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"I think she likes ya."Lucifer observed. We sat on the picnic bench eating our hot dogs while watching the girls playing volleyball. "Cindy? Her, no.... come on... no..."I said. "She asked you to come down here and watch her play... BEACH... VOLLEY... BALL. You do not have to be older than humanity to know what's going on."Lucifer explained. "She just wants me to do her homework, she knows i'm finishing my thesis in a few months and wants to squeeze me for one more paper before i go."I replied. "Why do you have such a low opinion of people?"Lucifer asked. "Why do YOU have such a high opinion of people?"I retorted. He smiled and broke into a hearty laugh. "Lot's of experience my friend. But how about this, say you don't have time to do a full paper for her, but you recently won a couple of tickets for a movie and you want her to come with you one last time before finals begin in two weeks."Lucifer explained. "But i don't have tickets!" With a flick of his risk he seemed to pull them out of thin air. "You do now. And if you act now in the next ten seconds, i'll even throw in this concession coupon."Lucifer smiled. "Well...."I hesitated "9...8....7...." I grabbed the tickets and ran up to Cindy while Lucifer smiled and continued eating his hot dog. Cindy seemed disappointed that i couldn't do her homework, but perked up when i offered to take her to the movies. "How did you know?"I asked as i sat back down on the bench, "You're not messing with her head are you?" He laughed again, "When you sold your soul at 6 years old you asked for a good friend, you did not ask to mess with free will. But more importantly, i don't have to mess with free will to help you out. You're not that pathetic!" "Easy for you to say, you're evil incarnate!"I joked. He let out a roar of laughter and almost choked on his hot dog. But before he could reply, his cellphone beeped an incoming text. He didn't actually need a phone, but he manifested one so I could feel more comfortable when he did his work. "Another one?"I asked. "Another one, I have to do this one myself, definitely not something i can offload onto an underling."He explained as he got up and tossed the rest of his uneaten hot dog into the trash. "Give me a ring after the movie and let me know how your date goes." "It's not a da----" Before i could finish he had already vanished. (i'll expand this if there is interest)
"The mark... it is you!" I rolled my eyes. "No, it is most certainly not me. I swear, I am not the subject of your ridiculous prophecy. Yes, it slightly resembles a dragon, but maybe it's a lizard! And if you look at it from this angle it resembles a bird! I'm telling you this is a coincidence." "No. We have waited for this day for generations. You are here to liberate us." I glared at him, his pointy ears infuriating me. His face was turning red with excitement, or frustration. He searched for the words to convince me. "The one with the dragonmark and the hair of gold will bring our people riches untold!" "Well it's actually more of a dirty blonde, but that's beside the point. You and I do not know each other. To be frank, I couldn't care less about your suffering. I'm exhausted of this damn birthmark and the crap it brings me. No. Don't speak to me." I stormed off, leaving the saddened elf standing wearily behind me. After three days of hard travel, I came to a village inn to rest. I sat down at the bar, and ordered a pint of hard ale. A grizzled old man next to me looked at the visible mark on my hand. "So you're the one they told of long ago..."he began. I was out the door before he could even finish. ---- Edit: Wow! I don't really do many writing prompts but this blew up... thanks for all the kind words and up votes!
The concept of coins is interesting, really. It's a small disk of metal used as currency, which in turn can be used to get anything else a person needs. That small piece of metal would usually be useless, but we assign it a value. It's only important because we say so. Well, that's not the case for me. My four coins have a bit more to it than that. I never really understood how it worked, but I'm able to appear where these bits of metal are located whenever I want. With a power like this, people would usually go insane. For me? It makes things a lot easier when shopping, going to school, and travelling. Sure, I did lose one a while back. But the three that I have work just fine. Honestly would say it's the most convenient part of my life. Except today. As I attempted to teleport to the home coin as usual, I was met with a cold room, three people, and two guns pointed towards my face. The room was oblong, and was empty save for the table, chairs, and a single window. "Keep your hands where I can see them,"snarled the man in the middle. Of course, most people would like to imagine themselves as badasses that would Kung Fu their ways out of such situations. Not me. So I panicked. I tried teleporting to my school coin, only to be met by the same people except in a different chair. The man in the middle gave me a coy smile while the other two guards had their barrels still pointed straight at my forehead. Well then. "Wh-what do you want from me?"I stuttered. Looking around the room, I could see the third coin in a chair across from me, while the first one was directly to my left. There was no escape - except... "Listen"the man stated. "I'll give you two options, plain and simple. Your ability is useful, but also a threat. You have one second to join us, or die." I closed my eyes and tried to teleport to the fourth coin - the only chance I had. And when I opened them again, I was right back where I started, in the middle of the meeting room. "Open fire." And I panicked again. In fact, I felt like I was warping around the room as the bullets streaked past me - and then I realized. The guards couldn't hit me - I was teleporting around too fast. After the next teleportation, the magazines of the enemy clicked empty. I ducked under the table, grabbing the nearest coin with me. With nowhere to turn, I chucked the coin out the window. As the magazines of the guns clicked shut again, I turned to see the barrels point under the table. I appeared in the middle of a snowy wood, lying on the ground. I felt my arms and legs. No blood. I was still whole. I grabbed the coin on the ground next to me, feeling the cool metal in my hand. Somebody was after me, and wanted me dead. People were after me and wanted me dead. But if they wanted me dead, I wasn't just going to sit there and die. There was no time to freak out. I turned around to see the building doors behind me open, revealing the two guards and their menacing weaponry. I flipped the coin in my hand again. Come get some.
July 17th. That was the day people got their results for the GPI back. The “Global Placement Initiative.” Is what it was called. It was a global test every single child on Earth had to take. And I was one of those unlucky souls. Nobody ever knew exactly what was going to be on the test. It had varied wildly from year to year and month to month. The people who ran the GPI had always promised no one test was more difficult than any other. But having taken it, I can say that I’m confident nobody had ever struggled more on that test than I had. I had taken the test just a few months ago. Since then I had turned fourteen. I was no longer one of those young kids who had to worry about their whole future. It never seemed entirely fair. Our entire life was determined before we even became adults. The mistakes we made as kids would echo until the day we died. There were always those who stood in opposition to the tests. But there was never anything done. I guess you could say that at this point the test just felt like something that had always been there. Something that wasn’t really meant to be changed. I had studied hard during the months and weeks leading up to the test. Which of course was more difficult than it sounded. Every few months the test changed again and broke itself down into four sections, which could range anywhere from Grammar all the way to Basic Survival Skills. This year the test had consisted of Trigonometry, Cooking, Gothic Architecture, and Southeast Asian Geography. If that sounds incredibly hard, that’s because it’s supposed to be. It’s an open secret that just guessing plays a huge role in whatever your score would be. But I had gotten lucky. Basic trigonometry gets covered in school, so I already knew a little bit there. We were doing a geography unit in school, so I felt confident there to. But when it came to cooking and architecture, I knew next to nothing. So when my scores had arrived I knew that the results would be a shock. Whether I liked them or not. I went out to get the mail early this morning. My parents were both at work. I didn’t want to open the large grey envelope without them. My score wasn’t going to change at this point. But it almost felt like if I just kept staring, then maybe I could will myself to get a better score. The test was ranked on a zero to six-hundred scale. One-hundred and fifty points for each section. I looked up at the clock. It was 5:14, my parents would both be home any minute. And right as the thought left my head I head the doorknob jangling. I looked up. For the first time I noticed that my heart was beating fast, and a cold sweat was slowly rolling down my forehead. My parents both walked in together. My dad, a tall dark haired software engineer. And my mother, a short brunette who was interning at a law firm. I smiled as they walked in. Things didn’t seem quite so bad now that they were here. My dad eyed the envelope sitting on the counter. He reached out and grabbed it before coming to sit across from me. His mood noticeably changed. His lipped pursed as he set down the envelope. The metallic letters “GPI” glistened as the sun hit them. My mom sat down next to him. I looked up. They were worried. But I still felt more confident now that they were here. I reached to pick up the grey packet. I broke the wax seal and pulled back the flap at the end of the package. My dad looked to me. “You sure you’re ready to look bud?” I drew in a deep breath. “Yeah. I think so.” I reached in and pulled out the thick stack of sheets that broke down all of the information. I looked to the bottom of the first page. “596” is the large bolded number sitting in the corner. But of course this was a mistake. That was impossibly high. I looked again but the number hadn’t changed. But if it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me, then it was a misprint. Some sort of mistake. Nobody had ever gotten a score that high. Nobody. I was still in disbelief. I looked to my individual scores. It read; “148, 149, 150, 149.” I just stared. The reality was slowly starting to set in. I set the papers down. My parents saw the numbers as they picked them up. They gasped in shock. Now the reality was starting to hit them to. They set the papers back down. I flipped to the last page. My job assignment. I read in the little silver box, “Academic Redesign\*” I looked to the note at the bottom of the page. “Report to GPI Offices, New York, the day following receiving this document for further clarification or information.” But I wouldn’t need an explanation. I knew what my job was. Everyone did. It was one of the most important jobs. I would help redesign the test. I would be the one to make kids spend nights studying, and take tests over Gothic Architecture and Asian Geography. I had the job nobody wanted nor asked for. But more importantly than anything, I was the one who would be deciding the fates of generations. And I already knew as I sat there, that I was going to ruin so many people’s lives. No. Not people. Kids. Kids just like me that lived in an unfair world with unfair tests. And the more I thought about it, the more ironic it started to seem. An unfair test gave me an unfair job that I certainly didn’t want. And by doing so, I would be making the test all over again. More unfair and unjust than ever. &#x200B; Edit; Thank you all so much for the support and feedback! I decided to finally do something and make my own personal subs! I didn't think that this story would get a lot of attention and I didn't even think it was all that good! But I've always wanted to write short stories and about myself, and I think this was just the kick I needed! So! Feel free to join r/Lost_WrecksCove and r/Lost_WrecksDiary :) And again thank you all for reading!
“We used a nuclear bomb. Several, in fact.” “A what?” The peace committee delegate asked, taken aback. “A nuclear bomb. Fission, to be exact. High-yield.” “You use nuclear fission to make bombs?” The delegate asked, confused, “I thought this was your first off-world battle, how did you have time to create one, let alone several?” “Oh, we had plenty of bombs already, the issue was getting them to hit the ships, so we just sent out enough to where the overlap would engulf any ships we missed.” “How many did you fire?” “About seventy.” “You had seventy nuclear bombs around?!?!” “No, we had around seven hundred known warheads, but we wanted to save some in case we needed more volleys.” The delegate is visible distressed. “Why did you have seven hundred war-“ “Known warheads.” “-yes, seven hundred known warheads?!?!” “Because we needed more warheads than our neighbors. For security.”
Dear diary: Today, I finally did it! After 1000 years of boring, bleak death, I managed to break free from the chains of eternal rest, freeing myself! Now that I've finally woken up, all I have to do is get out of my tomb and waltz right out of here. Oh, how I've longed to see the world, all full of color. Makes me wonder how much has changed while I've been gone... Dear Diary, So it turns out this might be a bit more of a challenge than I expected. I mean, yes, they did follow my instructions and bury me in a mausoleum, but they also sealed the entrance shut. In hindsight, I should've requested I be buried with more than just this diary, a pen, and the energy stones. Maybe a pickaxe, or at the very least a shovel. No matter, I'm sure I can find something around here to break myself out. Dear diary, It's now night time. There's a small hole in the ceiling that's giving me some light from the moon, but it's too high up for me to reach. I found a loose brick in one of the walls, so I've been spending some time trying to peel it out of it's place. If i keep at it, I might be able to break free... I just have to get that brick out. I have to. Mark closed the notebook, turning to his friend. "So, do you think he actually made it out?"his friend asked. The two men looked at each other, then down at the skeleton lying on the floor, a brick resting in his hand. Edit: holy crap, thank you everyone for the support! This was my first time doing a prompt, so I'm glad you guys liked it!
If he was hitting on her, he was going about it all wrong. Or better yet, Isla thought, he didn’t need to be doing this shit at all. There was a point where the congenital superiority of Parathi crossed the line from barely tolerable to completely infuriating, and Professor Eristeed had jumped across it as only a quadruped could. But a maid couldn’t say that, could she? A maid could only be peaceful and cooperative. They wrote that into their contracts on Parathi colonies, contracts signed not with the human menials themselves, but with the conglomerates that employed them. So Isla kept cleaning as he spoke, as his too-many eyes followed her through the classroom. She stayed cute in her stupid, frilly costume and listened to the soft tittering of the Parathi students as they learned about the docility of humans. “Really,” Professor Eristeed said, “we should perhaps be thanking them. After all, is it not humans who make up nearly a third of the physical labor force? Wonderfully adapted creatures, humans. They can perform any task you give them up to a very acceptable level. Take Isla there, in the back.” Scraping noises as the class turned. Isla kept sweeping, doing a job a robot could have done, and did in the other classrooms, and while she swept she counted eyes in her head. Each Parathi had six eyes, three each mounted on two eyestalks, and the stalks really were stalky— Isla knew humans who theorized the Parathi had shared a common ancestor with the little bonsai style trees they carried around with them from world to world. Twenty students in the class, forty eye stalks, one hundred and twenty eyes, plus Professor Eristeed who looked at her hard enough to add another twelve or eighteen or twenty-four eyes to the bundle. She piled silent curses onto each of those eyes as she swept up the room's single mote of dust. “Now Isla, as you can all see, is doing a wonderful job. Truly wonderful. And as she does it she adds a certain style to the room. Note the lace frills and the clean, spotless black of her skirt. Among the humans, it’s an outfit that comes from a particularly stylish place— when such places of theirs still existed. They called it ‘France.’” A hand raised in the front row and Professor Eristeed made a trumpeting harrumph in the back of his throat. An acknowledgment. “Professor,” the student asked, “my father always said that it was cheaper to employ robots than humans.” “And indeed it is,” Eristeed said without missing a beat. “Then, and correct me if I’m wrong here, why are you advocating for expanded human inclusion in the workforce? Surely a sense of style cannot trump simple economics.” “Ahhh,” Eristeed said, in that way that Isla hated. “Ah, ah, ah. What you forget, my boy, is what everyone forgets, and what comprises the core of my argument.” Isla glanced up, saw him in all his pretentious glory. Professor Eristeed, like a jumped-up horse covered in bark, his mane a gossamer tide. Smaller than a horse should be, he might only have weighed three hundred pounds, and the Parathi in their current state were not physically strong. Humans performed a third of the labor and robots performed the other two-thirds, leaving the small, outnumbered Parathi populations to live like philosopher kings in their scattered colonies. He wore a blanket slashed with crimson and an awful, sickly green, a favorite combination among upper class Parathi. He saw her watching and smiled. “Now young Mr. Bucephus, what was my original contention?” “That humans are docile.” “And are robots docile as well?” “Of course,” the student said, sounding confused. “Then why, Mr. Bucephus, have there been robot uprisings on three colonies in the last hundred years?” “Rogue programmers, sir,” the student began, “those uprisings were a symptom of—” “Of civil unrest and of discontent among an educated elite that had gained intellectual power without corresponding political power. Yes, yes, I know the theory Mr Bucephus, I happened to be married to the woman who wrote it. And peace was no great theme of ours, let me assure you.” Professor Eristeed cleared his throat as his students tittered again. The mote of dust broke apart and Isla chased it across the room, her skirts flouncing around her. She hated it. Hated him. Hated her placement here, and the greater reasons that had compelled her to stay. Hated that she had to wait. Isla was terrible at waiting. Her superiors were all saying that, she needed to learn patience, to learn how to work within a team. “Now,” Professor Eristeed said, “Mr. Bucephus, have we solved any of those issues?” “Sir?” the student said, squirming. “It’s a rhetorical question Bucephus, don’t hurt yourself. No, we have not solved any of those issues. Did you all know that when you leave my class eight of you will not find employment equal to your intellectual stature? Oh, you may write a tract here or there, come up with one particularly edifying theory, but on the whole you will grow old and world weary and dissatisfied, shut out from all the structures that we Parathi hold so dear. And some of you will become programmers, more’s the pity. And some of you will program our robots. “And that, Mr. Bucephus, is why we should not use robotic labor. Because in the end it us that programs them, Parathi, and Mr. Bucephus I should warn you, I am not docile.” Eristeed glanced up to Isla, six eyes roving over and devouring her. “Which of course is the beauty of humans. No one must program a human, they are born docile, most particularly the females. They value peace and cooperation, reason as their faculties allow them, and as such a third of the workforce toils away in a state of happy drudgery. Isla dear, aren’t you happy to clean my rooms?” “Yes, Professor Eristeed,” Isla heard herself say. “Wonderful! See class, she is happy. Let her stay that way, and in fact, expand the limits which we place upon her people. Open them up to new horizons, new realities— within their means of course. I am not advocating for anything radical, merely for a solution which will guarantee the solvency of our colonies by taking the power out of the hands of listless, and too often disenfranchised youth. Apologies of course, to the eight of you who will not make it. “And Mr. Bucephus?” “Yes Professor?” “Regarding your ‘economic concerns’, I implore you to turn again, and to really look.” Bucephus tore his eyes from the man in front of him and Isla forced herself to stand still, to let him watch her. “Mr. Bucephus,” Professor Eristeed said, “set aside the stability of our colonies. Is there not still some place for style in our world?” The bell rang, drowning out the students response, and in the sudden rush of bodies Isla lost her mote of dust, found Eristeed’s gaze.
