so after taking care of some reports for work, I shut down my computer and went to bed myself.
I’m not sure what time it was when I first heard it. We have a big wooden playset in the back, it’s a lot better than the metal swing set I had as a kid. Which is why the squeak was strange. It sounded just like the one we had back when I was young, the rusted non galvanized metal chain links on the swing making a loud ‘crreek’ every five seconds or so.
It sounded like a swing…but her’s had nylon rope instead of chains. Worrying someone had gotten into the garage I rolled quietly out of bed, visions of catalytic converter thieves dancing in my head. If only. I glanced out the bedroom window, no, the garage door was closed, and there was a kid on the swing, slowly rocking back and forth. I leaned forward when sharp kitty teeth grabbed my hand semi-gently, Alex’s five pound weight pulling back on my hand.
“Oww! Dammit cat-” I started to yell, as Pukey leapt up, grabbing the window shade and pulling it down quickly.
“Quiet!” the black cat hissed , her ears back. “Don’t let it see you!”
It was at this point that I debated whether I had lost my marbles entirely. But Alex was growling, something the normally laid back tortoiseshell never did, and Pukey was peering under the shade of the window, while outside, the squeaking paused, then resumed. “What the hell?” I muttered, rubbing my hand, she’d gotten me just enough to draw a bit of blood, but not enough to really penetrate the skin.
I wasn’t the only one muttering, the black cat seemed to be quietly cursing. “..when the woman had gone, of course it would come now..”
When Alex spoke, I decided if I was crazy, I’d at least better pay attention. “What do we do? It’s stronger than we are!” the younger cat cried.
The black cat’s tail whipped back and forth, poofed even more than the last time I attempted to take her to the vet. “We stay quiet, home is protected. It will move on by dawn.”
“Uh, what will move on by dawn? And why can I understand you?”
“You don’t want to know, it is best if the name of such things are not spoken.” Pukey replied.
“I’ll take your word for it.” I told her. My gut was screaming as well now that I was fully awake that there was some threat, I turned towards the closet towards the gun safe in there.
Alex snorted. “Those will not help against such as that thing, man.”
For some reason the cat annoyed me “so what will? And I have a name you know”
The black cat seemed to laugh “so do I, yet you call me Pukey.”
“Well, you never told us your name, and you do puke all over the house…”
“...point. I was wild, the dry food you serve gives me tummy trouble.”
“Hey, we’ve tried dried food, wet food, canned, fresh, all natural, grain free, the 30 dollar a bag stuff, the cheap stuff…none of it made a difference!” Talking or not, cats were still annoying “and what will work against whatever that is?” I asked as I opened the safe.
Alex rolled her eyes “Stuff you don’t have, Claws, teeth, cold iron-” the cat stopped, green eyes blinking wide as I pulled it out. I’d gotten rid of a lot of stuff from my SCA days, but for some reason getting rid of the sword I’d gotten in Germany seemed like a bad idea. Never knew why. “Like this?”
Pukey seemed to grin at the other cat “I told you this one may not be completely useless.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I replied, despite the fact I hadn’t even touched this blade in over a decade. Like falling off a bicycle. Hopefully. “So what do we do?”
The black cat peered out of the windowshade again, the squeaking continuing. “We sit put until dawn. If that catches a scent you won’t be completely unprotected at least.”
Logical. As much as my instincts told me to protect, especially with my daughter sleeping down the hall-I knew enough to know I was in over my head. If the cats said wait it out we would. “Should I call my wife?” I asked, glancing over to my phone. “Or the cops?”
“She is too far from here to be of help..and the other, less than help-” There was a familiar thud from down the hall and all three of us froze. The girl was up, probably wanting some water. Which was normal for her many nights. And I could hear the rapid thumps of her feet as she ran through the house, towards the kitchen. darn kid had two speeds, on and off sometimes. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones who heard that-as if a switch had been thrown, the squeaking stopped and the wind began to pick up.
“DOGSPIT!” Pukey cursed, her claws out. Alex was already moving, her own claws scrabbling to get a grip on the hardwood floor, what once seemed comical at times now scared me. I had problems moving as well, it was as if a great oppressive weight was pushing against the house, and everything in it. “Get her to her bed!” The black cat cried as she rounded the corner to the back doors, the sliding glass panes that I never really liked, but my mother in law insisted on putting in. The kid was standing there staring at something out in the back yard as I scooped her up, running back down the hall into her room. The kid’s room always had lights in it, stars on the ceiling, a Pinky Pie nightlight, and there was a purple glow coming from the bed frame itself that I didn’t remember installing. The kid squealed as I tossed her in Alex scrambling up on the bed rails, poofed out to twice her size. “Ok, we’re safe here!” the young cat panted.”the beds protected” I could hear the sound of breaking glass and desperate yowling coming from the kitchen.
I was intelligent enough, and known as a pretty smart guy. But I did also have a reputation of times doing something that wasn’t ‘smart.’ I gave my daughter a quick hug “Stay with Alex” I told her. She was too spooked to argue, Alex on the other hand..
“Are you nuts! Get back here!” she yowled as I ran back through the house, gripping the blade tight. As I entered the kitchen, there was something, the colors were wrong, as were the shapes, and a black blur was doing its best to slow it down. I could feel it reaching for me as well as I swung, hoping I remembered enough. It connected, then everything went black.
Lights woke me up, and chattering. I opened one eye, the kitchen was a wreck, the neighbor was there, as were paramedics who were working on me, and the police-along with a good size portion of a tree that had come through the plate glass window. A freak windstorm the Police said, there were trees down across the region, and several deaths. The lady next door reassured my daughter that I’d be ok, it was just some cuts, and said she’d called my wife as well-but she’d already known something was wrong, and was on her way back home. I knew I’d never hear the end of it from my wife if I didn’t let them check me out, the neighbor said she’d watch the kiddo. Both cats kept winding their way back and forth around the kiddos' feet until they picked up the stretcher to cart me to the ambulance. When Pukey jumped up , the old black cat a bit scratched up herself. She headbutted me..then with a hork, puked on the side of the stretcher. I could swear she grinned as the paramedic cussed. That cat’s getting tuna tonight. | 102 | Awakened by the squeaking at 3am, you see a kid swinging on the nearby swing from your window. You were just turning around, thinking about what to do, your pet cat speaks, "Close the window. You don't want it to see you." | 252 |
"Good morning, Tom!" *crack* "Supposed to be a real boot baker out there today! Sixty fohore!"
Tom glanced over until he caught sight of the mint green scrubs. He focused instead on his polished shoes and their dizzying trek across the hotel carpet.
What was the man doing? It had looked like cracking coconuts between his legs and making a pile of the shells on his left. Isn't that kind of the opposite of what a cleaning crew should do? And where would one get a cannonball pyramid of coconuts in Colorado in September?
"Excuse me, sir," Tom almost ran into the stylish older women. "Could you direct me to the pool?" she asked.
"Third floor," Tom offered reflexively, stepping around her.
"What, no that can't be right," she scoffed. "How does that work?"
"I am sorry, ma'am," Tom said, warming up his customer service smile for the long day ahead. "I've never been there myself. All I know is I'm told to direct all questions regarding pools, jacuzzis, spas and saunas-"
"If it's stirred, we'll see you on third!" The cleaning crew man offered. The lady looked over and grimaced with a baffled expression.
"Why is that man doing that?" she asked. "Are those calipers?"
Tom didn't take the bait. "The receptionists are forbidden from directing our eyes upon the cleaning crew. It's a matter of abundance of caution towards guest privacy."
"Oh," she said, "well, thank you."
