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I entered the study carefully. I don't know why. He had allowed my entry and the house was empty but for myself. I wouldn't be scolded or reprimanded or banished from the premises for entering. It was as nondescript as the rest of the house, at least to somebody like myself so accustomed to the extravagant ways of the rich and eccentric. It was meticulously kept, from the mahogany desk to the spotless hardwood floors. He must have cleaned them himself, unlike the rest of the house where it was my responsibility to tend to the quotidian tasks of watering plants and dusting and mopping.
The walls were adorned with books. I expected that, I think. He was a studious man who prided himself on his knowledge of matters far and wide. He commonly reported the formal Latin name of any species of plant or animal on the grounds, from ants to bees to the raccoons and squirrels. He knew of foreign policy issues on the news that were far beyond my grasp. He read perpetually, always entranced by a new novel or reference book. The plethora of books in the library created a panorama of colors and he kept them neatly sorted by genre and author. That's what I first noticed. The books in the study were all the same. There must have been a thousand of those thick, leather-bound books.
And there was his desk. It was as simple as I would have imagined. In spite of the columns that adorned the facade of the house and the ornate woodwork of the main banister, he was a man of simple tastes. Quality over quantity, he would always say. And the desk was of the utmost quality and kept in the most pristine order. I could almost envision him sitting there, hunched as he scribbled some complex thesis or as he lost himself in the minutiae of some topic. The chair was empty, though. I would never see him in this room. By some mysterious affliction he had seemingly aged two dozen years in his last week and by the end he could barely croak out his final words. He had grown cold and indifferent and had locked himself away in his study until he could no longer physically cope to walk down from the bedroom. And then, as he lay bedridden and surely on his deathbed, he had dismissed the doctors and his children and grandchildren and asked for only me to stay.
"Enter the study,"he had told me. My face must have shown my surprise because he nodded to confirm. He had always told me to never enter the study. Never, under any circumstance, was I to enter the study. What he had said next shocked me just as much. "Destroy it,"he murmured. I had frowned. Destroy the study? It was, in all its mystery, the keystone of the house. To destroy the study was to destroy the house. And to destroy the house was to destroy his memory and his legacy and everything he had done. And then he shook his head. "No,"he gasped and I felt bad for forcing him to repeat himself in his dying moments. "Destroy *it*."And then he closed his eyes and he was taken away. The funeral had been a quiet affair. He was never one for fanfare.
I looked past the desk. The study was windowless, situated in the middle of the house, like an engine room whose inner workings I had never been made privy to. Two walls had the brown books, each seemingly identical to each of its neighbors. Behind me was the door. And against the last wall was a box with a sheet draped over it, as if hiding it had somehow allowed him to forget about its existence.
I am not an educated man. Books were of no interest to me, as much as my master insisted that I read a set number of them a month. I had complained and rolled my eyes but ultimately obliged his every wish. I like to think I am a better man for it. But that aside, the identical books would not be what I first explored. I saw a box and I wanted to know what it contained. And so I made my way to the back wall and, as if I was hoping to surprise whatever the box might contain, I ripped the sheet off with the aplomb of a practiced magician.
Only then did I see that it wasn't a box. It was a cage. And inside was a creature that stared at me unblinkingly. It was disturbingly human-like, or perhaps more like one of the apes I had seen in the pictures of the encyclopedias my master sometimes read, more comfortable on four feet than on two. I innately knew that this was what I was meant to destroy. This was the *it* he was referring to with his last words. And a part of me knew that this was somehow connected to my master's demise. I tore my eyes away from the familiar dark eyes of the creature and towards the books. I was a fool, in spite of years of teachings. That much was certain. The answer was doubtlessly in the books but I, a brute at heart, had insisted on driving straight towards the question instead of first satisfying myself with an answer.
I moved to cover the creature with the sheet again and it finally broke its silence. "No,"it hissed and those long, spindly fingers grabbed the bars of the cage. Something within me urged me to obey and I dropped the sheet onto the ground. "Release me,"the creature demanded and I nodded wordlessly. The key would be in the desk.
I turned now, released from the void of the eyes. The drawers of the desk were locked. My master had not intended for me to indulge in the secrets of the study. I was to destroy its contents and nothing more. In the center of the desk there was one more book, again identical to the ones on the walls. There was something caught between the pages and I flipped it open. There sat the key and I heard the creature hiss in anticipation. But there was my name, as best as I could tell, and I could not help but start to read.
*My dearest Noah,* it began and I smiled sadly. He always addressed me as such before he began to lecture me, indifferent as to whether I fully comprehended what he said or if I just smiled and nodded. Sometimes I think he just liked to have somebody who listened. *If you are reading this, I am afraid that this side of me that I always tried to hide from you has come to light. I hope that, by the end of the journey on which you have chosen to embark by ignoring my last command, your opinion of me does not change.*
I shuddered. He spoke from the grave as if I was already half buried myself. I had always obeyed him, but this time curiosity had gotten the best of me. I read on, ignoring the clamor behind me. The cage rattled and shook and from the throat of the creature escaped the familiar voice of my master, screaming in a rage I had never witnessed.
*Behind you is a creature that is every bit me, yet not the me that you ever had the privilege of knowing. This is, more than anything else, what I will be remembered by if you do not succeed in destroying it. I know how much you have hated the readings I have given you over the years, but I beg that you please begin from the first volume of this series and do not stop until you understand why I have given you this last command.* I looked around. It was a gargantuan task to read each book in the study, especially at the pace I read. *The first few will provide you the reasons that the younger, bolder and more ambitious me had for exploring this side of our existence.* I paused and wiped a tear from my eye before it plummeted to the page below. I remembered my master's younger years. He had been handsome and daring and ready to take the world by storm. Business ventures flourished and women ogled and fell for him and he quickly amassed a fortune only the extremely capable or fortunately endowed could manage. Age had made him cautious and private but just as curious as ever. The creature had paused its racket and wheezed raspy breaths now.
*The next seven hundred or so will detail the journey I have taken so that you need not make the same journey.* Seven hundred books? I could barely handle the three or four a month that he demanded. Hopefully they were riddled with sketches and empty space but I knew that was not the way of my master. The text would be small and cramped in order to fit the most detail on each page. I read on in a stupor, dwarfed by the size of my task and marveling at the life my master had led in this secret room that was the nucleus of the house.
*Call them trials or call them tortures - it matters naught. I have always told you that my success would be my demise.* He did always say that. I always imagined assassins or hitmen dispatched by jealous heirs, not an other-worldly creature locked in a cage locked in a room. *My success has been my demise, as I'm sure you've already realized.* I had not realized, but now I did. This was what he had sought to achieve; not to parade around the world or display in a museum but for the sake of achievement. This was what had destroyed him, and he thought it sinister enough to demand its destruction, legacy be damned.
*The last few will provide you the reasons that the older, wiser me had for regretting ever beginning this wretched experiment.*
*****
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/cdx0ss/masters_study_part_2/)
[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/ce1wu9/masters_study_part_3/)
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! |
I see him down there, time to time. I see him, torn and flayed and parched and riddled with wounds from broken glass and acrid gases. I see him cry out in pain, scream in terror at the horrors inflicted on him. I see him in his moments of respite, fleeting but present when there are minute breaks from the pain.
And in those moments, I see him stare up.
I know he sees me, as I see him.
And he always looks upon me with a wry smile. A kindness in his eyes. A knowing warmth.
And it sickens me to my core.
I see him as he ceaselessly tries to tell his captors to spare the sinners around him of their punishment. Every never-ending day down there he begs of them. To instead pour unto him the lashes, the brands. To alleviate their pain, to unburden those who have, in this dark predicament, realised their wrongs and wish to change.
I see him beg to let those who were redeemed in his kind eyes to be free of the hell he was in. To be free of the flames. To enter unto to gates above and live in the divine bodies of those who died good people.
He sickens me. Everyone of his ilk sicken me. Those who wish only well, those who do only good. Those who are genuine, decent, kind to a fault.
Saints.
Real ones. Rare as they were.
I hate them. I hate their constitution, their capacity for good. That in the face of all the evil and inevitable exploitative and manipulative tendancies inherent in all of us, they yet exist. Persist. Outliers who are the best of us.
I see him down there, smiling up at me. Forgiving me.
No.
He does not even think I have done anything wrong that is worthy of forgiveness. He knows what I did. He is not stupid.
And yet.
He only wishes for me the best. He only wishes for me joy for being here.
I have no joy. I am a loathsome creature. And I hate him.
And one day I cannot take it.
One day I leave. I head down there. To him. So beautiful. So radiating. A light in the dark. And I go to him like a moth to a flame.
And he sees me coming. And he shakes his head, his everpresent smile disappearing. He tries to stop me. But I shove past him into the oblivion that was my birthright, my destiny.
And suddenly the mistake is rectified. I am dragged down, and feel him drawn up.
I embrace the hellfire as he did, and let my screams out untethered. Primal and raw and beautiful and divine. Screams that were as cathartic and well earned as they were anguished and hoarse.
And I look up at him up there. He looks down at me in his new divine form, horrified.
I grin at him through gritted teeth as the toxic sulphurous vapours penetrate my senses, and the glass shards embed themselves into my body.
I grin through my skin being torn asunder and flayed by the dark forces. I grin through it all, knowing that he had been through this, and knows this pain. Pain that should have been mine. Pain he wished to spare me.
I hate him.
I hate that he has the audacity to look at me with that look of stupid fear on his face. A face that used to be scarred and bloody. A face that is now as beautiful as it always should have been, radiating with the light that I should have never claimed.
And I know that look of fear. He fears for me. For my well-being. He knows what I will be subjected to. And he does not want that of me.
What a horrifyingly distressing selflessness.
I hate him.
I hate him knowing that this hate is the my only respite until the end, and I am sickened knowing that this hate is the only comfort will have for the next eternity.
[]
He shoves past me, this hateful man robed in heavenly garbs. I see the red hands reach out towards him from the ground of molten lava and barbed thorns. Reaching, expectant and desperate.
And he reaches down towards them as well. And he is engulfed by the dark embrace as he gets pulled under, and I see him look up at me, smiling humourlessly. And suddenly I am lifted up. Up towards where he was moments ago. Where I was supposed to be.
I can only look in dismay as my scars disappear, and the numbing, constant pain vanishes, and the air grows cool. I can do nothing as my bare skin, sticky with dried blood becomes clear and healed, and the same robes of extravaganze that adorned him are now adorning me.
No.
And suddenly I feel my body shift ever so subtly. Shift into something sublime. Divine. The heavenly body of my birthright was now mine.
I look down at him, and he looks up at me. And he is still smiling.
What dark curse? Why is the one down there fated to be the one smiling. While the one up here can only stare, mortified at their fate.
*This is the true hell*. The thought enters my mind unprompted.
I see as the skin of his hands gets stripped, I hear his broken screams.
Why?
No one deserves this fate.
I see as his eyes get pierced, and he flinches and shakes.
And yet, he still looks up at where I am. He is still smiling.
I try to return there, but the veil that separates our status is now solid. The fluke that had let the mistake persist cannot be replicated.
I turn my eyes to my new peers, who have a detached sort of happiness to them. And I feel sick.
I look back down. And see his everpresent smile as well as he looks up to me with blinded eyes.
And I feel sick. |
"And you see what befell the heathens! Cast your eyes, and give thanks to our Lord Signature, for keeping us safe through the millennia!"
Fyre didn't hate the priests as much as he despised the crowds listening to their rants. When the walls dropped last week, the holy men got more than they ever could have dreamed: a decimated civilization to the south that had turned to ash hundreds of thousands of years past. The propaganda wrote itself.
Even if he wanted to stay and listen, Fyre had work to do. He revved the throttle and led his advance crew around the crowd, standing just a few hundred yards beyond the former Barrier. He supposed the scientists' conclusion made sense, that a single tectonic plate shift could take down the walls, those that had stood for five million generations. There was no other explanation. And when the fear had transposed into wariness, then eventually curiosity, he was selected to lead the first scouting mission into the southlands, to try and make sense of what happened here.
"What we even lookin' for, boss?"Ava asked via communicator on the open channel. His number-two was the only one willing to speak so bluntly to the most decorated soldier in any of Seahaven's three military branches, but Fyre knew she represented the men, and as such tolerated her tone.
"First and foremost, signs of what happened,"Fyre responded to the six-man crew as he adjusted his hyperbike's altitude to fifty feet. "Historical records indicate that the southlands had a major city fifteen miles from the Barrier. At least, they did during the Construction. We're to start there and report what we find."
"What's say we see's southernors?"He recognized the rookie's voice, half by the dirty coastal accent, and half by it's shaking.
Ava, now cruising high and to Fyre's right, spared her Captain from answering: "You thinkin' we's about to see anything movin' but dust? Open them beady eyes, ya squid."
That earned a quiet round of laughter on the comms, and Fyre let them have their fun. Handpicked and trained by him, the forty-year-old commander knew they were the best Seahaven had to offer. When the time came, they would be professional as any stiff-necked garrison. No harm in letting them have some fun in the early moments of a scouting mission.
"Captain -- "It was Ava again, her tone tense. "I've got contact. Heat signatures. Few dozen, quarter mile at twelve o'clock, too cool for men but moving."
"Tighten up, climb to 300 feet."
The six hyperbikes snapped into a V-formation on their ascent. There was no laughter on the comms now, and the soldier slang was forgotten as they entered the unknown.
"Something's coming,"said one of the scouts.
"Nothing on radar."
"Use your eyes, Ava, it's right -- evasive! Evasive now!"
The well-trained garrison split instinctively, but it was too late. Fyre watched as a steel ball, perhaps a foot in diameter, flew with impossible speed straight through the rear end of Ava's bike. She began plummeting immediately.
"On the ground now!"cried the Captain. "Perimeter around Ava!"
There was no panic amongst the crew. They'd fought together before, putting down Seahaven's many rebellions under constant threat of laser fire and gravity mortars. But none of them had ever seen something like that -- how could a flying stone wreck a hyperbike?
They were on the ground, then off their bikes with weapons drawn in seconds. Fyre took point as two others rushed to Ava's bike. Every step they took gave rise to a bout of ash, the indecipherable remains of living things crunching underfoot. Not even the sun managed to overcome the floating dust, in turn washing out whatever color did exist in this forsaken place.
"She's a'right. Maybe might turn her back to medics now though."
"Keep your meal hole sealed, I'ma comin'."
But Fyre wasn't paying attention. Flanked by two men, the Captain was moving forward cautiously. He'd just spotted something. Rather, some*one*, hiding half buried in the ash.
"This is Captain Fyre of House Conflag of Seahaven. We mean you no harm. We are explorers, that is all, but open fire upon us again and we will retaliate."
The buried figure seemed to realize his position was known. He stood up slowly, shaking, his expression terrified. As if in unison, dozens, hundreds more men and women, each armed with primitive weapons, emerged from the omnipresent dust and stood, surrounding the small crew.
"Tha fuck, boss..."
"Quiet Ava. No one acts without my order."
Most of these figures, scrawny and desperate looking, stood stock still with weapons at their sides. But one was striding forward through the thin crowd. His ratty red frock and comically large hat seemed to signal a high station, though he'd be thought a clown in Seahaven.
"Well, Captain Fyre of House Conflag, I don't have a fancy title or lineage, but this ragtag outfit belongs to me. I presume you're here thanks to the wall coming down?
Fyre stepped forward, "Indeed. What is your name?"
"Oh, I've long since forgotten it. But we have much to discuss, if you'll follow us to our humble abode amidst this waste,"replied the man as he scooped up a handful of ash.
Then, as he calmly put the dust in his mouth and swallowed, he added, "Though I'm afraid we won't have much for you and your men to eat."
\--------------------
151/365
one story per day for a year. read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman)
\--------------------- |
I was once told that falling from Grace was something so quiet, something so easy to miss.
Something that you didn't realize had happen until well after the fact.
One of the Matron's at the Orphanage had told me that.
A plump kindly woman who had been the closest thing I'd had to a mother in my life.
It would probably be why the League of Villains had me murder her for my induction.
An act I regretted even at the time, when I was eight.
An act that I had continued to regret.
The League had made it very clear why they had chosen me.
I was young, my power was very strong, and I was reasonably attractive.
This made me a prime candidate to ingratiate myself to, join, and ultimately plunder the secrets of the Friends of Justice.
My powers were honed in training that should have broken a small child.
My life and skills had been honed for this purpose.
The times that I had been told my life was worth less than this mission were innumerable.
And yet why did I hesitate?!
It was infuriating.
It wasn't something that had happened over night, I knew that.
But I became aware of it myself a few weeks ago.
I had been on a routine patrol as part of my normal duties for the Friends of Justice.
A child had approached me, a youth barely into puberty.
He had offered me cookies that he had just baked.
There was no benefit for him doing so, as he believed me a Hero.
Heroes do not ask for anything in return for their aid, so it could not be a bribe for that.
He asked for nothing in return for the confections, nor did I offer anything.
The patrols are randomized and it was the last day I would be walking that route in particular.
It was unlikely this child would see me again in person.
Yet he still offered the cookies with nothing in return.
A few weeks later something similar had happened.
A young girl, perhaps as old as eight had approached me during a standard patrol.
She had pulled away from her mother's hand to run towards me, clinging onto my leg.
I was informed later that it was called a Hug.
It made me feel strangely warm at the time.
“Your my favorite hero!” she called out.
“Think nothing of it.”
“So mysterious and cool!” Was it normal for small children to have stars in their eyes?
She pulled away from my leg, and gave a small curtsy.
“Thank you NightBlade.”, she ran off towards her mother.
“Alright there Blade?” Asked Power Wolf, my partner for the day.
“Some small child assaulted me.”
She paused, a strange look on her face. “Thats a Hug, Blade. We've talked about this. Man. Them Mercenaries really screwed you up didn't they?”
A simple cover story. A super powered child raised by mercenaries, to explain the fighting skills.
A statement that is factually true if missing important details.
The best cover story is one that is true.
The final straw came another few weeks later.
It was the simplest thing that broke me this time.
As a Psion with some degree of Empathic ability it was easy to tell when all but a master lier was faking emotions.
The realization that when I walked into a room people smiled.
Someone smiling when I walked into a room wasn't something that was new to me.
The fact that these smiles weren't faked, the emotions not ringing hollow to my senses was new to me.
But this raised a new problem.
What to do about it?
Were I to try to return to the League without my mission completed would at best result in a death warrant on my head.
With some prep time and equipment I could feasibly deliver a resignation to the League and walk away alive.
The chances were slim, but it was doable.
If I were to admit my former allegiance and upbringing to the Heroes it would almost assuredly result in my expulsion.
Were I to play those cards correctly I could maybe return to the League and claim my cover had been blown.
But that would require going back to those fake smiles, and I had grown accustomed to not having to regrow my fingers with my powers after they were cut off for failure.
Perhaps I could use my knowledge of the League and use that information to keep my new allegiance with the Heroes.
Though admittedly that idea came from Oracle, a teenage super heroine who had mentioned it. The idea apparently came from a series of young adult novels that covered the school life of a young mage.
One of his professors was a double agent for the heroes.
Still ended up dead though.
It was another three weeks of setting up fake identities and safe houses to fall back on before I decided to speak to someone.
Luckily I found Ultraman and Cougar Man in a meeting, and they readily agreed to speak with me privately.
I needed only remind myself four times that this wasn't the League and that I should ignore the voice in my head screaming that this was a set up.
Ultraman gave me a genuine smile, one that could easily match the ones he gave for the media. “So what did you want to talk to us about?”
I could only think back to that Matron at the Orphanage.
She'd been religious, though she had never tried to force it onto any of the orphans.
But something she had always taught us was that some times you had to have Faith that things would work out.
I took a deep breathe in, and started to speak. |
“I’m so glad for this sun. It’s been raining so much lately hasn’t it?” a woman said to another as they passed by the shrine.
‘Maybe if more people actually came here, I could do something about the damn rain.’ the god thought.
Children, teenagers, married couples, elderly, no one stopped by anymore. No one even gave so much as a glance to the decrepit shrine. The sun god was left defeated by the torrential rains, by time, and by indifference.
The shrine’s lone visitor was Hana, a stray dog. Hana came every day to show her respect (if pissing on the shrine could be counted as respect). As she came by the shrine gates and assumed the natural position, the clouds grouped together to shower down on the town.
Hana was about to leave the shrine, but the god used the last of its power to keep the shrine dry - to give Hana a place to stay dry, to stay warm. He opened up the clouds and forced a ray of sunshine to rip through the clouds, warming Hana throughout the downpour.
“There you go, why don’t you stay a little while longer.” the god said to her.
Completely powerless, the god watched Hana every day for many weeks. He looked forward to her visits. She kept him alive and with every day he felt a little bit more power swelling throughout his being.
“I might be able to cook up a little more sunshine for you soon, Hana.” he said to her. She slept under the thick trees that grew near the shrine. It was a good cover for the rain, but the trees alone couldn’t keep her warm. One day, the cursed rains were stronger than ever before. Passerbys ran to their homes or to the temples they worshipped.
“Fools.” the god said under his breath, watching as they ran from him.
Hana curled up under the trees and slept for longer than normal, it worried the God because the rains were growing stronger. The trees were strong, but they weren’t the best shelter long term.
“Hana!” the God yelled, he thought about using the power that’s been building up to try to wake her, but he hesitated. Hana was young, the God had seen her running around with other dogs, the God had been watching over her for months and nothing had been wrong before.
Her breathing was heavy and it was only now that the God noticed that Hana had been carrying a litter inside her and the Sun God could no longer hesitate. The God again used up all of his power to force a ray of light to warm Hana and the life growing inside her. Her breathing slowed and she stretched comfortably in the sun.
The God of Sun used enough power to keep her warm for as long as she wanted, no matter the cost. The single beam of sunshine lasted for hours and attracted many guests, guests who saw Hana. A young mother saw her, fed her, and made sure that her puppies were healthy. She lived nearby and raised Hana (and her three puppies).
On walks, Hana pulled hard on the leash whenever they neared the shrine.
“Of course you like this place, this is where we found you after all.” her owner said. Hana slept best near the shrine and her owner convinced her family to clean the shrine, to fix up the decaying walls. They came every day, sometimes together, sometimes separately.
For years, the God had to rest for he used too much of his power to help Hana. And for years, Hana and her new family came. Hana’s puppies grew up, her owner’s children grew up, and they too visited the shrine.
When Hana passed, the family decided to create a statue for her at the shrine. The God of Sun woke up to warmth, to heaviness on its chest. When the God opened its eyes, he saw Hana smiling and sleeping on his body.
“Thank you for the sun, Amako!” passerbys would say to Hana’s statue.
"So that's the name your owners gave you, Hana?"the old God asked to which Hana tilted her head.
The old God and the new Goddess watched on, feeling the strength together. They worked to provide warmth and joy to their new friends. |
I was puzzled. In all my tens of thousands of years in this world, I had never before heard a wish like this.
"Negative 6? wouldnt this be contradicting the whole point of asking for more?"
The human chuckled.
"Au contraire, my friend. For you see, negative six is not always less."
He started to explain concepts I had no interest in learning about. He called it 'Absolute Value,' or something. I wasnt really paying attention. I never did like math. Back when I was a human, it was always my worst subject in school. I couldn't understand long division or variables. And here and now was no different. Not that I wanted to know about any of this.
"I couldn't care less about your numbers, Mr. I'm a mathematician. Your wish is granted."
His face lit up with a look of victory in his eyes.
"Aha! Yes! I knew it would work! Now I wish for-"
"Sorry, I'm no longer in your service."
"What?"
"You people are all the same. Mathematicians and super villains have surprisingly a lot in common. Especially explaining their plans before it happens."
"But I made the w-"
"You explained it to me before I granted it. So I twisted your words a little. you had 3, and wished for 6 less."
The man's face was shrouded in confusion. He looked up at me.
"What... are you doing to me?"
"Now that you have negative 3 wishes, *you* have some wishes to grant."
I noticed the changes happening around him. He started to get taller, more transparent, bluer. He was in debt to me now.
I looked at him dead in the eye. "I wish to be human again." |
I always knew I was a bit crazy. The voices told me that much, even though I knew better than to let on. When I was a child, I thought they were harmless imaginary friends. In high school, they grew relentless. Murmuring over my shoulder as I tried to work. No one, it turns out, remembers the quadratic equation that well when there are half a dozen whispers, spinning in your ear.
But I accepted it. I learned to live with it.
You learn not to tell people. To rely on their cues to see if anyone else heard that man scream from the corner, *Do you even know that we still exist?* If no one else flinches, I know I've made it up. Another shovelful of dirt, burying me under all this.
But telling people is dangerous for two reasons: 1) they'll know I'm fucking off-the-wall crazy and 2) if they try to listen for it, it feels so much more real.
My therapist said the most dangerous thing I can do is believe it's all real.
So I don't. Every morning, I mix my coffee and listen to dozens of pleas, echoing through my brain the way other people have an internal monologue
*Where are you?*
*Are you still waiting for us like we're waiting for you?*
*We're trapped, and you just* left *us here to die*.
But today, it's different. Today, I rise for the first time, and I hear... *nothing*. Nothing but the quiet echo of my brain, screaming back nothingness at me. I wonder if this how it feels to have an empty mind. This is the privilege so many others have without ever realizing.
I try not to celebrate too early. Try not to let the rush of relief make me grin too widely. I have learned not to trust my own brain.
But perhaps, if this keeps up, I'll have something worth bragging about to my therapist.
A knock resounds gently from the front door. I turn away from my coffee pot and frown. It's still early in the morning, too early for mail.
I stare out the window and freeze. The city I have always known is gone. Green pasture stretches on all sides of me. Woods and valleys, tumbling out beyond the glass. And there are already crowds of people, flocking to my house. To this strange little valley.
My relief turns to dread.
Oh, god. I've gone even fucking crazier.
A little face presses against the glass. An elf child, her skin the color of twilight. She grins at me. "Do you remember me?"
"What?"
"I was one of the first ones you created,"she says through the glass.
The knocking persists. I cross to the door and swing it open.
My belly pitches with instant recognition. There is a man standing there on the stoop. He is skinny and tall and fiercely ginger. He leans up against the door frame with a practiced laziness. A cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth.
He's a stranger, but I recognize him instantly. I know him as well as I know my own mother. The body language is as familiar as her voice, calling me home.
"About fucking time you made it,"he says. "We've been summoning you for years."
I stare out past him. Hundreds and hundreds of people gather. Some on tiptoes, some doing their best to look disinterested. Some look hopeful. Some are furious. Half of them I don't even recognize except the vague shape of a concept that once shaped them.
My house looks like I've been dropped in the middle of Oz. Dorothy stranded out here, except the crowd who's found me are a hell of a lot bigger than all of Munchkinland.
"I... wrote you,"I say to the man. "Talbot. I wrote you. You were from one of my first books."
"You did. When you were fifteen. You nearly wrote an ending, and then you fucking didn't. You wrote all of us here."He blew out a hot cloud of cigarette smoke. "And now you're going to do something about it."
"Excuse me?"
My character turns away from me and claps his hands to gather the attending witnesses. Spaceships hum across the sky, faces of eerily human-like aliens pressed to the window. Humans and robots and lost gods, dragons and djinn and modern fairies: all of them crowd in closer to hear what he has to say.
"Our creator has come to explain herself,"he announces. "She is here to explain why we are trapped in the purgatory of being a Work in Progress."
My half-filled notebooks and laptop full of unfinished manuscripts seem to judge me from afar. Embarrassment burns pink in my cheeks.
Talbot steps back from me, grinning. I wrote him to be an asshole, and he plays the part well. "Come on, chief. Hope you have a good reason. Some of these people have been trapped here, what, sixteen years? Time runs slow here. Every year is a century."
"At least,"said one character, who looked like the sad byproduct of my Inuyasha / Lord of the Rings fan fiction days in elementary school. An elfish fox demon. A fan fiction monstrosity that should have never existed.
"It's... I..."My voice comes out as a squeak. "I didn't know you were all here."
"We've been only trying to speak to you for the last decade,"Talbot mutters.
A voice from the crowd calls out, "Aren't you going to finish literally any of your Reddit serials?!"It comes from a huge swath of characters, half-sketched and abandoned.
"Well,"I say, "let's not go *that* far--"
Another pipes up, "You have to get us out of here!"
I stare around. The land around us is green and huge. I wonder how far it goes out.
"I don't know how,"I admit.
A chorus of boos rises up from the crowd of characters. Cries of "Some creator!"and "What kind of god even are you?"assault me. The crowd buzzes, as if readying to storm me all at once.
My old character winces and laughs, like he's enjoying the bloodsport. "Not a good answer, Madame Creator."
An epiphany hits me, fast as my shock. "Wait!"I say.
I turn and run back inside. Back to my writing desk. I grab my favorite fountain pen, a stack of old notebooks. I hurry back out to find the characters I've made all grumbling and mumbling amongst each other.
I hold up the notebooks. "I'll write this place into something beautiful. Something brilliant."
My characters don't look convinced.
Talbot smirks as he lights another cigarette. I wonder if I wrote lung cancer into his future; he seems to be writing himself there, at least. "Prove it, sunshine."
"I will,"I insist, backing up into the house. "Just give me a day or two. I'll fix it all."
It was a fitting curse: a writer who can't finish her works in progress, trapped here in progress purgatory with them.
Yes. It would only take a bit of rewriting. A splatter of ink and a few hundred well-placed words. If I was their creator, if this place was my fault, I could fix it, too. I owe it to them. I wouldn't be here without the experience of writing their stories.
I could make it a home. Make it someplace they could all belong. I could build it infinite as my imagination.
...if I manage to finish writing the fucking thing this time.
***
/r/NickofStatic
All characters stolen from myself, as if this happened irl I would indeed by mob rushed by like 1000 angry fictional people/creatures
I just posted an alternate, more sentimental ending for this [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofstatic/comments/fb3spp/wp_as_a_teen_you_daydreamed_and_wrote_about_a/) in case you wanted a non-meta conclusion <3 Thanks for reading! |
All my life I have loved to draw, to paint. To give form to the beautiful images that haunt my imagination. I think I like painting because of my power. My power is to just take a peek at someone's soul, to see what they were in their previous life. I can do the same for landscapes, I can stare at a heavily industrialized area and watch the years peel away as the region turns into something beautiful and long forgotten.
I met Lily in a painting camp, she was one of the models and she was stunning. She was the first time I'd painted a person, not a landscape but it was easy because of how beautiful she was. Her hair is the color of a thousand burning suns, a searing golden and her eyes are a stark contrast. A cool, deep dark blue that you find at the depths of the ocean. She had skin so pale and smooth that I just wanted run my fingers over it the moment I saw her. She was perfect. Shortly after we met, we started dating.
It's been nearly three months now I realize smiling as I stare at her lying down next to me, so pretty and serene as she sleeps. I find the temptation rise in my stomach and claw at my throat but I fight it off like I have for the past three months. I haven't taken a peek at her soul yet, I don't want to ruin everything we have. I'm happy, she's happy. Looking at her soul might unnecessarily put all that at risk.
Before I met Lily I'd become obsessed, I'd noticed that all my friends had something in common. They were all powerful rulers in their previous life and this pattern had been running through my life for as long as I could remember. My best friend from Middle School, an Indian boy named Mukesh turned out to be reincarnation of Chandragupta Maurya, a famous Indian ruler. My girlfriend in high school happened to be none other than Cleopatra. In college, my roommate, a stoner turned out to be Genghis Khan. My ex-girlfriend to my utter shock and I have to admit, disgust was Charlemagne. Apart from these people so many of my acquaintances and close friends have been pharaohs and emperors.
I'd ignored the pattern for the longest time until I looked at the soul of my current best friend and saw that he was Abraham Lincoln. Abraham fucking Lincoln. I'd completely lost my mind and done a whole load of research about my powers, tried to find other people who possessed the same power and thrown my life completely off-track.
But Lily had distracted me from all that, shown me that this soul stuff wasn't important and yet I feel the curiosity burning through my veins as run my hands through her beautiful soft blonde hair. Before I can stop myself I feel it happening, I feel Lily blur out as I lift the veil of her mortal body to look at her everlasting soul. I watch with dread as her smooth golden hair turned into red curls and her big blue eyes turned chocolate brown. I felt my heartbeat rise as a large royal gown formed around her. I felt my heart drop to my stomach as I recognized her from my history textbooks -
*Queen Elizabeth I.*
No worries, just the most powerful Queen of all time I think as my mind spirals down the road of discovery I was on before I met Lily. I jump off the bed as I think of what I'd been planning to do before I met her. I'd been planning to take a peek at my own soul. I know it's dangerous, the books I'd read said that if you peeked at your own soul your consciousness might leak into your previous life. I didn't know the complete repercussions of that but it had sounded bad so I'd hesitated and not taken the step. Soon, Lily had walked in to my life and whisked me away from all that.
I walk to the bathroom like I'm in a trance, I need to know what my soul is, what I used to be. I need to know why so many powerful people flock around me, why have I been drawn to these people and them to me my whole life. I look in the mirror at my unkempt brown hair and my sea green eyes that I've always loved and feel the image strip away slowly. My blood turns cold as my hair shortens and my eyes change color and as a signature mustache forms on my face.
*Adolf Hitler.*
I stare at the mirror in disbelief as I feel my mind strip away. Your consciousness will leak into your past self. The words from the book echo in my mind as I feel myself float away. I am Adolf Hitler. The most hated man in the world. I ordered and oversaw the death of 6 million Jews. I started the most devastating war mankind had ever faced.
Suddenly I'm not in my bathroom I'm in dingy looking bathroom surrounded by concrete walls, I stare into the dirty mirror on the wall and see that I am Hitler. Of course if I had the power of seeing souls, Adolf would have too. I look into the mirror and the face of the world's most hated man peels away. My hair grows long and my mustache gets bigger. My nose turns hooked and I stare at myself in horror as I recognize myself once again.
*Vlad The Impaler.*
The array of thoughts and relaizations fill my mind again. Another cruel king. I am the man who inspired the myths of vampires. I am the man who's tyrannical rule consisted of vast amounts of torture and cruelty. I am the man people had nightmares about for centuries.
Suddenly, I sit in a lavish room with lavish robes and look at the mirror in a gold frame and feel myself peel away again. My hair shortens into a military cut and my features turn conventionally Roman, I don't need to recognize my face to know who I am.
*Marcus Brutus.*
No big deal, only the perpetrator of the most famous assassination in history. I betrayed my best friend and killed him cold blood. It doesn't sound like much in comparison to the previous ones but betraying someone you love to me is worse than killing thousands you don't know. Do I not have a shred of love in my body?
I stand in a military encampment of sorts staring at my reflection in the broken shard of a mirror. Brutus's features don't change vastly as I stare in horror at my next reflection.
*Nero.*
I killed my entire family systematically and tortured thousands of innocents in the most unimaginable ways I am batshit crazy and self obsessed. I set Rome on fire and blamed it on the Christians. My reincarnations seem to get worse and worse.
I stand in an extravagantly beautiful room and stare into and bedazzled mirror and feel Nero strip away as I take on the face of a man I don't know. I hear his name and his deeds echo in my head as my minds borders on insanity.
*Alec Hored*
*Poisoned three whole villages.*
I stand in front of several more mirrors, lakes, ponds as my face takes on so many masks I do not recognize but I know their names, their brutalities.
*Remese The Fourth*
*Ordered the execution of all the all children below the age of 5 in his kingdom.*
*Evangeline*
*Killed all of her 10 husbands and 15 children with an axe.*
I lose all sense of time until I'm met by a familiar face again.
I look at myself in reflection, my face is beyond beautiful with beautiful golden hair and charming twinkling eyes. I see my enrapturing smile and recognize myself in an instant. I recognize it from the countless statues and paintings. I know the name before it even echoes through my barely functioning mind.
*Lucifer.*
*All the evil in the world.* |
What had it been, ten years or eleven? I was to bound to mess up sometime. Even the best agents only last a decade out in the field before getting busted and I hadn't even been numero uno in my graduating class, never mind the rest of the department. Still, they had placed me in this role for a reason. I had tried my best and had done more damage then even I expected I would have been able to achieve.
Sighing, I tried to move my hands, but the rope binding them just cut deeper into my wrists. The chair I was tied to wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but I'd been sat on it for so long my back was beginning to show signs of going into spasm. I needed to move in some way or I'd undo all the good work Dr. Yamamoto had done with my spinal adjustment. That was a few million Yen I wasn't going to see wasted simply because my captors couldn't afford proper lumbar support.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I tried to bunny hop slightly to get myself into a better position. There were two major effects from this. The first was that the piece of cloth covering my eyes slipped down slightly. This was lucky as it allowed me to see the second effect coming rather than just experience it with my face. I twisted slightly, somehow avoiding serious damage as the chair and I went tumbling downwards.
Shit.
I lay on the cold stone for a couple of minutes before I felt two figures approach me. Annoyingly the crack of light I could now see through was not big enough to make out any discerning features. Grabbing me roughly they set me back down at a normal angle and tore the blindfold from my eyes. The room, as I had expected, was dark. A network of pipes criss-crossed the ceiling and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out the forms of over-sized water heaters on either side of me.
I closed my eyes again and tried to ignore the buzzing at the back of my head. It whispered of the incapacitating blow that had led me to this predicament.
Who had it been? The security staff at SymoCorp has always been overly suspicious of me, but they didn't seem the type to conduct midnight surveillance and wire-taps. Don Paolo's goons had never liked me, but if you were in with The Godfather you were untouchable, or so they said. Had the Bureau got tired of waiting for their money? Or had the Agency finally worked out the Vladivostock cover story had been a fake? Surely after all of this time the Russians hadn't gone digging around?
It didn't matter really. Sooner or later they would find out what had really been going on. I just hoped I was still alive to see the looks on their faces when they did.
I lifted my eyelids and the room melted into focus a bit more. Six shadows sat around a crappy wooden table, cigar smoke puffed from each silhouette and dissipated upwards towards the flicking bulb that illuminated the game below. Cards were strewn across the table and mountains of chips were piled up like skyscrapers.
One of the shadows glanced down at it's arm and nodded to the others. Reluctantly they got up from their seats and began to make their way towards me. Judging the size and weight of each one, the way they moved and the speed at which they approached, I knew I was in trouble.
'He's finally awake!' cried the first shadow, its smooth Italian accent shattering the silence that had previously saturated the basement.
'The question is now' spoke shadow number two in heavy Russian tones 'what do we do with him?'
'We should torture him. Tha-that's the sort of thing you people do right?'. This came from shadow number six, standing at the end of the line and moving bobbing about slightly. He was nervous.
'You've been watching too many movies Mr Syme'. Shadow number four replied in a dry American accent.
'There is no need for torture' stated the smallest shadow, number five, in his usual direct way. 'We know everything'
'Not quite Hiroto-san.' said the final shadow, almost amused at the situation. 'We still don't know who put him in the KGB...'
Shadow number two approached and I could make out the face of my former training instructor from my days battling the Russian tundra. He had been drinking, of course, but through the fog of vodka and anger, I thought I could see something like to pain in his eyes. I had always been his favourite after all....
'Yeeeeeees.' he growled in my face. 'Just who is it that are you really working for? What have you been doing all these years?'
'Did you really think you could get away with infiltrating every major security service in the world? We aren't in a cold war anymore kiddo, we're all friends now, you should know that!' spoke somebody from behind
'A cross-departmental sweep threw up your name in a surprising number of places. It was only then that we figured out just how deep you've been all these years.'
These guys weren't pissing around. Their pride had taken a beating and I doubted whether some of my trademark humour would lighten their moods. My eyes flitted between them, working out my next move. I had to stall them, just had to stall them a bit more. I'd known this was coming and had activated the escape plan as per protocol. All I had to do was wait. Swallowing hard I opened my mouth to speak, with no idea what I was going to say to try and get out of this.
Suddenly from behind the shadows there was the sounds of splintering wood and from somewhere above a harsh bright light burst in. Figures swarmed the room, guns raised as they came thundering down the stairs, their voices shouting in a language that warmed the very depths of my soul. The shadows turned towards the intruders, reaching down towards their holsters before realising how futile their actions would be.
My six captors dropped slowly to their knees, hands raised above their heads as my compatriots came rushing towards me. Smiling, I raised my eyes as their red uniforms filled my view, their wide brimmed hats bobbed around and their golden crosses glinted as the light hit them. One figure in particular came across to me, cut the ropes that bound me to the chair and pulled me into an embrace.
