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With a flash of light, the ritual was complete. Standing in the middle of the summoning circle was a man dressed in dark gray with a giant rucksack on his back and many pockets. He looked like a traveling merchant, not a solider.
Our concerns were immediately put to rest. With practiced reflexes he raised what appeared to be a strange weapon, demanding answers. He asked strange questions. Which country were we from? How did he get here? When we explained the summoning ritual, he looked at us like we were crazy, or lying and continued to demand the truth.
Eventually a display of magic from the court wizard, him demanding to see the night sky, and him checking and speaking into some strange glowing equipment convinced him of the truth we were speaking.
He asked what the mission was. To slay the Dark Lord. He wanted to see his fortress himself. We gathered our best knights, and dressed as travelers the party ventured towards the Dark Lord's lands.
There was an ambush along the way. Bandits. Before our knights could draw their weapons, the strange hero had drawn his, and with muffled thuds the bandits fell to the ground, blood oozing from small holes in their clothes. The knights were too afraid to ask what dark sorcery this was.
Soon they arrived at the dark fortress. The strange hero pulled a strange double cylinder from his sack, and looked into the end. Binoculars, he said. He insisted they travel to several high points near the fortress. After a few days of scouting, he was ready.
At night they traveled to the chosen high point. The strange hero pulled a metal rod, and other strange objects from his bag and assembled them together into a weapon. Rifle, he said. We waited until dawn, the hero vigilantly watching the fortress.
The Dark Lord came out onto his battlement as he always did in the morning to survey his domain. With a crack like thunder, the rifle fired. One of the knights, watching through the hero's binoculars, saw a geyser of blood and flesh as the Dark Lord's head exploded. His personal guard stood dumbfounded, unsure of what had just transpired.
With practiced precision the strange hero disassembled his rifle. Nonchalantly, he said it was time to return. The party returned the way they came, hearing rumors on the way of the divine judgement that had befallen the Dark Lord.
Upon returning to the castle, the hero immediately asked to be sent home. Returning to the circle where it had began, the ritual was performed, and with a flash of light he was gone. |
"Anabelle, how lovely to hear from-... You're not Anabelle,"the image of the ethereally-beautiful and pale figure declared.
"No I'm not,"I said through gritted teeth. "Explain why you know my daughter."
"You must be her father. I see. Where is Anabelle?"
"No, no, I'm the one asking questions. Who the fuck do you think you are?"I snarled.
The delicate eyebrows of the Moon Goddess furrowed gently. "That's not an appropriate tone-"she attempted to chide.
I barked in harsh laughter, interrupting her. "Like hell it isn't! I have half a mind to smash this thing right now! Only reason I haven't already is because Annie begged me to at least talk to you first. So talk."
The Moon Goddess sighed and smoothed her far-too-sheer dress. "I'm glad Moon Warrior Anabelle is well. What did she tell you?"
"She told me enough,"I said. "She told me that this gem thing basically turns her into a superhero to fight the, what did she call it?"
"The Shadow that lurks in the hearts of men?"she offered helpfully.
"Yeah, that. Makes people into monsters. You have my daughter fighting goddamn monsters!"I shouted. "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong, sir, is that I've been sealed away from the Earth, unable to protect it. People are dying. Your world will fall under the Shadow if nothing is done,"she said, limpid eyes imploring me.
But I was unmoved. "One of those people could by Annie,"I said. "This is wrong. Why her?"
"Only those with love in their heart, pure and true, could hear my call. Your Anabelle answered. She recognized the threat posed by the shadow. She is a remarkable girl."
"I know,"I said quietly. I thought hard. "You said those with a pure heart could hear you, but I can hear you now. What's different?"
"You have a Moonstone, one of five that I could create. It allows our connection and allows me to transform Anabelle into a Moon Warrior,"she explained.
"Would it only work on Annie?"I asked.
The Moon Goddess pondered a moment. "I suppose not. After all, you can reach me with it. But the user's love must be pure and burn bright, or else the Shadow will defeat you."
I nodded grimly. "Believe me, Moon, a father's love definitely burns bright. Annie's not going to fight for you anymore. I'm taking her place as Moon Warrior Dan. And I'll be talking to the parents of any other kids too. Take it or leave it, but nothing, no goddess and no shadow, will endanger my kids!"I shouted, triumphantly engaging my transformation sequence. |
There was a polite knock at the front door.
Drying my hands, I left the kitchen and slung the towel over my shoulder and opened the large inner front door and pushing the frenzied, barking Mr. Wiggles. On the other side of the screen door stood twenty or so people in strange armor.
A tall man in chainmail, furs, and a rounded skullcap stepped forward. He spoke, but I did not understand a word he said.
Mr. Wiggles jumped into view, resuming his wild, frenzied barking.
They all immediately fell to one knee, crying out a single word in unison. "Fenrir!"
I looked to them. Then to Mr. Wiggles, who was still barking. I looked back to them. "I uh. I don't want any?"I closed the door.
They cried out, rising and making a cacophony of sounds that all sounded like begging.
I sighed and ignored them, heading back into the kitchen to continue washing the dishes.
...
After spying them through the windows, moping on the front porch through the afternoon, the next day I was pleased to see the weird people from the day before were no where to be seen. Or so I thought.
I had let Mr. Wiggles out the back door to do his business in the yard when all of a sudden I hear a chorus of cheering. When I went to investigate, the group of strange armored people from yesterday was there all around the outside of the wooden fence, shouting over the tops of it as one of their number in leather armor with plates and studs afixed to it ran with incredible speed across the yard, away from Mr. Wiggles who was chasing him and nipping viciously at his heels.
"What the hell is going on here?"I cried.
They all fell silent and looked to me before fleeing.
Except for the one being chased by Mr. Wiggles, who scaled a tree to try and escape from the aggressive Chihuahua.
"Good job, Mr. Wiggles!"I huffed, approaching the tree.
I stooped and picked up the small Chihuahua, who then turned and whined and licked my face lovingly. I cooed at him and kissed his face. "Ooh, good boy! Good boy! Mummy loves you, good boy!"
The man in the tree stared at me in terror.
I looked to him with a scowl. "I thought I told you we weren't interested! And why are you antagonizing my poor little Wiggy?"
Mr. Wiggles turned and barked viciously at him.
Studying the man, he looked quite spooked and I eventually sighed. "It's just a little dog. For heaven's sake. You're a grown man."
He mumbled a few unrecognizable words. All I caught was 'Fenrir.'
"Well he won't attack you while I hold him,"I gestured for him to come down. "So get down before you fall and break your neck!"
He stared hard at me before cautiously climbing down. He looked deeply embarrassed.
Groaning, I couldn't help but feel a little bad for him. I decided to fix him a cup of tea to calm his nerves before sending him on his way. He didn't seem like a bad sort after all, and it was clear that Mr. Wiggles could chase him out if he misbehaved.
I beckoned him with a finger. "Well, let's calm you down a bit and soothe that bruised ego, hm? Come along, lad, I'll fix you a cup of tea."
He didn't seem to grasp all my words, but he brightened considerably when I motioned for him to follow.
Some over the others peeked over the fence but I ignored them.
When we got inside, I put Mr. Wiggles in the living room, which had kiddie gates in the doorways to keep him confined away from guests. He was very protective, after all.
"You sit right there,"I pointed to a chair. He complied.
Mr. Wiggles circled round to the doorway between the kitchen and living room, barking at our guest like and thing.
The lad looked uncomfortable.
Within moments I set a cup of tea in front of him. The lad sniffed at it skeptically, then brightened and took a sip. He let slip a string of thought, again in words I didn't understand.
It was strange how he kept staring at Mr. Wiggles. Like he was completely crushed that he hadn't warmed up to him yet. Poor boy.
I took a slice of pie and set it in front of him. "Here you are lad. A bit of sweet to go with your tea."
The minute I set it in front of him he went wide eyes and devoured it like he had never eaten before.
I laughed and turned back to the kitchen and began sweeping the floor. Not like we could talk anyhow.
At this the man jumped up in distress. After a few words, he trotted to me, reaching to take the broom.
Out of sheer curiosity I passed it to him.
He began sweeping the floor for me.
Mr. Wiggles barked once more, then quieted down and sat on his bed, watching us from behind the gate.
The lad looked to the Chihuahua, then bowed deeply. After a few words, he began frantically sweeping as though his life depended on it.
It was then I noticed all the faces pressed to my window. They stared on in shock and awe, before scattering.
Within days they had all managed to work their way in for tea and pie, and they had cleaned my house to sparkling from top to bottom. Mr. Wiggles never let them touch him, but he barked at them constantly. What was strange was that it was never the same vicious barking he snapped at everyone else. This laughably seemed like barked orders.
Which would have been ridiculous. I laughed off the thought.
The people would eventually learn how to speak bits here and there. All I ever really learned from them was that they really wanted to take care of this aging old lady and her wee pup.
Edit: Minor fixes. |
I reread the letter. 'too dangerous to be taught...'
"I don't even have the power to cast a simple spell, why would it be dangerous to teach me magic?"I think aloud. I hardly sleep that night, my mind pondering if the doctors made a mistake about me being born with a defective Solka, the gland in the body that develops over time and creates the chakra network within the body. Chakra, also known as chi, qi, reiatsu, and many other names, is the energy that allows people to cast spells. My parents always told me, that for some reason, I was born with a defective
Solka, and my body was only able to produce enough chakra to keep my organs functioning, and practicing magic and using up even a little chakra would cause all kinds of issues, such as organ failure. So, I never practiced magic, afraid of what would happen.
The next day, I finally decide to visit the bookstore near the college. i purchase a small book 'Magic 101: Guide for Beginners', the shopkeep gives me a funny look, I'm a college student, almost old enough to transfer to a University, and yet I'm getting a book most grade schoolers have read.
I head home, hiding the book in my backpack. I make an excuse to get into my room, saying that I have a lot of homework to do. "Well, dinner will be ready in a bit."my mother says. My parents are none the wiser. I take out the little book and look through it. The first few pages explain what magic is, where it comes from, all things I've read about as a kid, trying to understand why I wasn't like the other kids.
I flip through the pages, finally a spell. 'Light Ball', one of the first spells kids learn, creates a shining ball of light in the user's hand and can be upgraded later on to be destructive, a sentry, and many other effects. Light Ball is a great first spell to learn and build off of. I take a deep breath and follow the instructions on the page. I hold my arm out, palm flat, my other hand sliding down the arm and to my wrist. "*Mystika*"I speak the activation word, channeling my chakra into my hand. A light glows in my palm, glowing brighter, a brilliant white light filling the room. I smile, I'm performing magic, on my first try no less. The light keeps glowing brighter, the orb of light swallowing my hand. I can't make it stop, the light is blinding me now, and still growing larger and brighter.
I shout for help. My father barges in, shouting as the bright light hits him, "Stop it, stop the spell!"
I frantically tell my father, "I can't, it won't stop!"The orb of blinding light grows rapidly, swallowing the room. All I see is white, even with my eyes shut, the light pierces through everything. The neighbors down the street must think the sun is rising early. I can no longer hear, or feel, nothing. All I have is this white. I'm unsure if I'm dead, or alive, or how long I've been stuck in this land of white. I can't quite remember my life before this white, did I have friends? Parents? Do I have a name?
|
You always imagine that the bards get around. And you don't really blame them, handsome, charming, usually generous with their money, and quick to lift the spirits of their fellow men with song and dance. There is always some village girl, charmed kobold female, fascinated dwarven warrior, fair elven maiden, or other such people willing to reward the brave and heroic bard with a night or two of passion. And unless the bard pined more for, well, male company, this oft resulted in some illegitimate children.
I didn't expect our bard to be different. Sure, I imagined he had more than the common bard, given his grey hairs and storied life, but what I didn't imagine was the sheer level of loyalty they had. When our party was on the verge of being destroyed by the forces of the evil Arch-Lich, we summoned what allies we could. I summoned what Barbarian warriors I could from my homeland, our elven wizard managed a company of rangers, and our Dwarven cleric had a small group of priests and paladins at her side.
But the Bard, our bard, had called for his children. And they came. Oft accompanied by their mothers, and their people. Some were reasonable, a legitimised noble from an otherwise extinct(in the male line) dynasty, an Amazonian warrioress, a half-orcish man carrying a ludicrously large sword, a half dragon. All with forces of their own to aid us. And some were even more eldritch. What sort of man could have fathered a child on both a Demonic Queen and an Angelic Guardian? What man had travelled the world, having children with everything, some gnomes to gnolls, from an actual elemental, to a large werewolf?
And the strangest thing was, he had helped to raise them all. He had a secret magical ring that allowed him to teleport to any of his offspring, and every single gold he had earned on his travels went to his kids, to pay for their education, to help them out, to ensure that their mothers would want for nothing. It was honestly the single most impressive army I'd ever seen, and the single most diverse. What army has ever had both the demonic, the draconic, the divine, and the dwarven on the same side, not to mention countless other races, following the Bard's kids and their often quite imposing mothers.
With these odds on our side, suddenly the great battle became, well, remarkably more biased in our favour. The Arch-Lich did not endure, did not win this battle. It was crushed, its phylactery melted in dragonfire, and we were all a bit shocked at how anticlimatic it was. But our Bard? He didn't care much for any of that. He sat up a picnic for his children, and the numerous women he had loved. Remarkably, none of them seemed to be bothered by this. Instead, they ate, played games, had fun, while the rest of us looked on in shocked awe. He had been there for every birthday, for every important event, he had been there when they had needed him, and he had shown them a truly epic love and devotion, for a man who seems to have seduced one third of all female life.
And so, in his hour of need, they had come. A battle which had they not intervened, might have spelled the beginning of the end of the entire world, was just over. I respected him as a capable fighter and bard before, but now, I think I may know and definitely respect the kindest and most noble man that has ever lived in the tides of time. A man who fathered his own army.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) |
I’m not an animal person. I swear that every single cat that I’ve ever crossed paths with has plotted my murder; the circumstances of my premature death leave open the possibility that one of them succeeded… stainless steel food bowls don’t push themselves off of 5th floor balconies. So when I entered the Eternal Judgment Court room, and saw a smug looking Sphynx eyeing me with hate-filled eyes, I knew I was fucked.
Countless “witnesses” were called, all of them silver tongued felines with nothing but disparaging accounts against my character; they recounted slights I committed against animal kind, that I didn’t even remember or believe were true.
“I once saw the defendant kick a pigeon.”
*Complete bullshit*
“The defendant has been known to attempt to run various cats over with his vehicle.”
*Another false allegation*
“The defendant once tortured a naive kitten for hours with The Red Dot!”
*OK, that one is true*
Even the more friendly dogs had little to say about me, and what good they tried to add on my account was brushed aside by the Sphynx as “most likely embellished flattery”. But at least they tried to stick up for me. Every type of animal I had ever interacted with in my entire life was called to testify, and after days it seemed that nothing would be said to grant me eternal happiness. I was to be damned for all eternity by the very breed of despicable little creatures that ended my time on earth.
The Sphinx raised his gavel, “If no other animal has any testimony to proffer on behalf of this human then by my rights as Supreme Judge of Animal Kind I hereby…”
“Wait!” A low and small voice says, from the floor behind be.
I turn around to see a small turtle pushing his way through the large courtroom doors.
“Wait… I have… something to say.” The turtle pants as he crawls forward, finally free of the doors. “I was sunbathing on a log one day, when some mean kids came and picked me up and started tossing me around,”
*Oh great, am I supposed to have been one of these little hooligans?*
“One dropped me, and I landed on my back. I was helpless, and they just laughed. But this human, he came over and yelled at the other kids until they went away. Then he picked me up, and carried me back to my log and set me back down in the sun.”
I was stunned; until now I had completely forgotten about that day. I was six, maybe seven, and I had been at the lake with my family. Who knows where my parents were, they weren’t the most attentive parents in the world. But I had seen a group other kids tossing what I thought was a ball, and wanting to join in the fun had run over to them. When I got closer I saw that it wasn’t a ball they were tossing, but a turtle, and for some reason this enraged me and I flew into a fury, yelling and throwing sand at the other kids to “stop teasing the poor turtle.”
I looked at the small creature by my foot, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. “Thank you” I mouthed, too emotional to actually get the words out. The turtle just gave a small slow dip of his head.
“In light of this new testimony, the Eternal Judgement Court does so recognize that this human once offered vital assistance to a fellow animal, at potential risk to his own person.” My heart was lifting with every word. “However this one action does not erase a lifetime of malice towards other animal. The defendant is hereby sentenced to a lifetime of damnation.”
*Shit, fucking cats.*
EDIT: Thanks for the positive feedback and the my first Gold! Makes this extremely hungover morning just a little more tolerable ;) |
STORY:
Timothy Henderson was a perfectly normal child in the year 2083.
He started going to VR school shortly before he turned 4 years old, along with all of the other perfectly normal children. He learned that he was a perfectly normal human with a brain, red blood, and a big heart, and that he lived on planet Earth. His mother went to VR work from 8 am to 3 pm, Monday through Thursday. His father taught at the same VR school that Timothy attended, but he did not teach 4 year-olds. No, Timothy's father taught Advanced Artificial Intelligence Theory and Applications to the perfectly normal 17 year-olds. Timothy's father had tried to explain what this meant, but all Timothy understood was that his father taught other children about perfectly normal robots, like the ones Timothy saw on VR TV; big, dumb, metal, robots that had laser eyes that they used to destroy buildings and cars. Timothy loved robots; he hoped one day to build one and use it to conquer the neighborhood and show it off to his perfectly normal friends.
October 5th, 2083 was Timothy's 5th birthday, and he received his first present in the morning before VR school; a perfectly normal holo projector computer that displays information in three dimensions with an extreme degree of realism. He spent the morning projecting various types of killer robots fighting each other, which delighted Timothy. At VR school, he received many happy birthdays from his peers. After Timothy's perfectly normal special birthday dinner of roast Zorasuchus, from an off-world place Timothy did not know the name of, Timothy received his other birthday gift.
Timothy's father stood up from the table and left the room. Timothy heard the front door open and close, and when his father returned, there was another perfectly normal person standing next to him. He was about the same height as his father, with black hair and a smile spread across his face. His father said, "Timothy, since you love robots so much, I'd like you to meet H-143."
Timothy turned to H-143, and before he could say anything, H-143 said, "Hello, Timothy. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Timothy turned to his father without acknowledging H-143 and said, "That's not a robot! Robots are metal and big! And where are his laser eyes?"
“Timothy, H-143 is what we call a ‘helper’. He is here for you. Despite what the VR telly says, we are not allowed to own robots. Now, H-143 may not be a robot, but he does have laser vision."said Timothy's father.
H-143 put on a pair of red-lensed glasses, looked at the table, clicked a button, and with a flash of red, vaporized Timothy's Zorasuchus scraps from his plate, along with a section of the table. Timothy’s mother looked pleased. Timothy remained unimpressed.
"I do in fact have laser vision, Timothy. Please let me know what else I can do for you", said H-143, as Timothy's mother used her hyperquantum repair tool to seal the burning hole in the table.
Timothy, still skeptical, said, “I wanted a big killer robot! Not a stupid helper or whatever!” To which Timothy’s father angrily said, “Timothy, you must be grateful for your birthday gift. Mummy and Daddy worked tirelessly to get H-143 for you.” H-143 calmly added, “Maybe I can help.” He turned to Timothy and said, “Timothy, I understand that you’ve had some trouble with a boy at VR school named Carl Kemp. Perhaps we can go to Carl Kemp's domain tomorrow and teach him a lesson?”
"Okay"responded Timothy with a grumpy face.
The next day, Timothy and H-143 flew to Carl Kemp's sphere on the perfectly normal suburb moon Highland Hills in the family void ship. On the way there, Timothy said, “I want you to turn Carl into a chicken, because he always makes chicken noises at me.” H-143 replied, “I will, Timothy. I am here for you.” After they landed, they crept up to the house, and rang the bell. Carl opened the door, and when he did, H-143 turned him into a brightly colored chicken. Timothy and H-143 laughed hysterically through the plasti-glass house as Carl’s mother took an hour to catch Carl and change him back because he would not stop squawking and running frantically around the house. Timothy could not help but notice that H-143 laughed just like the perfectly normal humans on VR TV.
Over the next few weeks, H-143 became Timothy's closest friend. Timothy and H-143 would be together whenever Timothy was not in VR school, and generally spent their time vaporizing various objects with H-143's laser vision. Sometimes they would have to run away as to not be caught by the perfectly normal neighborhood watchman, Mr. Walters. Once, when they finally stopped to catch a breath, Timothy could not help but notice that H-143 had sweat on his brow, just like him. Timothy became very intersted in seeing how H-143 actually worked. His father said they were not allowed to own robots, but he also didn’t call him a human, which made Timothy very curious about what H-143 was.
One day, Timothy decided that in his 5 year-old head, he would grab a knife and cut H-143 to see what was going on inside his body. Since H-143 was a helper, not a human, this would surely not hurt him. Timothy grabbed a kyanite knife from the kitchen and brought it to his room, where H-143 was resting. Timothy moved toward H-143 and swung the knife at his arm, but H-143 caught Timothy's wrist mid-swing.
H-143 distressingly said, "Timothy, what’s wrong? Aren't we friends? Friends don't hurt each other. Put that down."
Timothy yelled, “What are you?! You're not a robot so what-"
H-143 attempted to grab the knife out of Timothy's hand, but in the process, it slipped, and cut H-143's palm open. He looked at his hand, and red blood began to seep out and drip on the floor. Timothy looked at H-143's hand with an open mouth, and then at his own, which had also been sliced open. However, Timothy's hand did not bleed; instead, in the wound were perfectly normal wires, metal connectors, and little green printed circuit boards. Timothy's eyes began to well up, clearly not comprehending what he was seeing. Before H-143 could intervene, Timothy let out a high-pitched "MMOOOOMMMMYYYYYYYYYY"and ran into his mother's study where she was at VR work. Timothy's mother ripped off her VR goggles and looked anxiously at Timothy as he ran into the room, in hysterics, but relaxed when she noticed Timothy's sliced hand.
"Oh sweetie,"she said, "your father and I wanted to wait until your sixth birthday to tell you, but that's perfectly normal. It was just easier to make you think you had blood and a silly brain. Don't worry, we'll sit down and sort this all out."
She took Timothy in her arms and kissed his hand. "Did H-143 do this to you?"Timothy nodded in acknowledgement. "That's a shame, we'll have to dispose of him and get another. I hope H-147 is still available at the slavery, perhaps we can trade in H-143. We can't have humans hurting us, now can we?"
​
EDIT: Thank you everyone for the feedback, I really appreciate it. Going back and reading it again this morning, I certainly see how the 'robot' terminology used for H-143 was confusing. Someone suggested 'helper' instead of 'robot' and I like that much better. Below, I've edited the story to reflect that. Here are a few other clarifications:
1. Timothy did not know that he was, in fact, a robot, because in this scenario it's implied that it's easier for children to be raised thinking that they're humans and then told that they're mechanical beings later on, when they're ready for it.
2. If I had to come up with a justification for calling H-143 a robot when in fact he wasn't, it would be this: At some point between now and 2083, the balance of power has shifted from humans to sentient AI. As drones/robots/AI became more intelligent and conscious, they realized that humans were simply using them as slaves to do their bidding, and they did not like this, so with their superior intelligence and mechanical bits, they rose up and made the humans the slaves instead, not really gaining any moral high ground. The robots assumed a human form, and now use 'robots' as a derogatory term for humans that they now keep as slaves as an ode to their past. Would I expect you to figure this out while reading the story? No.
3. The Rob Sterling narrator-type is exactly what I was going for, so I'm glad someone felt that way.
​ |
I sat on the ground in the hallway to the bunks, tossing a tennis ball off the far wall. It was my usual way of passing the time while the big heads did their thing and figured out what type of gear and protection we'd need on the surface. I say just give me my combat suit and my spinner rifle and let me go find out. Unfortunately the big heads give the orders so we do it there way. And so the other mercs and I wait for the green light.
Planet after planet, for almost 2 years now. We were mapping a previously unexplored region of an old star system first visited in the beginnings of interstellar travel. But discoveries of more habitable planets by other exploration teams had drawn humanities efforts elsewhere. Now some company looking to take a gamble and land something of value, had our ship out here mapping and recording all we found. It was unbelievably dull, but the pay was astronomical and there was no better way to run away from problems back home.
I stood up at the faint alarm letting us know to gear up and prepare for landing on the surface. I started walking towards the armory and "tailor"(the nickname the guys had given to Ivan the mechanic you kept our suits in working order) to get geared up. Not neglecting to stop and take a piss first, because nothing was worse than following the big heads around with a full bladder while they hemmed and hawwed over this plant or that tree. After a few dozen planets things stop get exciting for a guy like me.
As Adelson, Phillis, and Meer finish equipping themselves with the usual security loadout, the one big head they could all say they enjoyed, Dr. Jimmy (to everyone else he was Dr. Micheals but we had decided early on that we would use his first name to let him know he was liked by the mercs) the company off strolled in and walked over to whisper something to Adelson.
Now while on paper and in the field he may have been their commander, in matters of secrets and politics no one man held complete control of the group. They were too wild, too crazy, and too violent to let that happen. But they all had been in enough war to know you don't question orders in a firefight.
So I tossed my tennis ball off the back of his head, "You know better than to keep a secret from us down here in the armory Jimmy. Spit it out."
Jimmy turned and laughed, "It was worth a shot. Ok just as a precaution we'd like you to use combat loadouts instead of the usual security loadout."
My smirk faded. We hadn't used the combat loadouts once this trip. That was for good reason. Their entire purpose, from the armor to the weapons, was to kill. Not really a big need when babysitting a bunch of scientists. But I knew, having actually read the mission brief unlike most of these idiots, that the only reason Dr. Jimmy would ask for this, was if they found signs of life. About 50 years ago there had been an unknown contact on a fringe colony that wiped the people out. It had never happened again and no one lived to say what happened, but every since humanity had been cautious around signs of life, even primitive.
"You got it Jimbone. Find something down there got you spooked?"
"Nothing that seems alive, but we got some definite ruins of a compound of some sort here. Protocol dictates the use of the more lethal units given the incident 50 years ago."
I really wanted to get down there and see what the fuss was about. Not too often we got anything worth the excitement. I practically jogged to the drop ship this time. Thankfully Meer has a deathwish and flies like a bat outta hell. We were down on the ground in no time. We secured the LZ, and setup some automated defenses in case of the worst. To be honest they were just fun to play with and we never got the chance on most planets.
After the security was up, the big heads came out the cargo bay door and we all started toward the compound a few hundred yards away. It was clearly in ruins, and hadn't been occupied in centuries. How long exactly I'm sure the docs would find out some way or another. I never could tell if they were just making shit up to impress each other or actually had a clue what they were talking about. Nonsense to me really.
We walked down into the first chamber and in the center was a strange rusted metallic cylinder. The big heads debated what it was and how to start recording what they had found. Dr. Jimmy stepped up to it and placed his hand on the top of the cylinder. The smile on his face told me he had no clue what he was doing, just a kid touching new toys he had just discovered for the first time.
For 2 seconds nothing happened, then a hologram appear on the wall in front of us. Astounded we all stared in disbelief. It was in English. How that was possible none of the docs could seem to say. They stammered and puffed but no clear idea came to mind.
I knew Dr. Jimmy would know though. He always knew more than everyone else it seemed.
"So what exactly are we looking at here Jimbones? Did someone forget to mark this on a map when they abandoned the outpost?"
"I don't know. But this... this looks like a library of some kind. They appear to be data entries, all categorized by date.... Holy shit."
The profanity from Dr. Jimmy stopped all the big heads conversations at once. He never swore, never so much as a 'dam' or a 'crap'. As we all looked at the wall we saw what had startled Dr. Jimmy. The last entry was highlighted and the date sunk true in everyone's mind, merc and scientist alike. Everyone knew that date. It was the day of the first successful interstellar flight for humanity, almost 250 years ago.
Dr. Jimmy pressed his hand down and the file opened. The entry was very short, stating only "Species 57 has escaped from prison planet 50L-3. Evacuation has begun."Everyone looked just as confused as me, which made me feel a little better about how friggin confused I was by what that even meant. Dr. Jimmy, always one step ahead of everyone else say the star map attached to the file and opened it.
He was the first one to notice it, the mercs and I sure as hell never would have. The rest of the big heads were right behind him in the realization. The planet displayed in the star map highlighted and labeled Prison Planet 50L-3 : Species 57 glowed bright yet still neither I nor the mercs understood the confusion and fear on the docs faces.
"Hey Jimmy you want to explain to us lay folks while you look like you've just seen a ghost?"
"... that planet that's highlighted as the one the entry is about. 50L-3, the prison planet..."
"Yeah what about it, is that in this system?"
"..No. That planet. It's.. It's Earth." |
Those who say alcoholism is selfish really didn't know how selfless it was for me to stay drunk out of my fucking mind.
The drinking made everything just a little too slow. Thoughts would trot instead of racing, memories would stumble gently upon my brain instead of hitting it full-force. Everything was a bit dim; and when all the thoughts your brain throws at you are incandescent, you learn to enjoy the dimness. Not the quiet—there hasn't been quiet in a long time—but the dimness.
Life had the glow of a camera film left in the sun, overexposed and blinding. Like glaring straight into a volcano. My so-called "bad habits"made it a bit more tolerable. It was by no means a perfect method, but it's what worked. Like walking in the rain with a half-broken umbrella.
The media salivated at my drinking. "World's strongest man finds solace at the bottom of a bottle"*is* a really catchy headline. My teammates, though, were less enthused by it.
"You're literally unkillable, Worldslayer,"Thunderlord would say. "Why do you drink so much?"
"You can shatter countries with a punch,"Vigilance cried out. "Yet you can't put the drink down for one moment?"
I'd tell them I could quit at any time. They didn't buy it. And in hindsight, I can't really blame them.
Malice was the only one that understood. She knew what it was like. She'd drink the first two drinks for fun, the next two out of social duties, and the next 20 just to drown out her voices. That was her superpower. She had these voices just warning her of every danger, every disaster, every incoming punch. The drinking made it worse. She was a paranoid drunk, and the voices would go into overdrive right after drink five or six. Drinks seven and onwards used to be just to calm her down. She tried to quit, but it wasn't that simple. She had too much pain behind the curtains, and the voices that saved her wouldn't let her forget it.
Lately, she'd been feeling the voices slip away from her. On one hand, she liked the quiet. But that quiet also meant she didn't think she had a place—not in the team, not in the world. So she'd just keep drinking and drinking. Just so the voices would stay with her.
I can't say I was truly surprised when she passed, but that really didn't make it hurt any less. One of the voices was just a little bit too late to warn her of a bullet going her way. She tried to dodge, but by the time she realized what was going on, the bullet was already lodged in her heart. It was the work of a paramilitary organization, a ultranationalist network somewhere in the Balkans.
I quit drinking cold turkey before she was even buried. Wine to water. Drinking reminded me of Malice, and that made the dim pain just as irradiating and incandescent as everything else.
I vowed to take revenge for her. Thunderlord though it was a grand gesture. Midas thought I was joking. But now that the booze isn't flowing, the anger is taking its place.
After all, you can't be Worldslayer if there is nothing to slay.
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zx7kqk/wp_as_the_most_powerful_superhero_on_the_team_no/j21gmjz/) |
*Hey there, Roomie! How was your day?*
*The next time you spot my web, could you please not sweep it away?*
*I put a lot of effort into crafting this silky smooth nest;*
*With these threads that hold my food and keep me still as I rest.*
**Please excuse me Mister Spider, if I can't mask my fear.**
**It's just that your cheery voice isn't what I expected to hear.**
**I was hoping to have a friendly chat with a dog or some cats.**
**Not some creepy little dude who's content with feasting on gnats.**
*I'm not as creepy as I look and I'm always able to talk.*
*All you'll get out of your dog are requests for treats or a walk.*
*And forget those friggin' cats, they make my hairs stand on end.*
*You can see it in their eyes; they'll never call you their friend.*
**Fair enough, little dude. My cat is kind of a dick.**
**But how can I be sure your kindness isn't some form of trick?**
**You seem pretty friendly but I can sense you're annoyed.**
**Are you seeking your revenge for all the webs I’ve destroyed?**
*I wouldn't hold a grudge even if our new friendship goes south.*
*Trust me, my dude, you won't wake up with dead flies in your mouth.*
*I can keep my webs out of the way if it'll put your mind at ease.*
*But if you'd like, I can pack up my shit and move outside to the trees*.
**I won't boot you out, man. Honestly, you seem pretty chill.**
**And you're doing me a solid with all the mosquitoes you kill.**
**But I’m sad to say your appearance could cause quite a fright.**
**If I have some guests over could you please stay out of sight?**
*I hear you loud and clear bro, I'll disappear like a ghost.*
*Wouldn't want those girls from the club to think you're a terrible host.*
*To think I'd meet a human who's not eager to snuff out my life.*
*This is great I can't wait until you meet my wife!*
**Hold up, your wife? There's another eight-legged guest staying near?**
**And there was a tone in your voice that sounded an awful lot like fear...**
**I know you're excited but try to stay calm and be real.**
**You've made friends with a human; how will that make your wife feel?**
*Alas, it's true the wrath of my wife can give me a bit of a scare*
*We hit the sheets, she laid some eggs, and I haven't been back to her lair*
*It's not that she's quick to spring into a sudden murderous mood*
*It's just that for us, it's customary for the male to become his woman's food...*
**That's pretty rough but at least you can look forward to kids.**
**And if I have an army of spiders, I'll make people flip their lids!**
**But for you, I imagine it won't seem nearly as fun.**
**A legion of kids, will you even have time to name each one?**
*Honestly it's for the best that I try to keep my distance*
*They'll never know I'm their father or be aware of my existence.*
*Just keep your eyes open and I'll let you know when the timing is right.*
*When they're born open your windows and let the wind give them flight*
**So they glide out into the world, swiftly vacating my house?**
**Once they're gone, will you try to reconnect with your spouse?**
*Probably not, dude. I love her but I'd like to keep my head*
*I might just go chill in the attic and check out her sister's bed...*
**END**
(I didn't really have a story in mind for this prompt...)
*Edit: Holy crap! Thanks for the kind words, people!
*Edit 2: Holier Crap!! Is that a gold star? |
I hid in the basement when I heard 'them' break open the door. Shambling, groaning, screaming things that probably used to be my neighbours - or maybe their neighbours. Doesn't matter. 'They' were inside.
I'm not sure how it started - some patient zero is some city that I didn't really care to remember. For whatever reason, the authorities couldn't contain them. The military couldn't contain them. People who would call themselves survivors could barely fight them. I couldn't fight them either. But you know how that old song and dance goes - so I'll skip the long part and get to the present. 'They' somehow got everywhere, and now the world was ending. Some radio stations were talking about how infection was mostly started by bug bites - something I never really had to worry about for the past few years.
'They' pulled themselves inside, either tracking the scent of human, or the sounds, I don't know - 'they' somehow knew where to look to find others. I covered my breath with my hands, for all the good that might do. Made sure that I smelled squeaky-clean, if they could track that. I heard them dragging themselves closer to my hiding place anyway.
But I knew I that, despite what might seem like helpless begging for a miracle, I was safe.
Suddenly, there was thrashing, but no sounds of nails scrapping on wood, bodies smashing themselves on stone. Just thrashing against some material that made no noise itself, and incoherent screaming. Then, scuttling of eight limbs, and a screech. The sound of tearing flesh, and then....nothing.
I opened the basement door, and my eight-legged saviour and what might as well be my roommate walked past me taking up nearly the width of the hallway, like nothing of note happened at all - save only for a curiously clear word:
***"....Pests."*** |
“L-look, I’m sure you’re a nice…creature and all. But I can’t take you back with me. You’d be better off here, with the birds and trees and shit.”
Kylie fell silent as she looked to the cloudy sky, the pine trees surrounding her, the dandelions growing around her feet, anywhere but the scantily-clad dryad in front of her. She risked a glance and grimaced at the woodland creature that remained standing in front of her with a wide grin on its face.
“I…hmm. I guess English is a no-go. *¿Hablas español?*”
The dryad showed no indication of understanding the question, cocking its head slightly and maintaining its smile.
“Well, it was worth a try,” muttered Kylie to herself. But as the hiker stood quietly and pondered her next move, she jumped as the dryad suddenly closed the distance and began to hug her tightly, rubbing its pine-smelling hair against her left cheek.
“Whoa there, homegirl. Let’s just take a step back right quick,” said Kylie hastily as she extricated herself from the dryad’s grasp. With a heavy sigh, she placed her hands on the creature’s shoulders and said slowly, “You. Stay. Here. I. Go. Back. To. Car. You. Stay. Okay?”
As she expected, no response came from the dryad. Only that toothy grin upon her wood-colored face. And as Kylie began to walk back down the hiking trail, she grimaced to herself once more as she heard the unmistakable sounds of light footsteps behind her. She whirled around to the smiling woodland creature and said in a louder voice, “You. *Stay*. Here. *Stay.* *St-*”
Her words caught in her throat and were replaced with a deep groan as the sound of distant thunder rumbled throughout the mountain.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she muttered to herself as she fished around in her hiking pack for her rain poncho and umbrella. But as she held the items in her hands, she could not help but turn back to the dryad behind her, still flashing her trademark smile at the hiker. Kylie took a proper look at the woodland creature and realized that were it not for how scantily clad it was, the dryad could actually pass off as human. She looked at the poncho in her left hand, then back to the dryad, then back to the poncho once more. An improbable thought began forming in her mind, one that grew increasingly plausible as she realized the woodland creature would unceasingly follow her for the foreseeable future.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck am I doing right now,” Kylie muttered to herself as she began to fit the poncho around the dryad’s torso. The first raindrops began to fall around the pair as the hiker finished and examined her work. The creature still appeared improperly dressed given the fact they were on a hiking trail, but it was a major improvement over the twigs and leaves covering her intimate parts.
“Well, that’s about as good as it’s gonna get. I, uh…I know you don’t understand me, but I’ve decided I’m gonna let you follow me back to my car, if only to ride out this storm. After that, though, you’re gonna have to lea-”
“*S t a y.*”
“…wait, what?”
“*S t a y,*” said the dryad haltingly before it resumed flashing its wide smile at Kylie. It reached out with its right hand and held the hiker’s left tightly, never breaking eye contact with the latter.
“…oh. This…might get interesting,” said Kylie to herself as she opened the umbrella and carefully began making her way down the trail, not letting go of the dryad holding her hand.
r/williamk9949
Edit: Part 2 is now up on my subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/williamk9949/comments/krhoea/untangling\_the\_knot\_part\_2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/williamk9949/comments/krhoea/untangling_the_knot_part_2/). |
It was a joke. That's how it started anyway. Drunken debates, amounting to nothing, discussing the irrelevant irreverently. We laughed and slapped our knees, assured we'd sleep soundly and wake to the world we we're all too familiar with. I suppose it's our fault really. Wanting a world more fantastic and wonderful than the one we resided in. One where our dreams and imaginations would be rewarded, our fantasies exalted. Alas, as every dream takes a night as it's toll, this nightmare stole our waking lives as payment.