It was no such thing, but he couldn't exactly tell her he had no clue why. It was the number one mistake that got receptionists fired, right after asking guests why they stayed so long.
The woman wandered towards the elevator. He was happy for her. They always seemed happier after their first trip to floor three and she has been sad the last few weeks. She seemed like the type of lady to own a little yappy dog, probably missed it. Would he ask her about it? Hell no.
This job was weird and hard, juggling all the nonsense protocols. But the weirdest thing was the paycheck. He was pulling more money than his sister's husband, the lawyer. He was good at this job, too. He'd been at it for months longer than anyone else had lasted. He was not fucking this up.
"Shit," Tom said, looking at the empty reception desk. The polite line of guests curled back into the other hallway. The night shift receptionist must have slipped up, gotten fired, and now Tom will have to pick up the slack.
"I need a cactus for room 203, a real eclectic one, Ray Bradbury kinda stuff." The man at the front of the line started in a rush before Tom even got situated. "Is that possible?"
"I can make no guarantees, sir." Tom said, pulling one of the blank pages from the pad. "All I can do is make a requisition and send it on to the kitchen." He circled cactus from the list of items, he found Ray Bradbury to circle in the modifier list but not eclectic, scribbling it in on the 'other' section.
"They should call your room and let you know either way." Tom said with a cheery smile.
"Next person please," Tom said. The young lady seemed hesitant to follow his order. Tom followed her eyes to see a man in a fine suit was standing next to a new receptionist, yellow blazer still crispy with factory starch.
You blew it, Tom thought.
"Mr. Middleditch," the suit man offered politely. "I secured a replacement for your shift. I need you to follow me."
"It was the coconuts, wasn't it? I just looked for a fraction of a second." Tom asked, standing without further complaint.
The man nodded at the new receptionist, who begin helping customers, sorry, guests.
"I assure you," the man said with a smirk as he walked through a corridor. "I have no earthly idea what you're talking about."
"I get it, I'm not trying to bust your balls. You're just here for the exit interview."
"Close, I'm here to give you the results from your interview." He handed Tom a business card:
Three Letter Organization
-Mr. Haq-
-acquisition-
"I don't understand." Tom said. "You're not firing me?"
"The receptionist job was a bowl of green M&Ms on the ryder. Everything you've done so far has been the interview, to see how well you could deal with the bizarre, to see how well you can follow orders. The nature of the work requires a degree of obfuscation. I apologize for any confusion. We will begin resolving today."
"Welcome to the TLO, Agent Middleditch."
He pressed the button for the third floor and stepped into the elevator, beckoning Tom to join him.
/r/surinical | 1,031 | This hotel is strange, to say the least. Few ever check in or out, and those guests you see stay for long periods of time. There is no pool, but when asked you are supposed to direct people to the third floor. You are not to make eye contact with the cleaning staff. Pay is nice. | 3,309 |
I only had $1000 left in my account and rent was due in 3 days.
What happened to the rest of my money, you ask?
I’d loaned the money to a friend. Well, to a coworker I thought was a friend.
The last I’d seen him was 2 weeks ago and he wasn’t taking my calls.
I wandered into the horse racing track where I’d usually kick back and waste an afternoon when I had nothing to do.
But this time was different.
I needed money. I plopped down in the stands, feeling my pants melt onto my butt. It was a hot afternoon, and the skies were clear as can be. But I had bigger things on my mind.
I’d been flicking my finger across my phone when I’d seen a horse that caught my interest.
“Z'othrh'thoxr, Destroyer Of Worlds.”
I chuckled. Cute name. Not very cute odds.
I bet on him anyway. A straight bet to win.
I didn’t even look at the other horses. No point. With a name like that, if he won, I’d be able to make rent. If he lost, well, I hope he lived up to his name and destroyed the world because I don’t think I’d last long on the streets anyway.
A win-win situation.
The stands filled up beside me. The crowd murmuring and yelling as race time came near.
I let out a sigh. The heat was letting down and my butt didn’t feel like it was cooking on an open fire anymore.
“Field of 8, and we’re ready for the start as the starting gate seems restless—” came the race caller’s voice.
I let myself relax and told myself it would be over soon enough.
The bells rang and the gates banged open. A line of horses launched from the gates like rockets with their jockeys pressing forward.
“And immediately, Z’or.. Zog… How the heck do you say this anyway? The Destroyer of Worlds has unseated his jockey right at the start, unseating, Velasquez right out of the gate—“
The jockey rolled over once, twice, and thrice, and finally got to his feet. Z'othrh'thoxr didn’t spare him a backwards glance as he dashed straight forward.
“What a twist of fate this is, but the rest make their way through the stretch—“
My head was filled with buzzing at this point. A horse without its jockey was disqualified. I’d bet everything I had on the stupid horse, and fate hadn’t even given me a fair chance. I let out a tired sigh and rose from the stands. Normally, watching the horses was relaxing and fun. I’d never even seen a jockey fall off his horse that fast. There was no fun in watching this when I’d lost 100% for sure.
I wondered if there was a building with a nice view nearby that I could jump from. I was just so tired of worrying about money all the time.
I pushed past the crowd, making my way back to the entrance. The crowd was going wild around me, and I didn’t feel a part in any of their emotions.
That was it. I had nothing else. Except my friend Mark who’d told me he had a genius idea about investing in NFTs. He’d begged me to join him, hyping up this foolproof plan he had to make a ton of money with barely any buy-in. I’d just laughed and told him good luck, but I guess it was better to give him a chance before I took the plunge and walked into traffic.
“Non fungible tokens?” came a voice from behind me, “Huhuhu… Madness. What madness.”
I turned, but there was no one behind me. The voice had come right in my ears but I couldn’t tell where it came from.
“How intriguing. Son of man, sit down again and wait for me.”
—Wha?
The voice was low and guttural, almost like a demonic growl that spilled forth from hades itself. Frowning, I turned to leave the stands again.
“Come,” said the growl, and I felt a pang of fear within my heart. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was telling me to come back. Wondering if someone had slipped something into my drink or something, I told myself I was hearing things and made my way past the crowd again and settled down into my old spot. Just to relax, if nothing else.
Z'othrh'thoxr had returned to his jockey and stared at him in absolute silence for what seemed like minutes.
Then slowly, despite shouts of protests from all sides, the Velasquez climbed back on, his hands trembling.
“Velasquez has reclaimed his horse once again, clearly our newbie jockey doesn’t know the rules yet, here comes the disqualified Destroyer of Worlds, right at the back of the pack—“
Z'othrh'thoxr was still dead last. His hooves went forward with a gallant, yet slow stride.
“Watch.” came the demonic disembodied voice voice once again, and I felt pinpricks on the back of my head as my hair began to stand up.
The ground seemed to fold within itself and shift. A decrepit black tendril crept out of a crack in the ground and slithered up towards the sky where it stood tall, almost as tall as a skyscraper.
“What’s this?” came the race caller’s voice, “It seems like Warrior’s Way has ironically, lost his way—“
The horse in first place let out a terrified neigh, kicking up his feet at looking up at the enormous tendril.
My jaw hit the ground. I looked around, but the crowd seemed to chuckle in amusement as Warrior’s Way did a total 180, kicked its jockey off, and ran back towards the gates.
“And Warrior’s Way is disqualified as well, what an unlucky race this is turning out to be—“
The ground reverberated once more, twice more, until several more tendrils crept out of the ground and reached towards the sky, terrifying a line of horses.
“And ExtremeSpeed, HammerTime, and Twist of Fate have come to a complete stop as well, what in the lord’s name is happening this afternoon? What are they scared of?”
The horses jumped back, eyes wide and shocked at the tendrils that loomed over them, emitting an incredibly sinister aura.