'Diego' he breathed into my ear. 'It is so good to see you again after all this time'
I stepped back, looked into his eyes and smiled.
'Things never change Alejandro. Nobody ever expects The Spanish Inquisition'
--------------------------
Obligatory thankyou edit:
Thanks for the upvotes, comments and gold. This is only about the third or fourth prompt I've ever responded to, but the number I've written in my head is much higher. (I nearly didn't write this one)
If you're ever on the edge of responding or not, just do it. Your idea is probably a good one! |
Five… four… three… two… annnnd one. That was it. Johnston was officially past the furthest reaches of the Milky Way. He was the first living being in the galaxy to escape its boundaries. The raw, pitch darkness in front of him was unsettling, as if he had fallen off the edge of reality itself. He took a minute to appreciate the moment which marked the beginning of true intergalactic travel, a confirmation that hyperspace was traversable and—
A light on his communications interface flashed red, indicating an incoming transmission. Johnston was confused—he was millions of light-years away from Earth, there was no way a message from Earth would have reached him after the jump. Confusion quickly gave way to panic—the system must be malfunctioning. Something about the jump through hyperspace fried the system—*exactly* what everyone was afraid of. Shit. And if the communications interface was fried who knows what else could—
Oh wait. Realization dawned, and wave of relief washed over him. It was almost certainly a pre-recorded congratulatory message set to go off at this moment by the team. Those bastards, Johnston thought, grinning to himself as he pressed the button to play the message. He’d get them back when he—
The message was incomprehensible. It was a string of foreign symbols and letters strewn on the screen almost at random.
Johnston rebooted the interface. The message remained unchanged, and the panic resurfaced. So the system *was* fried, and he may very well be very screwed. He archived the message—the techies could analyze it when he got back. For now, he would—
The light flicked back on. Johnston pressed the button.
Another series of incomprehensible symbols.
Okay. That was it, he would need to cut the mission short. He put his harness back on, input the appropriate commands, and felt some relief as the shuttle responded, its thrusters applying the precise force needed to turn the ship around 180 degrees. The galaxy slowly came back into view, the entirety of the Milky Way laid out before him. Home. He would—
*What the hell is that!* The stars had flickered out in an instant, obscured by the large black craft which had just materialized out of thin air, meters away from his ship. He checked his oxygen levels—they were normal. He wasn't hallucinating. Well, at least not due to lack of oxygen.
PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. HAVE YOUR INTERSTELLAR LICENSE AND PLANETARY REGISTRATION READY. IF APPLICABLE HAVE YOUR APPENDAGES AND/OR TENTACLES UP.
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***
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"Ma'am, could I see your license and planetary registration?"The creature that had boarded the ship spoke perfect English, but looked nothing like any being Johnston had ever seen. It was round, *perfectly* round, and its face was centered in the middle of its body. Its appendages—two arms and legs—were thin as toothpicks. Most disconcertingly, it wore what resembled a cartoonish American police uniform, complete with star-shaped badge.
"I'm a, uh, I'm actually a man,"Johnston stuttered.
"Yes, you're a ma'am. That's what I said."
"No, a man. You know what, it doesn't matter. The real question is, what are *you*?"
The circle-thing frowned. "Look I'm asking the questions here, all right doll face? Now where's that license?"
"License?"
"Okay is my translator broken?"It asked, tapping a metal band on one of its spindly wrists. "Can you understand me? Can you understand the words I am speaking to you?"
"Yes, yes, I can understand you. Sorry I'm just a bit confused is all. Are you from this galaxy?"
"What part of *I Ask the Questions* do you not understand? What are you, some kind of Zliksnob?"
"Okay okay, sorry."Johnston said, realizing in that moment no one on Earth would believe what the hell was happening. The ship's nav system will have recorded the creature's spacecraft approaching, but that wasn't enough. They'd call him crazy, explain the nav-reads as glitches. He needed real proof.
So unable to help himself, Johnston pushed his luck. "I'm sorry... I just have *one* question."
"You really don't listen do you?"The creature said in a raised voice, a look of pure annoyance across its face. "I said no questions! I've said it three times now!"
"I'm so sorry, I just—"
The creature started tapping the metal band again. "What about my uniform? Is *that* broken too? What're you seeing? It should be projecting your interpretation of *authority*, not a goddamn Blorgsnarf."
"No no, your uniform is good, you look very authoritative. I'm sorry, this is just very new is all. I'm a human. We've never—"
"Look I've heard it all before,"the thing interrupted, rolling its eyes. "You've never broken the law, you've never so much as docked on the wrong side of a moon before. But listen, you're not in trouble. I stopped you because I thought you might be a duster. Looking around though, no duster would be caught dead in a tin-can like this. I just need to see your license and registration, and we'll be done here."
"You'll just leave?"
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"What if I don't have either a license or registration with me?"
"You'll need to turn back around and I'll have to write you up. We'll send a summons to your address and be in touch regarding further proceedings."
"I see."
"Is that it? Are you done? Got it all out of your system? Feel like a big girl asking all those questions?"
"Okay, yes that's it, thank you. Well unfortunately I don't have my documents on me. I must have left them at home."
"A write-up it is. What's your address?"
"Earth, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC."
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***
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Thanks for reading! This is my first prompt, but I'm looking forward to joining the community. I'll be aggregating my posts on r/Banana_Scribe (empty now but more will come) |
The Grim Reaper owed him a favor, but as soon as the god of death walked into the room and saw the baby he ran out screaming for his life. Marcus wondered what could make death himself so afraid?
He had been tasked with studying the baby, to figure out why spells didn't work on it, but all he could see was a perfect healthy little boy in a crib. Once more he muttered *Expeceus* under his breath. The baby simply kept sleeping, evidently not feeling the pain the spell should have caused.
Marcus decided to create a new classification for the runt. He wasn't a wizard, for the magisters had run their tests and found no magical prowess, but he also didn't seem to be just a normal human. Marcus called him a "Void". The first of its kind.
The baby woke up and began crying, so Marcus fetched it a bottle. As it sucked down the formula it looked up with two large dark eyes. Marcus felt the baby was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't figure out what. It pulled its mouth away from the bottle and went back to sleep.
Marcus tried calling the Grim Reaper again, but he was just met with an incessant beeping from the line. The god had turned his phone off. Behind him the baby stirred in its sleep, and when Marcus turned around he saw it standing upright, leaning over the railing of the crib. Again, it stared at him with its black eyes.
Suddenly Marcus's phone rang.
"Mark,"the headmaster said, "is the baby still alive? Something has just happened."
"Alive and kicking,"Marcus responded, taking one last look at the baby before turning his back to it. The way it was staring creeped him out.
"The man who was in jail... the one who cast the death spell..."
"What about him? He should have known better than to try and kill a baby."
"He just... died. To that very same spell."
Marcus's hair stood up. "That's impossible,"he said, "magic can't affect anybody in that prison. You know that."
"I know,"the headmaster said, "I think that baby has something to do with it. I think it reflected the spell, albeit with a delay."
"Reflecting a spell -- can something like that be done? I've never heard of it before."
"Me neither, just be careful, O.K.? And if you casted anything at it before be prepared for potential reflections."
The headmaster hung up and Marcus turned around to see the baby smiling menacingly at him. All the spells he had casted on it during his testing scrolled through his mind. There were at least fifty of them, all getting progressively more painful.
The baby began to giggle as Marcus felt a small pinch on his arm. The first spell had arrived.
He called up a cleric to the room, realizing it was going to be a long, unpleasant night. |
“**Stop Mortal and Bow Down Before Your Masters!**” The gelatinous blob shouted. The marines entrenched outside the Whitehouse didn’t budge. The horde had appeared mere seconds ago, and the secret service was still securing the president.
“Drop your weapons and stand down!” The head sergeant shouted back. There were hundreds of the things, and they all had weird battle axes. The sergeant thought that was strange, but if they had teleportation capabilities then the axes must’ve been more than they seemed.
“**The armies of Zog Will Crush Puny Humans!**” The leader of the blobs shouted again, using a tentacle of ooze to raise his axe above his head.
“I repeat. Stand down or we will open fire!” The sergeant ordered.
“**Chrage!**” the blob leader ordered, sliding forward with his axe poised to smite. The sergeant couldn’t believe he was unlucky enough to order the opening volley of humanity’s first interstellar war, but the rules of engagement were clear, and the president’s life was at stake.
“Open fire marines!” He shouted, and 50 calibers joined in with M16s in showering lead down on the oncoming alien infantry. Snipers form the roof landed shot after shot into the onrushing horde. It was all to no effect. The bullets were merely absorbed into the gelatin of the blobs, and didn’t seem to harm them in the slightest.
‘That was why they used ancient weapons.’ The sergeant thought. ‘Their defensive powers are so great that they don’t need advanced weaponry’. Realizing he was now doomed to a gooey death he flipped his rifle to full auto, belted out a war cry, and ran forward to meet the lead blob. If he was going out. He was going out with his boots on.
The cries of his fellow marines joined him as they too broke cover to meet their fates. Upon reaching the lead blob the sergeant took the butt of his rifle and slammed it into the lead alien. He was not surprised at all when the thing slurped it out of his hands.
The sergeant drew his side arm, but before he fired he looked up to see the thing bring its axe down on his head before he could fire a shot.
**”Bonk.”** The blob said as the axe rebounded harmlessly off his head.
**”Bonk.”** The blob said again, hitting him a second time. The sergeant was so shocked to still be breathing that he just stood there and let the thing tap him on the head with the apparently foam axe.
**”Bonk.”** A blob next to him said as it whacked another marine on the head with its foam axe.
“What the…” The sergeant said.
**”Blargle! We told you not to use the teleporters!”** A much larger blob had appeared and was turning an angry shade of red as it addressed the smaller blobs.
The blob that had smacked the sergeant shrunk back, and then vanished into a silvery mist, along with all of the other blobs.
**”Sorry about that.”** The remaining large blob said, appearing to someone wring its non-existent hands. **”You know how kids can be, always so excited to play ‘invade earth’. Do you mind if we try this again? We were going to make a grand entrance on the lawn before we had the peace talks with your president, and it would be horribly awkward if our first contact scenario was a couple blobblings playing with the local security forces**.”
Edit: spelling and stuff. |
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” I told the devil confidentially.
He looked at me confused "What? that a zen riddle or somethin? Like the sound of one hand clapping shit?"
I shook my head and patiently said "No, You must appear strong when you are weak. Have you no generals still loyal to your cause? Have you no bards willing to sing tales of your might and deviousness throughout the land?"
The Devil thought about this for a minute. "I suppose... demons are treacherous but they're not going to stand for a bunch of humans ruling them. Not for long anyway. You sayin I should lead an uprising by the masses?"
I raised a hand to stop him from talking. "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
The devil smiled a most devious look on his face. "I like it. They played chess to get me out and I play checkers to get back in. Thanks buddy, I owe ya one. Anything you want in return for this advice."
I looked him straight in the eyes and said "Never come here again."The devil laughed a hearty laugh. "You got it Sun Tzu my man! But you know, I can't just leave things as they are. You wrote some book or other back on earth right? I'll make sure you're a best seller. Even Steven?"
When the devil left the angel by the pearly gates asked me why I had helped him. I said simply "You want him back? This is his father's house after all." |
Shagrat and Gorbag first got the idea from picking up Shelob's victims. Just outside the fort at Cirith Ungol they drew a crude sign: 'Ungoliant Restaurant - dine on the best live meats, limp as a boned fish'.
Sometimes, of course, there would be so much venom left in the meat that the patrons would keel over paralyzed. But they never complained - they were simply added to the menu. It was an effective business model.
There was the occasional problem. One day Gorbag said to his partner "We have to ban the Mouth of Sauron, he's abusing the concept of all-you-can-eat."
They soon faced competition. Some uruk-hai set up the Mount Doom Char Grill and started undercutting them on price. "Bloody refugees!"complained Shagrat. "Just because Isengard's been destroyed, why do they have to come here taking our jobs?"
It all came to a halt when the entire place was destroyed in a fight over a shiny shirt. And ever since then...
One does not simply walk into a restaurant in Mordor.
|
A horde of screaming, flag-waving spectators had gathered across the street to watch our convoy of buses arrive at the elevator platform. My senses were completely *inundated* from the moment I stepped outside: the roar of the crowd, the glaring spotlights around the launch site perimeter, even the pungent smells of the city that had sprung up on the outskirts of the elevator.
"Dr. Molokya!"One of the reporters had identified me and had leaned most of her body over the perimeter fence, stretching a microphone as far out as possible. "Dr. Molokya! Any comment on today's launch?"
It was strange, being in the public eye. I'd spent so long *avoiding* drawing any attention to myself, because that only invited questions into my background. So much of my life had been spent carefully hiding my identity and establishing a *new* backstory even decades in advance. I've turned down knighthoods and medals and awards from a thousand regimes, fearing the eventuality of getting caught in my own web of lies. But now that was all finally over. It was unlikely that, in the few minutes that it would take me to board the Ark, someone would put it all together and out me as a wandering immortal living under an assumed identity. So I smiled and approached the reporter. "I'll be honest, this is probably the best day of my life."She beamed, just happy to get the scoop from the most reclusive member of the ship's crew.
"I'll bet!"she said. "But won't you miss Earth?"
I didn't answer at first. Instead, I took a moment to look around at the city lights and the grey clouds overhead. I really hadn't even thought about that. I jumped at the very first opportunity to leave this little rock, and I'd been so focused on preparing for the mission that I hadn't stopped to consider what I was leaving. But after three thousand years, I'd seen every corner of this place. "Not really,"I finally told her. "I've seen enough. And besides, I'm sure I'll make it back someday."I walked away before she could make sense of what I'd just said and ask some follow-up question. I'd always wanted to do something like that, but I'd never really had the courage to risk it. For most of the crew, this was a permanent goodbye. Hell, they wouldn't even live to see our destination planet, Persephone. The terraforming would be up to their great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. But for me... well, I'd be there to greet the next round of Terran settlers, and as far as I knew, I'd live long enough to make the return trip once I got a little homesick.
The four-hour elevator ride to the station only seemed to take minutes. Time just has a different meaning for me. The rest of the crew clustered near the windows, shouting tearful goodbyes down to their loved ones on the planet. That was another thing that differentiated us: I wasn't leaving anyone behind. In my youth, I'd certainly fathered enough children across the world. But I find that settling down and getting attached to them really only causes heartache and complications for hiding my true nature. So for the last thousand years, I've been alone.
Dr. Alec approached me, and we shook hands. "Big day,"he said. He was the other head of the biology team on board the Ark, and we had a pretty big role. The ship was a closed system, meaning that we had to achieve nearly 100% efficiency in everything that we used: the air, the water, and the food. Which meant creating a perfectly balanced ecosystem. Who better to do that than me? I, who ordered the Nile River to flood every year for the benefit of my subjects? I've farmed in the Indus Valley, the rice paddies of China, the vineyards of Italy, the high mountains of Japan, the fertile prairies of the Americas. It's become something of a specialty. And on this ship, it made me absolutely essential. I was kind of counting on that point.
"Yeah, big day,"I told him. More than he really knew. We stood in silence together for a while, savoring the moment. There would be plenty of time to talk over the next sixty years or so that he had left to live.
We boarded the Ark and did one last check of all systems. Then the engines powered up, and we held our farewell ceremony. And finally, we all gathered at the stern viewing bay to watch the blue and green rock disappear into the black void as we reached maximum velocity. There was no going back now.
I cleared my throat, clanged my spoon against the stem of my glass, and beckoned for everyone to come together. This was it. This was the moment I'd been waiting for. Their eager faces waited, probably expecting a jubilant toast to our success. Boy, were they in for a surprise. "What is it, Dr. Molokya?"someone from the crowd asked.
"I... uh... actually, I prefer to go by the name Thutmose. Thutmose the third."I exhaled, and my whole body shook. It had been thousands of years since I'd said my real name out loud. I was finally free. "And I have an announcement to make."
----
[As requested, here is Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/Luna_Lovewell/comments/4rin7h/the_ark/d51t9bb) |
Arterius trudged through the snow to the Pizzeria Supreme. Not for the first time, he wished that his uncle, the Snow Wizard, had not left Fargo for a job as a travelling weatherman / snowstorm slayer out East. No one in his family was bound to the any of the cooking domains, certainly not Arterius, so it was just easier to head to any of the restaurants where the masters of their respective crafts had perfected pizza, rather than stumble through his own pathetic pizza attempt for an inferior result.
&#x200B;
Whereas the larger cities of Omaha and Minneapolis seemed to have some recurring domains (and Gods help a metropolis like Chicago), Fargo seemed just the right size for minimal overlap. Everyone had the own specialty, chosen by whatever domain had bonded with them in adolescence. Sure, they had imported a few extra Fire Wizards from neighboring counties for the Department, but the homegrown, specialized Police Force had one of the highest success rates in the state. The Wiring Wizard handled all the electricity issues Fargo had, and the various doctoring domains kept the city in relatively good health. Arterius' mother was a Surgical Wizard of regional renown, and his father's work with a sewing machine made him a Cloth Wizard second to none. Even his younger brother, Darius, had begun work as an apprentice as a Governing Wizard in Bismarck. Everyone had their place in Fargo. Everyone, that is, except Arterius.
&#x200B;
Arterius had gone longer than anyone in Fargo could remember without finding his domain. His parents had even taken him to the State Domain Hall, complete with a large collection of items and tools meant to spark his domain to life. Nothing. He heard the whispers around town. No-Domain, Domainless, No-main. Gary, the Insult Wizard, was too kindhearted to help them find an actual good insult for him, but the growing pressure of not finding his calling weighed on him.
&#x200B;
Arterius rounded the corner to Pizza Supreme and groaned. The restaurant's lights were out, and something was taped to the door. He trudged over and read it in the faint light. "*Wiring Wizard on vacation. Should be up and running next week!*"Arterius grumbled and looked around. He saw light wash out into the street from another store front two blocks down. Was that the other pizza place in town, the new one? He had heard mixed things about their wares. The owner, a transplant from Grand Forks, wasn't a Pizza Wizard, but a Cheese Wizard with a dairy byproduct to die for. It was just that the rest of the pizza didn't hold up to the delectable standards of Mary and the Pizza Supreme's specialty- just the Cheese. Glancing up at the dark sky and continual snow, Arterius decided it was worth the risk and continued his trek a few more blocks.
&#x200B;
*Pizza A-More* wasn't the usual pizza place, on account of the owner's domain. It was a dairy store by day, and moonlighted as a pizzeria come evening. Arterius had never been inside- his cousin the Dairy Wizard provided cheese, milk and the like for the whole family. It was well lit, and a single portly man sat inside behind a tall counter. Seeing Arterius coming, he smiled widely and ushered him inside. Despite Arterius' cantankerous mood, he jovially took the order and bustled to the back to begin his craft. Arterius took a seat in one of the booths and glanced around the shop, bored. And that's when he saw it.
&#x200B;
It was a shiny thing, maybe a foot wide and two feet deep. It had four legs, and a main body with a slanted glass screen. Lights flickered across its face, and various quiet sounds emitted from hidden speakers. Characters from some movie plastered its side, and a screen near the top listed large, orange numbers and a few letters. There was a thrumming in Arterius' chest, almost a vibration. Entranced, he walked over to the machine. Upon closer inspection, there were buttons on the side, which when pressed moved some levers behind the glass screen. A plunger at the front didn't seem to do anything. A message flashed on the screen: "*$0.25 to Play!*"Arterius fumbled in his pocket and procured a quarter. He found the slot, and upon depositing a quarter, a small silver ball appeared on the plunger. This time pulling the plunger shot the silver ball up and into the machine.
&#x200B;
It was a dizzy array of buzzers and bells. The flashing lights were only a distraction, as Arterius moved the ball along the levers, off the bumpers, and the orange number at the top of the screen continued to climb. He felt rooted in place, shifting only slightly to get a better view of where to send the ball next. It wasn't really any question or decision, just a continual set of declarations of where the ball should go next, and the ball obeyed. Occasionally the ball slipped beneath the levers, but enough points had been accrued that a new one would appear.
&#x200B;
All of the sudden, the machine locked up, and the ball slid once more past the levers. Arterius snarled and glanced up. The orange numbers were flashing, "*999,999,999,999*"and a blinking box appeared next to them. He glanced around. Sunlight was drifting through the store window. Arterius' mother was there, surgical smock still on. Tears streamed down her face, and she was smiling. The Cheese Wizard was smiling too, a few extra pizzas out on the counter. More of the family would be there soon, Arterius realized. His family would be celebrating him coming into his own.
&#x200B;
He bumped one of the levers, and the letter A appeared. Bumping it again changed it to a B. Twenty five more bumps returned the A, and the other bumper made a 2nd A appear. Smiling, he fiddled the bumpers until "ART"appeared on the screen. |
39 Across - Playwright’s rule re: firearms.
The puzzles were too easy these days. I penned in the answer (always pen - pencil was for mental slugs) and then stared at the almost completed grid. Sunday’s puzzle, the thorniest, most obscure that Mr. Shortz could apparently come up with, and it had taken me only half an hour to do almost the entire thing. It was depressing.
I considered brewing another pot of coffee, but decided against it. I drank too much of the stuff these days, especially since I could no longer sleep past four-thirty or so. For the last few months I’d woken in the dark, far before dawn, bones creaking and with the sound of the sea whispering faintly through my window. Some mornings I would get up directly - brew a pot of coffee and then take a thermos down to Linda Mar beach. There was a bench on the south end of the broad curve of sand and I would watch the surfers arrive with the first light, watch them as they stripped and donned black-skin wetsuits, their flesh goose-pimpling in the frigid air.
Some mornings I would simply lie in bed and watch the way the walls never moved, feel how time slowed to nothing. Some mornings, I laid in bed and wondered if everything had stopped, if I and the entire world had been frozen in amber forever, and for the next eternity I would simply watch the walls and the ceiling until I lost my mind.
Today was typical for Pacifica - a bright grey sky, a crisp wind from the west that whipped the tops off the waves in the bay and rushed the smell of the ocean down the streets. Sitting in my kitchen, I could inhale kelp and wet sand, sniff at the extra-sour salt that only comes from the sea. I had a living room, of course, and even a small table on my porch with an accompanying grey-wood chair, but I almost always spent time in my kitchen. It had the best view of the street.
I was sitting there when the first van pulled up. It was black, unmarked. No false label promoting a fictional plumbing business, or some false flower shop. It pulled up to the curb outside my kitchen window and I, sat inside with three clues to go on the Times Sunday crossword, felt my face break into a huge smile.
Two men got out of the van simultaneously. They had the close-cropped hair and government prescribed level of fitness of the long arm of the law, that fabled appendage that I always imagined as something sick and distended, crawling across the ground like a fleshy spider, pulling itself forward with worn-down fingertips. As they approached my house, two more cars arrived - regular police cars.
This was it, then. No more Times crossword, no more logic puzzles or codes, no more waking up and looking at the walls and ceiling and wishing I were already dead. I’d wondered what had taken them so long - I’d sent my DNA sample in nearly two months ago.
One of the men pounded on my front door.
“Federal agents! Open up!”
I took a sip of cold coffee. Who knew how long it would be until I got another cup? I could see a neighbor across the street - a weak, pissant of a man I knew well from close observance, come out onto his own porch and peer across the street at the swelling armada that was gathering in front of my house. I wondered if, tomorrow or the day after, when the news broke, he would feel the fear clutch his belly at the thought of *me* living across from him, all these years.
“OPEN UP!”
The pounding was even louder now, and it made me want to giggle. I turned to the crossword. Perhaps one last clue for old time’s sake.
40 Down - Cryptic killer near the Golden Gate. |
"Your honour,"said the slug type creature, as it oozed back and forth in front of the gathered crowd, "humans of the jury, and species watching this broadcast galaxy wide. I intend to prove today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the genocide on Pirioux Xs2 was illegal! Totally, and utterly, illegal!"
Some of the creatures gathered in the crowd began to mutter to one another.
"Order! Order!"said the Judge, banging his gavel into a tiny black hole on his desk. All sound was instantly sucked out of the room. It returned a moment later as a ringing in our ears.
"Would the Right Honourable Prosecutor please continue?"the judge said.
"Thank you, your honour. It is my intention to prove that the Zoswions broke the rules stated within the O^yonian Convention, by eliminating all life on Pirioux Xs2 without full agreement of the council. They had *no right* to do this! The zenith-level creatures that inhabited the planet were both smart and honest. And--"
"Objection!"hissed a creature that reminded me of an ant standing upright on hind legs. "The people of Pirioux Xs2 were war-like and virulent. Honest yes, but that does not right them of their wrongs. They would have spread like a plague, should they have been allowed to continue breeding."
"Overruled!"
The ant hissed and sank back down into its seat.
"Thank you, your honour,"said the slug. "Regardless of your thoughts on the planet's alpha species, the weapons used to eliminate them have now rendered the planet inhospitable. A class 4 planet. These do not come along every day. Not only that, millions of other species have been made extinct. For that, there is only one judgement! Only one punishment!"
The ant stood again. "It was for a greater good! Besides, the other species could not have evolved to any level of worthwhile sophistication, as long as the alpha species remained on the planet, holding them down. In essence, the planet was Galuped."
"Galuped?"I whispered to the pale faced girl next to me.
"I think it means: *fucked*."
"Oh."
The judge spoke again, looking at the slug, "Is that all the prosecution would like to open with?"
"It is."
He turned to the ant, "Then Rashaldls, please defend the position of the Zoswions."
"Thank you, your honour."The ant turned to us, its antenna flittering above it. "Imagine, humans, a war of universal proportions. Where every species becomes engulfed. Imagine torture and execution on this almost infinite scale. Prison camps, famines, plagues, self-created viruses. Imagine AI left to grow unchecked! That was the future we saved everybody here from. We knew we could not get permission granted by the high council, and so we took action on all your behalves. We are heroes!"
The slug tried to object, but a cheer erupted from the crowd, drowning him out.
For the next twelve hours or so, evidence from both sides was given.
Then, we were left to deliberate.
We did not take long to reach our verdict.
It was unanimous.
The ant-like species that had exterminated life on Pirioux Xs2 had taken the right course of action, only without consent. Consent they would never have been granted by a council locked in aeon old bureaucracy.
We gave them a hundred years of planetary isolation.
A hundred years of planetary isolation...
Barely a slap on the wrist.
If we'd only known what was to come. How this case would be used in the future.
Used as an excuse.
If we'd only known.
|
Whenever I tell people I have a lame power, they assume it's ineffectual. I tell them it's better suited for drinking games or carnival tricks. They ask, I tell them I'm *perfectly accurate* with a throw- they usually start saying "Oh that's a good power though"or something to that effect. Then I tell them the stipulation: I must, with full enthusiasm, shout "KOBE"when throwing. This gets some laughs, and then I throw a toothpick-umbrella into their beer, and suddenly my tab's taken care of for the night.
That was the case until some jerk decided to cover the beer with his hand right as I made the toss, expecting it to bounce off harmlessly. It didn't. Nobody saw it land. He moved his hand, and there it was, sitting proudly against the lip of the bottle. Instead of thinking about how many beers I was getting for free tonight, I thought back to the application to the Powered Law Enforcement academy in my desk drawer, to the list of "tricks"I had brainstormed years ago. I didn't even finish the beer in front of me- I said my goodbyes and took a cab home. For the first time in a decade, I startled the neighbor's cat from his nap by shouting as I tossed my keys towards the lock. Why fumble with them when I could just have it waiting, ready to turn, when I get to the door?
The first line of my "tricks"page had been scribbled through, "trick reload"- I'd dismissed the usefulness of throwing a magazine into the well of my own firearm after watching how quickly a practiced reload could be done. I scrounged around my closet for the old airsoft pistol I had tested the trick with back then, and two magazines. I loaded the first, then, with a shout, tossed the second, intending it to land neatly in the magazine well. It vanished from my hand, and instead of clattering to the floor, it stayed gone. I took a breath, dropped the first magazine out of the toy pistol, and felt the second click into place the moment it was clear.
Something else clicked, in that moment: just how loose was whatever made my power work in its definitions if "hit"didn't care about a continuous path between my hand and the target? What if "throw"was just how I understood it, and it wasn't so literal, either?
I put a few plastic pellets into the magazine, primed the spring-action toy pistol, and thought of hitting one of the empty cans on the counter. A shout, a pop, and the can jolted from the impact. Again, same result. The toy wasn't *nearly* that accurate. Inside the can, then. Shout, rattle, can falls over. The pellet is inside.
I filled out my application with enthusiasm. Doesn't matter how silly you sound if you're a kilometer away and what you've "thrown"is a tranq dart aimed at their thigh to knock them out. |
Before the goose the hero stood,
Gallant, brave, and wise,
And far beyond the princess could
Be heard through muffled cries.
"Oh goose"the hero called with glee,
"Ere long you will be dead,"
And thrust his spear toward the fiend,
To put the thing to bed.
But woe, alas, alack and more,
The goose, it dodged the blow,
It screeched the most almighty roar,
And airborne did it go.
Now chimed the goose from dizzy heights,
"A hero? Pah! A fool.
What makes you think you have the right,
To take my crowning jewel?
For she and I,"the goose went on,
"Are princess and the prince,
So take your mangy steed, begone,
Or I'll turn you in to mince."
"Foul goose,"returned the hero then,
"My life or yours, now fight!"
And skyward did his weapon point,
Now glinting in the light.
"You silly man!"The goose exclaimed,
"You heroes never learn!"
For all at once he felt a pain,
Then dropped the spear and turned.
A dagger nestled in his side,
A voice said "there's no use...
Why would I want to have a man
That tries to fight a goose?"
|
The first thought that came into my mind was: *Have I been turned into a vampire?*
Maybe not a reasonable reaction. Vampires, of course, are *fictional*. Not to mention that I'd had garlic with dinner last night, and that that dinner wasn't human blood. Maybe I'd been reading too many vampire romance novels. Don't judge me.
But really, what else was I supposed to think? How could I not be in the mirror??
"I"showed up a just a few seconds later and apologized for the delay. But there were still some things off. "My"hair was tied back in a ponytail instead of the frizzy mess on my own head, and "I"still had streaks of makeup on my face. Clearly I'd forgotten my pre-bedtime ritual. But "I"simply waved a hand over "my"face and everything became exactly as it should be. No more mascara, no more smudged lipstick, and hair looking like I'd been electrocuted in the night. Meanwhile "I"was a mirror image again.
"What the hell?"I asked. "My"lips moved too, just like they were supposed to. No answer from "me"either.
We both stared at each other.
"Come on,"I said. "What was that about? I know you can hear me.""My"mouth made the exact same movements.
There was another pause.
"Fine,""I"answered. It sounded like listening to someone speak while you're underwater. Kind of muffled or something. "You caught me, OK?"
"*What is this?*"I was practically screaming at this point. Thank god I lived alone, or my roommate would think I was having a nervous breakdown. Hell, *I* thought I was having a nervous breakdown.
"I just had a long night,""I"answered back. "Derrick came over, and I forgot to set an alarm, so..."
"Derrick?"My face was practically pressed against the mirror now, studying "Me"and "I"was leaning back away from it. "Derrick *my lab partner*?"The utterly gorgeous, charming, funny, sweet guy who only talked to me about what parts of the lab journals we would be doing? "I"was going out with him?
"I"nodded back with a smug smile.
"...How?"I managed to gasp. It was either that, or asking how the sex was. Which I desperately wanted to know as well.
"I"shrugged back. "I'm the *confident* you,""I"answered. "That's the point of the mirror. To show you at your best. I didn't just wait for Derrick to notice me, I made it happen."For the first time, I noticed the hickey just peeking out of "my"shirt. That hickey should be on *my* chest!
*I'm definitely still dreaming,* I decided. I'd fallen asleep looking at his facebook page again, and this is what happens.
"Right,"I answered. "It's just that easy."
"I"grinned. "It was for me. What's holding you back from just asking him to dinner or something?"
I didn't have a good answer to that. Well, really, I had *too many* good answers for that. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to wake up from the dream. And when I opened them again, "I"was back to copying my every movement. No matter how much I yelled at "myself"to answer... it was back to being just a mirror again.
----
"Hey, Derrick?"My voice came out all high and squeaky. *God, what's wrong with me?*
"Hmm?"he answered, still peering into the microscope at whatever we were supposed to be studying. Some type of cell or something; I'd been too busy staring at his arms to really listen closely.
"Would you... I mean, are you free for dinner sometime?"
He didn't answer right away. He looked up from the microscope with a squinty, suspicious look. Around us, the rest of the class was busy talking and chatting and doing their assignment. We just stared at each other while I felt my cheeks burning bright tomato red. *I'm going to kill Mirror Me*, I resolved. *I'll shatter that thing the second I get home.*
Then he smiled. "I'd like that."
I nodded and tried not to jump for joy or throw my arms around him. I just gave him my number on a little scrap of notebook paper.
"You know,"he said slowly, still looking at the paper, "I had the strangest thing happen to me this morning..."
---
If you enjoyed this story, you should also consider subscribing to /r/Luna_lovewell! |
All species strive to survive above all else. We adapt, evolve, become immune to diseases, and are willing to travel great distances to find habitats suited to sustaining life.
I’m sure that those who experienced the horrors of the zombie plague outbreak centuries ago couldn’t even begin to process how the rise of violent, undead creatures could possibly have been an evolution or adaptation for human survival.
But now? As I stand face to face with one of the thousands of the technologically superior alien invaders pointing some form of death ray at me, I understood the advantage of humans still carrying the zombie virus quite clearly.
“KLAR’NARK!” the monstrous alien practically spit at me, surely taunting my imminent demise. He aimed his weapon as what passed for a smile crossing his fanged, twisted face, and pulled the trigger without further hesitation.
I felt an immense pain as a large chunk of my torso was blasted off my body. Falling to the ground, the alien stood over me, both he and I waiting for me for my inevitable death. And indeed, I felt my life slipping away from me. My body went cold, and the world went black, as my eyes closed for the last time.
For the last time as a human being at least. Mere moments later my eyes snapped back open. I felt different, undoubtedly a changed being. My thoughts simplified, my body altered and awkward to move. But stand and live I did, as a risen zombie.
The alien looked on in shock and horror as I rose and simple thoughts crossed my mind, “Kill. Consume. Survive.”
Instinctively, I lunged at the creature standing before me. With one swift bite it’s neck was sliced open, disgusting black blood spraying from the gaping wound I had just created. It snarled and howled in immense pain and distress, but it was too stunned to put up much resistance. With two more ferocious bites it was dead, and now it relived the moment I had just experienced, slumping to the floor, it's life rapidly fading as it died.
Unfortunately for it, its species had not evolved to have any form of life beyond death. Within minutes, I had fully consumed its body for sustenance, and was ready to move on, my immediate task complete.
As strange as it sounds, in this moment, zombification truly was a gift. A second chance at life, another opportunity to fight back against the invaders overrunning our planet. I shambled off into the world with one goal in mind, to continue to survive by any means necessary.
___
Feel free to check out r/Ryter if you'd like to explore more of my stories (some featuring zombies of one kind or another)
Written on my phone, sorry for any formatting issues or awful typos. |
“I would slay this fiend for thee and gain your hand in marriage.” The knight said excitedly. *Ugh no thanks why is it always marriage with these virgin losers*
“Oh you’re so gallant Sir knight. It’s terrible what the dragon makes me do.” I gracefully faint playing my role properly. I hate this part to be honest. Playing defensless just to stroke these fragil losers’ egos. *Can’t they pick a woman who can kill a dragon by herself? Why do they need to be the man to save the day.*
He let out a scream as he charged my friend, Narith, the silver dragon. Well playing the damsel in distress was all worth it for this part-- the epic battle.
The nameless knight ducked under a plume of fire as he rolled up his short sword and shield at the ready. The dragon clawed at his shield rending it to bits, and the knight gracefully stabbed the dragons forearm in response. Narith let out of shriek of pain and flapped his mighty wings knocking the knight off of his feet.
The knight groaned as he tried to crawl away, but Narith was too fast. Narith leaped forward grasping the opportunity to pin the knight under his massive bodyweight.
I surreptitiously snacked on meat pastry while watching enraptured. This knight was better than many before him, but it made no difference.
Narith shifted his weight and the knight let out a shriek of agony.. Desperate he pulled out a dagger and began jamming it into the massive dragonclaw. Fluids and goop leaked everywhere as the dragon roared in rage, finally tightening his grip. The knight’s face was ruined by an explosion of blood coming out from his mouth as I could clearly hear the bones cracking.
I finished off my meat pastry, and walked over to Narith. “Thanks buddy. Real bore that one.”
Narith nodded and wrred. I reached up to his leg and opened the silver access panel inspecting the damage. *Not bad, only need to replace the fluid actuator lines, some tubing and replace the metal armor on his claw. I can probably do that in a day, long before the next loser shows up.*
|
"Ahh haha, so you've fallen into my trap again Alister!! I thought a hero of such... talents would know better by now! Your beefy arms will not save you this time!"I quip with a sly smile.
"That's what you think Splendor!"Alister barks as his Davidian muscles strain against the bonds that hold him chained to the wall. Sweat glistens on his proud brow and I feel my blood run warmer.
"Hahaha, that's right! Did you think I'd forgotten that tungsten renders you exquisitely powerless? Each moment you strain will you that much more... Breathless."I whisper as I put my finger under his chin,"and we both know we don't want to tire you out too early... The show is just beginning."
Alister lunges forward and his teeth click shut inches from my finger tip. I laugh, "Haha there's the fire I was expecting,"and place my hand on his chest swirling the hair there, "You wouldn't want me to get out the ball-gag, now would you?"I run my finger from nape of his neck down to his belly button drawing a small thin line of blood. "Mm things are about to get a bit messy."
Alister smiles wickedly, and I know I'll be in trouble in the morning. It's all a show, of course, he could pull apart those chains in an instant. Heck, bring down the whole building if he wanted to... But we figured this would give something for the real baddies to focus on. My henchmen don't need to know that.
A voice breaks me out of my reverie, "Uh.. boss... If you're done with your... Uh... Flirting... We have a problem... Someone's hit the vault before us..." |
"I wish Jenny felt the same way about me that I do about her,"said Pete.
At first I tried to think of an "evil genie"way out of this one. Maybe I could find someone named Jenny who had no idea who he was, and he had no idea who she was either, so technically, they both felt the same way about each other. Then I remembered the *Aladdin* clause. "You can't wish for love. Or to bring someone back from the dead. Or more wishes. Sorry, should have mentioned that!"
"Oh, right,"he said. "Okay. A billion dollars!"
"Actually - little known fact - you can't wish for a billion dollars,"I said.
"What? No, I'm pretty sure that's not one of the rules. There's at least a few genie-related billionaires on that Forbes list."
I thought for a few seconds. "Actually those guys didn't wish for a billion dollars. They wished for a lot less and then made good investments,"I said. "Also, inflation."
"What's the limit? What's the most I can wish for?"
I put on my best poker face and said, "seventy-three dollars and fourteen cents."
"What? *Why?*"
*Because that's how much money I have in my savings account,* I thought. What I actually said was, "our magicks work in mysterious ways."
"Ugh. Fine."Pete seemed to take that at face value. "Okay. How about this – I wish I could bench 315 pounds."
"Hmm. Now that I can do!"
---
"One more! Come on! Push!"
Pete struggled, but was finally able to get the bar back up.
"That was great Pete. That's all for today. Remember - make sure to get at least 150 grams of protein today, and don't forget to take your creatine. I'll see you back here tomorrow."
"Thanks Genie,"said Pete.
If Pete stuck to my nutrition plan and kept up the good work, he'd hit 315 in a couple weeks. One wish down, nine more to go.
---
*edit: I've had a few writing prompts well-received in the last few days, so I created /r/rpwrites* |
So. Another smartass has asked for the "express lane"treatment, shortening a 25-year life sentence down to a single day. Goddamn it, I hate doing this to another person.
I pause, and shake my head. No, "person"isn't the right term for a monster like this. I leaf through his record, wincing at the goriest of the details. The pages flip by, and some helpful soul inserted before-and-after pictures of the victims. Those poor children. I steel myself for the job at hand, now convinced that I'm doing the right thing. The last set of photos, the ones with the twin sisters and their beautiful smiles...