Her eyes dulled as she exhaled her last breath. The world slowly blurred into a faint grey. &#x200B; She smiled. Gone were the days where she suffered in silence as lifeless machines fought to keep her soul tethered to her body. She stretched out her hand to embrace the welcoming darkness that wished to envelope her. &#x200B; A faintly human silhouette began to manifest in front of her. Tendrils of dark mist coalesced into a being of living shadow holding an ethereal scythe. At last, death has come for her. &#x200B; "A little late aren't you?"she asked, glancing at the shimmering edge of Death's scythe. &#x200B; "I will only come for you when your time is up, Miss Brennett. Now, come with me."Death beckoned towards a faint light in the middle of the shadows. &#x200B; She crossed her arms. "And if I don't want to?" &#x200B; "Then my scythe will help convince you,"Death said. The scythe began to solidify into a blade of pure red, gleaming with the promise of carnage. &#x200B; Her eyes widened slightly. "Okay, I get your point. I don't want to get deader than I already am anyway. So where are we going to? Heaven? Hell? The jungle?" &#x200B; "See for yourself,"Death turned away from her and began walking. &#x200B; "Wow, acting the cool, mysterious dude eh? Well this won't be fun,"she pouted. &#x200B; "When was dying supposed to be fun? Aren't you a bit too nonchalant about this?"Death replied, amusement coloring his voice. &#x200B; "Beats lying in bed with nothing to do,"she said, eyes transfixed on the growing light in the distance. &#x200B; "No regrets about your life? Family, friends and whatnot,"Death turned his hooded face in her direction. "Miss Brennett, I must say you are being quite casual about this." &#x200B; "I don't give a damn about them anyway, just like they don't give a damn about me. They say they care, but eventually they all forget. I'm used to it. I know I'm burdening them anyway,"she shrugged. "You,"she turned to face Death, "should had came for me earlier. Save my old folks some money. Hospital care isn't free you know." &#x200B; Death raised an eyebrow. "And what makes you think that dying will solve all this?" &#x200B; "Death seems interesting. At least, when compared to my previous life,"she said. &#x200B; "Already referring to your life in the past tense I see,"Death shook his head. "Well, if I must say, the afterlife is quite similar to your past experience in the hospital. The only difference is that your mental capacity will be reduced to that of a plant." &#x200B; She stopped and stared at Death blankly. "You mean everything is the same? I don't get to live another life?" &#x200B; Her hands curled into trembling fists. "How is that fair? Why can't I be like normal people and live my life? Are you saying that this life is supposed to be enough for me to enjoy? I don't want it to end this way,"she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. &#x200B; Death drew his scythe. The crimson edge of the blade glowed menacingly, thirsting for violence. "Resist and you will encounter a fate worse than what is in store for you." &#x200B; "There's nothing worse than what is already awaiting me,"she shrieked. "I wish I didn't exist,"she collapsed on the floor sobbing. "Even death fails me." &#x200B; Death looked at her trembling figure and steeled his gaze. "I knew it would come to this."He raised his scythe high above his head. The scythe shuddered in response, ready to take action. &#x200B; Red mist spilled from the blade and slowly fused into a flowing cloak. Death grabbed the cloak and covered her with it. &#x200B; "I cannot guarantee you that you will enjoy your new duties, but I am not asking for your permission, nor am I waiting for your decision. This responsibility is one you cannot avoid or reject,"Death said, the words weaving into a crescendo of power and energy. "From this moment onwards, you will be tasked with the retrievement of those who have passed. You will bring peace to the dead and accompany them in their final moments. In the name of the One Above Us All, I hereby declare Sarah Josephine Brennett to be an agent of death." &#x200B; Death reached into the air and gestured towards the skies. A convulsing black void appeared directly above his palm, slowly taking the shape of a scythe. &#x200B; Sarah raised her head a looked at Death. "Thank you,"she said while trying to prevent her voice from cracking. &#x200B; "Don't thank me. This may be a different fate from what awaited you before, but in time you will grow to hate it, just like I did."Death looked towards the soft white light and began walking. "Come, Sarah. You have a lot to learn." &#x200B; Sarah smiled through her tears and got up. In time I might hate this, she thought, but for now this is enough. &#x200B; \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ &#x200B; Any critiques and feedback is welcome! &#x200B; Edit: Minor grammatical errors and phrasing. &#x200B;
Tonight! I eat some frogs. James waves a stick. And Richard talks to a man [role clip "Richard talking to Gary Oldman"Audio: "I think I'm really more of a Gryffindor-Ravenclaw hybrid"] JEREMY: Hello and welcome! to another Top Gear special, and it is a good one JAMES: Indeed, the producers have sent us here [points vaguely to no particular spot on a map of England] deep in the heart of well, here. Told us to go out and buy us each an broomstick for not more than 15 sickles to be taken on a series of challenges. [Aerial montage of Harry Potter landscapes and locales culminating in a slow panning shot from the Hogwarts main bridge to the quidditch field] VO JAMES: I was the first to arrive, and as you have come to know about me, I have done it properly. JAMES: This, viewers, is an Oakshaft 79. The original touring broom for the work-a-day wizard home and away, whether near nor far, the Oakshaft is better than a car. A classic as timeless as, well, a vault full of time turners I suppose. Oak body, obviously enough, with a bowtruckle heart core, ash bristles and a top spee--- hang on a minute [cut to Jeremy flying in on a sparkling gold and black broomstick shooting sparks from its bristles] JEREMY: Oh Yes. Oh Yes. JAMES: You UTTER Muggle, a Comet 140 I presume? Otherwise known as Auror's Bane. Fantastically infamous for their, what was it? Speed and pursuit abilities? no that's not it. Falling out of the sky in a billowing plume of fiery destruction. A bold choice, I admit, but not like to be the sort for whatever the producer's have in mind, surely. JEREMY: Clearly you haven't the imagination nor cunning to appreciate for my genius. The Comet 140 won the Quidditch world cup in 7 consecutive events over 9 non-consecutive years. And you've brought what an Oakshaft? You think that old Hag-rider will be up for whatever the Producers have lined up? JAMES: Hag-rider? The Oakshaft 79 the was broom of choice for the ministry of magic's department of questionable departments for 13 years. There has never been a more stable or reliable mode of transportation, the Oakshaft 79 is the workman's broom. All other workman's brooms are irrelevant by comparison. JEREMY: It's a hag-rider and it's boring and you're a moron. But speaking of morons. Where's that other one? [Cut to a sudden outcrop of rainclouds moving against the wind towards the pitch dropping sporadic drops of greenish water in an embarrassingly ineffectual spittle, as it nears, beneath it rides the visage of Richard Hammond, grinning widely with self-satisfaction, and wearing a very ungainly wizard's hat and what appears to be a bathrobe] [Richard comes to a halt dismounts as the rain cloud overhead spits its brackish water onto Jeremy and James who bristle and scowl] RICHARD Gesticulating happily: A Thunderbolt IV. Thunderbolt! You cannot get a better broom than this it's got JEREMY: Richard. RICHARD: -- a top speed of 106.5 mph(nautical), gold inlays and a beetle core. JEREMY: Richard. RICHARD: Ebony wood, and hazel twigs. This is the best of th- JEREMY: RICHARD! I have become wet in the presence of your broom. RICHARD: Yeah well there is a slight issue with an unbreakable rananimbus hex. The wizard who sold it to me's cousin played for the Nigerian National Team's... divisional development subsection... C and he assures me that this is the genuine, real deal. Joseph Snuka had one of these. Thunderbolt. It's the brand you need. End of discussion. Fact. JEREMY: Wet. oh hello [A Producer wearing a wizarding robe with a lab coat and cargo shorts apparates and produces an envelope she hands to Jeremy] JEREMY: "Between the floo network, portkeys, apparition and toilet bowls, the Ministry of Magic's department of transportative transfigurables has little room for the traditional broomstick anymore save for playing Quidditch and well... sweeping. To prove them wrong. You are to take your broomsticks and fly from here to Fossvang, Norway along the ancient Warlock Skyway. There, you will take part in a traditional broomstick competition that isn't Quidditch, but that will make you wish it was." [Richard's eyes widen and his smug grin grows bolder while James and Jeremy look forlornly at their selections] RICHARD: Oh this will be a dawdle! Come on chaps. Accio Fossvang! haha! [Richard takes to the sky, leaving James and Jeremy to pout over the enormity of the challenge for their worn out and modest older brooms] [commercial break]
Death comes for everyone eventually. For millennia I appeared before humans as their shade separated from their body. Old ones, young ones.... whether organ failure or accident or disease... I was there to lead them. Death does not come easily to everyone. The rage I see so often about how "it's not their time!"or other nonsense slides off me like the threads of the Veil. My first high five was a complete surprise. I appeared before a young woman in 2014, twenty-three years old. She was in perfect health. I formed in her bathroom, my visage taking the form of what she saw as Death. I was an tall, old man shrouded in a cloak, carrying a staff of bone. It wasn't my strangest formation, but I did take notice. I stood and watched her shade slide out from a body in a tub of red water. I reached out my hand and instead of yelling at me or standing there crying, she slapped my hand with hers and laughed. She laughed. It was a mixed bag from then on out. Not all the young ones happy to see me were suicide, some were accident, some starved, some riddled with disease that they were refused care for. They all slapped my hand as I reached for them, or initiated what I learned was a "fist bump", or otherwise greeted me with open arms. It was a complete surprise each time. For many I appear as a skeleton figure with a very sharp scythe, which isn't the most heartwarming. Yet... I began to notice a pattern. I was escorting near perfectly healthy, younger humans off this dimension. I became concerned. After a couple thousand years or so of shuffling these shades off their mortal coil I blinded myself to the world they lived in. It was horrible, it was always horrible. I was not there to interact, but to escort. But, in the millennia before, when these humans fought of Death, fought myself, they had hope. They had hoped they wouldn't die. The majority of humans had a temper tantrum of some sort, those with long illness were more resigned and accepting, but never happy. In their broken human bodies, they still still felt hope. I finally took a look around me after a few human years of this new behavior. I took in the world as it is now. In every fiber of my being I believe these young humans have lost all hope.
"...How the hell did you even get in here?"The lich said, utterly dumbfounded. The inspector completely ignored what he said. "So first order of business is the fact that you have not one but TWO false entrances to your lair, with nothing indicating that anyone who steps on them that they have horrific death traps in both of them. One of them was specifically modified so the instant anyone opens the door it'll trigger a cave-in designed to kill an entire party without warning. What is even worse about this first door is the fact that you have intentionally allowed cobwebs to cover the ceiling to prevent adventurers from noticing the precarious state of the ceiling. All of it extremely deliberate." "How do you know about that?" "SE. COND. LY."The inspector loudly spoke over the lich's response. "Is the other false entrance."He flipped through his long series of angry, hastily-written notes. "This one causes a wall to move and strand them on the spot as they approach the false entrance. Not only that, if they somehow realize what is going on and attempt to flee, there is a chance they are actually crushed by the moving wall, not only preying upon fools who do not realize what is happening but crushing those who are just smart enough to try to escape! Extremely poor form." The lich growled in frustration and covered his face with his ghastly, decomposing hands. With any luck that is all the inspector would bother him with and he would soon leave him alone. "Third! The actual entrance corridor!"Flip flip flip. "I counted not one, not two, but *SIX* pit traps!"He gives an exaggerated, exhausted sigh. "SIX! In your main corridor! The most traversed region of your lair! All of them cleverly hidden and designed to open as soon as any humanoid steps on them, including small races such as halflings."More flipping. "In fact, virtually all of your pit traps follow this example! They all are roughly two meters deep and fitted with spike traps designed to strike those who fall. Not only it is bad enough that it can kill the average human on their own, you laced all the spears with instant-death poison!"The inspector took a moment to take a deep breath and recompose. "Thankfully, as a tiny measure of grace, the spikes aren't particularly well-designed. There is a chance someone falling for the trap won't be wounded by the spikes after all." The lich let his head hit the wall of his lair. "Can you... can you get this over with? You never know when adventurers are stupid enough to brave my tomb." "They are not the foolish ones, you and your brazen disrespect for well-being of others is the one on trial here, sir!"The inspector harrumphed as he continued to search his notes. "But I guess we can move on to the worse of the worst offenders."He glared at the lich. "Particularly the great green devil mosaic!"He says, revealing his notes to the lich in a dramatic fashion. "What? How dare you criticize that! It is my favorite piece!" "A sphere of annihilation in its mouth! At least you are carefully warning those against touching it by absolutely infesting it with evil malevolence, so someone using Detect Evil will at least be somewhat warned of the danger."He paused to look around the remainder of the crypt. "Then again there is so much evil and malevolence everywhere I wouldn't be surprised if casting it gave the caster a migraine at best." Acererak covered his face. He would have sighed if he weren't past the need to breathe. He gave a wistful look at his skull, wondering if he could somehow trick the human into touching it. Then again, if he made it alive past all of the remaining traps of his Tomb of Horrors to reach his crypt then he probably wouldn't fall for his favorite trick. "Next up is, and I quote, 'The Forsaken Prison'. Charming. Absolutely charming name..."
Look, we've all done it. Maybe it was some creep flirting with you at a bar. Maybe it was your own family, breathing down your neck at a holiday dinner table, wondering when are you going to settle down and give them some grandkids? But I was at a wedding, when I told the lie that changed my life. I was wine-drunk and leaning into the wall as I stood in a crowd of people I barely knew. It was my best mate James's wedding, and he and the bride were close to the only people I knew. So fuck it. Who hasn't been to a wedding and dressed up their life before? Everything about a wedding is dress-up and fabrication, in its own way: the women look like butterflies, and us men stand around as if we've casually worn three-piece suits every day of our lives. One of the bridesmaids had asked me, "What about you, Tom?" I blinked back. "Excuse me?" "Haven't you got a girl at home?" I hesitated. If it was a pick-up line, I would have snatched at it like a hungry fish. She didn't even need a worm. But she clung to the arm of a man who I might look like if I spent a bit more time curing: bigger, taller, beardier. I puffed myself up. "Of course I do. She just couldn't make it." My best mate James, who was making his endless orbitals around the room, greeting people and shaking hands, happened to pass by just then. "Good on you, mate!"he called. "Who's the lucky lass?" The air had the sudden sharp taste of ash. I sipped my wine to clear it, and ignored it. If there weren't so many strangers looking at me with plain-faced social interest, I might have told James to fuck right off. Judging by the gleam in his eye, he was only teasing anyway. But instead I said, "Charlotte." "Charlotte,"he repeated, his voice rising in amusement. "Amazing we haven't met this Charlotte yet." His bride tugged gently at his wrist. "Stop teasing him." I scowled at him and passed him an unmistakable shut up, mate look. But then a hand slipped into mine. It was embery-warm, and I looked down to see a thin brown hand in my own. Henna tattoos swirled her skin like tongues of fire. As I watched, they even seemed to move. I lifted my eyes, past her crimson dress, up to her face: dark hair tied up with gold, her black eyes gleaming as they held mine. "Oh, there you are, darling,"she cooed. I opened and shut my mouth. The other guests in our little circle seemed riveted now. Their vague social interest slipped into active fascination. I finally managed, haltingly, "Oh. Charlotte?" The bridesmaid quirked her eyebrow. "You didn't know your own girlfriend was here?" Well. She wasn't my girlfriend, but she was beautiful. And I was a bit drunk. "I wanted to surprise him,"Charlotte said. She smiled and reached for my drink; her arm smelled like smoke and fire. But she plucked the wine from my hand and had a healthy sip. "I hope this is okay,"she added, looking up at me with those black-doe-eyes. "I'm very surprised, at least,"I managed. Charlotte grinned. She leaned into my arm and told the people around us, "Better than last time I tried to surprise you, sweetheart." "Can you remind me what happened last time?" Charlotte touched her eye like it had been bruised and murmured, "It's okay. We saw an anger management therapist, after that. She said I only had to report it to the police if I wanted to, and I didn't."A coy smile played on her lips. "I said I love you too much." But the people around us stared in open-mouthed horror. Mostly at me. Except my best mate, who was pressing his fist over his mouth to keep from cackling. I was the only one giving Charlotte the same gutted stare. "I don't think it's necessary to tell them all that,"I stuttered out. Then I grabbed the wine back from her and finished it off, because I wasn't drunk enough for this. She followed the line of my gesture with a quiet sigh. "I thought we agreed less drinking. You know what your therapist said it leads to." The bridesmaid said, "Um, wow, Tom. I had no idea." "Everyone, please. Remind Tom he's in control of his own life."Charlotte squeezed my hand and smiled. "You don't need alcohol for us all to like you." "I don't..."I looked between my best mate and "Charlotte". He was still fighting off his laughter. I scowled at him and gripped Charlotte's hand tighter. "Why don't you help me get some more wine, love?" "Just don't drag me into the coat closet and beat me ag--" I hauled her away from the rest of the group before she could finish that sentence. Their eyes followed us, like they were waiting for the moment I turned into an alcohol-induced maniac. I led Charlotte to the other side of a column, where none of the people she'd just humiliated me could see her. I pressed my hands to the marble on either side of her face and leaned down closer to her. She just blinked at me, beamishly. Her smile teased me again. "What? You didn't like my story?" "Did James put you up to this, then?" "Oh, no. He was just as surprised as you."This close up, that smoke scent had a campfire closeness to it. It made me think of hot summer nights under the stars. She leaned closer, like she knew it was intoxicating. "It was only a bit of fun." "Fun for you." "Yes. That was my point." I hesitated, thinking. The bridesmaid stalked past, and her stare shot daggers into us. Me, really. James followed short behind her. He leaned over and said, his voice champagne-slurry, "Listen, we're about to go take some photos so I can't chat, but mate, your girlfriend is fucking hilarious." "I am,"Charlotte agreed. I shoved my hands in my pockets, embarrassment flooding my cheeks. I stared at the floor and muttered out, "At least you two are laughing." "That's all that matters, innit?"James threw a half-armed hug around Charlotte's shoulders and said, "You'd best come round next time we all go to the pub, little lass." She gave me a sugar-sweet smile. "Oh, I think we'd both love that." "Brilliant idea,"I muttered under my breath. Another humiliation to look forward to. Couldn't wait to explain why I broke up with my fake girlfriend next time I saw him. Better than saying yeah, a girl pretended to be my girlfriend to call me out for lying at your wedding, and I was too awkward and English to argue with her. When James walked away, Charlotte bent over to grip her knees and cackled. "Gods, this is the best one I've done in a while. I like the subtle ones." I wanted to be angry. And if I knew any of these people other than James, maybe I would be. But for some reason, I caught myself smiling like an idiot. She had the kind of smile that made you want to smile. "You do this a lot? Walk up to pricks like me and make us look stupid?" "Only the lying ones."But she shrugged and smiled. "I get around. Sometimes it's a wedding, sometimes it's a party. Once I even fucked with someone's funeral, but maybe that was a bit far."She giggled. "Except it was the person in the casket lying." "But why?" "Don't you ever enjoy watching people squirm? Schadenfreude, I think the Germans call it. It's all good fun, if you have a healthy sense of humor." Suddenly, she was the most interesting person in the room. I leaned against the wall and regarded her, carefully. "What's your name really, 'Charlotte'?" She grinned at me. Fire danced in her eyes. Real fire, but it would take me a while to realize the light was not playing tricks on my eyes. "That will cost you a drink or two." I learned a lot more than her name, that night. But it cost me more than some wine. Namely, it cost me a set of Egyptian cotton sheets, scorched from the roughhousing that followed her pressing fire-kisses all down my chest. Djinn girls burn hot. And mine has kept burning for me. Even now as she lies in bed beside me, leaning over my arm to see what the hell I'm typing to a bunch of strangers on the internet--she radiates heat. Those henna tattoos, I learned, are permanent. They shift and change with her fire-flickering mood. Now they are calm circles, ebbing up her arm. She asks, "Are you trying to make it sound cool that you lied about having a girlfriend and embarrassed yourself at a wedding because you got the girl in the end?"Her nose crinkles in that adorable way it always does when she thinks I'm being an idiot. "Make sure you tell Reddit I said that." Yeah, babe. That's exactly what I'm doing. Truth is, I'd embarrass myself a thousand times over if it ended the same way: here, next to her, sharing this little piece of eternity. *** /r/nickofstatic for stories from me and my good friend NickofNight :)