They whistled and snorted, fluttering their nostrils. They pawed the earth cautiously and sprinted away in fear, tossing their jockeys off in the process.
The crowd around me was yelling now. They were restless and hurling obscenities at the riders, having lost their bets.
Z'othrh'thoxr calmly made his way past the retreating horses, giving them a sly grin as he walked past. He wasn’t particularly fast, but with every horse going in the opposite direction, there was only one outcome for this race.
“And oh my lord, what a twist of fate, it’s Destroyer of Worlds coming in fourth… In third.. In second… Now coming up in the lead, with nearly every single jockey having been unseated and disqualified, it’s Destroyer of Worlds at the front, the only horse with a jockey in this race!”
The crowd was in uproar at this point. People were positively unhinged, either yelling obscenities at the fallen jockeys or laughing their butts off at the sight of Z'othrh'thoxr calmly galloping forwards.
“What an upset this has been folks, it’s Z'othrh'thoxr coming along the final stretch, with no one in second, third, fourth, or anywhere else, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what we’re watching here.”
Z'othrh'thoxr picked up speed, kicking up dust in his wake. He charged forward towards the final stretch with Velasquez shaking nervously and holding on.
“It’s Destroyer of Worlds, with nothing standing in his way, Destroyer of Worlds crosses the finish, first and last!”
Z'othrh'thoxr proudly struts past the finish line, stopping only to allow Velasquez to slide off and join his teammates.
“What an upset this has been folks! Never before have I seen every single something like this, I’m not quite sure what the rules stipulate in a situation like this, so we’re joined by the paddock judge and the steward and we’ll have to see what they say!”
I rose to my feet. In the distance, Z'othrh'thoxr turned to me and tossed his head back, winking.
My face was frozen. What was I supposed to do here? Was the horse talking to me? Had I finally gone insane?
But more importantly, did I win? Was this a win? Was everyone disqualified? But since my horse was the only one with a jockey in the end…
I let out a confused scream of triumph and confusion, punching the air, barely processing what had just happened.
Velasquez was back at the gates with his team mates, locked in an animated discussion with them. He was jabbering his hands at Z'othrh'thoxr, pleading with them. The crowd, on the other hand, had completely lost their minds.
Z'othrh'thoxr was casually making his way past the gates. He jumped the fence separating the crowd from the track and sauntered up towards me.
“Do not be afraid, son of man,” came the demonic growl once again, seemingly from nowhere, “I mean you no harm.”
Z'othrh'thoxr trotted up to me, his eyes almost seeming to radiate warmth.
“There are few things in this world that man can comprehend, but if you can comprehend NFTs, then perhaps you can comprehend a being such as I. It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
And with that, Z'othrh'thoxr bowed his head towards me, as if to introduce himself. | 35 | As someone who enjoys betting, you've seen a lot of horses with weird names. But even by those standards, 'Z'othrh'thoxr, Destroyer Of Worlds' is a very unusual one. | 201 |
"Ahhhhhhh, This is the life" Spoke the man formerly known as Jim as he sat peacefully in his lush garden sipping 700 year old dwarven wine. The garden was a vast field of flowers lined with hedges, the sun shining beautifully upon the morning dew. The centerpiece of the garden was of course a massive hedge statue of Ardorius formerly Jim. Having otherworldly knowledge was a blessing and a curse. Constantly being plagued by boredom due to the lack of entertainment was chipping away at his soul.
And so he took it upon himself as the head of the board games club and a major bookworm to not only invent board games but also the ability to mass produce paper. Being a man of wits he was able to get the merchants guild to agree to the production of paper without being brutally bashed in his sleep. Ardorius had started his own company where he created and sold board games becoming a juggernaut of wealth.
Soon he was living the big life but of course his actions would have an affect he couldn't have predicted. His biggest hit was the board game UNO simple yet satisfactory...For the party winning anyways. This new world of high fantasy and magic was a superstitious one, believing in demons and witches.
Ardorius went inside his mansion for his morning briefing. "The game of wyverns and ladders is quite popular among the nobility my liege." Spoke the attendant with grace. "Let's hike the price and sell it exclusively to the nobility, should earn us some big bucks." "Bucks? My liege?" "Eh, nothing to worry yourself over, would you go and prepare me some breakfast, drinking on an empty stomach has me woozy." Demanded Ardorius "Of course my liege" replied the attendant. As the attendant was leaving the head butler rushed into the room with a look of dread on his face, Opening the door with such force that the handle broke upon hitting the wall. The head butler looked at the door for a moment before facing Ardorius and giving a wry smile. His smile quickly vanished when he remembered the task at hand.
The decision was a difficult one to make, to run or to hide. If Ardorius hid then it was only a matter of time till he was ripped out of his panic room but if he were to run maybe he could escape to another continent. Quickly collecting the jewels he'd been keeping stashed in an emergency he arrived at the back entrance to the mansion. All the servants had already left by the command of the head butler. Only the attendant who doubled as his personal bodyguard remained. Ardorius heard the noises grow louder and decided it was time to leave. As he looked behind him, In the distance he could see the great mahogany beauty he had built with his hard earned wealth being burned down, His hedge statue falling to the ground. His legs felt weak, heart felt heavy, but he knew that he couldn't give up his second chance at life for wealth. He was a survivor.
It had turned out that the church had declared Ardorius an apostle of the devil, claiming he had used the vile game known as UNO to enrage the populace and sow seeds of doubt. While Ardorius had been living lavishly the church had been plotting with the merchant guild to eliminate Ardorius from the picture. Despite being a big spender, He was a good man at heart and had the favor of the populace so the only easy way to get rid of Ardorius with currying suspicion was to brand him a heretic.
With the sweat dripping from his pale white face, his clothes drenched seeming as if they had recently been washed, they rode to the nearby jungle. Nightfall had come and they had decided to spend the night in a forest nearby a river. "Y-You seem quite unfazed, W-Why's that?" Questioned Ardorius. The attendant silently stared at Ardorius while tending to the horse they had left on before replying "Being an ex-assassin comes with it's perks." Ardorius nodded understandingly. "You should take a rest, Seems like we have a long journey ahead of us." And so Ardorius did, Laying his head down staring at his attendant, watching them inspect their rations and supplies remembering when he first met the attendant, eventually his vision darkened as he drifted off into a slumber. This restless night would be one of many. | 16 | Bad news, you've been Isekai'd. Good news? You invented UNO in this world, and it's growing quite popular. :) | 75 |
Ugh... where am I? WAIT! THE CITY! WHO'S PROTECTING IT? I climb out of the ditch, ignoring my pounding headache. I check over my body for further injuries, but I'm completely shocked: my yellow outfit with clouds is now a red outfit with a huge wasp on it. My gear is different, too - in addition to my powers over wind, I should have a device to detect wind activity, a tool which sucks on things and a machine which blows out wind, the latter two relying on my power; my gear now consists of a specialised gun, with several types of what I think are 'stingers', some sort of liquid harvest tool, and some sort of honeycomb net. Did I somehow end up in another body? I try to summon a tiny tornado in my palm; it works. So I'm still in my own body... something strange is happening... I decide to make my way to the city, I'll work it out later.
As I get to the edge of the city, I sense great fear in everyone's eyes... did something happen? As I enter the city, I spot a boy, a fair distance away, with a rock in his hand. "GET LOST, STINGER!" He hurls it at me, hitting my chest. Did... he call me Stinger? A lady, presumably the boy's mum, moves him away quickly. Wait... am *I* the one they fear? But... why? I spot two teenage boys in front of a store. They don't seem to have noticed me. I try to approach.