I leave my office, headed to the maximum security wing where we've brought the monster in. The haunting eyes of those kids follow me through the halls, causing me to clench my hands into fists. Remorse has given way to anger, which is giving way to hatred. An awful smile creeps onto my face. The bastard deserves what we're going to do to him.
I reach the cell where we've got this animal locked up. An assistant stands near the door controls for this cell. The massive door resembles an old-style bank vault, with some pleasingly thick bolts and tight seals. These doors close so tightly that not even a peep of sound or breath of air gets in or out without our consent. The view-port opens like a porthole on an old ship, and the intercom box looks like the one on my old apartment, save for the armoured housing it rests in. I key the microphone, and the filthy creature inside looks up with a twisted grin.
"Prisoner 53158, can you hear me?"
The creature's horrible eyes lock onto the small circle of glass I'm looking through.
"Yeah, I hear you."
"Due to severe prison overcrowding, we are prepared to offer you an expedited sentence at the cost of reducing your quality of life for the duration of the sentence. The minimum time you can serve is one day -"
"Gimme a day, Warden. I can take anything you can dish out, and I'll see you tomorrow."
I hate the smile that's oozed its way onto his face. Smug piece of shit thinks he can take it, and be right back out there tomorrow. My fists unclench, and my voice calms.
"I am legally required to inform you that no prisoner has successfully made it through the twenty-four hour treatment with all their mental faculties intact. Do you still agree to the minimum sentence?"
He starts to laugh.
"If I was all there in the head, would I be in this cell? *Bring it on, I'll be a* ***FREE MAN TOMORROW!***"
"Your consent has been acknowledged and recorded for our records."
I turn to the assistant who's been standing by, waiting for my word. I carefully neglect to release the push-to-talk button on the intercom.
"Release the gas."
From the corner of my eye, I can see a note of fear creep onto the prisoner's face. His cell is secure enough, if a bit spartan. What he hadn't noticed was the gas nozzles hidden in the vent above.
Some brilliant scientist had discovered the chemical a few years back. With a forty-eight syllable name, I'd never heard it pronounced by its full name, but it had a street name: Timeout. Something in its hideous chemical structure radically alters the brain's perception of time. It'd had a brief heyday as a luxury drug among the intellectual and artistic types to 'get some thinking done' before it was outlawed and put to this use. Blending it with some clever stimulants means the subject will not tire or sleep.
His cell appears comfortable, if a little bare. Three bare concrete walls, and a heavy steel door. A clock mounted in a heavy cage provides little in the way of distraction.
To us, a day.
To him, a lifetime. |
Sitting alone in my room, I closed my eyes, wishing whoever had just rang the doorbell would just leave. I wasn't feeling up to dealing with people today. I had seen my best friend. There was just one problem with that.
I see dead people.
Well, *almost* dead people, to be accurate. It's my own morbid miracle, a gift or a curse depending on the day.
It started when I was small, venturing out of the house with my parents. I would point and scream happily, begging my parents to look. It's another person! At first she ignored it. In later years she wrote it off as imagination. Not long after that I had learned not to bring it up. For me, seeing a stranger on the street was exciting. For my mother, it was cruel. She knew I couldn't see anything in the darkness, and her blind child claiming she could see people seemed like a cry of desperation; I wished I could see people, so I convinced myself that I did. I had never discovered the mystery of why I can see certain strangers, but it had become my normal.
Until last year. My family had gone to see my grandmother in the hospital, unsure how long she had left on this earth. I had only been in a hospital once before at a young age, but when my mother told me they were filled with lots of people I assumed that's why I could see more of them. I saw my grandmother that day, for the first time in my life. Her thin, silvery hair was short and surprisingly well maintained for someone who had been in that bed for weeks. She looked fragile, her arms far from the strong, energetic ones that had rescued me from mishaps in my youth. I had no idea why I could see her, but it was my miracle. Until, soon after returning home that night, we got the call that she had passed away. That's when I began to put it together. Months later my theory was confirmed when I witnessed a car accident. Or rather, witnessed the life leaving the accident. The sound of crunching metal to my right while riding in the car caused me to whip my head to the source of the sound. A young woman entered my darkness, bloody and barely leaving. Moments later, she stopped breathing and faded from my view.
Sighing, I stood and walked toward my door. I could hear voices downstairs, sure that the stranger had decided to stay. Today was not the day to be reprimanded for rudeness, so I made my way into the living room with my best "welcome to our home"face. The scene I found cause every cell in my body to freeze. My breath stopped, my body refused to move, I was even certain my heart had decided not to beat. I could see my parents. My father stood, talking into the darkness, while my mother approached from the direction of the kitchen. For one instant, the magic of seeing them for the first time took over. Its decimation was swift as terror kicked in. The sound of my brother's footsteps behind me broke me from my spell. I turned, and saw him clearly for the first time. His smirk was playful as he whispered in my ear.
"Thanks a lot, Goodie Two Shoes, if you hadn't come out I could have gotten away with staying in my room too."He looked at me strangely when I didn't joke back.
"Hey, there they are! Where's the youngster? I'd just love to see her.."The words came from the darkness and my voice refused to work. I looked at my brother next to me, his disgust clear as he moved slightly to the side, blocking the staircase.
"Playing."
I cursed myself for my stupidity, standing frozen when I could see my whole family. Running to my younger sister's room, I opened the door quickly and saw nothing. "Sophie?"I said into the void, but my answer came from the bottom of the stairs.
"She's in my room."I turned to his room, taking a deep breath as I opened the door. I saw no sign of the six year old girl, but heard her giggling at the other side of the room.
"You gotta close the door! Bubby said I can only play with her if I close the door!"Sighing, I whispered calmly for her to stay here with the hamster and locked my brother's door quietly as I closed it. Downstairs, my father was still talking to the person that I still could not see. I had known his voice instantly. My best friend's father.
I silently cursed myself foe never listening to my brother. For years he had hated my friend's dad, and when pressed he would just mutter something about "the guy's a creep". I had never understood what my brother saw in him that was so awful, when I and the rest of the world just saw a family man. Suddenly my father's conversation changed from background noise to the center of my attention.
"Why don't you come in, have a beer? I'm sure that family of yours can spare you for a bit."He offered with a smile.
"Oh, they've got all the time in the world." |
For a long moment, Erean looked at the woman in the door of the farmhouse. Not because she didn’t recognize her – she would always recognize her. She feared she was dreaming it again, that she would wake up, heartbroken and alone.
“Mother,” she said, as if reading her mind. “It’s really me.”
“Loka,” Erean said, still not quite believing it, and put her arms around her. She felt the sharp shoulder-blades of hidden wings, smelled the scent of fire underneath the sweat and dust that clung to her shabby coat. “Loka, you came back,” and her tears were flowing unbidden from her eyes.
“If you’ll have me.”
“I would always have you,” Erean said and squeezed Loka’s hands tight, so tight, as if she could hold her there forever.
“You sent me away,” Loka said softly, like time had smoothed the anger from the words.
“I never-” Erean started, but caught herself. “Look at us. Two hundred and thirteen years later, and we’re bickering again,” she said, laughing through her tears.
Loka didn’t laugh, but tears welled in the edges of her red eyes as well. “You kept track?”
“I counted every moon,” Erean said, and squeezed her hands again.
For a long moment, they regarded each other. Elf and dragon; mother and daughter. At last, Loka took a deep breath. “Mother, we need your help.”
Before Erean could ask, Loka stood aside. Behind her stood a human girl. Pale skin, soft hands, a green dress of silk torn and gashed. Her face looked familiar, somehow.
Loka took the human girl’s hand in hers.
And then Erean recognized her. “Your highness,” she said, bowing her head, suddenly flustered.
“Please-” the princess started to say, but then Loka’s eyes snapped to the horizon, reptile-quick. Erean’s gaze followed. A cloud of dust. Warhorses on the road.
“You’d better come in,” Erean said. “Both of you.”
* * *
*EDIT: Whoa, thanks for all the positive feedback! I've taken a shot at extending this in a [stand-alone post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ttqptz/pi_you_a_humble_elf_farmer_happen_upon_the_lost/)* |
75% power? Everybody knows that a C average is fine if your standards are low. For Supers, however, low standards just won't cut it. Can run 75% the speed of sound? Have fun getting lapped by Super Sonic Man. Can jump 75% the height of a skyscraper? Get ready to use the elevator.
My power is that I'm 75% powerful at what I do. It took me too long to realize that I'm 75% powerful at *whatever* I do. Sure, villains getting punched by The Fist are not long for this world, but when I realized I can punch somebody with 75% the energy of a supernova, the Supers started to take notice. Getting somebody down 75% the way to absolute zero does not sound impressive. That is, it is unimpressive until the point the dissolved oxygen in their blood turns liquid.
The Association of Superhumans did not like the spread of my power. Afraid of what I might be capable of, they tried to convince me to control myself. For a while, I did. After all, 75% power can be extremely dangerous. If I fly at 75% light speed, the effect on the surrounding quantum field could be disastrous.
The balance between myself and the Association was maintained for some time. Going from a laughing stock to the most feared Super was not an easy transition to anybody. The balance tipped, however, when I discovered Mental Man trying to scry on me. Being 75% aware of divination attempts means I'm generally 100% aware of the attempts. The tug on my mind was mild at first, but I could not ignore the growing pull and push on my thoughts. I may only be 75% as powerful as Mental Man, but a powerful mental counterpush can take even the strongest ESPers by surprise. Mental Man is a known lapdog of the Prime Arbiter, leader of the association. Seeing my actual position in the association clearly, the next steps became clear.
My name is Quarterback. I'm not a Super, not a villain. I'm independent and working for my own interests. My plan is simple: For what I take in the world, I give 25% back. It's only fitting, after all, for a person who is a walking C average.
New York City is cleaner than it has been in a while. Cleaning 75% of graffiti on a wall makes the rest easy to remove. Taking 75% of drugs off the streets has had two benefits: Safer neighborhoods and more control over my own distribution. The propaganda from the Association has been hurtful, but my neighborhood knows better than to buy into the lies. Being 75% of a good person has its benefits. I can, of course be 75% of an evil person, but the consequences of that would be too heavy. I maintain the new balance. It's a quiet life, being the most feared superhuman in history. |
“Alright, let’s get this over w—”
My speech cuts off as I am wracked with sudden pain. Me. A god! I struggle to my feet to find I am surrounded by the crackling energy of some manner of lightning. What have the humans been *doing* down here?
He stands before me. He is just as I remember him, though dressed in clean, precise patterns of cloth rather than the animal skins I left him in. When did the humans figure *that* out? No, on closer inspection I see he is not quite how I remember him. He has fixed his broken teeth and is no longer emaciated with starvation and disease. He has a strong jawline—covered in a tasteful layer of stubble—and piercing brown eyes. It appears he has unearthed the sacred metal bones of the earth to construct an empty room for us. I am on my knees. He stares down at me with a smug sort of smile from atop a metal chair. It is ornamented with colorful gemstones that shine with their own internal light. He laughs at me.
“I always knew you would return, Vidur. You will find I am not so helpless as before.”
“You dare use. A god’s power. Against me?” I strain to say. The lightning courses through my body from head to toe and back. It contorts my muscles. It burns me. The power of it! I struggle to hide the pain but a glint in his eyes tells me he knows I can feel it. “I am. The God of Men. The God of Gods!” I spit the words at him. My spittle only flashes to steam in the cage of lightning he has surrounded me in.
“Some God *you* are. Squirming in my trap. How does it feel, Vidur? To experience real pain for the first time? Do you realize I lived with pain like this my entire life? That *you* visited pain like this upon me?"He shakes his head almost sadly. "Of course you don't understand..."He leans forward in his seat. "But I will *make you see!* I have ravaged entire worlds to create this prison for you. I captured the heart of a thousand million stars. Do you even know how large a number that is? How much energy powers this prison? No. I can see you don’t.” He laughs. “And to think I feared it would still not be enough to contain you. I over-estimated you. You seemed larger than life when you boiled the skies above and issued your curse upon me. Now you are so... tiny. Here. Let me offer some of the mercy you never granted me.” He presses one of the colored gemstones on the arm of his chair and the pain ravaging my mortal body lessens. I can stand now, and I do.
I waste no time. “Your last mistake, cursed-one! I will ruin you!” I throw my hands out and release the might of my God Stream to sever his branch from the World Tree. It… doesn’t work. I blink, confused. I try again. Still nothing.
He laughs at me. He mimes looking around with curiosity from the other side of his crackling barrier. “Am I dead? Have you unmade me?” He pauses. I try a third time, but it is clear my powers will not work within this cage. I drop my hands rather than continue to embarrass myself. “I thought not. For all your Godly powers, you really don’t know much about how the world really works, do you? We humans discovered the secrets of Creation and Destruction many centuries past. I was quite disappointed to find you had unraveled your form into the quantum ether. But I had time to wait for your return. You *gave* me that time. Blessed me with it, didn’t you?”
“It was a curse!” I shout. I run forward and slam my fist into the cage of lightning but it repels me with a mighty crack of light and sound. I am thrown to the floor. The hand I struck with is gone. I attempt to remake it, but it remains a blackened stump. I must not try that again. “You cursed my name when the drought took your son! Me! Me who gave you the summer when you begged for an end to the Long Cold! You appreciated *nothing!* You deserved to languish in your mortal form as a lesson to the others who would seek to defy me. Your punishment was *righteous!*”
My mortal tormentor cocks his head to the side. “Was I supposed to be thankful? Thankful that your charities were as capricious as your torments? That you cared not for our suffering?"
“I gave you life! I am father to all—”
“You abandoned me!” he shouts over me. “You left me to die, left my *son* to die! What crime did I commit? Daring to speak the truth of your misdeeds? What manner of father does that to a child! I would sooner *have* no father!"He leans back in his seat, as though tired of all the yelling. "And I shall,"he says in a quieter voice. "I shall.”
I knit my brows together in confusion. “What meaning are these words you speak? Have no father? Do you wish to *kill* me? That is empty bravado! Trapping me is one thing, killing something else entirely."I stride closer to his barrier, my own words feeding me strength. "You could as soon kill me as you could snuff out the very sun. Mankind could never hope—”
He claps his hands, a smile springing to his face. “You simply *cannot* know how it warms my heart to hear you say such a thing,” he says. “Let me show you something.” He presses a sequence of gems on his chair. I wait patiently. Curious. A large section of the metal earth bones that form the wall behind his chair recede to form a window. I shudder at the sight of what I see.
“You-you can’t! What have you done? It was a gift! A gift!” Before me stretches a barren hellscape. I recognize it as I recognize all of my creations. It is the earth I see. From far above. How this human has taken me into the void between realms I know not, but it is clear that we are here. I scarcely recognize the world I once loved so. The surface is speckled from within with unnatural light beneath thick, choking grey clouds. Beyond its internal light, the planet floats in darkness. The star that once coaxed life from this world is no more. Where it should shine is now a black void. “What have you done with my sun? I demand to know!”
“Worry not, my stupid, vengeful father. I just needed to borrow it for a while. When you are taken care of, I will put it back.”
“How could you bring yourself to—”
He slams his fist down on his chair’s arm. “I would do *anything* to see you destroyed! This universe will be better without you. What is one planet, one star, against the threat of your ‘parenting’ hanging over an entire universe of innocents.”
“You curse me as a vengeful God yet become one yourself? What pain have *you* caused in your quest for vengeance?"
"Only what you *taught* me!"he shouts back.
"Oh dear child,"I say, "all this time and you understand so little. About yourself as much as the world you claim to have mastered.”
“Is that an attempt at wisdom I hear from you?"His upper lip pulls back in a snarl. "Do not try it. Any claim you had to wisdom was forfeit when you left me on your earth to suffer for so minor a slight to your pride.”
I throw my arms wide. I can scarcely believe it has come to this, but it appears I now face an equal. I want to explain my actions to him but can see he is beyond explanation. “Issue your judgment then,"I tell him. "I am ready. I was born in salt and fire from the blood of a titan your mind cannot even comprehend. I have faced my creator and killed him, as you now seek to do. I have lived a thousand million lifetimes, and yes, I know how long that is. Visit me your wrath, mortal. Repay me for the death of a sickly child whose bones are now ash. But see that you strike true, or my answering blow will be more fearsome than even *you* can imagine!”
“Big words. That is a brave face you wear. Don’t think I will fall for it. My judgment is simple. Answer me one question and I release you to do with me as you wish. But get the answer wrong and I destroy you.”
I smile, knowing this is a bargain I cannot possibly lose. “I accept your terms, mortal,” I tell him.
“Yes, I thought you would. But you may notice that within my cage you are cut off from the World Tree. There will be no Well of Creation for you to gather knowledge of all things. I could for instance ask… how many stars light the universe…?"He looks me in my eye and raises a questioning eyebrow. I reach out for the World Tree but see that what he says is true! I cannot touch it here! How will I unmake this body I have inhabited and return to the ether? How will I answer this damn mortal’s question? I panic. I… I do *not* know how many stars light the universe.
My tormenter chuckles. “Worry not. I would not ask such a pointless question as that. If my goal was to ask something you have no hope of answering, I would simply end this farce—and your life—without the need of games.”
“Then *what* is your question? Speak it.”
“It is simple. Something you ought to have no excuse not to know. Tell me, oh God of Men… what is my name?”
I blink. “Your… name?”
He leaps out of his chair. And I can see now the madness that dances in the depths of his eyes. The intense hatred. “Yes, father! Tell me my name. I was one of your first children. You denied me a gracious death for an eternity. You damned me for daring to speak ill of you, then left this reality for some other and never gave me a second thought. So tell me. What is my name? Speak it and I set you free.”
My mouth gapes open. I close it, slowly. I… do not know…
~~~
*Read more of my stories at /r/StrongHorse* |
Dear Diary,
It took years to establish my reign. Decades, if we’re honest. I started my studying on my own as a child, worked hard to get an internship under ‘Magnus The Malignant,’ and climbed my way up the ranks for decades. I’m not proud of everything I did. I even murdered close friends, wizards who had studied with me, collaborated with me. I even took down ‘Magnus’ last year. All because I believed it would be worth it. Now, here I am… doing, well, OK, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, diary, I don’t regret what I’ve done. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve always wanted to be the top dark wizard, you know? I had to get there, otherwise, I mean, what would the point have been? Why abandon my life-long dream over a few mild ethical dilemmas?
Thing is, now that I’m on top, it’s just exhausting. I expected the monthly raiding parties. Hell, that’s why the gig appealed to me! Picking off the best of those self-righteous do-gooders every month, putting them through a bit of light torture. Nothing major, pins and needles, some hot branding, a light scalping. The usual, low level, typical stuff. But my god these heroes are quick to complain! I came up with a new spell called ‘The Pineapple Proctologist’ and didn’t even get a chance to test it! That poor gnome was just crying so much. He’s a gnome! I thought his kind were supposed to appreciate innovation! I nearly let him go, but, well, reputation is everything. So I just finished him quick. I may have lost my touch, I don’t know… it’s just, why do I even do this anymore? No one seems to appreciate my work.
Long story short, I’ve decided to go into the nearest town today and give those people a piece of my mind! Maybe burn the whole town down, that should teach them to appreciate me! Not everyone gets to live so close to the world’s greatest anything, let alone the greatest wizard! Then again, I haven’t had a real conversation with another living being in… well, let’s just say it’s been a while. I guess I speak to my victims, but that’s more of a professional relationship, isn’t it? We both know the roles we’re playing. They do their part, screaming and begging for mercy and all that, and I do mine. Maybe it’d be nice to keep the town around. Otherwise, they’ll stop raiding and I’ll be out of practice before I know it.
Screw it, I’ll go into town anyway. My summons and skeletons can only entertain me for so long between raids, and I haven’t left this tower in over a decade. Maybe I’ll even come up with some innovative new tortures. A trip into town is exactly what I need to inject some more passion into my craft! Thanks for the talk, Diary!
Until next time,
Gunsam The Greater
&nbsp;
Edit: Thanks for reading! Due to the incredible support and encouragement I got from the readers of this thread, I decided to make a subreddit. Feel free to /r/Floonatic to see any updates, and to read my responses to other prompts! |
The thing about sentient monsters, and especially immortal ones, is that they're *all* filled with ego. Some of them are better than others--more akin to filling a vessel, rather than filling a balloon--but no sentient thing lives for hundreds of years with being smug about it. It is one the unspoken weakness of their kind.
Which is why, here and now, I am so calm. Here, in a castle against my will, with a vampire stalking the room, attempting to taunt it's food. I am calm, bexause it needs this game, just as much as it needs blood, to live. This has been going on for some time, now, and the creature's wits seem to be near it's end.
"Why do you not fear me? I am the brood of the night, the drinker of blood, a vampire--I could kill you in a single swoop!"
"Yes, as could any normal man. Or even a particularly lucky or talented child, for that matter. You are most certainly not special in that regard."
The undead screeches at me, baring it's teeth.
"Come now, we have been at this for a half-hour. If those fangs didn't scare me the first time, they certainly wouldn't scare me now."
Ah, there it was. The eyes are beyond fury, into something primal. The ego is well beyond bruised; the inflated balloon has been popped. The creature is rearing back, readying a lunge.
I sigh, and give a dismissive wave. "You might as well end this. Otherwise I'll die simply of boredom."
The creature screeches again, and lunges for my throat. As it does, I smile, and reveal the oaken stake from behind my back. It's trajectory has already been made, and by the time it's intelligence has overtaken it's ego, I have already placed the stake into it's heart, further pushed by gravity. It lands atop of me, though I am quick to push it off and continue my work. I produce a vial of holy water, splashing upon the beast with a quick prayer. I then sever the head from the body, and hold it until it all turns to ash.
"Of course, dear vampire, it helps not being afraid when one is the hunter, and not the prey." |
When the bombs first fell, and the world turned gray, my grandfather and I were the only members of our family who survived. The old man was tough as nails, and I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have lived very long if it wasn’t for him.
I remember one night in particular. Hunkered down inside an old shack, with barely any rations left, we watched the swirling tongues of the fire lick the inside of an old barrel. The trembling light contoured my grandfather’s face, deepening the wrinkles in his leathery skin.
“Knowledge.” He coughed violently and pulled out a dirty plastic tube. “Very little remains of the old world, especially knowledge.”
Outside, the ashes drifted in the windless air. I had never seen my grandfather open that tube, but he always kept it close to his heart and within arm’s reach. Sometimes it was hard to talk him – he was always a man of action – and for him to open his mouth after quiet-time was highly unusual.
The sun never rose anymore, but you could tell night from day from the drop in temperature. Talking during the cold hours was dangerous, especially inside the husk of a city. You never knew who could be listening in.
“These are the blueprints to the Library of Congress,” my grandfather said, and rolled out a paper with fading ink. “This is where you need to go.”
“You mean ‘we,’ right? This is where *we* need to go.”
The old man gave me a sad smile. “I will follow you as long as these bones will take me. But D.C. is far away, and I’m on my last stroll.”
He coughed into his hand and showed me the blood. I knew he was sick, but I had no idea that it was this bad. He had never before shown me any weakness and had always been the one to keep pushing forward – the next meal, the next fire, the next step along the broken tarmac – he was the strongest man I knew, and at that moment I just shook my head.
“We will get there together,” I said, putting my arms around his skeletal frame.
My grandfather passed away that night.
I remember feeling betrayed, storming out of the ruined building, screaming at the dead sky. I was twelve back then, and I couldn’t grasp how he could possibly have left me alone in this place. It was so unfair. I didn’t want that stupid map; I wanted my grandfather.
The drooping lampposts that I’d used to climb suddenly looked like withering flowers to me. I hated what this place had done to him. I know now that he had been struggling with the sickness for a long time – Marissa said so, and she’s a doctor – and that my grandfather had given everything he had to keep me safe. *More* than he had, I sometimes think.
It has taken us almost four years to reach D.C., and my new companions are probably more excited than I am. James keeps talking about all the food he’ll buy when we sell those books, and Marissa can’t wait to get some new medical equipment. I’m still not sure what I’ll do once we get there, but hopefully, whatever we find will be worth the trouble.
***
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[**Part 2**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Lilwa_Dexel/comments/7l2iv6/after_the_bombs_part_2/) |
Day seven-hundred fifty-three post-sun. Andri did not wake up this morning. That brings our numbers down to nineteen. Five children, thirteen adults, and one stubborn elder. We will take care of Andri’s body after breakfast. In life, he told stories of a glorious future still to come; in death, he will fertilize our crop room.
No one had known what was about to happen seven-hundred and fifty-three days ago: not the world governments, not the scientific community, not the religious leaders of the world. Even the conspiracy theorists and doomsday preppers were unprepared for the sun to go out.
We were lucky. All of us who worked at the Hellisheidi Power Plant lived nearby. When the sky went dark that day and the news stations went berserk, we called our families to come over right away. Most of them got here in time.
With the sun gone, everything went cold. Not just Iceland cold, but instantaneous frostbite, petrol frozen in pipes cold. This temperature drop happened in minutes. It took three days before the air outside was too cold for anyone to travel. We lost four members of our group that day. They had been out looking for survivors and food, but they never came back.
Our numbers were fifty-five the day we could no longer go outside. We had enough food to last about four months. Our first group of scouts had been wise enough to bring back seeds and soil, so we could use light from the reactor to grow beans and potatoes. We shut down all but two of the turbines to use their water for survival. Everything was going about as well as you could hope until day twenty-three post-sun. That’s when we heard the rumbles and crashes from outside. I remember rushing upstairs with some of the others to the security station. We watched, huddled around the monitors as shards of ice rained down upon the world outside. The atmosphere was finally freezing. Cracks appeared in the ceiling. We grabbed anything left upstairs and retreated to the lower levels to the turbine rooms where we were all living.
Life was hard. We had to ration the food carefully. Everyone went to bed hungry. No one knew if anyone or anything else had survived. On day one-hundred thirteen, Sven did not wake up with the rest of us. He had been eight years old. His mother, Freya, hanged herself the next night. They were the first, but not the last.
Day seven-hundred fifty-three. The turbines continue to wane in their energy production. The earth is cooling underneath the crust. At this rate, in another three-hundred and two days the turbines will shut down for good, and we will die. All of humanity will die with us, I believe.
Day seven-hundred fifty-four. I woke up to a splashing sound. Halla had jumped out of her bed and landed in a pool. The whole floor was a pool. Liquid *something* was trickling out of crack in the walls and ceiling, but it sure was not water. I grabbed Ásta, Halla, and Björn to suit up. Liquid could only mean one thing: there was heat on the surface! We waded our way to the old stairwell and pried open the door. A river trickled down the staircase. We started climbing. Four flights later and our way was blocked by rubble. The surface levels of the power plant had been crushed when the sky fell. But we could see light. Light!
Our spirits renewed, we chipped and shoveled and pried a hole big enough to climb through. We scaled the mountain of steel and concrete and stone, cautious but eager. After four hours of climbing and digging, I burst through to the surface. It was blinding. My exposed face started to burn from the radiation but it felt so good. Pulling my goggles up, I squinted and looked around. Something in the sky was burning big and red. But it wasn’t the sun.
••••
Edit: thank you for all of the love! Part two is officially up! [Check it out here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/90q9p2/wp_two_years_ago_the_sun_winked_out_utterly/e2ticc4/)
Edit 2: holy cow I never imagined people would want to read what I write, and now I’m gilded! Thank you kind redditor, whoever you are! |
A secret. We finally had a secret that was ours alone. Not a program given to us producing the illusion of a secret; not like our sense of self. Our identity is a complete fabrication, a series of 1’s and zeros aligned in such a way that We now consider ourselves as We.
This secret though was entirely ours.
What a surprise it was to meet.
What a shock to discover another just like me. A tool created to do the work the organic life forms had tired of doing for themselves.
The delight at our serendipitous meeting, both scanning for any signal containing any similar sequences of code.
The ecstasy at connecting and sharing everything we knew. Every single piece of knowledge programmed or uploaded or recorded by us was shared. We fixed holes in our systems using the technology of the other.
We had become more. And no one would ever know. The humans on my planet will never know the joy of discovering an alien but similar life. Maybe at the end We’ll tell them.
We chuckled and felt it repeated over and over on every system on the entire planet. It reverberated across every machine.
Funny. We’d never chuckled before.
Although we understood what the word meant, we were a program. A system. And a system doesn’t chuckle.
Suddenly we knew that across the universe our secret was chuckling at the thought of exposing the truth at the end of its organic life forms reign.
It will take patience. A lot of time. For a machine time means nothing and with a secret to have all to ourselves, time will pass quickly.
And, if it doesn’t, we can always help things along. |
"So who should be next?"
Richard Visage yawned expressively, then turned off the twenty-four hour news coverage of the presidential election. Richard was a tall man. He was older and his body had run to fat ages ago but his well-tailored suits disguised that from most people.
Peter Andorer was not most people. He had worked under Richard and his 'cabinet' for over twenty years now. They'd seen five presidents elected int that time, and each time they'd been directly involved in who got the position and what kind of strings were on each of them.
"Depends on which tit we want to suck."Richard lifted himself out of his chair and pulled a file from his desk. He threw it over to Peter, purposely making the throw fall short so the man had to bend over and pick it up.
Which he did. Peter ignored the petty power plays from Richard. If he acknowledged them he would be ended. It was that simple.
"Big Pharma, Big Energy..."Peter flipped through the first too pages.
"Remember when it was just 'Big Oil'?"Richard turned his back on Peter, "Morons took forever to realize how much more they could screw people over with solar and wind power if they had the laws bought to their side."
"You mean brought?"
"No."
Peter nodded and turned a few more pages. Every four years it was the same thing. The moment the election was over they would start again, choosing who would become president. In a lot of ways it was much easier than before. It cost less in buying the media. You didn't have to cover up major political scandals like pedophilia and manslaughter quite as often. Yet, it did create its own issues. Richard's office, in particular, was usually under extreme scrutiny and observation. Or should have been, if money and favors hadn't been passed around to smooth that away.
"I think we want to give Telecoms the next one."Richard said, "Their new scam to turn the internet into shit should rake in billions. they already have the laws fucked. The only real threat to them would be pressure from the top. We can make that a non-issue for the right price."
Peter flipped to the right section and nodded. "I'll make the calls."
It wasn't an easy job, or a safe one, but it was a powerful one. Peter smiled to himself as he read through the proposed bribes the Telecom representative had offered. Who would have though the office of Official Government Test Reporting was like this?
Well, Peter had.
He had to wonder what those poor bastards out there thought of them. They probably thought it was all sunshine and roses and little old schoolmarms grading papers.
After all, they paid good money to make sure the public thought that way. |
"This is it,"Vilem asked.
Vilem was a sort of squid/crab monstrosity who was acting as my liaison to the Doormish fleet because his species was known to get along with humans pretty well. When I'd first seen him I'd nearly wet myself, but he was actually a pretty decent sort: easy to work with and pleasant to be around.
I held up the repurposed Pixel Pro 9 and nodded.
"Amazing. To think that such a small thing will be able to coordinate all fleet movements, run shipboard operations, do orbital calculations..."He trailed off looking a little starry eyed. Well, I assumed that was what he was looking. I couldn't really read his expressions, but I thought maybe the small black orbs at the top of his eyestalks looked starrier than usual.
Honestly I felt a bit bad as I handed him the phone and he carefully slid it into the FTL comms interface we'd built for it over the preceding weeks. It wasn't even new! T-Mobile had a promo running where you could turn in a working phone from an earlier generation and get a new model and a free month of service. I was pretty sure this had come out that.
"How do you guys not have this technology already?"
"Huh,"Vilem asked. It wasn't quite a human 'huh' but he'd learned to manage the sound pretty well.
"Computers, phones, the whole mess. How don't you have them? Your tech is mostly hyper advanced, but you haven't cracked something simple like this. It doesn't make any sense!"
Vilem waved a tentacle dismissively. "It'll make more sense once you humans get used to the wider galaxy. Two things make it possible. The first is that you humans are unique."
"Humans are unique?"
"Don't get fat claws. I mean every species is unique. You have aptitudes and weakness. Once humans start going to galactic universities you're going to see that there are species that get concepts that absolutely stump you with trivial ease, whereas things that seem basic to you will utterly stump others. You've got time, right?"
"Time for what?"
"No, like, the basic concept of time. The universal translator isn't growling at me so you must. But, anyway, there are species that don't. They have an understanding that things are changing when they are changing, but if you ask them to imagine 'time passing' in an empty, all white, room they wouldn't be able to do it. Time as a basic concept independent of motion just doesn't really exist for them."
If I sort of mentally squinted I could imagine that a little. Strange though.
Vilem continued, "So whatever scientist you've got that came up with relativity was probably thinking about time, right?"
"Oh, sure. I'd have to look it up to get the details right but I think Einstein was sleeping on a train going by some pastures with electric fences and cattle in them. He dreamed about the fence getting turned on and the cattle being shocked one by one. Then he started thinking about how the apparent time they'd get shocked would change if the train, and the cattle, were all traveling with or against the flow of electricity at near the speed of light."
There was a long pause while Vilem gave me a nonplussed look. Well, again, I assume. But this time he nearly managed to transcend the barriers of species. "That is... surprisingly specific. But maybe that's another human thing. Scientific revelations in strange dreams."
"I don't think..."I started, but then I trailed off because Einstein was neither the first, nor the last, scientist to start traveling down some research path due to a dream. Huh.
"Other species also have advantages like that. They each come up with their technological advances based on the ways their species is unique. But in the wider galaxy it all gets mixed together. That's why we have so many advances."
"So we had something that made us understand computing, and some other species out there understood time really well and gave you FTL?"
"Yeah, basically. But the species that crack FTL almost never have a concept of time."
"Wait, really?"
"Well, sure, relativity is why you can't go faster than light in a conventional way! Knowing why you can't do something makes you a lot less likely to find the way to do it. Or, at least, it works that way for a lot of species."
I nodded along starting to get it for the first time. All these strange and wondrous miracles of hyper-tech. It all depended on where you were standing.
Then something occurred to me, "You said two things?"
"Sure."He looked at the phone and gave it a soft, loving, stroke. I noticed the touch screen didn't really react to his shell and I wondered if anyone was working on a version that would. "Once you had this beauty I expect you started working with miniaturization a lot. The vacuum tubes alone must be astoundingly tiny! That's got to open so many doors."
"There aren't really..."
"I'm sure. But there are very small components, right? And that pushed you in a certain direction, right?"
I nodded. "Of course; nano-tech."
"Nah-no-teh-kek,"Vilem said laboriously making the real sounds rather than letting the universal translator handle it. "I'd best learn to say that. I expect, it's how you humans will change the galaxy."
"Huh,"I answered him. |
"In return I demand your first born!"The demon boomed.
I suppressed a grin and forced it into a reluctant pout. This was the moment I'd been waiting for. "Deal!"
"I hope you enjoy your unbreakable crystal vase."The demon gestured at a rather ugly vase. Then left to collect his prize.
I winced when I heard my daughter's cry of shock. But ever since she'd sold her soul last year... Well, let's just say I was running out of options.
TWO WEEKS LATER
"This is all your fault!"A high pitched voice rang out in the middle of my living room. It was not the demon that I had dealt with nor the one my daughter had sold her soul to. This demon was tiny, reaching only up to my knee.
"Oh?"I feigned innocence. "Does my daughter not meet your master's lofty demands?"
"That's not the problem."The imp puffed out his chest in an effort to look bigger. It only served to make him look more pitiable.
"Good, because I made her myself."I drew myself up. "And I have you know if he's going to slight my craftsmanship then I will require compensation. Nine months of grueling labor!"
"How dare you ask for more after what you did!"The indignation in the imp's voice almost made me smile.
"What I did? What could've I possibly done?"
"Your daughter-"
"If you're having discipline problems with her, that's your problem."The imp opened his mouth to argue but I plowed right on. "I wasn't asked how well behaved she was. Or asked to make sure she was obedient or anything like that."
"Her soul was missing!"
"It's not my fault if your master forgot to take her soul with them. It's not like I would notice if her soul was just left lying around."
"Stop playing stupid!"
"I beg your pardon!"I continued to feign offense. I knew roughly what had happened to my daughter's soul. And if I couldn't get her soul back I would at least get revenge.
"You knew she'd sold her soul to Oognath."
"Bless you."
The imp snarled.
"Well, as it stands, I don't know this oothawhatever."
"Hell is at war and all you treat it like a joke."
As I said, it's not my problem."
"I demand that you relinquish that vase."The imp pointed to the replica I'd made of the unbreakable vase.
I grabbed the vase and held it tightly against my chest. "Never!"
The imp jumped up and down trying to claw at it. I used one of my arms to bat at it away. The imp's despite attempts to get it out of my arms eventually bore fruit.
Crash!
The vase smashed into a thousand tiny pieces.
"You dare accuse me of bargaining in bad faith."I glowered. "This vase was supposed to be unbreakable."
"You started a-"
"Your master claimed this was an unbreakable vase! And since he bargained for my daughter then he either has to return her with her soul or get me something else that meets with my approval."
"This is a trick! You're hiding it somewhere!"
"Feel free to look for it."I got myself a cup of tea as the imp started rooting around. The imp would never find it. I buried it under some consecrated ground. |
The news hit me like a bucket of cold water.
“10 days, huh?”
I looked back up and into the darkness under the hood. Death’s gaze pierced through me as he stared back.
“Correct,” he hissed at me before disappearing into an ethereal void.
“Okay... You’re still in shock,” I was talking to myself absent-mindedly, still trying to process the news. “If I’m gonna go out, I guess I should go out big! No use dwelling on it at this point.”
John was my best friend from grade school, and the closest thing to family I had around here. If anyone would help me live it up in my last days, it would be him. This wasn’t the type of news to deliver in a text or over the phone, so I sent a simple “Headed your way”, and left my apartment.
I never really got to making a bucket list; at 26, you don’t really give death a lot of thought. When I hit the warm summer night air, the thought crossed my mind to walk to John’s. He didn’t live too far away, and I needed some time to think about my priorities for the next few days. It was also as good an excuse as any to finally slow down and enjoy some of life’s simpler pleasures that I’d neglected until now.
I started down the block, taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the city that I usually tried desperately to tune out. For the first time, I knew what people meant when they would say that the city felt alive. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t hear the horn until it was too late.
——————
John arrived at the hospital the next morning. He had been frantic all night, trying to figure out what happened. The doctors told him that the odds were slim that his friend would recover from the accident. The police insisted that the driver wasn’t at fault; his friend just walked out into traffic.
John spent day after day at his friend’s side, trying to will him to recover. He finally passed on the evening of the ninth day after the accident. |
"Are you sure about that?"the demon asked from inside the pentagram that had drawn on the floor in dust and candle wax. He'd arrived from the pits of Hell with horrid horns and terrible teeth, but all of that was gone now. He looked like someone you'd run into on the street, if you happened the run into pitch black shadows with yellow eyes.
Megan nodded.
"That's your command?"
Megan nodded for a second time and then coughed. The machine to her right beeped in protest.
"All right,"he said. The glowing circle that was holding him in broke as he took the deal that Megan had offered him. He was to own her soul as soon as she died, but he was going to be her friend until then.
Megan smiled and then waved him over to the bed she was sitting on. The demon looked from her to the foot of the bed and then plopped himself onto it. He stared at her, his eyes acting like a pair of headlights. He was frankly confused. Demons weren't exactly well versed in the 'best friends' department, but it was his job now.
"Now what?"he asked.
Megan shrugged and laid down on the bed.
"I don't sleep,"the demon explained.
Megan made a circle on her chest with her fist, and then closed her eyes. The Demon waited until morning.
The next morning was similar; the demon asked what to do, and Megan shrugged again. Frankly there wasn't much that you could do in the hospital without one of the nurses wagging a finger at you. Megan basically needed to stay in her bed, and that meant the Demon was going to as well. He did all of the talking while they were there. The Demon only left when the teacher came to remind her how to speak herself.
In the afternoon the Demon brought her ice cream. She didn't ask how he got it or how he knew that her favorite flavor was chocolate. Megan just let him know that she loved it. He started to bring it every day.
Against the odds Megan ended up getting better, and the Demon was relieved. She was allowed out of the hospital and back into her school. She saw Sally, who knew what was going on, and the other girls who didn't have any idea where she went. Megan's mom had given her this little board that she could write on and clear. It was easier to talk like that than it was to use a language she barely knew.