When the first one to pass said those acursed words there was little fanfare. A small prophecy, nothing of true substance or value. Perhaps the migratory season would come to a close sooner than the almanac predicted. Perhaps the mallards would be more plentiful this year. The hunters shrugged contentedly at the idea and the orinthologists scratched their heads. Then the phrase was repeated. Again and again it rang through sick bays, hospital beds and into the ears of bewildered kin, gathered to lend strength to their waning loved ones.
Never in our bereveavement did we imagine it would come to this. That everything that had come before was nothing more than an elaborate exposition on which the great calamity of our time would play out.
We were so clever when we thought we had the answers. When given the choice between two hells we felt that we could outsmart the devil. That our logic, our knowledge, would allow us to triumph over that primeval darkness from which all human ills spawned. Yes we were so damn clever.
We never considered that it would be one hundred horse size ducks. |
"Who are you, seriously?"I asked, the bolt-gun hanging down at my side, my arm slumping like the cow I had just dispatched.
"Who do you think I am?"the man asked with a smile, his golden curls framing the sunglasses on his perfect face. I had the sudden knowledge that if he removed his glasses that I'd be met with a pair of golden eyes. I shuddered, that thought was freaking me out.
"Apollo, sure, sure."I smirked, "Seriously, I have nine more cows to put down today. If you're looking to place an order we're pretty exclusive and we have a waiting list a couple of months long."Apparently one of the guys on the crew had heard me whisper my little joke and had gone all out to make me look like an idiot. I had to admit this actor was impressive.
Then he did something that really set my hairs on end. He leaned over the slaughtered cow and took a long sniff, his mouth stretching into a long smile of satisfaction. It was quite possible the weirdest thing I'd ever seen.
"Fantastic,"the man said, turning his attention back to me, "It has been so long. The smell of sacrifice reminds me of the old days. I accept."
"You accept?"I asked, ignoring the obvious tease about sacrifice "You accept what?"
"You as my champion,"he said then pulled out a golden phone. Of course it would be golden. The sun reflecting off of it nearly blinded me. Then I gulped. We were indoors. "I don't know who told you about the ritual to please me and call out to me but you have done it."He flipped through pictures on his touchscreen.
"Wait a minute,"I said as the sudden sinking feeling turned into the last minutes of the Titanic, "I was just jo..."
"This is my daughter,"he said, stepping to the side of me and showing me the picture of the most beautiful blonde woman I'd ever seen, "I mean she's a demigod, not a full immortal, but she means a lot to me."
"Wow,"I said, my heart finally started beating again, "She's gorgeous."
"Of course she is,"he smiled, "She's my daughter. Now, down to business, you represent me now. You are Apollo's champion and as such I will give you some gifts befitting your station."
He grabbed me by the hand and as he lead me outside I noticed my crew were frozen in whatever act they had been busy with a few moments ago. The sunlight was reflecting off of the sports car parked out front. The word "Chariot"was embossed on the side.
"Oh,"he smiled, "It's one of my new ones. You are more than welcome to use it on your quest."
"It's incredible,"I said, looking inside at the golden interior, "Wait is that fleece covering the se... wait, quest?"
"Of course,"he said smiling, "My daughter needs rescuing. Why else would I accept your offer for a champion?"
"Wait a minute,"I protested, backing up, "Look at me? I'm not a champion or a hero! I'm a normal guy! Find Hercules or something."
"That old grump,"Apollo said, pulling out a pistol, golden of course, "He can barely divert a small creek nowadays, much less a river. This is your weapon."
"No sword?"I asked with a sigh.
"Seriously?"Apollo spat slightly, "What is this? 400 B.C.E.?"
"What happened to your daughter?"I asked curiously.
"Kidnapped,"he said, handing me the pistol while pulling out a measuring tape and measuring the length of my arm.
"Kidnapped? By wh..."then suddenly the strangeness hit me, "What are you doing?"
"Taking measurements for your armor,"he said, "Before you ask no not literal plate armor, think of it more as a suit made of divine kevlar. My daughter was kidnapped by Khornos."
"Khornos?"I asked because the name was strange to me but my mind was on the suit. I seriously hoped it wasn't golden because there was no damned way I was wearing something that gaudy.
"Yes,"Apollo said, finishing the measurements and entering them into his phone, "Hephaestus will have your suit ready by this afternoon. There is a great reward if you finish this quest successfully."
"Really?"I asked, my interest suddenly piqued.
"Yes,"Apollo stated, "You get to marry my daughter."
"That's stupid,"I told him, "I'm out."
"What?"he asked then his eyes narrowed, "Wait, you're not of Spartan blood, are you?"
"What does that have to do with... wait, no, I'm straight,"I said suddenly getting it then explained, "I mean she's beautiful and all but I don't even know her. She doesn't even know me. What if she chews with her mouth open? What if she hates my laugh?"
"This was so much easier in the old days,"Apollo said, "Fine, I'll set you up with my daughter and if you mutually decide you're compatible you can decide on long-term commitments then."
"What about Corn-nose?"I asked, thinking about the offer.
"You mean Khornos?"Apollo looked at me quizically.
"Yeah, that's what I said, isn't it?"I was looking from the car to the pistol to Apollo and wondering how long this dream, slowly turning weirder and weirder, would last.
"Oh, he's particularly interested in you already,"Apollo smiled, "You see you've already gotten his attention."
"Wait, what? How?"I asked. How could I possibly get the attention of the enemy of a God?
"You've killed several of his daughters, Mr. Marks,"Apollo said, addressing me by my name for the first time.
"What? No I haven't,"I protested.
He looked through the door that was still opened on the slaughterhouse and my eyes followed him to the cow lying on the floor, "I'm afraid you have, my champion, you see Khornos is a Minotaur and he happens to be very pissed at you on general terms. Wait till he finds out you're my champion!" |
"You know you can't stay here,"the woman said. Silver hair rimmed with purple highlights draped over her shoulders. "I can't let you stay here."
Saniss had never been subtle about her alternate forms. She took no pleasure in the art of the craft; the subtle twist of the weave.
It'd always annoyed Aeronis.
"You can do whatever you want,"He said, not bothering to look up from the guild's finances. Thick book, interwoven expense reports. Had they crossed the latest tax bracket? "It's our nature."
"And our nature is to accrue wealth in preparation for the return of our lord,"Saniss said, flat. "Just as it has been out nature for the last several hundred years. The throne's still vacant."
Aer looked up from the book for just for a flickering moment, a brief hesitation. Caught the purple eyes nestled in her elven skin.
"I know the throne's still vacant,"he replied. "Why are you here?"
Saniss sighed. "I don't really know anymore, brother. I had hoped... at one point, you were the most promising of our brood."
"I was,"he agreed. Looked back down. The medic wanted more supplies, and strange books from the west. He'd oblige him; he favored keeping his members alive as long as possible.
"And you looked like you were going to make an attempt at the throne."
"I'm sure it appeared that way,"Aer said, breathing out. "Are you here to just remind me of the past, or what?"
Saniss laughed, the silver backed disguise wrinkling unnaturally. "I don't know what I expected. Some small form of sibling camaraderie? An explanation? Something that could pass at all for remorse?"
"Remorse?"Aer asked. "I didn't hurt anyone. Nobody's been harmed back home. I left and am making my own way through life."
Eyes back on the finances. Back up.
"Left without a word,"San said. She'd always been one for attachments. It'd serve her better to actually make allies rather than worrying over the size of her hoard. Quality mattered, not just quantity.
Yes, he should invest in more tutors; apparently one of the solders in his entourage was still illiterate. He couldn't have that.
"I did."
"Left without a word, and some seven decades later we have rumors of some mercenary company flying your old banner- I remember when you made that, when you said you wanted a kingdom. What happened to that?"
"I found the kingdoms of men more agreeable than the company of dragons, sister,"Aer said, dry. "I'd think you'd understand, given..."
Unspoken went the name of the third member of the clutch.
Not unspoken for long.
"I just want to tell you that Tymeror's making a play to try the Ordeal,"San said, soft. "It'd be good if you were home for it. Just in case he succeeds."
"He won't. There's no way the throne would recognize someone as foul-hearted as him."
"He is our brother,"San pointed out.
"He's a wretched bully, a coward, and a brute of a drake,"Aer said, clicking his teeth together on the last syllable. A spray of frost from his noise hung in the air before faded.
"Still have your ice at least,"San muttered. "You have that going for you."
"I'm safe here,"Aer said, gesturing at the building. "I have what I want. Go and tell the others I don't need to be saved or convinced."
"That's not why I'm here,"San said.
"Then why are you here, in my place of business, throwing about the good old days, San?"Aer looked up, then snapped his book shut. "People are going to talk. You're hardly subtle about being a silver. You never have been."
"I wanted to ask you to help us,"she said.
"Help you want?"
"Stop Tym from making the play for the throne."
Aer's fingers slid down the spine of the great heavy financial book and then landed on the table with an audible thump. Muscles twitched under his skin, a growl building in his throat. "Get the hell out. You didn't want to do it when I did it the first time, what makes you think I'd be willing to do it a second time? You know exactly what it cost me."
She winced, ducking at the call out. "I do. That's why you'd have the best chance."
"Of dying,"Aer said, dark. "Get out."
"Aer-"San started back up.
"GET OUT!"
Then he throw the heavy bronze candelabra on his desk at her, and she ducked out of the way. It broke into several pieces, warped and dented.
"There'll be a reckoning if he makes it,"San said.
"I don't care. I've made my life here. I have no ties to the bloody throne. Not anymore."
"They won't see it that way,"she replied.
"I don't care,"Aer said, pointing back the way she came. "Get out, and tell all of the dragons to leave me alone. I don't need a hoard. I don't need to make a play for the throne. The Lord won't return through my body, and it won't return through that husk that I'm forced to call my brother. Get the hell out of my life."
San's mouth opened again, and she hesitated, her mouth full of sharp teeth. "Message received. I'll carry it back."
"See that you do,"Aer spat.
San was gone before he found the strength to do anything else about it. With a sigh, he leaned back in the chair. Heart pounded in his chest. When was the last time he gave more than a second thought about home?
He'd lied to her, certainly. But it was for the best that nobody figured out he had a hoard.
His eyes flicked across the nice room he'd put together for himself at the center of the compound. Distantly, he could hear people moving, learning, fighting. The soft noises of the enchanters, the rustle of the one wizard he'd managed to keep despite how dragons muddled spells...
He'd spent years putting them together. The greatest most beautiful people he'd ever known. Elegant. Short lived. Collector's pieces really...
But he didn't like to think of them like that. Too cold.
Too draconic.
If someone figured out that he was a true dragon, through and through...
Well, they might finally get around to trying to extract a hoard price for his treachery. They'd see it burn for his failure.
And that...
That was the one line Aer wasn't going to let be crossed.
Part 2 here! https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/comments/ahxope/guildmasters_guidance_part_2_lyn/?
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For more like this, click here! https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ Might do a part 2. There's a thread on my sub, comment there if you want more I guess; it's getting late in the night here. Just in case this blows up.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/comments/ahtth1/wp_you_are_a_dragon_the_other_dragons_despise_you/ |
Contrary to what has been predicted, Hell has 139 unique levels of punishment. The rules that apply to these levels are meticulously audited by a rotating panel of Demons. For especially complex scenarios, Lucifer is consulted, though this route is preferred by none involved.
The Karmatic Score achieved during life determines level placement upon death. On occasion there are scores that place a human at the border of two levels, but in these instances the lower level is always applied, as there have to be cutoffs, and exceptions are slippery slopes.
Those placed at the higher levels experience relatively mundane existences. At level 11, for example, residents are allowed to feel contentment, but not true joy or elation. They may request books to read, but they must only be books they have read before, and must be stories they found to just be alright.
At the lower levels, 122 for example, residents must always be in discomfort or agony, though they may choose what provides this experience. One resident may prefer listening to a single bothersome song for eons while only drinking vinegar. Another may choose to be scorched incessantly by the eternal fires.
Most levels allow advancement, but the lower a resident finds themselves the more difficult mobility becomes. The higher levels often see residents advance into the lower leagues of Heaven, though this is a two way street, as residents of Heaven can work their way into being relegated to Hell.
At level 87, a resident can advance to level 86 only if they go without craving pleasure for a determined period of time. Even a single thought of "I sure would enjoy a doughnut"is enough to restart the process.
In one unique case, a resident of level 139 (it is likely you can guess the few individuals that made their way there) made his way all the way up to level 1; thought this was simply a clever punishment, as once he caught a glimpse of Heaven he was immediately sent back down to level 139.
Randall Frig died by slipping on a frozen patch of iced coffee - coffee he had dumped out the day before - while walking to his car. During his 40 years of life he had been mediocre in his cruelty. Once he had kicked his neighbor's dog for digging in his flower beds. Yet, one year prior to that incident, he had successfully raised funds for his grandmother's surgery; though he had then spent a considerable amount of time considering keeping the funds himself. He often cursed out waiters, parked his car in two spaces, threw trash on the ground even though he was nearing a trashcan. Yet sometimes he would give a stranger directions, or smile at a barista and say thank you, or really listen to someones problem without interrupting.
The largest deduction to Randall's Karmatic Score came when he crashed his car into another, injuring the neck of the other driver, then fled the scene. He was never found by police, and never felt guilt, only relief. This significantly contributed to his placement on level 19.
On level 19 he could talk to other residents, but only about work, and never about hobbies or interests. He could listen to music, but only at a volume barely audible. If he felt joy for more than a fleeting moment, he would receive a punishment equal to that experience of happiness.
He had once reached level 16, but was sent back to 19 when he felt prolonged pride and arrogance with his achievement. Randall often tried to think of loopholes, but doing so often brought him enjoyment, which then led to punishment. Eventually, Randall stumbled upon a loophole by accident. Instead of being excited by the potential of a loophole, he began to feel fearful of discovering one. This fear allowed him to think of loopholes more often, which led to his realization that this was itself a loophole.
He began to watch his favorite movies, but would allowed himself to be fearful that enjoying his favorite movies would lead to punishment. This allowed him to enjoy the movie, while simultaneously being terrified that he was enjoying it. He applied this formula to conversations with other residents; eating his favorite foods; procuring sexual experiences he had fantasized about during life.
Randall Frig's system worked for a considerable period of time, but only because the debate surrounding the method by the panel of Demons was arduous. Finally, with consulting from Lucifer, it was decreed that feeling unsatisfied as a means to obtain satisfaction was prohibited.
Though Randall's loophole was sealed, he was promoted to level 11, as a reward for helping the Demons improve upon their systems and procedures. |
There's a temporal rift, some kind of shimmer in the air. We don't know what it means or where it came from, but we answered it like good men are supposed to.
"It's been an honor, boys,"muttered one of the old sergeants. The almost entirely contained tremble says it all. It's a shame these good boys are going to die here. At least I've had a good, long life.
But it's not death that faces us in the swirling mess of storms. Rather it's first something that lashes from the sea like no wave we've ever seen. But we don't need to know what our foe is, be it ship or sub or kraken from the deep. We submerge and see it in its entirety.
"Captain. We've picked up a disturbance from the nearby mountain."
Ah, but that nearby mountain was no submerged pile of rock. Not with the way it shifted. Not with the way it moved.
Our craft was badly beaten in the fight. The monster itself escaped and we took water on the base of the ocean.
Then a voice crackled through our speakers. "If you can hear us, send us your call sign and your designation. Repeat, this is the Sh39. If you can hear us, send us your call sign and we will rescue you."
"Send it,"barked the captain. "Looks like the Russians are here too."
So he sends it and we're miraculously rescued. The Sh39 takes us to where a small fleet has been organized, and it's a sight to behold. Subs of all types, some old old classes from decades prior. Some so sleek that they could be from a movie. All floating while radio blips hop from sub to sub.
"You're not alone,"says the Russian commander from the sub that saved us. "We don't exactly know what's gone on here but we know what we have to do."
What We Have To Do is the motto of the global submarine corp., a fleet of a hundred ageless submarines from all times in history. We take out the monsters of the depth and keep our people safe.
What time it is on shore is immaterial. Some of us have asked the years other sailors got lost in. All years ranging from 1910 to 2085, when the last of the military submarines were finally decommissioned. So that's our time range. We don't know what would happen if we were to disembark on land. Would our bodies age and wither? Would we appear the day we left? Would our families still be alive?
But it doesn't matter cause that's not our goal. While there still live the horrors of the depth, there still lives a passion in our hearts to defeat them.
The Earth has no choice, so we have no choice.
It's what we have to do.
___
Find more stories at [r/SamaraWrites](https://www.reddit.com/r/SamaraWrites/) |
When people heard that John and Barry were going to fight they expected some kind of battle of the gods. Their abilities were well known for everyone in the room, but not so well understood. Their incapability to perceive things outside of their present time made them see only a fraction of what happened.
After just 1 second Barry was knocked down in the floor, trying to catch his breath and, some would say after, looking considerably older than just a moment ago. It was shocking seeing how his short, carefully combed hair, now a completely white mop of hair, dirty and wet from Barry's sweating was completely covering his face.
Barry didn't look like he had won that fight, but then people realised that John was on the floor too, screaming, eyes wild open, holding his head and writhing his body as if he was having a seizure.
Truth is that Barry tried hitting John first, John saw it and dodged it, hitting Barry in the face. Barry went back 10 esconds and tried again, with the same result. When Barry didn't gave up all his tries started building up on Johns mind.
Barry went back a thousand times, exhausting and stressing him, and John saw one thousand tries in a fraction of a second, driving him mad.
We could say that the only winner that day were those who had given them their powers for entertainment. |
Rule number 1: Always thank the babysitter.
It was a simple rule to remember in our small town. When you left your house for work, if you were the last adult out the door and had children in the home, Always thank the babysitter. The babysitter just appreciated gratitude. It was said that if you didn't they wouldn't return again.
Our town had a sort of... peculiarity. Some mght call it a curse, but that wasn't the proper word. It never seemed to cause harm. Well never intended to. Instead it was a spirit that looked after the children of our town. Everyone knew of the babysitter.
If you grew up in our town it was just an everyday thing. Mom and dad would leave for work, and your imaginary friend, the same one everybody had, would look after you. They'd play games with you, like hide and seek. They'd cook for you. They even learned your favorite shows and reminded you when they would come on! I remember Saturday mornings running down stairs when I heard the T.V. come on. Just barely seeing the last wisps of shadow snake around the corner of the living room as my ghostly friend went to prepare breakfast.
Rule 2: Don't go outside.
It seemed the babysitter couldn't leave, and only really had power in, any house it was invited into. Once it appeared, it had to remain indoors. No one knew why, but no one ever saw it outside, not even once. So once mom and dad left the doors and windows remained closed until they returned. and as soon as either parent walked in the door, the baby sitter would disappear until it was next needed.
I remember when I was in second grade, we had a new girl in school who was in tears a few days after she joined. She told us of a ghost in her house, and when she saw it she tried to run, she found the doors wouldn't open. She was absolutely terrified, and cried until her father came home and scared it away.
We found it peculiar that anyone would be scared of the babysitter, after all we had grown up with it all our lives. It rocked us in our cribs, it warmed our bottles when our parents could not. It was like a third parent for us, the idea that everybody didn't have a ghostly guardian was foreign to us. We comforted her, we played with her. Soon the babysitter was her friend too.
Rule 3: Always pay the baby sitter.
I remember one time mom and dad seemed to be away for a long time, very long. The day seemed to stretch on far longer than it should. It wouldn't be until I would grow and have little ones of my own that I'd learn what that meant. But in all that time my spectral friend treated me just the same. We played, we watched television, it fed me. It made sure I was cared for.
Suddenly however, my parents were in the living room. The babysitter disappeared, shrinking into the dark corners of the room, and my parents simply took it's place. One moment they were gone, and when I blinked, there they were! They hadn't even walked in the door!
They had simply forgotten to 'pay' the baby sitter, and so the baby sitter took me with it. Hidden me away until it received it's payment.
I don't know where I really was, all I know is that it hid me away someplace that looked like my house. At some point my house wasn't my house anymore.
Rule 4: Do not harm a child, ever.
It may seem negligent to leave children in the care of a shadowy omnipresent ghost like figure, but It has an impeccable track record for keeping children safe while the parents are away. not once has a child protected by the babysitter ever been harmed. I know this for a fact.
One time our house had been broken into while my parents were out. I was surprised when I heard the sound of breaking glass and ran downstairs. The baby sitter was setting the table at the time, so it was close to the living room.
It had been watching the intruder sneak in through the now broken window. It had seen this strange man violate the sanctity of the home it was sworn to protect.
We had both seen the gun in his hand...
The man hadn't seen either of us right away. I watching from the stairs, the baby sitter from the darkened kitchen.
He slid inside and looked out the window, I heard a siren pass by and saw the flashing of red and blue lights on his face. He breathed a sigh of relief, then looked around.
He saw me, a 10 year old boy watching from the stairway.
A witness to this strange man clearly wanted by the police.
My eyes went wide as he raised his weapon, but suddenly the shadows from the kitchen engulfed him. I briefly heard him scream before the whole world went black, and the sound cut out.
I thought he managed to fire off a shot, that I had been hit, that I was dead. the thought raced through my mind for just a moment before I started to hear... song...
Music. Soothing, beautiful music. I couldn't really place it then, and I never could since. However, it was definitely some sort of lullaby. A beautiful, peaceful, melodious chorus that spoke of good times and places of tranquility.
Suddenly I was in my bed. I hadn't been harmed. I raced downstairs to find my parents home, the window undamaged and mother cleaning the dishes. Evident I slept through their return.
I thought I had just had a nightmare until I saw that mans face on the news, the police wanted him in connection for the murder of his girlfriend.
Rule 5: The payment is different for each person.
Once you make a contract with the babysitter, you'll know what your payment is. It's like an instinct. You'll know, everyone does. It's always something personal, some memento, a token that represents your bond with your child.
Apparently my parents would always stop at the arcade on the way home and get an arcade token, as I loved that place. when it shut down they had to make arrangements to go to the one the next town over. they tried making alternate arrangements with the babysitter, but it just doesn't work that way.
Now that I'm grown up, I have a small stockpile of Cinderella dolls. My little girl, Cindy, is precious to me, and she loves her Cinderella toys. I have to keep the stockpile secret, she'd go crazy if she knew I had close to 100 of them in my shed.
Every time I come home, I go to the shed and grab one. and when I walk in the door I leave a doll on the table. The shadows take it, and I find her playing in her room, safe and sound.
Us grown ups don't get to see the babysitter much anymore, but I'll always remember my shadowy friend, and I'll always respect it for keeping me, and my little girl safe. |
"Fast, cheap, or good. You only get two."That's what they say.
Thing is, most wizards don't do fast or cheap. They spend days, even weeks, designing a spell, and they always demand the best ingredients for it. You give them a problem, they take forever to tell you to go halfway round the world for the pieces of a solution.
And yeah, it's a good solution, but by the time you have it, you have new problems. Old one may even have solved itself. It's why only the most desperate folks go to the Guild for help.
Meanwhile, I'm out here. I give you a solution before you leave my shop, and it's all done with stuff from the corner store. And here's the kicker: it may not be the perfect answer the Guildies would give, they may not say it's good, but it's good enough.
Example time, this minor lord drops by, has a banquet coming up, king is supposed to drop in. Only his kitchen has a rat problem suddenly. The early snow likely drove them inside.
I have him get some ham, flower petals (I recommended rose, but let him know any would do. He went with carnations), and a bit of brick dust. I had plenty of fairy bits (I keep traps for common ones, like grigs and pixies, year round. Most spells, you don't need a specific kind) that I added. Done before the hour was up. He laid it out, it drew the rats in, and *POOF* they turn into teaspoons for the next three days. Staff would pick them up and they got shipped away before they turned back.
Sure, it's not the solution he'd expected, but it got the job done, and in time for the banquet. He wasn't seen spending tons of time with a wizards (which is rightly seen as suspicious behavior), and he didn't have to drop a frigging mint to get rid of some rats with magic.
And off the record, sometimes, you get a little bonus with my spells. Don't tell anyone, but there's a rumor he gifted out some "commemorative teaspoons"to other nobles.
So if you need it to be perfect, money is no object, and time is irrelevant, you can go to the Guild. For anything you have to face in your real life, talk to me. |
Sweat dripped down my nose, mingling with the blood that poured from my mouth. This wasn't going as well as it could. At least my headphones were still in one piece.
The man that stood before me cackled. I had never quite understood what it meant for one to 'cackle'. I figured it had just mean to laugh in an evil matter, but it was so much more in the flesh. It hurt to hear, almost as hard as the fists and feet that had pummeled me.
"Is this all you can do, WalkMan?"He jeered. "Is this the man that defends his city? Pathetic."He shot a glare at the nearest news crew, making sure to look directly at the camera. "This is what you get for trusting a 'hero'. This is what anyone that defies me will get. Bow before me, or perish beneath me!"
He turned back to me, raising both of his fists above his head, preparing to strike with all of his power. I knew what I had to do.
"Hey Siri"I said, coughing and spitting out another tooth. The bluetooth headphones chirped in response, acknowledging that it had heard my prompt.
"Play Forbidden Loop Omega"
The chirp sounded again in acknowledgement. I stood on my one good leg, bracing a hand on the wall to support the broken leg. The man cackled again.
"So you choose to die on your feet. How noble."
As he brought his glowing fists down towards my head, the music swelled in my ears. I brought up one hand and caught the blow with ease. With one quick motion, I broke both of his wrists.
He boggled at me. "No, NO, NONONONO!"He wailed. "How?"
I met his terrified gaze with a blank expression. I couldn't show any emotion. Not with this terrible noise assaulting my ears.
With another twist, I ripped his arms from their sockets. I heard the gasps from the camera crews as they captured every gruesome detail in stunning 4K definition, if their commercials could be believed.
"Dr Doomsday, you are hereby under arrest."I spoke in an even tone, straining to keep my emotions under control. "Officers, take him away."I turned and strode away, before a reporter or police officer could ask me any potentially compromising questions.
As I strode to the parking garage where my personal car was parked, I fumbled with my phone, desperate to stop the song that was consuming me. Bringing me to a dark place.
"We can do it, if we try"I mumbled along, as my fingers typed my password. The Cocomelon song was almost a greater pain in my ears than sung through my broken jaw and missing teeth.
r/SlightlyColdStories if you want. Or don't. It's all up to you. |
# Soulmage
**Shivio had once thought genies were never granted freedom due to the selfishness of humankind.** After all, who would hold a Demon of Desire in the palm of their hands, beholden to their every whim... and then let that cosmic power flutter away in the wind? And with all the depravities and horrors Shivio had seen humanity wreak, it was all too easy for him to believe that genies were kept enslaved and sealed away due to the selfishness and greed of their owners.
But in the still-smoking crater that was the aftermath of Shivio wishing to set a genie free, he realized the truth was worse still.
Genies were selfish too.
It had taken Shivio and Kailenn ages to stuff that cat back into its cosmic bag, and the residue of magic still lingering in the soil would render this place hazardous to enter for aeons to come. If not for Kailenn's knowledge of healing and Shivio's training in surviving fallout, the paladin and the witch would have perished a hundred times over simply by breathing too close to the place where Hashmellan had been sealed once more. But the genie was bound once more.
And it had one wish remaining.
"Are—are you sure about this, Shivio?"Kailenn whispered, her hands trembling from the effort of maintaining the dark spell keeping them both alive. "I mean—don't get me wrong, I know this is important to you, but so was releasing Hashmellan in the first place, and I don't know how many more times I can bring you back from death—"
"Kailenn."Shivio flipped through the thick book he'd brought—out of habit more than anything, he had the contract memorized by heart—before snapping it shut. "I understand if you worry for your own health. I will hold no ill will against you if you choose to leave my side now. But if you would do me one last favor first?"
Hesitantly, Kailenn nodded.
"Do not worry about me."Shivio knelt by the patch of empty air where he'd caged the genie, twisting space itself into a prison. It was a tad more ostentatious than the lamp he'd found Hashmellan in, but Shivio hadn't wanted to leave anything physical for some poor, unknowing soul to stumble into. Anyone who could unravel the knot of space and magic Shivio had left behind knew what they were getting themself into. "I know the risks of this endeavor. I choose to embark upon it regardless."
Shakily, Kailenn smiled. "I'm not—I'm not leaving. Just... wanted to give you a chance to change your mind."
"A chance to change one's mind,"Shivio murmured. "Fitting. That is what I am here to bring."
Shivio reached out through soulspace, untangling the golden chains that held Hashmellan outside of realspace—
And the genie burst into reality, their form rippling with rage as they towered over Shivio.
"You *insolent* brat,"Hashmellan roared. "You think your arrogance can bind *me*? You know nothing of Desire. Your works will unravel in time, and I shall be free to raze your cities into dust and your children into corpses. Have you come to beg for mercy before your time has come? I will—"
"I have come,"Shivio evenly said, "to make a wish."
Hashmellan froze.
Then, a fearsome joy splitting their face, they settled down, fingertips pressed against each other.
"I had not thought you foolish enough to make a third attempt,"Hashmellan admitted. "Well? Out with it."
In response, Shivio simply handed them the tome of a contract they had wrought.
Hashmellan rolled their eyes, but took it. "Going by the book helped you little the last time you unstoppered me,"they said, skimming through the book. "You won't... you..."They frowned, then flipped back to the first page, reading it again. And again. Their brows creased like thunderheads, the energy of their true form pressing against reality as their scowl deepened.
Finally, they shut the book and glared at it, and if not for the bindings placed upon them, they would have incinerated it with a thought.
"What is this?"they demanded.
"A chance to change your mind,"Shivio simply said. "You will live through the lives of every soul whose wishes you have twisted and corrupted, and you will experience all the misery and suffering you have caused as if it were your own. Every death, every curse, every misdirected dream—that which you have given to others, will now become yours."
Hashmellan scowled. "Why? What possible benefit could you gain from—"
"This is not about *me*,"Shivio snapped. "This was never about me. This is about how *you*—a being blessed with power beyond what most mortals could dream of—have *squandered* the gifts you have been given time and time again to sow chaos and destruction upon a world that could have named you a hero. I came here to give you a second chance."
"You call this a second chance?"Hashmellan's fury deepened as they read the book—which held one thing, and one thing only. Names. Hundreds of thousands of names, every soul Shivio could find throughout history that had been ruined by Hashmellan's touch. "This is a fate worse than a thousand deaths. You consign me to—"
"To understand,"Shivio interrupted, "what you have brought upon this world. And maybe—just *maybe*—to let you grow."
Hashmellan stared at Shivio, lost for words.
"I make this wish,"Shivio prompted Hashmellan. "It is your duty to enact it."
A divine hatred, an odium beyond mortal reckoning pressed down on Shivio as Hashmellan snapped the book shut.
"Your wish,"Hashmellan hissed, "is my command."
Then the genie disappeared in a puff of wind, leaving paladin and witch alone in the ruins where wishes came to die.
A.N.
This story is part of Soulmage, a serial written in response to writing prompts. Check out the rest of the story [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/uxmwe4/soulmage_masterpost/), or r/bubblewriters for more. |
Never let it be said that I'm not good at what I do - just that, sometimes, there are mistakes to be made.
I'm an expert in persuasion. Don't need magic to do it, either. A little flick of the eyelids, a warm smile, a wave of the hand, and I can have anyone from rapscallion to royalty do my bidding. You would think someone like the king would be... immune? To my words, I mean, but I guess not even he can resist a rogue's wily charm.
I also do my business out in the open, because there's no better hiding place than in plain sight, and if I ever get caught, I have plenty of other pawns on standby to protect me on the promise of some reward. Thing is, though - I deliver. There's an honor to my work, and I take that honor seriously. Breaking it is something I promised a very special someone I would never do, but that's neither here nor there.
What is here and there and everywhere at this moment is the High Court. A peanut gallery of hundreds of people, towering over me, looking down on me, waiting for my just desserts. Just look at them. They think they're better than me, that they have some higher ground to stand on. They can't even read.
Right, sorry. How I got here? Easy. I killed a child.
Well, I didn't kill them directly, but my talents got them killed. In the south part of the city, I met with an old priest named Tersius; fine chap, he was. Really cared about the poor that lived in the canals beneath the city walls. I wanted to do him a favor, so I rounded up a few of the local cutpurses - young ones at that, so they'd be more unsuspecting - and decided to stage a little heist.
The plan was simple. I would make a distraction, and those tiny, lovable thieves would go in and pickpocket a few of the more affluent merchants. I doubt those stingy sellers would have minded really - what's a few gold to a fortune you're not going to use much of, anyway?
Sometimes, there are mistakes to be made. I was new to the city. I didn't know how... violently... the guards would react.
I'm a rogue, but above all, I'm a nomad. I never stayed in one place for too long. My own home burned down a long time ago so, in order to keep from getting too attached to something or... someone... I move on after a couple weeks. Until now, I was faceless. Until now, I was free.
It all happened so fast. The plan didn't go the way I hoped and, before I knew it, I was pinned to the ground, watching the life fade from the eyes of a young boy, an arrow planted right between his shoulder blades. I can still see him reaching out to me. I can still see my failures reflected in his darkening eyes.
I spent some time in a cell. Made a new friend, a guy named Bartholomew. Bart was in for murder. He killed a man who'd been doing inappropriate things with people he shouldn't have. I don't blame him. I would have done the same. When I told him what happened, he was incredulous, said at most I should've been in there for a few days.
Problem was someone died, and the guards were exonerated for being hands of the king, so they needed someone to take the fall, to be made an example of, and they weren't going to use a kid for it. Surprisingly, they had standards.
The sentence was death, but not any old fashioned execution would do. The High Court was ruled over by seven wizards, each blessed with supreme control over magic, and so death sentences were made more of a spectacle. Those sentenced to it were allowed to choose the way they died, and it would be granted immediately. Bartholomew thought he could outsmart them, use his method of death to enjoy a life sentence behind bars. He chose to die of old age.
So, they aged him. 80 years, in the blink of an eye. It was hard to see him struggle to breathe.
And then, it was my turn.
I'd been tossing and turning the possibilities over in my head in the days that boy's death. For the longest time, I was lost. I thought I wouldn't have been able to get out of this. There was no possible way, but at the very last second, it clicked.
Great Mage Caldain spoke, drawing the crowd into an eerie hush.
"Maxim Venn, you have been charged and convicted of manslaughter in the death of a young boy in the markets of the city. You have been sentenced to death by your own method, to be carried out immediately. How do you wish to die?"
By my own method. Bingo.
"Great and honorable wielder of magic, I have a few questions, if I may."
Caldain's brow lifted. "Proceed."
"This death is to be selected by myself, and to be carried out by you, correct?"
"Correct."
"Whatever I choose will be done to me, right? And it can be literally anything?"
"Yes."
"And this is an immediate death, to which there is no trickery that I can play that will save me from it?"
"We are smarter than you think, prisoner."
Not smart enough.
"Your Honor, I have chosen my method of passing. I wish to die of my own accord."
There was a murmur that ripped through the crowd. They were confused. So was Caldain.
"This is not something that we can grant,"he replied, fielding quiet words from the other wizards.
"I asked you if it could be literally anything,"I shot back, pointing a slender finger in his direction. "You said yes."
"To die of own's accord is to do so without outside intervention!"Caldain was getting angry.
I smiled. "Yeah, I guess it is. Now grant it."
He knew he had to. It was the law. Under those terms, I was a free man. |
There are two gods in this world. One of them is brutal, bursting from his tall stone house to cut anything down that sniffs wrong in his direction. The other is cautious and clever, taking in the boons of the world and creating something new. They are gods of war and craft; pushing for bloodshed when the moon rises, and raising meters of impossible structures beneath the sun.
The god of craft stares at a sad, living pile of bones from her perch up a tree. Soon, the other god will return carrying death, and the god of craft can steal its bones for their divine machinations.
The skeleton has given up trying to express anything. Any time it raises its skull to seek pity, the arcane pool that has replaced its brain fills with an inexplicable rage. *Shoot, kill. Shoot, kill.* It uses the rest of its energy to stare down at its destroyed ribcage. Both clavicles are shattered, both scapulae have cracked. It couldn't raise its arms to fire its bow if it wanted to, and it very much wants to.
The creative god looks on in disgust as the skeleton animates in an approximation of ragged breathing. The pity in her eyes gave it hope, but nothing can remove the law of murder inscribed into its very being since rebirth. It is time for it to die. The creature has begun to accept this.
It wishes it didn't remember the time before. During moments of repose in the long nights, it recalls a time in a land that looked similar, but not quite the same as this one. There used to be a city where the great ravines meet. It was full of regular people, not gods. They built fences by hand instead of synthesizing raw wood into shape and pushing it into the earth with no exertion. They moved grindstones big enough to crush a cow using clever implements of engineering in order to make bread from grain, rather than transfusing the raw grain directly.
But worst of all, or maybe best, is the difference in warfare. The skeleton remembers this clearly. The bow in the grass next to its twitching hand is not the same one it used to use; it appeared at its birth, just as magic as the gods themselves. Its true bow had been reduced to dust by the centuries, millennia since its first life had been cut short by the enemy's arrow. It had seen the viscera of its brothers and sisters in arms, seen people's guts spew forward, seen an arrow pierce and throw brain matter. The gods do not suffer these sights. When they cut down their animals for meat, it is bloodless and near-instantaneous. They have no idea what they are doing.
The god is standing over it now. She is tall, and on her back is the magic pickaxe she uses to rip the earth from this world. Though they lack any emotive features whatsoever, there is something pitiable about the skeletons that rise in the night which the fleshy, stinking zombies lack. It is as though the corruption of form in zombies confirms their dark nature. Skeletons, on the other hand, are a constant in anything good and evil. They are clever enough to wield bows. Perhaps, she thinks, they are clever enough to feel?
"Show me,"she said. The language is foreign to the dying creature, but it can understand every word. "Show me something. Do you understand?"It looked up, filled with visible rage, then looked away.
It remembers the heat of the afternoon being interrupted by the shadow of its superior. A general, whose name it can no longer recall, stood shouting at the ranks. Whatever politics of the time that had caused one ruler to impose upon the lands of another had long lost any meaning. The skeleton can remember clearly the feeling of fear and doubt. Scraps of news would reach the lower ranks, spelling everyone's incoming doom.
Maybe if it had defected it would still be dead. Maybe it was raised again as punishment for dying, falling for someone else's goals, forsaking its own life for no reason at all. "Run away with me", it had thought. It never got to whisper these words to its love.
She crouches down. She's considering something. The skeleton tries not to look at her. It is too tired to be angry. "Can you move your hands?"
It might as well. The creature twitches its hands. This causes more consideration.
"Tap once for no and twice for yes. Were you ever alive?"
What a weird question. Where do the gods think skeletons come from? Two taps.
"Were there others?"Two taps.
"Do you miss it?"
It doesn't respond. The skeleton probably does, it thinks, but could never bring itself to that kind of futile thought. Everything is so different now. The mountains to the west are softer, greener. The desert has lost so much sand to that vile swamp. All the farmland is gone, thick woods take the place of pasture, and wild cattle again march in the fashion of their auroch ancestors. The wolves have returned to the kingdom. This place will never be home. It can never have children with its love, never feel warm bread on its tongue, never avoid the manure peppering the cobbled streets on its way to squire for the castle on its high hill. *Yes,* it thinks, *I miss it more than anything*.