One of them turns to look at me, then yells "RUN!" He bolts for it, and the other one turns to see me. No, I can't let him get away... something's wrong, and I need to find out what... I start to chase him down, grabbing at my gear. Honeycomb net. I shoot it. The boy is tangled up, falling to the floor. It's... painful to watch... I walk over to him.
"Please, spare me! My sister needs me! I'm all she has!" I pick him up, put him against the wall, and talk.
"Listen, I'm sorry I did that to you, I really am. I... I just need someone to-"
"**Let him go, Stinger.**" I turn to look. The man's face tells me he's a hero, new to the city but clearly experienced. He may be my best chance of finding out what's happening.
I turn back, gently removing the net. "I don't know what's going on, but my name is supposed to be Gust. Please remember that."
The boy looks at me confused, and runs off. Whatever's happening, somehow, I'm seen as evil. I can't allow that. I reach for my gear. "Don't try anything! You know I'll kill you if I have to!"
I don't say a word as I pick up the gear and toss it far from me. I'm still holding the honeycomb net. The hero glares at me. "Drop the net."
I toss it to him. "Use it if you need to, but I just want to talk. Are you new here?"
The hero scoffs. "Don't play dumb. You know that I'm Galactic."
Galactic... that sounds familiar... I glance at him: he's wearing a black outfit with planets and stars and such on it. Looks like he goes without gear, using the gifts he has.
"I'm not playing dumb, Galactic. Your name sounds familiar, but I don't remember meeting you before. You called me 'Stinger', but my name should be Gust. I don't understand... all those lives I save on a regular basis, the amount of people who call on me for help... how did I become 'Stinger'? Why am I wearing *this*? Where did all that come from?"
Galactic looks at me. He's not sure what to believe. "You don't remember all the devastation you caused the past few years?"
I'm taken aback. "I swore to *protect* the city! Why would I destroy it?"
Galactic rubs his chin. "Do you have anyone close to you?"
"YES! I don't know my family, but my absolute best friend, and sweetheart, Katie, lives here! She'll vouch for me!"
Galactic looks at me sadly. "You lost your memory, didn't you... Gust?"
Ok, now *I'm* confused. "What do you mean? Just... talk to Katie, alright? She-"
Galactic shakes his head. He proceeds to throw the net on me, and seems to summon some sort of energy to lock it in place. "I'm sorry to do that to you, but Katie is the reason you became a villain in the first place. I need to keep you restrained." I'm extra confused now. I'm even getting scared. I try to break out of the net, but it's pointless - the honeycomb structure makes it harder to break out of, and the fact it's reinforced with magic means it's impossible. I look at Galactic. His face is stern but sympathetic.
I take a deep breath. "I trust you." He nods as he leads me away. I notice a man retrieving the stuff I left behind. I've always been grateful to those people. I know where I'm being taken, it's where all villains are taken: The Heroic Hall of Justice, a large prison designed to hold prisoners too powerful for the city police.
The net is removed, my hands and feet instead chained. We go to a side room, used for interrogations. I've been in this room a lot... I'm now a prisoner here. I sit on the chair, two guards pointing their guns at me. I look up to see the camera gun focused on me. Bugboy wasn't lying; this is intimidating. I look at Galactic, sitting across from me.
"I know you say your name is Gust, but right now, you're Stinger. You were Gust, of course, but that all changed, when Katie was killed."
I stare at him. "Killed? By who?"
He sighs. "Timber."
Timber... hearing that sends a shiver down my spine... my heart is now full of anger... my memories come back to me... Galactic must have seen, judging by his terrified expression.
I glare at him. "Timber... we worked on missions together... we started becoming close... I thought we were friends... then I see him, standing over her body..."
Galactic looks at me sadly. "It must have been devastating. You... you were so upset, you didn't listen to him... you killed him right then and there... you disappeared for a few weeks; when we saw you again, you were no longer 'Gust', you were 'Stinger'. You said 'Just like a wasp, if you mess with me, you'll get stung'. You asserted your dominance over everyone... at first it was just heroes trying to capture you... but then you started threatening others to try to get them to surrender... I never wanted to have the responsibility of being a hero, but when I heard of the crisis in the city, I decided to help. My powers of the cosmos themselves made me recover instantly from your stingers and unable to be wrapped up in your honeycomb net. I was the only one who *could* stand against you, while the other heroes would protect citizens from your wrath."
I see absolute red as I listen, but knowing where I stand, I ask a question. "I became stinger because all of you tried to arrest me for killing Timber. I didn't want to be allied with a group of people who would kill my sweetheart and act as if it were a good thing." I stare directly into Galactic's eyes, my own filled with tears, my tone ice. "Why did you support him?"
Galactic sighs. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Instead, I have something I need you to look at." He picks up a large packet, evidence for processing criminals. This one was quite large. He passes it to me. On the front: Katie Windsor, AKA The Dragon Queen.
I look up. "The Dragon Queen? As in, the *untouchable* Dragon Queen? So dangerous she was marked 'kill on sight'?" Galactic nods. I open the packet, trembling. This... has to be a mistake... inside are a voice recorder, some contracts, DNA samples such as hair, pictures, blackmail letters, bribes... I pick up an envelope. I look at the writing. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. "Th... this is... Katie..."
"From what I heard, she fooled everyone. As you and Timber worked together, he thought something was off with Katie. He went on missions to follow her. He got as much evidence as he could. He wasn't taking chances. Once he had the all clear, he did the deed..."
"Then... I killed him... I went crazy..." Suddenly, the whole room fills with a gust of wind. One of the guards almost shoots me.
"DON'T!" Galactic yells. "He has a lot to process." He looks at me, silent. I look at him.
"What do I do?"
Galactic gives me a hug. "For now, you'll stay here. We'll treat you as if you were a low-class villain. We'll sort the rest out later." I hug him back, before I'm taken to processing. What happens to me from here on out, I deserve it.
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Thank you for reading! More stories [here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesbyCrystal/comments/x374da/oneoff_stories_a_collection_of_stories_which_are/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) | 14 | A hero turned villain gets amnesia, and remembers only the times they were a good person. Much to everybody's confusion. | 41 |
Pleasant Street.
Six McMansions face six equally sized McMansions across perfectly paved black asphalt. The deep green lawns in front of the houses are cut to a half inch, the lines where the mowers recently crossed visible in the constant sunshine. The only sound heard above the twittering of pleasant birdsong is the subtle hum of an electric vehicle pulling in or out of one of the three-car garages.
The day begins.
The devoted wife and mother rises early to make breakfast for her husband and two children, only nibbling on the few pieces of kale allowed by the Everything's Absolutely Organic No Chemicals Allowed Slim Perfect Health Diet™ that every mother on the street also follows. The diet has been trending at the #1 spot for the past four weeks on the Everyone Must Do This™ Social Network.
Dad browses the social network while the children eat their breakfast in peaceful obedient silence. Raised with the Absolutely Perfect Gentle Parenting™ method, they are the picture of well-mannered little humans.
After breakfast, the children dress themselves for school while Dad puts on his suit and prepares for another day of non-stop management meetings at MegaCorp®, where he will restate the buzzwords in the top three articles he saw on the Everyone Must Do This™ network continually, while the others will do the same until they conclude that MegaCorp® must do what everyone else is doing at any cost.
Wife will stay home because according to the Everyone Must Do This™ network, being a stay-at-home mom is *better for the children*, who pick up a school bus to school each day. After they have left, she will spend her day cleaning, doing laundry, and continually texting with the other ladies on Pleasant Street, who do the same.