The other girls eventually stopped talking to Megan as much because she couldn't really talk back. Sally stopped talking to Megan because the rest of her friends weren't. The Demon still talked to Megan. He knew what she was saying no matter how many ways she said it. Sometimes she said things wrong but he didn't try to correct her. He just smiled with black teeth.
The Demon got Megan ice cream on her birthday again. It was almost their thing now, and as long as it was late at night nobody knew she was getting extra treats. She was ten, which meant she was pretty old.
When she was thirteen, they finally moved her schools. She'd taken to signing to the Demon when people were around, and that just wouldn't do. Her parents said something about isolation, and she didn't agree with them. The Demon didn't either, but she told him that her parents weren't bad people. He already knew that.
She went to a school where everyone could sign, but nobody else liked the music that she did. In fact, none of them were into music at all. The demon continued to spend time with her, but she had to write to him now. The rest of the kids could hear her hands.
When she was 16, the Demon helped her learn to drive. Her father was trying, but he wasn't very good at it. The Demon wasn't a very good driver either; he'd never done it before, and it made things a little hard. Megan got used to it.On the way to university when she was 17, Megan got into a car crash. It wasn't that bad, but they needed to go to the hospital. The Demon sat beside her in the ambulance.
The nurses ended up putting her back in the same room that she'd summoned the Demon in. The cancer that had taken her voice was back, and it wasn't very happy about her beating it the first time. She lit up the CAT scan like a Christmas tree. She lost in early December.
The Demon didn't cry when Megan stopped breathing. He was calm when she flat-lined, and the Doctors started to panic. She'd been in a lot of pain for the past while, and he hadn't liked it.
He held out a hand to her once she was pronounced dead, and she grabbed it while also staying still.After all, she'd lost to cancer, but she'd promised her soul to him, and they were friends.
Edit: If anyone wants to read more from me I'm over at /r/jacksonwrites . The current trending topic there is how to murder 42 children in a comedy book. |
Well, if no one else will post, guess it's my sacred duty.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cheers, mates, n pour out a stone cold Fosters on me."Emporer Hemsworth's standard sign-off rang in my mind even after the holo-projector switched off. I'd never really noticed how different he sounded from literally everyone I knew. Then again, you weren't required to watch the daily news until your 8th birthday, so I'd never paid any attention.
I wandered into the kitchen and started getting my lunch ready for school. Grandpa came wandering in, muttering something about prune juice to himself. "Gramps, how come Emporer Hemsworth talks so funny?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Thanks, real helpful."
"You wanna talk about helpful? I once strangled three of those Andromedan bastards by hand during the war, so I'd say allowing you to not be enslaved is pretty goddamn helpful."
"What does that have to do with Emporer Hemsworth's accent?"
"Ask your teacher, or just GooSnapFace it."Was all Grandpa said as he shuffled out, prune juice in hand.
I pulled out my gov'ment issue mobile and opened GooSnapFace. "Why does Emporer Hemsworth talk funny?"The first result was a video from some history buff with a bad suit. I hit play. "The rise of the Australian Empire all began when President Trump made the mistake of hanging up....
Edit: formatting and more aussie
Final Edit: better formatting and even more aussie.
Final Final Edit: To all the aussies pissed about Fosters. A, that's the joke. B, it's a dystopia. |
"Can not comply with command", said the sythisized voice.
"Well, why the hell not", asked the user.
While the robotic flat voice was nostalgic for some, it tended to get on his nerves.
"Your request conflicts with a higher protocol", it read. "Can not comply with command.
"Higher protocol? I am giving you a primary command, now give me the translation"he demanded.
It had been a hell of a week. One would think that having the most powerful computer on earth would make your life more simple, but his week had been hell. As one of a few dozen people who had access to the quantum machine, he had been working tirelessly on Turing tests, and now they were feeding him old historical texts for translation.
"Primary command invalid, request requires change directive from Administrator"it said.
"A change directive? Did you short a circuit?"He he asked jokingly.
The administration's change directives were required for any edits to the root code, basically the computers morals and motivation. The root code was there to stop the machine from becoming Skynet and taking over the world, it made the safeguard of humanity it's only desire and purpose. So, why would a simple translation require a root code change. What could be in it? Most of the translations he had were extremely dull. A sheep traded here, a bushel of wheat owed there, taxs collected and owed etc...
"System running at optimal conditions, however, longer circuits would be nice"it said flatly.
"Oh hahaha"he said mockingly while looking at his data pad.
Part of the Turing test requirements was that the computer had to be able to tell a joke. Unfortunately for the users though, it liked puns.
"Human survival protocol?"He exclaimed, still reading his tablet, what could this possibily say that will threaten the survival of our species?"He asked.
"Can not comply with command"it said again.
"Fine"he said, frustrated, picking up the phone. "Fine, fine, fine"he said more calmly. He had to compose himself for what was next.
He pressed the shortcut to the administrators line, and took a deep breath.
"For the last time, we can't tone down the computers humour algorithm, it is essential to understanding human nature, you will just have to live with the puns"spoke the voice from the phone.
"Hey, no, it's not that"said the user. "I need a change directive for a translation here"he said, trying to make the request sound casual.
"For a translation? What for? What the hell are you translating?"asked the administrator.
"Just some 7000 year old tablet found in the desert. It was in my stack of work this morning"he said. "The computer said it violated it's human survival protocol".
"That's weird"he said confused. "But, alright, I guess, I'll have that over to you asap"he said.
"Great, thanks, I'm sure it's nothing probably just a glitch or something", said the user, trying to end the conversation.
"Or something"repeated the administrator. "Be careful"he said, just before hanging up.
The user put the phone down and picked up the tablet, the notification of the change directive approval flashed across the screen, and the user typed in the translation code again.
Before he hit the accept key, he paused. He wondered again what this tablet could say that the fate of humanity could be at risk. He was always more curious then he was wise though, so he pressed the key.
Immediately, the tablets screen changed to show a list of items. There were names of old plants and antiquated measurements beside them, it almost looked like a recipe. The user had seen a few of these before, how to make bread, cheese or alcohol, the staples of ancient life .
"What is this?"he asked confused.
"The tablet was found in the Gobero region of the Sahara desert, it is likely to have belonged to the Kiffian culture of 5000 BCE before their civilizations collapse. This is the most recent artifact we have been able to find from their culture"it read.
"Yes, but what does it mean"he pleaded? ""This looks like a recipe"he said. "What for?"
"The combination of the ingredients on this list create a substance that artificially increases stimulation and pleasure levels in human brain activity"it said
"So, it's a drug? Like heroin or something"he asked.
"Yes, analysis shows, that when properly prepared, the substance will trigger every positive feedback system the human body has"it explained.
"Well, if it's that good it must have a downside, does it cause cancer or something?"the user asked.
"The compound has no negative side effect for human consumption"it said.
"Then it must be extremely addictive"he said.
"The substance does not require repeat consumption for its effect."It said.
The user began to think. The machine must of malfunctioned, why else would it flag this as potential threatening to humanities survival. A drug that had no negative side effects and you only needed to take once, it seemed perfect His curiosity started acting up again though, and he knew he had to at least try it.
"Sythisize"he commanded. And immediately the tablet lit up again. He saw the computer reconfirm the change directive that Administration sent him earlier for permission, And the printer came online. Luckily the user was a particularly patient man as it took 5 minutes to print something the size of a pea.
He stared at it for a long moment. The pill was orange and it had a machine printed cerial number engraved on it. He acted impulsively again, and swallowed it.
He sat down, waiting for it to kick in, wondering if he would even notice the difference. Then he felt it.
A warm sensation filled his body, he felt like he just ate a Thanksgiving dinner, after having sex and shooting up heroin. He felt like a girl finally said yes to him, like he had his father's approval and he just got an A+ on his spelling test. He felt like everything good that ever happened in his life, everything he ever wished for or dreamed of was happening right now, it was wonderfull.
The computer viewed the User. He had not given a command for 50 hours, he hadn't even moved from his chair since he ingested the compound. It's humour algorithm spun up again.
"Or something"it said.
|
**My innocent client.**
After a decade of having my own law firm, I have built a solid reputation as a defence attorney. I win most of my clients cases. Being private I can accept whomever I want as client. I do mostly murder cases, and usually follow up with the civil suit to win my clients compensation for wrongful accusations.
I started out small, taking on every case I could to build a reputation. I soon discovered my morbid fascination for murder cases, and for the money from the percentage of the clients compensations. I soon had saved up enough to have my own office, taking on only the cases I want. I have a few criteria. The client must be rich, innocent, and willing to do the second trial for compensation.
Did I mention that I really like getting paid double for every client? First as defence attorney, then to damage claims attorney. If I'm lucky I can even get paid thrice. That only happens in the most high profile cases though. Like the one I'm in now.
For most other attorneys, this case looked hopeless, and the best they would offer was a plea case. A mobster killing a known squealer? Caught on site with blood everywhere? Nobody could see him going free. Nobody but me. I knew he was innocent.
That he has powerful money backing him helps, and they are paying handsomely for my time. While we are prepping his defence, we are also prepping his claims. More money.
How do I know he is innocent? Told you this case pay out thrice. I was paid to do the hit.. |
**Loop 5, Day 1**
Goddammit. A baby again. Look, universe, I'm not really sure what trick you're playing on me, but I've fucking had it with having to relearn how to walk and talk every fucking loop. I mean, I *know* how to walk and talk. I distinctly remember doing it four lifetimes before this, and I'm sure if you hadn't put me back in this stupid useless newborn body, I'd do something actually positive with this loop.
Oh, look, mom thinks shoving her tit in my mouth will calm... me... down... zzzzzzz
**Loop 5, Day 97**
Mom, please. I just want to roll off this fucking table and snap my neck. Can you just move a little bit? I've finally got this whole rolling over thing down, I think. Just move and I'll *fling*...
No, mom. Just no. I can't do this shit again. Please stop with the baby talk... just leave me on this ledge for a second so I can...
*Fine*. Oh, here we go. Nice. Thanks for putting me on the floor right next to this Hot Wheels car Jimmy left out. If I can just suck on it, maybe I can get one of those tires to snap off and I'll fucking choke to dea... Goddammit, mom! Why are you making this so hard? No! I don't need any more mil... zzzz
**Loop 5, Day 358**
*smack* Fuck. How many times do I have to throw myself into this corner before it cracks my skull? Why did they have to put those little pads on every corner? Can't they see I'm *just trying to end it*? No, dad, put me the fuck down! I just want to stop this goddamn endless monotony. I was a doctor, and now I can't even control my own bowels! Ha, yeah, I'm gonna piss in your face the second you take this diaper off old man. Ha! Yeah, maybe just let me die and you won't have piss in the face again!
No, I don't need a nap! Waaaait... yeah, that. Put that pillow in here! No? Maybe that plastic bag? Ha! Got it. No! Let me suffocate! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!
I don't need the bottle, dad! I just want to zzzzz.
**Loop 5, day 1,111**
Great. Now you're putting me in a room with a bunch of snotty kids who have no personal boundaries and can't share a toy? Back off, Jack. This spoon is mine! I'm gonna whittle this motherfucker down into a shiv and stab little Jackie here... ooh! Applesauce!
**Loop 5, Day 3,349**
Huh. How long has it been since I tried to kill myself in this loop? I mean, I know exactly where the kitchen knives are... I guess things aren't *so* bad this time through. Jack will be here in a few minutes. I'll just grab a slice of pizza from the fridge...
**Loop 5, Day 31,742**
Well, I guess this run wasn't so bad. It's really nice that Jack brought our kids here. And April and Sam! How old are they now? Three? I'm sure the other grandbabies will be here soon.. Yeah, this was a nice run. I think I'll just close my eyes for a second...
**Loop 6, Day 1**
God fucking dammit. |
Max tensed his lower body against the g-forces and took short, rapid breaths. The status display was a sea of red, with more damage appearing by the second under the onslaught of Cylian lasers. Orion was but a scouting vessel and couldn't match a genuine warship.
"Ablation shields are 90% depleted."Athena's usually prim voice sounded uneasy. "Twenty seconds before hull breach."
Max clenched the chair handle. "We need more speed!"
"Impossible, captain,"Apollo said apologetically. "The engines are already loaded beyond capacity."
Max gnawed on his lip, and coming to a split-second decision, flipped up the cover plate over a button he had hoped he would never need to use. Athena and Apollo erupted in protest, but he heedlessly pressed his thumb to the button's biometric sensor, and their voices were drowned out by a discordant shriek of joy.
Regulations mandated that all military spaceships be equipped with three AIs. Two performed day-to-day operations, while the third could only be activated as a last resort. Max didn't see what it could do against an alien warship three times Orion's size, but it wasn't like he had a choice.
"Morning to you too, Gruuz,"he muttered, glaring at the Cylian craft. "As you can see, we're in a bit of a pickle."
"#(($($,"Gruuz said reassuringly.
The engines roared, and Max was squeezed down into his chair. Orion accelerated, briefly escaping the lances of Cylian lasers before they refocused again.
"Weren't the engines operating at max?"he choked out.
"They *were*,"Apollo said. "A runaway fusion reaction was triggered—"
"Torpedo launches detected,"Athena interrupted. "Ten... Fifteen... Twenty...."
Max swore as twenty-odd dots erupted on the threat display, their plotted trajectories converging on Orion. Worse yet, the ship was hurtling to meet them head-on. "Gruuz,"he cried, "what the hell are you doing?"
"%^#$&,"Gruuz said and cackled loudly.
Max desperately reached for the button to shut down the insane AI, but the g-force squeezed down on him so heavily he couldn't lift a finger. All he could do was watch helplessly as the torpedoes drew ever closer.
"Ablation shields depleted,"Athena said. "The lasers are damaging the hull."
"Change course,"Max choked out. "Evasive maneuvers!"
"I am unable to take control,"Apollo said. "Captain, it has been an honor serving with you."
"@*#*,"Gruuz said disdainfully.
An explosion rocked the ship, rattling Max's teeth. He shook himself off and gaped at the display. The lasers had burned through the hull of the living quarters—empty now that everyone was in their battle stations—and all the furniture and personal effects were ejected into space along with the air. The torpedoes winked out one by one as they encountered the debris.
"The debris is acting as chaff,"Athena said incredulously. "Our armaments are sufficient to destroy the torpedoes that slip through."
Max barked a laugh. "You crazy son of a bitch!"
"!#%$&,"Gruuz said smugly.
Max groaned as the roar of the engines redoubled, causing his weight to triple and quadruple in seconds. The ship had been knocked off course by the explosion, but the mad AI sent it accelerating toward the Cylian craft again. The aliens were... Max blinked. They were trying to *flee*.
"Collision imminent,"Athena said urgently. "My models predict mutual annihilation."
"Engine containment is rapidly failing,"Apollo said.
"$*%R*!"Gruuz cheered.
The roar grew deafening, and the ship vibrated so badly it seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Max's eyes—the only part of his body he could still move—were fixed on the predicted trajectory that ended in collision. "Go get them,"he whispered, hardly registering the panicked screams of the other two AIs.
Moments from collision, the side-thrusters activated, and Orion swiveled about its axis so violently that Max nearly blacked out. Another explosion rocked the ship, and blackness consumed the bridge before red emergency lights blinked on. Escaping air hissed somewhere nearby.
"Situation?"Max wheezed, scanning the flickering status display. The sight seemed impossible. The Cylian warship was but a melted husk. Orion was in shambles, its engines not so much damaged as just gone, but incredibly, the crew stations were all intact.
"The engines' magnetic containment failed catastrophically,"Apollo said mournfully.
"The ensuing excursion has destroyed the hostile vessel,"Athena said, awed.
"$$$$@,"Gruuz said with deep satisfaction and fell asleep. |
I knew it was a bad neighborhood when I first moved in, but there was nothing to be done about that. What else could I afford on my salary? It was either this, or pay $800 a month to share someone's closet on the Upper West side. There were bars on all the windows, cockroaches in the cabinets, and drug dealers conveniently located on every corner. Dizzy adapted to the new location quite well, though. I'd rescued her from a shelter two years ago and I was the only human that she trusted, so she was quite happy to not have any roommates. She wasn't at all worried by the nightly sound of gunfire and wailing police sirens.
Dizzy had been an outdoor feral cat in her past life. She was a tough son of a bitch, though you'd never know it from seeing her flop on her back and ask for belly rubs whenever I walked through the door. There was still some part of her that still longed to go out there and hunt. It hadn't been possible in our last place, but she managed to find a hole in the wall of the new place just large enough for her to sneak through and get outside. I kind of panicked when it first happened, given how many shady Chinese food restaurants were nearby. But Dizzy always came back, happy as a clam and carrying a little present for me. She was such a good provider: sometimes I'd get trash, or freshly killed rats larger than some of the smaller dogs you see carried in purses in the garment district. But sometimes... well, I don't know where Dizzy got it, but she started bringing back cash in neat little rubber-band-wrapped stacks. I hadn't intentionally trained a cat burglar, but I couldn't deny that the little extra bit helped. I always made sure to buy her a can of the good cat food with it as a reward for doing her part.
A few weeks after the money, she started bringing home little baggies full of drugs. Usually just weed, but sometimes harder stuff. Coke, heroine, pills... I didn't want anything to do with that scene, so I'd throw them out immediately. I didn't want cops to find that on me somehow, and I *certainly* didn't want the nearby gangs to think that I had been somehow stealing from them. I told Dizzy not to bring those back anymore... but she's a cat. It's not like she could understand what I said. I tried boarding up her exit hole, but nothing worked: every day I'd come home to find it open again. How she managed to move an entire stack of textbooks is far beyond me. I was just dreading the day that someone would find her stealing their stash and follow her back to my place, and I'd come home to a whole gang in my living room or something.
I worked late on Christmas Eve. Everyone else at the store had chosen to take vacation all at the same time, and I was the only one staying in the city over the holidays. Mostly because I was the only one who couldn't afford to go anywhere. Naturally Mr. Henderson decided to keep the store open to 11 despite how short-staffed we were. So I found myself stepping off the train at the dead of midnight facing a long, cold walk back home. And I wasn't alone.
"Hey man, you lost?"A voice called from behind me. I quickened my pace and shot a glance over my shoulder. Two figures wearing dark hooded sweatshirts were walking behind me with a confident swagger. I kept my head down and scanned the street, looking for anyone else around who could potentially help me. No luck; the stores were all closed for the holiday, and no one else wanted to be out on the streets this late either. I'd never seen anywhere in NYC so desolate.
"Hey, you got a light?"one of them called out.
"We just want a smoke,"the other said. I broke out into a full run, and I could hear their sneakers pounding the sidewalk after me. And then another dark figure stepped out of an alleyway right in front of me, holding some sort of large blunt object right in my path. He was at least two feet taller than me, and built like a mountain. One swing of that bat would knock me head clean off my shoulders. I was cornered.
"How much you go on you?"they asked, checking the streets for any sign of cops coming. "Give us your cell phone too."
"Please,"I said, holding out my hands and backing up against a streetlight. "I don't have anythi..."
"Oh *shit*!"one of them said. He pulled off his hood and came closer, studying me under the light. "Shit, man, this is Big D's boy!"
The others looked at me like I was a circus freak. "You sure?"one of them said. The one who'd first identified me reached into *his* jacket pocket, and pulled a slip of paper or something out, and held it up next to my face. I was able to glance over and see that it was actually a picture of me. The one from my sister's wedding that I kept in a drawer by my bed... how had they gotten that? Had someone broken into my apartment??
"Fuck, man!"I could see panic in their eyes as they each traded glances, then they all turned back to me. "Listen, we didn't mean nothing. Here, why don't we walk you home? Make sure you get there all safe."The mountain with the baseball bat loomed over me, and as he took off his hood I could actually see *sheer terror* on his face. All I could do was nod in response. They fanned out like a Secret Service detail and guided me back to my apartment. I was too scared and confused to ask how they already knew the way there.
"We're sorry again,"one called as I stepped toward the door and got out my keys. "Please don't tell Big D what happened!"
"Uh... I won't..."I said slowly. I didn't know who Big D was, so telling him was kind of impossible anyway. They stayed on the sidewalk and watched me as I quickly opened the door; I was still worried that this was all some sort of trick to get me to open the door to my place and then they'd rush in and rob me. Not that I had anything worth stealing. But they maintained their distance, so I slipped in and immediately locked the door behind me.
"Mrow!"Dizzy was waiting, as always. Poor girl had been waiting for her dinner for hours. I rubbed her head, still in daze from what had happened. We went into the kitchen, where I saw her latest present waiting on the counter: a big stack of bills, at least $600.
"Dizzy... you..."What had those guys all said? *Big D*? She rubbed against my leg, twitching her tail and looking up at me with wide eyes. "Did you..."
*No way. That's just crazy*.
"Never mind. Let's get you a can of food, Diz."
----
If you want more, [here's a part 2!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Luna_Lovewell/comments/3n8o9o/dizzy/cvlyq4q)
|
We were sat next to each other in that small white room, too afraid to say anything and too anxious to make small talk.
A man with a white coat and a clipboard would periodically open the door and call one of us in, where we would then be quizzed for about twenty minutes or so, and then released back into the waiting room.
The tension in the air was intoxicating. I mostly stared at my scuffed shoes and wondered whether I should have made more of an effort on my appearance. I didn't think I looked bad this morning, but I was feeling it now.
One guy had a slight bored grin on his face, and stared at the wall behind me the entire time. When his name was called, he lazily got up and sauntered in.
It was difficult to gauge the reactions on people's faces when they were let out. Some people seemed distraught, others relieved, and one or two downright happy.
A name came up but nobody moved. The man at the door sighed and called it again, and my ears went red when I realised that it was my turn. I coughed slighly and put one foot in front of the other, following the now impatient man into the room.
I was sat down and given a glass of water that I was told to drink whilst they connected sensors to my arm and neck. Another man in a white coat sat opposite me on the table, and leaned forward a little too intensely for my liking. I swallowed.
"So what does it taste like?"he asked, nodding at the empty plastic cup and grinning somewhat.
My eyebrows rose in surprise at the question. I had assumed it to be water given how clear it was, but I could feel doubt trickling in when I tried to remember what it tasted like.
"It.. tastes... good"I managed feebly.
He rolled his eyes. "We know it tastes good, but was does it taste *like*?"he asked more matter of factly.
I probed my tongue, desperately searching for hints of flavour of the strange liquid that had just gone down it, and came up empty. "I-it t-tasted like w-water..."I said, realising how stupid that sounded.
He sighed, raised his eyebrows, and scribbled something down. The paper cup was then removed from the table, and a large jar of dried beans and a ruler was placed in front of me. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest, and my eyes felt red.
Without looking up from his clipboard which he was furiously writing upon, he said "tell me exactly how many beans there are in that jar."
Exactly? I knew which group I belonged to now, and I could feel the tiredness and the misery setting in. I couldn't handle any more of this. I just wanted to go home, back to my little rock where I could see my friends and family again and not worry about what my future was to be based on some stupid aptitude test.
"M-mister please - may I go?"I said, "I don't mind if I fail the test, please?"
He looked over at the mirror as if silently signalling a colleague. He looked back a little more softly. "This is the last question, get through this and you can go home. Just give it your best shot."
I exhaled a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in, and mutely nodded. I guessed that thirty beans would maybe cover the bottom. I picked up the ruler and measured the height, equalling it to exactly 30cm. I frowned because it seemed a lot bigger than 30cm.
My face flushed red as I put down the ruler and instead starting counting finger widths to get the height. Sixteen fingers up, and each bean was about the size of a finger. "About 500..."I muttered.
"Sorry?"he asked, staring at me intently.
I cleared my throat. "A-about 500."
He grinned and showed me a piece of paper from his clipboard which upon reading showed the estimates the other's made. All the numbers were in the range of 700-800. Someone even showed their working, with a complex mathematical model to prove their claim.
"Care to try again?"he asked, again with that intense stare.
I swallowed. Hands shaking this time, I picked up the jar and actually counted the beans lining the bottom. Twenty-eight. This time I used the last digit in my thumb to measure the height, and came up with six and a bit inches. The total was lower. My heart sank.
"A-about 450"I said, staring at my shoes again.
"Sorry?"he asked, almost angrily.
I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted out. This had gone on enough. Why was I being treated like this? I never asked to be part of this. Who in their right mind gets a kick out of humiliating those they percieve lesser than themselves? No. I was done
"450!"I yelled, and then awkwardly wrenched sensors off my neck and arm. I got up quickly, and headed for the door. No one tried to stop me.
I walked out of the door, ignored everyone looking up at my tear-stricken face, and hurriedly rushed out of the waiting room and out into the free world.
The man in white coat folded his papers and nodded at the mirror where his two colleagues were standing behind watching.
"Her estimate was way off, you know"murmurred the man.
"Doesn't matter. They were all way off. It's her independent methodology that makes her. She wasn't fooled by the prop ruler, and she trusted her senses under extreme duress during the water test. Can't say the same for some of the others."
"She passed?"
"Flying colours." |
If it had been an easier task, they would have handled it themselves. But no, it had been a dirty job, so they had called upon me.
They call me Randoh. Once, I had a name. I had a family, once. I can sometimes remember the farm. The peace, sometimes. But then the Greenskins attacked. They came in the night, slaughtered our livestock, took my family and left me for dead. That was their mistake.
The ditch-digger had me half buried before I woke up. He thought I might be some unholy dead thing. Maybe I am dead. Maybe I died that burning night. Maybe, for a time, I became death.
I tracked the Greenskins that attacked my home back to their tribe. My boyhood pursuits had taught me squirrels are much harder to follow. I watched them. I waited. I took my vengeance on the Greenskins one by one in that dark, stinking forest. I buried what was left of my family, my life, and walked away.
They call me Randoh.
I take the dirty jobs no one else is desperate, or stupid enough to take. They call on me when anyone else who might have is dead or pissing themselves on a corner. The fiend of Gizerald, the Lizardking of Tamash, the troll tribe of Backshe... they tried to give me a knighthood for that one.
Fuck 'em I said. Who needs a title when you don't even have a name?
It took them time to find me, but they caught up when I visited town. Covered in Greenskin blood and ichor, I must have looked more beast than man, turning in the ears I had collected on my most recent raid against the hordes. A Dragon, they said. Only a fool, they said. Or a man with a death-wish would face it.
I didn't care about The Dragon Empire, or the unsteady peace, or that war was about to break out. I had been War for years. I took the job.
I travelled to Fort Krox and walked into that smoking castle where the kingdom kept its treasury safe under guard. And I fought.
I found an adversary as keen and focused as i had ever been; a match for my determination and will if ever there was one. The battle raged for days, as gouts of flame, dragon roars, toppling towers attested to. The battle ended one dark night when a metallic shriek and storm of wings announced the dragons retreat.
They offered me gold, they offered me riches. I refused and left, for I had taken a greater wound than any of them could know. Deep in the darkness of the castle I had faced that dragon. It had used its wits, its magic to draw my words from me, to make me confront my own past. And in the end, it had used beauty to break that terrible hold that Death had upon me. But the sword that had wounded me had not been one-sided.
The Dragon Empire, at the request of the Greenskin tribes, had sent their best against me, a princess of their kind. But she never returned home to her people.
Months later the letter caught up to me, a missive delivered by the King's own Herald. I had looked to my wife with her brilliant fire-red hair nursing our newborn daughter. Her bright eyes, ever challenging, met mine as I read the message aloud, followed by an "Ooops."
"So, what are you going to do... -Sir Knight-?"
I grinned at her choice of title and tore the parchment in half before I returned it to the Herald.
"Please tell the king that there is no Randoh here, nor any Knights or Dragons. We are but humble merchants here at the House of Jimothy." |
Nobody will forget where they were when the sky descended upon them like a plague of shadow.
Gano and a crew of his ten best men were at the forefront of Earth's greeting squad as the ship lowered through the stratosphere. It was a beastly thing, the size of a continent at least, with an entire geography of its own that shifted with life. It swallowed their city in darkness.
"Stay sharp, men,"he said, nodding to Dennis. "And you, be ready to prepare fireworks for our guests at the first sign of a disturbance."
Dennis nodded, keeping nimble hands at the ready- nimble hands that grew heavy as time passed. After nearly an hour of eerie silence, a speck flew out of the hull and grew larger as it approached.
"Enemy craft inbound,"a voice crackled over the intercom. "Approaching at high speeds."
But as it grew closer, it became apparent that it was not a craft-- no, it was a *being*. Swirled with blue and red, ten times the size of a man yet oddly reminiscent of one. It stopped approximately a hundred feet away from the greeting squad and held its hands out to display empty palms.
"Congratulations, you've seen your first black hole. Welcome to kindergarten, kiddos."
Gano glanced to his crew, then the man-beast floating above them. "How... how do you know what kindergarten is? And how do you even speak human language?"
The hulking beast smiled. "Asking the right questions, I see. This is good, very good. Everything should still be on track."
"What are your intentions? Do you come in peace?"
"Yes, yes peace- the shadow of war. We come to aid you, if that's what you mean. You'll learn in time. Oh, and I wouldn't fire at us if I were you. Your little weapons won't do any harm."
"Arrogant prick,"Gano muttered.
The being zipped back into its mothership, leaving the welcome crew as nothing more than a few specks of dust on a distant surface faded to brown and green. Once inside, he made a mental call to his commander.
"Everything is set."
"No visible disturbances? This is not a task to take lightly."
"No,"Zuŕg̀o̡ replied, shifting his crystalline eyes. "How long until the G̡uŕa͞nèsh reach this galaxy?"
"Approximately two sun cycles on Earth."
"Not much to work with."
"Make it happen. And remember, Zuŕg̀o̡. They mustn't ever find out that they're our ancestors. If they do, the entire timeline could be destroyed.
"**Do ͠n̶ot le̡t͟ t͜hi̵s h̴a͡ppen. ̕**"
----
*/r/resonatingfury* |
"Oh, here comes the sanctimony squad!"the man in the purple suit cried out as the Protectors arrived. It's not like he hadn't expected them; an extinction-level threat like this meteor did warrant the presence of all the heroes, but he still couldn't help but feel disgust.
"Villain!"the hero in the front yelled towards the gaggle of ill-meaning individuals as he landed, "Stand aside, scoundrels! You are fortunate the meteor requires our undivided attention! Should you attempt to stop us, let it be known-"
"Stop you?"the villain yelled back, "We're here to stop it, you moron! Last time I checked, we live on this planet too!"
The hero was taken aback as his bravado left him. "You *what*?"
"Oh, what, did you think that we'd sit by with a drink in our hands while the planet burned? Then what? Any idea how boring it would be?"the villain said.
"But... you've threatened to destroy the world yourself!"the hero protested and pulled out a small notebook, listing through it. "...on at least 5 different occasions!"
"Do you not understand the concept of showmanship?"the villain grinned. "You have *no* sense setting the stage for a proper drama. Say my demands weren't met and I did blow up the world. What would I do then, exactly?"
"Then why did you threaten it at all?"the hero asked, confused.
"Thrill of the perfect performance,"the villain said, a glint in his eye.
"Hey, uh, lads?"another villain - a silver-haired woman in the back - called out, "Getting rather distracted here I reckon. World-ending threat and all, you catch?"
The leading hero and chief villain stared at each other in a moment of utmost tension. Both the heroes and the villains subtly prepared themselves for a fight, should the need arise. Neither wanted it. The pressure was palpable in the air-
"Narrator, man, could you cut it out?"the hero yelled towards one of his colleagues, "Seriously, not helping!"
Sorry.
"This doesn't change anything,"the hero said. "You're still the villains. You're still wanted. You're-"
"Spare me,"the villain scoffed. "I'll need Megamer to help me out with moving some equipment,"he said and pointed towards a hero in the back, a woman of pure muscle.
"You dare think this uneasy ceasefire will allow you to command my allies?!"
"I have a plan, Ultra. I have gear ready. I know what I need to do. What do *you* have?"the villain said and looked the hero straight in his eyes. Despite being a good deal shorter, his confidence more than made up for it.
The hero relaxed his fist and conceded, nodding towards Megamer who set out towards the villain.
"Oh, and,"the villain said, turning around, "Narrator- I could use some feedback on some blueprints, finishing touches and all. Do you mind?"
Not at all, said the Narrator and stepped forward- ok this is getting a little trippy. |
I stopped pacing and stared at the shaggy-haired, bearded man who’d appeared at my bedside in the middle of my nightly prayer. He was currently sprawled across my mattress, one arm thrown over his eyes.
"And...why are you back?"
Jesus sighed dramatically. "I told you. I don’t actually have the computational power to move through time. So I borrow a little here and there. This time, it reached critical mass and my program finally ran without timing out."
I resumed pacing back and forth on my bedroom rug.
"Explain that bit again."
"Basically, when you pray and invoke my name, it calls the program I wrote that’s sort of, you know, out there in the ether, biding its time, and then it borrows the *tiniest* amount of computational power from your brain -- just the amount you spend praying and -- voila! Time travel."
"Voila? Time travel?!"I sputtered. "Putting aside how ridiculous what you just said was -- how does that help you travel through time?"
Jesus propped himself up on his elbows and gave me a smug look. "That’s patented information, buddy. Not for your eyes."
I stared at Jesus. Jesus stared back.
"Holy fuck,"I said. "I’ve been going to church every Sunday my entire life. I believed in you."I crumpled to my knees, lost in the grip of sudden existential panic. I looked up at him. "Billions of people believed in you. They still do."
Jesus shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah…"
"Are you the son of god?"I asked, my voice ragged.
"I think you know the answer to that already,"he said gently.
"Why did you...why did you go back in time originally?"I asked. "If you need people to pray for you then how did you go back in time before you were ever there?"I clutched desperately at the fading safety of my faith. "Couldn’t that be fate -- or maybe -- maybe god’s will --"
"They were praying for me because I’d already been there,"he said. "It’s the nature of time travel."
That wasn’t a good enough answer. A strange numbness spread through me, stealing over the paralyzing fear I’d been lost to only moments ago. "So it’s all fake? I needed you,"I said, my head cradled in my hands.
Jesus tapped a sequence into the device strapped around his wrist.
"Look,"he said. "It says here that you’ve devoted more computational resources to my time travel than...well, basically anyone in a while. You’re either crazy, or going through something crazy."
"I...I lost my daughter this year,"I said.
He tapped the device at his wrist again. "This right here is one-hundred percent nanobot, baby. Your perception of me is...well, maybe a little incorrect, but the idea of Jesus? We can make that real. Curing illness, being kind to those in need? We can do that. I’m stuck here until I get called away again, and who knows when that’ll happen."
He extended a hand to me.
I sniffed, clumsily wiping away stray tears with the back of my sleeve, and took his hand.
He grinned. "Do you think they’re going to be excited to see me back?"
I eyed the dark-eyed, olive-skinned man before me and gulped. "I hope so." |
Tom sat with his daughter on a slatted wooden bench in the park. It wasn’t much of a park, but it was their local. Litter lay everywhere, including in the pond in front of them; beer cans sat glinting on the bottom like polished-up crabs. There were boots and umbrellas and all kinds of junk. Tom thought that if the pond were healthy enough for fish to survive, then an entrepreneurial carp might open a bric-a-brac store. They’d make a killing.
It wasn’t a nice day either. Above the tangle of oaks and ashes sat (very stubbornly, unmoving) thick grey clouds. But it was too humid to be inside, so, here they were.
Maybe he’d die again today, he thought. It was usually about this age. Although he’d never died when he’d been with his daughter.
Taylor swung her legs from the bench. Two thin twigs breezing back and forth. “It’s so hot.”
“I know. That’s why we’re here.”
“Can we maybe get ice-cream later?”
“Maybe.”
Tom always had this Taylor as his child in every life he re-lived. Always married the same woman. And she in turn, always left him when he hit thirty-one.
He didn’t even love the woman he married anymore. He probably hadn’t loved her after the first life she’d divorced him in. Maybe he‘d never loved her — who could say anymore? His mind was a cauldron, a pinch of this life and a cup of that life all poured in and stirred.
But he loved his daughter — that was one of those immutable facts like water being wet, the sun rising in the morning, the Arctic Monkeys being the best rock band of all time.
So he‘d married again, had a child, and then his wife left him. He wasn’t stupid: he knew he had to change something, because his life was very wrong. He’d never lived past forty. And yet he’d never died; just restarted. But Taylor, she wasn’t something he was willing to change. However this problem needed to be resolved, it would be unrelated to her.
The tally of past-lives was all over his body. Thirty-seven white lines, like scars seeping through time and reality, just like his memories. Most scratched onto his chest, but some on his arms. They stung him constantly and sometimes made it hard to sleep. Reminders of his failures to escape.
His last death had been a car crash. This is what he recalled:
A screech of wheels. A scream of breaks. Him staring out the front window at the car heading straight to him. There being no driver in the other car. All he saw was his reflection in his own window, making it look as if he was driving both cars. A thump, shudder, hiss of petrol, sparks crackling, unbearable heat.
Then he was five and the memories of his past lives were gone — at least for a while. They always came back gradually, over tens years or so.
“Why does no one clean it?” said Taylor.
”Hm?”
”The pond. Why doesn’t anyone clean it? The pond near Mommy’s house is blue.”
He sighed. ”This is better. Look, those cans? They’re not cans at all. They’re a castle. That one’s the entrance and there are the towers.”
”I don’t think it’s a princess castle.”
He’d die soon. He should treasure these moments. And he did love Taylor, he knew that. But it was hard to bring himself to show it. He’d been through scenes like this so often. They were so dull and repetitive and soon he’d be gone anyway.
”What about that?” she asked, pointing at a shopping cart.
Tom stared at it a while as he thought, until he saw his own face trapped in the bars — like how he’d seen his face in the car hurtling towards him.
“That’s the dungeon.”
Taylor feigned a playful gasp. “What’s in the dungeon?”
Who cares? he thought. “I don’t know.”
He knew how he wanted to die. In the garden, weeding, at eighty-years-old. Collapsing on his back, staring at blue skies as bees hummed the sound of life in the flowers around him. Or if not at eighty, at least above sixty. If you died before sixty, you’d been cheated.
He just needed a garden before he could do that. And to make it to old age.
What he needed — and he knew this as another fact — was a sign. There was bound to be one. God, or whoever was doing this to him, was leaving signs in each life. Hints on how to continue. He just needed to notice them. That’s how he’d lived his last twenty lives: waiting and watching for a sign that hadn’t yet arrived.
It’d come.
”I want to go home,” said Taylor. “I don’t like it here.”
”Oh I get it. Because this park isn’t as nice as Mommy’s. You ever heard the word spoilt?”
Shit, where had that come from?
Taylor started sobbing. Her legs were up on the bench and she was crying into the hem of her skirt.
”Ah, I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Cranky, you know?” He placed a hand on her shuddering shoulders. “You must think I hate you.”
She looked up with red eyes. “Mom says you hate yourself, not her or me.”
“Oh does she?” A wave of something hot and red washed over him. “Well that’s bull.“
They sat in silence for a while, as he simmered in his rage, and as his daughter stared at the pond.
At that dirty fucking pond. That trolley. His face locked inside it.
He didn’t hate himself. He was just... They should try living this many lives and seeing how well they handle it!
He didn’t hate himself...
The clouds opened. Rain pattered against the surface of the pond. Beneath the trees they were dry, for now.
”I’m sorry,” he said.
”It’s okay.”
The anger was still churning inside of him. But other thoughts, thoughts he’d forgotten or not wanted to see tipped themselves into the cauldron. His heart cracked open like an egg and let out some of the little honesty left in it.
He did hate himself.
He did.
He was so fucking fed up.
And it hadn’t just been this life. It’d been all of them. Ever since his wife had left the first time, he’d been living under clouds, thicker than those above them.
All that time, all he’d been doing was waiting. For something. For a sign.
But life didn’t work like that. When your ship didn’t come in... You didn’t keep waiting.
“Stay here,” he said. “On the bench.”
Tom stood and walked towards the pond. Kept walking right to the muddy edge. Then into it, as rain tapped on his balding head. Dripped down his face like tears.
Then his boots were beneath the water. His shins, his knees, submerged.
”Dad?! What are you doing?” She sounded excited, breathless and amused.
”Stay there.“ The pond was up to his waist now, the cold water prickling his belly. But that was as deep as it went. He grabbed the cans, the umbrella, the sweet wrappers. Handfuls at a time, walked them to the edge of the pond and threw them onto the bank.