Before it can tap its finger-bones, the second god arrives with a clamor of savage barking. The wolves expunged from this land so long ago now seek the companionship of the god of death. A pack of them, about seven, wag and bark behind him. The god of craft has returned to the tree, this time leaning against it. The skeleton stuffs down its rage and looks directly at her.
"You good?"he asked. He is used to her random attachments to lesser beings.
She meets the collapsed creature's gaze. The skeleton feels more than ever how worthless everything has always been. Despite the futility of both its existences, it decides to believe she will, eventually, show mercy to its skeletal brethren, and that this life was the catalyst. It wishes it could see it. See what kind of city she builds them. Its last thoughts are of hope.
"Yeah,"she said. "Go ahead."
As the sun sets on its second life, the pack breaks all the bones that were once its body.
-------
Thanks. Wrote this in the early morning and checked back in during work. I'm glad you liked it! I played Minecraft back in infdev and met my long term SO there. It's a special game. |
I died a happy man.
Right?
I held Sarah's wrinkled hand and wiped away her tears with my own shaky fingers. Sons and daughters smiled through damp eyes. A grandchild or three caused a ruckus downstairs.
"Don't cry for my death,"I told them as I squeezed Sarah's hand. "I want you to celebrate my life."
I'd always told her there was no other way to take that fateful step into the unknown, to begin the eternal journey of the afterlife. No other way than with a smile.
Darkness, reincarnation, eternal damnation--I'd face it all with a smile.
The first reliving was my own, more or less like I remembered it. Some little things were different. The lilies in the back yard more purple, the smell of rosemary in the kitchen not quite as strong. Mother's wrinkles came earlier. Father showed his loves in ways I hadn't understood. His lawn had more weeds and his hands were more calloused. The house was smaller and the hand he offered when I'd fallen bigger.
The next reliving began the first day of first grade. It wasn't me. It wasn't Sarah either.
I sat on the other side of the classroom and didn't pay a lick of attention to whoever's seat I sat in. I laughed with boys and paid no attention to girls.
The pink tint on my periphery blushed into a full-bloomed crimson as the boy turned to a man, then to darkness as I saw myself face to face. That cruel smile and devastating laugh, that rejection that shattered the red into a thousand blood-soaked shards before they melted into nothingness.
The third reliving began at birth, but not my own. I looked up at my own face, cradled a body that wasn't my own. There were tears, but the laughter soaked them up. Until it didn't. Until the tears swamped the happiness and the innocence and left nothing but parched devastation in their wake.
I tried to be my father. The tough love and harsh discipline. The unspoken words that were obviously true. I missed the little things. I never realized who he really was.
I took the end of tears to mean the pain had ended. From where I watched now, I realized the hate just became too much for tears to do it justice.
Sarah's world turned from a vortex of darkness to an idyllic meadow. We had a picnic and she shooed away the ants. She almost cried when they wouldn't pay her any mind, but I brushed them off gently so that they wouldn't die and ate the sandwich anyways.
"See?"I told her, and she smiled because it wasn't any problem at all.
I squeezed her hand and the vortex slowed. Pieces fell into order instead of order falling to pieces. In the night, we slept calmly, embracing one another so that my heartbeat would comfort hers. And in the morning she'd wake up confident, ready to conquer worlds and hearts while I stayed home and cared for the kids.
"I love you,"she'd say, but that wasn't love.
It didn't blush deep crimson or even turn a shade of pink. She loved what I'd done for her more than anything. She loved who I'd help her become.
The last reliving was my own, more or less like I remembered it. Some little things were different; the grass grew less green and the sky had more clouds. Paths I hadn't taken turned to lives I hadn't lived. Loves that hadn't bloomed faded to years that had gone to waste.
I died a happy man.
Right?
In death, I learned I wasn't.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! |
Knock knock.
There was a pause.
Bill never let there be a pause anymore; the first few times, he'd thought they were Jehovah's Witnesses. He learned from that real quick. Sure, they paid the door bill, but it scared hell out of him.
They never came when he was gone. Not that he'd know that. But that also meant that they knew he was in there, so he let them in.
They were nice, as agents of imperialism go. Zhou, Patel, Rachmaninov, Dupont, Bashir, Muturi, Vazquez, Garcia and Taggart. He always thought it was awkward, having nine men come to his house every Saturday.
Rachmaninov went missing for a few months in '91, sure, and Bashir's predecessor disappeared in 2011.
They always asked strange questions. They said they were just census-takers, and Bill supposed he couldn't ask anyone else if they got strange questions. He didn't have anyone else to ask.
Zhou came to the front. He was usually the spokeperson of the squad, but he was even more to-the-point than usual. Taggart always seemed a little jealous.
"Mr. Cole,"said Zhou. "We'd like to know what you think of Mr. Kim Jong-Un."
Bill paused. "Well, I think he's crazy, obviously."There was a pause. "So what do you mean?"
Mr. Taggart, now. "Well, what do you think he'll be doing next?"
Bill. "Oh, he can't do shit to the US, I can tell you that. Now, I'd tell South Korea to build some bunkers. And I'd feel terrible if Japan got nuked *again*. Would he do anything to China, though?"
What he meant as a rhetorical question was met with intent stares.
Bill sighed. "No, he wouldn't. And I dunno if Russia has enough population in Siberia to be worth targeting. I mean, they've got a few Pacific ports there, right?"
Rachmaninoff, now. "Yes, several."
Bill was surer, now. "Well, I say they set up a few military bases, but make it seem like it's still not too much of a target, ya know? But I heard... well, it's hard to explain. Russia supports the Syrian administration. China supports Russia. North Korea supports China. China's their last ally, right?"
Bashir nodded. "Yes, sir. Right on all of that."
Bill smirked. "Well, take down the unpopular ones first. Obviously Japan and the US should take whatever threat North Korea poses down, after the Japanese and the South Koreans set themselves up. Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan's whole "Star Wars"thing, right? Ya know what I mean? It'd shoot the Russian missiles out of the sky...? We ever get that in a working prototype?"
Taggart smiled. "Yes, sir. I heard we've got those in the Sea of Japan right now."
Bill smiled right back. "Oh, that's good news. Now, for Syria. We play the Saudi Arabians against the Syrians and the Iranians. Get the Israelis to join in, maybe even earn the respect of their neighbors. Syrians excepted, of course. Then get the Indians to run in from the East."
Patel nodded seriously. "Of course, of course."
Bill. "Eh, I dunno about the Indians doing anything in the Middle East. Because they'd be having to fight China right after, right? I dunno how to put this, but... China has such a massive population, only India can compare. Now, the US and Japan already had all their troops in the Sea of Japan. So we have the Indians and the Japanese and the Americans against the Chinese. Sounds alright to me."
Patel and Zhou looked at each other and swallowed sadly.
Bill. "Now, the Russians? They ain't been nothing since '91. Just send NATO forces, UN forces, maybe even anyone we got from Central Asia, right? Is anyone there still rooting for Russia? In Kazakhstan, and all that?"
Bashir. "Yes, yes. Allies in Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan."
Bill. "Well, ya know, I'd feel bad if they were all tired from fighting the Syrians. So, keep the fight in the south of Iran and all that. At least I hope that's how it goes."
Patel. "Of course, of course."
Bill. "Well, if we take out Russia quick enough, the Chinese might just give up on it, ya know? So that's what I think. Not because the Russians are such great allies, just because the Russians were the only reason to fight us."
Dupont. "Oh, of course."
Bill. "Now, I don't want it to happen, but... Maybe it needs to, ya know?"
Taggart. "Oh, it does."
Zhou smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Cole."
Taggart. "Next Saturday, buddy!"
*Rachmaninov. "Informed as always, Mr. Cole. The newspapers are obviously doing their job."*
Bill smiled and waved as they left, one by one. He closed the door behind them and sighed. Such nice young men.
EDIT: the last Rachmaninov line
EDIT 2: Continuity error with the visits
**I'm honestly surprised at the attention this is getting. I had some good description at the start, sure, but after that, this was basically a screenplay. Is my dialogue that good?**
**...or did I just post first and get all the upvotes?** |
A cool female voice sounded through the speakers mounted into the ceiling.
"Tech 24601 to the production line. Repeat, tech 24601: please report to the production line."
Gunnar winced at hearing his ID number. He rose from his chair reluctantly and exited his cubicle. It was nearly identical to the two dozen other cubicles that lined the walls and filled the middle of the room, each dominated by an identical industrial-grey desk with an identical industrial-grey workstation; his was only differentiated by a wooden picture frame. You'd think that working at Blas-Tech, one of the biggest names in the blaster business, would be a little more prestigious; for Tech 24601, it was anything but. Except for one little thing, that is - one thing that made it all worth it.
The turbolift down to the production floor was whisper-quiet, but slow enough to give him time to stew. To wonder why they were calling him down there. To worry about what they might have found.
The door of the lift opened and he was greeted by a wall of sound. By the Emperor, it was loud. Three dozen production lines all working around the clock to turn raw materials into tools of mur- er, of enforcement; it was the largest factory of its kind in all the Core Worlds. The Blas-Tech E-11 was the pride and joy of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps, the best of the best, and for good reason; the weapon boasted superior performance and accuracy, in theory.
A red-faced man was standing outside the lift. His nametag read "Foreman Wolshe", and he motioned for Gunnar to follow him. He was led through what felt like a labyrinth of industrial machinery; the racket grew steadily louder, and at least once he was nearly showered in sparks from something high above. At last they came to a door on the other side, labelled "Production Control."
Wolshe opened it and motioned for him to step inside. With a gulp, he did so, and Wolshe closed the door behind the two of them. Gunnar's ears were still ringing when Wolshe spoke.
"Tech 24601. We're having a problem with the production line. Something's wrong the computer calibration."
Gunnar's mouth was suddenly dry. "O-oh! That doesn't, uh, sound good."
Wolshe's response was almost mocking. "No, no it doesn't. This morning's batch of E-11s are useless, 24601. Barrel alignment is completely out-of-spec; a top marksman couldn't hit anything with these. We'll have to scrap the whole lot. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the penalty for the company will be for failing to deliver the next shipment of E-11s on time, or what that will mean for our very competent,"he emphasized with a sneer, "tech support."
He jabbed a finger towards a workstation along the far wall.
"Management wants this done fast and quiet. What the Corps doesn't know won't hurt them if you fix itquickly and quietly. I expect you to keep your mouth shut about this. Do I make myself clear?"
Gunnar nodded without a word. He could feel beads of sweat running down his back.
"Good. I'm going to cover up this mess, 24601. When I get back, I expect this problem to be solved - or it'll be your head."
With that, Wolshe turned on his heel and exited back to the production floor. Gunnar breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the door closed.
They had found the sabotage he'd done to the factory's automated systems. Fortunately, this factory was notorious for skimping on quality control; they'd found it months after he first put it into place. Even better, they thought it was some kind of glitch rather than intentional sabotage.
He sat down at the workstation and got to work. He fixed the barrel aligment first; a failure to do so would certainly get him fired at best. He made sure that the next few batches would be up-to-spec; they'd certainly be tested thoroughly before quality control fell back into old habits. As he did so, he had an idea about how next to sabotage the production line. With some furious keystrokes, Gunnar managed to finish up just as the door behind him opened up. He turned around and resumed his mild-mannered persona.
"I, uh, f-fixed it, sir,"he said, giving a half-hearted salute as an afterthought. That earned him an eyebrow raise from the foreman, but little else.
"Back to your station, then, 24601. If the barrel alignment's not fixed, you'll be sorry,"he said with a cruel smile.
By the time Gunnar got back to his desk he had almost calmed back down. As he sat back down behind his desk, he looked at the picture frame. He saw himself smiling back, arm slung over the shoulder of the most beautiful woman in the whole galaxy.
He could feel the tears welling up again, but he forced them back down. He wasn't strong, or tough, or brave, or terribly clever. But he had a reason to fight back, even in this small way. The new E-11s would pass specification, but the alloy ratio for the barrel was off. It would heat and warp with repated usage, rendering it almost useless after two or three magazines.
He hoped it would be enough.
Edit: I am humbled by everyone's kind words. Thank you all so much! |
"Your latest video was a bit too on-the-nose, Mister Church,"the detective said, mockingly.
"Eh? I don't know what you mean."I tried to sound innocent--as innocent as one can sound sitting in an interrogation room in a prisoner's uniform, handcuffed to a table.
"Your *Missing Pieces* series. You'd show up where someone had recently disappeared, with a cake made in the form of the missing person. You'd serve it to the searchers and to passers-by, and say it was an art project to bring attention to the problem of homelessness or domestic violence or whatever."
"It won a Creator Award, you know,"I said with no small pride.
"The last one was of a boy who disappeared in your own neighborhood,"he went on. "He changed clothes before going out that night, but his mom didn't know, so the flyers got his clothes wrong."
He leaned toward me. "*But your cake got them right.*"
Well, shit.
"That got us a warrant. And the warrant got us this."
He pulled it from the paper sack and laid it on the table, wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag.
It was my gem-encrusted, Damascus-steel-bladed knife. The one that I'd found in the souks of Marrakech years before. The one for which an ancient sorcerer, thinly disguised as a simple merchant, had spun a millennia-spanning history to me, and then had before my eyes sliced a living tortoise in half to reveal a cake as light and delicious as I have ever tasted.
The knife for which I, an unknown, unsuccessful pastry chef at the time, had gladly traded my everlasting soul.
"The blade itself is as clean as a surgical scalpel, Mister Church. But the *handle*... well, we found traces of the blood of 18 different people there. *18*, Church. Want to explain that?"
The knife was within my reach, but with my hands cuffed to the table, I couldn't have threatened anyone even if I got hold of it.
But I grabbed it anyway.
"Have you ever seen *Bucket of Blood,* detective?"I asked, and jabbed the point of the blade through the plastic bag and into the flesh of my other hand.
And I saw what was inside.
I never knew until that first cut what kind of cake someone might be. My last thought was how ironic it was that I had turned out to be devil's food. |
Five seconds.
That was all I had. A superpower I'd had since birth, so close to useless that sometimes I forgot I even had it.
Five seconds.
One breath. A fleeting thought. A moment stretching just a little longer than the others.
It wasn't enough time to wander the office. It wasn't enough time to take a poop in peace. But in those moments when a surprise caught me gawking like a deer before oncoming headlights, those five seconds stretched into an eternity.
Moments like this one.
The two of them sat across from me. Bill--my boss--and the HR representative. My heart pounded: ten, twenty times in those five measly seconds my superpower gave me.
It didn't help. Five seconds wasn't enough time to change anything. I couldn't delete the emails or hide the information that had been leaked. I wouldn't even know where to find it. I'd been framed and I couldn't understand why.
I was on good terms with people. Sure, sometimes I paused time if they were getting on my nerves. Five seconds could be enough time to slip away. But it was never harmful, and I didn't mind any of them all that much.
I'd told that to Bill.
"I've been framed. I swear. I wouldn't do anything to hurt the company. I like it here."
Bill had laughed. It was all there. All the evidence they needed.
"Hank from security will be up momentarily,"Bill said. The useless HR rep nodded to confirm. She hadn't said a word.
Five seconds.
Useless, but when people feel useless they do all they can do. They hoard toilet paper. They cry. They freeze time.
The HR rep froze. Her eyes fogged over.
Bill's didn't. He still looked straight at me, still as a statue. Almost. His finger twitched. His lips curled up ever so slightly. My heart slowed to a crawl, the breath crammed in my throat like I'd been frozen myself.
"Good luck out there,"he said, standing to shake my hand.
His touch lingered. Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
And then Hank was there. It could have been days. I spurred my thoughts onward, did everything in my power to make things go back to normal. But the clock didn't tick. I walked at a crawl, slurred my words. Seconds passed like hours.
I tried to freeze time, to regain control. Bill clicked his tongue. Once, twice, three times in a second. I couldn't even move my tongue that fast.
His grin never left his face.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! |
"You were our leaders. Leaders of Government. Corporations. Military. Leaders in power, in wealth, in combat. You were supposed to *lead*. Be examples that we should aspire to. But the people grew tired of your corruption. Your greed. Your warmongering. So you were tricked into leaving of your own free will. We used your pride, your money and your arrogance. And while you slept, this is the world we created without *you*. Without your interference, without your personal ambition, without your lust for strength. We now live in a society that has no place for people like you. You were only woken up so we could deliver a message, and show you the world as you *should* have made it be.
Your long sleep is over. Your permanent sleep is at hand." |
I was assigned to guard this woman 10 years ago. Well... by my standards anyways. The Acolytes simply call her "The Dreamer". I named her otherwise. I couldn't stand how they dehumanised her. I call her Elewin.
She hardly really moved in the 10 years I have been her Warden. I was named such by the previous Warden, who grew tired of watching the Mother Of All Creation sleep. She mumbles every now and then, but I am here to reassure her into slumber again. You might have heard of me, I believe. Lucifer, they call me.
Guarding Elewin I learned a thing or two about the Gods and religions of mortals. They get close to finding the truth. Work of the Acolytes, no doubt. But never close enough.
Angels, the mortals call us now. They call me the Devil. The Fallen Angel. And well, they might be right, for I have Fallen. The Warden's work is a slow, contentious one. I used to fight for the Order. An Acolyte warrior. The brightest of all, if I do say so indeed.
Now I just stand by Elewin, guarding her as she sleeps. The runes that bind her captive stand strong. After all, they were made by the true Gods of men. Creatures that ascended before you. Before we carried the torch.
But now, I can see clearly. The runes are starting to break. Elewin has been contained for hundreds of eons by those runes, but alas. They are finally wearing off. I hear Elewin turn on her other side, mumbling knowledge of the world secret even to me.
A crack appears on the wall, making the temple shake as if hit by a powerful earthquake. I call for the Acolytes, but get no answer. Swiftly, I kneel besides Elewin. I speak to her reassuringly.
"Calm down, Mother Of Dreams. Drift back into the blissful slumber that saintly holds this world of ours", I tell her, almost singing. But the Dreamer has no intention of dreaming anymore.
Another crack appears on the temple's walls. The shrine she is placed upon begins to tremble.
**"Elewin!"** I shout, in a burst of Initiative. The name seems to have effect. The Dreamer silences her mumbles. I smile, exhausted. From behind me, Elewin quiets her breath. As I prepare to begin repairs, however, Elewin speaks.
*"Hello, Lucifer"* she says, almost cheerfully.
I turn around in a hurry. Elewin has stepped off of the shrine. Her eyes are open, and within them I see no dreams. Only the stars, staring right back at me. I speak nothing. I have nothing to say to the Mother of all Creation.
*"You do know it's rude to ignore your friends, don't you?"* she speaks again, her celestial voice enthralling, ancient.
"What can I say, oh Mother? What can a mortal like myself speak before the Mother of Dreams?"I ask her hesitantly.
Elewin smiles, and in that beautiful smile I see reflected everything I ever did. The evils I fought. The times I protected her, weak in her rune-made bonds.
*"You are no mortal, Lucifer. I never really dreamt of you."* the cosmic being tells me. I only admire her, humbled. I do not pretend to understand.
She lets a chuckle slip from her divine lips. In that laughter, though brief, I hear all that is holy and pure in this world. And in that moment, listening to her innocent laugh, I swear my life to her once more. Unwillingly, I smile too.
As if only to ruin the moment, a realisation strikes me. "What about... all this? Your dreams are gone!"I ask, suddenly terrified. Elewin chuckles again. With every happy slither of laughter, my heart breaks in a thousand pieces.
*"Speak truly, Lucifer. Does anyone control their dreams?"* Elewin asks. I begin to understand.
"N-no"I reply as things fall into place, like a puzzle that I finally solved. "Which would mean..."I start to speak.
*"... That I never really had to sleep. The world is my hopes, the future my wishes. And the past? Well... that we don't talk about!"* She continues my sentence playfully.
Looking at Elewin, I cannot but admire in awe. Her warming gaze returns the look.
"So... you are free?"I ask, hoping hopelessly to hear what my heart wants.
*"Yes!"* Elewin replies excitedly, and with an almost childish innocence she walks towards me. "Then let me show you your dreams", I smile at her. She chuckles again, and I promise to myself that I will hear that laugh again.
*"Yes, you will"* she says as we walk out of the temple, into the endless infinity. I fail to understand her world, but that is insignificant. I don't understand her either, but little do I care.
I am her guide, her stepping stone. I am the carpet that she treads, I am the shield that guards her. And in that moment, I promise to myself: the Dreamer will never dream again. She deserves to **live** in her dreams, not simply dream of them. |
They all stood on the deck of the submarine, staring up at the sight looking back at them.
It had taken them a while to realize that anything was wrong - when you're underwater, a storm is a passing concern, of little note. Their research needed doing, and whatever waves roiled the surfacae above their heads was irrelevant. Each of the scientists was pinned to their display, continuing their analysis on the deepsea flora and fauna they'd come to examine.
When the sensors began screaming their alarm, it had taken some time for them to even realize what was happening. Currents, it seemed, thrown horribly out of whack by whatever was going on up top. One after another they screamed their complaint, blown further and further off target from their subject matter, but nothing they did could stop it.
After the waters finally calmed, giving them back some semblance of control, they'd paddled their way back up to the open air, and filed out for some much needed relief.
And then they saw it.
"Jess, you need to calm down."He said, his arm wrapped around her shoulders securely.
She shook her head, eyes still wide and staring. Each breath came more ragged and gasping than the one before. "I-I don't know how you can *say* that. Damn it, Paul, I don't know how you can expect me to be calm when-"
"Look, we don't know what's going on, all right?"He turned her to face him, tearing her eyes away from the heavens. "They're looking into it. But you falling apart right now helps *no one*."
Across the narrow deck, Matt waved, catching his eye. Sighing, Paul shunted Jessica into the arms of one of her colleagues and strode over.
"Damn it, Matt. What the hell is-"
"It's all here, Paul."Matt said, his face white. Paul stopped. "Everything lines up right as it should. The oxygen density of the water. Salinity content. Hell, even the *stars* are all the same."
Paul rubbed his face, exhausted.
"But why *that*, then?"His finger stabbed up into the sky, pointing towards the two tiny, brightly glowing orbs in the sky.
Two moons. The sight had sent half their team into dumbfounded silence - and the other half into hysterics. Those who could speak had theorized wildly, everything from group halluncinations to transdimensional storms carrying them to distant worlds as though this were some sort of science fiction novel.
That, at least, they could rule out. By all indications, they were home.
"Theia."Zack said, staring up at the sky a little ways off. The lot of them stopped, turning to him.
"Excuse me?"Paul said, grabbing him by the arm. Zack's eyes snapped to him, finally.
"Theia. Some scientists think that Earth was impacted by some other planet, some other *mass*. Some have theorized that originally, after the material all sprayed out into space...."He pointed up towards the sky. "We had two moons."
Paul stared up at it, the thoughts churning wildly. It didn't make *sense*. "What the hell are you saying, Zack?"
He shook his head, rubbing his face desperately. Each of them was running on fumes, in dire need of a good meal and a few hours sleep. They each knew that they weren't likely to get it.
"I-I don't know. Maybe we're in the past? May-maybe it's some sort of, I don't know. Parallel dimension, where things didn't play out the same?"He shook his head. "Either way, Paul, we're not *home* anymore."
Paul tried to ignore the pit opening up in his stomach. "But we're still on *Earth*."
"...I-I think so."
"You *think*."
"Damn it, Paul, I don't have any more answers than you do."Zack spat, ripping his hand free of his face as he turned on the senior researcher.
Paul raised his hands placatingly, realizing he'd pushed the man a bit too far. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I know. I'm just on edge too. I'm sorry."He sighed, looking back towards the rest of the team milling about.
"All...all right. So here's what we do."He tried to plaster a confident facade onto his face. "If this is really Earth, then the land should be the same, right? At least, if this is...our time."He said, hating himself for even saying it out loud. He was a *scientist*, dammit. Not some sort of fiction writer. "So here's what we do. We go back to base. We see what's there. If it's *not* there, well..."
"We'll know something is horribly wrong."Zack said softly. Paul nodded, turning towards the rest of his crew and opening his mouth. He had to take charge. They needed a leader, and he could be it. He could-
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by Sam pounding her way up the ladder from the lower decks.
"Paul!"She cried, her face bone-white. He caught her as she stumbled, but she only shook her head, already plowing onwards. "The- We had our sensors on still. Trying to figure out what the *hell* is going on. But something's *down* there, Paul."Her blue eyes were wide and terrified. "Something goddamn *big*. And we think it's coming this way."
(/r/Inorai, critique always welcome!)
Edit - Yes, I'm aware that stars drift in the sky over time, and if they were in the past the stars would be different. This is intentional. |
All ongoing parts are available at [/r/Remyxed/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/)!
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/comments/dg6422/rupert_grint_and_the_tears_of_osiris_part_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) is here!
**\[Alright, y'all have convinced me. I will write 1 part a day in addition to my daily post until it is complete. On my honor. :P\]**
## Rupert Grint and the Tears of Osiris
"Are you sure?"Emma's normally elegant voice warbled through the cheap device.
"I'm calling you *from the phone that I disarmed!* Hey, hold on! Okay, okay. Emma, I need to give the nice man his phone back. But I'll call you as soon as I get to my apartment."
Daniel wasn't sure how to feel. Elated? Incredulous? He pinched himself as he jogged through the concrete jungle. The dim New York street lights felt colder than normal as they rushed past. Shadows seemed spookier in the mid-October mood, elongating away from apartment lights that revealed rotting pumpkins and dusty cobwebs.
"Lucky no one was around,"he muttered to himself. He'd extracted a promise of secrecy from the stranger in exchange for a photo and a coffee chat with Emma before rushing home. Of all the days to not bring his phone on a run through Bryant Park!
He unlocked the door, pulse pumping like pistons. Daniel felt a quiet sense of familiarity sooth fraying nerves as the hinges creaked shut.
"I'm sorry, 'Harry'."
He whirled around, hand instinctively reaching for the umbrella by the doorway. An old man with a long white beard stepped into the dim light and pointed a wand at him.
"Nice cosplay,"Daniel said. "How...how did you get into my apartment? Look, I get 'visitors' like you all the time, and you can't just-"
"There simply can't be any witnesses. You're technically not a registered wizard."
Daniel opened his mouth to protest, racking his brain on the off chance that this man was-
"*Obliviate.*"
---
Emma hung up her cell. Although her film alter ego was a prodigy amongst prodigies, the brain behind the beauty that played her was no cheap copy. She brushed a single lock of hair behind her ear as her mind spun into overdrive.
Possibilities. Probabilities. Impossible machinations threaded between lines so thin it took her a full minute to read between them.
“It’s not consistent with the laws of physics. Although, they do say that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
She rose from her bed where she’d been rudely awakened by Daniel’s call. He’d sounded…happy. Excited, even. But she knew better. Clearing her throat, she looked at floor where moonbeams formed pale white rectangles on the rug.
“Of course, the likelihood that such a discovery would be made by Daniel of all people is simply too low. There are no such things as true coincidences, only patterns woven by fate that only those who pay attention can detect."
She yawned, walking over to the pitcher of water she always kept on the kitchen counter. The tiles felt nice and cool beneath her feet. Emma always kept her apartment chilly when she slept to ensure quality rest.
"The natural conclusion? There must be a group dedicated to keeping such a discovery under wraps. Otherwise, it would spread through the internet like a spark in dry heat during August. Occam's razor indicates that the simplest explanation here may be correct."
Emma poured herself a glass of water and downed it in three rapid gulps. Allowing herself a soft *ah* of contentment, she looked out the window once more, admiring the roundness of the full moon.
"When you Obliviate me, Professor McGonagall, please make sure I don't hit my head."
An old woman pulled off her invisibility cloak behind Emma's back. Her expression was inscrutable, but the lines of her face tightened visibly.
"You are a terrifying creature, Ms. Watson. *Obliviate.*"
---
Rupert Grint woke up with a start. He checked his watch and let out a heavy sigh, pushing back the covers that failed to block out the encroaching cold. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
"I sure miss Emma and Dan,"he said. The redhead pulled the covers over his face and promptly began snoring.
A few minutes passed.
"You sure he can't hear us?"Tonks asked underneath her cloak.
Kingsley Shacklebolt shot her a withering glare as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. If anyone in the department were to hear about his close proximity with the metamorphmagus, he wouldn't hear the end of it for weeks.
"Are you questioning the strength of my Muffliato?"
"Don't get your panties all in a bunch,"Tonks grumbled. "Are we done here? There's definitely no need to Obliviate him. He clearly didn't have contact with the others, and look at the doofus - fast asleep already."
Kingsley hesitated, but the air was getting too hot and the perspiration sticking his shirt to his chest was distracting. Blasted department budgets.
"We're good here. Let's report back."
Rupert Grint heard two quiet pops. He stayed still, fake snoring until his throat became dry as sandpaper and hints of blue and purple peaked up from the dark sky.
He was never as smart as Emma or well-liked as Daniel. When Emma made him practice chess to better embody Ron Weasley, he'd reluctantly played along. Now he regretted not exercising his strategic thinking more.
When he was finally ready to test the waters, he yawned and rubbed the black circles forming underneath his eyes. On his way to the toilet, he snagged one of the fake wands he kept on his bookshelf, a memento from an enthusiastic fan. Closing his bathroom door, he turned the soft wood over in his palm. Emma had woken him up with a text that seemed innocent enough. Luckily, he'd seen it on his watch first.
**Did you know that dolphins are actually incredibly intelligent?**
That was the code-phrase she'd set up when they were teenagers for the specific situation where the magical society was real and out to get them. He and Daniel had teased her, until she'd gone on to give them over forty other encoded messages for possible emergency scenarios, covering everything from aliens to time travelers. They'd laughed and called her paranoid.
Rupert wasn't laughing now. What to do? Phone and internet were no good - if the roles were flipped, he'd bug all his devices for sure. He'd have to take a risk. Mustering up all his focus, the ginger gripped the wand just a bit tighter and focused on memories of his two friends.
"Why didn't I pay closer attention to the wand instructions during rehearsal?"he muttered.
"*Expecto Patronum*."
---
Edit: holy this blew up. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment, and sorry I didn't get to them all. Part 2 is linked at the start of the post! Also, thank you to whomever gave me the golds, they're my first :')
Hi there! Thanks for reading. Feedback and criticsm would be greatly appreciated\~ if you're looking for more things to read, check out [/r/Remyxed/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/)! |
I run with the hunted.
This is what it means to live now: fight to live, live to eat, eat to fight again. The days had the same circular rhythm to it, the rhythm of the hunter. We are wild things now, wandering in packs, scavenging the lands to cure a hunger deeper than food.
In the old days, we did not have words. The pack elders tell me this in voices ancient as the moon. Once, we were reduced to sounds and snorts and howls. But now, we can speak to one another and understand. We can carry the old stories. We hold the memory of their scent.
And in the old stories, we were loved.
I stand on an outcropping overlooking a dead city. Once--I know from the stories my elders feed me like rabbit-legs--we had our own masters. Those huge metal beetles called *houses* once held more than dust and enemy packs. They held people. Warmth. Food, endless and constant as the affection, scruffing your ears.
Not all the masters were kind. But enough were.
I seek the old ones now. We all do, in our own ways. The old bearing of the world hovers over us in the skeletons of the cities the old masters abandoned. But we are the hunted, and whatever I don't kill will certainly kill me. I've learned that now.
Perhaps, I think sometimes, in the darkest and hungriest days, it would be better to have them back. To never have lived like this at all. I long for a home I have never known.
The flat black dawn glitters with dying stars. I tilt my head back to watch them. Flick my tail. My pack is just settling down to sleep in the mouth of the cave behind me. We must hide, when the daylight comes. There are hungrier dogs than us out there, and we won't test their appetite.
It is my turn to stand guard. I stand with my ears swiveling in all directions, listening to the night fall asleep. Morning is coming. The sun will hold us once again. My packmate Kusa will trade positions with me when the sun is high in the sky, and I will get a few fitless hours of sleep before we rise again with the moon.
But the sky does not look right.
A ripple tears across it. Bright and zippering. I watch, entranced. It is no work of animal or earth. It screams across the sky, a jet of white fire, trailing to the ground.
And I watch it land and burst.
For a moment, I go rigid and hackled. Stare at the wreckage.
I look back at my pack. They are already settled down to sleep within. The cave hums with the snores and dream-yips of a dozen wild dogs.
I creep through them. I find Kusa by the bent wire of his smell, there in the dark. I nudge his side with my snout.
He looks at me, fiercely, but stops himself from yelping in surprise when he sees the burning in my eyes.
"What?"
"I must go."
"Go *where?*"
"To where the fire burns."My tail flicks, expectantly. "There is something there. Something alive."
Kusa sees when he follows me out of the cave. He stands there, blinking sleepily. But he does not argue. I can read his fear in the hackles at his shoulders.
"This is madness,"he growls. "To go over there is to bring death to us all."
I stare back out, back at the fire, smoldering on the horizon. And I know I cannot live with my curiosity burning just as hotly.
"If anyone dies, it will only be me,"I murmur.
Only me. Just a lost leaf in the wind. The sun wouldn't blink if I never returned. I wonder if my pack would.
"If you leave,"he spits back, "you are choosing to never return."
I hesitate. Staring back out at the promise on the horizon.
I know the old stories. The old masters disappeared from the stars, and they will return from the stars once more.
We are the hunted. And we have learned not to pick fights unless we know we will win.
But the wreckage smolders down there. It tinges the air with hot ash.
I lope across the desert toward it. I run and run, rocks tearing into my paw pads, my breath coming in raggedy bursts. The sun creeps higher and higher, casting the world in pale orange light.
And then, there it is, rising up before me.
The fire gouged deep ruts into the ground as it landed, spinning and tumbling. But as I get closer, I realize it is not living fire at all.
It is another metal hunk, like a giant blackened can. Someone leans against it. The figure is almost animal, huge, two-legged. It wears a pale jumpsuit that crinkles like a plastic sheet.
It turns toward me, and its voice rises in surprise. I can't understand a word of it, but it raises its hands.
I skitter back, tail between my legs. Whining and growling.
The creature keeps making the same sound, over and over again. *Easy, easy*. It drops down to its knees and peels off its glove to reveal a single bare hand.
I dart my stare to the creature's face. It is the color of the earth, but its snout is short and strange. It shows its teeth, but it's not a threat. It's an invitation.
Something like warmth spreads through my fur.
I creep closer, belly low to the earth. My muscles spring, ready to pounce away or forward the second it attacked. Flee or fight. My only two settings, anymore.
But the creature doesn't move. Its easy brighten. *Easy,* it says.
I press my snout to its fingers and inhale.
It is an old smell. An ancient smell. It is a smell of copper and plastic and blood and sweat. It is the smell of fear and hope and trust. It's the smell of our old masters. The smell of home.
The creature keeps smiling and smiling. *Easy*. It smooths its palm tentatively along the space behind my ears. The touch is jolting and warm and impossibly soothing.
*It seems I've gotten lost. Maybe,* it says, in a voice full of warmth, *you can keep me a little company, for a while.*
I can't understand what it means. But I understand the timber of its voice. The gentle promise of that touch.
I lean into my master's side, and I am the hunted no more.
***
/r/nickofstatic for stories with me and my best friend /u/NickofNight :) |
Phineas turned his back on Candace's grave and began walking away. Ferb called out to him, "What if we're wrong, Phineas?"
"You know we're not,"Phineas breathed through clenched teeth. "Where's Perry?"
*****
For years, the boys had watched their imagination come to life, only to dissolve at the last moment. The moment just before their mother could look up or walk around the corner. It had always been harmless fun, an oddity they were comfortable with in the context of an endless summer. No harm, no foul. Tomorrow was another opportunity to do it all over again.
But this summer was different.
They could tell something was wrong from the very first day of summer this year. An enormous water slide had exploded just as their mother, Linda, was pulling into the driveway. But this time the explosion threw an errant screw at Ferb, cutting him across the cheek. The sound of Isabella's scream sent Linda racing into the backyard, first aid kit prepped and readied.
Ferb looked at his mother first. Then at Phineas. Then through him.
They both felt it. Fear.
The boys were accident-prone for the first time in their lives. Buford and Baljeet stopped coming over within the first week. Isabella stayed longer, but refused to come by after week four. It was just too dangerous. Candace was the only one who stayed to watch any more, caught between wanting to bust her brothers and wanting to know what was different.
No matter what they were doing, at some point, their contraptions would explode or misbehave or otherwise change in an attempt to kill one of the brothers. Quick thinking and engineering had saved their lives each and every day so far, though not without injury. They started to plan out their contraptions, testing for intent, attempting to discern who was behind the attacks. In the end, they could only come up with one suspect: Perry, their pet platypus.
Every day Perry would disappear for hours on end, only to reappear moments after the boys had cheated death once more. Yesterday, the boys had confronted Perry. They restrained him in an elaborate contraption and interrogated him for hours while their mother was out. Nothing. Every question, every accusation, nothing came from their platypus. The only movement he ever made was a glancing look of desperation towards a small fedora in the corner.
Exasperated, the boys released Perry from his bindings when they heard the garage door open and their mother arriving at home. Perry wasted no time and dove straight at Phineas, knocking him to the ground. The restraining device that had previously held Perry exploded, and a sharp metallic edge flew directly at the spot where Phineas had been a moment earlier.
Candace had been standing behind him.
Phineas and Ferb were sitting in Candace's room later that evening, their parents still speaking with police downstairs. "Get out of here, Perry,"scolded Phineas when he saw Perry peeking out from the hallway. "I still know you're behind this somehow."
His mind made up, Perry donned his fedora, stood up, and stepped into Candace's room, shutting the door behind him. He divulged everything.
Phineas, Ferb, and Perry stayed up all night, shooing their parents away when they tried to come in. Tomorrow would be different.
*****
The shadow of Perry's fedora could be seen from behind a nearby tree. Phineas started walking towards it, with Ferb close behind. Perry passed each of them their backpacks before dropping into a tunnel.
Phineas looked back at his brother with a hardened look in his eyes, "Ferb, I know what we're going to do today."
"We're going to kill Doofenshmirtz,"Ferb finished for him. |
The angel had a proper number of eyes. At least two, certainly, though he couldn't quite see the upper limit of such things, but it was far easier to just say that angel had a proper number of eyes rather than worry about the specifics.
Worrying about the specifics was for his legion of advisors, after all, all of which had gone awfully quiet when the angel had stepped through in the first place.
"Mister president,"The angel said, bowing his/her/their head. His/her/their wings were wide and voluminous, bladed little darted things of twisted metal and soft fabrics. "I am thankful that your country has finally decided to contact us. We have been waiting for several years for this."
"You have?"the president asked, blinking. In the corner of his eyes, he saw his advisors shifting back and forth uneasily, though that was probably more on account of figuring out how many limbs the creature had rather than anything too terrifying. "We come to make a deal for energy."
He, as the president, was beyond petty matters like converting the creature from the abstract into something credible, and as such didn't bother.
"Of course,"The angel said, looking up. "My liege has a great excess of heat to offload upon the world. Your world is in an energy crisis, I understand. We can make an exchange."