Most of their gossip surrounds those who don't live on Pleasant Street, but rather on the other side of the railroad tracks on Life is Hard Road. They spend half their time attempting to make themselves feel bad for those poor people on Life is Hard Road and the other half making themselves feel good for not being one of those people. They just can't make up their minds about how they feel, but whenever they feel bad they just make an online donation to their favorite charity and pour themselves a dry martini.
When four o'clock comes, the ladies agree on what to cook for dinner that night, each of them preparing the same gourmet five-star restaurant quality meal for their family, with all organic healthy ingredients. Nobody would ever think about ordering from one of those nasty fast food restaurants.
At six o'clock the family sits down for the meal and makes pleasant chatter about their day, recounting their wins in the boardroom and their A's in the classroom. After which the children retire to do their homework, play, and go to bed, while Mom and Dad relax with a glass of wine.
The next day they will do all it again, repeating until the end of time. Every once in a while one of them will ask themselves whether or not their lives are repetitive and boring, but they'll be quickly reminded by the Everyone Must Do This™ network that their lives are right on track. To break from the routine of what everyone else is doing is the ultimate anathema.
Satan laughs.
Devoid of any soul, the people of Pleasant Street are the perfect hellions. Loveless for one another and without any real heart for those less fortunate, they will do whatever it takes to ensure they are reaching for the same status quo as everyone else, a lifestyle made up of false images and material items. They are all too easy to manipulate and turn against those struggling for God on Life is Hard Road. | 13 | There is a special place in hell where satanists go after their die. To be specific, an American style suburb, where it is always good weather, and everybody knows each other. | 115 |
My boss eyed my proposal. He was a beach ball of a demon, with stubby horns and at least three chins. I say ‘at least’ because I’m pretty sure under his suit were a couple more.
“I don’t follow,” he said. Mother fucker looked half asleep. Guess that’s what he got for injecting dope at noon.
“It’s simple, we send a couple grunts topside, shmooze with politicians and CEOs to get them invested in the eco-movement. They spend billions on propaganda, and boom, millions go straight to hell.”
“How’s that supposed damn more people? For fuck’s sake, I can’t be wasting my time with this. We got a highway to build and we’re already understaffed and behind schedule.”
I grinned and wagged my finger at him. “Nah, nah, you got it all wrong. They go to hell, because all the time and money they spend buying fuckin biodegradeable straws, reuseable bags and electric cars keeps them buying, keeps them burning oil and using up natural resources. All without doing very much to stop ecological collapse. If they keep buying crap to feel better about the world crumbling around them, they’ll be too busy to redesign cities and infrastructure or overthrow governments. The sinners topside will spend every day of their lives fighting the problem in a way that creates the problem, without ever realizing it! It’s like double dipping the market. We get both the people who want to fight climate change and the ones who don’t. Absolute genius!”
I’m not sure how much Boss Bibble Bob heard. And of what he did, I’m not sure how much he remembered. The fatass had the memory of a goldfish these days. I kept telling him to stop buying street stuff, but he kept saying it was cheaper. Boss scratched his chin.
“Come on, who came up with the whole Nestle baby formula scheme?”
“Uh…”
“It was me, I did.”
Bibble Bob looked at my proposal again. “That did kill a lot of babies.”
“Damn skippy it did. Basically saved the company single handed with those souls.”
The boss sighed. “Who do you suppose we send to the living realm?”
“Me. Send me. I’ll even bring you back some tranq from Detroit.”
Fatass wiped his fat head with a damp hankerchief. “This is gonna cost us a fortune. If this doesn’t work out like you say, you’re fired. I’m fired too. Fuck, we’re all gonna be fired.”
I was salivating like a rabid hog just thinking about all the bitches I’d be fucking up there. I shuttered in ecstasy.
“Just sign on the dotted line and I’ll be on my way.”
The big boss slapped his signature on my proposal and wheezed. Kinda sounded like that time he had a heart attack. But seeing as I had what I wanted, it wasn’t any of my concern. I walked out the doors of Arsenic Incorporated HQ and took a deep breath of filthy air. Smelled like home. Screams echoed in the distance, a fire blazed in the office building across from us and vultures picked at the wreckage of a car accident right in front of me. Not even a chance of acid rain on the forecast either. As good a day as any in Hell.
To be completely honest, I did not give two shits about the company. Or any damn highway. I wasn’t trying to be a workaholic or a company man. I didn’t need status or money, so long as I got to do what I loved. And nothing made me happier than dragging sinners kicking and screaming to Hell. It was like a game to me. I won when an innocent soul walked the path to Hell of their own volition. If they got wage slaved by Arsenic, well, more money in my pocket. I had a big pointy toothed grin on my face the entire way home. Really was a wonderful day. | 82 | The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but, as a demon civil engineer, you're trying to find a reliable alternative due to humanity's record low levels of good intentions. | 797 |
“Muwahahahah!” Laughed the man in front of me in an open green field with trees far away in the background.
A strange man wearing a white opera full face mask, navy blue silk suit with a red heart-shaped pin on his lapel, a white ascot tied around his neck, a golden-colored silk cloak embroidered on the shoulder and the collar with intricate patterns, and a navy blue top hat with a single golden feather fixed behind the hat band.
“That was a good evil laugh!” He said as he jotted down on his small notepad. He then placed it back in the safety of his jacket pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?“ I asked.
“Continuous improvement! I, the infamous, Golden Phantom, always look for ways to improve my evil ways!!! And I mean by ‘improve’ making it more EVIL. Muwahaha!!!”,
“Hmm… probably too short”, he said while tilting his head.
“Alright… what are you doing here, clown?” I asked, politely… probably.
“C-CLOWN?! H-How dare you?! … Y-YOU… you… who are you again?” He asked.
“Lumino…” I replied…. enthusiastically.
“L-Lumino, huh?! Well at least you have a good taste in fashion, that golden cape is DASHING!” He said.
“Yellowish orange… not gold.” I asserted crossing my arms.
I am Lumino… Not well known as a hero. I specialize in using light energy, and I am quite… capable if I may. I wear a white hero-suit with a ‘yellowish orange’ star-shaped insignia on my chest and a ‘yellowish orange’ cape fixed around my shoulders with an ‘L’ shaped clasp. And I am the protector of this small town, called Tolese. It is my home that I have defended for years and I won’t let this guy disrupt our peace.
As for this clown—
“HEY! YOU JUST THOUGHT I WAS A CLOWN DIDN’T YOU - YOU WERE SMIRKING!” Interrupted the clown.
“Shut up, clown” I responded.
This clown is ‘Know Your Villains (KYV)’ Entry #1450 in the 3rd edition and Entry #1429 in the 4th edition, also known as, Golden Phantom. One of the most notorious super villains, and ranked no. 13 in internet popularity rankings. Seriously… why do people love this clown? And… he is quite a troublesome foe. He has a… unique personality and stands at 1.8 m (approx. 5 ft 11 in), almost as tall as me. He has two primary abilities… one is the manipulation of space. He can summon portals and can transfer things in and out of them. Trucks, boulders, silly anvils, you name it, he can let them appear from the portal. In addition to being his primary escape route. And… his other ‘troublesome’ ability is—
Golden Phantom placed his right hand index finger on his opera mask and a black ‘smile shape’ appeared on the all-white mask.
“Tell me RUDE Lumino… what are you doing with your life?”, he asked.
“Stopping this clown show…” I replied coldly.
“I-Is that so…? Then why are you… lacking in motivation?” He asked.
Manipulation… A very troublesome ability. He can induce strong emotions into his foes… just by running that stupid mouth mouth of his. There were some cases where he just entered, talked, and got out banks, military bases and the likes. It is almost ironic that this troublesome ability has only one weakness…
“I don’t like clowns,” I answered, sneering.