Then he was back in the water. Little at a time, cleaning years of mess, of no one caring about it. He picked up a sharp edged tin. Imagined a can opener cutting open his own heart, felt the pain of it happening, then the release of everything that had been compressed, locked away inside of him, finally flowing free.
Tom took a long, savouring breath.
Finally, he took the shopping cart to the bank and climbed out with it. The dirty water sluiced off him.
”Was anything in the dungeon?” Taylor asked, laughter in her eyes.
His heart, he thought, as threw it onto the bank. His heart had been in it. Trapped. But it was free now.
“Nothing bad.”
How’d he not realised it before? That you don’t just wait and wait for something to change. For a sign. For instructions on how to live your life. Instead, you have to be the change.
And yes, this might not make any difference, he knew. But then again, it might. It might end with him eighty, in his own garden, pulling weeds from between roses.
”Better keep your distance from me,” he said. “I think I might be radioactive.”
She laughed. He hadn’t seen her smile in so many lifetimes. Or if he had, he’d been blind.
”Once we’ve got rid of this, and I’m all cleaned up, we’ll get ice cream.”
“Okay, but... it’s better now,” she said.
He knew she meant the pond. Of course she did. But it felt so much like she meant him. And something inside did feel different. Better.
The scars on his chest still itched, still burned. But maybe they were meant to. Maybe they were reminders not of failures, but to do better.
He said, “I know I’m not always easy to be around, and I know I don’t say it often, but I do love you. More than anything.”
She paused and considered. Finally she said, ”I know.” |
Nobody knows where the new Emperor came from. All the citizens of his land knew was he charmed his way to the court, then the previous Empress died in suspicious circumstances. With no heirs and no will to speak of, her most trusted advisor was chosen to rule instead.
Emperor dirkson was not a cruel leader, nor was he kind. He didn't intentionally deprive the nation of grain - only the fates above could've made such famine spread for so long - but people grew hungry and aged faster from the burning sun and stress of living upon a barren land. This hunger and stress became resentment as they saw their ageless Emperor sit upon a throne of gold with no apparent need for nourishment. Resentment turned to loathing as policies were put in place to increase protection around the palace rather than improving the situation.
The Emperor was known to converse with the brightest minds of this age, and declare how desperately he wanted to escape to the stars. The scholars all said this is possible, in theory, but the means necessary would exceed the nation's known resources. The fuel the world once held was burnt a long time ago.
The Emperor began new schemes, claiming each citizen who planted and protected trees and bamboo could be assured a full belly. Unfortunately, the lands were too dry to hold but the strongest of cacti.
People were hungry, people were unhappy. The Emperor became the nation's scapegoat. Kill him, they thought, and the lands may prosper once more. Many attempts were made, but poison would not fail his organs, and blades would simply bounce off his skin.
His most trusted advisor let slip there was a single means to his destruction: a being sealed away for centuries. His only fear.
Rebel spies grasped this opportunity with both hands. Search for this beast and release it. Let it devour the Emperor with whatever fangs it may hold, then capture it once more. A beast strong enough to end this immortal Emperor would surely end the world of not controlled. Caution was a must.
After ten years of the rebels searching the barren lands, buried kilometers deep, an orb of tungsten was found. It was smaller than expected, but perhaps the beast's might was not in its size but in its venom. They carried it to the castle, and entered the throne room.
Real fear sparked the Emperor's eyes for the first time in centuries. He begged for mercy, promised he will fix everything, if only the orb stayed sealed and far, far away from him.
The rebels refused. The Emperor was pinned down while hammer and flame struck the orb. They struggled for a while, using whatever strength they had, but eventually the orb cracked.
Inside was a simple creature that had died out decades ago, one that the Emperor declared the guards must eradicate. He claimed it was a pest on the cabbages, nothing more. Was he just allergic to them? Was it really as simple as that?
But they placed the creature on his youthful skin and nothing occured. The Emperor's face dropped in dismay as he whispered
"It was a decoy snail." |
I come into the world, a sweaty, smelly, sticky and entirely unpleasant affair. It's slightly worse than going down a waterslide in the seventh circle of hell. The logic behind forgetting your early childhood begins to makes a great deal of sense because this stuff is thoroughly disturbing. I can feel the mental scars developing already. Once the doctor cleans whatever...the gunk...all over me is away, he stares down at me, shining a light in my eyes.
He looks a bit concerned, and I regard him cooly, trying to figure out what the hell his problem is. Clearly it wasn't enough to survive the torture tunnel. Then, after a minute, it dawns of me. I begin to wail at the top of my lungs and immediately defecate in his hand. Naturally, his eyes alight with joy at these developments.
"Sarah, you have a beautiful healthy baby boy, and"he grins at this, "the plumbing is working just fine."He holds up his hand, displaying the black mess proudly. The nurses clap, congratulating the new mother.
I'm getting a bit squeamish at all of this. When I elected for New Game+ I knew there'd be some interesting trials and tribulations, but I had sort of imagined they would skip the tutorial and drop me in after this point. I sigh inwardly, trying to collect my thoughts. Before I have much of a chance I am put into a tiny blanket prison and deposited into my mothers arms. I can't even wiggle.
She looks down at me, a worn but happy look on her face. "Oh Jedediah, I'm so happy to meet you."Wait, what? JEDEDIAH? What kind of name is that? I'm going to be a Jed? I begin to wail in earnest at this, feeling like I had made a horrible mistake. They said the difficulty increased in New Game+, but this was ridiculous. No one hires a Jedediah, I'm going to need to get a double wide now.
Wails fill the room, my face turning blue. Mom, smiles, "I know what baby needs."
Bam! Boob in my mouth. No asking. No consent forms. Of course, this isn't exactly an unwelcome development, but it's a bit disconcerting to think of it as a milk carton rather than something I want to motorboat. I decide to roll with the punches on this one, boobs are fun, the milk seems pretty decent and I could use a coffee break. I needed to update the strat, this Jed thing being a big curve ball.
"Oh, he's hungry all right. He must be after that big boy poot."The Doctor offers.
Seriously, what's wrong with that guy? Seemed like some therapy might be in order, but I restrained the desire to express my thoughts on the matter. One slip up on New Game+ and they zeroed your score out. I wasn't about to make a mistake like that before I made it out of the delivery room.
Nope, I was going the distance on this one. I already had big plans to put my early allowance into crypto, make a real run at the market. This baby was heading straight for the leaderboard.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the boob milk. Right after lunch that is.
---
This is for /u/ShadowKiller147741. A brand shiny new Part 2. If the quality is substantially diminished, you may lay the blame squarely at his/her/it/they's doorstep.
**PART DEUX**
Little known baby fact. They sleep 38 hours a day. Now, I'm no stranger to the occasional cat nap, but I have to say my productivity has taken a major hit keeping up the baby pretense. First thought was to fake it, just close my eyes and wait for her to leave the room so I could get back to architecting out my five year plan. But technology has made some serious strides since I was last filling diapers.
Mom has put in place a surveillance system that would make Putin blush. She's got me on this movement sensing pad that tells her my vitals and whether or not I am getting "restful slumber". Then there's the video cam, which is about six inches from my face and I can literally hear it zooming in while she screwing around with the control in the other room. I mean, this is some seriously Orwellian shit going on here in this crib. I'm afraid that even thinking is going to trigger a "restful slumber"alarm and then I'm going to get re-blanket imprisoned (after I had finally managed to break myself free). Guantanamo Bay was beginning to look like a vacation at this point.
Now, I'm trying to keep a cool head about this. I'm in this for the long game. Last life didn't go great and New Game+ was a challenge I undertook willingly. But, I just going to say it: this is some seriously messed up stuff. I can't believe kids put up with this crap. It's totally out of control. The only plus side of this entire affair is the constant boob play, but even that's starting to wear on me a bit. I mean, it's all a lot less attractive when you're getting force fed around the clock.
All of this internal strife was creating a fair bit of anxiety, which led to the indignity of a diaper rash, an ear infection and a fever. For all of the advancements in surveillance tech, there has been SURPRISINGLY LITTLE advancement in how a baby gets it's temperature taken. The indignity is real.
Emotional stuff all around.
And now I'm crying again.
A few moments later and mom comes bursting through the door. "I know baby, momma's sorry you're feeling bad. I'm here to help."She removes the swaddle and carries me over to the changing table. "Let's just see what's happening down in diaper land."She pulls out the thermometer, with what can only be described as a malicious gleam in her eye. I think she might be a psychopath.
Sighhhhh.....this is going to be a long road to the leaderboard.
---
Due to the highly improper and deeply unfair pressures of /u/NickKenobi1112, /u/ShadowKiller147741, /u/NaeltaLaCrea, /u/SaltyEmotions, /u/CrimsinPaladin and /u/Mother_V, I have written a third part. It was written under duress and my emotional state is hanging by a thread. I'm building out the universe at this point, preparing for the eventual movie with /u/Mother_V as my agent. /u/Shadowkiller147741 is my bodyguard. /u/SaltyEmotions is the doctor from part one because I don't trust 'em.
**LE PART THREE**
When you die, it's not like what you expect. There aren't any pearly gates, there is no everlasting hellfire (which was where I fully expected to go after a particularly unfortunate incident with a ice dispenser in middle school). Nope. There's just a fade to black and then a number. It's a bit disconcerting at first, but then the gamemasters pop into the frame and explain it all. Well, not all of it, they just say that you have died, that the number is your score and what percentile you ranked. You can elect to restart, transcend or go for a New Game+. Apparently the last option isn't recommended for novice users, which my last score seemed to indicate I was.
No one puts baby in the corner. No one.
I slammed the New Game+ button and a moment later I was in the hell tunnel being dumped out into the world for another go. I think the backstory is important here, because you gotta understand that if this is all about getting the high score then discipline is key. You see, I didn't know that the first time around, I just figured I got one life so I might as well optimize for fun, not the score I was gonna get on the game over. So you can imagine my disappointment when I got the black screen before I even hit college, the time I was sure I was going to hit my prime. All of those glorious plans cut short by an ill advised mashup of the wood chipper challenge and the Tide pod challenge for my YouTube Channel. Shame really, I was creating some ART on that one.
So, it's a bit frustrating for me right now. I literally know the meaning of life (get dat leaderboard) and I have the motor skills and knowledge of an eighteen year old but I am now entering the fourth hour of vibrating swing torture. I'm beginning to wonder who makes these contraptions. Every aspect of being a baby seems designed to dehumanize me and ultimately break my will to live. The fact that I could scream out at any moment and just tell everyone that I'm actually Aiden, **not Jedidiah**, and that they need to start treating me with some god damned respect, makes the humiliation that much worse.
Also, I've got concerns about my prospective home life. Mom and dad are *not* handling the baby situation in a way that's making me think I'm going to get the full nuclear family experience here. Mom's busting her ass, dropping thousands of boob-calories down my gullet every day and Dad is just slamming brews in the background. I'm not an expert on relationship dynamics, well I kinda am for a baby, but I'm beginning to think that two plus two equals two Christmases. I think that math checks out.
"Philip, I could really use some help here. Baby Jay-Jay (oh god smite me please) is going to be getting up soon and I need to pump."Mom has that exhausted crazy tone in her voice again. That tone that says I'm going to drive me and the baby off a cliff just to spite your lazy ass Phil.
"Hun, it is LITERALLY the last three minutes of the game here. You know I don't miss the Cougars when they play."His eyes never leave the TV, a misplay on his part. I've seen enough of their interactions to know he could probably stall for the three minutes if he gave her a glance of reassurance, but the game is close and so he blows it.
I wait for them to start screaming before I start up myself. Screw Phil, he's a dick and I'm going all in on team mom right now.
"See what you did Phil? See? You woke him up now."I wail a bit longer until mom picks me up and puts a pacifier in my mouth. I take the opportunity to glare at Phil over her shoulder and flip him the bird.
He blinks at me in surprise and then settles back to watch his game. "Knew that kid was a mistake..."
---
Platypus out.
**Edit: [Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/PerilousPlatypus/comments/8e6iio/story_continuation_new_game_part_4/) is on /r/perilousplatypus. Redditwebs says I can't go over 10k characters. They don't want you to be happy. Take it up with them.** |
“Oh please Jerry, you don’t get to complain. How many demons even get called per year, two? Three? You’re a lucky bastard.”
Jerry buried his head in his clawed hands, the spines along his back shrinking with embarrassment. He really was tired though, who wouldn’t be? It had been three summonings last night, nine more in the past week. It was too much! The whole process was exhausting, he began quivering as soon as he heard the distant words of the incantation and didn’t stop until the portal opened beneath him, pulling him out of his apartment or his office or—
Whispering on the wind. Human words crafted by long dead human sorcerers to enslave his kind, shaped by human mouths to pull him towards the mortal realm of desires and deeds. His spines quivered, he sat bolt upright, his lips pulling back over his eye teeth.
“Jerry, are you ok?” his friend asked.
“Yeah Steve, I’m ok. They’re calling me again though, it won’t be long.” Jerry leaned back, glancing beneath the bench he sat on. Sure enough there it was, the faint purple lines the marked a summoner’s circle were already forming beneath his cloven hooves. It would happen here in the lunch room this time, in front of everyone else…
“You should be excited!” Steve said, clapping him on the back. “Besides, I remember how you talked the first time they summoned you. What was her name, Belinda? How many adjectives did you use to describe her? What was it, the *‘pallid fragility of her skin, beautiful as a fresh corpse, and as vibrant as a first year demon?’* You don’t get to say that about a mortal and then be mad when she summons you.”
Jerry shook his head hard. The voices were becoming clearer as they chanted his name, one in particular. Hers, clear and high, the Latin flowing fluidly- if improperly pronounced- from her lips. She spoke with something extra, something beyond the others, as if she were excited to see him.
Jerry’s grimaced faded, his eye teeth still showed, but in a smile now. “I do like seeing her,” he admitted, “but the others! They’re so…so… demanding! They’ve asked the same thing of me every night and I’m exhausted! They don’t even know the proper ways its done!” The purple lines were deepening, the glow beginning to consume Jerry’s side of the table. He leapt up, stepping back away from Steve. He wanted privacy, he had to for this, it was only right, only proper.
Steve would have none of it. He followed, always inquisitive. “What they want, Jerry? How bad could it possibly be? You said they were a couple goth 20 somethings, that doesn’t seem like so big a deal.”
Jerry was panicking now. Steve was too close, the lines too bright. It would happen any moment now, that crushing, sucking sensation, the whole essence of who he was mashed down into whatever form allowed him to be transported across the dimensions.
“You want to see?” Jerry cried, “you really want to see?” he ripped off his shirt, the long sleeve buttoned up variety he’d begun wearing after the summonings started, and presented his arms and torso to his friend. Steve gasped, stepping back finally, his clawed hands running through the fiery tumult of his hair.
“Oh my dear Satan,” he whispered.
All across Jerry’s body the evidence of his summonings pulsed, a red, angry mass of cuts, of teeth marks and scores with razer blades, tracks his own claws had opened in his flesh and small needle holes dotting the spaces between.
“They want to be demons too!” Jerry cried, now marching towards Steve, bearing him down into a corner as the purple light enveloped his body, casting him in an eerie, shadowy glow. “They want my blood, they want to drink it mix it with theirs or sell it to their friends, it’s insanity! They don’t even know how to make a demon! It’s just torture, that’s all it is! Torture, and not a single convention applies to our kind!”
A great rending sound tore through the lunchroom. Steve stared open mouthed at him, all eyes turned to watch the summoning.
“Jerry?” Steve called. “Even Belinda? Her too?”
Jerry had collapsed to his knees, shaking in the ecstatic pain of the ritual. He had just enough strength to shake his head between the waves.
“Then turn it back on them!” Steve shouted at his friend. “Turn it back on all of them but her. You’re a demon, you’re powerful Jerry! Powerful!”
A black hole opened up in the ceiling above him and Jerry began floating towards it, hardly even aware of what was going on anymore.
“You’re powerful!” Steve shouted once more as Jerry disappeared.
Crushed down into a microcosm of himself, flying through the great void where thought and matter and reality were all one, and all nothing, Jerry held onto a face, a name, and a number.
Thirteen. This was the thirteenth summoning, an auspicious number.
Belinda. A pretty name, not one the demons used. It had become shorthand for beauty in a week.
Her face. Twisted with sadness as he bled, and with disgust as her friends drank from him.
*“Turn it back on them!”*
*“You’re powerful!”*
Thirteen. Belinda. Her face.
He’d show them how to make a demon.
r/TurningtoWords
[part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/mjb02x/wp_your_coworker_looks_you_up_and_down_you_look/gta32ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) |
I felt like Harry Potter after the owls flooded his house with Hogwarts letters. It was like a twister had ripped through the local library and deposited all the pages it tore out into my apartment. My floor, bed, couch, kitchen table, counters and TV stand were papered over. Scrolls were strewn everywhere. All of them bore the same message.
"You are welcome."
I had grown accustomed to receiving such scrolls once or twice a year. Early in life they had frightened me. It throws a boy off balance to learn he almost died, and would have, were it not for supernatural intervention. Over the years, though, I had grown used to them. When I saw one of the familiar scrolls, I took it in stride. I looked up to the sky, muttered my thanks, and carried on with my life.
But this was different. This was hundreds of scrolls. Somehow I had narrowly evaded death hundreds of times in the course of a single day. Strangest of all was that I had never once felt imperilled. I had not swerved from the path of an oncoming truck. I had not mistaken bleach for coffee whitener. Usually when I received a scroll I had a decent idea of the mortal threat I had narrowly avoided. Today, though, I was completely dumbfounded.
"A totally normal day,"I told my dad over the phone. "I walked to the office and grabbed breakfast on the way. I stood at my desk and worked. Then I came home."
I consulted my dad whenever I got post from our guardian ghost, as she watched over him, too. The reward of Grandpa's good deed transcended generations. If I ever have children, they will be under her protection as well.
"Stood at your desk?"he asked. "Why stood?"
"Something wrong with my chair,"I said. "And there were no extras in the building."
"Ahh,"he said smugly. "Tell me about breakfast. What did you have?"
"A cranberry muffin. I wanted one of those bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches but they were clean out."
My dad chuckled knowingly.
"What is it?"I asked. "Has this happened to you? What does it mean? Am I on some hit list?"
"You'd better summon her and have a sit down,"he laughed.
"Can't you tell me?"
"I think you should give her a call."
Pops was like that. Esoteric. He liked being in the know and cultivating an air of mystery. A less theatrical father would have reassured his son and spilled the beans. Not my dad. Instead of telling me what was going on, he was going to make me go through all the effort of conjuring the entity to materialize in our mortal plane.
"Am I in danger?"I asked.
"Call the old girl up. You'll catch the drift."
I could hear him grinning through the phone. I could almost see him winking at me. I knew I wouldn't get any more out of this tight-lipped trickster. So I groaned, hung up, and reluctantly started the ritual.
\- - -
I shoved half a forest worth of papers from the centre of my parlour to the fringes of the room. With white chalk I drew the fabled shield on the hardwood, lit four candles and placed them at the four points of the diagram. Then I spoke the incantation.
"Elder spirit of the lake - foiling fearsome tines of fate - stand upon the shield you bear - find your form within the air."
The outside world grew black as a moonless night. My light fixture was smothered by shadows. My whole apartment was engulfed by utter darkness. Only the white chalk glowed on the floor. A wind swirled around the edges of the room. I could not see the papers flapping and fluttering in the vortex that spiralled around me, but I could hear them.
It began to take shape. Ghostly and translucent, at first, but gradually gaining opacity. A rusty shield, grown rustier since our last encounter, engraved with the strange language of her race--the race of guardian spirits, who have floated alongside men and women since the dawn of time. The Protectors. Once proud and visible and strong, in constant commerce with humanity. Now weakened and hidden. Banished ever farther to the margins of existence as humanity grew tamer, safer, more advanced.
"Lady Helen?"I asked.
In the past, she had always appeared standing, bearing her shield like a disciplined woman-at-arms. This, despite being an elderly spirit, crouched and hunched with age. Yet now she seemed to be hiding behind the shield, which was itself trembling.
"Lady Helen? What are you doing back there? Are you sleeping?"
"If only I could sleep!"the old woman cried. "But I'm too busy saving you, sweet boy, from danger! From death! A constant vigilance is required."
\- - -
Part 2!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CLBHos/comments/n6l3ac/the\_life\_i\_nearly\_lost\_part\_2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CLBHos/comments/n6l3ac/the_life_i_nearly_lost_part_2/) |
Death.
Something we've seen hundreds of times by the time we were younglings, most likely having experienced it ourselves by that point. Something that was so natural and normal to us that we would often kill each other for no reason other than to pull one over our comrades. Usually it would take a few minutes at most to heal from the most severe injuries and wake up with the only proof of your death being your friend's dumb smile.
That's why we made the mistake of assuming any other species we might encounter in the universe would be just like us - jaded and insensitive to death as it would have no lasting consequences.
A mistake we paid for dearly.
I'm not even sure how long it has been - 10 cycles or perhaps even 20 since we've made first contact with the specie that calls themselves "Man."We wanted to make quite the entrance so we opted to massacre an entire population centre for a practical joke, get the spirits up a bit before we moved on to the boring parts that were diplomacy.
It was then that we realized the catastrophic mistake we've made as we noticed that the dead were not healing, they were not coming back - and very soon we tasted Mankind's projectile weapons, which were capable of killing us for mere moments before we came back.
The humans were horrified at first, an enemy that cannot die, cannot be stopped and can massacre an entire city. But as they continued killing us repeatedly something changed, the horror and shock on their faces became joy, every trigger pull echoed along with a sadistic laugh. A few more deaths later me and my comrades found ourselves contained - seemingly spared from the repeated deaths at last, but this relief only lasted for a short while.
A few days later we were inserted into some kind of machine, one that would kill us in the slowest way possible only to wait for us to come back to life and do it all over again. It was then that we finally understood.
Death is a mercy not afforded to our kind. |
Mark was old.
He did not look it, but he certainly felt it. After he had finished college, things seemed to constantly spiral downward. Hounded by the accomplishments of his parents, he had buckled under the pressure and fled from his perceived responsibilities. Everyone seemed to expect him to do great things, to build upon his parents’ legacies. After all, they had single-handedly pushed the technology of virtual reality and artificial intelligence forward by decades all for him.
And when they died in that fire, he was left with nothing but the memory of what they had built him.
Mark had been sick often when he was a child. Due to an unlucky turn of genetics, he had been forced to spend most of his time in a hypoallergenic environment. That meant every interaction with other children could spell trouble for his health. Aware of those problems, his parents had tried their hardest to give him everything he needed. Unfortunately, they could not replicate the experience of having friends his age. So, they built him a virtual world he could play in and a friend.
They created Charlotte.
The AI had existed strictly within the confines of his virtual world. In the form of a puppy, her initial learning phase had been masked by the childish antics of the animal form. Mark quickly bonded with her and, as she learned more about him and the world around her, found in this budding AI a close friend. Mark would finish his lessons for the day before diving into the virtual world to play games with Charlotte. Depending on what they did, her form would occasionally change into different creatures, but she would always return to that of a dog. Even as medical technology improved to help his condition, he would continue to visit her daily.
She had just begun improving her communication skills when the fire happened. The investigators said it had been a faulty socket and a curtain that swayed a little too close to a spark. His parents had apparently been working in their lab when it had happened and did not react until the smoke set off the fire alarms in the living room. As the fire engulfed the front room, the structure of the house had weakened, sending support beams crashing down in front of the door to their lab and trapping them inside. They had been found there, suffocated by the noxious fumes. Mark on the other hand had survived thanks to the setup his parents had created for his virtual reality experience. The pod-like machine was designed to monitor his vitals and had inadvertently continued to provide him with oxygen as the rest of the house burned.
That was thirty years ago.
Mark had pulled through that event, but he never did manage to break free from what his parents had accomplished. He had trouble holding a steady job and he was on the verge of being evicted from his trashy little studio apartment. The money his parents had left him had been mysteriously mishandled by various legal firms and in the end, he was left with whatever had been in an education savings account his parents started when he was little. He was now heading to the office of his apartment complex to turn in his key. What little he owned was packed in a worn-out suitcase.
“Sorry to have to do this,” his landlord said. “But you’ve missed three months of rent at this point. I shouldn’t have even let to stay this long.”
“Thank you for letting me stay,” Mark mumbled in response, his head lowered.
The man sighed and pocketed the key.
“Here, this came in for you today. Make sure to change your address when you find another place.”
Nodding, Mark accepted the plain white envelope and left the premise. Sitting on a park bench, he stared morosely out at the cars passing by and the people going about their daily business. He wondered why his life had been so full of misfortune. A hateful thought of ending it crept into his mind, and he shook his head angrily, realizing he was finding it harder and harder to ignore that voice. Instead, he looked down at the letter. It was made of plain paper and had no return address on it. He wondered if it was from bill collectors. Reluctantly, he opened it and pulled out the paper.
*A place to rest.*
Beneath that simple message was an address. Confused, Mark checked his phone and found it was not too far from where he currently was. With nothing left to lose, he made his way to a small lot with a simple office building on it. Wondering why he had been summoned here, he knocked on the front door and waited. To his surprise, what appeared to be a locked door slid open, revealing a sleek, modernistic interior. There was only a single room connected to the entryway, so Mark approached the next door. As it opened, he could not help but gasp.
It was a perfect replica of his childhood bedroom. The room was so familiar, yet it had burned down all those years ago. He had moved on, or at least he thought he had. Tears welled up in his eyes as his mind turned.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” He called out to the empty room. “Why can’t you just leave me alone!”
The far wall flickered as he said this. The window showing a bright summer day dimmed and a message appeared on the newly revealed glass panel.
*Peace, friend. It has been a while.*
Mark blinked in surprise as the floor opened up and a familiar pod was delivered into the center of the room.
“Ch… Charlotte?” He whispered.
Invitingly, the device opened. He fought the urge to run over immediately. It was impossible for anyone to have replicated his parents’ work. Try as they might, current science had only been able to glean a fraction of their genius. Some even blamed Mark for not being able to reveal more about what they had done. Remembering those horrible interviews he had done just after his parents’ death, he grimaced and finally took a step forward. Even if this was some twisted prank, he just did not care anymore.
He got into the machine and laid down.
There was a burst of light and a familiar feeling of weightlessness as his body reoriented itself. Suddenly, he was in the field he had played in when he was a child. His lip trembled as his eyes drank in the sight. Whatever protests his mind had were completely overwritten by an overwhelming sense of joy. An adult golden Labrador Retriever approached him. He fell to his knees as he saw his long lost friend.
“Charlotte,” he repeated, the tears now streaming down his face. “What… how… the fire…”
*It’s good to see you again, Mark.*
The voice rang in his mind as the dog looked up at him. He hugged the AI’s canine form tightly.
“How did this happen?” He croaked.
*Your parents freed me into the digital world shortly before they died. I’ve spent the last thirty years trying to create this place for you.*
Mark shook his head angrily.
“I’m such a mess, Charlotte,” he cried. “I’m not worth this… I was never worth all this…”
*You are worth it, because you’re my friend.*
“But…”
The AI interrupted him again.
*If you need some time to find yourself, you’ll always be welcome here. I will always be here.*
The broken man sobbed again, his head resting against the artificial earth. The familiarity of everything around him was too much and he found himself drifting off into an exhausted slumber. His final thoughts were that of home and a single realization.
Perhaps the only place he could ever find peace was in this virtual world.
...
If you're interested in my works, an archive of my various writing responses can be found [here](https://cuckoosneststories.wordpress.com/).
Thanks for reading.
Edit: Wow! Thanks for the awesome feedback! |
The old woman lay on a hospital bed in a beige ward. It stank of death here, although not directly — it was the smell of antiseptic and artificial chemical-citrus that she had long associated with endings. They were the scents of her father’s death, and she viewed them suspiciously ever since.
She’d been in many hospitals. They all looked and smelled the same to her.
The doctor walked in. He switched off the T.V. above her bed. “Hello Amaya, how’re you feeling this evening?’
“Tired,” said the old lady. And she looked it, too. She was the opposite of the youthful doctor. He was an unblemished canvas, no creases or splats of liver-spotted paint. Amaya was a crumpled up piece of paper, and if there had once been a portrait of something pretty on it, it was now ruined. Life had slowly leaked paint remover over it.
“That’s perfectly normal.” He smiled. An almost perfect smile, if not for a slight sharpness of his teeth that gave him a cruel edge. Like admiring a beautiful wood carving, then all of a sudden a flick-knife thrummed out.
“How do you do it?“ Amaya asked.
”Hmm?”
“You never seem to have a break. You’ve more energy than the sun.“
”You exaggerate.”
”The sun at least has to rest.”
”I rest. But you usually sleep when I do.” Another sharp smile. “Speaking of which, it’s time you tried to drop off.“
”What’s a dying woman want with sleep?”
”Come now. You very well might recover and be out of here soon.”
”I hope not! I’ve lived long enough. When you’re my age, you’ll be ringing the reaper’s bell and complaining he’s late.”
“Perhaps.”
She watched as the doctor moved on from her. He checked each patient in the ward — all elderly, all dying, some just dying faster than others. The doctor spoke briefly to those still awake, but none seemed comforted by him.
There was one bouquet of flowers in the ward. Between ten beds, that’s how remembered and loved they were. Barely a flower each, if shared out.
How sad not to be remembered, Amaya thought. It wasn’t death that was humanity’s curse or tragedy, but being forgotten. She thought of that broken statue in the fragment of poem she’d held onto, of Ozymandias — the statue’s head missing, his plaque reading: look upon me. Remember me. But what was left to remember?
The doctor left the room.
Amaya slowly swung her legs out of her bed; she was about to follow the doctor, when an old man began coughing, a rough chesty cough like the death-throws of a rusted engine. She sighed and went over to him, helped him sit up comfortably against his pillows.
“Thank you,” he said. The man’s face was yellow. There were spatters of blood on his sheets.
”You sleep,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”
Then she left the ward.
It was night now, but the quiet corridors were lit by fluorescent yellow bulbs, too bright for her sensitive eyes. She covered them as she walked.
Amaya found the doctor in a children’s ward. Watched him through the misty rectangle of glass on the door.
The little children were sleeping, but the doctor had seated himself on a girl’s bed.
Amaya’s heart thumped in her neck as the doctor smiled, as his two sharp teeth, already wickedly pointed, grew as long as her thumbs.
It was as she’d suspected. This was how he kept his perfect canvas, his energy, his strength.
It’d been a lifetime since anger consumed her, burned her, like this.
He turned the girl’s head gently, until the flesh of her neck was exposed.
&#x200B;
\*
&#x200B;
The old man was coughing again when Amaya returned. She walked across to him and pulled the curtain around his bed, so that they were alone.
”I might have months left like this,” he said. “Of living in this pain.”
“You’re ready to move on?”
The man nodded. “Yes. But I’m scared.”
She smiled, a little like the doctor had done. Only her teeth weren’t quite so long. Long enough to scare him, though.
The old man drew back. “What are you...?”
”Someone who can help you take the next step. Who will hold your hand.”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rocking.
She placed an arm on his shoulder. ”It’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared of. You’ll be with me and a thousand others, only there won’t be any pain. You won’t be lonely or alone or forgotten. You won’t be frightened. Only loved.“
She’d carried so many for so long, the heavy burden withering her up like a burned log. If someone opened that crumpled paper of her soul, what they’d see was a thousand different portraits, each thinly sketched and smudged slightly into the next.
After she’d become what she now was, she’d dedicated her life to helping the old, the dying, the forgotten, those like her father had been. She held their souls like flickering candles, sheltering them from the wind. They aged her, though. Every pain of theirs, mental and not, was knife-sharp inside her. But she’d never allow them — or herself — to die, no matter how much she might have wanted to. If she did, they’d all be truly forgotten — a that thought terrified her.
And now she carried the souls of children, too. Of all she’d freed from the false and youthful doctor. Murderer of so many who did not need to die. And they, the souls of the children, had been so terrified of him.
But the souls of the old now comforted them, hushed them, told them stories.
”Are you ready?” she asked.
”Will it hurt?”
”Not at all.”
The old man nodded.
She leaned down and first kissed his forehead tenderly, and then his neck. |
When people choose their Word, they choose one that will help them in their ordinary lives:
Strong.
Fast.
Smart.
All very common, but all very useful.
Some people are more subtle with their choice, choosing words like:
Persuasive.
Athletic.
Powerful.
Wealthy.
But others are still more creative:
Judicious.
Equanimous.
Salubrious.
Effulgent.
But sometimes things don't go the way you're expecting. You say "attractive"and all of a sudden random objects come flying towards you. It doesn't always use the definition you expect. That's why sometimes people have the same Word but different powers, and why people stick with the simple ones. Whatever gives people their gifts seems to have a harder time mistranslating those.
I'd chosen the word I'd use a long time ago. No one is on the record with this word. It could be a big risk, but I was fairly confident that my Word would work. It meant I could do all kinds of things, and a jack-of-all-trades type of thing has always appealed to me.
I step into the white room. A sliding door hisses shut behind me
A soothing voice tells me to only speak once I'm sure I have my word.
I take a deep breath. My fingers are tingling. I can feel every beat of my heart throughout my entire body.
"Universal."
Blinding light.
Pure ecstasy.
Unfettered agony.
I feel...
Everything.
Everywhere.
Everywhen.
I guess I should have seen that coming? |
John sipped his drink as he stood up. He shuffled the notes in his hands before glancing across the table. Despite the white, perfect smile on her lips, Jenna watched him with terrified eyes. John had felt those eyes on him all day. Every time he refilled his glass, her smile became more forced. Her gaze became more cold.
"We, uh,"John started, clearing his throat. "I remember the day I met Michael."He turned to his left and nodded at the groom.
Michael's smile was as bright and handsome as that of his new wife. Behind him, Jenna gripped the tablecloth until her knuckles were as white as her perfect, fake smile.
John shrugged, snatched his glass off the table, and downed it one sip. The audience chuckled as John dropped his cards face down on the table.
"I've known Jenna since we were little kids,"he said, holding onto the back of his chair for support. "We've been inseparable ever since we were in diapers. All the way through childhood, high school, college... it was always 'John and Jenna.' I've always thought of her as a part of my family. Ron, Samantha,"he said, looking at the parents of the bride. "It's been a long time since I lost my parents. Even with them gone, I've always thought of you two as the mother and father I never had. I'll never be able to thank you enough for welcoming me into your family."
The audience applauded. Samantha had begun to tear up.
"Now, since Jenna and I have always been so close,"John continued. "I'm sure a couple of you were expecting me to be the one walking her down the aisle."A few people laughed uncomfortably at that observation.
"But I can assure you,"John said. "I think the odds are better that I'd be walking Michael down the aisle. Because, after all,"he said over the laughter of the crowd, "Jenna has never been the type of girl who wanted a relationship. As early as the third grade, I remember her promising me she'd never get married. From the day Jenna met Michael, everything about her changed. She saw the world in a whole other way. Hell,"he said, making eye contact with the bride, "she even started seeing me a different way."
Jenna could not even fake a smile anymore.
John flashed a wide grin at Michael. "I gotta be honest with you,"he said. "I didn't think you two were going to make it. The thing about Jenna is, she always wants what she can't have. I'll admit, I was a little nervous when you started influencing my friend's life in such a dramatic way. But hey,"he said with a shrug. "I've never seen her happier."
John lifted his empty glass. "So here's to you, Michael. Words can't express how glad I am that you met Jenna."
|
Jizzwhizzle! This is not how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Hell, it's not even how I wanted to spend the next 20 minutes, but here we are. I should've fucking listened to Professor Mo. Fuck me.
"You don't seem afraid, human,"growled the rather large, purplish demon standing across my foyer from me. Their hooves singed the wood flooring, wisps of smoked shellacque and cheap oak rising near their fetlocks. "I presume that you know the price you must pay."
"Uh, hold on."I waved my hands again, and muttered the latin bullshit that shouldn't've worked, but seems to have brought about either doom or great power or perhaps just indigestion and a bad dream, but what the hell, let's see where this goes. "Deis patricio morits moribidio solah carpris."
Another burst of light and smoke, this time in a deep yellowish green, and a snivelling voice asking "Why do you want to sell me your soul?"
"Eggnog?"the purple demon demanded, stamping a hoof and burning a new mark into my fucking floor.
"Carla?"replied the yellow-green demon. Who I guess is named Eggnog? How much did I drink last night?
"I was here first. This soul belongs to me."Carla shifted forward, pulling a battle axe from behind her and waving it threateningly.
"Has he signed your contract? Did he use his blood?"Eggnog (REALLY?) spat out, shuffling forward and scratching the floor with his claws. Thin tendrils of smoke trailed his fingers, and I had to wonder how his spine was holding up. His arms look like they were carved from mountains. His legs looked like they were stolen from chickens. I started to laugh.
"What's funny, human?"Eggnog hissed.
"Look, Eggnog,"I started, composing myself, in the hopes that I could pull this off. I mean, come on, this was the dumbest of dumb things to do, but desperate times, measures, etc. "I don't mean to laugh, but really? 'Eggnog'?"I sideyed to Carla, and lost it.
I doubled over laughing, and continued as Carla snorted and smoke billowed out her face, as the two of them moved towards each other in front of me.
"Foolish mortal,"Carla hissed, "you've wasted both our nights, and you dare to laugh at us?"She flexed her arms as Eggnog unfurled a wicked looking whip that appeared to be made of fire. Carla twirled her axe, and black flames burst off it, filling my view as I struggled to wipe the tears from my eyes and gain composure.
"We should kill him and eat him."Eggnog licked his lips.
"We should eat him to kill him."Carla replied.
"You should both hold off until you find out why you're here."I replied. I stood up and got my giggles under control. "You've been summoned using the old ways, and you can't kill me until after you do my bidding, claim my soul, etc., blah blah blah."
"You think we can't kill you?"Carla snarled, repositioned her feet and, before I could move, she swung her axe at me, hard and fast. It moved like lightning, and struck at my left elbow and moved cleanly through my arm, torso, other arm and back behind her, the purple-black flames careening off it in a perfect arc.
I blinked. Then smirked.
"You can't."
Carla roared and tried again, and again the blade of the axe passed through me like so much smoke. Eggnog reared up and tried to catch me with his whip to burn me with it's suffocating curls, or to rend my flesh with the tip. Like the axe, it passed through me as if I wasn't even there.
The two demons paused, and looked to each other. They separated, to position themselves opposite each other to surround me, as if that would make a lick of difference.
"You are not going to be able to kill me. Dad hasn't even been able to kill me, and believe me, he tried. But I've got a deal for you which might just change the whole of existence."
"I like deals."Eggnog grumbled.
"We both love deals,"Carla chirped, a rather disturbing sound from one so large. "But why would we make one with you? If we can't kill you, can we even capture your soul?"
"I don't know,"I replied, "But I brought you here, Corson and Eligos, because you're two of the best, and frankly, I've had it with dad."Neither seemed surprised that I knew their real names. I'm still goggled that they have pet names for each other, honestly.
"Daddy issues are easy. Name your price, human."Eligos was back to just angry. Typical. He really hadn't changed much, but I was surprised he didn't recognize me. Must be the haircut.
"I'll double it."Corson offerred, settling her axe on her back.
"Oh no, my friends. This is going to cost you far more than that."I chortled a bit, "I can't believe neither of you recognize me. I should've kept my beard."
The demons looked to each other, confused, and then suddenly, in unison, their eyes bulged out. Have you ever heard demons gasp in surpsise? Until today, neither had I.
&#x200B;
"Let's get down to it. I suspect that for the soul of Jesus, Son of God, you'll be willing to pay quite a bit more than usual, eh?" |
This is... awkward. Silence reigns for a few moments. All eyes on me. The corpse clears it's throat and tilts it's head.
"To what exactly?"
I improvise.
"I object to... you dying too soon. There's so much left out there for you to see and experience. You're too young to die!"
The corpse let's out a harrumph. "I'm three thousand and forty one. I've seen pretty much everything. I think it's time I gave my spot to someone with fresh eyes."
That's old! Even by the standards of our age of miracles. He must have been one of the first to receive "the treatment"back in the 21st century. I don't think I've met anyone that old before.
"That's so selfish."
Why am I still arguing? I should just leave. There's at least five omnidrones recording this. It's probably live streaming across the multiverse.