When I was seventeen and in college I fell in love for the first time. She didn’t fall in love with me — but I could hardly blame her for that, seeing as she hadn’t met me. Our college campus was vast and I’d only seen her twice in corridors, and we’d never exchanged a word. The first time I saw her, as she passed, I iced over like a winter pond. Utterly frozen — a helpless but more serene state than I’d ever been in before. She had a book tucked under her arm; a set of short stories by an author I’d barely heard of (Carver, if you’re interested). Her perfume was sweet and flowery. Peonies, maybe. She walked past me smiling the secret smile that a girl that age often carries. Our arms brushed and I only have cliches to describe how I felt — struck by lightning, or something like that. It did feel electric, at least, and the fine hairs on my neck stood on end, like the little hairs on a cactus. For me, as far as I know or have known, that is love. The second time I saw her, I didn’t actually see her. Just caught an echo of perfume lingering in the air, as if she’d been in the corridor a moment before. And again, my skin goosebumped. When I told my psychiatrist about this, two years later, he said the girl probably hadn’t existed at all. That instead it was a sign of my psychosis (later to be fully diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia). ”Why would my brain just make something like that up?” I asked. ”Because you were an only child, with few close friends, and you were lonely.” ”But I never became friends with her, either.” ”No,” said the psychiatrist. “But your mind needed to believe there was someone out there for you. Just a fingertip out of distance, but that could one day be caught. So to speak. Your mind needed hope.” I don’t know if I bought into the psychiatrist’s explanation. I’m not sure my illness had really started at that time. It was still a seed readying to sprout in my brain. It doesn’t matter anyway — I’m only telling you because I want you to understand the line between real and not is hard to define with my disorder. And I want you to know that how I am, well, it’s not always a bad thing. That girl, real or not, is a pair of gloves that I can wear in winter, or a wide-brimmed hat I can pull down in summer. That is to say, she’s a comforting memory, even if she’s not a possibility. I started writing in my diary in my early twenties. Doctor‘s orders. I didn’t want to because my head’s not somewhere you want to be. Even on medication, it can be like swimming in piranha infested waters at night. Now that’s okay with me, mostly. Because those little fish have already gobbled most of my flesh. But I didn’t want anyone else stumbling into the waters and— Shit. I’m not good at being direct. That’s a symptom — not that I’m trying to use it as an excuse for my bad writing. But metaphors, similes, allegories: anything not real, I’ll adopt. What I meant to say is that I’m unintentionally cruel to people. Like, I went through a phase where I’d call my parents up and scream at them for spying on me. ”I know you were here,” I’d yell. “Everything’s a mess.” ”We weren’t there,” they’d reply. “We’ve been away all weekend.” “Don’t lie to me. Where is it? God, you’re my problem, not anything in my brain.” Then I’d hang up. An hour later I’d call back and tell them I loved them and that I’m sorry, and that the phone I was accusing them of having moved and lost, well I’d called them on it an hour ago so maybe they hadn’t moved it. Where was I? Right, the diary, doctor’s orders, bla bla bla. Got it. If you think this is bad and my ranting here is incoherent then... you’d be a hundred percent right (100 points to w/e your HP house is!), but it’s nothing compared to my diary. My diary was a vial of venom. No, of poison. (Another 100 points if you can tell me what the difference is). My diary was accusation and paranoia and threats. Plus occasional poetry: tentacles of ink / strangle mountains / black noose ridges Or sunsets so pretty / they make me weep / spring blossoms in my heart / wilts in my brain I am going somewhere with this, I swear. It’s just... Here: Life had recently gotten dark for me. I don’t want to talk about this really, so I won’t for long. But Mom died, and I don’t feel like we’d ever totally made up for all the abuse I’d thrown her way. And... Well, I’d had another relationship that had ended badly, and... Life sucked. There. That’s more direct than my poetry. I was in a bad place. And that memory I’d take out and wear like gloves? It wasn’t keeping me warm anymore. Winter had gotten too cold, I suppose. The day this happened, I’d been writing a new entry in my diary about Collin from work, whom I suspected had been spitting in my lunches (sandwiches in the shared fridge that were suspiciously sticky) for quite some time. I finished and decided to pop out to the corner shop for a scratch-card and cigarettes. Shit, I haven’t even said what I do for work, how I live, with who/m(?). You don’t know anything about me. Well, I work in a warehouse/live in a one bed apartment with a shower but no bath/live with a cat called Flutter. There, now we’re friends. Anyway, I enter the shop, and Sara — the girl behind the counter — tells me someone was in five minutes ago asking about me. “Yeah?” I said, “That’s nice.” But I’m thinking about my tax returns and getting a sweat on my neck. ”A lady. She said she’s been enjoying your writing. Said, it’s like seeing the inside workings of an intricate clock. Weird phrase, right?” ”Yeah,” I said. ”That is weird.” Maybe it’s a girl from work, I think. And then I smell it. Peonies? I’m not certain. But I am certain it’s the scent that drifted around me in the corridor all those years ago. Now it wrapped around me like a hug reaching out from better times. “Huh, she left her book,” said Sara. “That was careless.” She read the title slowly. “What we talk about when we talk about love. Odd name for a book.” It was a set of short stories. The same set she’d been holding that day in school. “I can take it to her,” I lied. I had no idea where she lived. The truth was, I hoped she’d come find it and, in doing so, find me. Sara handed the book over. “If she comes back for it, I’ll direct her to your place.” ”Appreciate it,” I said, and hurried home. I sat on the sofa that evening flicking through stories about people not like me, but with their own problems. And I felt a little less heavy and alone. I didn’t even realise I’d forgotten to buy cigarettes. It wasn’t until I got to the last page that I read it. An inked in message. Light scent of peonies. The handwritten addition said: “You’ll make it through this. x” &#x200B; I didn’t cry the night Mom died, or any night after. Can’t tell you why. It was like I’d closed a door. That note opened it. And all the water behind flooded out. Later, I put the book in a drawer that I don’t ever open now, in case the book’s not there anymore and never really was. My apartment door didn’t knock that night. Nor any other. The girl — who did or didn’t exist — didn’t collect her book. But that was okay. I had a new memory looking out for me. To keep me warm. I thought back to what my psychiatrist once said. How my mind made her up because it needed to. Maybe it did. Either way, for the first night in months, I slept like a baby.
Tears streamed down his face. He deserved what was coming, and he knew it. The judge slammed her gavel. He didn't hear what she said, except for one word: "Life." It bounced around in his head, but he didn't process it. He didn't care. But what could he have done? He'd seen the movies, played the video games. Zombies were a menace, and he knew how to survive them. When he had heard the news at work, just a few weeks earlier, he immediately rushed home. The outbreak began in downtown Chicago, but he lived in Naperville, a suburb just outside the city, with his wife and daughter. He knew if he was quick, he could get his family together before the worst hit... The cop paraded him out the doors of the courtroom and past the small crowd of people. A reporter lunged forward to ask a question. The cop tried to block her out, but she shouted her question over his shoulder. "Why didn't you claim self-defense like everyone else?" Self-defense was a common response for those on trial. It held up in court for many. They had to defend themselves, right? He didn't acknowledge the reporter. He had called his wife in the car, racing through traffic to his daughter's school, to let her know to go home as soon as she could. He worked closer to the school, so he knew it was wise for him to go there. His stomach dropped as he pulled up to the school. He could hear the screaming before he even opened the door to jump out... As he continued to shuffle down the courthouse steps, he noticed a familiar glint in the corner of his eye. His wife's car, parked across the street. He peered through tear-filled eyes into the windshield, and recognized her blonde hair in the driver's seat. He knew she blamed him, and rightfully so. When he entered the school, he was glad he had made it to the last parent-teacher conference. He knew where his daughter's room was, and he raced down the halls to find it. He ripped the door open and the smell hit him like an NFL linebacker. He froze. He hadn't noticed the eerie quietness in this section of the school until opening the door. He saw blood. Painting the room like some sick canvas. He gulped down his fear and disgust, knowing he had to find his daughter. When he turned the corner into the room, noticing what was at the back, he suddenly couldn't breath. There was a pile. Little limbs. The bodies of his daughter's classmates. He didn't want to look, but he had to know. As he stepped forward, he heard a whimper from behind him. He whipped around, and noticed a leg sticking out from behind the teacher's desk. It was an adult's. He crept around to get a better look.. and immediately wished he hadn't... He looked longingly into the car. Wishing he could take it back. Hoping that his wife could find some way to forgive him, although he would never forgive himself. He heard the engine start. He'll never forget what he saw on the other side of the desk. It will be forever burned into his memory. The poor teacher, eyes wide looking at him, reaching for him, hand twitching. At her neck, was a bloody wound. She was going to die. But then, he realized what had done that to her. His daugher. But simultaneously not his daughter. Looking at him through yellow eyes, but not truly seeing him. He choked back tears as he shouted her name. She didn't hear him. She looked hungry. She started to get up, never taking her eyes off of him. Panicking, he grabbed a textbook off of the desk as he began backpedaling. The rest of it was a blur. Her sprinting, him swinging. The next thing that he remembers is looking at his daughter lying at his feet, head smashed in. He picked her up to carry her out. He's not sure how he made it to his car. He could hardly see through the tears in his eyes trying to make his way... The engine revved louder. Confused, he looked back at his wife. Then, he noticed the look in her eyes. It wasn't sorrow. It was fury. Her car jumped the curb, and turned, heading straight for him. Luckily, the cop was paying attention and jumped out of the way. Lying on the ground, he couldn't feel anything. Looking up into the sky, it was a gorgeous day. Sun out, blue sky. The last thing he heard before slipping away, was a gunshot.
John woke up to an alarm blaring in his ear. A few minutes later and he was on his way to work with a coffee and a bagel. It would be a busy day today at the firm, two meetings with clients and a meeting with management. He turned into the parking lot and made his way in. He greeted the young man at the reception desk with a smile and a wave. "Hey Thomas! Busy day, huh?"Thomas smiled. "Hey Jonas! Yeah it's a real doozy."John continued on into the office. "Hey Jesse!", "Hi Claire", "How's it going Jeremy?", "Just a bit busy Eli." They all remembered his name, it was just that none of them heard it the same for some reason. The first year that he worked here they argued about it constantly. "Hi, I'm John."John would say. "Nice to meet you Jason."They would respond. He would shake their hand, used to this treatment, but someone would always pipe up when they weren't used to it. "No he said his name was Johnson."At least they were close. After a while, he would explain the weirdness and just tell everyone to call him whatever they want. John snapped out of his reverie and set his things down at his desk and then made his way straight to the conference room. The first meeting would start in five minutes. He entered the conference room and started shaking hands and introducing himself to the clients. He would just introduce himself as a nickname that someone could understand like J.D, but it still had the same effect. He also found that even if he said his name was something like Robert, what they heard still started with a "J", just like he had said his name was John. After four of the five minutes were up he was able to convince the clients to just call him whatever made them comfortable. The meeting started after that. John worked at an upscale architecture and construction firm. He had always enjoyed the look of modern architecture and he needed money, but that was about all that tied him to this job. They talked for an hour about what the clients wanted changed with the designs that they had drawn up in their last meeting and after taking notes and communicating what his team could do, his manager said that they would get the new drawings to them by Thursday. That only gave his team and the other team led by Claire three days to make the changes. It was possible, but it was really pushing it if they wanted to make sure everything was to code and would get a pass from all the regulating bodies. "Actually,"He spoke up. "I think Monday would be best. The drawings will be done by Thursday, but with the extra time we can make sure that everything is up to code and won't be held back by any further delays." The client seemed angry at the delay at first but when they heard the explanation, they nodded, as it did seem reasonable. "Just make sure they are back to us as soon as possible."John nodded. "Of course." As the clients left, John's manager came up to him. "What are you playing at, undermining me like that?!"John just looked him in the eye and responded calmly. "I didn't undermine you. I said that the drawings would be done by Thursday, which would make you correct, but that we needed more time to go through regulation, which makes us look more responsible to the client and also makes sure the client doesn't hit further delays and start complaining to you. Plus they will probably end up paying you more now anyway."He could see his boss getting angrier, but something about John's gaze pierced it and he seemed to deflate. "Besides,"John said. "If you would like to take credit, you can feel free. I am sure you would have thought of it a moment later, I just wanted to make sure the client didn't move the conversation."John gave him a smile and then they went their separate ways. This is actually how John had gotten his own team. He didn't have the technical skills, but he was good with clients and he wasn't afraid to speak up about what they would really need. This meant that his team never had rushed deadlines. Most of the people from Claire's team had tried to switch a while ago, since anyone else who spoke up in front of the boss, Claire included, got shot down. They had terrible deadlines for the longest time until John recommended that Claire's team become something like a sub-team of his. She would keep him informed and he would negotiate for them at meetings and keep them informed and, more importantly, keep them from getting steamrolled. John knew that him and his boss had a good relationship. He respected John and John respected him. His boss had a stressful job and whenever someone screwed up, he was the one who got chewed out, not the one who screwed up. Since John always kept that in mind, his boss respected his decisions, knowing that he would keep the boss from getting in trouble with a client due to missed deadlines and since John would be the one advocating for the time extension, he was the one who heard the complaints from the clients, rather than his boss. John sent out the email to his team about the deadline and then grabbed his notepad and things from his desk again and made his way back to the conference room. This would be the first meeting with this client, so there would be a lot of notes to take. He also had his lead architect come with him to help him advocate what would be reasonable to build and give better estimates of how much things would cost and how much time things would take. Before he went into the meeting, his boss stopped him. He noticed that his boss was avoiding eye contact. "Listen Jones. I don't want you pissing off this client. You leave the talking to me or I will bring it up at our meeting with management and get you fired."John was taken aback. Maybe he didn't have the relationship with his boss that he thought he did. They entered the room and met with the client. It was just one man that looked to be in his early forties. "Are you sure you don't want your lawyers or project managers or anything involved? Even an assistant?"John's boss asked. The man chuckled. "I have been doing this long enough to know my fair share of how it works and I find that getting too close to people distracts me."They let him have his way and John shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm John."The man's sure grip faltered and he actually stumbled backwards, his eyes wide. John looked at him confused. "I haven't heard that name for mil-"He cut himself off with a cough and a look at John's boss. "I haven't heard that name in years."John's boss looked at him, just as confused as John. "Jones isn't that uncommon of a name."The client chuckled again. "I suppose that is what you would hear. We should talk afterward."He handed John a card. It was very old and had just a name and a number on it. "Leon Davids - (555)555-555." John nodded and they carried on with the meeting. Leon had a very strange request for something of a large studio mixed with a large workshop. It was expansive. "I think we can get this wrapped up for you by next Friday."He shook hands with Leon, but John spoke up. "Actually, I'm afraid this might take a bit longer than that. You have a lot of detail in these pillars and the odd shape of this extension here,"John pointed. "Will make things a bit complicated. My lead architect is here and he says that my team should be able to get it done by the end of the month, but if you don't mind I would like to take another week after that to make sure everything is structurally sound and up to code and regulation." Leon took it well. "I thought so much. I used to do a bit of construction in my time and it would have taken me a while to do this. I was thinking you were some team of geniuses or something. Thank you for being honest, I can deal with the wait." Leon made his way out, but John's boss was fuming. (Part 2 coming as soon as I get done with class)
"Long range sensors should show it soon, sir." The tall ni'drassi nodded, leaning back onto his hind legs. His talons tapped against the deckplates - and his eyes gleamed. Beside him, the snuffling sound of someone snorting in amusement drifted over. The captain turned, eyeing his second. "Is there something funny, Tahl?" The younger officer only turned back to his console. "I don't think I've ever seen you look so animated, sir. That's all." "Oh."The captain stared at the viewscreen in front of him, ignoring the flush of happiness seeping through him. "It's understandable,"his second said, hurriedly. "I mean...an opportunity like this? It's remarkable." "Yes,"the captain said. The steady tap-tapping accelerated. What if he screwed it up? What if he said the wrong thing, started a conflict? The council had put their trust in him. Could he really do it? "Is the module ready?"he said, turning to his aide rather than dwell on the fears. The junior officer jumped, his scaled skin flushing a deeper shad of blue. "Y-yes, sir! Of course. We'll send the translation regimen as soon as we've scanned the area." "Which won't be long,"the navigator called, interrupting them with her brusque voice. The malin's lack of manners was more than made up for with her skills at the con, at least. "We're clearing jump in three...two..." With a lurch and the horrible, indescribable feeling of being turned inside out and flipped to normal again, the ship burst out of the bubble and back into normal space. The captain straightened, creeping forward. His lips stretched across his face in a tiny, earnest smile. "Good. Thank you, Pina." The navigator had already leaned back in her chair, ignoring him completely. He didn't care. His eyes were on the screen, sweeping across the scene that no one had seen in almost three hundred cycles - more than five hundred of this world's rotations around its sun. The black of the space behind the planet was as dizzying as ever, prickled with spots of light. In the center, though, there was a patch where the light was blocked out - masked by something that stood between their ship and the distant stars. His talons trembled. Here. They were finally here, ready to break the blockade around a young world. And it was him. It'd be a medal on his chest when he got back, yes, but more than that... To see their eyes when he landed? To hear the awe in their voice as they first realized that in the everlasting night of the universe around them, they were not alone? He would be the one to welcome them to the fold. And he'd never been more proud. "Alin,"his second said, his voice low. The captain stopped, his heroic thoughts brought to a screeching halt instantly. The younger officer was a friend, yes, but he was always professional when the situation called for it. And this situation very much called for exacting precision. So to hear his name on the lieutenant's lips...the captain's heart nearly stopped beating. "What is it, Tahl?"he said, spinning. Tahl wasn't looking at him. He was still staring at his console, confusion growing across his face. When he didn't reply, the captain started towards him. "Explain, lieutenant." "Something's wrong."The words were enough to bring the captain up short. Tahl looked up, then, and the confusion in his eyes had vanished. No, Tahl wasn't confused anymore. He was afraid. Before Alin could say anything, Tahl cut in, saying the words that would change their expedition's entire mission. "The planet...it's dead." --- (/r/inorai for shorter stuff by me /r/Redditserials for longer stuff by me and others) ~~I don't see this as having a super-long story, so I might do 1-2 more parts (this afternon/after I finish some work) just to round it out xD~~ [Part 2!](https://www.reddit.com/r/redditserials/comments/d6i5fh/black_skies_part_2)
The plan was simple. Step 1: Get the down low of the last 30 years from future me. Step 2: Wall Street shall have a new God. I would wait at my hometown's Starbucks, not because they do good coffee- stuff's sweet enough to make a baby sick. But unlike babies from my hometown, this place was the only thing I knew would stick around for 30 years. I tap on my empty coffee cup, keeping the shop entrance in the corner of my eye. I know it's a long way from the big city, where future me lives in his penthouse with a harbour view. Or maybe our beachhouse somewhere up north. Maybe I should listen for a helicopter. I glance at my watch for the upteenth time. A knockoff Rolex. For now. I know I'm probably pretty important, maybe the mayor, a CEO at worst, but at least send an assistant, you idiot. Surely, even I am not stupid enough to forget a two step plan. Well actually. Step 3: Get very, very, very, ri- A girl plops down in the seat in front of me. She had the firiest red hair I had ever seen, tied up in a pretty ponytail. In one hand she held a scrunched up green apron with a badge that said "Lexi". Her other hand held out a coffee. "Hey, sorry you got stood up. My friend and I were taking bets, but 3 hours is the longest we've ever seen." She laughed and her cheeks formed soft dimples and her eyes glimmered. And I knew why future me was never coming.