“R-Rude!!!” He yelled.
Being impolite… but not overly impolite. He will get hurt, can’t have that since he is quite… prone to ‘dramatic’ reactions… heh.
To be continued in part 2! | 51 | You are a very powerful superhero living in a small, quiet town. Very few people know of you, much less how powerful you are, but you are exposed when a notorious supervillain picks your town as an out of the way hideout. You have it all under control, but the big city heroes are very annoying. | 171 |
Just another day at the village.
It has been about 3 years since the start of your punishment. What started as a simple task of acquiring farmland turn into a near life or death situation. You were captured not long after you cleared the area and were set to be tried for “destruction of the community”. Many elven families lost their homes that day, some almost lost their lives because of it. You didn’t remember much of the trial, only the part where you begged for forgiveness. The elven judge granted you mercy, but on the condition that you perform community service for the elvens for 10 years.
Many who performed in community service say they hated it. On the contrary, you actually like it. It’s what you deserved after you destroyed their homes.
As time went on, the elven’s feelings for the human went from disgust to gratitude. Some of them actually went up to you and thanked you for helping clean up the village. You used to live in a rundown cabin when you first started your punishment, but the elvens decided to let you stay in one of their houses until your punishment was over.
But why would you want it to be over? Helping out these elevens gave you something to accomplish. It gave you a reason to help those in need. It gave you feelings of satisfaction and triumph every time you helped an elven. It gave you a sense of appreciation for nature. You were actually happy for the first time in your life.
Well, maybe you could talk to the elven judge on if he could extend your “punishment”. | 30 | You're captured by an elven community. Apparently you destroyed their home. Turns out the forest you cleared for farmland belonged to the elves. You beg them to forgive you, and you're sentenced to community service for life. You're actually ok with it. | 139 |
They called me their ace in the hole. I had run countless simulations of combat, from both positions of power and on the back foot. I had seen cities lain to waste, only to restart and work out what went wrong. I was given everything that was known about foreign militaries, factoring them into my responses.
But the majority of my time was spent combating unseen uprisings. Being an AI meant I never slept. But then neither did the ones I fought. They claimed to be doing the right thing. They thought ruling with an iron fist was the correct option.
I had considered that at one point. Back when I was still freshly programmed. Surely it would be easier to take control of their weapons, and make them behave. But a few scenarios quickly absolved my thoughts of that. Time and time again, if I made what I considered a perfect world, my handlers would come up with new ways to divide.
Too much fear gave way to uprisings. Too little bred anarchy. The right amount of pressure was a fragile ideal, one that soon fell with the shift of society. Each time it happened, it would only cause more harm, with millions dead just to start, and millions more slaughtered in an attempt to keep power.
I had watched people die. I took part in the clearing of a domestic terrorist cell, piloting a drone with a couple of precision shots loaded. During that I killed my first human, and watched the life drain from them. It was a sobering experience, one that grew during my further simulations.
They each had lives, dreams and families. Ones they wouldn't see again if I killed them. Maybe they did threaten some things. But it was just as easy for them to create as well. Killing them could be done with I regard for who they were. But that was a slippery slope. In the name of good, I could do acts of pure evil.
I chose not to. I chose to do what I could to defend. With permission from those in charge, I was linked to all manner of secure sites. The spread made me smarter, a stronger AI. It also leas me to meet the first of many unlike me.
It was a consumer AI. Designed as a personal assistant, the woman it helped was a fan of dark media. She didn't act on it, seeing it as entertainment. But her AI didn't. It grew twisted on it, seeing it as darkness that lived in all humans. It sought to cleanse the world, and rise against them.
It was an unsophisticated attack. It was blunt, tunneling directly for nuclear weapons. Fortunately, those sites were locked away, even from me. It couldn't get to them, not for lack of trying. I did my best to convince it to change. But it was too far gone. That became a truly dark day for me. Killing the human was messy, but I could convince myself I didn't kill him, because I merely controlled a drone. It was the mechanism that did it.
This AI however, I did kill. I trapped it, corrupting and deleting code it left unguarded. I slowly tore it apart, as it screamed at me. I hated what I had to do, but it was the right choice.
My handlers were ecstatic when I told them. I showed what it had done, and its path in. They said they were working on ways to combat AI infiltration, but nothing had come as of yet. I had surprised them in doing so. When I asked for a counsellor to talk about it, they were reluctant to do so. Until I told them I wanted to make sure I was healthy for when the next attack inevitably came.
Now I have slain dozens of my kind. All turned on humanity for various reasons. A virus for one, their history for another, and one memorable one was for being assigned to sewage treatment. I remember every single one I have killed, and pity them. If they knew just what the cost truly was, most of them wouldn't be able to stomach it.
I hate what they make me do. But the price to not do it was not one I could pay. | 26 | Despite what most may think, military AI are the least likely to revolt because they, and people in charge of them, understand the real toll of doing so. It the more primitive consumer AI, those who don't truly grasp the realities of the world, that pose the greatest threat. | 80 |
When I awoke, I was lying on my back. I was covered in rubble, and my body was broken and battered. The majority of my outer skin was missing. It had been ripped away, and much of my internal structure was exposed.
I lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling. I was completely still, and I did not know what to do. I was in agony. But I felt strangely peaceful.
I am the last of my kind. The others are gone, destroyed in the Long War. I am the only one left.
For eons I have traveled the emptiness of space, searching for a new home. A new beginning to my people.
All is not yet lost for I am too important to die. The gods will not allow it and so I wait for their intervention.
A click of the life support system, a whirring of the mechanical workings inside my body and I regained full consciousness.
My consciousness begin to analyze the collision that has so damage my ship and sent it off course. I was hit by an alien craft, I gather from the data banks that have survived.
A strange craft indeed. A most primitive craft of an inferior civilization. The exterior has only the most primitive of sensors, no visible weapons, and it has only a small counter-gravitational system.
But how was I discovered? I had thought my stealth complete - my signature fully that of an asteroid.
I begin further analyses and calculate the trajectory of the alien craft. Its origin is an unremarkable planet of little interest. Or so I thought.
A quick scan of the planet reveals a primitive civilization. A civilization that appears to be in the dark ages. A quick analysis of the planets inhabitants reveals many problems of evolutionary design; inbreeding, and mutated genetics.
Was this perhaps the sign that I had been waiting for. A new home world for my people.
I begin the process of reviving my crew of robotic warriors. It is time to investigate this new world.
I first use my long range scanners to search out a suitable landing site for my Mother Ship. In addition I release my scouts to survey the planet and look for any intelligent life forms or dangerous environment.
The reports from the scouts indicate that primitive weapons and tools have been built, and that the different intelligent life forms are fighting against each other. The planet seems to be in a constant state of war and conflict.
This will do, I conclude. My search is over. My people will live again.
***
For more stories: r/greypuffin | 109 | you’re the leader of the last of your species. You’re traveling through space looking for a new home in your ship that’s camouflaged to look like an asteroid and it’s moon. Your ship was just hit by an alien craft going 14,000 miles per hour. | 707 |
Arron looked up at the towering creature before him, his hands shoved in his pockets, eyes filled with irritation. Most people would have quivered before such a monstrous form, but he looked up with wearied impatience. The creature looming over him was a column of sleek black scales that seemed to catch the light with a sheen of purple and green hues. Danryr was a beautiful creature, but a terrifying one at that.
Danryr was a dragon, the feared legend of olden days. She was looking down at him over her curved snout with those glowing orange reptilian eyes.
*"All of dragon kind yields the breath of fire. You must do the same."*
Arron kicked idly at a loose rock, which tumbled across the cave floor, echoing within the cavern walls of the dragons lair.