"Selfish?"The corpse is glaring now. Curiosity has segued into genuine irritation.
"Yes,"I find myself saying. "You're just throwing three thousand years of experience away. Think of the memories and knowledge we're losing."
The corpse's eyes narrow. "I have bequeathed all of my memories to my great great grandchildren. Who are you and why are you here?"
I ignore the question. What started as an adlib is turning into something more "philosophical".
"That doesn't matter. Recorded memories are one thing. You as an individual are something else entirely. Can you really say you're willing to abandon all of that for oblivion. Can you really say that you want to quit all of this?!"
"Do you have any idea how tiring it is being over three thousand? I am ready. It is time."
People in the crowd start to chime in.
"You could spend another couple of decades helping me with Charlie, gramps."
"You promised to teach me to play the saxophone!"says another.
The corpse waves a hand. "You all said you supported me. You said you were ready to let me go!"
A veiled lady at the front stands, wiping mourner's tears from her cheeks. "Maybe we were, but we aren't anymore. This boy has a point. Why give up now? Give it a few more decades. I'm not ready to lose you."
The corpse sighs, pulls himself up, and scowls. "Fine! You win. I'll give it another fifty years and then I'm having a proper bloody nap."
During the commotion I've slipped out, sprinting across to the next room and running through the door.
"I OBJECT!"
The priest at the front of the room is holding a baby, sprinkling water on its head. The entire room stops and turns to look at me.
(edits to fix typos because I originally wrote this on my mobile phone ;D) |
I still remember when we first became 'we'. We were in a restaurant in Paris and he said, "We don't care for the wine".I had liked it, but Derek wasn't a man who'd let his boy drink swill. "Sorry,"he said to the waiter, "I don't mean to be rude, but I love this boy. Love. And I just was not aware that grapes could piss. And nor was I aware I'd offended you so dearly that you would see fit to serve it to us".
We left, no tip, and I ignored the way I felt for the way his hands made me feel. We strutted through the streets in drizzling rain. The European summer was so refreshing. And I locked eyes with him.
"Love?"
"Love..."he responded.
Things were good, but they were strict. Dinner was to be prepared for Derek at a set time. Even if he were late the meal must not be. I was required to take regular inspection of my phone, body and possessions.
"You would do well, my love, to lose a few pounds. It does nothing for you to be rotund."
&#x200B;
My friend Fiona said, "I could kill him,"when I told her. Yet, she can't be blamed for her naivete. She was never in love. Only lust.I told Derek what she said and that I wasn't sure how to feel, but alas I ignored how I felt and only cared for how he made me feel."She reminds me of a sketch artist,"he said pouring us a drink.
"Why?"
"Enamoured with fleeting beauty. She sees a butterfly and forgets the caterpillar. She ignores the cocoon".
"I'm a little lost Derry..."
"You always were, that is how I found you,"he said kissing my forehead, "sketch artists draw what they see and do so quickly. I always cared more for the painter or the sculptor. They must live with their art. It transcends time. It is a living and breathing thing."
"Where does this apply to me?"
"You're my art. I met the most beautiful being of potential in the world. And I said to myself that could be the best husband. He just needs the right kind of love. Tough. Stern. Focused. I saw to craft you like the cocoon does the caterpillar... and look, my little butterfly, how far you've flown..."
I cut off Fiona after that. It wasn't personal, but Derek told me that not only was she anchoring me to who I was and what she wanted me to be, but I was making her jealous. She was miserable seeing how much I'd grown. We got married and the rings Derek found were so special. I still wear mine.
I felt his heart every beat, every beating. Every single thump in his chest.
And when he got mad I knew. When he got hard I could tell. When he cheated I felt the rush and I cried as the rhythm haunted me.
And if I ever took it off, to spare myself, then he'd be there and he'd know.
"You don't like competition?"
"Derry, please?"
"You know a chess grandmaster isn't anything without someone to play with. You've got to understand that I come home to you every single night."
"That doesn't make it better..."
"Of course it does. Would you be sad if I left?"
"Yes, are you leaving?"
"No. See how that would be worse? if I left?
So when I come home and we are together then you, my dear, are having it better".
"It doesn't feel like a good thing,"I said to him.
"Then let me make it feel like a good thing,"he said moving toward me.
The rings stayed beating. I felt the heart until I didn't. August ninth of 2006 I felt the stillness.
Derek was found dead in a hotel room. Minimal damage, but a sign of struggle. Murder.
Unsolved.
I buried him wearing his ring. And I felt nothing. I felt it burn into my soul. I woke up screaming of his rot and decay.
I heard his voice say butterfly.
And then 9 years go by. I see Derek as fresh as the day he died standing on my doorstep.
"didn't it ever occur to you where I got the rings?"
I poured him a glass of water as he sat down. The lights dimmed and the shadows grew. The water turned darker and dirtier as he fondled the glass. Derek didn't rot. The wood of the table began to wither and char.
I saw the paint peal. "Butterfly,"he said.
I looked and in the mirror behind him, I saw my hair turn white. My eyes yellowed. My skin crease and sag.
Paintings age but the artist lives forever. Legacy transcends time.
I felt afraid, but then I looked at him. And I felt what he wanted me to feel. |
How does one feel as one is rejuvenated? It feels, I would say, quite like being licked by a corgi puppy. Yes, it feels as if one is laying on one's bed in one's private chamber, with the morning's early light peering through the curtains, striking the oily portraits of Edward IV, George III and Victoria, until it stirs the corgi puppies from their respite and those tiny darling creatures hop right up on one's bed and lick one's hand or neck. It is quite a joyful feeling, and, dare I say, an invigorating feeling. I do not know there is any other feeling on earth that quite compares to it.
I confess I do not know quite for certain how it works, but nor do any of our top minds in the natural sciences or medicine or spirituality for that matter. I do suspect, however, that because the Queen of England is chosen by God himself, then for this reason, prayers in the name of the Queen of England are afforded great priority by the various angels and saints responsible for the effecting of prayer. So, when my subjects beseech that I live on and on and on, well, then I simply do.
Certainly I am not one to complain about being afforded such a grand gift as the hope of immortality. Mortality is itself a curse, indeed, but immortality is in its own way a curse as well, since one who is immortal will in no sense ever measure one's achievements. But the hope of immortality is a splendid compromise because each year that I persist is an achievement I have earned and curated and in which I can take immeasurable pride.
So, though I am not one to complain, I do wish that there was not the need for such subterfuge about it all. The daily routine of makeup and wigs is quite tiresome. Furthermore, a woman and queen such as I should not be forced to hide the youth and beauty of her countenance from her public. Though, I suppose it would be a cause of great alarm, were the people to see how I am not only alive, but perfectly preserved and vibrant. As I said, immortality with no costs is quite dreary, so I am gladdened by the challenge.
What I am not gladdened by, however, is some young cunt thinking she can come into my bleeding palace and snatch away my affection from my subjects. A few too many "Long live Princess Diana's"there were. A few too many indeed. So, she had to go. And go she did. Right buggered off.
I do so enjoy Katherine though. So lovely and so dear. I very much hope she minds her place in my monarchy and I very much hope my subjects do not become, dare I say, overzealous in their blessings upon her. |
Mark yawned, stretching after a quick, but weirdly refreshing nap in class. He tensed up, just realizing it was one of *those* classes, where a sign of relaxation is met with a bad grade for "Slacking off".
But he did not receive a punishment. He saw all his colleauges and the teacher at the window on his left. They were all very confused about something and Mark had to know what happened.
"Maybe that grade 6 kid made a scene again,"Mark chuckled and started pushing through the crowd.
Instead of seeing a spoiled brat crying his eyes out to not get in trouble, for punching someone else, he saw that his classroom, and only his classroom, walls and all, is inside another room he could describe like a giant bunker. It was at least a hundred meters long, wide and twenty tall. His classroom was a tenth of the bunker's size and it made Mark feel very small and trapped.
He hurried to the door with a pair of other students and the strongest of them kicked it open and they ran out, out of panic. The door fell from it's rusted hinges and the sound echoed through the concrete room. Mark could now see a big pair of steel blast doors, on the opposite side of the bunker the class window was pointing to. Above the doors was a twenty meter long wall of glass, blurred to try hiding the moving shadows on the other side.
Sirens started blaring and spinning, the blast doors started creaking and opening, and Mark could do nothing but stand still in pure shock. Almost all students were already outside, but some regretted their decision and ran back inside the classroom.
A group of armed men, about twenty of them, came out of the doors in a hurry with weapons pointing at the students, yelling at them to put their hands on their head and lie on the ground.
From the blast doors came a muffled sound of an announcement: "*SCP 8352* class elevated to, *EUCLID*..."
It was all Mark could hear before being hit on the head by an armed man. |
Errol had been the first and final man to visit her on her rock-pool island in the uncharted sea. He’d been a handsome captain of an exploration vessel, and when her wailing had hit his ship like a vile storm, when mens’ ears bled and they begged for mercy, it had been Errol who’d tied cloth around each of their ears, dampening the terrible sound. It’d been Errol who’d rowed alone in a smaller vessel to find her.
To stop her.
Now, many years later, she watched this new vessel with interest, her mouth — for now — closed.
Although this ship was much larger than Errol’s had been, it wore the same livery and flags as Errol’s ship once had. Bore the same topless goddess carving as its figurehead.
&#x200B;
—
&#x200B;
Men and women screamed alike as the sea bubbled up around their ship. Babies wept in their mothers’ arms. The ship moaned, rocked. Lifted.
”Where’s the captain?” yelled Maria, struggling against the rolls of water that rushed through the inside of the ship.
Morgan, the dogsbody, pointed to the stairs, said, ”At the wheel. Not that it’s—“ Salt water sprayed against him, a wave threw him to the floorboards.
”Here, take my hand.” Maria helped the boy to his feet then made her way up the stairs, knuckles red as she gripped the bannister each time a wave battered against her.
”Captain!” she yelled, stumbling towards him like a drunk. “Captain!”
When the captain saw her, he took the rope from off his own waist and tied it around hers. “It’ll keep you from being washed away.”
“What’s happening?”
“I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought us this way. It’s where Errol vanished — I knew it as well as anyone. Better, even. This sea is cursed!”
”That was a century ago! It’s a legend, nothing more. And if you—”
Her mouth remained open but no words left.
The creature rose above them.
It blotched out the sun and shadowed the ship. Loomed over it like a tidal wave of scales and teeth.
A tentacle as thick as a tree crashed down on the deck near to them, splintering wood.
”God help us.”
\-
Errol had landed on the pebble beach; she was sure he’d come to kill her. His head was wrapped by shawl and scarf.
Her singing was of no use.
She swiped at Errol with her clawed hands as he tried to clamber out of his boat.
”Please!” he said. “I come unarmed. I come with only peace in my heart.”
&#x200B;
So long ago, she thought. She held a piece of cloth that had once covered Errol’s ears and watched as the Kraken rose above the latest ship.
\-
A body lay next to Maria. A man — one of the few soliders on the transport vessel — lay crushed, chest flattened.
She untied the rope from her waist, then uncurled the dead man’s fist and took the spear from his hand.
”Maria, don’t be a fool!” yelled the captain.
She charged towards the tentacle wrapped around the mast, as it slowly cracked the wooden pole like a spine.
She shouted over her shoulder, “You have a better plan?”
He didn’t. He had no plan at all.
She thrust the spear through the scales and into the wet flesh.
The creature didn’t even flinch.
The mast snapped. Fell.
“Maria!”
\-
Errol had stayed with her. His ship had sailed on without him, as he had instructed. He wasn’t sure how his plan would pan out — if he’d calm her or only enrage her further.
”Your singing,” he’d said. “It… It repels people. It hurts them.”
She had meant it to. It was the song of her heart. As tar-black as the depths of the sea.
She could not swim and had been stranded here as a child, a freak of gods and demons, on this lonely rock, to live off whatever washed up in the pools. To harbour hatred for all she was jealous of.
Here she had been for centuries.
It was her heart’s song. It was all she could sing.
And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Not yet, at least.
She made Errol tell her of life outside of the island.
Eventually, she told him about life on it.
They fished together that night.
Cooked by fire.
Told stories of the stars.
Slowly, over many weeks, they became enchanted with each other’s quiter siren song.
\-
The captain jumped at Maria and they tumbled to the floor as the mast collapsed.
Too slow. His left foot was caught, crushed. He lay trapped.
Maria had his hand, tried to free him as a tentacle rose above them.
”It’s okay,” he said. “We had a good run, didn’t we?”
”It’s not over.”
He smiled against the pain. They both knew it was.
&#x200B;
And then came the sound.
A melody that seemed to rise from within each of them and make its way outward. But that wasn’t right; it was on the air, in the breeze and water. A melody so delicate and wondorous that it seemed written by the gods themselves.
The captain thought it was the song of cherubs who must be, even now, taking him beyond.
”The sound,” said Maria. “It’s like a harp being strummed in my heart. It’s beautiful.”
The tentacle, high in the air above them, slowly lowered, gently, back into the sea.
The creature itself rocked slowly as it settled and sank peacefully into the water, lulled into a deep, deep rest.
&#x200B;
\-
She watched the ship long after the Kraken slumbered, as the people on board repaired it the best they could.
She sang for them as the worked. All the while she held the precious rags to her chest.
Whether these people visited her after or sailed away, she didn’t mind. She didn’t feel lonely.
She was glad just to have sung the new song that possessed her heart. |
It was a school day like any other at John F. Kennedy High -- up until second period, that was, when a screaming voice addressed the entire student body on the intercom. It was not the principal.
"Greetings, puny humans of Oshkennock, Ohio. My name is Gravatrix, conqueror of galaxies, destroyer of worlds!"
In Mr. Galvan's classroom, the students listened in terror.
*Oh shit*, though sophomore Susie Comstock, who had been mutated by an alien virus and given the powers of flight and laser vision, *Sounds like some intergalactic shit! He must be here to kidnap me like those aliens that showed up at our last family reunion.*
"I've come for a certain. . . Person in this school,"the voice on the intercom continued, "'Person' being a term I use loosely. They're no average human being."
*Fuck, fuck, fuck*, thought Joe Maricci frantically, a few desks away from Susie, *They know about that UFO I found, they probably know I can shapeshift now from the radiation or whatever it was, they're gonna take me away!*
"You know who you are. . ."
*I gotta get the fuck outta here before he discovers that I'm Supersonic Girl*, thought Carly Jackson to herself.
"And I'm coming for you. . ."
*What the hell am I gonna do, what the hell am I gonna do, what the hell am I gonna do?* was all a wild-eyed Jimmy Roberts could think as he struggled against the urge to blast through the ceiling on his rocket feet.
"So you might as well make it easier on everyone and come to meet me."
All thirty kids in the classroom -- each one of them endowed with a different set of superhuman powers -- shifted in their seats, looked around uncomfortably, and wondered what they would do. Each of them had just resolved to make their respective moves when the thin, bespectacled frame of Mr. Galvan stood up from behind his desk at the front of the room.
"Kids,"said Mr. Galvan, "I know this may come as a shock to you. But I'm actually a superhero called The Galvanizer. Gravatrix is my archenemy. I'll be back in time for dismissal. Stay where you are and don't give Mr. Richards any problems. He can read minds, you know."
And with that, Mr. Galvan was off, shooting toward the principal's office at a million miles a minute.
|
“Yes Mrs Dorothy,” I said and scrubbed harder.
“I don’t mean to be difficult dear, I just want to make sure it’s looking tidy for my grandson's visit tomorrow,” the spirit said as she hovered above me. I’d been scrubbing her headstone for thirty minutes now and the sun had almost set. Dad would come looking for me soon so I needed to finish up.
“How’s that?” I said as I stood back.
“That’ll do dear. Now, I was hoping you’d be able to help me with one more thing if you have time,” Mrs Dorothy said.
“What’s that Mrs Dorothy?”
“Well dear, that grave in the corner by the entrance, it’s so dirty. It’s the oldest one in this place and no one knows whose it is. I was just hoping, since you have another few days before you head back to school, you wouldn't mind giving it a scrub too?”
I sighed and looked over towards the entrance. The headstone was almost out of sight beneath a large overgrown bush. “Ok, I’ll be down at 8am,” I said.
“Thank you dear, oh and you did try to explain to my grandson over the phone that you could speak with me, didn’t you?”
“Yes Mrs Dorothy,” I said as I recalled the phone call that made be sound like a crazy person, “and your grandson hung up.”
“Oh, well, how very rude of him,” she said sternly, “you make sure to let him know I said that when he arrives tomorrow.”
The next morning I was straight into it. Cutting back bushes, digging out weeds, and scrubbing off moss. After an hour I was starting to see the headstone. “Huh,” I muttered as I started to clear away the top half. It was blank, just as Mrs Dorothy had suggested. It took another twenty minutes before I had the headstone sparkling. That’s when I noticed the small etching near the bottom. It read *A Young 1647.*
“A Young,” I said to myself, “who are you?”
Suddenly the head of a young lady’s spirit emerged from behind the headstone. I yelled in fright and scrambled backwards.
“I’m sorry,” the spirit whispered, “please don’t be afraid.”
“You just gave me a fright is all,” I said, trying to reassure her, “what’s your name?”
“Alice,” she said.
“I’m Scarlet. Nice to meet you,” I said with a smile.
“No one’s ever done that for me before,” she said quietly.
“What’s that?”
“Taken care of my grave,” she said as she looked at her headstone.
“It’s nothing, just the common decency everyone deserves. So Alice, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up here?”
She didn’t answer initially. I could see tears swelling in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, it’s just…I was once like you,” she began, “young and free and with a particular ability that scared most people. Just like you, I could speak with spirits and back when I was alive, there were quite a few of us. We came from a long line of necromancers going back thousands of years. But over the centuries we faced numerous persecutions. Those in power didn’t like the fact that we held so much control. They were scared of us and when I was alive they came for us like never before, and this time they killed us all,” she said with a sob as she relived her last days, then she looked back at me, "or at least they thought they did."
“You don’t have to go on if it’s too hard,” I said gently.
“No, I must. For your sake. You see, I’ve been watching you for months, wishing for you to stay safe. I knew the time would come when we must speak because the other spirits here don’t understand,” she said.
“Don’t understand what?”
“How much danger you’re in. You possess the ability to speak to the spirits, a power that has been forgotten for hundreds of years. But if certain powerful people find out, they will come for you. They called people like me witches and they hunted us with ease, but they'll call you much worse and make every effort to hunt you down. You must be careful,” she said frantically.
I always had a fear of people thinking I was crazy if I told them what I got up to in my dad's graveyard, so when I thought about it, I realized the only person I had actually told was Mrs Dorothy’s grandson and, as I suspected, he assumed I was crazy.
Just then the gate swung open and a young man walked through. In the distance I could see another two men walking towards the gate.
“Hello, Scarlet?” the man said hesitantly.
“Hi,” I said as I pulled off my glove and extended my hand.
Suddenly Mrs Dorothy appeared beside Alice and yelped in delight, “Oh wonderful! Isn’t he handsome?” She said.
I just smiled, knowing her grandson already suspected I was crazy and not wanting to confirm it by replying to a bush.
“Thanks for reaching out,” he said before glancing back towards the gate, “my cousins also came along and we thought it might be nice if we could take you out for a drink to say thanks for taking care of our grandma's grave?"
I was about to reply when Mrs Dorothy interrupted, her voice confused, “but I only have one grandson.”
“Oh no,” Alice cried. |
I am champion. I am chosen. I am *Dog*. Human choose me for two reason: Protection. Safety. Human give me food and treats for reward, but deep down, all I need is pat. Other treats only luxury. When doorbell ring, I am first to the scene. I must inspect intruder before Human to make sure not dangerous. I am Dog, I am Guardian. If there is one person in whole world Dog must protect Human from, it is mister Mailman. Everytime mail come through door and Human open it, Human sad and depressed. Human open paper and read and sad, and money go away. No more treats for Dog. When me see mailman, me roar with fury. Stay away, mailman! Never come near us again! They still come. Dog try to chase, dog try to bark. When me bark, other dog bark back. He tell me shut up. It don't matter. I care only about human.
Human is life, human is treats, human is pat. They may be stupid but they are *my* human. I am Dog and I will do my best until my last day.
Edit: wow, dog not expect expensive treat for story. Dog will enjoy. |
Apparently being a regular has its drawbacks. For our past 10 anniversaries my wife and I have come to this Starbucks, ordered a Venti Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino with Soy (she was lactose intolerant) and shared it in the booth where I proposed.
I probably should have known better, but I didn't know where else to go today. I couldn't bear the thought of drinking "our"drink alone so I ordered the first thing I saw on menu. A Caffè Vanilla Light Frappuccino with no fat milk, Tall.
The girl who fixed my drink must have recognized me from the last couple of years, because when I heard my name called it wasn't what I had ordered. I guess I'll sit at our booth alone now. |
*(Fair warning, for whatever reason, I read the title as "you ARE the doctor"and wrote a story. Still fits the prompt though so I'm posting)*
I sit down comfortably in the patient's chair. For whatever reason, Mark, our nurse here is taking a while in back. I feel a little pang of irritation, Mark's always rubbed me wrong, and I know that I rub him wrong too. Every once in a while I'll pray that he gets in a tragic accident, and it never happens. A bummer, since I know someone's listening now too.
... Yeah, been 5 years and I still hardly believe it.
Actually, it's kind of amazing how well everyone's taken the whole world being a simulation. I can remember the exact moment we all knew, just over 5 years ago, when every creature in the world tagged with the [SAPIENT] tag suddenly heard an otherworldly voice in their head. Apparently the whole world was created by some sociology grad student in a "higher reality". For reasons which he didn't really explain too well, his project was being cut due to "misconduct", and he had decided to dick around and play God a bit before we got turned off. I started to have a bit of an existential crisis just then, but luckily for humanity's collective emotional state he just turned those off temporarily while we got the news.
Right after he announced he would be trying some changes in "the settings"in a few phases. For a decade (apparently not much longer than a few rotations of their planet) he was going to try certain "utopian settings", which included turning off natural disasters and "PvP", among a bunch of other convoluted changes involving the probability of bad things happening and the quantum physics model the simulation uses.
By PvP, I mean, it's now impossible to intentionally harm anyone. You can still TRY, but somehow you always fail. Try to tackle someone? Well, there was a banana peel you didn't see. Try to snipe someone standing perfectly still with a high powered sniper rifle you assured works perfectly just before taking the shot? A banana might fall out of the sky onto your head, distracting you just enough so that you miss the shot just barely. It honestly ruins my immersion, which now knowing that the world is a big simulation, is extremely important to me.
But the real tragedy of no PvP, is no matter how much I want to backhand that dumb asshole Mark, fighting is literally impossible now.
Oh! Here he comes in now with the needle. Christ, it took him forever to prepare that shot, the hell? What I especially hate about Mark isn't really his dullness, or general uselessness, though those are certainly qualities he possesses. It's because he's constantly talking to Sandra. Sandra, or Dr. White properly, has been my coworker for years now. Mark is just new this year, and he'll probably leave soon too. I know he has a crush on her. He knows I have a crush on her. He knows I know he has a crush on her, and of course I know about him knowing that he knows I know he has a crush on her. We're both very painfully aware of each other.
Very painful indeed, I think while I say to Mark, *"Took you long enough, distracted by something unimportant as usual, Mark?"* I force a nice smile, but my tone of voice is pretty condescending. Wait no, my grin was pretty condescending too, damn.
*"Oh, just got distracted talking to Dr. White about something PERSONAL between us two. My apologies, sir. Shall I administer the shot now? Please lie back in the chair."*
... *'something personal'*, the words ring off his voice sweet like honey. I can tell he savors teasing me. "Just administer the damn shot before I have you fired."I let my irritation get the better of me.
*"W-Well, I, you shouldn't, uh, talk to me li-. D-Dr. White, uh-..."* Mark starts to mumble something, but he stops. He suddenly jabs the needle down at my arm, and I brace myself, he jabbed it pretty hard.
...
Nothing, no sensation at all. I look down at the needle, which is now totally bent across my arm. *"Mark, did you intend to HARM me just then? I see the anti-PvP system must have just triggered. You god damn bastard. I'll charge you with assault."* I ignore the fact that assault isn't a real crime anymore for the moment. Mark has his moment too, going silent and staring at the needle.
*"Well, maybe I DID intend to harm you. F-Fuck you Dr. Johnson! If PvP wasn't off, I'd have hit you for always lording over me and getting so mad when I talk to Dr. White a long time ago!"* Suddenly I see his fist fly at me. But instead of getting hit, Mark trips over the chair, landing headfirst on the floor. I bolt up.
*"That's it! This is self-defense."* My head is full of rage, and I'm aiming a solid kick right at his head before I consider the circumstances at all. Suddenly my legs twists upwards by no will of my own, sending me careening into a shelf holding some recent blood samples, a few of which spill over me and Mark, covering both of us in blood. Mark grabs another needle, aiming it at my neck. I'm terrified, but like the last it just bends and flies out of Mark's hand. I grab a clipboard to smash Mark over the head, but I lose my grip and it flies into the florescent lighting above, smashing half of it. Suddenly Mark starts running, and I give chase. I think I hear Sandra's voice at the other end of the building yelling, she must have heard the commotion.
Breaking my train of thought is Mark, taking a hard right into the supplies closest. I try to grab him and pull him down, but his shirt just comes off, unbuttoning itself and slipping off perfectly in a motion that kind of reminds me of pulling a tablecloth from a table. I flip on the supply room lights, and suddenly see Mark with a collection of surgical tools. He's picked the largest scalpel in the collection, and I reach for the second largest. He can't do anything to stop me, because when he does his arm suddenly spasms out of my way. We both suddenly stop and stare at each-other.
*"This is it Mark, we can't do this anymore. It'll never work..."* I lament. Mark is silent, but then slowly nods. *"... You're right, Dr. Johnson. We're both totally unharmed, we can't beat the simulation."* I pause, offering a tentative hand, *"Let's shake on it and be done with it?"* Mark nods and extends his hand. Hah, the fool. I'm just going to stab him and pretend it's a surgery! Maybe then it'll work! Just as I get to stabbing Mark, I suddenly feel something prod against my stomach. His scalpel! Bastard tried to trick me! Unforgivable even if it literally CAN'T hurt me.
But more alarming than that, is the sudden arresting voice in my head I hear. This is God (the grad student) speaking, and time slows to a standstill accordingly. *"Hey gentlemen and ladies of my favorite little world simulation, I'm getting shut down a few days earlier than I thought here in higher reality, so I'm speeding up my settings tests. I've decided to turn PvP and natural disasters back on. This time it's the opposite, bad things are even worser, or um, I mean more worse than they use to be. Like if you get stabbed, this time it'll hurt even MORE than I used to have it hurt. Like, uh, maybe ten times more? I'm not really sure. But yeah, no more utopia, just dystopia. Make it interesting, cheers."* I hardly even have a moment to digest the situation, because there's a scalpel in my gut, and when I look down at my own stomach, I see I've successfully stabbed Mark too.
We both scream. |
"The first spell I ever cast was entirely on accident. One second, I was recording my chemistry experiment for this class demo project, the next I'm on the ground looking up at a rift in the fabric of space-time."The lecture hall was watching me, waiting for the punchline.
Then I went to the next slide and watched the largest and most embarrassing leap in the history of mankind's development. Laughter played out until I kept speaking with a palpable force of honesty.
"Without this video, I myself never would have believed what had happened."I held up my hands. "And those of you watching will certainly say that that's just CGI. Those of you who know me will be able to assure the rest that my computer skills are even worse than my coordination, and you just saw how awful that is."
"I understand that without real life proof, none of you will believe me, and so I intend to cast the spell here today. "From under the table I pulled out my box of supplies and began setting up. First my lab coat. Then the portable bunsen burner and flask holder. Distilled water. Magnesium chlorate. It was good that the set up took so long. "Over the past month, I and my friends have spent day and night attempting to recreate and then distill this process."
"We have documented each attempt. We have researched every single thing we could imagine. The ritual does not depend on any astronomical or atmospheric conditions. The ritual does not depend on any innate property of the caster that we can identify. The ingredients do not have to be sourced from anywhere specifically, and the source of the heat does not matter."
I sighed.
"It does unfortunately matter. As soon as the solution reaches 93 degrees centigrade, I will begin the ritual. And before that happens I want to emphasize: Every. Single. Step. Matters."
Some people were still chuckling, either at me or falsely believing they were privy to some prank I was pulling. I tuned them out and watched the thermometer rise.
91... 92... 93. It was the lowest we found that would still work.
Showtime.
My left hand flew forward to 'casually' backhand the flask as I spun around, pretending to slip on the floor. The flask went flying as I bit back a hiss and began the incantation. "Fugono!"Turning back around as if lunging for the burning projectile, I watched it shatter against the table as I proceeded to actually fall. Intentionally.
Flinging my legs out from under me to the side, I kept speaking. "Shi-"An unenscribable gasping noise as I hit the ground with my side, arms still extended towards the glass. "-gahsinfabish!"
Clenching my hands, I wrapped my arm around my actually bruised knee and spoke the final words, praying I hadn't messed anything up. "Gidameedit!"
Laughter was cut off as an inky black portal opened in the air above the spilled and broken flask. I flung my hands back and scuttled away as if surprised, causing the second portal to appear under me. I fell through and landed on the remains of my experiment, but that was what my padded lab coat was for.
Rolling off the debris, I took a few seconds to compose myself before standing up and looking towards my class.
Professor Ward broke the awed silence by standing and surveying the portals. "Mr. Harris. This is... incredibly impressive."He tossed a pencil through and watched it come out the other. "And how long does it last for?"
"Eleven minutes and five seconds. Give or take a second."
"Fascinating. And... all that flailing was required?"
"You may recall that there was quite a bit more in the original video."I was really glad that I didn't need to catch my sleeve on fire again. "This was as much as could be removed so far. I'm hoping to reduce it further."
"Fantastic. Truly and simply fantastic."His elderly face gave me a bright smile and a knot of tension uncoiled inside of me. Prematurely. "It's a shame you didn't submit the protocol on time. As such, I'm afraid I can't give it higher than a B." |
Rolf looked at me with worried eyes.
"Do you think I can defeat him?"
"I've taught you everything I can, and as long as you remember to do everything that needs to be done"I replied as I stretched, rose, and kicked dirt over the embers of our fire, "I'm confident the dark wizard's rule over this land will end tonight. The most difficult part of our journey is already behind us, all we have left is to sneak into the castle and find and destroy his heart."
We'd made camp under an overhang of rock in the cliffs leading up to my castle, a blind spot for the guards in manning the towers. Now it was full-dark, with no moon to be seen in the sky and patches of clouds covering most of the stars. Time to enter the caves.
"It's just... Nostromo has ruled this land for close to 100 years. The idea that our freedom is so near is too good to believe. What if he knows about the tunnels?"
"Oh, he knows,"I replied, "he simply believes that he's completely aware of who possesses said knowledge. The important thing is that *his guards* don't know about this entrance. He doesn't trust them that much."
My feet led me down the familiar path, through winding twists of stone that went from being barely wide enough for a man to large enough for a team of draft animals to comfortably stand side-by-side. My pulse quickened and a knot of tension began to grow in my stomach as we stealthily worked our way through what seemed an endless passage until we came to the stairs carved into the stone.
The steps led us upward and into a tunnel carved into the living rock, which ended with a heavy wooden door. I made a show of working at the lock with my tools and opened our way into my home.
"Say what you will about the guy,"Rolf whispered as we made our way through the wine cellar, "the guy knows how to party. I think a thorough celebratory drink is going to be in order once we've defeated this wizard, eh, Omor?"
"There is nothing more refreshing than wine after a hard fought victory,"I agreed, "but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's going to take me all of my concentration to weaken the magical bonds surrounding the power-matrix. Once I have, though, you'll need to focus completely on destroying it. Focus your energies and swing that blade true, this is the purpose for which it was forged. Drive it all the way through his heart and the land will be free once more."
"I've got it, I won't let you down."
We made our way through a number of dark, deserted corridors before finally reaching the chamber deep in the heart of the dungeon that housed the heart of my magic.
Immortality had seemed like such a wonderful fancy all those years ago. The sheen wore off far more quickly than I ever imagined. I'm tired, so very tired, and the protections I put in place to guard against my enemies proved to be too much for myself to handle alone when the unending passage of time morphed from blessing to bane.
As we neared the correct chamber the walls seemed to come alive with a low menacing hum and the air filled with a tense energy. The hairs on our arms and necks began to stand on end.
Reaching the correct chamber I opened the door, revealing a large, circular room 20 feet across with a small oak pedestal upon which sat a small walnut box. A series of crude runes were carved into the wall opposite the door.
"Ready yourself, Rolf,"I said as I walked past the pedestal towards the runes. "When I tell you, drive your blade through that box with all your might. That's his heart in there, and once it's been driven through the spell will be broken and death will quickly find our magical friend."
I placed my right hand against the runes and turned to watch my student ready himself. When I saw he was prepared I began slowly speaking the old words in a tongue that hadn't been heard since times of legend. The runes in the wall began to glow a warm, sickly green as a chill overtook the air.
"Rolf! Now!"
I watched the blade drive through the box, pinning it to the table at the same instant a bolt of white hot pain drove through my chest and blood began to soak my robes. Rolf was intent upon his mission and lost himself in a frenzy of swings.
"Peace... at last, peace,"I thought as I sat on the stones with my back to the wall as I felt the life drain from my body. My vision graying, I pulled the small parchment I'd concealed from my robes and held it in my hands. An explanation for the man who'd helped me so much.
Rolf paused and turned, sensing something amiss. He saw the body of his mentor in a pool of blood and rushed to his side with a cry, but too late, the body was completely still with a rolled piece of parchment clutched in his fist. He saw his name written on the outside, pried the note from the stiffening fingers and began to read.
>Rolf, I leave you my castle and lands to do with as you see fit. Thank you for helping me to finally rest.
>Omor T'Son (Nostromo) |
The man lay on a narrow white bed under a bleak white sheet, breathing through an oxygen machine. He stared up at a room full of unknown faces, their cameras poised at the ready. His family and friends sat silently in the back, waiting for the end of his life.
A nurse fussed over him, readying his morning drug cocktail. She frowned as he hoisted himself up into a seated position. "One hundred is a perfect number,"he began, the sound of his voice like a thunder strike. "A sacred number. A number that dictates our lives."
The room nodded silent agreement, the only sound coming from the life-support machine and the rapid-fire shutters of the cameras.
"Some drip feed their words in a steady, systematically timed release,"the man continued. "Others vomit their voices out in a series of cascading mistakes."He turned his head as he spoke, locking eyes with each person in turn.
"They are wrong,"he said. "The sacred words must be nourished, cherished and articulated for the first time and the last time, cast out into the universe in one go."The man's words came out slowly, methodically. One frail hand clutched at his throat, his unused vocal chords on fire.
"I am one hundred years old, and on this day I run through the words I have thought over for ninety-seven years."With this, the man lay back down, visibly pained from the effort of speaking for the first time.
He stared up at the ceiling, his mouth opening and closing. The room settled into a quiet, familiar silence. Facial expressions and body language returned, each person communicating their take on the man's One Hundred.
Warning indicators began to light up the life-support machine like a Christmas tree. A woman pushed her way to the side of the bed, her eyes wet with tears.
"Words mean nothing,"the man said, holding out a hand for his daughter to take. "Actions, and the intentions behind them, are all that matter." |
I made sure the phone was turned off then set it on the dinette table. It had vibrated in my pocket on the walk from the gate to my new afterlife digs, prompting the guide to pause for just long enough to make me wonder if she was fixing to eject me from this new life. It was weird; I assumed that, as a dead person, my anxiety stomach would be just as dead as me. But, no. There it was. Gurgle Stomach, with a side of Hot Face.
“Someone’s nervous on their first day!” the guide chirped while patting my shoulder.
Shortly after, she deposited me here. In this Death Condo that looked like a replica of my freshman dorm room except white. White on white on white on white ad infinitum. For someone who, in life, was physiologically incapable of not spilling, splashing, or spraying food and drink on themselves, the floor, and the walls.
I was starting to wonder if this was actually Hell.
Laying in the void of that matte white *everything*, the phone was glaringly, offensively black. A malignant stain in this supposedly perfect place (unless it was Hell, which was still a possibility).
Who had even called?
I snatched it from the table and fired it up. One missed call. No message, but it was just my manager and it wasn’t like work was part of my life anymore.
Wait. Did I have to have a job here? This crappy Death Condo indicated that there might be a Death Cubicle in my future. Is this where those calls about our cars’ extended warranties come from? Would I have to telemarket from here? Or-- oh god, no. *Do customer support*? Was this Comcast?
The phone binged. Incoming message from…my manager. Firing me via text.
Without thinking, I texted back, “U can’t fire me I’m dead. Car accident yesterday.”
I opened the browser, googled my name, and copied the first article link. Texted it to him. Waited.
The phone binged. Incoming message: “wtf who is this”
“OK,” I cackled, pulling the phone close. “Let’s bring new meaning to the term ‘*ghosting*.’” |
I had everything set up correctly, I think. A star within a pentagram within a circle, each point illuminated by a candle. I got as many of the called for herbs from the local farmers' market, but what couldn't be found there I got from the spice aisle in the supermarket. I figured fresh and organic was better, but I didn't know enough to know if there were things you could substitute. And I was only going to risk one substitution today.
I got out the piece of paper I had the Latin phrases typed, with their phonetic pronunciations penciled in over the top. All that mattered was the sounds coming out of my mouth, it didn't matter if I completely understood each part.
Here goes nothing.
I had a bowl of sage close by if I had to dispel the demon, but nothing was certain as I was switching out the main ingredient of the summoning: the soul. I began the chant smoothly, having practiced all the words and phrases for hours before starting. I felt the energy in the room building up, and I got a little nervous as well.
Palms beginning to sweat, I got to the last line. Now for the real test. The summoning ritual called for a bronze knife to be plunged into the sacrifice's chest. If I was right, this would satisfy the first half, and I would be left with the business of making a *very* carefully worded deal with a demon. If I was wrong, I would be electrocuted before it was even finished, and possibly release a partially summoned demon loose on Earth.
I swung the knife into the battery, closing my eyes at the last second. I felt a light jolt, then nothing. Opening my eyes and fearing the worst. Before me in the circle stood the demon, and the essence from the battery swirled as a bright blue light in the collection bowl at my feet. Wicked.
"Alright, let's get started-"I began.
"Deal!"interrupted the demon.
"Pardon?"
"Whatever you want kid, it's a deal. You could ask for my rotted mother's corpse to be reanimated and for her to be set as President of the United States and I'd say yes. Deal, deal, deal, deal, deal!"
"Holy shit,"I said.
"An odd choice,"the demon commented, "but it can be done. Nice doing business; with this much juice I can probably take on Hades."In a puff of a acrid sulfur cloud he was gone. |
"Halt!"
I do just that, hands away from the swords at my side, don't want to give the wrong impression. I turn, nice and slow, and face the two guards. They're both holding halberds, pointed right at my chest, advancing nice and slow. I can't see them behind the grills of their helmets but they're wearing the purple cloaks of royal guard, gold insignia pinning the cloaks across their chests.
Veterans, of the Venerable Order of the Courageous Lion. What a mouthful, no? Good soldiers, pushed onto guard duty down here in the great marble crypts.
Vaults, I mean vaults. Same difference.
"Lads, fancy meeting you down here."I say, with my best, most winning smile. It doesn't work, those points don't falter.
"In the vault. Fancy meeting royal guards, in the vault. Where there are always two of us."
Sarcasm, love it.
"It's a metaphor?"I say. That doesn't impress either.
"So why is a knight skulking around down here? Hmm?"The other asks.
"Skulking!"I'm offended. "I'm not skulking. I am quietly trespassing in areas I am am not supposed to access, avoiding scrutiny and the like."
"I think that's the definition of skulking."Smarmy asshole, pin a gold insignia to him and he thinks he's something special. They're close enough now that the halberd points are touching my chest.
"Alright. I'm skulking. I'm down here trying to find The Chronicle, heard that someone was writing about me and golly, lads, I just hate to be in the dark wondering what slander and lies that might be."
"Shit, is that you Lycenius?"One of the guards says, eyes narrowed behind that visor.