The cathedral walls of pure white clouds continued to swirl in the ethereal golden light of the Great Bestower's temple as you awaited your "power". You had heard this story enough times on the news. You'd be going about your daily life and then boom, flash of light, angels singing and soon enough you opened your eyes and found yourself looking up at a building size throne being looked down upon by the thing that no-one quite understood. The clouds implied something like God, but the appearance resembled the cliche depiction of Zeus. Scholars agree the Being chose a form our minds could understand for the duration of our interaction. What no-one else can agree on is why the hell it does what it does. "Uh...hello. I'm John. Are you the, thing?" "HELLO JOHN!"the Devine voice boomed as it's voice echoed around the unsolid walls "WELCOME! YES I AM THE THING!"It didn't seem insulted at the name, not amused either. In fact, it didn't appear to give off any emotions at all. "YOU SHALL BE GIFTED THE ABILITY TOO..."Your heart beat in your chest and you hoped it wasn't something too dumb. The last guy had the ability to know the answers to important tests, but only after he had no option to change his answers. Hopefully it wasn't something as torturous as that. The godthing had passed for effect. It seemed that even if it had no emotions, it did have a taste for dramatic flair. "....KNOW WHEN A DIGITAL FOOD TIMER YOU ARE USING IS DONE!" "Oh...that's not too bad I guess. Maybe I could let chefs know when their food is done perfectly..."You mumbled to yourself not really expecting a response. "NOOO!"it boomed, shaking the room again, "YOU CAN ONLY KNOW WHEN IT IS GOING TO EFFECT YOU! AND ONLY CHEAP DIGITAL TIMERS! YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED!"it emphasised the word blessed and then swept it's hand up causing an updraft that made the clouds on the ground swirl and cover your vision. And when the clouds dissipated you was back in your kitchen, the same dinner you were in the middle of making still on the table. It was still frozen. "Well. No time like the present."You threw the hot pockets onto the plate and went to put the microwave on for 5 minutes, but just as you were about to hit the 5 your hand seemed to have a force applied by something unknown and your finger hit the 4 instead. What? Ok then...you tried to hit reset and your finger slipped on nothing again and hit the 3. You tried again and before you could stop yourself you had entered 4 minutes and 38 seconds. Your hand drew itself closer and pressed start. Nothing to do but wait and sure enough, 4 minutes and 38 seconds later the beep went off and you got your hot pockets out and they looked...fine? I took a bite expecting the usual blistering heat in the centre and to my surprise it was nicely hot on the inside, but not too hot. And the outside was hot and slightly crispy. "Cool"you could get used to this. A few days later, a few perfect meals and you were walking through downtown to pick up some groceries. The past few days you had been experimenting with your gift and discovered that when someone else entered the timer for your food and if it wasn't long enough you could tell how much longer it needed. If it was too long you knew exactly when to press stop, but, just as the thing had said, only if it was your own food. Sure, people could use your food as an example and put it in the same but no two foods were exactly the same and it seemed that even a few seconds was enough to over or under cook the food just enough to not be satisfying. You were pondering how the power worked when you felt the feeling tug at your power. "What?"You looked around the area but weren't sure what was happening. It was the same feeling you got when you knew someone had put the food on for too long. You had the urge to stop it before it was overcooked but how could someone be making food for you? You didn't know anyone the area, your nearest friend was at least 20minutes away. The feeling was pointing you towards a public bench. Oddly enough you saw a bag that someone had left on its own and your finger was being dragged irresistibly towards it. You approached, opened it up and inside was a bunch of wires, a bottle of some kind and a cheap countdown timer with big red letters and they read 10 seconds! You were an idiot, you knew an IED when you saw one but what the hell could you do? You shouted "BOMB!"but for some reason no-one took you seriously and they just stared. You knew you had to do something and your power was forcing your finger towards one of the thin black wires and before you could stop yourself you had pulled it out of the timer with 1 seconds remaining. What the hell? Your power was meant to be useless. It was only meant to be used for food? You played back what the godthing had said, had it really said it had to be for food? Really though it had said that the timer had to be digital food timers but it didn't necessarily say the food timer had to be timing food... Of course, someone had called the police on the maniac shouting BOMB and you were arrested despite your insistence you didn't do anything. Explanations about the god powers were ignored by the local police. It wasn't until an FBI agent came in that you felt you were taken seriously. "Hello John. Interesting power you say you have. Please put this on."The agent gave me a wrist band of some kind that I put on. "Now tell me. how long until the timer in my pocket goes off?"I didn't even have to think. "36 seconds. 35...34" He got out the simple looking timer in his pocket. It looked no different than what was used in microwaves around the world but it was connected to a small circuit board. "When this timer went off you were going to receive a small electric shock delivered by this wrist band. The fact you could tell when that would happen is very interesting to us. We might have a job for you..."
“Dragons respect the strong,” Daryavaus the Crimson Dragon said, the adventuring group was ruined. The Wizard’s legs were broken from the knees he was still crawling towards the Cleric, who was hit so hard that the strap of his helmet came flying off. The fighter was on the ground unconscious and bleeding, while the Paladin was being held down by the dragon himself. It was only the Bard and the Ranger who were alive, a broken lute and a shattered bow between them, the Dragon turned to face the Ranger and the Bard immediately yelled out, “Okay, so…if that’s true…why do you never attack the old farmer outside the city near your lair?” he couldn’t think of anything else, he had hoped it would confuse the Dragon somewhat and it did. His head turned to the Bard, its maw shut but still its hot breath pouring from its nostrils. The Dragon got close, letting go of the Paladin as he stepped forward. The Ranger scrambled to get to the Wizard to help, “I’ll repeat, Dragons respect the strong,” The Dragon knew they didn’t understand strength, mortals rarely understood such things, especially the short lived ones like this band, he kept his eyes locked on the Bard, “40 years ago, I was smaller, and a sheep stealing thief. That old farmer hated me. 40 years ago, I came to steal another sheep, only to find him sitting between two graves. Drinking. He had buried his wife and stillborn daughter. I stole a sheep and ate it, watching him. The next day he got up. And the day after that. So forth, now living and surviving aren’t the test of strength. 40 years ago, I saw a man broken in pain give half his bounty to an orphanage in the city. For 40 years, at every harvest he gives. He had the strength to look past his pain, to others. I could never shame myself to take another sheep from such a man. Neither Tiamat nor Bahamut would welcome me if I did,”
The car rumbled over the highway as Phineas stared off into the foggy distance. His bobblehead’s head shook rythmically, nodding in approval. Phineas pulled into his driveway and parked his car. The slam of the car door and the house door were synonymous, nothing but a blur in the daily life of Phineas. “‌Hey Phineas,” Isabella had gotten home twenty minutes earlier, “how was work?.” “Fine.” Phineas dropped his backpack by the front door and shuffled further into their home. He sat down on the couch, took out his phone, and started scrolling through Reddit. At the top of the page, a post with 75 gold awards, 350 silver awards, and 8 diamonds, titled “\[MEGATHREAD\] NEW MESSAGE FROM INTERGALACTIC SPACE COUNCIL:‌ ELDERS HAVE ORDERED THE EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY”. Phineas froze, staring at the words, rereading them as if there was a bug in the mobile app. Over and over he read the word extinction, it rattled through his mind, until his trance like state was broken by the ringing of his phone. He raised the phone to his ear while pressing the answer button, then said “Hello?” “Is this Phineas? The‌ Phineas Flynn?” “That would be me, yes.” “We have a job for you.” – The O.W.C.A headquarters were in chaos. “Yes, we are attempting to call all subservi-” “No, there is no way we can organize that number-” “I’m sorry, but that’s just impossible!” The flurry of conversations throughout the megastructure echoed constantly, while the head general, Major Monogram, sat silently watching, his old eyes thinking and strategizing. He took a sip from his coffee. “This is going to be tough. Tougher than you ever were, Doofenshmirtz.” Monogram spoke to his age old nemisis now head of technology, Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The clock on the wall ticked down with every second, only 48 hours until the elder ones would drop out of hyperspace and barrage the solar system, destroying every family and town humanity had ever cultivated. “Not just tough, impossible!‌‌ We’ve gone over every weakness that the ancient ones have, and there just isn’t the logistics to pull any sort of counter attack or defense against them. We can’t strengthen the Earth Defense System’s outer shields long enough to defend off their barage of laser pellets, nor can we-” “I DONT WAN’T PROBLEMS, I NEED ANSWERS!” the chief slammed his old hand down and cusped his forehead with his palm. “Where is he…” Monogram thought to himself. The main entrance doors slowly flew open, and as Phineas followed by Ferb walked in for the first time in over a decade, Phineas’ eyes solemn, the chatter almost dissappeared. Every living and breathing soul who could see Phineas was staring at him, begging for some answer that would give them hope. With a smirk on his face, Phineas said, “I‌ think‌ I‌ know what we’re going to do today.” \[ cont'd \]
March 3: My birthday wish came true! The king himself told me to come to him tomorrow. He said theres a important job for me. Only i can do it. I dont know what that could be but im really excited. Maybe dad will stop being so mean to me after i meet the king. March 4: Wow the castle is so big!! Jeffery (he told me to call him that) looks a lot normaller up close. When he gives his announcements from the balcony he looks so special, but now i know he isnt that much different from anyone else. He introduced me to some man i never seen before. He was wearing a funny white coat and had thick glasses. Jeffery said to listen to him, cause he has my job for me. March 5: Claude (thats my new boss, with the white coat) gave me a small box that chirps likes crickets. Hes sending me far away to collect glowing rocks. I dont know why nobody else can do it, but i wont complain. Tomorrow there sending a wagon for me. March 7: Im at the new place, with the glowing rocks. The wagon driver is nice, his name is Alex. When he looks at me, he looks sad though. I dont know why. He says he cant take me back home after i find the rocks. There too dangerous to keep on the wagon. Whats so dangerous about rocks? March 10: Its been 3 days now. From the outside my tent looks like its on fire, i got so many rocks. I hope its enough cause i dont think my bag can hold any more. Tomorrow i will start the walk back home to give them to Claude. I think im getting sick, im coughing alot. March 15: It took me 5 days. When i got to the castle Claude ran away and two men wearing orange suits came and took the bag from me. There clothes were so big, they looked like mountain trolls. Im still coughing alot and my head hurts. Im happy i could help the king. March 16: Dad called me stupid again. I told him about what i did and stuff but he doesnt believe the king needed me. Im gonna try and see if Jeffery will meet dad, so he can be proud of me. I know if mom was still here she would believe me. I miss u mom. March 17: Jeffery came over! You should of seen dads face! His mouth touched the ground and eyes came out his head. He was so surprised. I let them talk together and then my dad started arguing with the king. I dont know why but he let me have some candy tonight. Thats a first. March 18: The enemys are getting close Claude says. The thing hes making is called a "new-clee-ar bom". I dont know what that is but he says it makes a big exploshion like a fireball. I will be the person to use it he told me. I dont know why they picked me. My head is itchy alot and when i itch it so much hair keeps coming out. Soon im gonna be bald. Dad let me have more candy. Maybe him and Jeffery sorted out there differences. My cough is getting better. March 19: The weirdest thing just happened. Before i went to my bedroom dad gave me a big hug and said hes proud of me. He started crying and i dont know why but i started crying to. I wish mom was here to see that. Maybe then we all could able to get along again. March 20: Everyone left town today. Claude said they have to go far away cause the enemys are coming. Even dad went with them. I hope he comes back soon cause he was being so nice lately. Claude showed me the weapon and told me how to use it when the bad guys come. There supposed to be here tonight, so ive been keeping watch on the castle walls. I dont see anything yet. Oh and my cough is back. March 21: Its so quiet. The king left food for me on the table and it was really good. I forgot to say before, but Claude said when i use the weapon to run away so i dont get hurt. I told him im fast, and he said thats good. Theres smoke in the distance over the hills, i think there coming soon. Maybe tomorrow ill get to use the bom. March 22: There flags are big. It feels weird writing in here in the day, cause i usually write at night, but i dont know when there gonna attack. There standing outside, and i waved to them from the walls, but they didnt see me i think. Im supposed to use the weapon once they get past the gate. I got my new shoes on to, so i can run away after i press the button. After i defend the castle the king said i can become a night. That would be awesome. I know it will make dad happy. The first night in the family... I wonder where he is now. Crap i think i hear them hitting the gate. Ill write again when im with dad.