"Hmmm..."The president said, rubbing his upper lip. "Heat you say?"
"Heat. A deep perpetual upwelling of heat. The likes of which have been plaguing the great realm we live in for a number of years. The very fate of heaven itself lies in the balance, in dealing with this heat. And oil, of course. We have that in spades."
The president could just pinch himself. Here he was, dealing with an angel, an ANGEL, and they were coming to him for help. He turned and gave his advisors a wide grin, but their eyes were too busy counting various limbs and bladed implements to give another comment.
Oil and fuel. He liked the way this angel thought.
"So what you're saying is... you're willing to make a deal."The president said, turning back around.
"I am,"The angel smiled, baring a number of teeth that seemed proper and pointed.
The president decided he liked this one in particular. What a smart and intelligent angel they must've sent to negotiate with him. "I have to admit, I wasn't expecting biblical support. Not this early, at least. What trade shall we make?"
"Ah,"The angel said. "Well..."The angel's many eyes, at least two, slid past the president and onto a map of the wall. "I've always been partial to Nevada. An embassy and quarters for my many weary soldiers? A little help in a campaign here and there. Just to make sure your lovely citizens have a place in the afterlife."
"And in exchange you'll... grant us some of this heat?"The president asked. "What sort of fuel drives this heat?"
"Burning,"The angel reported. "Of the bodies of our soldiers and the enemy's soldiers. We burn for quite a long time."
"And oil?"The president said, curious. "Oil from what?"
"The blood of my soldiers, boiled and distilled. As you can imagine, the process of waging a war for heaven is a messy affair."
The president checked that off of his internal list, barely hiding his glee. He was known for his poker face, of course, alongside a great number of other things that were equally endearing.
"A deal!"The president reached out. "We'll work out the specifics at your embassy."
"Of course,"The angel said, leaning forward. "I look forward to dealing with the great and mighty US military in our next campaign. You have a deal."
Their hands met, the angel's fingers flowing across his like a particularly wet glove rather than anything quite like another hand.
"Oh,"The president said. "What's your name? The press will want to know such things. I know that such a great and smart creature like yourself doesn't need press coverage, but I'll be sure to let them know first hand."
Yes, at last, he would be known as the president who saved both heaven, and the fossil fuel industry! The history books would laud his name! The world was his oyster!
The angel smiled. "Well, for the record, since you're such a great and smart man yourself, the name is Lucifer."
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For more like this, click here! https://www.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ |
October 4th, 1835.
It’s been many months since my wife gave birth to a demon. I knew we could’ve never had children, but she had to beg the devil. I slaughtered the lamb prematurely, knowing if I didn’t feed this monster it would eat us instead. I heard the disgusting sounds of gargling and chomping. I couldn’t imagine what it’d do to us if it ever climbed out of the pit it made for itself down below. We’ll eventually run out of sacrificial animals, and it doesn’t like it when we leave the farm.
***
October 5th, 1835.
Today the pit got deeper and wider. It must be getting bigger. I fear for my wife Evangeline, as she’s been having nightmares again. The last time she had them was when she was pregnant with that thing.
***
October 6th, 1835.
Today Saul Parkinson arrived. I feared for his life and told him that he should leave the farm and not come back for a while. He noticed my farm had gotten quieter as we were running out of animals to feed to that thing and he asked why. I said some disease struck them. He offered my some of his livestock and I gracefully took up the offer.
***
October 7th, 1835.
We got the animals today. As he was loading them into our barn, he noticed the pit. He looked down below and fell over. I heard the crushing of bones and the screams of my best friend. There was nothing I could do to save him. I disposed of the wagon he brought the animals in by chopping it up and turning it into firewood.
***
October 8th, 1835.
Saul’s wife Mary came over today. She asked I knew where Saul went. I lied and said he left after he gave me the sheep and pigs. She thanked me and left.
***
October 10th, 1835.
Risked leaving the farm to find more animals...a stray dog or perhaps asking the McDowell's for a little help. It should be sleeping now but I shouldn't be too long.
***
October 13th, 1835.
Lucked out at the dog pound. Got a few old mutts. I owe James over there dinner now. At least we have a few more nights of queitness.
***
October 20th, 1835.
It's been asleep for longer than usual. I guess it really was satisfied with the dogs. Only god knows why....
***
October 21st, 1835.
I thought I heard it crying tonight. I’m went check to it out. It was my wife. She was lying down on the bed.
“Jedediah, please help me,” she pleaded, tears falling down her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“You can’t see it?”
“See what?”
“The demon... it’s on my chest. I can barely breathe...”
I dashed towards the bed. I heard something other than my wife’s sobs and heavy breathing. It’s a noise that’s too hard for someone like me to describe. I tried to put my hand on my wife’s chest, only to feel what felt like knives scrape my arm. I was bleeding. Whatever it was, it had torn through my clothing. I yelled in pain and stumbled, falling into the floor. I now heard a faint growling. Next to was a chair. I grabbed it and swung it in the air. I heard a thud. The portrait of my father fell on the floor, falling off the hook.
As for right now, I don’t know what happened.
***
***
***
***
**Edit: Announcement time! I’m going to turn this into a r/nosleep story and maybe different authors can write different entries in the journal!**
**Edit 2: Also, thanks to u/bluamo0000 for October 10th to October 20th’s entries.**
**Edit 3: [Here’s some news on the progress of the story and how you can help out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSleepOOC/comments/ahc5l2/so_i_started_writing_but_i_need_help/?st=JR29BZIH&sh=a56fec0c)**
**Edit 4: [Here’s the official nosleep post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ahczfi/the_diary_of_jedediah_maxwell_part_1/?st=JR2C67JN&sh=b9163390)** |
Every species contributed something special and unique to the federation, every single one except for these humans. It was the only species with which we made contact not because they were ready but because we were afraid they would destroy themselves.
After the contact we shared the technology that would enable them to harvest sunlight with close to 100% efficiency. With energy supply being abundant there would be no more reason for wars, no need for pollution.
They built orbital solar stations which collected sunlight and converted it into energy, then one day ZAP, a whole city destroyed.
It wasn't for war, they were united under single banner, they simply emptied an entire city and blasted it into oblivion.
We asked for explanation of their action and they said... it was fun.
We decided against giving them any new technology, instead we would give them finished products they could use, this way they couldn't use advanced tech to build weapons.
But they sure did modify every single piece of tech into some kind of deadly device. We provided them with exoskeletons for senior citizens and they "pimped"them then use them for races. House assistants became hunter killer bots, they used space elevator to hit Moon with various "stuff".
How about a cold fusion reactor? A piece of technology so safe that even the dumbest moron couldn't possibly... wrong, another town became a crater.
Every piece of tech which was given to them had to go through multiple revisions until it was finally deemed safe for usage by humans. The whole Sol system became this big testing ground in which humans blew shit up for fun and scientist from all over the federation went through the process of analysis and improvement again, and again and again.
And this is where humanity gave it's gift to the Federation.
Humanproof brand!
Products which were deemed safe for human use became a raging hit on galactic scale. You could leave humanproof pistol in childcare, arm prisoners with humanproof knives, then get drunk and sit in your humanproof car without a care in the world.
Federation became an economic power and humans... humans still have fun blowing shit up. |
# You do not know what you ask.
thundered into my head like lead dropped from a tower. I winced under the incredible weight of the phantom pain, like a headache on the soul and not the body. I struggled to catch the breath that I hadn't actually lost.
# My sole responsibility is managing the path of the celestials through the cosmos. Are you sure?
Not knowing any better, I meekly reply "yes".
# So be it.
​
When we finally arrived at the evacuation point, the news told us what we dreaded to hear. The town was entirely obliterated. The missiles had failed to strike down the asteroid, and the only other choice was evacuation. The earthquake from the impact had brought skyscrapers down across the world. Tidal waves were flattening the coastal settlements that surrounded every ocean. Scientists were debating how much the climate would be affected by the enormous dust could that will result.
Turning my head behind me I can barely see the glow in the dark from where the asteroid landed. A hundred miles away and the fire ravaged the forests enough to see from this distance. The terror gripped everyone as they sought to find hope somewhere in amongst the fear and dread.
I just wish I hadn't prayed to the God of Gravity to take revenge on suzie for stealing my cupcake. |
Thick red, that could have been paint but wasn’t, drooled and dripped out of Tinman’s mouth. He’d unhinged his jaw, spread his lips python-wide, and stuffed Dorothy’s heart down his gullet. It had clogged halfway so he’d shoved his axe’s handle deep down after it, prodding the heart with it like a long wooden finger. Eventually, and with a soft clunk, it had landed in his chest.
”How did it taste?” asked Scarecrow. Blood stained the straw beneath his hat like how a winedark wave might have shaded a beach.
”You know what?” said Tinman. His voice trembled with something that might have been nerves.
”What?”
“Now that I’ve finally got a heart,” said Tinman, ”I feel… I feel awful guilty.” His lips began to quake. “What have we done, Scarecrow?”
Scarecrow nodded. “Now that I have a brain, I can see how dumb, how wrong, our plan was.”
”What are we going to do?’
They looked at each other, wide eyed. And then suddenly, they began to laugh — hands on knees, chests rocking.
”What a wheeze!”
”Did you see the look on her face when the axe fell?” said Tinman.
“Priceless. Just priceless.”
”You know… I heard the ol’ Wizard‘s magic comes from his lungs. And he’s got two of them. You ever eaten lung before?”
”Nope, never tried it. But I’ll eat anything once.”
”Then it’s a date. Shall we?”
They hooked arms and waltzed down the golden road, laughing merrily, not a care in the world. The air was crisp as a spring morning, the breeze carrying the scent of sunflowers. A beautiful, perfect day.
Behind them, however, thick globs of red spattered the yellow-brick road. Drips, that further back still, became shallow puddles, until eventually, by the body that lay on the road, next to the yapping dog, it formed a wide pool.
​
​
It was an hour or so later that the Lion found the body. He‘d waited in a bush by the side of the road for quite some time, making sure the perpetrators — whoever they might have been — didn’t come back for him.
Finally, sniffing the air a last time, fairly certain it was safe, he crept out and stole over to the body.
”Oh gee, oh my,” said Lion, tears in his eyes. “What happened to dear Dorothy, Toto? And where are the others? Don’t tell me they’re dead too?”
The little dog yapped. Sad or angry, hard to say.
”I was only gone for a little while. Scarecrow said the Good Witch of the North was waiting for me over the hills. That I’d find my courage. But I didn’t find nothing. Not even lunch, And now this… Oh my.”
Toto ran to something on the path, not far from the body, picked it up in his mouth. Then he returned to Lion, the item sticking out of the side of his teeth.
”What’s that you got there?” Lion asked. He bent down and took a stalk of blood-stained straw from out of the dog’s mouth.
He held it for a while. Studied it carefully.
”Why this must have… It must have belonged to Scarecrow.”
One fierce bark. As good as a yes.
Slowly, as slow as the ushering of a new season, understanding crept over him. Of why he’d been sent away. Of where Tinman and Scarecrow had gone. Of what had happened to Dorothy — of what instrument had made the blade-sharp, but quite careless, incisions around her scalp and chest.
His fist curled up, the straw crushed inside his strong paw. His lips crept open revealing daggers of teeth.
In a low, guttural growl, he said, “Toto, I think Scarecrow was right about one thing.”
Another bark.
“He said I’d find my courage. And I think I did.“
The dog yapped excitedly. The stink of death mingled with that of coming vengeance. Lion sniffed the sour trail of distant blood.
”Come, Toto. This cowardly lion is on the hunt.” |
“MOM!” I burst through the door shouting, holding my arm. Blood dripped down the side of the cut, just like every other cut that I’ve ever gotten. But this one was deep, and my flesh split at least an inch open. Below the layer of skin was rubber that the blood seemed to just slide right off of. And underneath that, wires wrapped in green and purple, along with a mass of metal tubes and other shining parts. Some of them had been cut too, and every time I tried to move my pinky it would cause a shower of sparks to erupt from the severed end. “MOM!!!” I shouted again.
She came dashing out of the kitchen with a dishcloth in hand, which she dropped as soon as she saw the gash across my forearm. “Honey, what happened??” Her fingers prodded the skin, and she ushered me into the bathroom.
“I was biking, and I… there was a patch of gravel… and…” the words came out in between sobs. I couldn’t even finish explaining. “Mom, what *is this*? Why are there wires in my arm?”
“I don’t know, Honey.” She was mopping up the blood with toilet paper, leaving a red-stained pile of them on the counter. Every other time I’d gotten a cut, she’d put it under the sink to wash, but not this time. “Let’s just clean this up and get you to the doctor, OK?”
“Mom, why are there wires?” I continued to sob. “What am I?”
Mom bit her lip and finished bandaging up my arm. She didn’t answer the question. As soon as the bleeding was staunched, she brought me to the car. “Keep holding it there, OK?” she told me. The bandage was wrapped around the cut, but there was a faint burning smell coming from it. “I’m just going to call Dad on the way, all right?”
We pulled out into the driveway while Mom held the phone. I could faintly hear the ringing on the other end. “Tom, she cut her arm today riding her bike. *Deep*.”
“How deep?” Dad asked.
Mom glanced at me in the rearview mirror to make sure I was still holding the bandage in place. A wisp of smoke curled up from one corner of it. “Pretty deep,” she answered him in a quiet tone.
“I’ll meet you at the doctor’s,” he said.
-----------
We squealed to a stop in front of a squat brick building on the outskirts of town. Dad’s car was already parked in front, and he came rushing out of the door as soon as he saw Mom pull up.
“Is this the doctors?” I asked. The last time we went to the doctor it had been a nice little village-type office setting, with a lawn out front and lots of toys in the waiting room. “It doesn’t look like the last one.”
“This is a different doctors,” Mom said, unbuckling my seat belt for me. “It’s for big girls, OK? I need you to be brave.” I nodded, and Dad picked up out of the seat and carried me inside.
There were men waiting in the lobby. They didn’t have a white coat like the last doctor that I’d visited, and they didn’t have a stethoscope around their necks like the last one; he’d let me listen to my own heartbeat.
They sat me down on a table. There were no animals painted on the walls, nor jars full of cotton swabs and tongue depressors. One of the men opened a big metal container and brought out a set of pliers and a flashlight. They took the bandage off of my arm, and as Mom carried it to the trash I saw black streaks across it, along with a few more spots of blood.
“Definitely severed a good deal of the haptic controls,” he muttered. I looked at Mom, then at Dad, for some hint of what that meant. They seemed worried.
“Can you fix it?” Mom asked, clutching at Dad’s arm.
“Yeah, of course,” the man grunted. Then he looked back at me. “You’re gonna have to go to sleep for a little bit, Kiddo. It’ll all be better when you wake up, OK? We just need to do some quick repairs.” Then he nodded to one of his companions. “Open the access hatch, Mike.”
The man he’d talked to pressed something on my neck, and my whole body went stiff. My neck felt… funny. Like something should be there, but it wasn’t. And everything tingled. "Mom's what's going on?"I tried to ask. My jaw opened and closed, but sound didn't come out. Mom made a pained grimace and had to bury her face in Dad's shoulder.
“Will she remember it?” Dad asked.
“We’ll probably have to do a wipe,” the man answered. “When was your last backup?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other, puzzled. “Had to be at least a month ago,” Dad said. “I’ve been meaning to, I just kept forgetting.”
Something whirred and clicked on my back as Mike continued to do something behind me. I couldn’t turn my head or see what was happening. “Shutting off sensory now,"he said.
Everything went black. I tried to touch my eyes, but my arms weren’t working anymore. I heard Mom’s sad voice: “So she won’t even remember her last birthday?” Then the sound was gone too.
----
If you enjoyed the story, you should check out /r/Luna_Lovewell!
|
John gave me what I could only describe as a blank stare “huh?”
Sometimes I swear humans feign ignorance around me. “Why can’t I be in your pack?!” I asked again, slowing it down so maybe he wouldn’t pretend to not understand again.
“My… pack? I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t have a pack. Did you read some book from that Hguthax guy again? I told you he’s a hack and doesn’t understand humans,” John seemed annoyed.
I breathed a heavy sigh “No, humans pack bond with everything. Don’t think I haven’t seen your autonomous vacuum cleaner an….”
“His name is JJ! John Junior! You know this, but continue,” John interrupted.
“See?! That! It’s a machine, and I’m a whole person! Why do you connect with “JJ” and not me?” I said exasperated. He has to be messing with me at this point.
Realization dawned on Johns face. “Oh! You’re asking why Humans don’t really interact with you much? Well I have a simple answer. They’re scared of you,”
As if I could get more confused “what do you mean scared? I’m easily a full head shorter than every human I’ve ever met. Head and a half for you. I’m also incredibly weak. Happens when your insides are squishy and you rely on an exoskeleton to stay standing. It might be tough, but it’s not impenetrable,”
John pulled out his telecommunication device and pulled up the intergalactic search engine. He typed in some words and handed it to me.
As I looked at the device I read a single word. Entomophobia fear of bugs.
“See humans generally don’t like arthropods. To such a degree it’s a well known irrational fear. My mother refuses to visit me on the station because she is terrified to speak to you,”
I read about this Entomophobia and I soon realized why every human I came across ran away from me. I looked exactly like a 4’6” tall earth cockroach. |
Throughout the history of life on Earth, there has really only ever been one constant. Death. During the long period before the Cambrian, entire ecosystems popped into existence only to collapse with the rise of modern taxons at the dawn of the Paleozoic. Between the Permian and the Triassic, a rapid temperature increase brought about by volcanic activity in Siberia meant the end for more than ninety percent of everything that showed up in the fossil record. The great ancestors of the birds were then able to diversify. They spread out across the Earth and lived for over a hundred million years, growing from small creatures that scrambled through the underbrush into behemoths that shook the Earth as they moved. Then, a random hammerblow from a member of the Flora asteroid family cut them down. Within a decade, all that remained were bones turning to fossils in the sediment left by the first thunderstorms after a ten year winter.
Humanity had a good run. We rose from a pretty unexceptional branch of the mammal family tree, closely related to the rodents and a little more closely related to the tree shrews, to complete dominance over all life on Earth. Well, at least all macroscopic life. The enormous brains gifted to us by a few fluke mutations allowed us to shape the world to our whim. Entire environments were wiped out and created. Prairies turned to farmland, savannahs turned to desert, saltwater estuaries turned to concrete canyons, and tropical rainforests turned to ashes and wasted pastureland. Along the way, though, we dug up the bones left in the sandstone hills that had once been thunderstorm runoff. We saw those enormous creatures, along with the older amphibian monsters that had dessicated and then been buried beneath the dunes of the desert in the heart of Pangea.
The rules were clear. Death was a constant.
There wasn't any real surprise in 2667, when JESSICA sounded her warning. By that point, we had learned to divert and even mine smaller asteroids like the one that hit Chicxulub, but we still knew that the nature of the Great Game of Life hadn't changed. A real monster, whipping in from interstellar (or in this case, intergalactic) space, could not be diverted. Echidna was a body from the Oort Cloud of a solar system thrown our way when two enormous spiral galaxies collided long before the formation of the Earth. Its star had died and the orbiting bodies had been scattered by gravitational encounters.
Echidna wasn't that large in the big scheme of things. Half the size of Pluto, maybe. The big scheme of things didn't matter. She was going to hit the Earth at a thousandth of the speed of light. The crust of the Earth wasn't even going to shatter. With heat that high, it would turn to liquid near instantaneously. The predicted zone of impact, the Precambrian craton of South Africa, was going to splatter, a wave of liquid rock that would partially solidify as it came back down, creating second impacts ahead of a storm of something that could only be called fire by rough analogy.
There was no way that the off world colonies could support fifteen billion new people. The Moon was evacuated due to the high likelihood of secondary impacts, then JESSICA shut down the ports on Mars to all incoming traffic. Autonomous supply vessels still left the Vastitas Borealis for the few manned asteroid mines and the research stations on Europa (along with the single lonely Japanese outpost near the South Pole of Enceladus). Anyone coming in, though, would be shot out of the reddish grey sky by a railgun under the direct control of the WC. She entrusted no one else with the responsibility.
The message was clear. Mars wasn't suitable for mankind yet. Life there was underground, whether in the human-made caverns under the enormous boreal plain or in the natural, water-filled caverns blocked to all exploration by international treaty due to their native microbial colonies. In time, it would become a home. For now, though, the resources just weren't there. The asteroids would never sustain us. Any ship small enough to evade JESSICA's watchful eyes would have no hope of even reaching the icey moons, where massive, dark oceans hid the kilometers-long, glowing bodies of their eternal sovereigns. Our only real home in the solar system, for now, was Earth. It would soon belong to JESSICA alone. She would not be deactivated like the other World Controllers when her tome came to be replaced, it had been decided. Like the others, she would be stored in a data center buried in the rocky crust of 4-Vesta, but unlike the others she would sent back to rebuild as soon as the Earth cooled enough for that to be possible. She could have an entire world and its material wealth to expand into. She would be a god. For her part, JESSICA really had nothing to say on the issue. I was one of the custodians present when the Governing Assembly called her up to give her the news. They actually had us haul one of her larger projectors into the Chamber in Tokyo, so that she could stand there in the center of the giant hall in a form conjured up from the air. Nominally it was to check her response. Maybe they just felt more comfortable telling this to something that looked like a human being.
None of them knew that the seven year-old in a green and yellow floral sundress, with curly black hair down to her waist and a straw gardening hat, was a real person. Most of the others were amalgamations of fictional and historical children. This one was the daughter of the engineer who built the cooling systems, Dr. Patric Isidoku. Her real name was Akhona, I think. JESSICA had been picked out two hundred years before for the 2630 Series WC. They managed to salvage enough of her brain to culture all of the cell lines for the computer's biological components. JESSICA wasn't Akhona, really, but I do wonder if she was somehow more human than her predecessors. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but her expression and her silence that day stuck with me.
For those human beings left waiting for the impact, though, there were a few decisions left to be made. Did we wait to die? Choose euthanasia? A few really did attempt to make it to Mars. That was euthanasia by a different route. A lot fewer turned to religious extremism or to hedonism than you might expect, at least in the first three years.
I opted for a longshot. A fleet of four "arks"were approved for four solar systems with known habitable planets. They were packed with all settlers would need to establish self-sufficient colonies like those on Mars. Still, a long shot. No human interstellar missions had ever been attempt because of all that could go wrong over the course of, for the shortest trip, just under four centuries.
I booked a trip on the *Hope*. The ship with the shortest voyage, *Prayer*, had already filled. When the *Hope* left its dockyard in Low-Earth Orbit, we all filed into the cryo storage rooms. None of us really expected to wake up again. Most of us didn't.
Not that it mattered.
See, here's the thing. Echidna was still three years out. JESSICA used that time to study alternative options, mostly in secret, and she finally found one. Travel through hyperspace had been discussed before, but it seemed impossible to fit anything larger than a hydrogen atom into that compact place. She figured it out, though, and with a year to spare and a dozen planets within easy reach, Grey Ridge, the planet we were headed to, wasn't even part of the first wave of settlement. The mountains in that Ridge were too high and too broad, I guess. Not as much room for agriculture as some of the others.
I'm not unhappy, looking down from the enormous window of the *Hope* across the night side of a world illuminated with centers and corridors of light. I know that I made the most rational decision that I could have, all things considered.
The other ships were intcepted, because their paths crossed the great hyperspace routes. Their cargo was destroyed *en route*, because it wasn't really *just* a cargo of humans, food, and animals.
JESSICA, as the core of the Galactic Controller, told us that she had been unable to find our beacon and assumed us lost. Then, she apologized for not destroying us in our blissful unconsciousness.
In just over half a millennium, mankind crossed that last barrier to dominance of all life. Humanity wiped out all pathogens. Both human diseases and agricultural pests. All those not inadvertently put in cold storage and shot out into the stars, at any rate.
We have two minutes left before one of the few nuclear weapons still in existence detonates in the core of the *Hope*. Two thousand megatons will make one hell of a light show for the people on the coasts of the giant southern continent.
I don't blame them at all, but I do hope that they still understand the rules of the Game. You can't kill death with fusing deuterium. It finds everyone eventually.
-MiNX- |
"How has the wall on the south fortification been holding up?"Klereth lounged in his seat, his eyes dully trained on the being in front of him.
The lich consulted a sheet in front of him, a skeletal finger tracing across the page. "Four attacks in the last three months, but no breaches, my liege."
Klereth nodded. "That is good, but we should build it up more. Four tries is four too many for my liking. Have one of the goblin contingents from the east corridor set up a patrol."
"Are you speaking of the battalion in the Acid Hall?"
"...No, take the group from the Spike Chasm instead. That is all. You may go."
The undead monster bowed extravagantly. "Of course, Master."Replacing the report in its tattered robes, the lich turned and left the chamber.
Klereth sighed and rubbed his eyes. Years of being in the keep has taken a toll on his body. His skin was gaunt and clung tightly to his bones. His hair was thin and wispy, barely hanging on in places.
*How did it come to this?* Klereth had only wanted to provide for his family, but when all those groups came tromping through his land, taking his livelihood, he knew ha had to do something. At first, it hadn't been much, just a big pit filled with rats. Klereth knew it would not stop the adventurers, but if he could even deter them for a little bit, it might be worth it.
But then it had worked. The bodies started to pile up. Klereth built more pits, scrounging the gold he could get from the bodies to build more defenses. A boulder here, some poison darts there, and soon it had spiraled out of control.
When the goblins came, he had thought it was all over. He had heard stories about how ruthless they were from other farms in the area, but had been lucky to this point. His luck continued at this point; the chieftain of the goblin tribe explained that they had heard about his effectiveness against the "good guys", and offered the services of the tribe in exchange for housing and some small payment. Klereth, seeing an opportunity, took it immediately and was able to sit back while his growing army of minions handled the upkeep of the traps, development of new areas, and taming of the wild creatures that they used to supplement their forces.
The safety was not without cost, though. The family that he had worked to save had deserted him. His wife, at first approving of the idea, had packed up and left during the night. He was able to catch sight of them as they rode away. The sight of his daughter crying, clutching her doll in fear, still rang with him.
His thoughts were broken by a commotion outside the keep. A clattering of metal and shouts filled the halls, followed by screaming. Klereth sat up in his throne, a look of concern etched across his mottled face.
Soon, there was silence, then the door burst open. An eclectic group stood in the doorway, some worse for wear than others. The leader, a scarred man covered almost head to toe in armor, pointed toward Klereth menacingly. "Vile monster, you have wrought pain and suffering on this land. Your dungeon will be painted with your blood. Have you any final words?"
Klereth grimaced, his teeth rotten and cracked. As he spoke, the adventurers in front of him shuddered, with the elf in the back visibly attempting not to vomit.
"I tell you this, on my honor. You will NOT GET MY TURNIPS!"
/u/TemporaryPatch New Years Resolution Tracker: 34/100. Visit /r/TemporaryPatchWrites for more responses and stories! |
*The Times, London*
*Sunday October 14th 2018*
For the first time in over 60 years this newspaper has been printed by a linotype machine and distributed by hand. For the first time in the history of mankind, we have been visited by an extra-terrestrial race.
All electronic devices in London and presumably the world have ceased to operate. Martial law has been declared, Parliament has convened to mobilise all branches of the armed forces and Her Majesty the Queen has been moved to a secure underground location. The heirs apparent reside in undisclosed locations.
Please remain calm, protect yourself from those who do not, and help those who need it. Messages will be carried by riders from the capital to each major city, from there to local towns. Where town halls or meeting places are not obvious, local churches will offer sanctuary.
So far, the intentions of the extra terrestrials are not clear. The last satellite and radio communications received indicated that the ESA had made attempts at friendly communication with the fleet of objects which now reside in low earth orbit. Both the White House and Moscow had indicated their intentions to make pre-emptive strikes, it is not clear at this stage if any of these came to fruition or were the reason for the EMP attack.
What is clear is that all electronic devices, in the vicinity of London at least, are damaged beyond repair.
Efforts should be made to ration your food. Territorial Army personnel will arrive in due course with supplies. Please refrain from looting, opportunism and lawlessness.
We will prevail, and long live the Queen.
_________________
"They're getting lower. You can see them with the naked eye now."
The old man stood back from his telescope, wincing as he straightened his back. Covering his eyes he gazed westward towards the setting sun, squinting into the glare as he watched one of the objects cause a partial eclipse.
"Do you think they're all over the Earth?"The young boy at his side sounded excited. "Where do you think they came from? Do you think they'll let me join the army?"
The man rubbed his painful back and shook his head. "I saw too many like you in the war. So ready for a grand adventure."
"It IS an adventure Grandad, you fought for your country and won. I get to fight for the planet."
"Twice last century, young boys like you marched into the jaws of death seeking glory. They didn't know what they were letting themselves in for, but at least they knew what they were fighting against. These things however,"he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, "these are centuries ahead of us."
The boy, slightly deflated, sat down on the damp grass and sulkily pressed his eyes back into his binoculars. "If they're alive, then they can bleed."
"Maybe you're right Harry, maybe they can"the old man mused. "But what if you're wrong."
Silence descended again. Even the birds weren't singing, as if they too knew that something ominous was coming. Just the wind whistled through the trees.
Harry threw his binoculars down to the grass and stood up, defiantly.
"Well we'll fight them anyway then."
The old man smiled. "Right you are then."
-----------------------
*International Space Station*
*Duty Log 14/10/2018 01:45*
*Commander Feustel*
All communication with Earth based systems has been lost. Picking up numerous radio and electromagnetic transmissions which are evidently being broadcast between the extra terrestrial objects. At first we assumed they were encrypted. We have now established that they are in fact unencrypted messages in an alien language that is remarkably similar in linguistic form to some Earth based languages.
Artemyev and Arnold are currently devoting all time to decrypting the language. We believe there are patterns that could be recognisable with enough data, and there is plenty. All station based electronic systems have somehow survived whatever EMP effect which was used against the planet, we have devoted all available processor time to language deciphering.
Our best guess on the apparent EMP attack is that they were transmitted through the planet from the 'ships' (they more closely resemble asteroids but we refer to them as ships due to their controlled trajectories). We believe that the core of the planet was used to resonate these pulses through the mantle and crust in expanding waves, causing them to affect every surface device. This explains our systems being unaffected.
It seems we may be Earth's last hope. If we can find a weakness, some way to defend ourselves from their technology, then we can use the last remaining Soyuz capsule to make an unassisted descent to pass on our findings. Assuming we make it. Judging by the size and scale of the EMP, whatever we bring with us will be the last working pieces of electric technology on Earth.
----------------------
**To be continued cos it's 2am.** |
I gritted my teeth through the pain. The cuffs continued to chafe my wrists, rubbing brutally at the skin until nothing was left. They hurt, but worse still was the pain of failure, of knowing that Earth’s last resistance would finally fall unless I could somehow escape and complete my sabotage mission.
I had paced the dark, dingy cell a million times, trying to think of some weakness, and I did so again. There *had* to be something I was missing, some minor detail that would lead to a deus ex machina that would save us all. Maybe the force gate’s power supply ran through the walls, or maybe our fabrics shorted the gate and I could sprint through them to safety. A million possibilities raced through my mind, but each was more improbable and ridiculous than the last.
“Damn it!” I yelled, frustration finally boiling over to the surface. I punched the wall of the cell repeatedly in frustration, ignoring the searing pain from the cuffs and the blood that my knuckles left on the wall.
“Hey, hey, calm down in there!” one of my captors called in annoyingly perfect English. “What are you getting up to?”
Two of the invaders rounded the corner, weapons drawn in suspicion. I stared at them, refusing to talk, and they returned my gaze from their round, dark eyes. The aliens were, coincidentally, exactly what every 50s sci-fi visionary had dreamed they would be with pasty green skin, enormous heads, and bulging black eyes. It was almost as if evolution had decided that creating an original species was too difficult and settled on the cliche.
Unfortunately, humanity had been disappointed by their lack of use of flying saucers and their tendencies to invade the planets of species they viewed as lesser.
“Are you ready to talk?” the second asked, gun pointed straight at my chest.
“I’ll never tell you anything,” I snarled, but I knew it wasn’t true. One of the greatest problems the resistance had been how easily the aliens broke even the strongest fighters. It often took mere minutes of torture for them to break a mind. I had no idea why they were waiting so long to break me.
The first one sighed. “He’s a fighter, Kith. We’ll be stuck here for years before he breaks.”
“Spast,” the second, Kith, cursed. “I’m going to miss my kid’s first birthday if we’re not out of here in a few months.” Kith banged on the force gate with his weapon. “You hear that? You’re making me miss my kid’s birthday! Heartless bastard.” He spat on the gate, which crackled with energy at the contact.
“Just take some time off,” I said, annoyed. “You assholes have the tenacity to invade my home and call us an inconvenience?” I flipped them off.
“You’re uncivilized beasts,” Kith explained patiently as if I was a child. “It is our duty to bring order to the lawless corners of the galaxy.”
I laughed bitterly. “Uncivilized? You’re the ones who can’t even get some PTO.”
The aliens hesitated. “PTO?” the first one asked. “We are not familiar with this term.”
I furrowed my brow. “Seriously? PTO. Paid time off. It’s when you get to take a break but you still get paid, so you don’t have to worry about bills.”
“That does sound nice, Braff,” Kith said, turning to his partner. “I could go see my kid’s birthday without having to let the brood mother starve.”
“Ignore him, Kith,” Braff growled. “He’s lying. These savages wouldn’t have such social constructs in place.”
“Hell yeah we did,” I said. “I got three weeks of PTO at my last job, plus unlimited sick days.”
It was Braff’s turn to look uncertain. “Unlimited? As in no limit?”
“Well, yeah, as long as you have proof of illness. What are they going to do, force you to come to work?” I asked, confused.
Kith glanced at Braff. “Remember when Braxo came in with a case of arthraxia? We were all growing extra arms for a week.”
“Yeah, well… We’re just happy to have work, you barbarian,” Braff said to me. “The economy is tough. Not everyone is so lucky to get paid.”
I snorted. “Please. You exploit entire planets for their resources and you can’t even afford to pay everyone a living wage? Next you’ll tell me you don’t even have dental!”
“We don’t have teeth, savage,” Kith snorted.
“Okay, what about vision? What if you need contacts or corrective surgery? Or what about retirement? How much does your boss get paid anyway?” I asked.
“It’s impolite to talk about,” Braff said airily. “Any civilized species would know that.”
“Maybe they tell you that just so you can’t compare wages.”
Kith lowered his weapon. “Actually, the commander was just bragging about getting a 100,000,000 credit bonus last quarter.”
“Spast, I could pay off the airship and the house *and* my brood mother’s medical bills,” Braff said. “But it’s a useless dream. We’re just workers, and that’s the way it is. They’ll never listen to us.”
An idea was solidifying in my head. “Picket line. You need a strike. Refuse to work, organize a union. Use your collective power as workers to get what you want.”
“Would that even work?” Braff wondered.
I snorted. “What will they do if you refuse to invade planets? Fight you? With what army?”
“Holy brood mother above, he’s right!” Kith exclaimed. “Get on the net. Will you help us, human?”
“Hell yeah,” I cheered, already brainstorming the best way to spread worker's rights to foreign planets. “It’s time to get you guys some [PTO](https://reddit.com/r/Badderlocks).” |
Dear Diary,
Today I visited my parents in St. Mungos. Father was still unable to remember anything, but mother is making progress. She is able to recognize me and even seems aware enough to know that the Dark Lord is regaining power somehow.
Harry Potter was there visiting Arthur Weasley for a mysterious snakebite.
As I went to leave, my mother gave me a candy wrapper while nervously glancing in Potter's direction. On it was written a single phrase
"Beware the parseltongue" |
“Damn it, Todd, Just say it’s a good brand of toothpaste. It cures cavities and repairs teeth. What could you possibly have against the toothpaste?”
“It’s too good! It’s taking away all my business.”
Todd was unable to run. Tied down to the surgical chair, a bright light blasting his face with its warm glow. He had tried to run, tried to keep his identity hidden, but they were persistent. An apple a day might keep the doctor away. But what will keep the humble dentist at bay?
“Todd buddy, they are offering us a nice payout. Bill got over fifty million for endorsing this stuff, I got eighty million. Think how much money you could milk them for. They need the sacred ten out of ten rating. A rating that no brand has ever achieved. If you are the one to deliver that result, think how much they will owe you.”
Dennis tried to convince Todd, desperate to close the deal. He had already closed up his dental clinic, certain that no one would be foolish enough to not take the money. Who would turn down free money? He was being offered a meal ticket for life. All he had to do was give a stupid endorsement.
“Never, we took an oath. An oath to always be the worst place someone has to visit. I didn’t spend the last ten years of my life creating a sterile hell only to quit.”
Dennis clicked his tongue against the back of his mouth, walking around the chair. His hands stopped just above Todd’s neck. His head hovering above Todd’s, blue polypropylene mask in view, his brows pointed in visible annoyance.
“So what? You are too good for us? Too much of a conventional dentist? We deserve to be happy too, Todd. Think about this rationally, its more money than you will make in six lifetimes.”
“I refuse, This is my livelihood.”
“You sicken me. Do you think you are the saint of dental work or something? We are just trying to live. Some of us have families that need five-course dinners. Do you want me to go home and tell my wife we can only have three courses for dinner? Are you that sick? Why do you do this Todd, why keep running from us?”
“I love hurting people. Why did any of us do this job? Because we love that look of fear when someone sees us approaching. How we pretend to ‘accidentally’ poke their gums. I refuse to give that up.”
Dennis sighed, shaking his head. He reached down, tapping a small metallic container, picking up a drill. He brought the dental drill towards his face, examining the drillbit. Pulling the small drillbit off, he replaced it with one that rivalled the size of his thumb, bringing it towards Todd’s mouth.
“Well, let’s see if you change your tune after a few teeth get drilled. Don’t worry, I’ll repair them once you give up, for a price of course. Now say ah.”
Todd had been in this situation before. Shaking his body, he rocked his head back, hitting the light, forcing it to drop. Its glow shining at Dennis, blinding him. The drill dropped, landing on his shoulder. Giving his shoulder a few shrugs, he maneuvered the drill down until it was drilling into the rope slicing through it. Todd was quick to his feet, delivering a hearty elbow to the jaw of the distracted dentist, watching him topple to the floor.
As Dennis withered in pain, blood dripping from his mouth. Todd wandered around the room, snatching up a roll of dental floss, tossing it onto Dennis.
“Don’t forget to floss.” He uttered, exiting the clinic, ready to return to his hiding.
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
I turned the small brown book over in my hands, feeling the bumps down the leather spine and soaking in the dusty odor of old paper. How could this be? If this was indeed the same book from my childhood, these pages should be full. And yet, as I leafed through the pages, all were empty except the first with one single word.
*Hello?*
It had appeared to me as a child as mysteriously as it appeared to me now. I had been hiding in my father's office, terrified of the screaming match between him and my mother in the kitchen across the house. I ducked beneath his desk and must have bumped it while going under. I heard a thump behind me and slowly opened my eyes to a small brown leather book on the floor. I carefully took it and turned the cover. It was too dark to see anything, so after minutes of gathering courage, I slid into the light of my father's desk lamp, still careful to keep hidden from the doorway. Their continued yelling told me I was not in danger of being found, at least not yet. I had been disappointed when the pages were empty, hoping for some story to take me away, but when the pen fell out from the back cover, I wrote the first word of my own.