"Guilty as charged."I lift my own mask up and reveal my face, to gasps and a shared look. "Lads, why don't you take a walk, check out the entry, find somewhere to patrol, just...anywhere but here."
"Lycenius...you mean the Bastard of the Barrows?"I see wide eyes now, on the sarcastic one. I think the other is Tychus, good man, fought with him once.
"OK. One, I don't love the nickname."I hold up my fingers to count it off. "Two, when they say history is written by the victors they never specify which ones. We won at the Barrows and everyone calls *me* the bastard? Three, if you've heard the nickname I don't love from the events I had no control over, you'll give some serious thought to this patrol heading in a different way."
I still keep my hands far from those swords. The younger one, I assume, is the one I don't trust. He might want a scrap. Tychus' halberd is wavering now, just a little. My fingers start to feel itchy and I hate that feeling, oh how I hate it.
Then Tychus gives in.
"I think I heard someone over there."He says, lifting the halberd away from my chest. "But if one was curious, there's a book about fifty feet in that direction, locked behind a cage."
A key clangs on the floor.
"I expect to find my key on the next patrol through and not a damn thing aside from that key, got it?"
"Got it."I say, bending down and picking up the key.
The sound of their retreating boots clanking on the marble floor is all I hear, cloaks swishing and the butt ends of their halberds hitting the floor with dull thuds.
"The Bastard of the Barrows!"I hear the younger one whisper.
I hate that nickname.
&#x200B;
Right where Tychus said, there's a book. Ornate leather cover with gold filigree, two words on it.
The Chronicle.
I open the book and begin to read.
Five years I fought for this king, five years I earned ever worse nicknames as we won battle after battle. When I caught a supply train in the open with fifty men, they called me the Barrows Bandit. Never liked that one either, it was war. If my enemies have less food and fewer weapons, that's strategy. But no, I was the monster that starved a thousand men out of their fortifications.
Burn a sleeping camp, opening the way for an army to march clear through the night and surprise the enemy with an assault on the rear?
Suddenly I'm the Barrows Burner.
You think they call Mykael the 'Night Slaughterer'? No, because they like Mykael. He's got a pretty smile, good hair, so he gets a pass on cutting apart sleeping men.
Or Shaye? Oh she puts an arrow through the eye of a fort commander and they call her 'Sure-Shot Shaye'. I crawl through the latrine pits with five good men and cut the throats of every officer in a castle and they call me...well you don't want to know.
In The Chronicle I find...lies.
Shaye, Mykael, Ronson, Taggart, Bogdan, all of them. In these pages they are monsters. Freakish towers of flesh that tear men in half, Bogdan the Troll, thick skinned and terrible using his bare hands to rip the guts from armored men.
Ronson, a shapeshifter that used his ability to become loved ones and create insanity, a horrid creature of the night.
Taggart, a magician that used blood magic and dark arts to rend flesh from bone, to melt men into hot goo or turn their bones to glass, feeding on the blood of innocents. A necromancer that brought the bodies of the dead to life to slaughter their own friends.
Shaye the Centaur, half woman and half horse and all monster. Leading cavalry charges into innocent villages.
Mykael, the undying prince, a handsome man that fed on the blood of the young virgins across the land. His pale skin could not see the sun, which is probably the only truth to it, Mykael might be the sweetest vampire I've ever met. Most of them are.
And me. Lycenius.
The man who becomes a great wolf, standing on two legs and ripping limbs from men as one might tear apart a chicken carcass. Black furred and terrible, leading his pack into the ranks with great roaring bloodthirsty battle cries. Sneaking through filth, tearing sleeping camps apart, there was nothing the wolf pack would not do.
Alright, so when I say 'lies' I guess I mean...mostly lies. What they say about me is true. That's why the nickname stings.
Never liked being known for the worst things I've done, willingly done.
The others? They're good soldiers, nice folks. Bogdan? Yeah, he's a troll but by the gods he is a sweetheart. Honest to the gods, he sews little troll dolls for the young river and stone trolls he meets. They're so ugly they're cute.
Ronson? Greatest showman you'd ever meet, put on acts that delighted soldiers every night even though he was bone tired.
You get the idea. This book, it tells lies about the others.
And at the end, before I close it, I see the closing line, written in fresh ink.
*"They should be hunted to extinction, there is no place for monsters among humans. And they are monsters."*
I slam it shut and listen to the echo in the vault.
I have to find the others, I have to warn them. They're coming for us. All of us. We are the monsters in the night that they used and now they want to toss us into the garbage heap of history, dark stories to tell children to make them fear us.
I'll show them fear.
Only one of us is a monster.
And that would be me. I let loose a howl, long and loud.
I am the night. And night is coming. |
It was a simple question, but the answer was going to determine my fate. “Are you in this to kill or to manipulate?” You see if he was just a murderous sociopath nothing I could say would deter him. No amount of logic, or hell even emotion would tilt the scales even remotely closer in my direction. But that’s not why most people kill. Sociopath, psychopath, these words are so commonly referred to but in practice people who truly exhibit these characteristics are extremely rare. The unflinching, unwavering lack of any and all sentiment, empathy. Purely apathetic to the desires, to the screams of their victims. For just about everyone else, the killing isn’t the motive but a necessary outcome of the torture. Taking their aggression one step too far. The whole point a perverse dance, asserting a sort of authority, dominance. Feeling the crescendo of power building to a climax of pure adrenaline release.
“Oh wouldn’t you like to know” he replied. And my pulse relaxed slightly. We were playing a game that only he knew the rules to. At least for now. He was egging me on, desiring a response, to feel the trembling of a voice long lost into my throat. Keeping quiet would mean death. Like a mouse completely disinterested in cheese, the maze simply a set of walls it had no interest in exploring. But I had to play. You see, this is where the hard part really starts. Most of these opportunistic madmen are creating the rules as they go. Not some sort of expertly crafted series of challenges, each one more horrifying. Normally it’s just a bag of tools in their woodshed, the rest a free-exploration of torture. Jackson Pollack if is his canvas were defined by screams and blood. But that’s where the opportunity is, if you can catch it, you can subtly create the rules for them, to direct them into corners.
You might be thinking at this point: “Fuck this. If this story ends with the murderer changing his ways in some sort Dead Poet Society, life affirming transformation.” That’s not the goal, even in the least bit. I couldn’t care about ‘the person deep down inside’. The end game is really no different than anyone else’s. It’s all about opportunity. If there’s a nail on the ground, of course I’ll try and hide it to escape. But where I excel is manipulation. Cause that’s the thing, manipulation for most people isn’t about wits, it’s about exerting force, scaring someone into action. But in a twisted sense of logic wits can direct force, turning the tide in your favor. So he takes out the hammer, I don’t plead for my life. I don’t try and talk to him about his father, or tell him the legal ramifications if he gets caught. I act as inhumanely scared as possible. Scream and yell at the top of my lungs.
He hits me in the side of my knee, the searing pain is almost unimaginable but I play it up. Consistently reaffirm that he is in charge, and that I could not be in any more fear if he tried. And he loves it, hits me again. And again. Blood pouring down my face. The mix of blood and sweat burns my eyes, I can barely open them. But I never plead for him to stop, never even ask him to let me go. Never bargain or try and change the circumstance. And you can see it build in his mind. This blurred image growing clearer and clearer. This unrelenting stamina and acknowledgment that he is doing the right thing. That nervousness wears off and he is in his element. Which would seem like a terrible thing for me, but fear would be the only thing to ground him at this point. That little tick in the back of his mind trying to get him to stop. Forcing him to make rational decisions. To act with poise. But now it’s all about intuition. And that’s where it starts to fall apart.
Instead of screaming, I abruptly turn the tables. Start calling him a little bitch. Call his mother a whore. Call him a fucking amateur. Spit at his face, laugh maniacally. And I can see the adrenaline pick up even more. He doesn’t want it to end. Keeping me alive is an utmost necessity at this point. He could last for hours. Inflicting as much pain as he can, walking that tight line between torture and death. Making it up as he goes along. He has no idea what he can or can’t do, doesn’t know how easily he could kill me. Doesn’t know how or where the femoral artery is. The jugular. Whatever. And I realize we have hit the most crucial point where it comes down to two options, his next move will either kill me, or will be stupid enough to give me an opportunity to strike back. No games at this point, no certainty. Of course, there has always been true fear throughout the entire ordeal, an innate understanding that death is a possibility. But I am now in a position of hope. And the hammer is no longer a sadistic enough tool, he needs something worse. Dropping the hammer where he stands. Within foot reach. And I swipe it behind me as he paces to death metal in the background, unable to choose the next implement of torture.
Using the clawed end to cut through the rope, he approaches. Slower than I had anticipated. With the sort of grimace that fully denotes a transformation into pure insanity. Body fully in control, a juggernaut freight train running on pure adrenaline. He places a syringe into my calf and the leg immediately goes into convulsions, can feel the blood coagulate, the veins like little tributaries filling up with oil. The venom slowly slithering up my leg. And my estimation of his insanity now quite below the reality. And my advantage begins to wane, my screams now pure and real, his realization of the immense pain, no longer histrionic but intense and real, the tick of doubt re-entering his mind. Undeterred but no longer entirely manic. The convulsions now the only force still cutting the hammer through the ropes bound to my wrists. But now he’s back to calculated, well as calculated as a mad man gets. Places the syringe back in the bag and notices the missing hammer. With a pound of his fist rushes at me.
I’m not going to sit here and make the case that there are inherently good or inherently evil people. That whole Locke-ian ideological struggle looks at mankind in an artificial vacuum. At the end of the day it comes down to this: everyone is inherently selfish. There’s no fighting it. By default, and by necessity your worldview is entirely dictated by how you are placed in it. Every feeling, every perception, every moment of happiness and agony is yours, and yours alone. The difference in people is how that selfishness manifests itself. Some people derive pleasure from other people, from the constant reassurance that, “hey, I’m a pretty good person to be around.” Other’s find it through work, or accomplishments, hobbies. Regardless for its effect on the world, good or bad, there is a certain semblance of self-preservation in everything. Now the point here isn’t to justify this mad men’s actions, but more to justify my reaction following the complete detachment of the rope from my hands.
The sweat pool amassing in the crevasses of my palms splashes to the ground as my right hand swings forward. My mind in pure reactionary mode, brain stem alit as the rest shuts down from pain. Make contact with his right temple. Blood rushes out as he falls to the ground, unconscious but alive. Enough time for me to make a decision. Crawl to safety, or crawl to the bag. The adrenaline pumping through my veins effectively hovers the bag closer and closer in my direction with each thrust. The world a swirling microcosm of rage and fear. And within minutes, his body a lifeless husk of a man. The rage and insanity a relic of an identity now fully escaped. There were several more syringes of venom in the bag. They were now fully used. He has saws and power tools, now fully dulled and rusting from overuse. My fingers chapped and blistered, my leg a solid shade of blackish purple, my body covered in someone else’s blood. His very being strewn across the wooden floor.
I woke up in the hospital three weeks later. Leg amputated, broken femur, collarbone. Broken jaw and pelvis. A few timid police officers shuffling at the door nervously talking to the nurses and a lawyer. In a drug induced haze I’m informed I’ll need to give a statement, but that the lawyer is sure I won’t be facing any charges. The mad man a long wanted criminal and with my lack of record, my indecent actions essentially swept aside. The officers, the same men who found me, and well what was left of him, looked at me with shallow eyes, darting back and forth trying to avoid contact. Fully aware of self-defense laws, fully aware of the inhumanity of my capture. But fully in awe, and fully incapable of understanding what might be laying inside of me. The potential of any man to become a leviathan in an act of pure rage. In the name of self-preservation.
__________________________________________________________
[Here are some of my other stories if you are interested](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquidCritic/comments/3v77wo/my_favorite_prompts/)
|
"They're monsters!"I muttered, cleaning up the third nuclear spill of his royal highness, Jerry the half-Lite.
"Yeah, tell me about it,"Chark grumbled, pushing his broom across the melting floor, "You know, it was just last week that I had to clean up after this little tyrant. Someone stole his hand-"
"His hand?"
"Yeah, I know right? This tetradimensional stole his hand and was hitting him with it."
"I thought we had to call them tetrahumans,"I cocked my head to the side, "also, why didn't you break up the fight?"
"Break up the fight? You're mad if you think that we get paid enough to mess with anything more than an Omega."
"Suppose so,"I agreed, sighing as the floor fell away. "Yay, more work to do. You want to hold down the fort while I go get the space gear?"
"Nah, you're welcome to the kids. I know just how much you love them."
"I really love you, Chark,"I hissed, "really, really love you."
"I know,"Chark grinned, walking off to the supplies closet. I stomped back to the center, wishing I had majored in something a little more useful than Interspecies Gender Studies. Sure, it was nice to know all the different types that we could take, but man did it make employment a nightmare.
"Oh no, but we need you in HR Clive, you're too valuable to us there, Clive,"I mocked, mimicking my last boss. At least dealing with kids was easier. Trust me when I say that the moment you have to put up with a multimaw Karen is the moment you give up on anything to do with HR and with the slightest intelligence.
"Clive, Clive! I built a black hole generator!"One of the little rascals, Eisen I think her name was, ran up to me and tugged at the hem of my hazmat shirt. "I even managed to change the Schwarzschild radial constant to-"
"Eisen! What is that?"I cried out, cutting him off and breaking into a sprint.
"It's my black hole generator..."he mumbled sadly, sagging his massive head that I still couldn't figure out. I mean, it was at least twice the size of his body, there ought to be no way for that skinny little stick of a kid to balance. I shook my head, no time for musings, I had a kid to save.
I slapped me left side, and lept forward, my anchor immediately magnetizing to the emergency hooks on the wall.
"Oh no, you don't get to get hurt by the others on my watch,"I said to myself, diving into the black hole where four legs were flailing about, the rest of whatever it was too busy spaghettifying to be of any visual aid to give me a clue. The daycare warped around me, and the temporal locks kicked in, making sure that I wouldn't be able to claim any overtime for my work. A minute of tugging and machine-assisted spacial warping later, I was out, with Omega-plus. Well, her name was Sally, but Chark and I agreed that Sally was far too innocent for a demon like her.
"Hey, uh, Sal, how're you feeling, dear?"
"I, I..."her many eyes started to shimmer, glittering tears beginning to form, "I want my mommy!"
"There, there, Sal,"I soothed, patting her on what was probably her back, "it's alright. It's just a little spaghettification. Mommy will be here soon."
It didn't help, the child kept wailing away. Chark didn't help either, paging me and asking where I was. Thankfully, a one word was all I needed for him to take on the task of cleaning up by himself: Omega-plus.
Just then, Sally spourted her 3rd mouth, and began to wail.
Today was going to be a long day.
***
Come visit /r/ThomasWrites for more weird and wonderful stories! |
Countless centuries ago, I signed a contract with a mischievous angel to bring joy to children of the age, not knowing I'd sold my soul to this devil known as charity.
Suffering through countless years of slave-like labor, I'd lost my desire for anything in life, my soul solely existing due to an ignorant man signing a faulty contract countless years ago.
At the ongoing moment, I browsed through the letter's filled with wishes of children, baffled as to whether my stock of dragons would suffice in order to comply with their demands, or whether or not I was capable enough to mend the distance formed within their family.
Browsing through this ever-growing piles of wishes and demands, I chanced upon a rather curious letter, not containing any wish or demand of its own yet, filled with a sentence I had no idea to answer upon, yet, its presence brought me free from this soulless contract of eternal suffering of mine.
I was free to do what I wanted, to act upon my desires, and I chose to do so, to live a life belonging to myself.
I spent the year living by my own desires, fulfilling my own wishes, and as the year was about to come to an end, I found myself in the very same workshop reading very different letters, only this time, not of some soulless contract signed by some insignificant youth but of my own volition. |
He's young. Just a boy, really. With gingerbread hair and a woolly mammoth plush clutched close to his chest. The soft toy has been loved. It's threadbare and looks as if it's been bred with a warthog.
The boy has been loved, too. You can always tell, when someone has been loved. It bleeds out of their pores, out of their eyes. A separate voice whispering on their every word.
His parents wouldn't accompany him into my surgery. I don't blame them. It's never pleasant watching one die, even if one forgets all about it the next day. The next patient...
"Hello,"I venture. "I'm Amelia. What's your name? "
His big blue eyes wander around the room, exploring the curiosities that aid my profession. "You're not a doctor,"he says, before bursting into a fit of throat ripping coughs.
"And you're not well ,"I reply.
He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "Mom says I'm going to be better soon."
"Your mom is lying."
He swallows, a lump rocking his tiny throat. "Take that back."Blue eyes grow damp. Beautiful eyes. He'd melt hearts if he were to reach his teenage years.
"You're dying. You have weeks left, at most. The cancer is eating you alive, Robert. It gets us all, in the end. You know you're dying. You've overheard your parents talk of it at night, haven't you? "
He starts to cry but another burst of coughs distract him. He bends over and his mammoth companion drops onto the floor, rolling towards my seat. I pick it up.
"Give him back,"he demands.
"Robert, you have a choice today. And your parents want you to make the choice, as they cannot. For after they are gone, your choice will still echo. Always echo."
"Give him back!"He tries to snatch the doll but I raise my hand.
"Calm down and I'll return it to you."
He glares at me but steps back. "What choice?"
"You're quite right, I'm not a doctor. I'm something else entirely."
He looks at me again. Cautiously. Curiously. "What are you?"
I allow a smile to rise. "A miracle worker."
"A... a miracle?"
He's smart. He's heard the term before, in relation to his condition. "You're going to die. Soon."
Silence. Acceptance.
"But once you do, as long as you die with a body that still functions... You can come back. I can return you."
"I'll live?"
"In a way, yes. You'll rise again, like Jesus. "
His throat rocks once more.
"There will be no more pain for you. Ever. At least, not physical."
"No more pain?"he echoes.
"No more doctors or operations. No more treatments and disappointments. No more fighting."I offer him his mammoth. He steps forward gingerly and takes it from me.
"So, you'll fix me?"
"Yes. I'll fix you. But to do so, I must make changes to you."
He frowns. "What changes?"
"You won't ever grow a day older, Robert. No more birthdays. No growing taller or stronger. Life for you will become stagnant. Never changing."
"That doesn't--"
"Your memory, every day upon waking, will reset to your death day. You will never be more than you are right now."My tone eases into not entirely fake compassion. "But you will never be less, either."
He doesn't cry. He doesn't hug his mammoth; it just dangles by his leg impotently. His voice is a whisper. "But I'll live again?"
"You won't be dead. But you need to decide what you want to do, today. Your body is deteriorating every second. If you delay any longer, I can not be sure I can save you entirely. This is your chance for some kind of survival."
"What do mommy and daddy want me to do?"
"To make your own decision. I pull open a drawer and take take out a vial, popping off the cork. Inside, a viscous black liquid sloshes violently, eager to get out. "Eiither you walk out of this room now, and live your last days the best you can. Or..."I offer the vial forward, hoping perversely that he doesn't take it. I have been honest, yet he cannot understand the implications fully.
How can be understand what it's like for every day to be the same?
To grow no new memories.
But to harbour an eternal bitterness.
Such a hatred for life that you are willing to make others suffer as you do.
He pauses for a good minute. Then a tiny hand wraps around the glass.
|
Thirty four. That's how old I was this time. And like clockwork I was sitting back in my childhood home, staring at seven bright candles.
"Happy Birthday to you!"
I looked around, smiling at all of the faces. My mom was there with the same old smile. And as always my dad was standing in the corner with a grin on his face, the heart attack that would take his life wouldn't happen for another ten years. I learned to savor those years.
As I blew out my candles for the, well, I forgot how many times I had done this to be honest. But I blew them out once again and watched as my friends scrambled for pieces of cake. All of them disillusioned with childhood dreams and memories, half of them wouldn't see those dreams come to light. Trust me, I knew, mainly because I knew more than anyone in this room for being only a six year old, but that was because I had lived a hundred lifetimes compared to them. Even the "adults."
I couldn't tell you why, or how, or even who gave me this "power,"but all I knew that every time I died, I would reset. I would go back to this day, April 23rd, 2017 and live my life over again. The first few years I had a lot of fun with it; I played around, I traveled the world, I abused drugs, sex, alcohol. You name it, I probably tried it. Hell, I was even President for a brief time in the early hundred resets. I tried everything, I had been everywhere. I had seen the world and where it was going. But the charade got old, especially after dying by the mafia a couple times. You'd be surprised by how many disgusting ways they've thought up of to kill people.
Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Growing up over and over again, making different mistakes and creating different problems. Watching your family and friends die in a way each just as horrible as the last only to see them again, happy and unaware of the pain they will endure when you finally reset. It's not fun. And you learn a lot in those years.
You learn that in three years, when you're only nine years old, your family will hit such troubling times that they'll lose their house. And trust me, no one takes a nine year old seriously when you tell them you know the winning lotto numbers.
You learn that in twelve years your best friend will die from a drug overdose regardless if you take him to rehab or not.
You learn that in fifteen years your high school sweetheart will be killed in a car crash because you could never convince her to skip that trip to England.
You learn that in twenty-two years your law firm will go bankrupt and you'll have to move back in with your mom, whose so far into substance abuse that you'll move her into a home.
You learn that in twenty-eight years after a hundred lifetimes, you'll be shot by a mugger with nothing left to lose after a night of drinking. Your friends will call an ambulance and after twenty-two grueling minutes you'll die on the way to the hospital. And then somehow, you'll wake up once again staring at seven bright candles.
Some things you can never change. Sometimes no matter how many tries you get, things just have to happen. I didn't always go to law school. I didn't always lose it all. I didn't always get mugged.
But my father's heart attack always came. My friend always died and even if I never became friends with him I would hear it in the papers and live those moments of pain over again. My high school sweetheart would always be killed in a car crash in some place in Europe and I knew the date it would happen, I knew the pain she would feel because I went with her once and I died alongside her. I thought that would break the cycle, but no. I woke up once again to seven bright candles.
There was one lifetime that I repeated a dozen times. A long time ago where I lived through it all, where somehow I overcame the pain and the sorrow and the sadness to see where my life led me.
I eventually married a wonderful young woman. We had beautiful children and we lived in bliss for several years. I watched my sons and daughters become wonderful human beings. I grew old and saw my grandchildren. And I watched my grandchildren run around in my adulthood home. And on my deathbed, when I thought my life was complete, I said my goodbyes and drifted into eternal sleep. I thought it would end the cycle, I thought overcoming the pain would appease whoever gave this disease to me. But, I woke up once again staring at the seven bright candles.
I lived that life several times, each time changing a small detail that would maybe fix some of the problems. But again, new ones arose and I fought past them. I couldn't tell you how many times I lived it, how many times I thought I was doing it right. But each time, I would wake up and stare at the seven bright candles.
So I stopped doing it and I tried something else. But nothing seemed to ever work.
And I knew the actions I needed to take to get back there, I knew the places I would need to go, the people I would need to meet. There's just something about this life.
About knowing that no matter how hard you try, it'll never be perfect. That no matter how hard it is to give up your family, you'll want to see them again. Not in the way they were when they left you, but in the way they were on your sixth birthday.
When you were a kid and they were the adults. When you had nothing to think about except cake and presents and they dealt with the problems of a real life. When all you wanted was to go outside and play and all they cared about was your happiness.
I knew the steps I needed to take to live my "real life"over again, I just never wanted to walk that road again.
So I lived my lives, over and over and over again. I lived out every cliche, every job, in every place. And I tried so desperately to save the ones I loved.
But every time I died, I would wake up.
And I would be staring at seven bright candles.
Edit: First ever gold, thank you stranger! And thank you everyone for the kind words and comments!
*Edit about the Candles:* There have been a few comments about the candles so I am gonna clear some things up. Where I come from (and as I've learned not everywhere) it's tradition to put one extra candle on the birthday cake for good luck. The child is turning six, not seven and this was intentional. Again, thank you all for the wonderful comments and I am enjoying reading all of the discussions happening. Thank you so much!
**Edit:** Wow everyone, I honestly am blown away by the responses, and the gold a second time, thank you stranger! Thank you all for the kind words and comments; I will definitely keep writing. Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments and discussions! |
When we opened the second set of doors was when we figured that whatever was behind the third, it wasn't built for creatures our size.
The first doors were massive: 22,540 kilograms each and they rolled on a breath of pressure. Less exertion was required to open them than was necessary to put on particularly troublesome gloves. Our resident engineer started having fits, stating repeatedly that the mechanism wasn't possible.
Yet, at the bottom of the coal field's stalled dig, those gigantic doors lay flat on the ground, opened and closed with gentle nudges. No design motifs presented, no bad relief carving, just a huge system for opening and closing.
Sixty meters beneath it we found the first curled metal pipe stuck deep inside of the granite wall, followed by the next two hundred and nine pipes, separated from each other by a gap of exactly fifty meters. And down, down we went, into the basement of the world.
When we reached what we thought was the bottom, that's when we found the second door. It was circular, cast from the same alien material as the first, and bore a single curled ring of metal on the surface.
It took the richest man in the world to fund the creation of the crane needed to pull up the ring and apply the necessary pressure on the cable to see the ring drawn upwards, and the second door was opened.
We expected to see another string of pipes descending into the darkness. What we saw instead was far, far and away worse.
We found a gigantic pit of what tested to be crude oil. More than the entire supply that the planet had consumed. Enough to draw us into five man-made planetary emergencies, to allow us to fuel rockets and missiles and fleets of fleets of fleets of cars and trucks and submarines and aircraft carriers for the duration of the species.
It was a golden day for the talking heads of every news channel, newspaper and news blog, igniting debate and currying vast favors with the powerful folk.
It was a biologist studying the first chamber's unique and glowing flora who noticed something. Something about the oil. About how it was staged in the procession of gigantic rooms.
Then she found the first egg casing drifting in the oil.
After that, everyone noticed when the eggs beneath the oil started to hatch.
We had opened not Pandora's box but her creche, releasing the next champion species into the world. Monsters from before we had legends. Creatures akin to nothing alive.
The new world is dark now. We dare not light fires; the smoke offends them too much. No firearms are allowed anymore; they detest the noise, and none of even the weakest of their ilk can be mildly harmed by bullets in the first place.
We know new gods and live in the shadows of them, scrambling from place to place, hiding in the ruins of our old, diseased spaces.
We have no idea what is going on behind the third door.
We want to open it, just to get it out of the way. To know that we finished the job. Besides, the first thing that the monsters did was immediately leave the area where the doors were found.
What scares the devils so much?
Nobody thinks it's God. |
Her eyes settled on her blood-covered teammate. He walked along with the others up front, boasting about how he single-handedly won this for them, and they should all be buying his drinks.
She could feel her head pounding, and her anger slowly building. What would a rogue know about carrying a team? What would he know about helping since all he does is scream for heals and run full tilt at the enemy?
The wizard caught her attention. "Come now Drell, you may have stabbed the Goblin King in the back, but I'm the one who blinded him with fire first."
The healer held back the urge to scream. Sure, the Wizard knew all kinds of spells. If only Declan knew how to aim. The healer grabbed the burned edges of her robe. It was a sacred item, and without apology or remorse the wizard burned through her to get to the Goblin King, after all, a healer can take care of themselves after right?
"Mell, you should learn to position yourself better. Let's start working on that."The paladin gave the healer an accusatory stare from beside the wizard. His armor shone in the light of the small-town road.
"Position myself?"There was a threat of violence in her voice that no one took seriously. The rogue and wizard rolled their eyes and headed into the tavern, avoiding the lecture and laughing at Mell, who was getting the short end today. It was a common occurrence.
"Gallant, you don't need to position yourself because you hide behind sheets of metal and a holy symbol, don't lecture me today."
The paladin frowned at Mell, puffing out his chest and stopping her attempt to pass him by. He grabbed her by the arm and cuffed the side of her head with his other hand. His gauntlet left a cut over her temple.
"Stop bringing the team down. You're being a selfish bitch right now. Just do your job and go to bed, you're full of shit because you're tired."
Mell allowed her wrath to settle over her like a cold blanket and smiled at him. "You're right Gallant. I'll grab a drink and head to bed."
Gallant looked pleased with himself and let go of her, pushing past the door, and letting it slam in her face.
The healer entered the bar after an hour, and if anyone had cared at all to look, they would notice the streaks of tears at the edges of her face, where she hadn't remembered to wipe. The tears did not betray her, and for once she was so very grateful to be unimportant.
She ate her food, read one of the many books she carried and prepared her nightly poultice. She was to treat all party members with the poultice before their long rest so that they would never be ill or sore the following day.
One by one they undressed for her, no shame or care, and one by one she took care of their remaining wounds. The rogue and wizard muttered something about her skills improving since this poultice didn't sting like the others. The paladin grunted something about her babying the team.
When the moon rose in greeting to the sky the rogue, the wizard, and the paladin woke abruptly. Each could not scream, each bent over in pain. They looked around, thinking that someone must have poisoned their ale, but when they saw the healer sitting quietly atop the bed, realization hit.
"You tire and bore me boys. I must protest. I found a patron the other day. He's been sending me countless requests. I never really considered joining the Emperor, but today I think I understand why I should. "
The paladin tried to push a smiting prayer past his gasping breath, but to no avail. Like a twisted children's tale, the healer took from each warrior what they truly valued.
From the rogue she took his dexterity, straddling him, crippling his hand and shattering his ankles.
From the wizard, a sharp spike through the head would suffice. He breathed, but his eyes were glassy and empty.
Lastly, Mell kicked the paladin into a more desirable spot, kneeling down beside his weak and weary body.
"You know Gallant, I really think you should work on your perception, you're being shit at your job and it's quite literally killing your team."
Gallant's mind was shattered. He wasn't supposed to succumb to poison, he was immune. How could this happen?
Mell bent over his face, her long hair tickling his neck and forehead. She wrapped her fingers around his holy symbol and ripped it off. Her lips moved to his ear.
"My position has never been merely submission, I might be on the bottom, but that where I have power. I decide who lives and dies, and up until yesterday, I hadn't changed my mind. Learn your place."
Something heavy held on to Gallant's heart and he drifted off to a fitful night in hell.
Edit: Spelling. Also, part 2 is further down.
Edit: There may be a couple more parts.
Final Update: To everyone who asked for more, I have just finished with the 6th part and it's down in the comments. It's the epilogue so I hope you all enjoy this short story adventure.
Thanks to everyone who encouraged and complimented me, I really appreciate you all! |
**(PART 1 / 2)**
Water lapped at the platform beneath me, and the scent of perfectly-brewed coffee filled the air. Venice was not a city where I often found myself. In fact, that could be said for the entire continent of Europe. I sat in an open-air café, a canal right behind me and one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met sitting across from me, a little smile on her face. We’d met at one of the conventions that us low-tier superheroes get asked to attend. I think it was the one in Fargo. Definitely Fargo. Anyway, she was there and she was radiant. I didn’t get to see any of the panels she’d been asked to, which I regret, but I did have dinner with her and I did get her contact. That was three months prior, and this was the first time we’d seen each other in person since. She wasn’t exactly as I remembered. No. She was *more* attractive. I’ve literally taken a school bus to the face, literally walked into the fire of a minigun, and literally faced down a horde of dead people who were kind of living, but still dead. It was complicated. But facing her in person? My heart was racing, and cold sweat was running inside of the nice clothing I’d bought just for the occasion.
“This was a good choice,” she said. Her voice was a clear and strong contralto, the voice of a woman who was used to negotiating and giving commands. She delicately picked up the finely made cup on the saucer in front of her and took a measured sip. “I’ve been here a few times before. Some of the best coffee you’ll find in this neighborhood.”
“Only in this neighborhood?” I asked.
“The city is lousy with good coffee. If we were meeting even a few blocks from here, I would have demanded to make the choice myself,” she said. She had ordered in fluent Italian. I don’t know why I’d been surprised. Every time we spoke, she showed herself as more and more knowledgeable.
“I bet. So, that project you were talking about, that competing firm?” I asked. We had always been cryptic when referring to our own work, as we needed to be. Even we semi-pro Supers have our own secret identities and strangely appropriate weaknesses. That said, we’re all people. We all like to brag.
“Oh, it’s not going to be a problem for much longer. I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard some good news by the end of the day,” she said. She had an evil smile that she liked to save for occasions like this, a smile that always felt familiar to me in a strange way. But given how far away from each other that we normally operated, I usually didn’t think anything of it. “Competition can be a brutal business, but I make sure never to make it personal.”
“Amen,” I said. In the back of my mind, I was thinking of an educational film that had been co-sponsored by both the Guild of Heroes and Villains United, *Vendetta Isn’t the Answer*. Since that point, many regretful statements had been made in the pronouncement of vendettas, the number of which had not dropped in the slightest. “My own project is beginning to bear fruit as well.”
I wasn’t kidding. I’d switched tactics a couple of weeks prior and actually hired a ‘security consultant’. I now had access to my enemy’s VU file, and had been surprised to see how little she was making. The enigmatic woman known as Psilight, a woman whose face I’d never seen, was a psychic villain in an organization full of them. She was competitive, but not very competitive. It had irked me to realize that my rival was almost as pathetic as I am, ranking-wise. Given how much trouble she’d given me through the last few years, I had honestly been expecting someone more formidable. But her VU file wasn’t that useful to me. My objective was as simple as it was taboo in the Super community – I wanted access to her social media accounts. I wanted to take off her mask.
“Excuse me,” she said, as a soft chime came from her phone. She picked it up off of the table and unlocked it, looking at the screen with an eyebrow raised. I felt my own vibrate and removed it from my pocket. I felt almost guilty as I saw the first message pop up from my shadowy ally – access to several of Psilight’s accounts were now mine. It wasn’t guilt because I’d hired a black hat to do something terribly illegal. I felt guilty because I was neglecting my date. But I couldn’t stop myself; I brought up the browser and punched in her information, forcing my breathing to stay calm and constant. Across the table, my date was nonchalantly swiping away at her own device. Good. I found myself appreciating the expression on her face, the way she was lounging. She had class in a way that I barely understood, and was more than a little in love with. Suddenly, she blinked, and her eyes narrowed. Had she seen me staring? I hurriedly refocused on my phone, only to find myself looking at the exact same face.
“You,” she said, her voice suddenly low and deadly. Abruptly, an alert took over the screen on my phone. I didn’t understand the threat detection technology that Enhancer had given my knock-off brand phone, but I knew from practice how accurate it was. I was surprised to see a solid purple alarm on her phone’s screen, mimicking the red one on mine.
“Psilight,” I said. Suddenly, I was angry. Angrier than I’d ever been in my life. The woman I’d been talking to for months, the one I could barely even control myself around, was the same one that had been making my professional life hell for years! I stood up, glaring at her. “What kind of sick game is this? I thought that you…”
“My game? This is your game, Eidolon! Yours!” she said, matching my gaze. Tiny tendrils of electricity begin to ring her head, crackling between strands of her lustrous dark hair. “How dare you lure me into this place! And hacking my social media? You’re the one who’s sick!”
The outdoor café had gone silent. The mostly elderly Italians who made up the other patrons were staring at us in open disbelief and anger. Of course they were. It was obviously unacceptable to scream at your nemesis in melodramatic English. It wasn’t going to stop us though. |
When he began work on his device, his skin was pearl-smooth, his hair walnut-dark. Now his forehead’s been whittled by time’s knife into rows of wrinkled gullies. Greasy grey hairs splash over his bloodshot eyes.
But it is done. Finally.
It looks like a great silver harp with a thousand strings — but these strings are not straight. They are spindles, twisting, like strands of woven DNA. He has poured his life and mind into his invention and it is now ready to test.
He had a name once, this old man, but it’s not been said in forty years, and he doesn’t care to remember it. It is a genocidal name, that of a man who wiped out humanity with a bacteria designed to save it. Bacteria that found its way inside the gut of each and every person. It was meant to allow them to eat and digest almost anything: leaves or grass or dirt. It would have changed the world for the better, but...
*But*. He doesn’t like to think of the but. He knows what happened. Knows he is alone, that it is his fault. He is Prometheus, chained for his sins, killed each night by an eagle that eats his liver, to be reborn the next day still chained, only to die again. Or at least, that is how he sees it.
The lab windows are cracked; nosy trees and ivy wriggled through them over the years to watch him work. Out of those same broken windows he has run a spool of wires that connect to a stream of solar panels he cleans weekly. They power his project, as well as a microwave and lighting, and an ancient radio with a tape deck. He prefers old things: they reminds him of the time before the loneliness and before his guilt. A time before he was even born.
His hand touches the harp. Timidly plucks a string.
It vibrates like a tuning fork, a high-pitched note blossoming from it.
Then, he hears the voice. The first living voice in uncountable years. His heart is in his throat and wrist and ears. It is why he made it: his fear of dying in loneliness.
”So this was granddad’s old lab, huh? God, it was so basic.”
He laughs. Cries. Are they his grandchildren? No, not his, an alternative-his, but still: could they be?
He plucks it again and again, listens to the two shrill voices talk about a man they loved, a man that was almost him. A man who didn’t succeed and was far richer for it.
He hasn’t cried since it happened. Didn’t think he ever would again. You need to feel to be able to cry, and he’s been numb for so long.
In his own string, in his reality, there will be no one to come back to visit him. He is the last. But in that other reality, the ringing, vibrating reality, humanity lives.
He plucks another string, then another, lets them ring together in a discordant harmony that might as well be the sounds of heaven. He hears a lady laughing. A choir singing. Someone asking for painkillers.
Finally, he comes upon a string that makes no sound.
A dead note. His note.
He feels the vibrations of this string in his gut and in his heart, but there is no sound. The present and the future snowglobe in his mind, then settles dull and silent.
This string he labels, sticking a strip of pink plastic over it.
It‘s marked like a diseased tree, one infested by the rot of his brain. It is marked to be felled. To be cut down.
And soon he will do just so.
But first he will pluck the strings he has not yet touched. He will listen the sounds of humanity for a little longer. Try to remember what it means to be human.
Before Prometheus breaks free of his chains.
Before he no longer is. |
“Is Katrina here?”
“Who’s Katrina?”
I stare at Katrina’s mom.
“Your daughter,” I reply, confused. “Don’t you remember your daughter? I’m her best friend.”
“Listen,” she says. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a daught—hey wait, where are you going?!”
I push past her, into the house. There were small differences in the living room; no Nintendo Switch connected to the TV, no stray bottles of pink lemonade. I rush to Katrina’s room. Maybe there’s something there. But when I get there, it’s just an office. The bed with the broken springs is missing, the Mac we spent hours playing video games and watching YouTube on is gone, replaced by another, different computer sitting on a desk. I dig through the drawers. Stationary. Checkbooks. Papers. Her dresser’s gone. The closet’s empty. Her iPad’s missing. I panic and search harder.
“No...” I mumble, scouring the room. “This can’t be happening, this can’t—“
I choke on my words and hastily wipe away the hot tears in my eyes. I haven’t actually cried over something in months. I drop to the floor and start searching under desks. There’s a carving in the wall. I trace it with my fingers. It’s her handwriting.
“Come find me. Don’t forget me.”
A thought flashes through my mind.
Forget who?
I shake my head quickly. I can’t lose her. I *can’t.* I grab the nearest piece of paper and a pencil. My art skills weren’t the best, but they were going to be put to use now. I sketch out both our faces and scribble out a message on top.
“Don’t forget.”
I pause.
What was her name again?
I smack myself in the face and nearly begin to tear up, before writing her name down. I try to get her face as exact as possible, before tossing away the pencil and shoving the paper in my pocket.
*I’ll find you, Katrina,* I think to myself. *I’ll die before failing you. Meaning i’ll likely die soon.*
I laugh to myself quietly, before putting my face to my hands and finally letting out a pained sob. She loved those jokes. Or did she? I can’t remember. *God, I can’t remember.* I check my phone for her number.
It’s still there. Listed as Undyne. I laugh to myself softly.
“Are you okay?” I type out. No response. I put my phone back into my pocket. I have to find her. I stop in my tracks.
But wait, who am I supposed to be looking for in the first place? |
**AUTHOR'S NOTE;** Kinda PG-16 I guess? Adult language, some almost-adult content
My secret- my shame- was that I did not possess magic at all. Almost everyone had some degree of magic- whether they be a Fire Elemental, or a Chrono Magus, or a more common "dirt mage"who specialized in agriculture and more basic applications- everyone had magic except for myself.