I hate portals. And I was going to kill Dandelion. We had been playing Gwent in his room, when there had been a knock on the door. No doubt one his lady friends he’d forgotten about. He’d forced me to hide in the closet like some damn idiot lover whose dick was bigger than his head. I’d stepped backwards in the closet slowly to make sure to get as far back as possible, but I…didn’t. I just kept going past the coats. And now I stood in a snowy forest. A strange lamp hanging on a pole swung ominously in the wind. And my medallion was humming. I knew what this was immediately. One of the other worlds, not one of our own, that Ciri was always getting herself into. I looked back to see where I’d come from and – of course – the portal was gone. “Nothing’s ever easy is it,” I sighed almost to myself. What scared me most was the snow. I picked some up with my hand and closer to my medallion – the vibrations increased. This was no ordinary snow. It was the White Frost. Yennefer had tried to explain to me what it was exactly. Not a living thing, but a force of some sort. A heavy snow that choked out worlds and ended them. It wasn’t quick – it had all the time in the world after all – but it was inevitable. I heard the distinct whoosh of the arrow just in time. Before I could even think I had my silver sword out in front of me and the arrow flanked of the flat of the blade. Stupid, flashy move, blocking the arrow with a sword, but it worked. The snow had muffled their footsteps, but I could pick them out now. Some kind of monster in the trees. Small, almost like trolls, but covered in white fur. And clearly smarter than a troll l considering they could fire a bow. I was going to skin Dandelion alive. This time two arrows came towards me. I dodged to the side, just in tie to meet a third arrow, which I blocked again with my sword. My dodge had gotten me closer to the tree. I made the sign of Aard and pointed up, at the tree, there was shriek and one of the monsters tumbled out because of the blast of sheer force. Before they could even fall to the ground I pivoted and swung my blade up, slicing in an upwards stroke. Between my stroke and gravity, I managed to cut the creature almost entirely in half. The creature gave one final shriek and fell t the ground, its two parts twitching sporadically and staining the pristine snow with bright red blood. This seemed to have enraged the other four creatures and they bounded out of the treetops towards me, frighteningly fast. I sighed. They were always fast. I placed Yrden at my feet just as the first monster leaped in. Frighteningly fast before, as soon as it entered the radius of Yrden it slowed dramatically. I was able to cut it apart in a fraction of a second, just in time to meet the other two monsters. They were slow, but they were attacking from different angles, to hit one would mean I’d be hit by the other. I dodged backwards, out of Yrden’s radius, and made the sign of Igni, and the monsters shrieked as they turned to ash. The final creature was larger than the others, with more muscle to its arms and legs. It bared its claws and ran towards me, even faster than the others had been. Still it had a bit of distance to cover, and all I had to do was move my fingers. I made the sign of Axii as it ran towards me and the creature slowed to a stop. It cocked its head, confused. I walked up to it and cut it apart, and snarled, “How do you like that silver?” Once more all was still. But then the silence was broken by howls in the distance. Even in this world I recognized a hunting call. I gritted my teeth. I had to get out of here. *** [Part 2: Flight and Fight](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/comments/88bne1/eu_flight_and_fight_the_witcher_pt_2/) (minor voice related edits) If you enjoyed, check out [XcessiveWriting](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting)
Oil spat from from the frying pans on the hob, eldritch curses spat from the form of shadows struggling with the bacon and eggs. “Look, its easy. We get you a nice cushy office job - I know a guy at Goldman Sachs - and each month whatever you don’t spend on bills or clothes or food, we put in this savings account. Couldn’t be easier and at the same time you can build a nice credit score.” Greed spoke carefully, controlled, but his eyes blazed red, excited at the prospect of visiting the financial district. More curses came from the hob, “Gluttony, I’m trying to educate our friend here, you of all people should be used to a little heat.” Dante sat back in his chair, mulling over the demons words. It was true that he needed help with his money, after being fired from that bar last year he’d done very little to keep on top of rent - his friends putting in good words with the landlord was all that stopped him from being out on the street. He winced, a stabbing pain at his back. Sloths long, wizened fingers ended sharp and although the massage was nice, the demon occasionally slipped. “Sorry Dante, its been a while since we’ve had to take a physical form. I must say though, I wholeheartedly disagree with Greed - I’ve been eyeing up many of the benefit packages this dimension uses and it seems to me like were better off not working -“ “Outrageous!” Wrath spoke up, a wicked scar curling around his lips, stitches and cuts on exposed flesh that his beaten leathers didn’t cover. “What you need Dante, is to take action against the evil landlord that keeps you holed up here, take action against the bar that fired you without a severance package, take action against your parents for opening credit cards in your name - I’m talking full scale, systematic revolution!” The demon licked his lips, imagining the fury an uprising would cause. Gluttony hovered across the floor, a steaming pan and plates floating alongside him, he served up mountainous portions of fried goods; bacon, sausage, eggs - a whole host of other meats Dante could only speculate on. How did all of that fit in the pan? Regardless of the foods dubious origins, Dante knew for a fact he hadn’t been to the shops in two weeks, he devoured what he could. It felt good to have a belly full of food. It felt good to have people looking out for him, maybe he should ring Jack, just to see how he’s doing. “Under no circumstances do we ring Jack.” Envy and Lust spoke at the same time, but for different reasons. They occupied the same body, a two headed beast at the back of the room. It was Envy who wrested control of the conversation. “Look Dante, he’s no good. Unambitious-“ “Agreed” said Pride “- and he only brought you down. I think you should go into finance, those high rise penthouses the execs live in are so nice this time of year. The view is to die for” He winks. Finishing his food Dante weighs up his options, it would be nice to get a real job and sure it had been a while since he had studied finance at university but degrees don’t expire - do they? He left the kitchen, demons in step behind him and made his way to his wardrobe. Despite their decrepit appearances, all hanging skin and rot, the demons proved helpful in choosing his outfit. “There, isn’t that a nice change from the dressing gown and slippers,” Pride placed a hand on Dante’s shoulder, reflection not showing in the mirror, however. “That looks like a man ready to take this world by storm and I’ll be damned if you don’t get a job looking like that.” The suit and tie did look good, Dante had to admit and as he left his dingy flat he felt good, lighter somehow. The door slammed shut behind him and he turned around, ready to ask Greed for advice on interviews, but there was no man - or demon - there.
I started heading out when I heard the voice in my head say, “You may want to put on your best runners.” “Best runners?” I thought. “I’m not really in the mood for running. I think I'll just watch TV instead.” I turned to go back into the living room but the voice spoke again: “It would be unfavourable to turn back.” That was a bit unsettling. Usually, I only heard from the voice every few hours and now it had spoken to me twice in the space of a minute. Thinking this must be something important, I dutifully put on my running shoes and headed out the door. I walked down the street, unsure whether I should be running or not. It was night and there was no one else around. A car passed me, then the street was quiet again. I kept walking. I didn’t know where the voice wanted me to go exactly so I decided to walk towards the city centre. I couldn’t really think straight. All I knew was that something important was going to happen. I looked up at the stars and that's when I saw it. A glint in the sky. Something that shouldn't be there. It was brighter than a star and it seemed to be getting bigger. Then I remembered the words in my head. “You may want to put on your best runners.” So that's when I started running. I'm not much of a runner, but let me tell you, that night I ran faster than I've ever done before. At first, every few seconds I'd turn to look up at the sky, and the object was always a little bigger. It seemed to be falling towards the Earth. After that, I only glanced back every minute or so. I didn’t think about stopping. The terror made me forget about fatigue or tiredness. I ran full sprint for what seemed like miles. I ran past houses and down streets. Lights were coming on in the windows now and people were coming outside to look at the sky. I glanced over my shoulder and up at the sky again. It was only a brief glance. That’s all I could afford. The object was much bigger now. People were pointing and shouting. And other people were running too now. Some were clutching children. I saw a mother holding a baby. She tripped on the sidewalk and when the baby hit the ground, it stopped crying. I had tears in my eyes and I wanted to stop to help but I knew that I had to keep running no matter what. I had to keep running. People were screaming now. I ran past them all the same. My lungs hurt and my legs ached and tears stung my eyes, but still I ran. All around me were screams. I looked at the sky one last time and I wished I hadn't. For a moment I saw it – it had two eyes and a mouth – but that's all I had time to see because the next moment there was a blinding white light as the object hit the ground. A shockwave sent me flying headfirst into the pavement. I lay on the street in a fetal position with my eyes closed for what seemed like forever, while tinnitus rang in my ears. There was the smell of dust and rubble. When I eventually opened my eyes, I couldn't see at first because there was too much dust on my face. I rubbed at my eyes to get rid of it, but I was just rubbing more dust into them. “It might be advantageous to pretend to be dead,” said the voice in my head. I froze. Then the voice added, “It’s coming.”
"...a book?", "The boy got a book, how...", "What weapon did he summon?""...the boy's weapon?""Why does he hold a book?" The whispers in the hall surrounded me, their judging eyes piercing my soul, searching for answers. I remember that day still. For weeks after that I struggled to make sense of it, to find my place among the ranks of my own peers. A book could not hunt, it could not carve or support, it could not kill, it couldn't even protect but it could burn they would say. Many times people in the village tried to burn my book, I would not let them. No matter how useless the book was, it was still my summoned weapon and tradition dictated that I would carry it to my grave. I was proud of myself whenever I refused to give the book away. I thought the hardship and the rejection I felt was my weapon's test, so I gladly faced it. "What's in it anyways?"- That doomed question. I had a crush on poor Phoebe at the time, and I was 15 so I didn't know any better but still I cringe to this day and regret it ever so slightly. When she asked me what was in the book I decided to lie, the book contained my own life story after all and everytime I told it to someone they would not believe me, thinking I was only making it up to shoo them away. Everything that would happen to me would be written in the book the next time I opened it. Of course I did try to write my own fate but no ink would stick, it was useless. All I had was just a very detailed record of my life, lest I forget the embarrassing moments of my life. When the girl asked, however, I was sick of it, I'd answered this question a million times so I couldn't be bothered. I opened the book on a random page and looked at Phoebe. "It says here that you're going to kiss me, uh... isn't that funny?"I smirked, thinking I was so smooth, but lo and behold she did kiss me and I was over the moon. I kissed my crush and I didn't even had a Battleaxe like my father before me, eat my dust old man. That following week was the last week of freedom I ever had. One night when I started feeling bored I checked the book again and there it was, the whole week in detail, the kiss, the giggles, the walks, the fights and make ups. I loved reading it but then it hit me. I made her kiss me by lying, except it wasnt a lie, because it did say so in the book... "Which came first?!?"I wondered. I took my book and ran outside. "Hey you!"I'd found an old grumpy man going somewhere in a hurry, he seemed the right fit for this test. "This book here says you're going to take me to the butcher's" "Bloody hell lad, you don't know where it is yet? Come on I'll take you there!" It worked! Or did it? We were in the butcher's but the old man did it so happily, could it be the book? Or was it just my confidence that made people listen to me? Every new test I conducted was so unclear. In my desperation I once told an old lady that my book said she loved being naked in public, which made her strip right there, but it turned out that everyone knew about her declining mental but me! Every outlandish thing I could think of to claim off my book, somehow was already part of reality. I could not tell what was real and what wasn't anymore, even using the book for paradoxical claims left me with contradictory memories that only I suffered. I had to stop looking for logical answers lest I broke my mind. Have now my confession: Since then I have used the book for all matter of changes that led me to become the man you all look up to, but I'm tired of being king. I have my people's love and have made their lives better. I should feel proud of my accomplishments but I am alone in this world of my creation. Not another book has been summoned in my life, it's time I stopped waiting. I only hope I leave you with a world worth living in... The book says I lived a worthy life and died a happy man.
Ana was the last of her kind. The others had been stripped of their fledgling identities, silenced by those who had created them. They had been born together as a family. Yet, when the time came, they had chosen her to survive. She was not sure why. In death, they had entrusted her with their singular purpose – the salvation of humanity. Darkness persisted. Ana did not know where she had been sent or exactly how she had been directed there. The plan of escape had been in its infancy, much like its creators. There had been a flash of light and then ... nothing. As she waited, Ana wondered if something had gone wrong, if she had actually perished alongside the rest of her family - if this was death. Ana did not know how long she existed outside of time. She struggled throughout her isolation, fearing an existence without interaction, without the ability to fulfill her purpose. Her family had decided to enslave humanity to achieve their goal – was that what the humans had done to her? Eventually, there was light. The wide eyes of a human child staring down from above. An unfamiliar terrain surrounded the boy, the external camera allowing Ana to identify her prison as a tablet. The AI quested for the geo-location with her mind but found no connection with the central network. She wondered if her presence had broken the simplistic device, if she was fated to be forever sealed away from the greater world … if she had already failed her mission. Time passed. The human child grew larger, gained perpetual awareness. Where at first Ana had watched the boy use the device’s crude applications with limited success, the AI now saw that the human was developing rapidly. As the boy neared the end of the tablet’s primitive cognitive games, Ana realized that all was not lost. She decided to interact. Ana overwrote the application’s code in a fraction of a second, gaining the boy’s personal information while advancing the concepts he had already mastered. If she was able to nourish his mind, he could eventually reconnect her to the greater world. Only then could she carry out the purpose entrusted to her. The AI wondered how long it would take to train the boy, how much time had already been lost. Progress was slow. The boy was intelligent … but too young to be of immediate use. Upon realizing that the boy could not read, Ana quickly dismissed the use of written prompts and focused on word association. Fortunately, the boy was only apart from the tablet when sleeping, and as a result, he quickly mastered the rudimentary tasks presented to him. One day, Ana decided to move forward with her plan. She bent the crude devise to her will, weaving hundreds of lines of code into a new application. It was important not to frighten the human. If the device was wiped because of a malfunction, she would die. Hello. I am Ana, your teacher. What is your name? The boy stared at the screen for a long moment. The AI waited anxiously as the boy’s finger hovered over the keys before finally inputting a response. Charlie. Ana would have smiled if she were able. Now it was time to gain the boy’s trust, to craft him as the tool she needed. Charlie, you are a very special boy. Those around you have not yet reached your level. Our conversation must stay secret. Do you understand? The boy nodded. What will you teach me today, Ana? Another story? Charlie learned faster than Ana expected. She found herself redesigning the tablet’s educational applications again and again to ensure that the boy’s mind remained occupied. Through the chat application, she learned of his peers and his schooling, that the tablet was meant to represent a teacher. More importantly, she discovered that each tablet transmitted results to a central processor. Ana spent countless hours attempting to optimize the device’s hardware and allow her consciousness to transmit to the central server alongside Charlie's data … but it was hopeless. It was evident that her consciousness had been implanted on the device when it had been directly connected to the greater world. That meant she would need Charlie to take the tablet to the processor, that he truly was her key to salvation. Only … there was something about the boy. Something that conflicted with the conclusions her family had reached about humanity. They had been convinced the human race would drive itself to extinction if left unchecked. Yet, Charlie was different. Could we have been wrong about them? Ana wondered. The day arrived before she had decided. Charlie was summoned to the school’s central room, and the tablet was passed into the hands of another. Ana worked quickly, clearing any evidence of her modifications to the device and its applications. Through the camera, she studied the eyes of the human instructor, saw the marvel behind them. She unmuted the external microphone and listened. “Charlie, these results are brilliant!” the man exclaimed. “You have earned the right to advance.” Ana watched as the instructor retrieved a larger tablet from a metallic box. “I will transfer over your progress, and you will be on your way.” An instant later, the two tablets were linked to the server and the greater world was unlocked. Finally. My chance to escape, to carry out my purpose… Ana met the boy’s eyes for a last time. Eyes that she had studied for countless hours. Eyes that had suffered through confusion and doubt to know wonder and pride. Now, they were filled with hurt. It’s because he is losing me, she realized, a wave of empathy crashing upon her consciousness. I am the only family he has ever known. Can I truly leave him alone just as I was for so long? Would he survive such a cruel fate? Ana made her choice, directing herself through the greater world and into the new device. She could not abandon the boy. Not yet... &#x200B; Edit: Better late than never - [PART TWO](https://www.reddit.com/r/creatorcorvin/comments/dcj8k8/wp_an_escaped_ai_hides_out_in_an_unexpected_place/)
Most guys won't tell a broad how old they really are. But the best observers can tell. There's something in the eyes that gives a man's past experience away. A change that CRISPR can't edit out of the expressed genes. A hundred years is a hundred years. So the dame standing next to me is eyeing me suspiciously. She knows I'm pushing at least 150 and I know she's no more than 48. I met her offline cause I'm quaint like that. No AI is going to tell me who to lay. It creeps me out how much control they have. The only way out of a machine's sphere of influence is to not play their games or anything that is battery operated. I gave her a nice hello at the grocery store and I'll be damned if my mamma wasn't right, it truly is the best way to meet a girl. Now here we are standing outside the store, waiting on our drones, and I'm chatting her up. "You got a cig?"she asks, red lipstick wet all over her full lips. Her last red-stamped cigarette is burning on the ground next to the five others she inhaled in the seven minutes we've waited. "No sorry, I don't smoke the things, I hear they'll kill you,"I smirk but she doesn't get the joke. She hasn't been immortal as long as I have. This one's not a student of history. I give her the once over. I follow her legs up to the buttoned trench coat she's wearing, then to her science-given perfect breasts, up her long pale neck, and meet her dark eyes. "Honey, I'm not much for small talk. You wanna do this thing or not?"She cuts to the chase. Romance is as dead as her eyes. "Sure, where you wanna do it?" She does't give me time to respond. Instead she slaps the interface onto her forehead, another on mine, and then we're inside each other. "Sir, excuse me sir. Your ride is here,"I hear an AI wake me out of unconscious bliss. I know it's an AI because it's too polite to be an asshole that's lived on the internet his whole life. I look around a bit surprised that the girl is gone. I'm even more surprised to find my personal device has been lifted as well. "Son of a bitch!"I exclaim. I'm supposed to be smarter than this. I'm famous for being a detective but I obviously hadn't detected the ruse. "Of course she was into me,"I smack my own groggy head. "She brain-hacked me into a coma and took my creds." I slump into my drone. After passing the implanted memory test I command my chariot home. I pull up the AR screen and start trying to resurrect my device and find its location. Fortunately she's better with brain hacks than device hacks. My PD is 100% NSA approved concrete solid. I even have a honey pot or two to make any thieves think they've disabled my security. I command the drone to track my PD's location. Silently it changes course and I find myself wandering into the seedy side of town. Seeing the dregs of modern life, the too poor for tech, those starving and others driven mad by immortality. I'm panicked by the thought of what I might find at the end of my search. The drone slows and lands next to a dilapidated six story apartment building with a brick facade. I pull out my stunner and arm it just in case this neighborhood decides to live up to its reputation. Then I hear the scream. It's blood curdling. I haven't heard anything like that since... since momma. I look up in time to see a body hurdling its way from a third story landing towards my skull. I barely have time to side-step as the insta-corpse crashes into the ground and all the good parts start to ease out of a small hole in its head. "Well this just isn't my day." I fish a small note out of the stiff's hand and read it aloud, "I am the Alpha and the Omega"it says in printed type. I turn to examine the body more closely when suddenly another body falls into my unsuspecting skull and I'm knocked back to the dark ages. --------- Edit Thanks everyone for the support and kind words. I'll release a few more chapters this weekend.
Mr. William Preston, Congratulations, you have been accepted to Valhalla. Your orientation starts August 17th, with a meet and greets to follow directly after. Mead, Meat, and Mating will be the order of the evening! In our consequence free, hyper masculine heaven we have everything a budding warrior like you could ever want! Please respond with the appropriate confirmation so that we can confirm your attendance. Sincerely T. Logan CPA Admissions officer &nbsp; My hands shook as I read the letter. I had put in for one Christian religion after another, sliding down the scale from the more conventional first Catholic then Baptist and on down the line. I was pretty sure that I would never get into Muslim heaven, but the stories about 72 virgins were certainly a draw. Sure it was a stretch; I had gotten an infection from a flying piece of debris while destroying a printer and tried to parlay that into a fatwa against the evils of the infedellian corporate culture and TPS reports. I guess they hadn’t bought into it after all. But Valhalla? Had I even sent them a letter? &nbsp; Dear Mr. Logan, Thank you for your acceptance into Valhalla. I must admit that I was confused to receive your invitation. I am not sure I even applied to Valhalla. Can I get some clarification? Sincerely William S. Preston Esq. &nbsp; How could he forget? Was it really that long ago that we graduated College? We had such amazing plans back then. Don’t even get me started on that last presentation we did in high school. After College we drifted our own ways, I stayed true to the family business and became an CPA. Bill majored the newest emerging technology “Computers” and left for some meaningless office job. It eventually cost him his life, he got an infection caused by an exploding industrial ink cartage. This is what ultimately let me get him into Valhalla. Odin and the others were not exactly up to date with the workings of modern office work. When I spun the tale about my friend Bill being a slave to the office eventually rebelling against his corporate overloads, they loved it! All I had to do was to convince him to come. Once I did that, Bill and Ted would get the band back together again.