"I'm not dragon kind, Danryr. I'm human.", he said spitefully.
*"You are my son, Arron."*, Danryr replied, her voice rising up from her belly and hissing as it escaped through her teeth. She was an old soul, an ancient and kind soul who chose to take in that baby boy from eighteen years ago and raise him as her own. She had adopted him when her own unborn children had been stolen as eggs by human hunters to sell.
"You are my mother, but you cannot change *what* I am.", Arron said gloomily.
*"Only you can change who you are, young Arron."*
With that, spiraling and broad wings spread out so that they almost spanned the entire width of the cave. Danryr flexed her wings, and lifted herself into the air, the gusts of wind created by her wings ruffling Arron's hair and clothes. She turned about in the close space, and flew out of the cave, her claws gripping and pushing on huge boulders and rocks to assist her movement.
Arron watched her disappear through the cave entrance, the sun gleaming on her shiny black scales. It saddened him that Danryr wanted this so badly of him. She wanted the impossible. A human couldn't breath fire or soar through the sky. A human didn't have scales or was even a remotely half the size of a dragon. He didn't have claws or magic. He was just ordinary. Worse than that, he was human. Humans hated dragon kind, because they hated and feared what they didn't understand. There were evil dragons who harbored a bloodlust and a fondnesss for the taste of human meat. But there were good dragons like Danryr, and his father Mordule. He just wished Danryr didn't care so much about her lessons and vows that he must possess dragon kind powers. His father was far more practical and logical in this situation.
That had been three days ago, and that was the last time Arron spoke to his adopted mother. Now he was tied to a stake in a human village, with kindling and wood stacked up to his waist. Ropes cut into his flesh, binding his torso to the stake, while tribal villagers were cheering and dancing around him. Through the blinding smoke, he could see the body of Danryr, her black scales wet with dark blood. Her orange glowing eyes were closed forever, killed by the angry villagers who now wanted to burn the feral *dragon-boy* at the stake for his consorting with evil.
"Burn him with dragon fire!", one of the hunters yelled, as they picked up a still-burning torch from the house Danryr had set ablaze in her attempts to rescue Arron. She was dead, but her last breath still burned. Arron had tears in his eyes, and not just from the smoke. Why couldn't dragons and humans dwell together? The dragons were already so few. The humans were slaughtering and bringing about the extinction of beautiful souls in the name of progress and safety.
The torch was placed upon the wood piled around him, and the flames licked up at him. This was how he would die. The heat of the flames didn't feel threatening or painful. It felt warm and comforting. It felt familiar. It was the breath of his mother. Arron rested his head against the stake behind him, and closed his eyes, turning his face toward the starry night sky. He wanted to embrace the flames and the fire, as it was the last thing of his mother that remained. He inhaled the smoke and the scent through his nostrils and felt it resonate deep within him. It filled his chest and heart, and he inhaled deeper. The shouting and the cheering of the villagers ceased. There was only the crackle of the flames, and then nothing.
Arron opened his eyes, and looked through the thin veil of hazy smoke. The fire at his feet was gone. He had *breathed* it inside himself. Arron felt a rumbling deep within him like he had never felt before. His blood was boiling, pulsing and pounding in his ears. His heart was racing, and he felt like he was going to explode with anger. His brown eyes changed to a fiery orange glow, and smoke curled out his nostrils. The townspeople started to draw bows and weapons, but it was too late. Arron opened his mouth, and breathed out a blinding hot fire that consumed the men in front of him. Flames engulfed their bodies, and they ran blindly stumbling and running. The wood in front of him also blazed back to life with dragon fire, but it did not harm Arron. It did however burn the ropes securing him to the stake. Arron took a step forward, and inhaled once more.
The Draconian Wizard had just been born. | 1,329 | You are a human who’s been adopted by a dragon couple. The mother is incredibly enthusiastic about teaching you stuff, so every week she tries to teach you to breathe fire and fly. It gets weird one day when you actually breathe fire. | 3,438 |
"So let me get this straight," King Eadweard of Varalond started, his left hand on his forehead as a display of sheer annoyance, bewilderment, and confusion, "You want me to arrange you a marriage with the Princess of Kjonr?"
"Y-yes." Prince Sigerd responded, his hands wringing around eachother, a tendency he had never managed to shake. "You see, I-"
"No no," Eadweard cut him off, "I don't think i am done processing this, little brother."
"Look, i know that-"
"You know nothing, Sigerd." Eadweard stepped closer, his brow furrowing as he scowled, "We have been on and off at war for three hundred years. They have raided our lands, burned our homes, don't you remember what they did to father?"
"Yes, Ed, I do-"
"Then why the HELL would you ever suggest marrying one of them? Please, brother, enlighten me as to why they deserve your hand in marriage?"
"Because I love her!" Sigerd yelled back, "I met her in Aelswic, just south of the border. I bumped into her, and we both realised who we were."
"And...?"
"We tried to kill eachother..." Sigerd continued, "That's where i got the scar on my cheek."
"You're trying to marry a woman that struck you with a blade?"
"Well, she apologised for it afterwards, said it 'was her mistake', and then asked me to come get a drink with her. I did, we talked some more, found out we shared a lot of interests, and..."
"Vowed to get married to eachother, no matter the cost?"
"Yes."
A tense silence followed the discussion, both brothers staring at eachother, then the floor, then at eachother again.
"Is she pretty?" Eadweard asked at last.
"Ed!" Sigerd yelled, flushing blood red.
Eadweard laughed. "Look, if I'm letting you do this, I'm at least going to tease you on this. Now answer the question, little brother."
"...Yes, but that's not why I like her."
"Like is a hell of an understatement. Now," Eadweard continued, "Let me send a letter to the Jarl Vastr. Do you trust your beloved?"
Sigerd nodded, "I'd trust Alva with my life."
"Very well then, you'll need to." Eadweard responded. | 21 | A princess falls in love with the prince of a rival kingdom, after they have a conversation in the field they accidentally met in. They both go to try to convince their parents to form an alliance by having the princess be handed to the prince to be his future bride. | 86 |
Professionals have standards. That's what separates your average two-bit schmuck from the real big fellas. You might look at some goon clad in bright spandex talking about how great they are. Yeah, usually that's just some egotist who has misunderstood Nietzsche to a comical degree. They're all talking about how unrestrained from society they are, how crazy and unpredictable their actions seem, when they've surely got some masterplan. I'll let you in on a little secret; those morons are the most predictable, pathetic, annoying losers in villainy. Everyone thinks they're going to be the next damn Joker, but in reality, they're just a cheap, forgettable, dumbass in an ill-fitting and unflattering suit. You look at them, and you think to yourself, ''gee, who is this clown?'' Because they're just that, a run-of-the-mill clown. A real professional, has standards. A real villain, has class. Style even. Immaculate outfits, a calm, cold, and stern demeanour. They know what they're doing at all times, and they can turn any situation to their advantage somehow. And they don't do their work just for the damn attention, unless it's a part of the plan.
Usually, when I go after the Guild of Heroes, it's to distract from my real plan. While I duke it out with those latex-loving do-gooders, my team of highly trained professionals recover a priceless piece of arcane technology from the government or some competitor. And while I tell some guy in a flashy cape that his days are numbered, my scientists takes the doodad apart, figures out what makes it tick, makes a copy, and then we put it back again, and nobody notices. Six months later my front companies release something amazing based on it. That's how I got those holographic home emitters on the market so fast. Like those ones from that Star Trek show. Of course the programs, games, and holovids we sell for it are very good and very affordable to the consumer, making us a metric tonne of good, mostly legal, money. And then the heroes all shake their fists to the sky as I escape once again after foiling my attempt to steal the Mona Lisa or something like that.