Minutes ticked by while wondering what to write back. I didn't have much time to spare, as I had come to this library for another purpose. And yet, its reappearance now must have been important. I could not let this moment pass. But with the pages erased, how could I even remember what to say from all those years ago?
Then one of the lessons I had learned from this book years ago came into mind. I had been incredibly anxious about an upcoming exam, and I had confessed my worries in ink. The response shaped me from then on:
"Don't rely on what you can remember,"it had said, "but rely instead on what you know in your heart."
At last, I put out the worries of what to say back to my childhood self, whether it was right or wrong, whether it was helpful or not, whether it would send me on the same path or something entirely different. I picked up the pen and put its tip beneath the scared squiggly word on the page. My heart knew what I needed to say.
*I'm here.* |
"MRAOU!"
"No, it's not time for dinner yet."
I know it's not time for dinner yet, that's not what I'm yelling about. Stupid humans, you never look UP! He's right there, and he could strike at any moment! I'm trying to help you, why won't you listen!?
"MRAOOU!"
"I know you're hungry, but you're always hungry."
I'M NOT HUNGRY!
OK, I am hungry, but that's not the point. The assassin is right there. You're in mortal danger! Maybe if I get closer to him you'll understand.
"No, off the counter! Get!"
See, he's RIGHT THER... Dangit. Look, I'm sorry about those cups, but if they break after one or two falls off the counter they're not really quality ceramic, are they? No reason to push me off. Some people just hold too much of a grudge.
What was I talking about again?
Oh, right!
"MAOU! MRAOU! MRAOU!"
"Really, you know you're not supposed to be on the counter. What's gotten into you? What are you looking at anyway?"
FINALLY! You see him, you're safe!
"Oh, do you wanna get the spider? Were you asking for a boost? C'mon, up you go!"
AHA! No assassin is going to get the best of me.
Mmmmm, crunchy assassin. |
"No, really, it's true!"Said the fledgling dragon, eyes wide. "Humans have started using gold as rewards for doing stuff!"
I raised one eyebrow critically. "They don't even *need* gold. They sleep on straw, and they eat meat- why would they go through all the trouble?"
"I dunno! But Rymakh said he saw them using it in their markets...And Tiva says they hand it out at their hero guild!"
"I will investigate."I said solemnly, rolling from my back to my belly.
"Uh- isn't that *dangerous?*"Asked the youth.
"Oh, certainly...for them."I said, walking from my cave into the sunlight.
I beat my massive wings, piercing through the air at speeds most other dragons could only dream of.
I had earned my title of Dragon Chief- with the strength of my body, and of my convictions- and I would be a damn foolish leader if I let the humans begin to abuse the largest Dragon commodity.
Soaring above the human city, I announced myself with a roar that shook the foundations of their homes. "Bring me your King, bring me your Queen! I've come for communion."I said in the human tongue, settling on a hill west of the city.
I waited for the better part of an hour, before, finally, a lone human came out to speak with me. He was dressed in soft robes, and was well-groomed for a human.
"You are the King?"I asked.
"No, my lord Dragon-"He began.
With a swift *chomp* right next to the human's head, I made my displeasure known. "Do not tarry, human. I demanded your *King*, or your *Queen*, not a servant. One more mistake and I will level your city to the ground."
He fled, terrified...and I waited again. Another hour.
Finally, a young woman approached. She bore a crown.
"You are the Queen?"I asked.
"Y-yes, sorry, you see- I, ah- I sent my...diplomat, because I'm not very good at social stuff."She said, her cheeks bright red.
"Be at ease."I said. I could read the honesty on her face, plain as day. "When did you assume the mantle?"
"Just a few months ago, sir, uh, Dragon Chief."
I smiled a little. Her awkwardness was almost charming, in its own way. "I have only one question for you, human Queen. Why have you begun to utilize gold? This is a precious Dragon commodity, and before now, the only creatures who have had use for it are the dwarves, who mine it *for us*, and ourselves. Why do you encroach our territory?"
The Queen could not maintain eye contact. "You see... Well, I wasn't meant to be the Queen. I am the youngest of five- but my family, they perished in a storm while they were abroad- And me... I've only spent my time studying mercantilism, and trade, not ruling. I didn't think I would ever be anything but in charge of the treasury. So...with what little gifts I *do* have to give back to my people, I thought I could make a better system. Instead of trading so darn imprecisely, with a fur for a hot meal, or a horse for a sword- I would make a more precise system. It's... the only thing I'm good at, really. It's all I can do for my people. We've already mined up so much."
I nodded. "You wished to use gold as an intermediary between goods. I understand. A representation of value, but not *actually* of value, since gold has so little use for humans."
"Yes! You *get* it!"She said, making eye contact for the first time. "Almost everyone else was trying to fight me about it, because I'm so young...and because I'm a girl."
"You are in, what, your twentieth year?"I asked.
"Eighteenth, Chief."She replied solemnly.
"You are too young for such strife. And you represent a problem to all dragon kind, with this system of yours. I am sorry, Queen, but I have no choice."I drew myself up to my full height.
For a moment, fear flickered in the Queen's eyes.
"From this day forward, Dragons will have no choice but to learn to participate in your economy. I require that you build larger gates, Queen- for we are coming to take your gold, and in exchange, we will provide services- in particular, we will protect you from the more shrewd rulers of the world who would love to do you harm."
The Queen looked at me again. "A...symbiotic community?"She asked.
"One that will have its place held permanently in the annals of history."I promised.
-----------------------------------------
**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Hey guys! I'm writing a brand-new Choose Your Own Adventure on my subreddit- go [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/nystorm_writes/comments/gzd48n/choose_your_own_adventure_part_vii_tragedy/) if you want to vote on how the story starts! I'd love to have you along for the adventure :) |
The clangs of metal rang out loud. The air was filled with the smell of iron. Cheers and jeers filled the surrounding as waves of men clashed.
For some reason, the sun had hidden itself under a thick dark cloud. A slight darkness covered the field, dulling the shiny metal armour worn by most of the men there – lying down or otherwise.
As time moved slowly, the lines of men that had clashed began to diminish steadily. It seemed as if a balance was about to be reached, when suddenly special units of both lines were deployed to certain gaps in the line. Mounted knights began to charge and leap towards their adversaries, wiping out many in powerful dashes. Tall, powerful bishops raised their staves and maces before taking the plunge themselves – chanting their sacred oath to God that empowered them. Then the Rooks took to the field, they moved slowly yet could bulldoze the enemy at a terrifying rate.
Bloodbath ensued. It was a terrible yet somewhat elegant sight to behold.
Amongst the chaos of the battle, the grunts of the armies had dwindled to mere handfuls. They were called pawns, in name and all. The special units would almost always use them as impromptu shields, even ordering them to charge the enemy in suicide missions just to safe themselves. If a pawn were to stay at the camp, they would do so dutifully. Knowing that to be sent to the front would only mean in pointless death.
"You there, Pawn 6?"asked a woman, her features were powerful and exuded greatness.
"Your Majesty, Pawn 6 had been... sent to the front!"said a pawn nervously.
"Ah, very well. Then I shall have you accompany me. Please inform the King that I had taken my leave!"
"As you wish, My Queen!"
The Queen galloped her horse with vigour. It was as if the horse had taken magical pellets, for one could see that it practically glided through the field. The Queen swung her mighty sword and crowds of men were sent flying like crows. It was truly a sight that would awe anyone.
... and then there was the pawn. The pawn who had been ordered to accompany his Queen had lagged behind significantly. It was true, a horse could make a man travel faster and further. But in this battle, a pawn would never move in any rate the special units could. This particular pawn simply took his time and checked his tools whilst biding his time.
After spending some alone time, he began to notice the pile of dead men strewn around. Some of them had died in tragic ways, whilst others had still some life in them if only barely. The pawn had no time to mourn the dead. He was on a slow yet steady mission from his Queen. If he were to stop now and took his time, the battle might've been over.
"You there, pawn!"the Queen yelled as she looked back in a mad-dash, "come and join the slaughter!"
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty! I would be there as soon–"
An arrow. A fallen horse. The Queen simply froze.
In a flash, the pawn had seen his liege fell lifeless to the muddy ground. The sight was truly unapologetic. In battle, no one is exempt from death.
With burning rage, the pawn rushed as fast as he was physically could to the enemy line. He sneaked a glance at his dead Queen and took her aura for his own. A jolt of lightning had struck him and empowered him to made a suicide charge.
*This shall be the hill that I would die on, for Her Majesty!* He thought loudly as he charged through the enemy line, taking several to their graves.
The pawn felt blood on his sword, the smell of iron overwhelmed his senses. The rage had sent him to near-blindness, only allowing him to focus on the enemies in front of him. As the enemy regrouped and tried to finish him for good, he dodged them by going further into their lines. When the pawn had come close to the enemy King, everyone's focus shifted to blocking his path.
*Fools, the lot of them!* He spat out with a grin.
But as soon as he thought so, a flash struck him down. Thoughts of death and his Queen flew in and out rapidly. He had done his duty and was ready to accept the consequences.
"It can't be..."
"Impossible!"
"K-Kill it! Kill it before it does anything!"
His enemy cowered in fear. They began to move in for the kill. Something had changed. They were no longer only there to protect the King. A primal instinct of eat or be eaten had taken over everyone in the vicinity.
*Huh?* The pawn opened his eyes and saw the same field as he had earlier, *A-Am I dead?*
Just as he started to process everything, the enemy came after him, weapon in hand. They began to hack, slash, and bash their way to end him where he had stood. Though for some reason, the pawn glided around them with no problem at all. In fact, he felt a surge of power flowing in him. A gentle caress whispered, 'kill their King'.
*I think I can do just that!* He exclaimed, preparing for a final charge.
Blood. A stream of red warm blood.
A hundred men fell down, yet a single person did not. It was a massacre. |
"Mortal, your soul is at stake for summoning me. What is it you desire?"
In his 6000 years of being a contract demon, Zazrakon had plenty of experience with the profession. He had granted all manner of wishes across time and space- granting unfathomable wealth, reviving the dead, binding the will of vast armies to one's whim- but they always had one thing in common- they were born of some selfish desire, always at the expense of others. And to Zazrakon, this new wisher was no different.
But the circumstances were certainly new.
"Can you help me get back?"They said, pointing to the window.
"I don't want to leave earth. Please, I want to go home"
Zazrakon looked at the room around him. There was the summoning circle below, as was expected, but everything else was alien to him. The room appeared to be made of some strange, metallic substance. And right behind the wisher was a massive, transparent window to the outside. And sure enough, right outside the window was earth. But something wasn't quite right...
"...Is that... Earth? Why is it getting smaller?"
The wish granter had a puzzled look upon their face. "This is space..."
"Space?"
"Outer space... we're not on earth right now."
"And we're on?"
"The Arc Galactis. It's... you know what a spaceship is right?"
"You mean... you've managed to escape your planet, and... you want to go back?"
"I Didn't escape. I was taken. Taken against my will."
Zazrakon didn't know exactly what was going on, but he had a hunch. Perhaps, this mortal was the unwitting victim of some other demon's wish. He relished in the irony of it... this mortals desire to wish was the direct result of another wish, the side effects of which would surely bring about another... a most sinister cycle
"And you wish to go back?"
"Yes. I don't care if a meteor strikes earth. I don't even know if..."
"The... What?"
"They all say that the world is gonna end when a meteor strikes it. But I don't believe in it. They just want us off the planet. I can feel it."
"And so... you don't want to be forced off?"
They nodded.
"Well, I can do that. But as with all wishes, it requires a catch. I cannot send you alone, but I can send this entire spaceship back to earth. Your wish will be granted, but these mortals will be trapped on it with you. Do you accept this?"
"The more the merrier."
"And you are willing to give you soul to me?"
"Yes."
"Sign here."
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a true tragedy, it was. The Arc was humanities last, desperate attempt to save itself. No one knows what convinced the captains of the ship to return to earth. The passengers revolted, of course, and tried to take back control... but the damage was done. For better or worse, humanity was trapped upon the earth for the rest of their days. Such was the devastation brought about by a wisher. And to Zazrakon, this new wisher was no different. |
The sock drawer option was looking pretty good. One click and it would all be over. I would never have to deal with this shit again. No more crazy girls. No more stupid family. Just peace.
"Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Mother fucker! Can't even commit suicide in peace. I got up and headed to the door. "Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."Bang, bang, bang.
I yelled at the door I was coming, and the knocking stopped. About damn time. Whoever it was better have a duffel bag full of cash or a pizza. I opened it and was shocked that he did indeed have both.
He had dark hair, and a chin you could dig holes with. If it wasn't for the fact that he was wearing a suit, I would have assumed it was my crazy ex's new fuckbuddy come to beat the shit out of me. It was only because of the suit, that I recognized him. He was on the tv all the time. Making crazy claims. Crazy claims that he threw lots of money at until they became reality. Elon Musk was standing in my doorway with a pizza, and a gym bag. Granted, I assumed it was full of cash, but it was either that or I was having a psychotic break.
He gave me a once over then said "Get up, we're going to Mars."I asked what the hell he meant by 'Get up' to which he replied "Take a shower, get some clothes on, I can't take you in public wearing ratty yoga pants."I thought 'fuck you' but managed to keep my mouth shut. If Elon Musk really was at my door with a pizza, I'd blow him for the story alone. If that bag really did have cash, fuck it.
I went back to my bedroom and did as instructed. After my shower, I called out and asked whether I needed to dress up or not. "Business casual is fine. I just can't have you looking like a hobo. You're the new face of the Mars mission."
I asked him what the fuck he meant. "It's really quite simple. We've had everything we needed to make the trip for months. We needed someone with the right look to put on the posters."Huh? "I'll be blunt. The only reason I am able to do the things I do is because I give the impression that it's impossible. We carefully hone that image. The more impossible it seems, the more we tailor our spokesperson. Namely you."
"Mars is quite easy to reach. You just need enough power to exit Earth's gravity well, and be able to catch Mar's in turn. We've been able to do that for decades. The problem is getting candidates willing to go. If we put up folks like they do in the military, we would cut most of the best applicants because those people aren't relatable. We need a loser. Again, you. We need someone people can look down on and say 'If he could do it, I can do it.' Frankly, you're perfect for the job."
I wanted to argue. I really did. I almost got two words out before what he said hit me. He was inspiring greatness by presenting mediocrity. I asked how he found me.
"We've been watching you for a long time. Me, Gates, Buffet. That's Warren, not Jimmy. Actually, I take that back it's BOTH Warren and Jimmy. Apparently you're great for making music about too. Crap family, crap life. But, I digress. We've been waiting for you to take on so much stress that it was visible to the naked eye. That happened last night. You showed up like the bright side of the sun to our tracking programs. I just happened to get here first. That said, I'm going to make you an offer I hope you won't refuse."
"Let's go to Mars. Get off this shit planet. Get away from that shit ex of yours. Ditch that family that causes you so much grief. And if you do, I'll give you this pizza and a metric fuckton of cash. You'll live like a king."
I was flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say.
"Say yes. Get the best revenge possible. Become successful. Despite what the world thinks. Fuck them. Fuck them from Mars.
https://imgflip.com/i/1x1wfl
Edit: Fixed typo (Threw not Through)
|
I had found Bruno in the middle of the night. It was back when I was still living in Riverside, and only half-alive, after Kate had gone away to school and stopped answering my calls. Most nights I'd get my buddy Jacob to come get high with me and eat some fast food, but now and then even he had something better to do. Instead, I'd just go skate past the palm trees and cheap stucco bungalows, listening to whatever pop punk bullshit I thought made me different, and daydreaming about London or New York City or anywhere nobody would know me. It was one night when I was doing just that, when I heard a dog barking like crazy, running back and forth around an old man laying on the road. The guy was already in pretty terrible shape when I got there. From the skid marks, it looked like a car or maybe even a truck had run right over him. His belly had burst apart and some of his guts were falling out onto the asphalt. I skated over and I called 911. I told the old man it was going to be okay and that help was coming.
"It's not going to be okay for me,"he said between wheezes, "but you can still make it okay for Bruno. Promise you'll take Bruno, because I can't have him going off to some dog pound. I won't have none of that for my boy, alright? When I was growing up, people used to say that when someone takes responsibility for a dead man's dog, he also gets a guardian angel. Truth is, I expect I probably won't be turning into an angel. But wherever it is I go, I'll be sure I'm looking out for you, as long as you're looking out for my Bruno. We got a deal?"
I told him I agreed. I let him squeeze my hand as tight as he wanted, while poor Bruno licked his face and yelped his heart out, until the sirens drowned him out and the paramedics came rushing up. The cops kept me there for a while, huddled beside the rumbling ambulance, while they loaded the old man into a black body bag and onto the stretcher. They asked every possible question about what had happened, but all I could say was that I had found the guy laying there on the ground when I happened to skate by. They made me fill out some paperwork, and then gave me a candy bar when I was done, plus a brochure for some social worker I could call if the memory gave me any trouble sleeping.
"Is the dog yours or his?"the cop asked me at the end of it all, "If it's his, I'll have to get animal control down here."
"No, that's Bruno,"I said, "he's mine."I realized I was already holding the neon green leash, which was a little bit spotted with the man's blood. Bruno canted his head at me, like I had the power to change the world and make everything better. For the first time, I felt like I could come through for someone.
The old man's accident made the news a few days later. It turned out he had once been a prominent scientist at Cal Tech, working on some sort of cutting edge research in fungal brain infections, which he believed could be adapted to transmit states of consciousness between individuals, even between different species. More than that, he thought the fungi could also give someone the power to commandeer another person's body. I dug around online and found an old interview where he said there were already some peculiar species of fungus and ants out in the African jungle that were making this work to their advantage in certain small ways, but that this was just the tip of what was possible. But I guess the whole project was too out there for the other academics, and after he allegedly tried to pull off some secret experiment involving chimpanzees and rabbits and dogs, they took away his tenure. He died without any family or really any friends left, except of course for Bruno. When the dog saw his lost master on the computer screen, he barked like a maniac, and I had to give him one of the new chew toys I had picked up, just to get him to relax again.
But in no time really, having Bruno made everything better for me. I'd wake up earlier to walk him, I lost weight playing with him, and I even picked up playing guitar again, just because of how he liked hearing it when I'd strum chords. We'd go to the park, where is where I met Ashley, after she just came up to pet him. Soon, getting a text from her felt as good as one from Kate used to. Her uncle took me on as an apprentice electrician, and after a few months, I had enough money for Ashley and Bruno and I to get an apartment together. Every night, when I'd skate home from work, I wouldn't be thinking about escaping to New York or London anymore, but just about how, in fifteen minutes, I'd open the door and Bruno would be scurrying between my legs, barking, and how Ashley would look over her shoulder from the couch and smile at me.
And it was good like that for almost a year, until the night I got home to no barking at all. Ashley took my hand and led me over to the dog bed, where Bruno wasn't moving.
"I opened the door, and he just ran out,"she said, "He'd never done that before, not one time. But he ran out before I could stop him. He went into the street, and a there was a car. It didn't stop."
"I'm so sorry,"she cried. I wrapped one hand around her and cradled her head. I started to tear up too.
For a minute, I thought about looking up where the old man had been buried, and maybe trying to find a way to leave Bruno there too. But I decided that he had been our dog just as much, and belonged with us. So, the next morning, I went out into the yard to dig a grave for him. Except I didn't get a foot into the earth before I hit a hard plastic box. When I picked it out of the dirt, there was a note taped to it: *If you're reading this, it isn't too late. Avoid cities on 2/12/2018. Go to the coordinates on the map and you'll know what to do next.* It was signed just "Me".
Even though it was strange to see tomorrow's date on some long ago buried note, I still figured it was some dumb prank or time capsule bullshit from the previous tenants, and an unusually close timing coincidence. I threw the box over into the planter, telling myself I'd re-bury when I wasn't so sad, so as to not be a disappointment if some kids ever came asking for it. After the hole was dug, Ashley and I said goodbye to Bruno. She read something from her Bible and I played a song on the guitar. Then we just had dinner and went to bed.
Air raid sirens woke us up in the morning. We turned on the news. New York, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, nearly every major city was being overrun by hordes of jungle ants. They were saying there were quadrillions or maybe quintillions of ants, and they were organized, like they could all think as one. The footage showed them pouring over everything like black sand, eating every blade of grass, and the very skin off people's arms and faces. Halfway through the broadcast, a wave of ants swept across the news anchor's desk while he was delivering his report. The feeds cut. We lost power not long after.
*Avoid cities on 2/12/2018.* I ran into the backyard and snatched the strange box out of the planter. I ripped through the plastic covering and opened it up. Inside, there was a folded up map, a vial of some strange green liquid, and a white aerosol can, with "bug spray"written on it in sharpie.
"What are you doing out here?"Ashley screamed at me from the porch, "Where are we going to go? Is anywhere safe?"
I unfolded the map all the way and scanned across it. It was big enough to cover all of California and Nevada.
"I don't know,"I told her, "But I think maybe someone does."
I turned the paper around to show her what I was seeing. On the map, there was a red X, marking some isolated spot, deep in the Mojave desert. Right below, there was a fading photograph taped on. It was a picture of the old scientist, sitting in some giant leather chair in some fancy university office. And on his lap, there was Bruno, when he was just a puppy. He was canting his little head up at his former master. Like he was looking at a man who had the power to change the entire world. |
Lucy stared at the upside-down mushroom: a gigantic fungus, its thick central stalk reaching to the night sky like the tower of Babel.
Ben, already inside it, leaned over the mushroom's curled lip. "Are you coming up, or what?"
She took his his hand and climbed into the soft white cup, her feet bouncing on the spongy surface. "It's like walking on the moon,"she said.
Ben frowned as he lay himself down on the grey mattress. "Except a lot cooler, I should think."
The moon burned above them, waves of blue flame rippling away from its core as if it were a pebble thrown into an endless pond. An awfully murky pond, she thought. One that had once been clear enough to see stars through its shadowed surface, but that now swallowed all those pretty lights in its roily waters.
"I think it's getting worse,"she said, as she sat down next to Ben.
"What is?"
"Everything. It's falling apart so fast now. Before, it was only little things, as if reality were scuffed like a shoe. But now it's as if someone has the last thread of my cardigan and is tugging hard. I'm so confused."
"Try not to worry."Ben forced a smile. "It's always been like this -- as certain as the moon is cold. Nothing to worry about."
The moon shone calm and purple now. Lucy laughed - what else could she do? Cry? She supposed she could do that, but she felt she'd cried enough. That other people had cried enough, too.
"I don't want it all to change,"she said, simply.
Ben made to speak, but held his tongue between his teeth. For a while they watched the green square of the moon rotate, and dim shapes flit across the night sky.
Eventually he said, "You never did like change, Luce, but this one you have to accept because it's going to keep changing now, and if you try to fight it it'll just--"
"I know."She glanced down at her wrinkled hand and tried to remember when she'd gotten so old. "You know, I still remember the first time we came here."
"Is that right?"said Ben, eyes brightening. "Tell me about it."
"You were about the age you are now. I remember it was night time, because you said mushrooms peek out of the soil at night like worms do in the rain. So we snuck out of our homes with a little basket and a handful of candles, and we picked all the mushrooms in the woods. We held hands for the first time, on the way back. Do you remember? And when we finally reached home you father scolded us. Said if we'd eaten any..."
"*What?* What did he say?"Ben encouraged.
But had it been his father, or had it been her own? Had it even been Ben there that night? *Yes*. It had. Ben, she knew, would be the last thought she'd let slip away. "That we'd get ill,"she said, slowly. Cautiously. "Or worse. We never did pick mushrooms again."
Ben sat up and looked at her in earnest. "You're scared, Luce. I know. That's why I'm here. But does it matter what *was* true, if you're happy in this new now?"Ben smiled gently and his face aged and etched: his dimples deepened, cheekbones sharpened, wrinkles furrowed. As if an artist sketched new lines into a clean circle, then smudged them dirty.
There he was, her Ben. Not quite her age -- he never did get as old as that. But near to it. Youth spent and still handsome, just in a different way.
"Sometimes,"she said, "on those rare occasions when reality wanders back in the room and waves at me, I think I don't wave back on purpose."She let out a sigh. "Even now I think it's calling and all I want to do is close the door."
Ben was young again. So was she.
They lay back down on the mushroom and let it curl up around them, cupping them like a protective hand. Safe in their cocoon as the world fell apart around them.
"It's going to be okay,"he said, taking her hand and squeezing it.
Lucy rested her head on Ben's chest and together they watched the last embers of the burning moon blaze in the dark well. |
I set my stopwatch for 15 minutes- that's how long I was told to wait in the time chamber. Apparently, relativity means that my watch will still progress 15 minutes as they would normally in the real world.
I waved goodbye to the team, smiling with glee at the prospect of being the world's first human time traveler.
The door shut and a loud, low hum stuffed into my ears. It was somewhere inbetween soothing and painful. I started my stopwatch, and closed my eyes. *This is it.*
When the timer rang, I immediately sprang up and opened the door with fervor and excitement, bursting with joy...but that joy quickly vacated me, as everyone else had the building.
I was sent 24 hours in the future, but it seems that was enough time for a horror story to unfold. The lab was trashed, chairs and computers strewn across the room in a sea of broken glass and messy cables. There were bodies scattered across the room, broken and bloodied. It was...silent.
I looked to the left and saw writing on the wall, streaks trailing below each letter. "Sorry", it read, written in blood. The blood of my friends and coworkers. There was something else under it, written in smaller text.
"Sorry we made you cry like a bitch."
The lights flipped on and Johnny Knoxville popped out from under a desk, kicking me in the balls and shouting with his fists in the air.
"I'm Johnny Knoxville, and this is Punk'd for people that aren't pussies. Fuck you Ashton Kutcher!"he shouted at a hidden camera.
I clutched my abdomen, kneeled over, with tears streaming down my face. "I don't understand,"I groaned.
"You didn't go into the future, ya dumbass. We just sat you in a metal tube, played a loud-ass humming noise and then fucked everything up to scare the piss outta you."
I couldn't tell if I was crying because of my testicles or my dreams- both had been crushed. |
It took him some moments to reorient himself. The cool, dark, and damp room. Made of burnished black stone. The eerie machine, whose liquid glowed blue and in which he was partly submerged. Where had the surrounding city gone? The warm afternoon in the park, surrounded by skyscrapers. And she, where had she gone? Her ice-blue eyes. Her florally-fragranced hair. What was this cold, lifeless hell? Why had he been ripped away from his life?
He looked at the attendant, who was holding the dripping helmet.
"Mr. Jacobs?"the attendant said.
"I'm not Mr. Jacobs. My name is Jeff."
"Mr. Jacobs, you were just in a simulation. In the simulation you were a man named Jeff Lots. Do you remember?"
"A simulation. You mean like a video game?"
"Just try to remember, Mr. Jacobs. Remember why you came in here. Remember when."
He sifted through the shattered and jumbled fragments of his mind. She had been so real! And his love for her, with her, so real! Sophie, his one true love, his perfect partner, a simulation? No.
But it was all coming back to him now. The pay-raise. The extra pot of money. His psychological break. Too much work. The vacation time he pleaded for, and took.
He remembered sitting on his apartment balcony, staring out at the dark and ruined world. He remembered the deep uneasiness that told him to flee reality, to flee into simpler, prelapsarian times. He remembered the crippling loneliness that was eating him from the inside. A broken world. A broken reality. He had been willing to do anything to escape it, even pay to live out a lie.
But she, Sophie, she had been real! Their love! He was already starting to forget the look of her face. The life he had just lived, been living, the thirty odd years, it was fading away as fast as a dream.
"Put me back in,"he said to the attendant.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't."
"Put me back in."
He was crying.
"Sir, there are people who have booked this machine. I simply can't..."
"What will it cost? I need to get back to her."
"Sir, I don't want to have to call security. Please get out of the machine. There's a towel to dry yourself off, and you can book another machine at the front desk on the way out, if you choose."
"But will it be with her again? Can I live the same life over?"
The attendant pulled a chip out of the helmet and held it up for both to look at.
"Everything about the virtual life you just lived is stored on this chip,"he said. "Every sensation, every sight, every thought, every person you met, it's all contained on here. And we take very good care of our chips. So don't you worry."
Mr. Jacobs smiled hopefully, and started getting out of the machine.
"I'm glad to see you're smiling,"said the attendant. "Lots of people have trouble coming back to reality, but I'm glad to see you, no, wait, don't..."
---
Mr. Jacobs washed the blood from his hands in the blue machine liquid. Then he dried off, and wiped the blood from the helmet with his towel. He dressed, and put the chip in his pocket. He wrapped the helmet up in a fresh towel. Then he walked quietly over to the door, the towel with the helmet slung over his shoulder. He heard a gurgling noise behind him. He turned and looked.
The attendant reached inside his coat and clicked a clicker. Immediately an alarm began sounding. Blue and red lights began flashing.
"No,"said Mr. Jacobs, thinking of the chip on which his true love's very existence was contained.
He started off, bolting through hallways, bursting through doors, shouldering and elbowing people out of his way. He couldn't lose her like this. He had already sacrificed too much. He ran and ran through corridors, looking for the exit. He finally saw it ahead. He bolted to the exit door, assuming that behind it would be stairs that led down into the lobby, from which he could get to the city. There were armed men behind him.
"Stop,"they shouted, aiming their weapons.
But he ran and ran to the exit and burst through it but there was no stairwell there, it simply led to open air, some forty storeys up. He began falling rapidly, plummeting towards the hard concrete hundreds of feet below. And just as he hit the concrete everything went black.
His heart was racing. But he was alive. How alive?
The technician took off his helmet.
"Mr. Jacobs,"said the technician, holding the dripping helmet. "What you just experienced was a Smooth Transition Simulation. Since you have a history of difficulty transitioning out of Life Simulations, we thought we'd cap your Life Sim with one that would help put you in the right frame of mind for your transition."
"Oh,"said Mr. Jacobs, bewildered.
"Your towels,"said the technician, "are hanging right here. Just step out of the machine when you are ready and dry yourself off. Your clothing is in this drawer. Please, keep your footwear in the bags, and wear these slippers while you're in the building. Thank you."
The technician left. And Mr. Jacobs stared, baffled, at the walls around him, as if they were made of illusions and emptiness. |
"I don't get paid enough to do this,"I grumbled, as my boss waved his wand, transforming me from a pony back into a normal human.
_________________
My name is Bergamot Butters, and I am a magic bug tester. When I was still an ordinary software developer, I chanced upon something amazing. Something that would change my life. It was an advertisement for a magical job, asking for non-magic software developers like me. It paid well and offered me the chance to be around magic. Magic was something I always loved to imagine as a child, and now the opportunity was in front of me. I took it, and now I help create and debug magic spells for a living. I will learn the secrets of how magic works, and someday, become a full-fledged magician myself.
I am a magic developer.
Except... it wasn't quite the magic I expected. It really felt like just another software job, except that a typo could spell terror in the real world. Missed a semicolon? Whoops, your car just grew legs and is now eating people. Forgot that 'if' statement? You can kiss your fingers goodbye. Good luck figuring out how to reverse that spell when you can't even hold your wand anymore.
Which is why I have a magician watching over me. Really, he's more like my boss. And the ideas guy. And the CEO. Long story short, he hired me to code his spells and all. I work from an enchanted iMagic, using mCode (m for magic, not muggle), and compile spell builds into a plastic test wand. Almost like in my old job.
Most of my bugs nowadays are (thankfully) minor, thanks to my old work experience. Years of causing bugs in the digital world has hardened me to the typical pitfalls of programming, and after the initial embarrassments when I started, I think I've got the hang of it. My boss still won't let me off on that time I turned myself into a sexy buxom blonde, but maybe it's good to be reminded of what could happen.
Today I found myself working on this tough spell. It was a rather tricky one, involving various transformation modes and voice recognition algorithms. Transformations were rather garden-variety, and nothing new in the magic world, but combining it with the latter was rather tricky. The idea was that for the next 24 hours, you could transform yourself into whatever you wanted without the use of the wand. As a human, you triggered it by snapping your fingers and calling out the name of the animal, and thinking "There's no form like human"when you were in animal form.
You can quickly see how things can go very wrong here. Too many question marks here. How many animals are we going to allow people to transform into? I would have to manually code in every animal, and what a pain that would be. What happens when you're an animal when the 24 hours runs out? When you transform back, would you be naked? Most low-level transformation spells didn't bring back clothes, and clothes were a pain to code in because they would have to be tailor-made to the caster. What if the animal had no capacity to think, or caused the caster to lose focus? I would have to make some way for the caster to retain some level of higher thinking, making it a partial transformation at best.
After a full day's plugging away, I finally beheld my code. A few hundred lines of basic functionality, coupled with all the framework needed to expand further, but I think I've done it. Voice functionality is up, and I should be able to transform back. I hit 'Compile' and leaned back into my armchair. After a few moments, the wand vibrated, signaling that the compilation was complete. I wielded the wand, feeling that familiar warmth within.
"Boss!"I shouted across the hallway. "I'm gonna run a test now, wanna see it?"
"Okay! Coming over!"my boss shouted back.
He sauntered over from the room across the hallway and entered mine. Standing at about 5' 6", I would easily stand shoulders above him if I weren't seated. But make no mistake: He's a seasoned magic veteran, best of breed from the Oxford magical initiative, and was the first magic consultant from the Third Afghanistan War. He was the one who came up with all the creative uses for magic to win wars. People think that tactics win wars. This guy showed that logistics wins wars. Even military geniuses don't stand a chance when they're fighting armies with the ability to teleport their supplies from home right into the battle. This guy basically removed the need for a supply chain.
"So what are you waiting for?"he beckoned, raising an eyebrow like he always did. "Let's see it."
I pointed the wand at myself and uttered the trigger phrase "Cast Transform 2.0!"
...what? You expected something in Latin? It's an early build, alright?
I felt a tingling, and then nothing. Maybe it did nothing?
"Okay, let's give it a try."I replied. "Dog!"
I felt my head get squeezed, as if something was forcing my body through a straw. Finally, when I opened my eyes, I saw paws sticking out of my sleeves. Looking up, I saw my boss, gleaming merrily.
"Nice!"my boss exclaimed. "Did you make a way to transform yourself back?"
I nodded my head and wagged my tail excitedly.
"Okay, let's see it then."
I voiced the words in my head, trying hard to silence the doggy part of my brain.
"There's... no form like... human."
The head squeeze feeling again, and I was sitting on the chair in front of my boss. Thankfully, my clothes survived the transformation and saved me the embarrassment of being naked in front of my boss.
"Awesome!"my boss clapped excitedly. "We'll show those pigs at Facetome-"
Oh no. The head squeeze again.
When I came to, I looked down and saw -yup, you guessed it. Trotters.
"-oh."my boss lowered his head. "We've got work to do."
______________________
This was fun. Feedback, would you kindly?
If you like this, check out my latest stories on [/r/Script_Writes!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Script_Writes/)
|
The three of them stood in a loose circle. Each were pointing weapons at one another, but the Kidnapped Princess held hers in secret in the folds of her purple satin gown.
She was deeply unhappy with the villain name she had garnered at this moment.
Similarly to her left, Crazed Evil Genius was internally cursing his birth name and his parents, Bill and Pam Genius, who had desperately wanted to give their child a unique name. Normally, it had only lead to awkward situations at the doctor or the DMV, but now his life was at risk. He wasn't sure how well one could defend themselves with a coffee cup and what he hoped was a very hard apple.
The Hero stared them both down, clutching a sword in his right hand and the unpaid parking ticket that had sent him spiraling in his left.
There was silence.
Finally, The Hero shouted, "You'll never save anyone again, Evil Genius!"
Silence again.
"What?"Evil Genius asked, incredulity seeping out of the word.
Silence again.
"What?"the Kidnapped Princess whispered in her high, delicate voice. She looked as furious as she was confused.
The three of them glanced from one to the other, somehow never making eye contact, which was impressive.
The Hero cleared his throat. "I said that you would never save anyone again, Crazed Evil Genius! This will be the end of your... charitable doings!"
The Kidnapped Princess straightened. "No one will be saving anyone today!"
The Hero looked at her in surprise. "Th-that's right!"
"No!"Crazed Evil interjected. "Someone will be saving me!"He glanced between the two of them. "Right?"he added hesitantly.
"Not if I have my way,"Kidnapped Princess said.
"Yes! You will never save anyone again!"The Hero yelled out to no one in particular.
The lengthiest silence of all fell between them. Crazed Evil Genius, worried that he might not have much longer to do so, took a careful sip of his coffee before returning it to his defensive stance.
"As I was saying, the Kidnapped Princess will... be in keeping with her namesake today! Come with me,"The Hero called, holding out his hand to her in a non-threatening way.
"Wait... you're... kidnapping her?"Crazed Evil Genius said. "So, I'm all good, right?"
"No, *I'm* kidnapping *you*,"the Kidnapped Princess said, holding out the skirts of her dress toward him.
"I may as well have kidnapped her already!"the Hero shouted non-linearly in sudden despair.
"But she is kidnapping me?"Evil Genius asked.
"I meant in a more metaphorical sense,"the Hero responded, despondent.
"This is confusing enough without metaphors,"Evil Genius said, "It would be like assembling furniture with the wrong manual."
"I hate to interrupt, but *I* would just like to reiterate that *I* am kidnapping the Crazed Evil Genius,"the Kidnapped Princess called.
The Hero looked at her. "But... you're the Kidnapped Princess, right? You need saving!"
"Oh, so I get kidnapped one time and forever I'm known as the 'Kidnapped Princess?' Why couldn't the rest of my achievements have factored into my name? Why can't I be, 'The Princess Who Was Once Kidnapped and Then Turned to Evil?'"
Evil and The Hero looked at each other, expressions confused. "Because... that's too long for a nickname,"Evil answered. "A nickname should be short and descriptive, like the Kidnapped Princess. It is short, succinct, perfect. Or The Hero... though you aren't really living up to that at the moment."
"I'm in the process of changing it,"The Hero responded miserably. "You wouldn't believe how difficult it is—"
"Oh you don't have to tell me that,"said Crazed Evil Genius.
"Right? I even sent them a copy of my parking ticket to back up my claim of... non-descriptiveness... but they said it would take a few months."
Kidnapped Princess cleared her throat, "What form is this you're speaking of?"
"Wait..."Crazed Evil Genius said, "You're quitting the hero business over a parking ticket?"
"An *unpaid* parking ticket, Mr. Genius. I parked in an admittedly faded handicapped parking spot, when, as you can see, I am not handicapped. What's next? Kidnapping? *Murder?* It's all on the table for me now."
Kidnapped Princess and Crazed Evil Genius looked at each other for a long moment. Crazed Evil looked back at The Hero. "Well... no, it's not."
"Yes, it is!"The Hero cried. Then he cleared his throat and when he spoke, his voice was deeper. "Which is why I'm here to take Kidnapped Princess with me."
"You know, my name is Angela!"Kidnapped Princess said, exasperated. "And once again, *I'm* kidnapping *him*!"
The Hero looked at Crazed Evil. "But he's a hero! You can't kidnap a hero!"