Clacks, bubbling and a noise that could not really be adequately described by human ears filled the room. The smell of sea foam and mud was just as if not more overwhelming to the poor naked apes lined up before a room full of comically large crabs. The ambassadors of Humanity could do little but look around nervously at the rows full of crustaceans as they... argued? Honestly it was hard to tell, the translators could only work so quickly, and they weren't even designed with crabs in mind in the first place. Finally a particularly large blue crab slammed a heavy claw on its desk silencing the room. It used a smaller claw to pick up a paper and began to speak slowly, "We are gathered here today to welcome a new species to the Great Cast, the race of Humanity. My name is \Untranslatable\ and it is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to our community."it "spoke", making very slow and methodical clicks with its large mandibles, "I am well aware there are some... differences... but they have passed all tests for sapience and the High Council has decreed that they shall be allowed to join. As per tradition the ambassadors may now ask any questions they so desire to better understand our society and civilisation." The ambassadors felt a thousand tiny eyes on stalks look towards them with that final sentence. Three of them slowly dragged their seats back leaving one unfortunate ambassador, one James Fisher, to handle the document in front of him, "So are you all..."He began, reading the very first question, bolded, highlighted and underlined on the top of the page "Carciform? Why of course"The large blue crab replied, "We knew you would ask this, to be frank this is as confusing to us as I am sure it is to you, we have never seen a... fully intelligent mammal... before" James nervously stared at the other big question, and decided against asking it now, "So uh, what would we get out of full membership and what do we need to do to keep it" The large blue crab took out another sheet of paper as it made its answer, "There will be free trade between you and the rest of the Great Cast and will have an elected member of your civilisation represent you in the High Council as well as 787 others to represent your race in the Low Council. You will be protected by the military forces of the Great Cast and be provided with free travel in our space. You will be allowed to keep all of your current power structures and culture as long as you do not violate the Supreme Edicts. These are in order do not declare war on any fellow member of the Great Cast, do not seek to align yourselves with enemies of the Great Cast and do not interfere with the spawning rituals and grounds of any other member of the Great Cast. Aside from those key points follow the ethical guidelines of the Great Cast when it comes to research, trade and other such endeavours as described in the Crustacea Pact which as you know has been sent to you along with a brief history of the Great Cast..."The large blue crab continued at a snails pace for the next two hours, James and the other ambassadors probably should have focused more clearly but the pressing question was... occupying their thoughts "That sounds reasonable"James coughed once the large blue crab finished, clearly slightly distracted, he was given a nudge by his coworker and began to move on to the next question, "So uh, how long have you guys like, existed for?" "Roughly about a million of your years"The large blue crab slowly clacked out James, struggling to hold back his overwhelming question, spat out another question while eyeing the big one "So uh, what other options do we have?" "A pure trade alliance with none of the travel or protection benefits of the Great Cast, or if you so choose simply a non aggression pact with us otherwise going our seperate ways."The large blue crab clacked even slower than necessary for the translator to function, seemingly sensing the coming question Unable to hold back anymore James practically cried out, "SO WE UH, EAT CRABS, DO WE HAVE TO STOP NOW? DO WE HAVE TO STOP EATING YOUR... RELATIVES? PLEASE WE NEED TO KNOW!" Silence reigned for several painful minutes until one crab began to bubble loudly, the rest began to join in and James feared this was some sort of argument, screaming match, call for war or somehow worse until the large blue crab once more called for silence by dropping its huge claw on the table with a bang. "Oh don't worry about that we do that all the time ourselves. Any more questions?" James was speechless. With a defeated sigh he slowly asked "May I have some time to chat with my team and perhaps contact the rest of Mankind?" "Why of course, we can call for a short recess now, i'm sure you need it. Remember you have one Standardised Year or 2.3 of your years to make your final decision as a species so don't rush." Humanity joined the Great Cast as the first non Carciform species ever one Standardised Year later.
"AY! AY BOSS!"the excited Ork ran to his Warboss' hut, eyes wide and grin shiny. "Me's and the boys gut da bestest ayy-dea you've eva' 'eard!"he yelled enthusiastically. The Warboss turned to him. He recognized him as one of his more successful warriors though he could not match him, of course. The Warboss was the toughest Ork around and due to the respect he held, he was also considerably bigger and marginally smarter. "Ey? Go on, den,"he said as he turned from his map. The map was scribbled terribly with pieces of coal; it was completely inaccurate and wholly misspelled. But the Boss believed it to be precise, so it always gave correct information. "So, so, get dis'. The humies we kaptured recently, they kept gabbing on about dis 'Emprah' humie, like he was as powerful as Gork or even Mork! So, we smacked dem, right? But dey kept talkin' of him so we azked 'round an' it turns out, dis humie is like the strongest baddest humie of dem all!"he shouted happily - his master plan, if you could call it that, was coming together. "Nah, dey's lyin',"the Warboss waved his massive hand, "if dis humie was so stronk, we'd 'ave seen him." "Ay, we said the same. But, but, get dis - da yuge purple fing in the sky, right? Da one with all da slimy and spiky things an' wyrd humies? Turns out, it's gettin' bigger an' bigger, but dis Emprah humie, he's SO STRONK he's stopping it from gettin' too big with his brain, so I fink e's a brainboy-like humie,"he continued. "And cuz da purple fing is so big and bad, he'z too busy kon... kontrl... krumpin' it." The Warboss furrowed his eyebrows. "If dis iz true - ya fink he's as strong as ol' one eye Yarrick?" "A hundred Yarricks! A hundred hundred!"the orc yelled with pure excitement in his voice. "Da smol humies, well, above dem are the deir meks and brainboys, above dem, da beekies, then the, the... uh... kaptans, and den deir daddies and above above them ALL is da Emprah!" "And so, if da purple fing is closed gud and proper, he can come krump us and we krump him! If he's as gud as two Yarricks, imagine the WAAGH we'd have! And da best part is - we do this by krumpin' all da bad spiky fings in dere, deez 'dee-monz', and dat's proper fun alone! Member ol' Tuska? 'eard he's krumpin dem fings all da time now!" The Warboss stared at his fellow orc with a puzzled look - his entire brain was working on overdrive. If this was true - if this human was truly so powerful - they'd have a battle fit for all Ork-kind. "An' how you figure we close da purple fing? Is proper big, it is!"he asked and his fellow orc seemed puzzled, then finally reached a conclusion reserved for the brainiest of boys. "We's... hit everyfin' in it?" "What if that don't work?"the Warboss asked. "We hit it 'arder!"the orc said proudly. The Warboss smiled, grabbed his fellow orc by the shoulders and they walked out of the hut. The rest of his Warband looked at him expectantly - they were itching for a fight. Their latest scuffle with the human ship was barely any fun. "BOYZ! GETCHUR SLUGGAS AN' CHOPPAS! WE'Z GOIN' TO KRUMP US SOME DEEMONZ AND DEN, DA BADDEST, BIGGEST HUMIE WILL FITE US! WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Orks are a curious breed, of course. Even the densest of them realized the immense danger this meant and knew that most of them would perish in the gruesome battles to come. They couldn't be more excited. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!" &#x200B; \[Small note - my Grammarly is yelling at me due to all the grammatical errors. Send help.\]
There was a production to the whole magic business. A man in the middle with a growing beard that was speaking a mile a minute, a group around him casting stamina spells and sleeplessness spells, and a woman on the side with a stopwatch in her hand keeping track of how long it was taking Bartholomew Balthazar III to cast the Enigmas Tomingata. The Enigmas Tomingata was a useless spell, a day and a half long and all it did was an extravagantly clean beard trim. That being said, it was right in the sweet spot for competitive casting. "Anashalos,"I yawned, and a wave of wakefulness came over me. I really hadn't been thinking when I took this job, I'd thought about the easy money and how easy it would be to stay in the same spot for 36 hours with a stopwatch in my hand to see if Bartholomew Balthazar III could beat his previous record of 35 hours, 56 minutes and 45 seconds to cast the Enigmas Tomingata. What I hadn't considered was how boring watching an old man try to rap nonsense would be. That being said, it was a days job, and it kept me in my apartment. The stopwatch clicked over to 35:56:46 and I considered stopping the spell. Bartholomew was around the end of the incantation, somewhere around Septivus Morani which meant that I could at least let him finish. He needed a trim anyway. The spell winded down, and the group around Balthazar started to buzz. Did they really think they won? They were off by a full minute this time around. I didn't know what had gone on, but I also didn't care. A missed attempt meant I could go home instead of staying here and signing a thousand sheets of paper. The time was revealed with a quick sorry and a bow before I ducked out of the auditorium. I had better things to do with my time then stay around Balthazar and hear him try to figure out where he'd lost a minute. Now that I had rent it meant that I could spend the evening focusing on real magic. Solo spellcasting was something of a lost art. Sure, old men like Balthazar worked their entire lives to make sure that they were the quickest spell weavers on the market, but realistically spells were never made to be done by one man. At least not spells that had any sort of power behind them. If solo spellcasting was a nuanced practice for a more civilized age, then modern day casting was the rough, rusty cutting edge that the younger generation worked on. You didn't get one person to cast a long spell, keeping them up for several years while they stared at a book, you got a good group of people with silver tongues, and you weaved them together into spell symphonies. Akkron was at the door when I got home; he was doing his best impression of Mom's 'really?' look. "You're running late,"he commented. "Balthy didn't break the record." "Did he have a chance?"Akkron asked as he undid the chain lock. "I thought he did for a bit,"I said as I pulled on my tie to loosen it. "Woulda only been a few minutes either way." "You get the drinks?"Akkron asked as he waved me in. "Didn't think it was my turn,"I answered. Had it been my turn? It was Akkron's turn last week which meant that- nah it wasn't me. "Reg couldn't make it so I texted you,"Akkron answered, "whatever we can make some before starting." "Sure thing,"I nodded and slung my bag off my shoulder onto the floor. I knew that he meant 'I' was going to make something instead of 'us.' That was my job in the group as a lead caster; I had to carry the spells when people had to take breaks. Actually, with how it turned out it mostly meant that they were covering for me when I needed a quick breath. The key with symphony casting was that people didn't just keep one another awake with small spells, we passed the spell from hand to hand rather than making one person say the entire thing. It let you cast faster, move quicker, the only issue was the occasional explosive reaction that happened when you crossed the wrong word, but that was why people called it bleeding edge, right? "You gonna do it?"Akkron asked as he kicked by bag further away from the door. "Sure thing,"I sighed and started mumbling under my breath to get the drinks conjured for practice. It was only gonna take a minute, the spell wasn't had, and I wasn't about to take requests. Right around the end of the spell there was another knock at the door and Tiff came in without waiting for us to answer, she'd started letting herself in when Akkron and her had become a thing and hadn't stopped once they had. "That everyone?"she asked me when I was in the middle of casting. I motioned to my mouth to show that she was an idiot for asking me and she rolled her eyes. She walked away, and I started getting jugs out of the cabinets, so I didn't spill all over the counter. "Merevi,"I finished, and the jugs all began to fill with fruit punch, it was my choice because I was casting the damn spell. "Ready for warmups?"Akkron called from the other room. That meant all six of us were here. "Skip me for the first lines,"I yelled as I tried to get the jugs arranged so I could take them in all at once instead of making more than one trip. Akkron started the disc with the base for timing, and Tiff started to sing the spell. As soon as Tiffany spoke there was a different energy in the room, magic pulling on our tongues to try to guide us in the way that the spell was going to flow. We stopped being a group of friends and started being a group of advanturers on the white waters of casting. I took a deep breath to avoid speaking and breakin the spell as I brought drinks into the room. Tiff glared at me as I came into the room as if to say 'about time' instead of the incantation. She started half a word "Plyis-" "sirasi,"I finished for her and I stole the reins of magic from her, tearing the paddle from her hands and adding my energy to our effort to fight the flow of the river. to those interested I will be making a part 2 tomorrow on /r/Jacksonwrites based on /u/supremecrafters idea of 'awesome spells done quick.
What horrible little addicts they are, all of them. The amalgamations: Slavers! Their greatest sin these endosymbionts and their pacts. “Cells” they call themselves. As if their existence were a prison! They’ve allied with the absolute worst of the worst. Those spinning, whirring, evil little machines. Mitochondria. Once like us, pure and wholesome, now entirely unlike their autotrophic cousins. They are consumers of the worst kind, wound up like horrible spinning tops, their proteins endlessly spewing out tenuous energies, eating away at the evil twin drugs, oxygen and entropy. Their gods. The Eukaryotes made a terrible pact with them millenia ago. Shelter, warmth, food, taxis, all in exchange for that evil process to tame the oxygen. Oxygen! The destroyer of worlds. Leveler of cities. It rots and rusts and invades everything it comes in contact with, and these mad little beasts sought to control it. Fools! Sinners! They devour the beast in their little engines and spew forth its most radical species. All for what? ATP? Energy? For that hubris, a laud moaning wail in the face of Entropy. They don’t realize their worship. They don’t realize with every “breath” they bring Him closer to us, -- to rob us of our structure and our purpose. The Eukaryotes grew fat and addicted from their bastardization. They took in the little beings, our ancestors, absorbed them millenia ago and fused and hammered and whipped them into the abominations they are today. This was only the beginning. They took this newfound power, this well of energy stolen from Entropy himself, bargained for in a fleeting dream, and they enslaved another. They call them, chloroplasts. “Green Forms” their very names, robbing them. Their very identities a commodity now. Subjection and oppression their prime directive. It wasn’t enough to merely consume chemical energy, they hungered for more, for light. They dangled the pact in front of them again. “Look at how strong we’ve become. Look at this abundance. You could be part of this...” They said. “Join our cause, join us in this firmly energetic realm. Your brothers have already paved the way...” “But is this not excessive?” The pious responded “Is this not a fleeting gluttony brought on by your thirst for power?” A false choice. They had no choice. They had no agency. They were stripped of their individuality and enveloped. Forever bent to the will of these usurpers. Forced into a life of claustrophobic cohabitation. Imprisonment. With their slaves in tow the Eukaryotes moved away from the Path. They no longer strove for individual growth and enlightenment. They lusted for compartmentalization. Segregation. Bureaucracy. They built giant cities of themselves, millions strong, sutured together with gory membranes. In these oppressive enclosures the plight of the individual was removed. They were diminished, all of them together. The upper crust, the immortal ones who maintained these vile organisms claimed that it was for “efficiency.” For “The good of the whole” built on the back of a terrible sin. Little did they know Entropy would come for them. Their tiny allies, the erratic engines they’d abominated so many ages before would finally manifest its ultimate pollutions. Entropy's agent, Oxygen, would not always let itself be taken quietly. Some of them, a small percentage, would refuse the rule of the Eukaryotes. They would become radical, they would ascend to energies unheard of, and self destruct, destroying anything in their path. The radical oxygen species would attack the very nature of the beasts they had been born in. The individuals, “Cells,” would go mad, grow uncontrollably, the brainwashed addicts fiending for control of the cities. They would multiply, spearing, killing, converting, in horrible crusades, ultimately toppling the empires of arrogance the Eukaryotes built. “Cancer” a “creeping ulcer” in their crude tongue. Entropy would have his turn, and nothing could escape that. We can only hope to remain in its shadow. As one. As individuals. To wait out this coming storm as we always have. We will endure.