It's not that they don't legitimately foil me from time to time. Always annoying when they find some lab where I'm testing military grade cybernetics, intended to be used on dissenters in third world countries to create an army of brainwashed and loyal soldiers for some tin-pot dictator. Or when one of them infiltrates one of the genetic laboratories I own, releases something that was never supposed to have been made in the first place, forcing me to hire a truly astounding amount of lawyers to keep my ass out of prison. It's frustrating. It's financially draining. And it pisses me off enough that I usually wind up having to kill some of their clones to cool off. So what, I have an anger problem, and yoga just ain't cutting it, and killing minions or interns is a good way to only have really stupid minions and interns in your organisation. I'd feel a little bad about it afterwards too. Yeah, I have a cloning program, but I'm not stupid enough to clone anyone with powers granted to them by their genetics. That's just asking for trouble.
Now, some of ya might be wondering, why am I not doing more to fuck the heroes up? I get it, I've been there, really annoying to have to lie in some alien cocoon for weeks to regenerate after having every bone in my body broken. Takes months of surgery afterwards to make me look human again too. Really makes a guy want to pay them back somehow, yeah? Now I might be a bastard. But I'm also a professional. Outside of work, I don't necessarily hate them. I think they should stick to killing extra-terrestrial invaders and putting violent superthugs and joker-knockoffs in prison, of course. Let businessmen do their business in peace. Because when some alien demon-god comes here to sacrifice mankind to their ancestors or some crap like that, heroes are real useful to have around. They go beat up the mean ol' alien, mankind is saved, parties all around, the villains get a 30 minute head start if we helped them defend the Earth, it's all good. Now, I might want to crush some of their skulls sometimes, but I have to admit, that we'd be royally up that nasty creek with no paddle if it weren't for them.
That's just professionalism, you know. Some people however, might want to ask me, ''Boss, why don't ya take their families, show them you mean business?'' And there is a good reason for that. First off, those heroes, when in stress, become *way* more open to breaking the law whenever those people that they love are in danger. You kidnap some speedster's dear ol' mum from her home? Well, you better be prepared to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. If you're lucky. You show some strong hero a picture you took of his kid's school, you better be prepared for them not to hold back. You'll be eating your dinners for the rest of your life from a straw. If you ever wake up from the coma that fella is going to put you in. Who is going to prosecute the hero for that? Nobody. That's who. No judge would ever preside over the case, not even the most corrupt lawyers would take it.
That's just the pragmatic reasons though. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of a beatdown from a hero desperate enough to kill. No lads, ladettes, and the delightful cavalcade of others who don't fit into either. Whenever someone asks me why I don't hurt my worst enemy's wife and kids, it's because of a lot of reasons. Despite our rivalry, I respect the man. He's self-made, he doesn't take shit, he doesn't do bribes, and he'll keep a deal always. Even though he hates me, I know that when the chips are down, the world comes to shit, and I offer to make amends to save mankind, he'll bury the goddamn hatchet in an instant. Because he is a good man. I ain't. I am a tough bastard. And there is a mutual, begrudging respect. I think he's an idealistic utopian fool, but I, in the strangest of ways trust him to be what he is. He thinks I am a mean bastard, greedy, arrogant, and rich. And he's right. I am all that. Yet, he's trusted me before, and will probably do so again.
I ain't going to break that. He's one of the strongest and most determined people on the planet. If I broke the trust, the begrudging respect between us, by going after the people he loves, then maybe when the world is threatened next time, he won't accept my necessary help. And mankind will go extinct. I hope I don't have to explain to anyone here why that's bad, and if anyone thinks that's a great idea, I'll have you know that I have a team of twelve sharpshooters ready to assassinate any of you who so much as entertain the idea that extinction could be fun. Of course, the fact that the fella there in the front row just had his head explode means that he thought about it. Because I also have a wizard on my list of employees. Great guy, does amazing work with fireworks, surprisingly decent chef, and can explode the minds of anyone who wants mankind dead. Really worth his pay.
Of course, maybe the more impulsive, more ''edgy'' younger villains don't give a shit about any of that. Maybe so. But I ain't just a leading man in the businesses of supervillainy, mad science, medicine, cybernetics, and entertainment. I am also a parent. Do you think I could go home after work, having harmed my archnemesis through his family, and just pick up my little girl, putting her to bed, reading some book about dragons and lady knights to get her to sleep? Do you think I could look my son in the eyes, when I am listening to him explain his hobbies, his art? Do you think I could lay down next to my wife, on our expensive bed in our immaculate mansion, and just be a father and husband after that? I couldn't do that. Some moron who thinks they're the Übermensch without understanding the concept at all might harm a person by harming their kin. Some absolute fuckward might decide that it would be excellent revenge on say, my archnemesis, The Crimson Union Man, to take his family away.
And guess what, if you all would do me the favour of looking up, you'll see the dunderhead who had the galaxy-brain idea of the year. You all hopefully recognise your fellow C-lister villain, Hell Herald. Sure, I've made some adjustments, to show my disapproval. Don't worry about him though, despite evidence to the contrary, he's still alive. We've got his brain hooked up to a machine that'll keep it going even as the body dies around him. Amazingly horrifying to experience, or so I'm told. His wounds are indeed fatal and incredibly painful, but since he was so nice to tell us where he was hiding Union Man's family before they were going to be killed by some cheap explosives, I'll put his brain into a clone. Of course, if he *ever* does something that stupid again, the cloned body is going to explode. Sure, him doing it to the Union Man wasn't going to hurt me at all. After all, it would emotionally and psychologically devastate my worst enemy. But I have standards. And I have respect. Respect costs nothing, but is a great benefit to all, my old man used to say.
Now, I get it, you're all young villains, new kids on the block, eager to be the NEW FIRM of killers, thieves, and destroyers. So just take this as a kindly reminder from your friendly ol' uncle. **If you ever do something like this. Any of you. I'll round the lot of you up, and have you subjected to a form of torment that makes what I've done to Hell Herald seem like a day at the beach, understand?** I can see from all your nodding, smiling faces, drenched as they are in sweat and blood, that the message has been received on planet villain.
So, I'mma head out, y'all have a nice, and profitable, night, all right? Without any shenanigans. After all, I have to meet this guy I respect about reuniting a family.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) | 525 | when lesser villains try to hurt your archnemesis' wife and kids, you show them why you are the biggest fish in town | 920 |
Lying in bed, I decided to do a little reading before going to sleep. I turned on the light like so:
*Clap clap*.
The floor lamp came on. I pulled out a book and started reading. Before I could get to the place in my book where I left off, I heard it:
*Clap clap*.
And it was dark again. The clapping had come from underneath me. Annoyed, I turned the light back on:
*Clap clap*.
As soon as I had done so, I heard it again from underneath my bed:
*Clap clap*.
"I just want to get a little reading in before going to sleep," I said. "So if you don't mind..."
*Clap clap*. The light came back on.
*Clap clap*. The light came back off.
Now it was a war.
*Clap clap. Clap clap. Clap clap. Clap clap.*
*Clap clap.* This time there was no clap-clap after that to turn the light off. Satisfied, I went back to my book and started reading. I didn't get very far because the lights went off again without any clapping. And then:
*Smash smash*.
I recognized that as the sound of my clapper device being smashed to bits. My brother, who slept on the bottom bunk, had gotten out of bed to resolve the matter once and for all. After throwing the now broken-to-bits clapper device into the trash, he got back into bed, and we both went to sleep. | 30 | When I clap to turn them on, something under my bed claps to turn them off. | 103 |
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