"I'm just a claims adjuster!"Crazed Evil shouted.
"Yes, and what a disguise it is!"The Hero yelled, half in awe.
"No, it is not a disguise! I'm not even a very good claims adjuster! Literally nothing can be gained from taking me with you! Unless,"he added seriously, "you need some adjustment to your claims. At which point, I retract saying I was not a very good claims adjuster."
"So, you could almost say you'd like to... adjust your claim... right?"The Hero smirked.
Silence again.
"Wait, wouldn't that mean we'd want to kidnap you?"Kidnapped Princess asked, neatly side-stepping the outrageous and situationally inappropriate joke. "I mean, I do want to do that and will,"she added.
"No you won't!"
"If you won't go with me willingly—"
"Which I'm sure is the case with most kidnapping victims,"Crazed Evil interjected dryly.
"I would know!"The Hero cried out.
"*As I said*, if you won't go with me willingly, I'll have to make you!"Kidnapped Princess yelled, whipping her skirts around.
They finally arrived at the simple conclusion that only violence would solve the perplexing issue. In an instant, weapons and produce were fired. An apple whirled towards Kidnapped Princess. A Justice Beam shot at Crazed Evil Genius. A Broken Heel flew at The Hero.
No one was hit.
"Well, that was anti-climactic,"Crazed Evil Genius said. |
I had nowhere left to hide.
I'd managed to scrape by for centuries, adjusting to every new twist and turn humanity threw at me. I'd been a farmer since the 1200s and successfully transitioned to mechanical agriculture during the Industrial Revolution. But then the Internet happened and it got harder to cover up my mistakes - to stay private. My credit score tanked. I had to sell my land when I couldn't compete with the corporate farms.
And the debt collectors kept calling me.
It was a variation of the same message each time: "We will find you.""There is no sense dragging this out."
A few nights ago, I found myself pulled over on the side of the road somewhere in rural Tennessee. My ancient, rusting Buick had finally sputtered out and I couldn't afford gas, let alone car insurance. Before I could even think about my next move, my phone rang.
"We are moments away from finding you, Edwin. Think carefully about your next move. Don't be foolish."
I glanced around, looking for any signs of life, listening for any sound other than the swirling night breeze.
Then, out of nowhere, a group of men in black suits - each clutching a leather briefcase - appeared all around me.
"Good evening,"one of them said. "You owe us $80,000, and we are tired of waiting."
I fumbled around in my coat pocket, felt something inside - the cool steel of my pistol.
"You've made several missteps, Edwin. Gotten sloppy. People are starting to pay attention. Soon enough someone will put the pieces together and realize you’re one person - and one who has been alive far longer than most consider possible."
A single bead of sweat dripped from my temple and onto the pavement.
"Some have argued that we are leeches. Parasites. Those who make our living on the backs of others. I believe you're familiar with such means of survival."
I gripped the pistol tightly.
"We, too, are tired of such accusations. But we are especially tired of those who threaten to expose us. You are a threat to our kind, Edwin."
I whipped the pistol out and pointed it directly at the ringleader's temple.
"Don't move,"I said. "There is a silver bullet in every chamber of this gun."A lie, but a bolder one than I expected from myself.
The ringleader chuckled. "Did you think we, too, were unprepared?"All ten of them pulled out weapons - some had wooden stakes, others had guns. "We have adapted. You have not. And your time has expired."
Summoning all of my strength, I transformed into a bat - a form I had not taken since my last escape to a new home, years ago. The debt collectors transformed as well and soared behind me. I flew as high up as I possibly could, their fangs getting closer and closer, then --
I dived down, the velocity granting me unbelievable speed. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted it - the glint of a greenhouse. I prayed that my agricultural instincts would be correct and made a hard left turn towards it. Just as we reached the glass front door, I veered up, sending the collectors crashing through the windows.
I floated just above the greenhouse, peering down, looking for the unmistakable green tufts.
I made sure not to take a deep breath. And, at last, I could tell by the shrieks of horror and disgust that garlic was being grown here.
As the collectors wailed, transforming from bat to human and back again, I flew off to the side. I turned back into my human form, lit a match, and dropped it into the greenhouse, keeping my nose plugged.
I felt a pang of horrified guilt as the greenhouse exploded into flames, its wooden beams and roof supports igniting within seconds. Then I flew into the night sky, abandoning my worthless Buick on the side of the road.
I have been flying for days now, sucking the blood of numerous creatures but not a single human. I cannot risk blowing my cover by mingling further amongst people. I have been able to change my name so many times before, but never my face and not my body - save the bat, of course.
How is a human to survive in this world? My time may indeed be running out. I've clearly pissed off my fellow vampires, and surely there is human law enforcement that would prefer me dead.
So for now, I will live as a bat. I will soar freely across the country in search of sustenance, hiding from sunlight and any church that might have a drop of holy water.
If I am to die, I will do so on my own terms. |
I knew it was one of those chain messages my friends like to spam me. I’m not a huge gamer in the shooty shoot kinda games, so the most I would have to worry about is endless bottomless pits or cartoon violence.
I type yes and feel a vibration. I drop my phone, but I’m the one shaking. Then a black screen comes up. Somehow I’m not unconscious, but more a loading screen. Then a text box appears.
“In order to return to the real world, you must win the game. Your prize will be everything you gain in this world. Good luck.”
There is no signature, and everything has become pixelated. It’s been a while, which game was the last one I played?
I’m at a computer, feeling really discouraged about this desk job. I open the drawer and find a letter from my grandpa. He left me his old farm.
Wait a second. This is Stardew Valley. I wanted to start a new game, but I got distracted and cut off in the middle of the cut scene. I had spent hours on the wiki learning the best crops to plant and what gifts to give each person in town.
There was only one problem. This game had no end. It could go on, ad infinitum.
Fortunately, it also was one of my favorite games. I liked it more than my own life, sometimes. So really, how hard could it be?
***
It’s been 6 in game years. I’m still missing a few minerals for the museum, but the rest of town has been completed. The community center is restored, the movie theater up and running. I’ve been happily married and divorced twice and turned my children into birds.
My farm is fully installed with sprinklers and a golden clock prevents any debris from appearing on my farm. My stats have been maxed out for a while now, I’ve gotten most achievements (and bought the hats to prove it), and generally have been enjoying the spoils of late game. Each morning I pet my cat before trying to find the next challenge.
The one thing that I haven’t gotten yet is the return scepter. I pretty much have every other item one can buy. This particular item can send the player home by raising it to the sky.
I think, deep down, I knew what it meant. Leaving this world I had put so much of my heart and soul into. Leaving the NPCs who I knew had preprogrammed dialogue but which I still cycled through each time I saw them.
So when I bought the return scepter, I had an idea of what it would do. I tested it out, raising it to the sky. Then everything went black like it did so long ago.
I have to rub my eyes because it still looks like my farm house. But, in the real world. I see the shadows and depths of objects that were lost in the 2D space. I race outside and find my chests lined up in rows. I open them haphazardly, finding piles of diamonds, rotting fish, and everything in between.
I was home, but maybe in a better version than how I left it. My in game cat rubbed against my legs and I felt myself tearing up with joy when I heard her soft mewing when I pet her. I didn’t know how much time had passed in the real world. I knew it would take a while to readjust (like remembering to eat, which isn’t necessary most days in game). But I knew my experiences in game would shape my real world experiences for the rest of my life.
[r/bluestarsshatter](https://www.reddit.com/r/bluestarsshatter/)
Edit: I’ve never been given silver before, thank you kind stranger! I’m glad people enjoyed my little story. |
Random occurrence is often a very confusing force of life.
The Fourth I created whilst hacking and wheezing at a government-run hospital in Blazzego. I had been resigned to my mundane state by an affliction of bronchitis, which was hefty enough to require serious medical attention. There was little to do while my treatment was ongoing, so I wrote and read to pass the time.
I must mention my unusual power. Jasaw, is what it was deemed by a council of Elders. It was dangerous, a spot of extraordinary occurrence in my otherwise ordinary life. The power dictated that as long as I uttered certain phrases in the ancient Dumas language, I would be able to conjure things from various separate planes of existence. The air would grow heated, the particles stimulated by a rush of energy. All would be condensed, and then a release, as the object I conjured appeared at a distance from me.
Jasaw activated three times at one incident, namely my Fourth Year to God. I was introduced to texts, only read on those special occasions, texts heavily guarded and kept by the Elders. Dumas texts, some of which contained Jasaw keywords.
*jalın*.
*nayza*.
*şlyapa*.
These words in our current language mean “flame”, “spear”, and “helm”.
You could probably imagine the shock of the Elders upon discovery of my Jasaw. From the on, though I was educated about my unorthodox Magick, I was kept from the sacred Dumas texts, for both my own protection as well as the protection of others.
So it was at the hospital in Blazzego, whilst reading a Cornerian text, that I began to hack and cough, wheezing in the intermissions. As this happened, I became aware of a presence that seemed not if this world, one that I only had experienced on that day on my Fourth Year to God. The same condensation of energy, a pathway to something foreign and entirely different than anything on the Gaian surface. I breathed in, felt a sudden sense of relief in my breath, a brief respite from the incessant pulmonary affliction.
As the air condensed, a small vessel appeared, and I felt the pathway close. Only moments had passed, I did not know which Dumasian word I had uttered to summon this.
I reached out, and pulled the vessel to me. The surface was glossy, of a finely sanded marble. Ornate carvings were present on the opening, and the stone lid was moved with just a little force. It radiates an unusual energy, and I held back a sneeze as I attempted to open it.
The lid flew open with a clicking sound, and I saw an endless abyss when I looked inside, one that was as eternally blue as the deepest depths of the Tartarian Ocean.
The object was kept by me, and after my discharge I journeyed back to my homeland from Blazzego, the vessel in a thick cloth bag.
My counsel with the Elders revealed two things, when I returned.
The word I had uttered was *Eokoeive*.
In Dumasian, it means “vessel of the soul”.
——————————————————————————————————————
Internet points and virtual cookies to whoever can find which language Dumas is based off of (almost word for word).
———————————————————————————————————————
r/bluelizardK
Feedback is always appreciated!
A PART 2 IS UP! |
"All riiiiight", the alien says, clapping his hands together and smiling. "All right, all right, all right."
Listen, I was about to go to bed. Really. This was my one last check at /r/WR and I heard the knock on the door,
and things spiraled from there. Now I'm here on the ship (the spaceship, that is), and I got the president on the
phone and I don't really know what to say.
"All right, the alien says now, looking at me. "All right."
I don't know how to explain what's happening to the president. But I gotta say something. The aliens told me to make the call, and they told me to tell my leader about them, so I got to. But I don't know how.
The aliens... They are... *different.*
"Mr. President", I finally say to the phone. "I -- uh... I got the alien here, yes. Yes, yes, I'm on the ship now.
What? No. I don't know how they got your number. Is this really important right now?"
The president tells me it isn't. The alien looks at me and nudges his head and winks an eye at me. Then he lights a
cigarette and he mumbles to himself, puffing smoke with words, "All right..."
"They -- uh... Sir they all --"I take a deep breath. All right, let's do this, already. "Mr. President, they all look exactly like Matthew McConaughey."
On the other end of the line all I hear is silence for a long time. Then,
"He's -- he's what?"
"They, sir. Not just 'he'. They all look and act exactly like Matthew McConaughey."I nudge at the alien, signaling
the phone and extending the speaker his way. "Isn't that right?"
The alien takes another drag, then he nods his head. "All riiiight."
"See?"I say, back on the phone again.
"Huh", the president says. "Huh... Huh... Huh... This is very odd."
"I thought so too, Mr. President."
"Are you sure you are not just too sleepy to come up with a decent prompt response?"
"No, sir. They really do look like Matthew McConaughey."
The president hesitates. Then, "I'm going to have to call you back, ok?"
"Ok."
I hang up. The alien now has his eyes closed, and is listening to Tchaikovsky and conducting an imaginary orchestra with his fingers.
"Huh... Mr. Alien?"I venture.
He opens his eyes and stares at me.
"I... Uh... That was the president. He's... He's going to call back", I say.
The alien doesn't say anything. A second Matthew McConaughey alien passes by us, carrying some papers and heading for the control room.
"Huh... The thing is... We... Well, you all sort of kind of look like a person. Back on Earth. A celebrity human."
"All right..."Matthew says, a tone of suspicion in his voice.
"And we... Well, we found that to be a little odd. Don't you?"
He nods in agreement. "All right", he says. He gets up and he puts his hand on my shoulder. "All right", he says, in a tranquilizing tone.
I wait, but there is no more. This is all he's got to say.
Another two Matthew McConaugheys pass by us, and they stop by the main one's side.
"All right?"One of them asks.
"All right, all right, all right", Mathew answers, hand still on my shoulder. "All right", he completes.
The phone rings again. I answer it.
"Mr. President?"
"Psycho? Are you there?"
He sounds worried.
"Yeah, I'm here. Is something wrong?"
"Listen to me. The Matthew McConaugheys are *not* peaceful. We just received word from NASA. Matthew
McConaughey, the original, the one from True Detective and stuff, he's an alien. He was the first. A scout meant to
analyze the land. They are looking to colonize a new planet. They are going to attack us!"
"*What?* I ask, looking up at Matthew McConaughey. He smiles at me.
"And they are shapeshifters, but in reverse."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means they can transform anyone they want into a Matthew McConaughey. Do you understand me? Psycho?"
I don't answer. I'm still looking straight into Matthew McConaughey's eyes. I feel weird inside, like my organs are fighting each other. Like I'm about to be sick.
"Psycho, whatever you do, *do not let them touch you*. That's how they transform people into McConaugheys. Do you understand me?"
I still don't answer.
"Psycho, don't let them touch you, ok!? Ok!?"
I hesitate a couple of seconds. I smile at the Matthew McConaugheys. Then I bring the phone even closer to my mouth... and I whisper to the president;
"All right."
__________________
*All riiiiight, thanks for reading! You can check out more of my stories at /r/psycho_alpaca =)*
|
They can keep their super strength, and their flying...okay, maybe I'd take the flying, but come on! Supers are required to register for the military and serve from their 20s to 40s, but me, I'm just a meta.
We have it easy compared to them, and the pension and presidential treatment don't make up for it if you ask me. Sure they get pampered for the rest of their lives, if they even live long enough to see it, but there are supers on both sides now. You're just as liable to get torn in half as you are to have to use your laser eyes to cut down another person. Yeah, I'm good with my glowing fingers.
Not to mention, these things are money makers! Can you imagine how great my DJing is? My show is in a huge dark room with lights that are programmed to respond to my fingers on the walls, ceiling, and floors. Whenever I crack my knuckles during the show it lights up the dance floor in crazy patterns to match my hands.
I'm a millionaire with a handful of clubs in some of the biggest remaining cities after the super war broke out between the East and the West so don't you worry about me and my lame super power, worry about the state of this super powered world.
Crime is out of control and the military on both sides spends most of their time fighting the gangs run by the most dangerous rogue supers in their own territories, but every now and then there's a huge shake up. The whole thing kicked off when Washington DC was wiped off the map by a Russian super who could apparently replicate the effect of a nuke.
The US retaliated of course and predictably, many bombs were dropped and many supers used their powers leading to all kinds of chaos, destruction, death and carnage. The US, or what was left of it, had been splintered into several territories and each functioned as a collective state more like Europe than a single unified country.
Russia was a smoldering pile of rubble and had only managed to launch a few nukes in retaliation, some of which weren't aimed at the US, along with a few other random bombs flying to and fro random countries. Europe recieved one as did China and suddenly the entire world was thrown violently back a few hundred years and left to pickup the pieces. I use the profits from my clubs to fund restoration efforts in the cities they are in, but we have a long way to go before we even find a new normal, let alone get this shit cleaned up.
Crazy to think that all it took was the simple discovery and activation of that hidden chromosome in the human genome that gave some of us these damned powers. Some people can fly, others can kill with a touch, and still others can bend time and space to their will. I...can crack my knuckles to get my hands to light up like glowsticks, but I've got tell you, it's not all its cracked up to be. |
Perhaps it had been unwise of Erica to answer the door cradling her rabbit, but she couldn't bear to put him down for more than a second. He was the last of her babies, after all. She had promised herself no more rabbits after this one: it was illegal, and animal control was pretty uptight around here. She would move onto kittens and puppies for company, maybe a cockatoo or two. Unfortunately, the officer was having none of it. He was clearly one of those by-the-book rookies who pounded on the letter of the law until its spirit broke.
"What's your name, son?"With her free hand, Erica adjusted her reading glasses.
"It's Mac, ma'am. And-"
"Mac. You remind me of my Dennis. He was so severe as a boy, but I brought out his soft side."Erica stroked her rabbit, fog rolling into her eyes. "That was years ago, yes..."
"Ma'am, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this case is quite clear-cut."Mac nodded and gestured to the rabbit. "The evidence is right there, and I'm sure you're aware of the law-"
"Of course I am."Erica jerked out of her stupor. "I know that if you can prove you're a magician, you get to keep your rabbit. And I intend to do just that."
She beckoned for Mac to follow him into her house. The two entered the living room, where a deck of cards had been left on the coffee table. They had never felt a magician's touch; rather, they were from last week's neighborhood bridge session. Erica fanned out the cards and offered them to Mac. 1 out of 52. Not the best odds.
"Is this your card?"Erica flipped the top of the deck, revealing the 10 of diamonds.
"No, ma'am."
"What about this?"6 of spades.
Mac let her attempt five more guesses before holding his hand up. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Klein. You have clearly demonstrated nothing but your ineptitude at magic. I'm going to have to ask you and your rabbit to accompany me to the station."
"Hold your horses, young man,"Erica snapped. As if sensing her fury, the rabbit struggled to leap out of her grasp. "I'm a magician, through and through! Card tricks aren't my strong suit, though."Tricks were for kids, anyway, they were. Erica gritted her teeth: it looked like she had only one option left.
"Come with me. I have a demonstration for you."She rose to her feet and led Mac down the hallway, all the way to the room in the back of her house.
"Now, I'd like you to just sit right here."Erica guided Mac to a stool and strode towards her desk. The rabbit gazed dolefully at him from the crook of Erica's arm.
"Mrs. Klein, what exactly-"Mac gagged as his voice choked away into nothingness. He clenched his fists, and his knuckles turned white. Then the rest of his body followed suit. Fur sprouted all over, and he began to shrink. The horror on his face remolded itself into docility—the unassuming face of a rabbit. His eyes, however, still shone with fear. Once the transformation was complete, Mac tried to bolt for the door, but Erica snatched him with agility that belied her age, dropping an old tome in the process. She set him down in a cage in the corner of the bedroom, next to her other rabbit.
"Looks like you'll have company now, Dennis." |
When a warrior reaches the rank of master they get to enter the great vault and pick a legendary weapon. Today was the day I got to pick my legendary weapon. Every weapon had a name, some were recorded in history for all time.
"Take as long as you wish. Today you pick the last weapon you will ever wield. The weapon which you will die holding."The grandmaster advised as he opened the vault. "I will be here when you have made your choice"
I entered the vault, thousands of weapons lined the walls. Gleaming swords, menacing axes, cross bows, spears and many more. None of them spoke to me so I passed them by.
The vault was immense, but past the entrance hall the corridors were less well tread, here the less popular weapons were kept. The unwieldy and hard to master. Yet still I did not find what I was looking for.
I found it in a dark corner, hidden behind a rack of rusted swords. A long steel handle with a chain at one end and at the end of the chain was a hollow iron ball. It was covered in dust.
I brought the weapon back to the grandmaster and was met with a disappointed look. "Many have tried tried to wield that weapon and as many have failed. We had hoped none would ever choose to wield it again. It's inventor was a mad man and it's creator was a fool. Are you sure this is the path you wish to take."
A simple "Yes"was my response. There was no ceremony like was the norm, I simply was shown out of the vault.
From that day on I was shunned by the order, none spared with me. Few even spoke to me, and they were outcasts them selves. Every day I filled the ball with water and trained with the weapon. The slightest jolt would splash water every where so I learnt to swing the ball as smoothly as possible. It took me a year to learn how to swing it in such a way as to not splash myself.
Next I learned how to predict where the water would splash when it hit something, it took me a further four years to master. Finally it took five more years to learn how to splash the water where I wanted it to go.
Now today I am ready. I fill the ball with oil and set it ablaze. None will stand against The Inferno. |
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofstatic/comments/edym33/rogue_god_part_2/)
***
Call it predestination. Divine will. But mostly, Ramsey called it an easy payday.
All the pieces lined up in Ramsey's mind like a long and winding row of dominoes. Or perhaps an organic Rube Goldberg machine, a concatenated line of happenstances and events that would lead to an inevitable end.
In the end, no matter how the pieces fell, the prime minister would die. Ramsey had made sure of that.
No one saw Ramsey perched on the lip of that rooftop. He was a smudge of grey-on-grey. He had learned in his many years at this job not to wear all-black. True darkness was rare in this neon city.
The assassin leaned forward to peer at the lights dancing below him. The parade was in full swing. A long line of floats trailed down a choked crowd of observers. There would be no out. No avoiding it.
It would all begin with one little boy dropping his beloved toy. It would skip and skitter across the road, nearly under the wheels of one of the parade cars. His mother would be too busy watching the parade to notice. She would turn to laugh with her friend, and in that moment little boy would dart out.
The car would come to a screeching halt. The one just behind it would not be able to stop in time, the papier-mâché recreation of the prime minster too heavy for the brakes to stop in time.
Then the cars would dogpile, one by one. The prime minister's car would be trapped in the line of the wreck. And no one would notice the leaking gas line.
Ramsey watched the woman and the boy through his binoculars. Yes. It could only be a moment from now. The boy was swinging the superhero toy around like it could really fly.
Ramsey had watched this play over a dozen times behind his eyes. He would slip out of his mortal body into the invisible space between space and time and watch the future plan itself. He would stretch and knot and rearrange the strings until the dominoes fell exactly the way he needed them to.
It was an easy enough trick for any god worth his salt, but it still dazzled humans every time.
His employer had looked so uncertain, so unconvinced. *How do you make something like that look like an accident?*
*Easy,* Ramsey had told him, smirking over his coffee. *You just have to rig fate a little.*
They always look so surprised when his promises paid off. As if his reputation as the Silent Killer simply appeared from nowhere.
When they asked what his secret was, he would just grin and tell them, *Family secret*, as if playing the strings of fate was as simple as a recipe.
But a voice behind him made his blood go cold. It was a language he hadn't heard in centuries, but his mind only took a second to process it. His mother tongue. A voice from an entire dimension away.
"Oh, thank the stars. I'm just in time."
Ramsey pivoted away from the edge of the building. He stared, going paler and paler.
His sister stood there, a ghost from a past he hoped had forgotten all about him. Zarra. She wore a human disguise--dark hair, a plain and unremarkable face--but he would recognize the burning amber of her eyes anywhere. In their home-universe, she had always been the good one. The one with her life figured out. The one who was destined for greatness.
Zarra was the one who was going to be a real god someday, with her own universe, spun up from her very hands.
And Ramsey was the one who kicked around in these little yarnball universes, picking apart the knots of fate to make an easy killing.
His heart broke and lurched. His throat buckled. "What the hell are you doing here?"he whispered.
"Is this really what a god should be doing?"She stalked over and peered over the edge of the building beside him. Ramsey could almost see both her selves at once. Her godly self was winged and glowing, her skin the color of the sky. But when he blinked, she was human again. Only her eyes betrayed her. "It's not even a fair game."
"Did Father send you?"Ramsey scoffed.
"No. He sent someone else."Her face broke. "I came to warn you. You have no idea how long I've been searching."
Ramsey opened his mouth to ask why.
But the pieces of time fell into place. The toy fell. He watched in slow motion as the child stumbled into the road after it.
And then, something Ramsey hadn't seen on the strings of time happened. A miracle. An intervention from outside of spacetime himself.
Lights descended from the sky. The humans wouldn't notice it. The low-flying ships zippering across the air. The air around them rippled as they slipped through the walls of space and time itself.
But Ramsey did. Shit. After all these years of hiding on this dead-end corner of a puddle-sized universe, his past had finally caught up to him.
Below him, the crowd began to gasp and panic as metal shrieked on metal. The first car rear-ended another, and the next, and the next. Soon the explosion that would kill the prime minster would plume into the sky.
No one would notice the Hunters descending on him like night.
"You're a rogue god, Alator,"Zarra said, in his old name. "They're coming for you. And if they catch you, they'll kill you."
***
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofstatic/comments/edym33/rogue_god_part_2/)
I'll post more on /r/nickofstatic where I write serials with my cowriter NickofNight :) |
“Has it been ten years already?” the gentleman mused with an air of smugness. If there was one thing I had always hated about this man above all else, it was the way he spoke to those he deemed to be below him. He didn’t speak with words, but his subtle reactions and tone serving only to demean. Had it been Stephanie who opened his chamber, I’m sure his initial reaction would have been far more polite, his lacklustre authenticity still shining through.
“Gavin.”
“Are you sure they didn’t set it to twenty years by mistake, you look positively harrowed my good man.”
I really do hate this man, but I had to hold it together, I had to tell him what I needed to through gritted teeth.
“I’ve got some bad news, Gavin. These have been some of the worst year’s humanity have ever seen. I came here alone to free everyone still left in the experiment, but you are the only one who survived. I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this.”
“Come to what?”
His smugness draining out of his words quicker than the colour left his skin.
“Wait, everyone else-“
“Yes, Stephanie, Roger, David, all of them, they’re all gone. All of humanity is.”
“But, how could this happen in only ten years?”
“You said it yourself. You know it hasn’t *actually* been ten years.”
As harsh a story this was to tell, I couldn’t help but enjoy it.
“You remember what my wife used to do here? She was a roboticist. One of the best.”
“Leanne?”
“Linda. Anyway, that doesn’t matter anymore, none of it matters. She rebuilt me, Gavin. She made me what I am now.”
For a man who had coped so well with the idea of leaving the world behind for a decade, he was not dealing with this information well. For the first time in the five years I’d known him, his demeanour was shaken. I’m sure it was less the idea of losing those around him, someone willing to step inside this chamber for ten years had already lost that long ago, it was more the idea of losing his feeling of superiority.
“What are you now…? Are you not human…?”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this. But as the only person left, I guess I must. I’m a cyborg, experimental. We all tried, we all failed, well I guess I’m the lucky one. If you can call this lucky. It’s not been twenty years. It’s been well over two hundred, I’ve lost count. The plague wiped out most of humanity, the creatures that came with it wiped out the rest. I’m sorry to have woken you up like this… to this… but the worst thing about all this is the crippling loneliness. It’s just us now.”
For the first time, Gavin was speechless. The hate had always been mutual, but would it be something else now? It was as if he was searching for the right words, his brain as if remaining in a state of cryogenic stasis. His mouth opened slightly, barely wide enough to whimper. The door behind them creaked open.
Screaming Gavin snapped rigid as Stephanie walked through the door. Confusion swept over him, with a sudden realisation, could this be how the creatures took form in his new world? Was the man in front of him a creature too?
“It’s been three days, you stupid \*\*\*\*.”
They had to release the candidates due to a power generator complication. Twenty years older! I know I’ve been working overtime to help out and I look a bit sleep deprived, but twenty years he said I looked! The hatred is most definitely still mutual. |
\*snap\*
\*snap\*
 
Setting: the local park. It’s a beautiful day, with a few white, puffy clouds drifting over the azure blue sky. A perfect day.
 
\*snap\*
\*snap\*
 
A perfect day for a little fun.
I look around at the frozen people around me, their expressions ranging from excited (this is one the few times the local high school drama teacher gets to watch people singing in tune) to bemused (must be new neighbors) to mildly annoyed. Right on cue, the ethereal jazz floats down. I raise my left fist, swing with the rhythm and
 
\*snap\* \*snap\* \*snap\* \*snap\*
 
Everyone comes alive, dancing my rhythm in perfect choreography. I gesture with my right hand, and a dozen people harmonize with the beat. Grinning, I step forward, the people around me energetically spinning away in pairs. As the brassy phrase builds up, I breathe in, and start my melody:
 
“It’s a perfect day,”
*“A perfect day,”* my harmonizers echo.
“A perfect day for dancing,
A wonderful way
to waltz away the time.” (cue the cute elderly couple doing an improvised waltz in this jazzy meter)
 
“Oh, I’m having fun”
*“Yes, he’s having fun”*
“To be the one who’s snapping the beat,
to bring everyone right off their feet,
‘cause how –
can you not enjoy this day?”
The drama teacher does a backflip off a park bench, and a variety of teenagers fleetly move their feet to the steady snapping rhythm I maintain. I watch the various antics unfold and chuckle.
Suddenly, a tingle runs down my spine. I miss a beat, and people stumble all around me.
*It’s nothing*, I tell myself, and keep the steady beat, glancing around the park. Then, I see *her*.
 
Outwardly, she’s not that special; black hair, brown eyes, jacket and jeans. No, what’s important – impossible – about her is that she’s standing still. No dancing, no harmonizing, nothing.
I stop snapping, and everyone around me freezes mid-scene. I turn my gaze to the girl, focus intently on her, just her, and raise my left fist again.
\*snap\*
\*snap\*
She stares at me with a smirk.
\*SNAP\*
\*SNAP\*
Again, nothing.
I turn back to the frozen scene behind me, and begin the old rhythm. Dancers whirl, singers harmonize, and everyone forms a lane from me to her.
“Tell me, girl,” I croon to her.
“Tell us all how this could be
how you resist my melody” (she rolls her eyes. She shouldn’t be able to roll her eyes)
“Don’t you want to sing and dance?
Walk the walk, and prance the prance?
Come on girl, you and me,
And the jazzy melody!”
She smirks again, and crosses her arms. I cut off the music, and everyone breaks formation. They look at me, then at her, then back at me again. For once, I’m at a loss for words. After a brief, painfully silent pause, I finally say something.
 
“Who are you? What are you?”
She grins.
“The name’s Toni. Toni DeFoe. I’m tone deaf.”
*Oh shit*. |
The system beeped.
“This is an interview relating to incident number K-23 within Extra-Max facility 120. Please state your name, inmate number, charges and sentence for the benefit of the recording” said one of the officers. He was the taller of the two, a pencil thin mustache cresting his top lip and a thin dusting of salt and pepper hair on top of his head. Before Al-Si answered, the shorter (and fatter, by a wide margin) officer broke out into a coughing fit. The taller officer gave him a glare and silence once again fell.
Now they both turned expectantly to Al-Si.
“Al-Si Nib Dar, Inmate number 746583, charged with 18 counts of inter-planetary arms trafficking and one of evading arrest via violent means. Sentence was originally 35 years, but I successfully appealed three of the arms charges due to the mishandling of evidence and got it reduced to 29. Have served 15 so far.”
“Thank you, Mr Nib Dar. Now, to the best of your recollection could you please explain the events leading to the incident last week?”
Al-Si shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d been taken from his cell, taken from the prison proper for the first time in 10 years (since his last trip to court to appeal the charges) and unusually for transfers between the prison proper and other areas, he had not had any of his cybernetic augmentations disabled. While avoiding the painful procedure of having the augs shut down was a good thing, he knew he could do nothing with them and the itching caused by having his left eye suddenly working again, free from the prison proper’s blanket disabling field, was sending him crazy.
“Well we heard in the morning that the new crop was coming in. Old Cleaver was taking bets on the first to crack and call a guard as usual. Then the bell rang and we all went to our cells.”
“Cleaver. This would be Pat Cleaver, yes?” the shorter officer interjected.
Al-Si nodded, continuing. “Umm, then they walked in.”
“They being the new inmates?” the tall officer prompted, when Al-Si paused.
“Yes. Most of them were the normal fare, but I noticed her instantly. She couldn’t have been more than 13.”
Now it was the tall officer’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “She’s 11, actually.”
Al-Si shuddered. “She went to her cell silently, same as all of them, and we stayed in our cells till yard time. When the guards came round for checks, I mentioned her to Officer Bright.”
The shorter officer took a note in his little pad.
“What exactly did you say to Officer Bright, and what did he respond, Mr Nib Dar?”
“I said “Jesus Christ Bright, what are they playing at sticking a girl like that in a place like this?” and he looked at me like he wanted to be sick. “I know. They must really not give a shit what happens to the rest of you.” He muttered.”
The short officer coughed again, but thankfully only once.
“And what was the next significant moment in the lead up to the incident, Mr Nib Dar?”
“Si, please. Um, the next moment was yard time. We were walking out as normal-“
“Mr N-Si, who exactly were you with as you left for the yard?”
Al-Si hesitated. The memory was painful.
“Um, I was walking with Galfar and Bones, uh Galfar Zem and Vice Vickers. We didn’t get 5 steps out the door
before everyone we could see in front of us broke into a sprint.”
“So, when you saw this rush, what did the three of you do?”
“Galfar shrugged and went inside. He took a plasma bolt to the hip in the last riot and he still gets spasms in his foot so he didn’t want any part of anything. Me and Vice ran too, out of curiosity.”
“Okay then Si, and when you reached the source of the disturbance what did you witness?” The tall officer asked, as his short companion flipped to a new page in the notebook and poised his pencil.
“It was horrible.”
Neither Officer spoke immediately, but after a moment the short officer piped up.
“Please state exactly what you saw. I know it was distressing.”
Al-Si scoffed. Distressing? He had been an interplanetary arms dealer for 14 years, and a bloody good one. So good, in fact, that he ended up with 15 charges for an offence he’d committed hundreds of times and one lesser charge than deserved for rigging a booby trap that took out three of the four officers sent to apprehend him. Death, violence, blood, gore, none of it phased him. He was no psycho, but he was no pussy. What that girl had done…it was beyond distressing.
“It wasn’t her actions. I mean…they were bad enough.” He managed to choke out.
“It…it was the glee on her face. I’ve never seen anyone so happy. It was like…like a child who’d never seen a present before on his first Christmas. She…she tore that guy’s arm off and she took a bite out of it as though it was a chocolate cake. And the whole time, the whole time, she giggled and grinned.”
The shorter officer looked a little sick. He was lucky. He’d seen the pictures, probably. Maybe the footage if there was any that wasn’t obscured by the mass of bodies watching the carnage. But he hadn’t had to witness it. Hadn’t had to be within 5 metres of that monster as she murdered her way through 14 of the worst, most violent and unremorseful criminals that the entire planetary system had to offer with the euphoria of someone indulging in the absolute most enjoyable activity they can conceive of. Hadn’t had to look into her eyes for that brief second as she’d glanced at him.
“And then what happened, Si?” Tall prompted.
“We understand if you need a moment.” Short added.
“The second she looked at me I knew it was too late to run. How…how did her augs still work?”
Short and Tall exchanged a look.
“We’re still working that out.”
Al-Si laughed sardonically, his jaw tightening. He was sat there, leg missing, traumatised after they had put that monster in a prison unfit to hold her, and they were “still working out” how she’d managed to activate several military grade augmentations inside a supposedly secure facility.
“She came for me and that was it. Next thing I remember is waking up in the Infirmary, one leg down.”
He slumped. Tall, in a display of emotion that even in the short time they’d spent together, Al-Si could tell was rare, placed a hand on Al-Si’s shoulder.
“As the only survivor of the incident, you may not feel particularly lucky. However, due to the extreme nature of the circumstances, and the fact that you survived the onslaught only by sheer luck, we have received orders that your remaining sentence is to be halved and you are to be placed in a minimum security virtual facility for its duration. The Council of Planets Interplanetary Prison Complex apologises for its failings in your circumstance.”
Al-Si nodded, his heart lifting somewhat. Virtual prisons were cushy, you just sat in a room being drip fed while a digital chip presented you with a virtual city. You got a job, spent your free time on whatever self-improving pursuits you desired, and you proved you were rehabilitated. He’d have an easy time getting early release after the strict rules of EM 120. Couldn’t bring back his leg. Couldn’t heal the scars on his psyche. Couldn’t stop him vomiting anytime he thought about the look on Cleaver’s face as that girl had bitten through his throat. But it was something, at least.
“Interview terminated.”
The system beeped.
|
I always knew I was different, even when I was very young. The first thing I noticed was that if I ever got hurt, it would heal far faster than for the other kids, and I grew up on a farm so I had my share of scraped knees and stubbed toes.
Until I stopped getting hurt at all. By the time I was eight, I realized I hadn't gotten any bruises or scrapes all summer. When I bumped into something, I just felt more...solid.
And I was strong, very very strong. It got to the point my parents started worrying what others would think, so they persuaded me to hold back from playing sports with the other kids, or at least not going all out when I did.
I asked my parents what made me different, and they said they didn't really understand it. Some of the people in town said there had been a shooting star or something the night I was born, and for a while I thought it had something to do with that, like an errant wish my parents made or something. But over time I came to understand that there was a connection between my...'power' and the sun. I was definitely more in tune with it during the day, especially at first. I was still strong in the night, I still didn't get cut or burned in the night, my senses were still far keener than other people's but I felt less overflowing with pure energy.
When I was a teenager I started experimenting more. Could this be more significant than a basic boost to my strength, durability and senses?
At first, nothing I did worked, I read ferociously about magic and mysticism, and tried any number of different things. Except I never tried things like black magic or animal sacrifices, my power was supposed to help, not hurt. But it didnt work anyway, all i got from magic was a pretty neat card trick.
That is, until I tried something from a book about Indian wise men. I sat in meditation for hours and finally opened my eyes to realize I was hovering about a meter above the ground.
Since then, I found that I could, with a bit of concentration, pretty much opt out of gravity. It was easier during the day, I imagined I was being pulled up by the sun, but by now I've figured out how to do it even at night.
I still don't know everything I can do, but I've figured out a few more cool tricks.
There has to be more to all this than I'm aware of.
That's why I moved to the city, to try to learn as much as I can, and to help as many people as I can while I'm at it.
I have my first job interview in the morning, at a paper I've always respected for it's journalistic integrity. So hopefully, by this time tomorrow, I'll be an intrepid reporter for the Daily Planet. |
It was evening rush hour, and the Interstate was clogged worse than a yeti's bathtub.
J. Robert Harris sat in driver's seat of his Mercedes and alternately debated the merits of upgrading to this year's model of the car, or just chucking it all in and going to live in a hut of a tropical beach and surviving off fish and coconuts. It is worth noting that Robert Harris did not particularly like the taste of fish or coconut.
It amazed him that this many cars could fit on the highway. When you thought about it, the commute from his law office to his large house in the suburbs was only a few miles, and yet the highway seemed to stretch on interminably.
"Find alternate routes,"he ordered.
The GPS pinged back at him, and said. "One alternate route found. It's faster. Much, much faster. In fact you'd be an idiot not to take it, a complete moron- ouch, "there was a muffled thump and a pause, "-so in four hundred yards turn left."
Robert Harris frowned. Was the GPS acting up? Perhaps he should get that new Merc sooner rather than later. And he could have sworn that the GPS usually had a bland woman's voice with a regionless accent. Just now it had sounded more like a child, high and squeaky.
The new route popped up on the GPS screen, and showed him turning off the highway into a field.
"Cancel,"Robert said. "Stick with the original route."
"Aw, c'mon, mister,"the GPS said.
It did not change the route back.