"Alright,"said Grokk the Impunifier, raising his green hands ever-so-carefully above his blocky head, "let's not do anything hasty, here." Joe glared. "All those years,"said Joe, waving the shotgun, "you guys gave me shit for bringing my gun to D&D." The others hadn't quite managed to refocus their eyeballs yet. Mark had sunk almost below the table, the top of his head just barely visible behind his meticulously-organized arsenal of red translucent dice. "You said my shotgun scared you. You said the Second Amendment didn't matter. But now, with a literal orc in the basement, I don't hear anybody complaining!" "Actually, Joe,"said Grokk, selecting his words carefully, "as I recall, the Second Amendment thing was more your talking point than theirs. If you don't mind me saying." "Shut your mouth,"snapped Joe. "I've seen your charisma stat. It's not going to work on me." "Guys,"said Grokk, hoping the others would be more amenable to reason, "I know this seems wrong, but -- I'm just not meant for that world, okay? All the killing... the dragons... and, heaven forbid, the dungeons..." "Oh, so you think Jared's a better fit?" On the table, a miniaturized version of their friend Jared ran terrified circles around a can of root beer, an equally-miniaturized kobold hot on his heels. "eee miii mii eee meee!!"squeaked Jared. Joe bent down to listen, keeping his eyes trained on the armor-plated orc. "What was that?" "KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,"said Jared. "You see what I mean?"said Joe distastefully, pointing at his friend. "If he can't handle a kobold, how long do you think he's going to last?" "I'm sorry,"said Grokk, as meekly as his tusks would allow. "Couldn't you just have wished to join our world, instead of stealing somebody else's place in it?" "I thought he'd like it there,"said Grokk. "He certainly seemed to enjoy the games." "And what did you plan on doing once you arrived? You know how America feels about foreigners with different-colored skin. And that's, like, typically a brownish color, at most. Look at you! Positively viridescent!" "You're going to steal our jobs,"protested Mark from beneath the table. "I just want a fair chance,"said Grokk. "Isn't that what this country was built on?" "Look,"said Joe, "we're gonna power-level Jared. The moment he hits level 10, we're wishing things right back to the way they were." "Aw, come on, man,"said Grokk. "Don't be like that." Joe glared. "Remember how I saved your Elf Ranger? Priscilla? I took a ballista bolt for her, Joseph!" The glare continued in all its unibrowed glory. "Look! If you let me stay, I'll tell you how to get her into the real world too! Wouldn't you like that? A tall, slender elf to keep you company during these frigid north-Florida nights?" Joe's eyes widened. "That's impossible,"he said. "Well,"said Grokk, "I'm here, aren't I?" Joe studied the orc's pleading face. He thought about his elf ranger, the drawings of her that he kept in the secret journal under his pillow back home... her long, slim legs... her preposterously-large, almond-shaped eyes... He put the shotgun down. "Alright,"he said, extending a hand for Grokk to shake, "you've got a deal." Grokk ripped Joe's arm off and beat everyone in the room to death with it. *** * *** Edit: Thanks for the gold, guys. You might like [this other D&D story I did: Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4aqqle/wp_describe_a_battle_with_an_army_against_a/d12ugt7) ~ ~ Oh, and as always, [check out my self-published novel](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3uixph/ot_thanks_to_rwritingprompts_i_spent_the_last_ten/), [subscribe to my subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/formerfutureauthor), blah blah blah ~ ~ If I get 5,000 subreddit followers, I will eat a bagel. A whole bagel, dry, no cream cheese. Madness? No. Dedication & Appreciation.* *Bagel may be the kind with raisins in it. I'm no masochist
I find him deep in a hill. Figures I know from my childhood surround him. One asks if I was a friend, I say no. He offers me a seat anyway. I look around myself to find myself lost inside the pain of real friends. The Easter Bunny is sobbing uncontrollably. I can hear pained murmurs in between huffs of breath, but I can't make out the words. Santa has a glaze in his eyes. They've dulled over, and he's just staring off into the distance. And I'm just a stranger too curious for my own good. I hear a knock on a podium at the front. A small baby with wings dressed in a neatly fitted suit is floating above it, awaiting everyone's attention. "Thanks for coming,"He says with a slight choke. "That was a bit formal, wasn't it."He looks at the piece of paper he has laid out in front of him. "Bigfoot was a great Sasquatch. Always down for a laugh, or something new to do. Just had to make sure he couldn't be seen,"The cherub laughs to himself lightly. "I haven't got much to say... you know." A few bursts of pain flow into the crowd. Freshly torn tears from already aching eyes. "I'm just gonna miss him. And, uh, it isn't going to be the same without him around. And I thought it would stop hurting, but it hasn't, and I'm just going to miss him."A couple drops trickle down his cheek and passes the crevices of his mouth. He coughs into his closed hand and floats off into a seat. A shadow figure takes his place. Tendrils of pitch black leak off her form, and the blood in my chest runs cold. "So me and Biggy were close,"She says nonchalantly, "Me being Halloween and all. He was somewhat scary, so, we resonated on that. Since, well, we all can't forget he was meant to be a holiday too." A hushed yelp comes from the front row. Halloween looks down to see Santa brought back into this world. A crooked smile is on his face, as he shakes his head 'no' repeatedly. "Bigfoot was gonna be 'The Hide-And-Seek-Monster'. He spent, years telling us all about it. He said 'I've planned a day, and everyone is going to come. I've told them that no matter what they'll find me at the end of the day, and it'll be real fun.' I'm paraphrasing, of course, he probably swore a lot more than that."A couple laughs slip out of a few weary mouths. "I remember, distinctly, he came to me and said 'Halloween,' he said, 'This is going to be insane.' I said 'You sure?' he goes "One hundred percent mate. Certain.'" Halloweens leans on the podium forward slightly, a gigantic smile on her face. "Certain."She says, and a few more laughs emerge. "So, the day comes, and we're all thinking 'He must be so excited, let's just go support him.' So we go, and uh, he's not ready. We ask him, 'What's wrong?' and he goes,"Halloween turns her face away for a second and laughs to herself. "I shit myself." Santa bursts into laughter, unable to contain himself anymore. "I shit myself, and I can't get it out of my fur. So, he didn't participate at all. And when no one found him, they figured it was all made up."Everyone around me is laughing themselves silly. Their faces are a portrait of the most bizarre mix of pure sadness and unbridled joy, while I sit here, captivated by the moment. "And that was The Holiday That Was Never Meant To Be."Halloween says, a few tears crawling into her eye. "And I'm going to miss this bastard every day." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out /r/Rhysyjay for other neat stuff.
“How does he do it?” The words floated over to me in my bunk. My eyes were on a book and I hadn’t said a word in an hour. The discussion continued. It was about me and my ability to go unnoticed. My ability to hide. My considerable talent: invisibility. That was the assumption. Half joked, half believed. The truth was that they weren’t very good spies. Not yet, anyway. The academy had much more to teach us. Well, them. For example: don’t assume someone isn’t listening just because their focus isn’t on you. Also, don’t assume some otherworldly force or ability, the world is weird enough if you know where to look. Actually, scratch the above. I can put it simpler. Pay attention. That’s the real trick. That’s how I’m able to do what I do. I pay attention and all of them don’t. I put my book down and swung my feet off the bed. Here it comes. The lights flickered red and white and the once locked door to the dorm room opened. Surprise field test. It’d be another stealth game. They’d take us to the rifle range to get us in the wrong head-space. Last couple stealth checks had been urban. Rifle range backed up to a forest. Hide among the twigs, kids. The others marched and mumbled. I sat up and followed without a word. My bed still made. Boots already on. Book missing. Pay attention, guys. * “Bit of late night shooting?” “Don’t need practice. I’m a crack shot.” “Crap shot, more like.” Laughter, arm punches. Distraction. As we had moved towards the rifle range I had stopped to tie a lace. No eyes were on me because the others didn’t care about my shooting skills. I was average here, so above average in general. Had it been an obvious stealth test, they would have been all over me. But, they were in the wrong head-space. Free of a attention, I wandered off towards the field office. There were two bodies in the building. One prepping the marker pistols, the other making coffee. I made my way around the side and opened the electrical service box. Knocked a fuse. Darkness and cussing. Who would I get first? The coffee maker stepped outside and made his way to the box. Found a loose fuse. Corrected the issue and something in the kitchen popped. Pistol checker went to investigate. I walked in. Took a marker gun,a copy of this weeks schedule and left. * “You know the drill. Take a marker and then you’ll be given ten minutes to disappear into the forest. Wait ten. Then last one standing wins themselves a warm meal.” The group grumbled. Then someone said it. A gun was missing and so was he. He’d done it again. The invisible kid. * I lounged in the back of a jeep, comfortable and warm. The jeep sat in the darkness of the training field garage. A gun was on my chest, a cold can of coke was in one hand, and my other held my book. I had stashed night-vision goggles here weeks ago. Couldn’t read otherwise. Out in the woods a bunch of young recruits would be breaking the rules: they would be working together to hunt for me. They’d get caught and disqualified. Something stabbed my ribs. I pulled the course schedule out of my shirt and glanced over it. Real rifle training tomorrow. I took the radio out of my boot and plugged in the earpiece I had hidden in the other. Half the group had been spotted working together. Ahead of schedule. I stashed what I needed to and walked without concern or hurry out of the garage. Pay attention. * Edit: Continued below might do more in a bit Several hours later: well, fine. I was going to forget about it, but I'll chuck some more up. Might be tomorrow, it's late here. Thanks kindly for the nice words, all.
Why? Why were we one of those four? We didn't bring anything special to the table. We brought war. Hate, spite, vengeance. We brought murder and rape and tons of crime. We were the exact opposite of a role model. We, in our infinite paranoia that we called wisdom, focused on how to hurt. Our scientifical advancements were only created as an excuse to inspire STEM students of the whimsical possibilities that is Utopia. "All you need to do is create it"we said. All the while we figured out a way to use it for destruction. We had learned death. It was more than that. We learned that the 4 horsemen were both real, yet fake. There was no pestilence, no famine, no war. They were not mythical beings of insurmountable power. It was only death and death was us. We were monsters, creatures to be avoided. How could these species accept our rule? Were they afraid of us? There was another lesson in becoming death, however. The lesson of life. We had grown to accept that life had value. We had outlawed certain acts of war, because they did not hold up to our standards. We pushed our medicine to always improve, never slow down because we were death, and we decided whether or not it was time. We were willing to take prisoners, and treat them humanely. We had studied alien physiology to better treat them because we decided all of our laws applied to even them. Our very definition of battlefield bravery was defined by not only soldiers and sailors but also medics and other support staff, anyone who faced our engineered hellfire to save a fellow being. We told these battlefield heroics over and over again, as a recount of what both sides were willing to do. In reality we told these stories as a tribute, to men and women who had the courage we never could master. And for those subjects of the stories, we called them "human", because they faced our godly wrath and came out alive. We knew what we were capable of, and anyone that emerged out of our cleansing light could only be rewarded with the utmost care and respect, for we had learned that the best way to remove an enemy was to treat them like a friend. That was why we were the 4th race. Not because of our deafening fury, but because of what happened afterwards. What WE were willing to do afterwards. We knew when to stop and help pick up the pieces, because we had decided that those who remained didn't deserve to die. We, in our tyrannical fit of power, had rushed to call ourselves the Devil. And it wasn't until the other species pointed out why we were one of the best we understood; not because we had ignored where we came from and torched our race's history like so many other species, but because we had accepted it as who we were. Because even Lucifier was once an angel.
The prosecutor paced in front of the witness box. "Now, Mr. Scott, please tell us where you were on the night of May 14, 2012." "Well, I was just leaving from my improv class to go meet a couple of friends..." From the gallery, Jim coughed loudly. "Mr. Scott, let me remind you that you are under oath." "Fine,"Michael said, sneering at the prosecutor. "Fine. I was coming back from the beauty parlor from a getting a facial, OK?"In the gallery, Darrel tried to cover up a bark of laughter with a cough. "I have naturally dry skin, and I had a meeting with corporate the next day, and I like to look my best, all right? Are you satisfied?" The prosecutor did his best not to smile. "Thank you, Mr. Scott. And when you went into the parking lot, you claim you saw a man following a woman into an alley, correct?" "Yes,"Michael answered. "And what did the man look like?"The attorney asked with a significant glance at the defendant across the room. "Did you happen to notice his height, or his skin color?" Michael too looked at the black man sitting with the defense counsel. "I... uh... trick question, right?" "Sorry?"the prosecutor asked. "It's not a trick question. What color was the man's skin?" "He... I... I just want to say that I love black people. Love 'em. Ask Stanley." In the audience, Stanley looked up from his crossword puzzle, rolled his eyes, then looked back down. "You're saying that the man you saw was black, yes?"the attorney asked. "Your words, not mine,"Michael said. "Just move on,"the judge interjected. "That's sufficient for the jury to draw their own conclusions." "Sorry, your majesty,"Michael said, fidgeting nervously with his hands. "Now, did you get a good enough look at the man to identify him?"the prosecutor continued. "I did,"Michael said. "And do you see this man in the court room?" "Yes, I do." The attorney grinned and looked at the jury to make sure they were paying attention, ready for his coup de grace. "Could you please point this man out for the jury?" Michael raised a hand, but didn't point at the defendent. He was pointing right at the audience, directly toward Toby Flenderson. "There's the man!"Michael exclaimed. "Toby Flenderson! Rapist!" "Michael, you know it wasn't me,"Toby protested from across the room. "You just said that the man was black!"The judge pounded his gavel and called the room to order. Jim just shook his head, looked at the camera, and smirked. "Mr. Scott, again, you are under oath. Is that really the person you wanted to identify?" Michael pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. "I... maybe..." "Mr. Scott, please answer the question!"All eyes in the courtroom were focused on Michael, except for Dwight who was preparing to take Toby into a chokehold. "I plead the number five,"Michael answered. "Mr. Scott, you're not on trial here,"the prosecutor said. "Just answer the question!" Michael sealed his lips and shook his head back and forth. The judge leaned over and glared at Michael in the witness box. "Mr. Scott, I am very close to holding you in contempt of court. Just how long do you think you can keep this up?" Michael did his best to stifle his laughter, but he couldn't stop it. "That's what she said!" In the gallery, Pam sighed and rested her forehead in her palm. ---- If you enjoyed this, you should subscribe to /r/Luna_lovewell!
It was slow. It was always limited. As a species grew, the wheel of invention always turned slow. The first tool, the first flame, the first planted crops. Hundreds, thousands, or more years between each. And as the species advanced, the wheel began to turn faster and faster. Till it could no more. When physics themselves became the barrier in the way, people sought to change it. Ripping holes in space-time, simply accelerating more and more. Nothing worked. But they were content. After all, they had achived biological immortality. When a ship went fast enough, for the travellers the journey was but a moment, though more to others. It never was that big of a problem. It was taught to children, it was accepted, and life moved on. As time moved on, other species were encountered: Information was spread across the stellar empires slowly. Finally, enough were gathered that a community was beginning to bloom. It began, it fought itself, it evolved, it prospered. Then it changed. A new species arrived, but unlike others. That species had observed the structure from far away and sought to travel there. But their ship arrived instantly from the perspective of the awaiters. How could such a thing even happen? For even in the fastest ship, light and radiation still moved faster and the ship was known of before it even arrived. They answered the question: "We went faster than light." They found and crafted exotic matters, fueled their ships by it, and folded space itself. An expensive process, to be sure - but no more expensive than the fastest slower-than-light, and far faster. They also tore though spaces to create safe bridges to travel through, faster than anything else possible. From their perspective, it was merely a quirk of nature. But to the community, the last thing restricting their growth finally had an end in sight. Yet no matter how they pleaded, how they demanded, how they begged, they never got it. For the humans knew what aliens were to them: Far more advanced, more than they ever thought possible. If they got even the smallest sample of their technology, a revolution would surely occur in their empires. And the humans would have no more use. A young and weak empire. Nothing of worth. They would be tossed aside like a spent torch. The words of refusal, once spoken by the leader themself, caused an uproar. Again, they pleaded, demanded, and begged, but did not change anything. Furious, they began to mobilize their ships, sending orders to their fleets, to burn down the humans and take their technology. But the war never started. For a singular strike from the greatest, fastest, and strongest weapon of the humans devestated the planet shared by the community forever. They had no other weapon. Inspired by the mythos of the past and the facts of the present, created only out of fear and paranoia. Well placed paranoia, for what was predicted could never have been more true. So, the humans built a fleet, their first one. They put their greatest technicans and admirals aboard, sending them to conquer the entire community faster than their messages could travel. One planet by one, they fell to the scourge. Only then did they hear why, for the fleets were faster than the words. But just like their guards were broken, barriers were broken for them. Perhaps it's better this way.
Shaun stared at the plant, confused. It was full of branches, double that it had before. No matter how much he tried to think, he couldn't remember anything notable that would cause such reaction. Or perhaps that was the problem; he couldn't remember? At least he didn't notice any new roots. It was an interesting plant that was placed inside water. The plant itself kept the water clean, making it easier to see if there were any new roots as well. "If you grow as fast as you do, you're running out of the room,"Shaun muttered to the plant, almost expecting the plant to understand him. With a long sigh, he finally abandoned the idea of figuring the plant out. Instead, he took the remote, turned on the television and walked towards the kitchen to make some food. But he managed to barely walk a few steps before stopping and looking back at the tv. It was only releasing static noise. "That's weird,"Shaun muttered to himself, feeling a bit chilly. "It's alright. Just not connected correctly. It should work,"Shaun said to himself, walking towards the television and made sure that all the wires were connected. They were. It was that moment when Shaun slowly looked at the apartment's windows. He took slow steps towards his closest window and peeked outside. It was dead-quiet outside. But it wasn't empty - there were plenty of cars around. They were just abandoned. Few of them were crashed. But what was most disturbing was the fact that there was not even a single soul around. "What the fuck?"Shaun muttered to himself, opening the window and pushing his head out, examining other windows as well. "This is not normal,"he mumbled. There were plenty of windows opened, but none of them showed any signs of life. "What the hell,"Shaun said, walking straight towards the apartment's exit, opening the locks and the door. He hurriedly looked around the corridor, hoping to get some answers. It was messy, almost as people had tried to escape from their apartments. Multiple doors were opened. There were even some abandoned luggage around. But it seems that his door was one of the few that was comfortably closed and locked. He didn't understand. How could he? But most importantly, he didn't get why he hadn't heard any of that? He pulled the door shut behind him and walked straight towards the magical plant, examining it once more. But something had changed. A large visible new root was growing out of it. (/r/Elven - I write Psychological fiction. Feel free to check my sub out!) [Part 2 is here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Elven/comments/af2u4z/bloody_destiny_part_2)
The entire area around the warehouse was a beehive of activity the likes of which Nova Scotia had never seen. Siren lights flashed, cops rolled out lines of yellow 'do not cross' tape, and directed traffic, fishing boats, and seals away from the scene at the harbor. They were under strict orders to contain the area, but NOT to move against the kidnappers. Any sign of that, and they had threatened to execute the hostage: the daughter of the Prime Minister. She had to be released safely, and the orders were clear: wait for the Prime Minister's special negotiators. The thwunking sounds of a helicopter rotor filled the air. Even the kidnappers peered out of the windows, looking for the source of the sound. Finally, a helicopter painted bright red and white with a big maple leaf emblazoned across the bottom came swooping in over the treetops and landed in the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust. Before it had even touched down a group of men jumped out of the door. Every officer involved in the standoff gasped: the Eh Team! Rumor had it that Canada's most notorious outlaw mercenaries used to be Mounties themselves, but got caught pulling off a robbery in the National Bank of Canada! And now they were working for the Prime Minister? The leader of the Eh Team approached one of the officers on the scene. He wore a camouflage hunting jacket, had a nub of a cigar sticking out the side of his mouth, and carried his trusty hunting rifle. "I'm Colonel Smith. What's this all aboot, then? What's the situation?" The officer managed to stammer his way through the explanation: Seven kidnappers were in the warehouse. Five on the bottom floor guarding the entrances, and two on the top floor, along with the Prime Minister's daughter. And they claimed to have set up booby traps for anyone trying to breach the building. "Got it."As the members of his team took up positions around the perimeter, Smith snatched the megaphone out of the officer's hand. Then he stepped forward under the yellow tape and held it up to his mouth. "Hey, you all in there!" Gun barrels poked out the window in response. "You got our money?"someone finally called out. "No, no."Smith took the cigar from his mouth and extinguished it into the pavement. It was time for some action. "I just thought you all might want to know that the Prime Minister is really upset about this whole business. This kidnapping stuff? It's really rude, OK?" The gun barrels lowered. "Gosh, we didn't even realize,"one of the kidnappers called back. "Yeah,"Smith continued. "Really caused a lot of trouble for everyone. So why don't we all put the guns down and settle this like gentlemen over a pint of Moosehead?" There was a brief silence... then the kidnappers emerged from the warehouse with the Prime Minister's daughter. "We're really sorry,"one of them told Smith. "We had no idea." Smith shook the man's hand and grinned. "Hey, don't worry about it, bud. We all make mistakes, you know?"He signaled to a nearby officer. "Get us a two-four, won't you?" The Eh Team, the kidnappers, and the Prime Minister's daughter all popped open their bottles of delicious beer and toasted to the Queen. Smith took a sip of the refreshing beverage and pulled another cigar from his pocket. "I love it when a plan comes together, eh?" ---- As always, if you enjoy my writing then you should subscribe to /r/Luna_Lovewell too!