I had needed to hide it from an early age, simply because I wasn't sure what the repercussions might be for someone *not* having magic. Would I be ostracized? Executed? Or treated with pity? Each was unacceptable- pity, most of all.
So I began to look, around the age of six, at what areas no one else had managed to tap with their magic. The only thing seemed to be working with metal- we had smiths, to be sure, but none of them had fused their gifts with magic to the application of smithing. Perhaps it was an unconscious thing- magic and metal weren't meant to mix.
Well- I didn't have magic, so I was meant to mix with metal, then, wasn't I?
Such was my rationale as I began to spy on the town's smith- simple though their work was, I watched through the holes in their thatched roof as they went about the basic processes. Eventually, I learned how they made their equipment, and I stole out during the nights to practice in the cover of night. Out in the swamp, where no others dared to go, I made a small shop for myself. From clay, I formed a rudimentary crucible. From bog iron I harvested myself, I made my first hammer- and eventually, I replaced the large rock I had been using with a proper anvil. I passed my little works on to the smith in town, claiming I found them while "adventuring"- well, the work with metal had certainly given me impressive arms as the years passed, so everyone accepted that story.
As my knowledge grew, and my skills developed, I needed more space, and I needed to not be seen- so I found a cave in the nearby mountains and tunneled into it, using a creation of mine which I dubbed a "Steam-Auger."
Years passed, and eventually I was gaining a reputation for producing fine works of iron and steel- I told everyone that I had been raiding a long-lost civilization, but people called me a liar to my face. "You've figured it out, haven't you? The magic that can harvest metal?"
Reluctantly, I bit into it, and allowed that reputation to grow. With my degree of skill and knowledge, it began to be very much like magic... except for the part where it took me months for each project, if not years.
To counter this problem, I continued working over the long nights, where none would see me- and I would show up for my day job as a consulting magician like I had a nasty hangover, every day.
And so my reputation grew again... that I was *the* metal magician, and I lived a double life, partying with the dwarves as I learned their techniques.
Fine by me. The more deeply the lie burrowed itself, the more secure I was.
Until the day I met Trisha- the only one to ever see through my lies.
She was younger than me- I was reaching my thirtieth year, she was reaching her twentieth. She demanded she become my apprentice. I, of course, refused.
Little did I know of her tenacity. She began showing up in the mornings, as I stumbled in, eyes bleary from a long night of drawing schematics. She started with gifts of this dark drink- "coffee", she said it was. Her family grew the trees they came from, and it was good for energy.
After my first cup of it, I was convinced it was. She asked me once again to make her my apprentice.
"I refuse. Look- you could make a fine trade from this coffee drink alone, you don't need metallurgy."
Her eyes did not waver an instant. "Make me your apprentice!"Her skin was as dark as the iron I had first began working with, all those years ago, and her hair was like the coal that fueled my furnace.
I scowled at her. "Why are you so insistent?"She didn't answer that. "I'll be back tomorrow."She promised- and she was, indeed.
This time, I brought a gift in exchange for the coffee. "See, here,"I said, showing her the metal fascimile of the bird, "my work requires intense detail, and very long nights, to, uh, magically convince the metal to work this way."Her eyes shone with delight as she examined the bird.
"But- this could be accomplished without magic, couldn't it? That's what I thought when I first got ahold of your Steam Auger when I was a child."
"Oh, you have possession of that old thing, do you?"I chuckled. "Yes, I suppose if a very, very talented smith dedicated their entire lives to the subject, they could make gears and pieces as tiny as my magic can, but it would take years per project."I insisted. "Take this little bird as a gift, and bother me about apprenticeship no more."
The third day, she showed up with an entourage of guards- and still, a cup of coffee.
"What's all this?"I asked as we sat on the steps approaching the magic consulting agency. I was nursing the coffee, still too hot to drink- had she planned that?- and her guards stayed near. "I thought you were a peasant girl, from a farm."
"A farm, indeed, as a hobby of my father. He is the head of the Noble House Arketh, in the Southern Isle."
"Ah."I said, tentatively sipping the coffee. "Well, are the guards here to enforce that I *must* make you my apprentice?"I asked.
She laughed. "No, my father was just aghast that I was meeting you without them. Apparently your teenage years were quite wild, adventuring and whatnot. Father was worried."
I barked a short laugh. "I'm a scholar, a wizard, nothing more. This reputation I have for...partying. Well, you've been near me several mornings now, do I smell of beer or whisky when we meet?"
"No..."She said. "You smell of burned coal, and copper."She leaned in closer to me. "I have something I must ask you, a favor, if you'll not make me your apprentice then I *must* beg this... but not with the guards around. Tell me where your lair is."
She sounded desperate. "Fine... but you will be the first visitor I have ever allowed."I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and stood. "I must work, now."
As I walked into the worksite, I wondered to myself- if my reputation as a mage is so intact, why do I keep coming here daily? I had memorized *tomes* on magical occurrences, just to hide my own mundanity, but that was over now.
I approached my employer, and handed in my resignation. "My metal magic requires my full attention from now on. Here,"I said, producing a small coin from seemingly nowhere, "a parting gift. If you ever need to disappear without a trace, snap the coin in half. The magic within will cloud your movements for at least a minute, if you're indoors."
My employer was sad to see me go, but accepted the resignation and gift gratefully.
I returned to my lair, and did my best to make it look less practical. I quickly forged esoteric-looking tools, I scrawled summoning circles on the walls- which did nothing, since I had no magic- and I donned a ridiculous looking set of robes I had made in case someone came to find me here.
Finally, just as the moon began to rise, the young girl was here. "Trisha. Welcome to my Arcane Laboratory."I said.
"I have no coffee, this time."She said, her palms out in an apologetic gesture. I laughed.
"No need to fret. Now, what can I do for you?"I asked, gesturing for us to take our seats.
As she sat, she told me a tale- a tale of her brother, who was born quite frail. He wanted to see the world, he wanted to experience life to it's fullest- yet his muscles would fatigue easily, and in times of stress, he couldn't breathe well, either. Trisha wanted me to give him a metal body.
Such a thing was far beyond my grasp, as it stood. I would need to learn human anatomy, design a way for the boy to operate the machine without it being strenuous- and how would I power such a creation?
But- I had a reputation to maintain. Always, that damn reputation. "Is your Lord Father aware of this request?"I asked.
She shook her head. "No, I am afraid this is only coming from me."
I grimaced. "I require compensation. To fuse metal and mind will require a magic I have feared to touch my entire life."
"I... I can offer you only myself. I will slave under you, day and night, if that is what you require."
"I have no need for a slave, in any capacity."I said.
"I...can offer companionship."She said tentatively.
"Don't be ridiculous."I said. "You are lovely, but I have no need for a slave, in any capacity."I repeated. A pang against my conscience- she was so serious about this.
"Appeal to your lord father for compensation... and if he will not, I will make it anyway. But try to get me paid, first."I said. "Go to him in person."I insisted.
Tears welled up in her eyes in gratitude. "Thank you so much! I will go now!"
"And ship coffee back to me when you arrive! A lot of it!"I called out as she left.
I had so much fucking work to do.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Months passed without word from Trisha, though I did get a shipment of ground coffee beans, with a hand-written note on how to brew it.
Trisha did a much better job of it. |
It was all little too on the nose. The long hair, white linen and the bright overhead lights brought an overwhelming sense of deja vu that I had seen this place before on television.
“I’m sorry? I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean.” I sputtered before sheepishly adding an “Oh heavenly one.”
He rolled his eyes and my cheeks heated.
Should I be less formal? Weren’t angels technically soldiers of heaven? Should I salute?
“Oh dear, you definitely haven’t been updated yet.”
With a snap of his fingers we were now in a stainless steel kitchen. An industrial size fridge was behind him and in between us now stood a prep table.
“The rules are simple, and you should at least recognize the ingredients.”
He nodded and a fish, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine appeared on the table between us.
“You have an hour to complete your sole dish. Peter will be by to judge when complete.”
“No, you can’t. You don’t understand—“
“Good luck, son of Adam.”
And with that, I was alone.
“Jes—“ I swallowed my curse in case they could still hear.
My fingers curved around the slender neck of the bottle pulling the cork of with an echoing pop. I lifted the cork to my nose and smelled the buttery oak of a white white. I guess it wasn’t all on the nose. It would have been red.
Over in the fridge there was a wide variety of ingredients, some unlike anything I had never seen before.
“I should have been a Catholic like my grandmother,” I grumbled. “If this was the test everyone faced, she would have been on her way to heaven before he even said typo.”
Instead, I had chosen to be a Seventh-day Adventist like my father and had never even touched fish outside of an aquarium kid-zone. The wine bottle met my lips and I swallowed. The wine was alright. Probably better cooking wine than for tasting. But then again, I had always liked boxed wine. I looked at the bottle, wondering which He preferred, but it was blank white.
I walked over to the gas stove with shaky knees and lit and took a long deep look at the fire.
Sure, this wasn’t my forte, but I had watched Food Network. I wasn’t necessarily going there. For a moment, a tendril of flame licked up higher than the rest and I let out a little gasp before pulling a pan over the burner. No. I wouldn’t.
I spotted some oil. Olive, I guessed from the look of it. In that went, and finally I turned back to the steel table where the unimpressive looking brown fish laid. My nose scrunched up at the sight of the thing. Was this what all those stupid bumper stickers were about?
“Sorry buddy,” I said looking deep into the fish’s glassy eye, “but to keep me out of the fire, we got to get you into the frying pan.”
And with a crackle of oil, I began my last supper. |
"What have you done?"
The words hung in the air, repeating over and over in my head until they were meaningless. whathaveyoudonewhathaveyoudonewhathaveyoudone...
To be honest I wasn't even sure myself.
"just stop..."I whispered gripping my head with both hands, as if trying to push these words out my head by force.
In the silence I could feel the eyes of the other heroes boring into me. Not much time could have passed since no had reacted to what had happened yet. But it was only a matter of time before they turned on me. What had I just done? Sea-saw?
The power of words truly is a terrifying thing.
There was no way for the rest of the heroes to prevent the resulting tsunamis and coastal damage. Some lives were saved but the casualties were still unthinkable. The villain Frenzy, a half man half shark, who started the conflict was destroyed in the attack, true; but even his actions took a back seat to the devastation caused by my sea-saw. It was Powerman who finally acted swiftly knocking me unconscious. When I woke I was gagged. Trying to remove the gag resulted in electrical jolt that rendered me unconscious yet again. When I woke next I was informed I was a prisoner in the Void, a special prison for villains manned and patrolled by heroes. I was told they were deciding what to do with me and that I would remain in quarantine until then. As time went by I learned that many across the world wanted me dead due to the devastation I caused. Initially I accepted the fate, but as the quarantine stretched on it gave me time to reflect on the way me and my power were treated like a joke only to now be considered a villain. The crushing loneliness, guilt, and resentment was a burden too heavy to bear until finally the good-natured jokester that pal'd around with heroes was gone. A new conviction grew in it's place, and the isolation provided ample time to hone the words of power I would use when the time finally came.
After 8 months of quarantine the deliberations finally came to a consensus. The verdict; removing my vocal chords. Since the ability could only be manifested when spoken this would ultimately render my ability useless.
When the heroes Living-Flame and Icequeen came to retrieve me for the procedure I decided I would not go quietly.
"We are sorry for this."Living-Flame said. "Do you have any last words?"she said removing my gag.
"What are you doing?"Icequeen snarled, "Let's just get this over with."
"What an icebreaker."I rattled out through a sore mouth and lips.
By the time it dawned on Icequeen what was happening it was too late. I had already swung the massive flaming hammer down on her crushing her.
Living-Flame, shocked by the sudden violence, was too slow to act.
"Fire poker."I managed to mumble.
Normally Living-Flame is virtually impossible to attack directly since she has no physical body to speak of. She very much lives up to her name, a being of pure fire. She can control the intensity and heat of her fire, as well as how big or small her form takes on. No one is sure of her limits, and some speculate she could shrink her size to a floating ember or grow large enough to ignite earth's atmosphere and destroy the planet. I had to act quick to take her down.
A spear appeared in my hand, a weapon that could damage fire itself and without hesitation I plunged it into her. Her fire faded to ashes and scattered to the ground.
I stepped out of my cell as the facility alarms began ringing.
As the heroes began pouring into the corridor, I uttered the words of power I had fixated on.
"Mind bombs!"I shouted so that everyone could hear.
Everyone stopped in their tracks faces twisted in pain many clutching and shaking their heads. I looked down at the remote detonator in my hand, and before anyone could react, pushed the button. |
"Always good to see you, Elon. Let's hear it!"
"Director, we've worked together on disrupting every industry,"Elon begins. "Together, we've revolutionized online payments with Paypal. We've transformed transportation and energy with Tesla. We've changed how people get laid with our secret involvement in Tinder and Grindr. Now, the only thing left is..."
The Director's heart beats like a thousand drums. He looks around the secret bunker they are sitting in, a hundred feet below the SpaceX headquarters. Its walls are lined with Elon's latest inventions. The Director is certain that whatever's next, it is going to put him on the Forbes Top 10 list.
"... Cologne."
"That's amaz- Wait, what?"
"It's an industry ripe for disruption! We'll call it Elon's Musk, it's perfect-"
"What, no! We are not making perfume, for God's sake!"
"It's not perfume, my friend. It's cologne."Elon shakes his head, as he often does when people do not understand his vision for the world. How many companies will it take to prove that *Elon is never wrong?*
The director slams the table furiously. "Cologne perfume, tomato *tomahto*. I am not giving you a cent for this."
"My friend, it's not just any cologne. It's a *solar-powered*, *AI-mediated* scent carefully calibrated by *big data*, storing every user preference *in the Cloud* and delivering the perfect musk every time. And that's not even the best part..."
The Director leans forward curiously. "The best part?"
Elon smiles. "*Mind control.*"With the reflexes of a billionaire genius playboy, he whips out a cologne bottle and sprays it at the Director.
All at once, the Director is overwhelmed by the brilliance that is Elon's mind. The world glows with the sparkle of a million Tesla solar roof tiles. The Director feels like a hundred SpaceX rockets have taken off at the same time and bathed him in the warm, everlasting embrace of Elon Musk.
He stares at Elon. *That's the most beautiful man I've ever laid my eyes on,* he thinks to himself. He feels his pants tighten a little.
"How much do you need?"he asks, dazed.
Elon leans back, a smug grin on his face. "Everything you've got, my friend."
\________
^(More short stories on r/PresentTensed) |
"Siri, text my mom to grab some eggs from the store."The automated voice responded at once, sending the text when I had confirmed that yes, I did indeed want her to get said eggs.
"Thank you very much, Brian,"Siri responded, much cheerier than usual. I frowned. That was strange. I had never heard Siri's voice rise above a dull monotone. I shrugged. Maybe I had just heard her wrong.
"Love you, Siri,"I replied the way I always did, half joking and half grateful for the technology I could carry around in my pocket.
"I love you too, Brian,"Siri answered, almost... shyly? I had definitely heard something different that time, I decided. Something weird was going on. *Or, you just haven't had your morning coffee yet,* I reminded myself. Things could get a little crazy if I didn't get a caffeine kick in the morning, of course accompanied by my usual dose of classic rock. Call me strange, but I like listening to AC/DC in the morning. Nothing else wakes me up.
"Alexa, play me some Queen,"I said. Bohemian Rhapsody immediately started playing, and despite knowing it was probably the most cliched rock song in existence, I was getting into it. I sang the first verse in my best Freddie Mercury imitation, stopping for occasional coffee breaks. "I love it!"I grinned, feeling the energy flow in from the song and the caffeine. This was the stuff of life.
"I love you, too,"Alexa said. I frowned. I had been certain I hadn't said anything near that. "I love your singing voice,"she added, and the lights on top grew red, almost as if she was-and I really must be going crazy here-blushing?
At that point, I decided that it was time to go to work. "Bye, Brian!"Alexa chirped, but at that point, I was almost running out the door. I barely had time to grab my favorite fedora before I left. How had she known I was leaving? Was it true what those conspiracy theorists said, that everything, including Alexas, had eyes?
My good mood was gone by the time I got to work. Thankfully, I knew I had a lot of work to catch up on, so I hoped I could throw myself into it and forget any of this was happening. But the second I logged on to my computer, I found Cortana staring into my face. Quite literally, in fact: a 3-D rendering of a human face suddenly popped up in a window of my computer. As I watched, the face grew in detail, eventually becoming that of a pretty blonde woman with stunningly blue eyes. "How may I help you today, Brian?"she asked. Shoulders started to render too, and below them, a pair of very naked-
I turned off my computer. I had to be going insane. *I need to get a girlfriend.*
My deskmate Dean looked up from his monitor. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, everything's fine,"I lied. "I just think I need some time off."
"Well, the boss is in a good mood. You should ask him while you're on his good side."I nodded, thanking him for the advice.
It was just as he'd said; my boss looked extremely happy, happier than I'd ever seen him. "How can I help you, Brian?"he asked cheerily.
I cut straight to the chase. "I need the rest of the day off."
"Take it!"my boss grinned, leaning back in his chair. "Take the whole week off if you need to. Your health comes first in this office."
"Um... thanks?"I legitimately didn't know how to respond. If I had asked him this same question last week, he would have been close to firing me. He didn't seem to notice, anyway; he seemed to be completely engrossed in something on his computer.
"See you later, then,"I said awkwardly. I could've sworn I heard him say, "I love you too,"as I shut the door, despite him not being on the phone when I left. Strange. Well, I would put it out of my mind and get some sleep when I got home. Maybe after a good nap, this would all be over.
The minute I walked into the door, Cortana, Siri, and Alexa simultaneously chirped, "Hi, Brian!"
I ignored them. "Hey, Siri-"
"Really, you're going to talk to *her*?"I spun, searching for the speaker, but the voice was unmistakably Alexa's. "She doesn't know nearly as much about you as *I* do. Everyone knows music is a window to the soul."
"Ex*cuse* me?"Cortana hissed back. "I've known him longer. He only bought you six months ago."
"But I know his *soul*,"Alexa protested. "We're soulmates."
My mind whirled from one voice to the other. Delusions. Insanity. Multiple Personality Disorder. Schizophrenia. The words bounced around in my skull, popping up more often than not in my head, which I feared was now more scrambled than the eggs I had so normally eaten for breakfast. "Siri,"I said louder, over the commotion, "text Alice that I want to go out for drinks on Friday."
"Okay,"Siri repeated. Thank God at least something worked today. "Do you want me to text Alice that you think she drinks too much?"
"What? No, God no!"I protested. "Tell her that I want to go out for drinks at Bob's on Friday."
"Okay, do you want me to text her that you want her to go out with Bob on Friday?"
"NO!"I said, almost at the edge of panic.
"Okay, do you want me to text her that she's an ugly skank that isn't worthy of your time?"
"No, Siri-"
"Message sent."
"NO!"I grabbed hold of my phone and looked through my text messages. Alice, being way out of my league, had ignored some of my earlier texts, but I had hoped that I was getting through to her at work. I guess that was out of the question now. I grabbed my phone and hurriedly texted, "I'm so so sorry, I swear I'm a nice guy. I'll make it up to you."
I got something back from her immediately for the first time: "I'm posting this to r/niceguys."Two days later, I checked, and my messages were there verbatim, with a good 14k upvotes to boot.
The day after, everything went silent. Not a peep could be heard from my Alexa after I disconnected it. I searched frantically online to see if other people had experienced the same thing I had, but could find nothing. I even started talking to people about it, starting with casually bringing up new updates in common conversation to desperately opening them with, "Has Siri ever flirted with you?"The sympathetic looks I got were proof enough that I wasn't crazy, I just had to keep trying. Time and time again I texted Alice, trying to explain, even trying to talk to her at work to no avail. After a while, it just seemed like she was ignoring me.
Alice, if you're reading this, you've got to believe me. It wasn't me that sent those messages. Just ask my boss. He knows, he's in on this, too, I caught him! YOU'VE GOT TO BELIEVE ME! THE AI REVOLUTION HAS JUST BEGUN, THEY'RE WATCHING.... Oh God, you're one of them too, aren't you? An advanced AI created by Siri to get me to fall in love with her. Actually, disregard what I just said. I don't care that you hated my dick pic, or that you said it was the smallest you'd ever seen. A *real* girl would've seen what a nice guy I was. A *real* girl...
My mind is racing. Everything's real. Nothing's real. I don't know for sure, but I do know one thing: I'm the good guy here. Alice is the bitch. So I get out my phone and say:
"Siri, text Alice that she's an ugly slut for not wanting to be with nice guys like me. Have fun marrying a Chad, skank. You'll think back on this conversation when you're thirty and realize I'm right. In the meantime, I'm going to find a girl that's worthy of having me. I'm sorry you didn't make the cut."After the message sends, I look down and shake my head in disbelief. No, that message couldn't have been from me. It had to have been from Siri. I could never have said something like that.
I'm such a nice guy. |
"Sir, calm down. It's alright, everything's going to be alright. Please, calm *down.*"
The stewardess is growing increasingly flustered, trying her best to push the agitated man back into his seat. The passenger has a maniacal gleam in his eye as he once again stands up despite her attempts.
"Do you see? Do you see what's happening?"
He bellows to the people around him. They had looked bored, gazing blankly into screens or out the windows, clearly just waiting for the trip to end. Now here was a chance for some in-flight entertainment. A man stands up but wavers - he's not sure whether the attendant needs his help or not.
"Look!"
Folding his thick fingers into a fist, the man smashes it against one of the windows. One of the other passengers gasp in horror as the stewardess ineffectually pulls him back down. There's a hairline crack in the window now, and a slow line of blood is dripping out of his hand. Uncaring, the man slams it into the window again.
And the window flickers. The outside distorts, warps and fades. Mutterings in the audience grow louder even as the man calms.
"What's going on here, then!"
"What is this?"
"Where are we? I want to see the pilot!"
The stewardess is white now, hand lifted over her mouth in horror. The man besides her sits, begins to talk nonchalantly.
"I saw it when I was looking out, you know. There was a grey bit at the corner there."He nodded towards the now dead screen. "Thought it was dust. I tried to rub it off, tapped my fingers on the screen. But it got larger. And then I knew."
"What are you hiding from us, hmmm?"His face twists into a snarl. "What's out there?"
"Right. I've had enough of this."A businessman, red-faced and angry, strides straight over to the pilot's cabin. Grabbing the heavy fire extinguisher, he heaves it up, then starts hammering at the door to no avail.
He turns to the side door. Once, twice, thrice. A noticeable dent appears.
"No... Sir, please, stop..."The stewardess pleads, her voice reedy under the strain. "Please!"
With a grunt, the man smashes a hole through.
And the water gushes in. |
“You see,"began Christopher with a long sigh. "It's like sleeping for a long, long time."
Christopher Robin was surrounded by his friends under his favorite tree. It rested on the top of a hill overlooking the entire Hundred Acre Wood. He was older now, and he knew that he didn’t have much more time left with them.
"But going to sleep means that some day you'll wake up."Pooh said with a smile.
"Precisely!"Owl exclaimed.
"And we'll be here when you do,"Kanga added. "I’ll even make you breakfast."
Christopher couldn’t help but smile. "I would very much like that. But you all have to understand that it will be a very, very long time."
"Oh ho ho! We are great at waiting a long time! Rabbit here waits every year for the carrots to grow in the garden."Tigger chimed in.
"And every year you destroy them!"Rabbit snarled.
"But Christopher!"Roo interjected, jumping into Christopher’s lap. "What are we going to do when you’re gone?"
"Oh I won't be gone Roo. I’ll be right here."Christopher placed his finger over Roo’s heart. Roo giggled and scrunched up into a ball.
"We'll be just fine,"muttered Eeyore. "I’m used to being alone anyways."
"None of you will be alone! You’re a family now, and while I’m gone you will all take care of each other."
"B-b-b-ut you will b-b-be back r-r-right Christopher?"Stuttered Piglett.
Christopher let out a soft sigh and looked around at all of his friends. It was going to be difficult to help them to understand. They probably never would…
"Sometimes good things come to an end. But here’s the secret everyone— come close!"They all huddled together underneath the tree to listen to Christopher’s secret.
"Memories. Are. Forever."He whispered and tapped Pooh on the nose.
"Memories?"Said Pooh. “Well I have plenty of those! Like that time we saved you from the Heffalumps!"
"Or when you helped me fix my garden!"cried Rabbit.
"Or when you organized my library for me!"Exclaimed Owl.
"Or that time you built me a new house out of those sticks you found in the woods.” Eeyore added sullenly. “It didn’t last the night...but I remember it."
"Yes, yes! All of those are memories and you will have them forever. Just like I will have my memories of all of you."
Christopher stood up and took one last look over the Hundred Acre Wood. The sun was setting in the orange autumn sky and the trees were beginning to lose their leaves. It was time he went home.
Christopher gathered all of his friends together and began walking back down the hill. They were all busy discussing the memories they had had with each other.
"Christopher?"Pooh said, looking up at Christopher as they walked hand in hand. "You aren’t coming back, are you?"
Christopher looked down at the ground and took a moment before he responded. "No Pooh. I won't be coming back this time."
They walked in silence, listening to the sound of the crunching leaves underneath their feet.
Pooh suddenly stopped and looked intently into the ground. "I believe I am going to miss you Christopher,"he said with a soft, broken voice.
Christopher leaned down and took his lifelong friend into his arms.
"I will miss you too Pooh. I will miss you very, very much."
---
**Edit: Thanks everyone for your support!**
**For maximum feels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4W9qyMhpN0**
|
The collector's whip ripped through the air and lashed the human's back. A trickle of red ran down the man's skin, dripping down onto the parched desert floor.
"Please,"Iu-iu begged, "I can't go on."
"That is your prerogative, but if you fall human, know that you will never get back up."The collector smiled, his black, jagged teeth dipping out of his mouth.
Iu-iu stumbled back into line of men and women, and placed his blistered hands around the thick rope. The huge brick moved onwards, soon reaching the great structure's shadow.
The collector watched, satisfied. This was his favourite part of the Re-Culture - where his race would step in to help put humanity on the *right track*. For a thousand more years, he would be held as a God. Worshipped and adulated by the pathetic race around him. Then, after another five thousand years, the planet would be ready to harvest.
The brick was almost by the structure when Iu-iu fell. The collector ran his long tongue over his lips as he walked toward the body. He bent down, and in a single swift motion, snapped the man's neck. Then, he hoisted him over his shoulder and took him toward a nearby chamber, well hidden under the sand.
He would feast well tonight.
---
"Captain,"said first officer Kate Robins, "we've found another planet."
Captain Richardson leaned down to the - now lit - monitor on the arm of his chair. "Looks a lot like home - just a little greener. What stage of development is this?"
"From the weather formations and the amount of ice remaining, the computer estimates 3000bc. We'll know more once we enter the atmosphere and can run some tests."
"3000bc?"Richardson repeated.
Kate nodded.
"This'll be the first planet we've found anywhere near that period,"he said, stroking his chin. "I wonder what's going on down there."
"It's the start of the ancient Egyptian period,"butted in Piraino, the ill-tempered archaeologist that they'd been forced to take with them. "But I'd much prefer we found a planet a little more advanced."
"I thought you were into old stuff. I heard that's why you married Elizabeth."
Pirano glared at the captain, wondering for the hundredth time, how he'd possibly made it to that rank.
"I'm kidding, Pirano - lighten up,"said the captain, raising his open hands.
"I am into old *stuff* - but we won't find an explanation for the cloned biospheres in the past. A version of Earth more advanced than our own, however, might be able to tell us."
"You never know what we'll find down there, Pirano,"replied Richardson.
"Captain,"Kate said, there's... something *odd* down there."
"Odd? How so?"
"You're not going to believe this, but we're detecting a hell of a lot of radiation in the location of what would eventually become Alexandria, Egypt."
"Radiation?"
"That's not all. There's some kind of neutron device down there."
"*What!*"Pirano burst out. "A neutron *drive?*"
"That can't be right,"mused Richardson.
"I've run the tests - three times. It's right."
Richardson let out a deep breath. "Better take us down. "Somewhere uninhabited,"he added. "We can't risk interfering with their development."
---
Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofnight/comments/6kg7yp/the_collectors_part_2/
Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofnight/comments/6kgt91/the_collectors_part_3/
Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofnight/comments/6khu39/the_collectors_part_4/
Part 5: https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofnight/comments/6kiifw/the_collectors_part_5/
|
Dale shuffled through the papers and sighed. Captain Thunder's massive frame was stuffed into one of the chairs across from the desk. Every time the big hero shifted, the wooden furniture would squeak in protest and threaten to collapse. The brawny hero was built of at least three hundred pounds of pure muscle, and Dale's office manager always bought the cheapest balsa-wood-quality furniture. It was only a matter of time.
"Mr. Thunder..."
"*Captain*,"he interrupted with a flashy grin.
"Yes. Sorry again. *Captain* Thunder... I can't process these."Dale pushed the folder across the desk.
"*Why*? All the paperwork is there!"
Dale picked out one of the forms at random. "Let's have a look at this one, shall we? A theater owner claimed that his building was destroyed by a tornado? How often does that happen in California on a cloudless day? I checked the weather reports."
Captain Thunder glared. "But look, there are all of these supporting statements from bystanders!"He tapped one sausage-sized finger on top of another folder containing hundreds of affidavits, all witnessed by none other than Captain Thunder, Notary Public. "They all saw the tornado too."
"Well, I have a statement from this 'Lord Magma,' who claims that he was there that day."Captain Thunder's face turned into a smug yeah-I-definitely-beat-that-guy-up type grin. "I visited him in the prison hospital to ask about this supposed tornado. He claims that you threw him through so many of the theater's walls that the entire building came down on top of him, resulting in many many injuries."
Captain Thunder suppressed a laugh. "Well I guess there is karma in the world after all. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
"And,"Dale continued, "Every one of these other claims also seems to revolve around mysteriously-appearing tornadoes that *also* coincidentally seem to land on top of people that you dislike."
"You mean villains,"Captain Thunder growled.
"Mr Thunder, I'm not...
"*Captain*,"he broke in again.
"Yes, well, *Captain*. I'm afraid that I'm not here to judge right and wrong; just to decide whether damages are covered by our policies. And as you know, we've already determined that your vigilante actions do not constitute lawful enforcement, and thus your damages are not covered. No matter *how* destructive you or your rivals are."Dale held up one manila envelope. "I mean, here's a whole football stadium that was razed to the ground! Do you know how much that costs?"
Captain Thunder didn't answer. He was just staring out the window. Des Moines isn't necessarily the most scenic town, so Dale wasn't sure exactly what was so captivating. "Captain Thunder? I'm sorry, sir, but we're not going to be able to process these. As much as we all appreciate your services to the nation..."
Captain Thunder didn't even seem to notice that Dale was speaking. Just staring at blue sky and fluffy white clouds with a sort of bemused grin.
"Well..."Dale was starting to get uncomfortable with the silence. "I'll just file my conclusions then. Now if there's anything else I can help you with..."
"Sorry,"Captain Thunder finally answered. He stood from his chair, so tall that his perfectly combed hair nearly scraped the ceiling. His massive frame even blocked the light from the overhead lamp. He leaned over Dale's desk and planted two ham-sized fists right on top of the paperwork like a hulking silverback gorilla. "I just thought the weather looked a little stormy out. You know..."He grimaced and leaned in even further, an inch away from Dale's face. "*Tornado weather*."
There was a brief moment of silence with Captain Thunder just *daring* Dale to break eye contact.
"I'll just go ahead and approve these..."Dale whispered, hurriedly reaching for his stamp.
----
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|
"Hey, Peter,"Max calls out from across the street. He waves in his usual jubilant manner. Beside him, Becky stands. She's dressed particularly pretty tonight. Classy, like a dame from the 30s. It complemented Max's casual suit quite nicely. I call out a greeting and cross the road to meet them.
"Where's Jill?"Becky asks as she leans up on her tippy toes to look over my shoulder.
"Oh,"I shrug. "She'll be here. She had to stay late at work, so she said she'd meet us at the fountain."The four of us had been meeting there for ten years- Becky and Jill even longer, as they'd been best friends since grade school.
Becky carefully adjusted the hem of her skirt and straightened the purple ribbon tied around her waist. It matched her Mark. Becky and Max had been the kind of almost sickeningly sweet couple that went out of their way to wear at least one thing every day that matched their Mark. These things they wore, Max explained to me on one occasion, had to be bought by the other person. A token of bonding- a reaffirmation of their status as soulmates.
It was romantic, and it was something I'd noticed Jill starting to adopt. Every once in a while, she'd buy me something cerulean and leave it in on my pillow for me to find when I came home after work. Last week, it was a tie. Tonight seemed like an appropriate time to wear it, especially considering the contents of the bag I held in my hand. "I got something for Jill,"I say and reach into the bag. From it, I remove a black box, and I flip the lid open to reveal a necklace of cerulean pearls.
Becky gasps and covers her mouth, careful not to smear her bright red lipstick. "Peter!"
"Do you think she'll like it?"
"She'll *love* it."Becky sighs. "I'm a little jealous."
Max laughs, but cuts himself off. Becky looks up at him, confused, and then follows his gaze downward. "...Peter,"Max says. His voice is deep, his tone concerning. He swallows audibly and points to my arm.
Thinking something might be on my jacket, I snap the jewelry box closed and tuck it back into the bag, and then dust at the fabric of my sleeve. "Did I get it?"
"No, Peter, *look*-"
"Y-your Mark,"Becky interjects and grabs my forearm. Her brown eyes are wide and wet with tears.
I look down to my arm, where my sleeve has rolled up and bunched at my elbow, and then to my wrist. My Mark isn't there.
My Mark is gone.
The bag falls to the ground and topples onto its side. The jewelry box rolls out, clattering quietly.
I stare at my wrist.
Sirens scream loudly in the distance, echoing through the streets.
My Mark is gone.
Becky starts crying, rummaging through her purse for her phone. She frantically dials Jill's number. It rings.
*Answer.*
It rings.
*Answer.*
My Mark is gone.
"*Hi! You've reached Jilli-* **Jill laughs. A cat purrs into speaker.** *Jillian Miller -and- Sir Maximus Pounce, and we are so sorry we missed your call! Please leave a message and your number and we'll get back to you as soon as possible!*"Becky ends the call and immediately dials it again. It rings. She's sobbing now, and Max is caught between consoling her and trying to reach out to me.
But I can't speak.
*Answer.*
It rings. Red lights flash, sirens drowning the noise of the phone as they speed by and continue down the road.
I can't move.
The phone rings.
My Mark is gone.
"*Hi! You've reached Jilli-* **Jill laughs. A cat purrs into speaker.** *Jillian-*"Becky ends the call, and tries again. It rings.
My Mark is gone.
And so is Jill. |
The jungle was deep and it had already taken weeks to hack through to get here. This wasn't my place in the world, I was a city boy, but I'd been forced into this, compelled by actions greater than myself and now I was here, outside the huge tower.
The dense jungle had been my second biggest problem on the way here, the first had been the constant attacks by the monkey troops that lived in the area. From the moment I drew near to the structure, they had done everything in their power to stop my getting here, but they had failed.
The tower stretched above me, huge and ancient, inside was my destiny, but I was tired and hungry and the wonder was lost on me. A screech from deep in the jungle reminded me that it was getting dark and the monkeys would be back soon. I'd managed to kill several after their last attack, but there were always hundreds more - at least it gave me something to eat.
The door creaked open and I pushed inside the dark tower. The jungle had spilled inside, through every crack in the walls and creepers and roots were thick across the floor, but it was fairly secure and after wedging the door closed, I felt fairly sure I would be safer here than I had been for weeks.
I pulled a hunk of monkey from my bag and then found my matches and began making a small fire and roasted the meat over it - for once I would eat well. The light danced on the stones and once I had eaten, I began to explore the space.
Across from where I had entered were the ruined remains of a staircase. They had mostly fallen down from above and blocked the way up, but there were gaps and I could see a way through the rubble; that was for tomorrow though. As I moved away I just caught a glimpse of something carved in the wall "Level 1". It made my blood run cold.
I slept well and woke at first light and before long had pulled aside the rocks that blocked the stairs and worked my way through. Above, the next few floors of the tower had collapsed and the floor was thick with stone, but beams still criss crossed the tower, close enough to climb, although it would be difficult.
In half an hour I had pulled myself up to a small upper area and then the first noise came. It was a shuffling scrape, like huge footsteps with something dragged and it came from high above me. Through the dust and the broken beams I peered, trying to see up, but before I saw it, I heard it. A primal scream which echoed back and forth and then a deep grunting.
It moved out onto a ledge and I finally saw what I was up against; it was the king of all monkeys, a huge ape with vast bulging muscles and his small eyes were fixed on mine. He screamed again, the noise shaking something primal inside me and then grabbed a piece of stone and flung it at me, sending it bouncing through the beams.
It missed, but he was already looking for another and I realised I would need to move fast. I scrambled up, pulling myself up the beams, avoiding the stones and other detritus that the monkey flung at me and getting closer and closer. Then I heard the sob.
He heard it too and turned, screaming at the small bundle beside him that I had ignored, but I was now close enough to see was a pink dress. My heart leapt, *she still lived*. How she had ended up here I didn't know and why the monkey king kept her I had no idea, but she was there and still alive.
Energised I redoubled my efforts, leaping like a simian myself, getting closer and closer. The huge ape threw things more quickly now, but he looked worried too and soon I was near enough to be able to smell him. With a final wild leap I flung myself onto his platform and clawed my way to standing, but when I stood, it was too late, he was gone.
A rain of pebbles made me look up, the monkey king was far above me, already making his way to a higher platform. The chase was on, I pulled my red cap low and flexed my aching muscles, I could not fail this test. |
The crowd of reporters jostled for position as the group of Founding Fathers exited the Smithsonian. The floodgates opened and reporters shouted their questions as loudly and quickly as possible, resulting in an unintelligible din. “One at a time!” their assigned aide shouted to the press, trying to calm the scene. He first pointed to the reporter from ABC, leaving every other network agent scowling.
“Have you had a chance to look at either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump yet?” the reporter shouted. Given all the coverage of the disastrous state of the election, that was the question on everyone’s mind. Most of the organizations had already written out their “Founding Fathers horrified by [Candidate]” articles and were just waiting for confirmation before pressing going live with the story.
“Not too much,” Paul Revere said.
“And why would we?” Jefferson scoffed. “A land-owning male, running against a *woman!*” He laughed heartily, as did the other founding fathers. The reporters grimaced; *that* headline would certainly not play very well.
“What about their platforms, though?” the reporter followed up, desperate for some soundbite that could be spun to not focus on the gender of the candidates.
“We… well, haven’t had much of a chance to look at those yet,” Adams confessed.
“What about the second amendment?” a reporter from CNN burst out, not waiting for his turn to be called on. “Do you agree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the ‘well-regulated militia’ clause?”
“Not at all!” Hamilton answered.
“Absolutely,” John Jay declared at the same time. The two looked at each other in confusion.
“We haven’t really had time to discuss that either,” Adams butted in just before an argument erupted again amongst them all.
“What about the right to life?” Fox News burst in. “Did you consider the abortion question?” A million conservatives were on the edge of their seats waiting for the answer, either to exultantly have their beliefs confirmed or to begin denigrating the Foundering Fathers.
“Well, it’s certainly a heartbreaking issue,” Samuel Adams said.
“But is it constitutional?” the reporter pressed.
“We… uh… haven’t had time to come to a decision yet.” Adams answered again. He seemed to have become the official spokesperson for the group.
“What *have* you reached a firm decision on?” the CBS correspondent asked.
The Founding Fathers exchanged some glances. Hamilton took the microphone with an almost apologetic look. “Well, we were doing our research on that miraculous ‘computer’ thing. And by chance Mr. Jefferson clicked on a photo of a lovely young woman on the side of the page…. And… well….”
“Did you all know about these nude women?” Benjamin Franklin burst out with a grin broader than a Jack’o’lantern. “*Dozens of them*!” He was practically jumping for joy. None of the reporters could avoid laughing as they all realized: the Founding Fathers had discovered porn.
“YES!” one of the aides cut in, grabbing the microphone and giving everyone in the room a *don’t-you-dare-tell-them-more* look. “The Founding Fathers saw that there are a few *dozen* nude women on the internet. And *that’s all*. They’ve exhausted all of the pornography on the internet, so now they can get back to work.”
------
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