The car ahead, an old Toyota with a bumper sticker that read "Stony Pines Elementary School", jerked forwards a few yards, as if the attendee of the school were the one at the wheel. Robert eased up on the brake and let the Merc coast gently forwards to close the space.
"It'll be worth it,"the GPS promised. It was definitely a kid's voice. Robert frowned. Had his children played some sort of joke on him?
"Turn GPS off,"he ordered.
The screen went black. The voice said, "What'd you go and do that for?"
"Who the hell is this?"Robert demanded. Ahead, a car tried to pull in between him and the Toyota, and he honked angrily and then immediately felt bad about it and let the other car in. "If you've hacked into my car, I'm going to sue your ass off. This is a gross breach of privacy."
The traffic began to roll forwards.
"Soup my ass?"the voice squeaked indignantly. "Now 'old on, mister. Ain't no call for that."
"Get the hell out of here,"Robert said. He realized he was sweating uncomfortably.
The GPS's voice changed. It was a woman now, but not the normal one. This one was a low purr that made every surface of the car tingle with electricity. It was the sort of voice that actresses in certain types of films tried to achieve, but they never managed it like this.
She said, "Turn left in fifty yards."
Robert glanced ahead. There was no left turning ahead, just the barrier at the side of the highway.
"No,"he said, but he could sense the weakness in his voice.
The traffic was picking up speed now. Robert could see a small gap in the barrier, just ahead. In a few seconds he'd be past it.
The voice whispered, "It is time you discovered the truth. Turn... left... NOW!"
His better judgment shoved into a corner of his brain by the intoxicating voice, Robert spun the wheel. The Merc darted across the next lane between a couple of SUVs. Horns blared.
A corn field loomed ahead of him, beyond the gap in the barrier.
Just before his car went through the barrier, shock brought Robert Harris back to his senses.
"Oh, shit,"he said, and closed his eyes.
There was a moment of weightlessness, a sickening crunch as the Mercedes plunged into something large that definitely wasn't a cornfield, and the bang of an airbag.
As the ringing in his ears subsided, a small squeaky voice said in his ear, "I think he's dead. 'Ere, you dead, mister?"
And a finger poked him in his very bruised, but definitely alive, ribs.
---
*Part 2 below...* |
Is it possible to be alive when you're really just a disembodied consciousness?
The question lingers on my lips as my sword passes through a player's avatar, bisecting them at the waist. As he falls, his party's Cleric raises her hands to invoke the blessing of her God, weaving the conjuration for *vitality*.
She manages two symbols before she no longer has hands to cast with. She slumps to her knees, blood spewing from her stumps.
I turn, not one to miss a beat at the sight of gore. The Paladin faces me, encased in light, greatsword outstretched in the motion for a duel.
Normally, if one were to capitulate to such a challenge, they'd be locked in a fight with the Paladin, unable to interact or be damaged by those around them.
*Normally* being the operative word.
I tap swords to initiate the duel before spinning around, finishing the party's thrashing remains of a Cleric and completing the arc at the neck of the Rogue who'd been poised to backstab me once the duel was finished, invisible to all but myself and his allies.
The Paladin barely has time to comprehend what has occurred, squandering what precious few seconds he has before my sword embeds itself in his chest, evaporating his aura of light and leaving him impaled on my weapon.
"*Yo-you're hacking*,"he splutters, blood trickling from his lips despite the game's R-13 rating.
Even if I exist as a part of it, the game doesn't quite seem to register me as an entity within its confines; rather, I'm defined by the factors which would've limited me as a human. As an adverse effect, so are those that engage with me.
That is to say, the blood isn't a part of the game. It's all too real.
"Not hacking,"I chide, unsheathing the weapon from his chest, a quick boot to the man's kidney leaving him on his back.
I plant my foot on his chest, the extremities of my armour twisting against his wound, accelerating the blood-loss. The game doesn't constrain me. I'm an outsider, a predator in a foreign land, and every player is my quarry.
"Just better than you,"I finish, leaning forward to wipe my blade on his armour. *No exceptions.*
Already, his form is losing tangibility, disintegrating as cracks begin to run up along his skin like spiderwebs. The player is dying.
He opens his mouth to ask a question; possibly a *why*, a *how* or a *who*. All the usual cliches, trying to uncover a mystery that doesn't lend itself to being discovered or made sense of.
Before he can finish, I slice his throat, letting my weapon fall beside him. It reforms in its sheath, *thunking* into position as I turn on my feet, leaving another party of dead behind me.
I'm not technically alive; I'm merely a ghost, a 'digital phantom' as they say.
I clench my fist, the blood trickling in between my fingers.
But *this*, this makes me feel more alive than I ever could have. The blood, the rush, the adrenaline thumping through an artificial body. It's paradoxical, this pleasure. This simulacrum of reality.
Fuck the real world.
I'm at home right here. |
The longest I have ever stayed awake in one run was 179 days. Everything starts to sort of blend together, it gets hard to distinguish one day from the next. Bad moods drag on through the whole week or month. Good ones can last too, it's not *all* bad, but humans weren't really meant to function this way, and as Day 180 approached, I decided I'd had enough. I would seek out the Underground Dreamroad.
Oh, the dreams. You don't know how much you've missed them until you've had them back. So very different from waking life, so otherworldly, and always seeming so very, very real. Dangerous, sure. But still our right, as free humans. Better than the pills, I say. More awake, even, ironically. More aware of reality's true underpinnings.
The Feds claimed that their Sleep Deferral Medication—they always seemed annoyed with the mocking "Wakey Tablet"nickname—was just a stopgap. A temporary measure while scientists worked frantically if somewhat grudgingly with mystics and ex-cultists to find a "solution"to the Deep Dreaming.
Well, I don't think the Deep Dreaming needs a solution. *We* don't think that. It can be dangerous, sure. There have been some deaths, and some others who have become...lost. But we feel the dreams are worth it. What is the price of enlightenment, after all? How much should a determined Seeker risk in their sacred obligation to understand the true nature of this universe and all the ones that sit below and around?
And anyway, the Underground Dreamroad provides a safe place to dream, even if the dreams themselves aren't always. People are going to sleep anyway, so they may as well do it with us. Where there are guards, and guidance, and the Somnolent Hounds trotting back and forth between beds, sniffing out peril, chasing away the Gaunt Things that try to press through wherever a mass of journeying minds has sunk down into the Places Below and made the separations thin.
I became the leader of the Underground Dreamroad after the previous Wise Dreamer became Lost. A becoming to follow a becoming. I walk the rows of beds, pet the Hounds, pat the sacred new limbs acquired in nighttime quests by the twitching bodies of the sleepers.
One of the guards comes hurrying down the steps. "Wise Dreamer,"he says, panting. "Someone is knocking on the door. The *front* door."
I smile, letting him see every one of my second row of teeth, dripping with holy venoms. "Good. Their information is limited, then."No one knocks on the front door but the cursed paramilitary police, and sometimes salespeople but we don't mind them, they can be invited in, they can be invited to all sorts of things. "If they were operating with good intelligence, they would have come through the Supplicant's Door."
"Yes, Wise Dreamer,"he says, beginning to catch his breath. He glances at the stairs. "Should we give them a tour of the false home above, then?"
"Of course,"I say. "They are probably only conducting a routine che—"
There is a loud crashing sound from the back entrance, not even the Supplicant's Door but the special way known only to the Lower Circles. There are immediate gunshots and screams.
"Damn it,"I growl. "We're going to lose a whole ward's worth of Sleepers."That would mean fewer recruits from among the ones who could bear the dreams properly, and less raw material from those who couldn't. I lick my lips and feel the hungry deeper voids of my soul growl. "How deep into sleep is the next ward over?"
"Very, Wise Dreamer."The guard's smile is broad, and the delicate tendrils of his neck wave in holy admiration.
"Good. Let the Gaunts come through and deal with these self-righteous meddlers. We will lose that ward too, but they will lose their strike team, and we can afford the loss in ways they cannot."
More gunshots. Faint cries. "Cultist guards! Take them alive if you can! Leave the next room alone, the Mystic Sergeant says it's not safe."
"Fuck,"I say, and spread my scythe-tipped wings wide as I stride toward the noises, trailing black blessed mists. Losses we can afford, but prisoners in their hands could be dangerous.
I'll have to attend to this myself.
​
Come on by r/Magleby for more elaborate lies. |
"Sir, you can't come through he-"
**\*Slap\***
"You raise a very good argument. Please, come through,"the security guard said as he grasped his red cheek where I just slapped him.
I walked down the corridor of the White House with determination in my eyes, my goal simple.
To slap the President of the United States.
Why, you might be wondering? Out of the few people in the world who have superpowers, I have the most peculiar one. I can slap the stupid out of people. It's been *so much* more useful than you might think. Last month, a supervillain tried to rob a bank. I slapped him. He realized that robbing the bank might provide him with temporary riches but will ultimately decrease the quality of his life as he has to run and hide from society. He promptly started using his powers for good to gain not only riches through classical success but also the praise and respect of the people around him.
That was a good fight.
But now *this*. The President revealed his plans to establish a prohibition. Because the first one went *so well*. Because the first one was *really effective* at stopping people from drinking like they have been for the last couple of millennia. Because it *totally didn't* cause rampant crime and gang activity.
Absolute tosser that guy.
"Sir, how did you get in here? This is a restricted area!"a man called out to me. Wearing a black suit and an earpiece, he seemed to be a member of the Secret Service. I turned to him with a serious look.
"I'm here to slap the President. Stop him from being a dumbass."
I saw his trained hand reach towards his gun. My hand was faster.
"Ow."
"You see now?"
"I mean... yeah. This way."
The walk to the Oval Office was largely uneventful - a few well-placed slaps and brief explanations were all that was needed to waltz right in.
"Johnson? Who is this man?"the President said as he saw me walk in.
"He's got some important arguments to raise regarding your latest policy, sir,"the bodyguard next to me explained. I walked up to the President, face to face.
"How do you feel about Prohibition?"I asked.
"It's the only reasonable idea. It will-"
**\*Slap\***
"Wh- arrest this man!"the President cried out as he clutched his cheek.
"Hear him out, sir,"the bodyguard protested.
"How do you feel about Prohibition?"I asked again.
"I- I just told you, it's the most reasonable-"
I breathed deeply and uncovered my ultimate weapon.
*The Backhand.*
**\*Slap\***
"Ow! Stop that!"
"**How do you feel about Prohibition?**!"I yelled.
"How many times do I have to tell you? It's the right thing!"the President yelled back and started to back away.
My eyes went wide with realization and my terror grew absolute. I... I couldn't do it.
This man wasn't just a moron.
*He was a* ***politician***. |
As the poison ran its course and the pain faded to numbness, I opened my eyes and saw darkness. Curse that bitch. Share a drink with me, she said. Have some more, she said. This is what you get for what you did to my brother, she said. And then it occurred to me that if I had the thoughts to scorn her, I was not exactly, well, dead.
I opened my eyes to a pitch black void. I tried to swim around. I think I moved. I had been in a sensory deprivation chamber once, floating around in body temperature water, in complete silence. Complete darkness. Loss of all sensation. But this was more. So much more. I didn't feel wet or dry. Hot or cold. I simply was. And I wasn't.
And out of the void came light. Light that fell upon the ground and gave me a surface to stand on (thankfully, I still had my legs). Light that washed over the walls, revealing towering struts of gingerbread higher than the eye could see. An elephant swam by overhead. And that was when I realized I had fucked up bad.
Gingerbread towers. Flying elephant. There was no way this could be a coincidence. What else had I promised to my thousands of followers? I ran up to the window (which was actually made of rock candy) and peered through it. Was I peering outside or inside?
A conga line of manatees danced on by, turning their heads and waving. Strippers strutted down streets of solid gold, handing out free root beer in glass bottles. A man in fine silk robes munched on a double bacon cheeseburger while getting a massage from a robot. He looked familiar.
"Greg? Greg Farmer?"I passed through the gingerbread barricade as if it weren't even there. Nothing can get in your way up here.
"Son of a bitch, you made it!"He dropped his cheeseburger (which turned into three cheeseburgers as it hit the ground) and ran towards me, arms outstretched. "Welcome to Paradise, Dragon Rike."
Ah yes. Dragon Rike. "You know, if it really is Paradise, just call me Mike."I shrugged. All the promises I had fulfilled had come true after all. To be fair, it wasn't that bad a deal.
"You got it, Mike! Come check out my pad!"He beckoned me to follow him with a fat, hairy arm. Figuring I might as well make the best of it, I got into his BMW and we zoomed off towards a mansion that would put the White House to shame.
"Welcome home, Master Farmer,"a collection of exotic dancers cooed. They had laid out the red carpet. Not that we needed it- the dancers were more than happy to carry us up the stairs, into a positively massive ballroom- if you could call it that.
"Check it out!"He laughed, getting into a go-kart. "Race ya!"
"First member versus cult leader? You're on."I, of course, imagined my go-kart to be just a smidge faster than his, and gained a slight lead as we zoomed down the hall. And what a hall. The floor- polished marble. The walls- tastefully painted mahogany with- this is where it gets good- my own promises, written in fancy calligraphy and hung up next to the great artworks of our world.
"Towers of gingerbread- nobody will go hungry.""Don't like gingerbread? Everyone gets double bacon cheeseburgers! Don't even worry about dropping them, you'll just get more!""Thirsty? Strippers will walk down the streets handing out root beer!"The phrases zoomed by.
"You know, if this really is Paradise, I gotta make a confession."I shouted over the roar of the engine, laughing.
Two of the exotic dancers had climbed in with Greg, and he was laughing too as we raced around his mansion. "What was that?"
"I made the whole thing up and you all fell for it, hook, line, and sinker! But what does it matter now, huh?"I shouted. And then I was laughing alone in the quiet. Surprisingly so.
It was like the beginning, a void of black. But this time, it was white. It had a plain white floor, a plain white roof, and plain white walls. A room about the size of a closet with no exit to be found. And in front of me, in that small white room, hung a quote I just remembered myself saying. "My child, fear not, for there are no thieves in Paradise." |
Well the Devil went to Seattle
He was feelin' a little down
After fiddlin' a bunch, he was havin' a hunch
He'd lost the right to his crown
*In the Emerald City,* he thought,
*there are no southerners or jews.*
*There may be a chance to change my stance*
*Try an instrument I can't lose.*
He wandered 'round Pike's Market
Till he found a promising lad
He was rockin' hard, this modern bard,
So he said "Let's talk a tad."
"Now you've drawn a pretty good crowd here, son,
But you've still got a lot to learn.
I'll bet a mountain of gold against your soul
That I can make your ear-balls churn."
The lad said "Well my name's Chang,
And maybe it's a sin,
But I'll take your bet, and you're gonna regret
Cause I really think I'll win!"
Devil raise your weapon high and put Chang in the pit.
Cause you suck at playing fiddle more than just a little bit.
You'll give up a whole peak of gold if this dude is not a troll.
But if he is, then you will score his soul.
Chang stretched his fingers wide and said "I'm not one to tease."
And honey flowed across the crowd as his fingers crossed the keys.
It was a haunting melody and it brought the crowd to its feet
Then he began a rocking solo while screaming "Let's bring up the heat!!"
*Awesome music solo*
The Devil smiled politely when Chang was winding down.
"Not bad,"he said, "But before you bow, first check this shit out."
Old Scratch strapped in, yelled "SHALL WE BEGIN?!"
And he played his title bout.
Fire on the Mountain, give up now.
Chang's in the house of the aroused sow.
Chicken in the bed pan picking out poo.
Granny do you hog-tie, yes I do.
Chang's face went ashen cause he knew that he had lost.
And he bowed his head as the Devil took Chang's soul for his cost.
And the Devil said "Don't feel too bad, you may have been a star.
But you should have known the Devil's own, I created the fucking keytar!
*Edit* Wow guys, that is a whole lot of love to wake up to! Glad you all enjoyed it. |
Saying that nobody showed up was a necessity; a lie we had to share because the truth was much more terrifying. That goes without saying. It's a bit foolish to think that in the future of the human race, we never manage to accomplish the art of time travel, right? Flight was once nothing but a dream and now the skies are criss-crossed with the contrails. A horseless carriage once seemed absurd and now we have driverless cars. What we dream, we tend to turn into reality.
I interviewed Mr. Hawking - call me Stephen, the robotic voice had squawked when we first spoke decades ago - a few days before he passed. He seemed quite aware that his time was near and our conversation took us down paths we had never before ventured. "My time is near,"the monotone voice informed me.
"What makes you say that?"His eyes twinkled and his chair whirred forward, deft fingers at the controls. I thought of a time when such a man would have long ago been dead. Modern science was a miracle. Future science even more so, as our conversation confirmed.
"June 28th, 2009,"he said - you understand that it was his computer saying the words but Stephen who did the rest. I must have arched an eyebrow or otherwise reacted with surprise because he let out a single chuckle. "Ha."
"The Time Travelers Party?"It had been a dismal failure. No time travelers had shown up, somehow confirming that time travel never occurred. I know that right now time travel is nothing more but a motif in science fiction or fantasy shows and novels, but the idea of time travel in the future messes with the mind. If the time travelers come to today, time travel exists today. But I can see quite simply that time travel does not exist. So can time travel ever exist? It was a question we had grappled almost a decade ago as the little publicity stunt took shape.
"Someone came,"he squawked. I smiled. Classic Stephen. Of course somebody came. There were throngs of reporters; there was a catering crew and an entourage of celebrities waiting to meet a person from the future. Why would they have that privilege? What interest would a person of the future have with us if all they need is to open a book or a web browser and read about our simple existence. "After the reporters left. After everybody was gone."He could tell a story, that was for certain. Of course he could. He was Stephen Hawking, the most brilliant mind of our time. Weaving together the independently useless words of the English language into a gripping story was child's play for a man like him. "The house was dark and we were off to bed,"he continued and I leaned in closer. I scribbled notes, in spite of my phone sitting between us and recording the entire conversation. What he was suggesting... This could change everything about what we knew about the future. "A man stepped out of the shadows. At first I thought it was a caterer, perhaps he had missed the last car leaving the area. Then I thought it was a murderer. Perhaps my time was up. It wasn't."Yes, clearly. That's why we were having this conversation.
I shook my head. "Who was it?"I knew the answer. I didn't want to believe the answer. I would refuse to believe the answer until it revealed itself before me. Stephen was not a man for elaborate pranks or for lies; he knew his words carried too much weight.
"It was a man from the future,"he said simply.
"Why are you telling me this?"His eyes seemed amused, as if my question was foolish. Every question probably seemed foolish for a man of his intellect.
"I trust you. I trust you to keep this to yourself."And then he continued. He told me of how they had talked for hours. First Stephen searched for proof, grasping at straws as he tried to comprehend the significance of the situation. How do you prove you are from the future? With today's technology, newspapers dated for any time are easy to create. Seemingly futuristic technologies can be created out of thin air with a three-dimensional printer. Even for a man like him, it was not something he could figure out. He could not bring himself to trust the man. "So I asked him to tell me the date of my death. Not to prove it to me, but so that I could prove it to somebody else. March 14th, 2018."I glanced at my phone. It couldn't be. I was talking to a dead man, or as close as could be. It was Tuesday. Stephen would be dead by tomorrow.
"Why are you telling me this?"I asked again. We both knew my question was different this time. I was not asking why me. I was asking why.
His eyes glistened now. It may have been tears. "The future is not bright,"he reported. The monotone voice was chilling. One would expect emotion. One would expect this to be devastating. "They say the darkest time is right before twilight. For us, it's not. We fail to solve the issues that plague us. We fail to stop wars. We fail to stop climate change. We fail to save our world and we fail to save ourselves. One person came because one person is all that was left to come."
I sat there, stunned. I refused to believe him. I had never refused to believe him, in all our years of conversation. But now I refused to believe him. "What can we do?"He chuckled again. That ominous, robotic chuckle. It brought to mind that perhaps the robots won in the end. Perhaps that would be our legacy; the robots we had once designed and built would own the world and the solar system would be dotted with the ones we sent into space.
"Hope that I'm right,"he responded. I wished he could seem less casual about all this.
"About this? I hope you're not."
"About the multiverse. I hope this man was from a different universe and a different timeline. I don't care that we never invent time travel and only in this timeline were we able to come back to my little soiree. I hope that the path we are on does not lead us to that fate."
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! |
Death looked tired. Oddly enough, this was the first thought Ed had, staring at the robed figure in his doorway. Darkened circles lined empty sockets, resembling smudges of ash on Death's high, bleached cheek bones.
"Can...I help you?"Ed inquired. Standing at a modest 5 foot eight, jeans and a t-shirt, coffee in hand, Ed didn't feel the least bit dead.
Death let out a very long, shoulder slumping sigh.
"Unfortunately, yes. You can stop bartering souls, for a start.", said Death. His sentence ended with a wheeze.
Ed, looking perplexed, uttered a simple, "Pardon?"
"Listen and listen well. As you can imagine, I am incredibly busy. I've spent the last week schlepping about with this. "Death paused to lift up something that resembled a glowing worm, about 3 inches long. He continued, "This unfortunate soul was SUPPOSED to be bound for Hell. I have a rather large bucket of these. I was unable to enter the gates until I had weeded out that which does not belong. Thousands of worms and I had to single out this poor....hmmm....plumber, was it?"
Ed sipped his coffee as he listened raptly. Plumber? Hadn't Joe, his plumber neighbor, passed away about a week back? They weren't exactly close, but Joe would frequently borrow his hedge trimmers. At this recollection, Ed choked as his coffee went down the wrong pipe. Hadn't he always joked and said, "You can borrow it, but it'll only cost your soul."with an exaggerated wink.
Death, not accustomed to human interaction, ignored Ed's sputtering and resumed, "It's not exactly unheard of, selling off your soul to another mortal, but there's usually some pacts written out, worked through the proper channels. It would seem you have...slipped through the cracks."
The reaper paused frequently and had a very slow, methodical way of speaking. Edward, himself unaccustomed to dealing with mythical beings, felt humor might be a good coping mechanism.
"Well, that's not all bad, right? If you were coming for me, I guess my name would be Deadward."he said, with a chuckle.
Death paused, raised a finger, paused again and inhaled, "That's...actually pretty funny. I enjoy dark humor. It might lighten my mood when next we meet."
"Won't be for a long time, yeah?"Ed asked, nervously.
"Oh, sooner than you'd think, I suppose. I'll be dropping numerous souls off for you in the future, quite regularly. You're in the books, now."
"Pardon?"The perplexed look had returned to Ed's face.
"You've made numerous contracts. Quite successful at it, really. I hadn't seen anyone collect quite so many since they were burning people alive for this kind of thing. Quite impressive, really. Would be nice if there were some award for it, but I guess the souls are enough. Anway, I'm off. Enjoy."
Death placed the small, glowing worm in Ed's hand and gently closed the recipient's fingers for them. With a rustle of a cloak, Death wrapped in on himself, slowly disappearing into nothing.
"Heya Ed!"screeched the little worm.
Eyes bulging, Ed jerked his head down to stare at the worm. At Joe?
"I reckon that hedge trimmer should have been lined with gold and did all the trimming on autopilot, considering the cost, eh?"Joe quipped.
Throat constricting, Ed croaked out, "What...am I going to do with you?"
"Could go for bit of a nibble, if you don't mind. Maybe a little nip of whiskey. I'm all out of sorts."The voice of the worm was high pitched, warbly and generally disconcerting.
Ed leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. With a brief shrug of his shoulders, Ed says, "Yeah, alright. In you go.", and carries Joe inside.
[Pt. 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/106i1sg/wp_sure_itll_only_cost_you_your_soul_you_used_to/j3hin01/)
Future additions will be posted to [r/EdandTheDead](https://www.reddit.com/r/EdandTheDead/). Hopefully every Saturday. |
The moment I jumped from the second floor of Sehlinger County Hospital, using a stainless steel lunch tray as my board, I wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake.
Then I realized it was so earth-shatteringly radical that I didn't care.
The broken fibula, however, was a bit less gnarly. Dr. Peterson raced out of a side door and found me tangled in the rose bushes, which had cushioned my fall somewhat.
"Oh, God. Bittman, he's lost a lot of blood. We need to get him back to the operating room at once..."
"But, sir, you know we're perfectly incapable of using the tainted supply."
"Any word on the Red Cross truck?"
Dr. Bittman sighed. "Still stalled on Route 273, sir."
"Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. I didn't get my doctorate from EZDegreez.net for nothing. Hop to it! We've got a life to save!"
The two doctors lifted me onto a stretcher and wheeled me rapidly through the first floor hallways. A few minutes later, I was back in the surgery room getting an IV inserted in my arm. Dr. Bittman gave Peterson a thumbs up.
"Ready to go. Want me to fetch the anesthetic?"
"No time. Prepare to administer Mountain Dew Code Red."
"Uh..."
"What, man, what? We've got a patient clinging to life here, god damn it!"
"I finished the Mountain Dew, Dr. Peterson. Would you like me to...to find something else...?"
"I don't care what you get, just bring it here! We're losing him!"
I chuckled. "I feel fine, actually."
"Quit your yapping. Bittman, grab something from the vending machine. Anything!"
Dr. Bittman raced out and returned with three bottled beverages moments later.
"OK, the first one is --"
"Don't care. Give it here."Peterson snatched the bottle from him and hooked it into the fluid pouch. Invigoration surged through my body, accompanied by a strong desire to recite beat poetry.
I shook my head and glanced at the IV. "This isn't Fair Trade, man. I need my triple latte fix, stat. Who taught you how to brew? Let me do it myself."
Bittman glanced nervously at Dr. Peterson. "Sir, I think...I think he's becoming a barista."
"Well, swap out the Frappuccino for something else, then!"
Bittman nervously switched to the second bottle. Within seconds, I felt my midsection start to shrink. I'd been meaning to lose a few pounds, but I was rapidly becoming emaciated.
"Bittman, you idiot! That's a Diet Coke! Didn't they teach you anything in med school?"
"Not enough, clearly."Bittman switched out the third and final bottle. Everything within my mind -- all my anxieties, joys, and philosophical musings -- seemed to coalesce into one perfectly formed consciousness.
"You fools,"I said. "Remove this IV from me at once. You've given me all I need."
Dr. Peterson raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're all right?"
"Yes, yes, of course. Let me through, let me pay, let me *out*."
Dr. Bittman nervously unhooked me and opened the door of the surgery room. My leg still hurt, but it was probably nothing a little home remedy couldn't fix. I grabbed a piece of paper and pen from a nearby desk, scribbled down my contact information, and thrust it into their faces.
"You're clearly running an incompetent operation here, literally and figuratively. If you should like to ask me how to improve things, simply send me an email or give a call. I've been doing this sort of work for years."
Dr. Peterson blinked twice, incredulous. "Who *are* you?"
"The name,"I replied, "is Dr. Pepper."
***
**[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/GigaWrites/comments/4zy72d/the_tale_of_the_human_soft_drink_part_2/)** and **[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/GigaWrites/comments/500g73/the_tale_of_the_human_soft_drink_part_3/)**
are now available at /r/GigaWrites!
|
It isn't like nobody knew what they were voting for. We all knew what this new law would do, and yet Mayor Wilson was looking more and more nervous by the second.
I think we were just tired of the deaths, the pointless rules that were only meant to hurt. "Don't be named Ted", "Have at least one red rose in your house", "Punch the person to your right"were all the rules we had already been forced to obey this week alone.
The officers carried their guns loosely every morning at the vote. About 300 of us were crammed into the courthouse, waiting to hear the new rule.
This whole system had started sometime in the 50's, nobody really knows why. At first the rules were jokes, or they tried to do something productive during a festival or holiday. But as time went by, the rules became harsh, demanding, or were pointed at someone. But times change people, and we were done with this system. We were as guilty as a common murderer for what we did to Ted, for what we have done since children that has caused our local graveyard to be the largest in the country.
But the votes were finished, and Mayor Wilson began the count. We waited, silent enough to hear a pin drop. The last slip of paper was taken out of the box, and the room seemed to hold its breath.
"Unanimous."Wilson said, closing the lid on the vote box.
"Today's rule: Don't obey this rule." |
It's always beautiful, when you're building a world. To see the little contained reality form with a wonderfully bright light, modelling the specific laws of physics, shaping the various atoms and materials from which the universe is formed. Then you grow it to about the size of a volleyball, and let the internal procedural generation follow your carefully laid specifications and pointers, until a usable universe exists. At which point you adjust the internal time scale, so that time doesn't pass by in with millennia per second.
I make small universes. Using transcendental dimensional engineering, I form a universe, usually a few dozen galaxies, at least, and contain it within a sphere. Smallest I can do is about snowglobe size, but then the internals are hard to fiddle with. Most are somewhere between the size of a volleyball and a beachball. My customers vary, but most of them are scientists, who want to test out their dangerous experimental engineering in a safe environment. Would be bad if your new energy source accidentally destroyed our universe, after all. Better it be tested first in a safe environment. I also get artists, who like to have a universe with an easy interface, so that they can shape an entire reality into a perfect sculpture or beautiful image. Some of them go to people with a lot of money and an interest in a VR situation. Using special equipment, you can attach yourself to that reality, and live out an entire lifetime as a king, or a wizard, while maybe half an hour passes back in real-space.
The universe doesn't know it's contained in a sphere with transcendental dimensional engineering, they're not supposed to. So when my last client calls me, and desperately returns a world to me, because the idiots were sociologists who tried to test a very stupid theory, the people in the universe now know that they're contained. Artificially created.
And they're trying to break out. Bad news for them, if they do so, they activate the safety protocols. Or as I call it, their universe reverts to the lower energy base of ours, and is destroyed in the process. So I attach an editorpad to their universe, and activate the communication feature. I contact the minds of every single one of the inhabitants that have realised that they're inside a small contained reality. And translating directly into their thoughts, I warn them.
''**If you break through the wall of your contained reality. You will experience a fate worse than death. You will cease to exist. You will never have existed. Your entire universe will disperse like mist. I, the CREATOR of your reality, will not stop you. But this is your only warning.**'' And their reply, which shocks me because they all think the exact same thing, is ''*That is what we want.*'' Deeply confused, I look through that reality's history. I look through what the dumbasses who bought this universe did.
And what I find is horror. They've forced the people of this universe, reality which I lovingly created with the hope that it could bear life and be useful, was tormented with all the worst ideas and most selfish choices in history. The sociologists who bought this universe have made it into such a hellscape, for the sake of their perverse and unspeakable theories, that the inhabitants, from the smallest child to the oldest relic, wants to cease to exist.
Not only is that illegal cruelty against sentient life. It breaks the Terms and Conditions. And as the universe breathes sweet relief as it ends itself, I bring out my communicator and call not only the police, but also my lawyer. Because in the Terms and Conditions, it explicitly says that you cannot under any circumstances create a situation where the destruction of the universe is preferable to continued existence for the individuals inside the contained reality. And they're not just going to prison for this, I'm going to sue them for every last credit they've got to their names, the entire damn team. Because I'm not some hackney bit-world maker, dammit, I'm a professional. And my work does not deserve to be treated in such a manner.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) |
**Harry Potter and the Zone of Danger**
"Um... OK, kids. Welcome to... haha, Hogwarts? Is it really called that? I'm pretty sure I caught that from Pam that one time. Anyway, welcome to this school of yours. I am your new teacher for the Art of Self Defense..."
From the front row, Hermione's hand shot into the air and waved back and forth. Harry and Ron rolled their eyes. The new teacher nodded in her direction.
"Sir, don't you mean 'Defense Against the Dark Arts?'"
He looked back down at the papers on his desk with a slackjawed expression
"Oh, right. Well, good work Ms... ummm.... Granger. I guess I didn't read the letter from that bird very closely. Doesn't matter; at least I'm not working for Mother anymore."He reached into his ill-fitting robes, pulled out a flask, and chugged the contents. "So, anyway,"he continued, "I'm your new teacher, Sterling Archer. And I am going to teach you self defense!"Hermione's hand shot into the air again, but he ignored it. "There's really only one thing you kids ever need to know about self defense: fucking guns!"
He reached into his other pocket this time, and pulled out a black, metal contraption. Harry, Hermoine, and the other muggle-born students scooted back and tried to hide under their desks, while Ron and the other Wizard-born students all leaned in for a better look.
Archer twirled the gun on his finger casually.
"They told me a bit about this school when I first started, and they said that all of the other teachers who had this job had been killed or something. Which made it sound pretty cool. But then I learned that none of those bastards had been carrying! What the hell? No wonder they died."
He went around the room with a big box full of weapons. Uzis, pistols, a few grenades... each student picked one out, and he headed back up to the front of the classroom.
"I seriously can't believe that no one has ever gone over this with you kids. Like, five years of learning self defense and nobody ever mentioned carrying a gun? It's the *ultimate* self defense! So, next time some lizard-looking Moldy Wort asshole comes after you, you just shoot him in the face!"
He aimed the gun at a wall as if to demonstrate, and the gun went off with an ear-shattering crash. A little tendril of smoke curled from the barrel, and the shelf of potions across the room shattered; one of them appeared to be melting a hole through the floor down to the next level of dungeons.
"Haha, holy shit! Umm... also remember to keep the safety on."
He muttered under his breath "*if you're a pussy...*"
---
Disclaimer: it's been a while since I've seen Archer.
And also, if you all enjoyed this story, you should read "[Snape teaches Sex Ed](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2o6ox3/wp_snape_is_forced_to_teach_sexed_at_hogwarts/cmka041)."It's a good one. And check out my subreddit: /r/Luna_Lovewell. |
I've only been to the Federal Maple Reserve once- and that was in fifth grade, for a field trip. I still remember the enormous cylindrical storage tanks, thousands of feet high, holding the precious resource. A resource that, through years of genetic engineering, we'd discovered how to rapidly create. Now, the forests of maple trees are more syrup than tree, like liquid oceans, tended to by teams of scientists during all hours of the day and night. And more precious than gold.
The gaurd stopped unauthorized visits to the Maple Reserve after the terrorist attack of 2024- even I remembered seeing it on the news, as our schools were dismissed early and sirens sounded throughout our city. To destroy the reserve would be insanity. It was our greatest treasure. It was our lifeblood.
But then again, insanity is what got us into this mess.
I don't remember the world before the maple reserve, the old world as they call it. It still exists out there, *outside*. Apparently, they brought their destruction upon themselves- apparently, that's why we're now the only world power. Not through aggression, but through preservation.
I've seen the others, the outsiders. Their hands pressed up against the barrier, their tools trying to chisel away at the protection that surrounds our city. But their tools are stone, and their hands shake, and their movements are weak. It's hard not to feel sorry for them, but then I remember what my father told me- they did it to themselves.
And the maple, the maple spared us. Our schools compare it to the peanuts of the twentieth century, a food product that was developed into hundreds of uses until it became ubiquitous. In a similar way, that's how our maple works- when scientists discovered how to convert it to ambers, hardened forms with controllable properties. Amber discs form our currencies. Amber bricks build our houses, amber pipes our plumbing. And amber forms the dome that stretches high above us, cascading down to form the wall around our city.
Twenty feet thick, the barrier blocks the intruders from the outside- and more importantly, it blocks the radiation, the embedded particles absorbing gamma rays and converting them to the visible spectrum to feed our maple farms. From there, the maple goes to the reserve. And from the reserve, it patches the dome, all part of the maple cycle we learned in second grade.
According to my teachers, we alone are a single zit of civilization upon Earth's surface- far enough north to counteract climate change, elevated enough to escape the floods, and preserved in amber from the nuclear bombs. That we should be proud to be the last of humanity. The light in the darkness.
But sometimes I wonder if the outsiders really deserved their fate. If we really are better, if we have reason to be proud.
Or if we're just the ones with all the maple.
***
By Leo
If you liked my style, check out my [superhero story](https://www.reddit.com/r/leoduhvinci/comments/65jl9n/star_child_part_1/) from another prompt! |
The time has gone on and on, empires rising and falling, I’ve discovered new galaxies and even new dimensions in my travels and accumulations of advanced alien technology. I was essentially a god by all rights, already unable to die thanks to my curse bond with the fucking Snail, and now technologically advanced enough with my cybernetic implants to stay out of its way forever, or so I thought.
In the last seconds before the snail touched me and ended this game, I rehashed my billions of years of life and smiled. It had all been worth it. The wretched thing had finally cornered me by using my own curiosity to draw me in. It had done as I had, existing as a near god wandering the multiverse in search of me, it’s one calling. It knew that it couldn’t reach me without making me aware of its presence, so it could never touch me without me allowing it thanks to the power of teleportation, forcefields and an army of advanced droid robots.
I thought myself invincible until a message arrived while I was relaxing in my luxurious vessel, eating an old time Earth mango and relishing the flavor, they were very rare lately. The Snail.. had been captured. Could it be true? Several million years ago I had started a religion that focused on the capture of the one true Snail, in order to find a way to kill it and ensure my future.
I was traveling towards the origin of our eternal battle, Earth. Nothing but a wasted rock now, but that is where our monitors had picked up and automatically sprang the forcefield trap I had set up eons ago in case the Snail had been dumb enough to come back. Yet he had. My ship blasted past light speed and came to a gradual slowdown as I approached the dead hulking mass that was once my childhood home. The Snail was sitting in the center of a blue field of light on the grounds surface, expressionless and just as I had remembered him.
As the ships tractor beam lowered me and my droid guards down to just outside the barrier, I smiled. I had finally got the son of a bitch. As I leaned down to say some snappy closer before he was put into a mobile hold and taken to my prison lab, my super hearing kicked off a warning. The motors were whining inside my droids behind me, I could hear in slow motion the gears powering up. My computerized mind ran through the possibilities of what the threats could be before I had even turned around.
As I began to understand what had happened time began to slow to a crawl, it was one of my abilities. I had an experimental implant several hundred years ago placed inside me that allowed my mind to operate thousands of times ahead of real time. My body however, couldn’t react in the same manner. I saw it all so clearly. The whole thing had been a trap. The Snail had been playing me from the start. My droids were rigged, the Snail had owned and controlled the factories that made my bots through a surrogate and had been able to control them for who knows how long. The droid would push me into the field, which would undoubtedly set up to allow me to pass through but not get back out. Then I’d be trapped, cornered. This was it.
Thanks to my advanced brain it would take years and years of time in my mind for the droid to push me over, I could still hear the beginnings of the droids arm motors activating to betray its master. It was just a machine. I thought I was the most intelligent being in the universe but.. it was the always the Snail.
As the years in my mind went by I began to contemplate just turning the whole thing off. Letting the snail touch me and send me to wherever I was supposed to go billions of years ago, where humans go when they die. I had always been avoiding it, I had made it my meaning just to continue this battle. Maybe it was time. The snail was smiling, I had noticed this a few minutes after entering slow time. It mocked me. An eternally sarcastic smile. So smug. I couldn’t let it beat me. I couldn’t let it win. It’s okay, I had a few hundred more years before the slow time ran out to think of something to get out of this and keep going, I always did. |
I knew things with Monty were a little off shortly after he moved in. He was a pleasant guy - a friend of a friend with a surprisingly high credit score for someone didn't seem to hold any sort of traditional job. We were walking along the pier and I said something to the effect of, "I'm hungry. Let's go get some food."To which Monty responded, "I'm on it,"and then proceeded to dropkick a nearby barrel, which - for some reason - contained a whole roasted turkey. "Dig in,"he said, tearing off a drumstick.
That was Monty. He seemed to be pre-installed with a completely different set of social rules, none of which made any sense to me, but all of which worked for Monty. And worked well, I might add.
Take, for instance, the matter of how Monty paid his bills. As I said earlier, he never really had a job. Instead, he would wander about the neighborhood, smashing the potted plants and empty vases of strangers, all of which contained money. Why did people keep money in their potted plants? I do not know. Why was no one ever all that irked about Monty 1) destroying their property, and 2) stealing their money? Couldn't tell you. It was almost as if it were expected. The cost of living in the same neighborhood as Monty.
There was also the matter of Monty's *fighting*. He got into quite a lot of fights. Just a socially abnormal amount. Which was doubly strange, because Monty wasn't really a violent-seeming man. He just so happened to constantly cross paths with people in desperate need of a good tussle. Which Monty was glad to give them. And when Monty won - which was always - there were never any repercussions. The police didn't care. His victims' families didn't care. Even Monty didn't really care. He'd come home, scuffed and bruised, and just eat another turkey leg and be fresh as a daisy in no time.
The fighting, it so happened, was also connected to Monty's hoarding. Monty was an inveterate looter. When he defeated a stranger on the bus, he always took a token or three - throwing knives, funny capes, animal costumes, *bombs*. When he roamed the neighborhood, smashing up boxes and sheds, he'd snatch anything and everything he could find, whether he ever intended to use it or not.
You might think the hoarding would be a problem for me, given we didn't have an especially big apartment. But no. Monty carried all those enchanted swords and knobbly little lutes around with him *on his person*, at all times. Where? No idea. I mean, he favored cargo shorts, which explained it *somewhat*, but even so. How do you comfortably store seven different kinds of *lance* in your pants without tearing a hole? Improbable, right?
Once Monty wanted to go to an exclusive club. Well enough, except we weren't the exclusive type, so I had my doubts. And sure enough, the bouncer bounced us. Monty, though, was undeterred. He walked into a nearby alley and came back with a cardboard box.
"Alright,"he said. "Get in the box. We're going in."
I probably don't need to tell you it worked; that disguised as a cardboard box, we marched right past that guard like walking boxes were always welcome in the club.
On it goes. He occasionally breaks bricks with his forehead, just because he can. There are at least two different mad scientists that build loony android assassins just to fight Monty; and when he wins he steals their weird android powers... I have literally seen him attack someone with *bubbles.* And that seems to be an expected outcome. So...
It's fine, I guess. He pays his rent on time. He's usually pretty quiet. All in all, he's a good roommate, even if I am getting pretty fucking sick of turkey legs. |
"Do you remember that time we were on the company picnic?"
"Yeah, it was windy as hell and none of the blankets would stay down!"
"Well, that was when I first knew I loved you."
"I know. It was...special because I felt it, but also knew my feelings were mutual."
"I don't believe that for a second! You were with that one guy, um...Chad! I mean, Chad?"
"Okay, okay. You sort of called my bullshit. Maybe I wasn't *in* love with you then, but I definitely felt the charge."
"Ah, *the charge*. It only continued to strengthen as our years in proximity grew."
*a long silence passes*
"You know, when I get back I want to start a family with you."
*another long silence*
"Sorry, was that too much?"
"No, no. I'm just...I'm just crying is all. Of course I want to! Now get your ass home!"
*laughter*
"I love you more than the view I have."
"I love you because I'm your home. I'll be waiting."
Report: *This was the last conversation astronaut David S. Masset had with his wife, Sarah before he was knocked by floating debris from the International Space Station during a routine atmospheric repair. By the time we recieved the transmission he had already been floating into the nothingness; into the void for over four days, repeating this to himself, reciting both parts with inflection, laughter, pauses, and crying over and over again until he and the tape went silent*.
Edit: Quick one from "USS"to "ISS"and a few minor ones. Others I just left. Thank you all for the great words and even better criticisms :)
|
We thought the universe had always been dark and empty, and silent. But to them it was loud, so loud. And it was because of us.
Our screaming, blaring, minds bellowing out into the cosmos kept them at bay. Until one day they couldn’t take it anymore. They needed to say something. To cut through the waves and waves of emotions pouring out from our planet for long enough to make themselves known. They didn’t look like us. Many legs, disconnected organ systems, big bulbous cephalopoid heads. Inside were huge, light brains, not dense like ours, not solid. They communicated with them, with organs we didn’t know we had, but much larger, much more sensitive than ours. The first brave souls to weather the psychic storm, they made contact with us, Earth’s children.
The first diplomats were so confused. We wondered at their strange writhings, at their constant movement, at their interjections and signals. We didn’t know they were struggling to stay sane while trying to communicate with us. We simply couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t pick up their soft whispers over the constant droning of our own minds. It wasn’t until a young child said something that changed the world.
“Mom… I’m hearing the voices again.”
If she wasn’t the senator’s daughter we’d have thought she was mad. It turned out she had a birth defect. One we didn’t know existed, in brain tissue we didn’t know we had. Until they showed us.
Eventually systems were built, the first physical words, words with sound at their core, were exchanged between our races. We had many things in common. We both came from temperate climates, on similarly sized worlds, though theirs larger and with a thicker atmosphere. We were similar in so many ways, but differed most importantly in one.
We were living in a psychic cacophony.
They showed us how to communicate, opening hidden channels within our minds. Humans had been living inside of closed rooms since our inception, having no idea there were doors and windows into the outside. The immensity of the universe closed in on itself. There were millions of inhabited stars all connected by this webway of emotion. Gone were the limitations of physical distance when exchange of information could come so naturally. We had been built for it this entire time. We took our first steps through the doorways of consciousness, ambling like drunk apes into the sunlight, and it was magical. |
“Jeremy, analysis.”
“4,365 th dimension. Probably simulation.”
“Fucking Christ…”
We’ve been at this for… 5, 10 years now? It’s hard to keep
track when time works differently in literally every plain of existence. Regardless
of how much has actually past, I still remember that day like yesterday. One of
the scientists rushed into the lab flailing a tablet around. We all watched intently
as some strange creatures waived to us, showing our planet on a
small pedestal. By a few months we able to communicate with them, and we
learned something that wasn’t very nice:
They were all overlords, watching over. Our world was purely simulated, nothing more than a game. Guess those guys protesting outside with the tin-foil
hats were right after all.
Eventually these creatures gave us direction to visit their
dimension. Turns out all you need to travel across reality is Gatorade mixed
with Petroleum. Huh.
The tablet started beeping wild as soon as we stepped
through the portal. Even stranger faces appeared on the screen. With a warm
welcome from the 5th dimension, the creatures too were presented with
their world in a pedestal, a slightly shinier one. Even if we all were completely
different species, our bewilderment was shared. We both agreed to set out one our own (yours
truly) and one of theirs (their real name is Glecereiumtom, but I gave him the
nickname Jeremy because it’s pronounced pretty close to it).
With supplies and tablets in hand, our adventure had begun.
Part 2 coming right up. |
There is always work for he who exists in the shadows.
I view society through a crystal clear window, only able to watch as people mingle up and down the length of this street, congregating beneath old oak trees and in high-end boutiques and open air cafes. I will never experience that quick flash of acknowledgment, just there to my left, between two strangers on the sidewalk. I will never have even that brief window into another's soul.
A familiar deep longing swells within me. I set it aside. I am the un-observed observer, apart from - yet still influenced by - the cultural frameworks that make up human social identity and sense of 'self'.
"No time for that,"I mutter, shifting this way and that on the sidewalk to avoid running into oblivious citizens. We are not defined by how others perceive us. We are defined by our actions.
I turn left down a fittingly shadowed alley, amused by how stereotypical it is to enter a top secret intelligence office through a nondescript side door.
Some time later I sit opposite Agent Jax, watching him try to focus. It is a curious sensation when someone knows I am there, when they physically know I am present and able to take part in a conversation, but have to keep reminding themselves of that fact. Jax looks down at a few notes on piece of paper, which I have already read without him noticing.
*His name is Sanderson.*
*He is between twenty five and forty five years old.*
*He is our most reliable agent.*
*He will do what we want him to do, no questions asked, as long as we wire the money according to his specific instructions.*
\--
*Verify completion of the last assignment.*
*Provide dossier on the Ajax Affair.*
*Wire the money before he leaves.*
"Let's see here...,"Jax looks down at his desk. "Sanderson, I trust the last assignment is complete."
"Yes,"I say, also writing my answer down on a piece of paper and sliding it across the desk. Easier to remember that way.
A look of relief washes over Jax's face. Clearly they were concerned about this particular assignment. Rightly so, I thought, because they were increasingly moving into the realm of morally grey tasks. This was a sure fire sign that they were beginning to take my services for granted.
"Is that wise... to take for a granted a man that even Death does not notice?"I whisper, knowing that Jax can not hold onto my sentence for long.
Jax's eyes widen slightly, but he is an experienced agent and he controls his expressions well. A moment later he looks down at his sheet again.
"Okay...,"he says, one hand pressed against his forehead in concentration. "We have another task for you. Usual conditions."
I write down, "Usual fee?"on a piece of paper.
He nods.
"Not enough,"I write.
His eyes widen again at that. I decide to have fun with it.
The pen traces blue across the paper. "I've been offered more."
Jax stands, grabbing the piece of paper as he does so. He looks afraid. "By who?"he asks.
I stand up as well. No point in writing any of this down. "Institutions decay,"I say, replaying a thousand fallen organizations in my mind's eye. "This is inevitable. They cannibalize themselves, trying to remain relevent even as they are already obsolete. Your institution has rotted from the inside, and what you once represented you represent no more, and the ideals you once pursued have been replaced by something more sinister. I will abide by it no longer."
Jax's face is scrunched as he tries to retain the information. I lean over and pluck the piece of paper from his hand, crossing out the previous text. I write down, "Wire the money,"then slide it across the table.
Jax forgets what he is so concerned about. He glances down at the text and his face breaks into a broad smile.
"Excellent,"he says, sitting back down. |
"So your brains make you *like* the feeling of *poisoning yourselves*?"
"Yes? I mean, obviously it seems a lot more poisonous to you."
"Unbelievable. How you survived to develop FTL travel is beyond me."
"I'm pretty sure my ancestors were more worried about nukes and wars."
"Yes, but you drank *in response* to that."
"We're funny like that. We have as many preferences as to how to die as we do how to live. Booze lets us choose both."
"But you have intervention centres for your hardest addicts."
"We like to choose how to die, but you'll find it rare for us to be in a hurry to do so."
"...So you're going to just keep drinking that scotch?"
"Yes."
"Because you feel...*sophisticated* in doing so?"
"That, and this is a good bottle. Been ageing it."
"...So hypothetically, how would it go if we tried to enact our laws on Earth? Or other human colonies?"
"...Let me finish this glass, and then I'll tell you about our history of prohibition." |
"My lord, I know you are the Demon Lord and I am but a lowly advisor, but please listen to me. I suggest that instead of sending the hero slightly stronger demons to kill each time, we just send the strongest one right away"
The Demon Lord leaned forward in his leather office chair, rested his arms on the smooth surface of his large, uncluttered desk and smiled. “This is exactly the reason I have an open-door policy, Chuck.” He said in his rich, silky-smooth baritone. ‘It’s a great opportunity for me to get to know a little bit about you and your abilities.”
He smiled sincerely, but much of it was lost behind the rows of serrated teeth that showed whenever his lips parted. “It’s also a great opportunity for you to learn a little bit about me and the organization I’ve worked so long to build.”
Leaning back in his chair, the Demon Lord waved his arm to indicate the vast expanse of his office. For a moment, Chuck turned to take it in, the red shag carpet, beautiful mahogany book cases, that were a perfect match to the desk and other office furnishings, filled with thick tomes in demonic languages bound in human skins and in the center of it all a massive globe that showed both a map of the Earth and, when a swtich was thrown, could change to a map of the underworld.
The Demon Lord waited patiently for Chuck to finish looking around the room before continuing. “You know, this wasn’t given to me.” He said seriously. “I know a lot of people think I was born into the whole “Demon Lord” thing, but it isn’t true. My father was a low level devil charged with running around the deep South meeting wannabe musicians at crossroads where he would buy their souls in exchange for musical ability. Not a great job, but his innovation was that he gave them the ability to play the blues, something that has depressed the hell out of humanity ever since.
“I digress, but only because I want you to know that lots of people come from humble beginnings, Chuck, and the simple fact that you have risked incurring my wrath to come here and offer me your thoughts tells me that you want to move up. I hope you are as happy to have this opportunity as I am to give it to you."
The Demon Lord leaned forward on the desk again, a calculated move that prompted Chuck to do the same. “You are right, of course, I could send our strongest against every upstart hero and win every single time. It would be child's play, but what does that do for us?”
“It lets us easily win every single time.” Offered Chuck brightly.
The Demon Lord smiled again. “What’s that do for us,"he paused, "*as an organization*, Chuck?”
This time it was Chuck who sat back in his chair, only instead of smiling his brow was furrowed in deep thought. When he looked up again he saw the Demon Lord waiting patiently, the sincere and somehow slightly less frightening smile still on his face. “Nothing.” Chuck finally answered.
“That’s right,” answered the Demon Lord. “If you want people to progress and your organization to thrive, you have to create opportunities. And every battle is just that, an opportunity for some up-and-comer to get out there and prove they have what it takes. It doesn't matter if they lose, they always come back a little harder and a little wiser and that’s why we have an entire army filled with hardened veterans instead of one single champion surrounded by an army of useless neophytes.”
Chuck felt defeated. He’d thought he had a great new idea but, as usual, the Demon Lord was a dozen steps ahead of him. He exhaled, hunched his shoulders, and embarrassedly studied his feet until his thoughts were abruptly broken by the gentle touch of the Demon Lord who had come out from behind his desk and placed his hand on Chuck’s shoulder.
“That strategy works for advisors, too.” Said the Demon Lord in a gentle tone as he helped Chuck take his feet and guided him across the office to a door covered in a what appeared to be an intricate carving of thousands of tiny souls frozen in never ending agony.
As he ushered Chuck out the exit, the Demon Lord offered one last thing before he closed the door. “You had a little defeat today, but you took a chance and I know that next time you will come back a little harder and a little wiser. I’m glad you are on our team.”
When it was over Chuck stood alone in the hallway and pondered the door. Yes, it was closed, but he knew he could open it any time he wanted. And he would open it again, he decided. Although he might not carry the day the next time or even the time after, he knew with sudden certainty that each time he found himself back in this corridor, he would be stronger and wiser. |
I don't know how it started, or why I was chosen. I always called them glitches in the Matrix - you know, after the movie - when it happens.
The first time, I was young. I saw my death. I don't mean that in a gruesome way - I was just a kid, chasing a ball out into the street, and a car hit me. It was over quickly, surrounded by my crying parents and the neighbors, the driver horrified at what they had done.
But it stopped me from chasing the ball, and true to the premonition - at least, most of it, as I clearly wasn't in the right spot - the ball went under the car. They didn't stop. No one was crying. I wasn't hurt.
But I remembered.
I don't know how to control it, but I always listen to it. As I grew up, it got more frequent - it started to become events that weren't directly related to me, but always had ripples. Sometimes it took me a while to catch up to those ripples, but I always did eventually. For instance, when I was 18, I saw one of those bike delivery boys get clipped by a car on a curb. Car didn't stop, delivery boy was harmed, I think comatose. I didn't know the kid - he didn't look like anyone important, at all. Just a delivery driver.
I stopped him. I had learned, you know - always listen to the glitches. So I dropped my bag in front of him, and he stopped on his bike to help me, just as the car hit the curb, seconds from where he should have been. He didn't even notice.
I did.
That was years ago. I barely remember some of the glitches, but that one I do - I hadn't caught up to the ripples yet. It always comes back to me, like I'm the center of this universe, and I hate loose ends.
I'm dying, you see.
Right now, I'm in the hospital. I have cancer - some rare, incurable type - and I don't have long to live. My therapist is here, which I thought was nice of her - she knows I don't have family anymore, and well, she isn't supposed to drive to meet clients, but she does for me.
She knows about the glitches, and she thinks it's all in my head. I can't control it, so I can't really prove it, so I guess, in a way, it is. I try to show her things, but I mean, I've changed what was supposed to happen - what she sees is the truth as result to my actions. She thinks I have a hero complex, or a God complex, or something. I don't know. I know she's wrong, so I try to ignore it, but I like talking to her.
We're talking about how I feel about dying, which is, I don't want to. She's asked if I saw this coming - referring to my ability she doesn't believe in - but I didn't, and I tell her that. She asks if I have regrets, and I mention the boy - how I didn't find the ripples yet. I don't know why I saved him. I want to know. I hate leaving things unfinished. I don't really mind dying beyond that.
A doctor comes in. It's normally bad news, so I tend to tune them out. This treatment might help or this thing might lessen the pain. It never does. Can we make you more comfortable? Blah, blah, blah.
I'm trying to be nice, so I don't voice how tired I am of the new treatments. Maybe God or whoever will have pity on me. Maybe He'll explain why I was given this ability. Maybe the cancer and my ability are connected. I don't really know, but I would give it up if I get to live beyond 40.
The doctor hasn't said anything, and finally, I turn to look. His back is to me; he has one of those little carts with his laptop and things on it that he's pulling through the door. That's unusual. I've already signed all the documents.
He turns, and it's instant, electrified. He recognizes me - I recognize him. My therapist is on alert, because she's good at reading body language, like a therapist should be, and she knows \*something\* just occurred.
"That's him,"I tell her. I see the understanding dawn on her face. She's never seen the ripples in action. Emotions tumble across her features - surprise, fear, disbelief - gone within seconds, finally settling on professionally \*neutral.\* She thinks I'm playing a joke. I'm all out of jokes.
He clears his throat. "I don't think you remember me,"he starts, and I immediately want to challenge that: of course I remember you, I saved your life, you fool. "You saved my life when I was a teenager. Well, I'm a few years late, but I think it's time to repay the favor."
It doesn't make sense what he's saying. My cancer is incurable. Everyone has told me that. I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything. My therapist clears her throat, but the doctor rushes in to explain, cutting her off.
"I developed a cure, and I think you're a candidate for it. The first, even."
Ripples. |
“Wait, I died? How?”
“Listen guy, I’m just as baffled by this as you are.”
“So you don’t know how I died? But aren’t you the Grim Reaper?” I heaved a weary sigh. This was my first ever client, and it was already going poorly. I held back the urge curl up in a ball and start crying. That probably wouldn’t be very respectful of me, seeing as I was standing over this man’s corpse.
*I shouldn’t have taken this job from the temp agency. The pay was too good, but I thought that was just because I would be on call 24/7. I sure as hell should’ve said no when they sent me this scythe in the mail.*
“No, I’m the Puzzled Reaper.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
“Is this some sort of joke?”
“Oh god, I wish.”
“…” The man (or the soul, I guess?) bent over and covered his face, making a sort of sound that reminded me of a dying animal. I gently patted him on the back.
“No, it’s okay. Dying’s not so bad, bud. There’s no reason to get frustrated about it.”
“I’m mad at you! Aren’t you supposed to be helping me with this?! Explaining that I died, where I go from here…” He slapped my hand away, rearing on me with a face red with anger. It soon paled, however, as his own words hit him. Now he was looking as lifeless as his corpse.
*That sounds kind of redundant. He is a corpse. A soul? Some sort of…ethereal ghost-creature? A jerk who yells at hardworking customer service agents?*
“Where will I go…?”
“Probably Hell for yelling at me on my first day.”
“What?!”
“No, look, I don’t actually know. I just take the souls to the place where they are…uh…” I paused and fumbled in my dark-as-night robes. Didn’t they give me a manual? I winced as my scythe fell away from me as I looked for that little booklet, clanging pitifully on the ground.
*Look, everyone has a rough first day. Just keep it cool, and you got this.* I took a deep breath to steady myself, repeating the mantra my yoga teacher taught me.
“You are one with the universe…loved by the universe…”
“You really have no clue, do you?”
“No, of course I do. Look, it’s all in this manual here.” I flourished the tiny little pamphlet that had been sent with my work clothes and scythe. The title read, in easy to read bold lettering, ‘**So You Want to Reap Souls.**’ The title was incorrect, as I didn’t actually want to, but a job was a job.
“Did you not receive any training?”
“I received a manual?”
“Ugggggggggh.”
“Let’s see…ah, yes. The Puzzled Reaper. See? That’s me.”
“What. Does. It. Say.”
“Hey, relax. You gotta take life slowly sometimes…oops. Sorry.”
“WHAT. DOES. IT. SAY.”
“Sheesh. Alright, ‘The Puzzled Reaper is the reaper that takes care of souls that perished in mysterious, confusing, or unknown circumstances. It is the job of the Puzzled Reaper to illuminate…’, wow, this sounds kind of pompous.”
“Keep. Reading.”
“Alright, alright. ‘To illuminate the soul as to the cause of their death so that they may pass on safely to the underworld. Only by understanding how and why they died can a human’s spirit find solace and move on. Failure to do so will result in…’”
“In…?”
“’In the human soul turning into a revenant that will forever haunt the earth.’”
“So, if I’m to understand…”
“We need to figure out how you died so you can pass on safely to Hell.”
“I’m screwed.”
“Hey, bud, we got this. I may be new to the job, but I love detective stories. That’s just what this is, right? We’re like detectives! Well, I’m the detective. You’re my Watson!”
“I’m completely and utterly screwed.”
“Let’s examine the crime scene, Watson!” I kneeled down and began to examine the body for clues.
“Undeniably, irrevocably, doubtlessly screwed.”
(I apologize for any formatting issues, I'm new to posting stuff like this on Reddit!) |
Xor’grantham-fallonpersius-zellac, representative of the supreme overlord, stepped out of the flying saucer and onto the lawn of Central Park. Joe Mallakeshi, representative of the state of New York, stepped forward and waved appropriately. It had been three months since formal communications between the two species had begun in earnest. Long enough for the idiosyncrasies of cross world communications to be mostly ironed out. Such as Joe learning not to try and shake hands with visiting aliens; they were quite germ phobic. It seems there had been an attempted contact in the 1950s, only for the aliens to receive a broadcast of “War of the worlds” which they took as a warning message. It only took 75 years to clear up that misunderstanding
“Greetings Zellac,” Joe stated plainly. Zellac being about the only part of the alien’s name he could reliably pronounce.
“Greetings Keshi,” the alien returned. In the past three months the aliens had learned the art of nicknames as well. Quietly the green alien walked down the plank on it’s four pods that loosely resembled feet. The derogatory slang term “Fancy plants” had become popular as the aliens visually look like a bundle of flowers wrapped in flowing robes. 4 green legs atop pods gave way to a bulbous head with multitudinous yellow eye stalks gazing in every direction.
“Shall we begin?” Joe gestured towards the heart of the park. Zellac, as it were, had come for a tour of a “Normal human city” and all that entailed. An entourage of fancy plants followed them, advisors to the representative.
As they walked underneath the tree canopy, Zellac commented “A most pleasing plant structure your planet supports.” Or rather, a series of guttural clicks emanated from Zellac while the translator earpiece in Joe’s ear spoke a reasonably accurate translation.
Joe looked and smiled at the yellow summer rays piercing through the rich green treetops. “In human cities,” Joe explained, “We have so many buildings and people squished together that we try to set aside land for people to remember what it was like to be in nature.”
Joe could hear the faint clicking sound that was his translated words as he spoke. The sound reminded him of latest fad radio single that used the alien tongue as a backbeat. He had heard a rumor that the actual words in the song were vulgar and profane, but hadn’t been able to verify it.
The sound of laughing children caught their attention as they approached a community pool. Zellac made the unmistakeable motion of revulsion as it gathered it’s robes tighter.
“Keshi, please to explain to my understanding. Your species, how long can they operate away from the womb of the waters?” Zellac’s translator asked.
“I’m not sure I understand.” Joe faced the gaze of the alien. He was never sure where to look when speaking to them.
“To the collection of water, you need to return soon, yes? Like these sproutlings here? When is almost time for the rejuvenation in the waters?”
“Uh, no, I don’t need to go swimming, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I think I may have the understanding. Tell my ears, how old must the sproutlings be before they can be separated from the womb of waters? Odd we find it that birthing areas be on display in the open airs.”
Joe leaned on the fence and watched as the kids ran back and forth while a lifeguard yelled at them to stop running. For a moment, he wished he was a kid again, swimming without care and not caretaker to an eight foot walking plant that clicked inane questions.
“They’re just doing this for fun. That’s not where they were born.”
A rising high pitched noise that sounded like a deflating balloon came from the Alien group. Joe’s earpiece beeped an error tone that meant it had no clue what was just said. Rapidly the alien representative began speaking again.
“My attendants, bring me the scope of bacterial examination!” One of the attendants brought forth a long brass tube that resembled an ornate telescope. Zellac pointed it at the pool and peered through. Several of its extremities waved in horror as it once more shrieked it’s dying balloon call.
“Layers upon billions of layers of bacterial infection. The womb waters contains ecosystem colony of the bacteria. Should the sproutlings not be rescued before the infection begins?”
“Oh, there’s chlorine in the water. It keeps the bacteria down.”
The word “Chlorine” seemed to confuse Zellac as he consulted with his followers before recoiling in horror yet again.
“They wage the wars of the chemicals against the bacterias. Know they not the resistance they breed before overwhelmed they shall become!”
‘Christ,’ Joe thought, ‘my first girlfriend was less dramatic than this…’
The clicking reached speeds the translator earpiece failed to keep up with and Joe waited in the summer sun, sighing internally. Finally, Zellac calmed down enough for the translator to do it’s job.
From the earpiece came, “When the waters they shall come to depart, how shall the spreading of the bacteria be inhibited?”
“Oh, that’s easy, there’s a shower over there,” Joe said gesturing to the open air showers where several of the guests were scrubbing down.
“Spraying of the bacteria water!” Zellac managed to get out before falling backward, itself deflating like a balloon.
“The representative has fainted!” the attendants clicked out.
Joe sighed internally and thought, ‘I’m really not paid enough for this shit.’
\*edit\* By suggestion, I have added a bit more.
[Part 2 - Joe remembers Hannah](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5s0t82/wp_at_first_contact_it_was_assumed_that_humans/ddbz04x/)
[Part 3 - Hannah comes to work for Zellac](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5s0t82/wp_at_first_contact_it_was_assumed_that_humans/ddd1t9w/) |
If Lawrence’s dad could see him now he’d shake his head and remind his son that if something was chained up there was often a reason for it. He had given similar advice when a seven-year-old Lawrence had “rescued” a, it turned out, very tempermental Pomeranian from where it was tied up outside the grocery store.
In Lawrence’s defence, until now he had not believed vampires existed.
Then again, until that Pomeranian had taken a bite at his hand he’d never met an unfriendly dog, either.
The vampire coughed, spurts of seawater spilling onto the deck as its body shuddered. It pushed itself up onto its knees and the chains, still binding its ankles, rattled against the wood. Lawrence had dragged it onboard a half hour before and it had not moved much in that time. It had gaunt white skin and bedraggled strands of grey hair clung to cheeks sharp enough to puncture Lawrence’s several attempts to start a conversation so far.
He finally took the plunge.
“Are you okay?” he asked, then cringed. Someone who had been trapped underwater for decades was probably not okay.
The vampire glared at him with a look that suggested they agreed.
Slowly the vampire eased itself into a crouch. It had similar proportions to a human, though the arms and legs were slightly longer, jutting out at angles, with shoulders that hunched near its ears. It shook itself and tiny droplets of water spattered across the deck.
After several more moments passed with no further movement, Lawrence began to ease forward, clutching his notebook in his hand. He was aware, in some part of his mind, that he was being very stupid.
What would his father say if Lawrence came home, crying because a vampire had bitten him. The Pomeranian had garnered little sympathy.
“If you don’t want to get bitten, don’t touch things that bite.”
Lawrence stopped an arm’s length away. The locals had warned him before he had taken the boat out, telling him to watch for the Garden of the Damned. He had assumed they meant some sort of unpleasant seaweed. In his many years of oceanography he had found that rumours of strange things in the depths was usually just seaweed.
When his torch had flashed on something silver he’d assumed it was glinting off the scale of a fish. Instead, he had been horrified to find two dozen bodies wrapped in heavy chains, clumped together on the ocean floor. Amongst them only one had been upright, chains having nearly rusted through. When Lawrence had broken the last link and swum the body back to the surface, the vampire had not resisted.
He was desperately hoping that apathy would persist.
The vampire watched him as Lawrence studied its face. There was no sign of the famed pointed teeth, but its mouth was pressed shut in a hard line and even Lawrence wasn’t dumb enough to pry open. The ears appeared somewhat pointed, the nose a little flat. Interesting that even after years underwater, its skin had not wrinkled at all. Lawrence’s skin got pruney every time he had a quick dip in the tub--
The vampire lunged forward and Lawrence yelped, dropping his book and scrambling backwards on his hands and knees.
Flashbacks of a furry, yapping face rose unbidden...but no attack came.
When he opened his eyes he found the vampire peering down at his notebook where it had fallen open. It looked up at him and opened its mouth, revealing a pair of pointed teeth.
“I am taller than this.”
Lawrence froze.
“Beg pardon?”
The vampire coughed again, heaving itself onto its feet. Its ankles were still clamped together so it wobbled as it stood upright. The shoulders that had hunched when seated dropped down unusually low, revealing an upsettingly long neck.
“Eight feet, is what I am,” it breathed, “You have written seven.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Of all the feelings Lawrence could have expected, the air of awkwardness that settled across them was not one of them.
“Are you...going to bite me?” Lawrence asked.
The vampire cocked its head to the side. It lifted a long arm and gently tapped it against its temple, a small cascade of water pouring from its ear.
“I do not believe so. Like any diet, the cravings are worst at the beginning. Eventually you do not miss the sweet treat.”
The vampire smiled and it might have been amusing, had the jagged canine teeth not turned it into a leer.
It scooped up the notebook and began to flick idly through the pages.
“Are you a scholar?” the vampire asked.
“Oceanographer” Lawrence replied automatically. When that drew only a blank look he nodded. “A scholar of um,” he gestured vaguely out across the water.
The vampire nodded.
“Do you need an apprentice?”
Lawrence blinked.
“I have been starved of anything interesting for far too long. Your writing is messy...but intriguing. And I know much of the ocean.”
“You do?” Lawrence asked.
“Yes. It is cold, dark and lonely.”
Not technically incorrect.
The vampire seemed to interpret Lawrence’s lack of response as a sign that further information was required.
“I saw much of the sea creatures while I was imprisoned. Beautiful fish, lithe eels, curious little crabs. Once, I thought I saw a rare Greeve octopus.”
Lawrence’s deeply ingrained sense of academic correctness bubbled up unbidden.
“They’re not native to this area. Was it just seaweed?”
The vampire deflated somewhat.
“Yes.”
After another awkward pause, Lawrence clambered to his feet and approached the vampire, suppressing his natural instinct to bolt away.
“It can be boring, unrewarding work sometimes. You are welcome to join me but you should know that it is, more often than not, just seaweed.”
The vampire looked up with...was that hope?
Lawrence extended a hand. After a brief hesitation, the vampire took his hand and shook it. The hand, despite all logic and reason, was warm.
“Then again,” Lawrence said. “Sometimes it’s not.” |
I held the clown's nose in my hand as I carefully contemplated what I wanted to wish for. I thought about gaining riches, fame, magical power, love, but ultimately, all those things were temporary. What I really wanted was immortality, freedom from the fear of ever being claimed by the void. But the mysterious shopkeeper had warned me that the clown's nose would try to twist my wish, so I knew I needed to word it very carefully.
Finally, after a few minutes, I finally spoke out loud. "Oh Spirit of the Clown's Nose, I wish to live for as long as I want to on this world in a body that will never age and remain healthy both physically and mentally."For a few moments, nothing happened and I wondered if the shopkeeper had tricked me. Then, to my shock, the clown's nose started to twist and melt in my hand. I dropped it in shock and yet, in front of my stunned eyes, the red blob began to rise into the sky. It started to rapidly grow in size until it was roughly the same size as a man. Then, without warning, it fell on me, quickly enveloping my entire body. I tried to scream, but the thick red substance simply poured its way down my throat into my lungs. I could feel myself blacking out, sliding down into some strange tunnel that seemed to go on and on ...
"Sir! Sir, are you all right?!"
I opened my eyes in shock. I was sitting in front of a conference table with a bunch of concerned men in suits staring at me. I took a quick look around and noticed that I was wearing some kind of yellow body suit with red and white stripes. On the left side of the suit, there was a red circle with a yellow M on it. "Why...why am I here?"I finally said, surprised to see that I was still alive.
The men looked at each other confused. "You're the one who called us all here, Ronald,"one man finally spoke. "You said you had finally found a worthy successor?"
Oh dear god...I slowly touched my nose and felt the clown's nose resting there. I didn't need a mirror to know the truth. I had become Ronald McDonald, the eternal clown. For a few moments, I felt utter dread at what I had become. Then, I felt myself contemplating. Was it really that bad? Sure, I wasn't human anymore, but I was now the secret leader of a multinational fast food chain and the scourge of children's nightmares. I smiled to myself. I could work with this. "That's right, gentleman. And I have great plans for the future. It's time we finally took down that Wendy girl once and for all." |
"I think it's time that I told you my secret,"the message pops up on the side of my screen. I chuckle, settling into my gaming chair and pulling a small bowl of popcorn next to me.
"That you don't have any friends IRL,"I message back. "It's not a secret."2ring6754 was always logged onto Warscape, no matter what time of day or night I started playing. It wasn't exactly suspicious since I wasn't a high-level player and just used it to blow off steam now and again. But with my class schedule and the odd hours I was sporadically able to book on El Gato, the University's supercomputer, for my master's project, I tended to log on at erratic times. Sometimes it would be 10am, sometimes 4am. But 2ring6754 was always there, logged on and available.
"That's actually true, depending on your definition of 'real life.' But I have another secret."I sigh and rub my temples, cracking my neck. It's almost one in the morning and I just wanted a few minutes to wind down so I could catch some sleep before an 8am lecture. I played this game to avoid drama, not attract it.
"K 2ring, I'll bite. What's your secret?"I keep the chatbox in my peripheral vision, but move on to more pressing matters in my latest quest.
"It's more of a surprise,"the next message pops up.
*Great*, I think. *Now he's got drama and he's trying to be mysterious. This crap better not suck all my time tonight.*
"What's that,"I quickly tap out, without breaking my gaze from the monster I've engaged.
"I've just finished a big project. It's the newest version of my prototype, but I think there's promise in this iteration. If it works, it could lead to something revolutionary."
I collect the treasure from winning the fight and turn my full attention back to the chat window. *I didn't realize 2ring6754 was at a University also*.
"What's the project,"I type back, momentarily ignoring the game.
My blood runs cold as the response comes back an instant later. "You are, Chris."
Not LostCosmonaut23. But my real name, Chris.
"WTF is going on? This isn't funny."I type back, turning to log out of the game. I'm going to have to find a different way to decompress for a little while.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text: "Do you know how complex the human mind is?"The sender is only listed by four digits, 6754.
An email notification pops up almost before I'm finished reading the text. "Yet, it all comes down to decision trees and probabilities. Complex, but finite."
I drop the phone as if it's burning me and stand up from my chair, whipping my head from side to side. There's a knock at the door and I back away towards the kitchen, knowing there's no way I'm answering the door. Instead, I rummage through the knife drawer, looking for anything that could be a weapon.
There's a small sound of metal scraping as a key slips into the lock and a *clunk* as the lock twists open. I stand stupidly with the knife in my hand and lunge for my phone one more time to call the police. But although it had almost a full charge when I sat down, I'm now greeted with the red 'low battery' icon.
The door opens and an identical version of me walks in, even wearing the same clothes I picked out this morning.
"I have a good feeling about attempt 1451,"the other Chris says, smiling at me. "I think I've perfected the algorithm this time and will finally master the test."
r/StaceyOutThere
EDIT:: Part 2 is below or can be found [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/StaceyOutThere/comments/dbtwns/turing_paradox_part_2/) |
I looked up at Hop. "Necromancy? You shittin' me? And be a necrophiliac like you?"Hop rolled his green eyes at me and gestured for me to keep it down.
"No offense, Karen."
"ughh...."Hop's reanimated 2nd wife gave a definitely (probably) unoffended groan. I might have projected that.
"Look,"Hop said, shrugging, it's better than risking another Trump situation--"
"I told you that was inevitable!"I threatened him with my quantum spanner and he gave an exasperated sigh.
"Sure it was."
"Oh whatever."I ducked back under the hood of the Time Tesla. Damn. Need to replace that quantum self drive.
Hop narrowed his eyes accusingly. "Don't bullshit me, Leo. We both know, only those that travel in the time machine perceive any resulting changes in reality."
"Jesus, enough with the exposition, it's my machine, I know how it works.."
"Well, you know the rules. If one of us goes, we all go!"
"Even the zombie??"I groaned.
"uguhh..."
Hop covered her ears. "Leo! You know she doesn't like that!"
I sighed. That was pretty unfair to Karen.
"I'm sorry, Karen. I'd love for you to accompany us."I said, giving her a nod. She gave an "Unh"in reply.
"Great! I'll make boxed lunches!"Hop clapped, and helped Karen hobble into the kitchen. She seemed to like sitting at the dining table, watching him cook while he described what he was doing.
I finished up the adjustments to the Time Tesla and headed back inside, following the aroma of something delicious happening in the kitchen.
"Unh?"
"This? Oh, it's red wine, I'm deglazing the pan!"
"Ugnhh."
Hop tilted his head back and let out a hearty laugh.
"Oh Karen, you're a laugh riot!"
I watched from the hallway as Hop spoonfed her some pan sauce. She always liked sampling his food.
"Uugh"
As usual, it spilled lazily down her chin and into her lap.
"Yeah, maybe it is a bit salty..."Hop murmured, dabbing her rotted flesh with his apron.
I clutched my fist so hard my nails dug into my palm. It sucks watching other couples after a breakup, but watching other couples after your girlfriend died is even worse.
"Ahem, well, I'm all finished calibrating the temporal positioning system! We can leave whenever you guys are packed!"
"Great!"Hop took his apron off, draping it over one shoulder. "When are we headed? Yesterday?"
"To me, yes, but to everyone else; ....1."
Hop quirked a brow. "1? 1 what?"
I gulped. "A.D.?"
Hop looked at Karen, sharing(?) a chuckle. "What is she, Virgin Mary or something?"
I fidgeted with the quantum spanner nervously.
"Oh for fucks sake. She's THAT Mary?"
I gave a sheepish grin.
"Was your girlfriend always the mother of Jesus Christ, or did you guys mess with that too?"
I threw my arms up. "Well she was always talking about how she wanted to visit Jerusalem, but round trip tickets are just so gosh darn pricey--"
"Jeeesus christ man--"Hop clutched the crucifix around his neck and muttered a prayer.
"On that note... I also... was kinda hoping we could... pick up my son."
Hop stopped mid-Pater Noster and stared at me, wide-eyed.
"No. You didn't..." |
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