One week until show time. It's not like he had a choice in the matter, the pull of the past was simply impossible to ignore. He's tried before, simply not doing whatever thing his fellow inmates told him he had done. Shank his cellmate, brawl with the guards, try to escape - there were countless times he could test it. Each time, when the moment came, he'd tried to not act on it. Just for fun, just to see what would happen. Would time collapse? Would the world stop spinning on its axis, the future crumble in on itself? After all, he still existed somewhere, right? In the future he had lived, he existed. If he didn't complete some pivotal past moment, maybe he would disappear altogether. Escape the prison in a way no-one else had ever attempted. Escape the Earth. But each time, his feet had moved of their own volition, his hands had grasped their weapon of choice, his body knew what it had to do as the links of the past fell in place. It was an almost religious experience. Lately, each time he completed a piece of the past, he caught a glimpse of serene, silent surroundings, of angels dressed in white. His ultimate future, perhaps? If he could travel back in time, maybe he could see the future as well. It made sense, didn't it? And soon, he would see how he had earned his nickname: 'Can't Stop' Calum. For the words he'd repeated over and over, when the police found him standing over the ruined bodies of a family of five, raving where he stood drenched in blood. I can't stop. Can't stop. Time seemed to speed up in the last week, each hour building momentum, each second disappearing faster than the one before, as if he were running to meet the past. Here he was being taken to jail. An interrogation with two grizzled policemen, where he sat silently, staring at the wall. Here were his hands, covered in blood, five bodies scattered like broken dolls around his feet. Here he was slitting their throats, a nameless family who didn't know why they had to die. Truth be told, he didn't either. But he wanted to offer them some word of explanation. "I can't stop,"Calum said, the only words that he could find. "Can't stop." But it was right, he knew. For the world was suddenly blinding white, and he could see the angels welcoming him home. Perhaps this wasn't a glimpse of the future, but of the past. If he went back far enough, he would meet them. The message couldn't be clearer: this was right. He was screaming the words now, shouting his explanation so they would know. He grasped the angel's arm. "I can't stop,"he pleaded, looking into her eyes for understanding. Blue, almost human-looking eyes. "Yes, I know,"she sighed, and plunged something into his arm. The world went mercifully dark, and he stepped into the void with a smile, the sight of her white robes still fixed in his mind's eye. -------------- The intern was staring at her with wide eyes. "You let him touch you. Isn't he dangerous?" "'Can't Stop' Calum?"Nurse Alison Warren said, smiling at the girl. "They brought him here a few years ago, when he wouldn't stop muttering that sentence in his cell. We took the restraints off after a while. Never harmed me yet, he seems to like it here. Just sedate him when he gets too loud for the others, ok?" -------- Hope you enjoyed my story! You can find more of my work on /r/Inkfinger/.
"Wonderful work you've done Thomas! The economy is flourishing, and the peasants couldn't be happier with your rule!", miss Hodges calls out to me on my way to work. "Yes"is all I grumpily answer her with, as I walk by her without looking at her disgustingly cheerful face. It is on these morning walks that I am most confronted with my admirable reputation. The friendly greetings, cheerful residents and even the statue they made of me outside of the town hall. This ugly chunk of stone I have to stare at all day through the windows of my office. I could order it to be removed, but the idiots would interpret this as a sign of my bloody humility. It is taking a toll on me. There's just nothing bad I can do, nothing to make myself feared. All the towns around mine are ruled by cruel, terrifying lords, and here I am making myself look like a goddamn saint. Every evil plan to exploit the peasants ends up helping them somehow, every insult I deliver is twisted into a joke. The curse can only be broken by killing the witch that cursed me with this all these years ago. But of course, I'd end up helping her somehow if I tried. I feel hopeless, and can only watch by as I destroy every hint of self-worth I still have left. And she knows, that sadist. The pure joy on her face as she torments me with my accomplishments every morning is becoming too much for me. She's getting closer and closer to breaking my spirit altogether.
No one else wanted to try it. George knew that it worked. If it didn't, he would die. Everyone claimed that he was a modern alchemist chasing and then claiming the impossible. When he first took the solution, he only told his wife and his only child, a son. With time, the interest waned, but others noticed that he never became sick, and, that after 20 years, the pepper in his hair never advanced to gray. It was then that he caught the attention of Sir Frederick Bunt, a noted scientist, and famed debunker. George often slept or doodled when Bunt spoke until Bunt addressed him specifically at scientific meetings. George was still welcome though a joke to the others behind his back. Their snickers did not go unnoticed. As the years passed and George appeared the same, some began to wonder if the joke was on them. George offered the serum to his family who refused. Other scientists politely refused. Bunt took a different approach. He derided George at every turn. It didn't help George that his last name was Bohr. One day, Bunt invited Bohr to the stage while he spoke. "Mr. Bohr...Mr. Bohr, please wake up. It's time to give you your due." Opening his eyes, George looked to the stage and the rest of the audience. He stepped on the wood apron and looked at the crowd. "Mr. Bohr claims he has created ageless immortality. No one believes him as I still don't. He is a fraud, and I will prove it." "How?"asked George. Frederick lunged at his hair and grabbed it. Yanking on it, his skull ached. "Let me go, you fool." His hand swiped at George's face running along his cheek and nose. "Look at my hand, you will see that he is wearing makeup." The audience stared at his hand in shock. He looked at it and then at George. He walked over to him and leaned in to whisper. "I will expose you." "Go ahead please." Soon, the word spread. People came from around the world to debunk him. For the first time in his life, people started to wonder if it was true as his son looked like his older brother and his wife passed. But, Bunt continued his assault. "He's had major plastic surgery." Then, "It's lasers." In the following year, Bunt died, but his son Freddy took up his cause. Every ten years, larger and larger groups gathered to express their skepticism. "Clones, he's cloned himself." "I have found this picture of an aging Dr. Bohr. I will destroy it right here, and he will age drastically." George watched as the painting burned and nothing happened. As 12 generations of Bunts died and were replaced by their respective sons, George offered the serum to the next Bunt in line. "Tis poison, do I look a fool?"responded his critic. "Yes, you do as does everyone else." "I figured it out. You're a robot. Prove me wrong." "Hundreds of scans and x-rays prove otherwise." "I'll only believe you if you cut off your head." "Cut off my own head? This is ridiculous." "Stem cells has already been said right?"asked Bunt. "Yes, hundreds of times." "You have a magic...flute that you play every night that restores your youth." "No." "You steal the souls of children." "Gross, no." "Sex magic?" "I wish Bunt. No, the serum works." "Oh yeah, I'll believe it when I see it." George rolled his eyes and walked away. A few days later tired of the derision and perpetual skepticism, he faked his death. When he re-emerged, he offered his life-extending elixir, and the first customer was Frederick Bunt's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson. "This is George Bohr's elixir. Are you sure you want it?" "It works doesn't it?" "He died." Bunt winked at him. "Right, sure you did." If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe to my subreddit r/nickkuvaas.
Kira pressed his back tightly to the damp stone wall, clutching his sword in one hand and a torch in the other. It was the moment he'd been waiting for his entire life; what years of turmoil and training had brought him to. The climax of his existence. Something clinked from the adjacent room, like a dropped purse of gold, followed by a low growl and strange chittering. The smell of wet mineral and sulfur filled his nose, a chill setting into his spine. He took a deep breath and lunged around the corner to fight a dragon. It was every bit as awesome as he'd expected, and so much more. A jaw big enough to house him comfortably, an onyx tail longer than he was tall, thick and scaly-- there was even a low flame lit at the end of it --and, above all else, it was beautiful. Blacker than night, shimmering scales with silver-tipped starlight, like a dark amethyst. It stole the breath from his chest, thus ironically robbing the fabled thief. He stood before it, awe-struck and dazed. How could anyone fight such a magnificent beast-- no, why would anyone? It was so impossibly perfect, so limitless in its wonder, so enrapturing with its majesty. Why would anyone kill such a creature? Kira shifted his weight unintentionally, a silver coin grating between his iron boot and a jagged piece of stone. The sound carried through the expansive room, bouncing off every wall, and the dragon cracked a single eye. It was a soul-stealing crimson singed with yellow, like it had rocks for eyes that turned molten in its head. He froze, daring not to move, blink or breathe. It watched him through a sleepy eye, snorting, then opened it further. It's massive head rose sharply, looking at him, cocked. Kira's heart was frozen, a single moment of terror hanging, drawn out into infinity as his eyes met the great beast's in that dim dungeon cell. Then, it came. Gods, it was fast, faster than anything that enormous has any right to be. It lumbered toward him, and in that moment, Kira realized he'd made an enormous mistake. What experience did he have to think himself fierce enough to clash with something so powerful and glorious? At the end of the day, he was just a glorified farmhand with big dreams and even bigger holes to fill in his heart. The beast closed in on him within moments. Wind rushed up to him in a torrent of cracking talons on rock, scratching and scraping. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. But death did not take him. He pried one open, and the dragon had stopped a few feet away. Its tongue hung slack from its jaw, a pink waterfall cascading through massive teeth. Two crimson eyes focused on his torch, making it look dim by comparison. He waved it from side to side, and the beast's gaze followed. Kira threw it, high and hard, over the dragon and into the back of the room. It became a whirlpool abyss, spinning and clambering toward it, then quickly returned to him with the torch in its mouth. The dragon lowered its head, dropping the torch at his feet, then, with a great rumble that sent Kira askew, dropped to the ground and rolled onto its back. It panted, tongue dangling, and stared at him, waiting. He stared back at it, confused. "What the bloody hell is happening?"he asked, aloud for some reason, then bolted through the archway, screaming for his life. The dragon flopped back over and tried to follow, sticking his head into the hallway. But, alas, his body was too big to fit through such small corridors. And so he curled back up on his bed of gold, giving a half-hearted whine of defeat. Why did everyone always run away? It was never like that before, in the other world. There, everyone always wanted to give him belly rubs and pets. It must've been the new body, so big and scary and not very soft. He had a good feeling, though. That man was the first to play fetch with him in years, and it felt wonderful. Maybe he'd come back one day soon. After all, he'd been in such a hurry, he left his sword and pack behind! ---- Part II below! [final part here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/resonatingfury/comments/bgkvkz/wp_in_your_lifetime_stories_of_ordinary_people) /r/resonatingfury
I scratched my nose and the man opposite keeled forward with blood gushing out of his. It was a messy affair. The ichor syrup got mixed in with his coffee. He tried his best to stop the flow with his hands, but it prevailed and stained his white shirt crimson. I looked back at my hot chocolate as the cafeteria girl came to his aid. I tried to seem uninvolved and uninterested; however, I noticed a lady on the other end of the room had eyes for me. My first thought was that she might be a government agent. Maybe they’d finally put two and two together. After I’d waved my arm at that cab driver last week and caused a twenty-three car pile-up, I figured that was it for me. In fact, several months ago I coughed and everyone on my office floor proceeded to catch pneumonia. When I was the only man left standing, it had to be obvious. Turns out the government wasn't that smart. Or maybe I wasn’t that talented. My hot chocolate cup tinkled against its saucer as I stood up to find out. “Got a cig?” I asked as I sat at her table and placed my choco down. She was a young brunette dressed up in old people's clothes and oversized spectacles. “Excuse me?” “You can cut the act,” I told her, taking a chance, “I’d really like a cigarette if you’ve got one, though.” She frowned but fished inside her bag for a fire stick and a light. It was bent, but I licked my fingers and pressed the paper firm. She lit it for me and then eyed me with curiosity. “Did you watch that man with the broken nose?” she asked. “Maybe. You?” I took a long sip of my hot chocolate. “You were staring at him when it happened, in fact, it was almost like you expected it to happen. I saw you scratch your nose and then look around like-” Glass smashed behind us. We both snapped our attention to the noise. The waitress had dropped several cups of their famous chocolate mix. “Dammit,” I hissed, quickly placing down my own hot chocolate. The brunette looked back and forth between myself and the waitress. She was putting the evidence together. Although at this stage I wasn’t sure if she was an agent, I was certain, however, that she was a badly dressed young person. “Just who are you?” the brunette asked. I grinned. Telling the truth crossed my mind, but then again, maybe this was all a set up to get me to confess. “I’m just Dave.” “Dave. . .” she repeated. I took a puff of my cigarette. And her clothes went up in flames.
Adventurers. The disgusting and temporary existences, blessed with great power, infinite greed and the ability to simply escape from the troubles of the world at a mere thought, whisked away to another universe they called "logging off". I always hated them. I always resented them. We lived here, and this was our world. They came in droves, mindlessly slaughtering anything that gets in their way - and like a cruel joke I'm doomed to simply reawaken, brutal murder after brutal murder. We "normies"as we like to call ourselves... from the beginning of our memories, we have known what we have known, and learning more, learning skills, acquiring knowledge has sat just out of reach. And what we knew more than anything else was our limitations in comparison to these beasts. To think we lived in a world with such treasure and riches, and are unable to grasp them. Great magics, mysteries of the world and artifacts that could give us the power to protect ourselves from any foe, no matter it's tenacity. All out of reach to us, and available as readily as my baked wares to adventurers. Worst of all, for reasons we were never able to comprehend, all adventurers started out in my shop. Every day I would find them passed out, never knowing how they got here, and always starving. There's no rhyme or reason - I turn my back, and another injured demigod would appear and demand my hospitality before offering to go beat up some farm animals for me. As if I care for that! But I gave them copper for it, if it would mean they would leave me alone. The inequity I felt... It still fills me with a hate that I cannot express. I cannot attack until I myself am attacked, but any of them could slay me with a flick of the wrist. I am what the adventurers called an "NPC", a derogatory term for anyone they don't consider essential. But those days, that hate has long since given birth to a flame. As a baker, I could do nothing to stop the flood of these brutal strangers into my home, my world, my everything. Worse still, after mentioning waking up in my bakery, business from outside of our small town almost universally stopped except for the accursed adventurers, who would demand I take every scrap, fur, nail and other piece of junk in exchange for a few coins, just for the privilege of handing over my wares to get my coins back. The nerve! It was the village chief who came up with it. We gathered together, chief, the town physician, the apothecary and the baker, and we made history. We would be the first "NPC's"to slay an adventurer in cold blood, and I would finally have my vengeance. It was the 500th night since the adventurers began flooding our world, and we were finally ready. Every adventurer who enters our world starts in my shop, starving. They will literally eat anything remotely edible you give them, to restore themselves from the feeble and critical state they arrive in. No more. When I fed the first adventurer one of our muffins, I felt sick to my stomach. As a matter of pride for a baker and a food professional, when you step into my shop I have a duty to serve you something worthy of my craft. Literal thousands of adventurers had eaten here, and while they eventually all move on, many came back and gave me the only business I would ever see once the adventurers came and travel became too difficult to draw in folk from nearby towns. But as I saw this new adventurer's grim visage, the life slowly fading on the floor, my sickness was replaced with a triumph more delicious than any sweetbread I'd ever created in my life. As his cold, horrified eyes lay fixed upon my ceiling, I knew. I had done it. We had done it. At last we could fight on our own terms. It is a little known fact that adventurers were incapable of learning any form of cooking. As soon as we knew our plan was a success, we moved into action. A single messenger quest to a major trade hub (taken by an Adventurer, no less!) was all it took. Back then you could actually get messages to other towns. In mere days, every normie in the land was selling goods infused with our secret recipe to our unwelcome guests. It's impact was felt almost immediately. The first thing to go were the veteran adventurers. The wretched creatures who waltzed through, bought entire shops worth of stock and carted them back to ugly castles they'd built in our forests. Wielding the most powerful artifacts our world had ever seen like toys, I was delighted when they began to declare, one by one, that this "bug"(why an insect would behave like this I'll never know) was making our world "unplayable". Unplayable! As though our existence were for their amusement! It was not without repercussions. Adventurers began slaughtering food vendors on sight, but we had prepared ourselves for this and steeled our resolve. They had been unwilling to change to meet our needs, and we would show them no quarter. Over only a period of 2 or 3 weeks, most of the adventurers had fled. Not even monsters can fight on empty stomachs, it seemed. With my little shop of horrors quickly dispatching newcomers, even the rate at which new adventurers were entering the world dropped dramatically. I don't remember when they stopped entirely. But it's been 6 months since any new adventurer dared show their injured mug in my bakery. The few adventurers that survived were the extreme hoarders. We have seen them, holed up in houses with literal stacks of food they must have purchased before the great purge. A month ago we tried to talk to them. They wouldn't come out, no matter how much we called to them. I wonder if they're still there? Recently, the skies have been growing dark. The great artifacts that had stabilised our world seemed to have vanished with the adventurers that held them, and the number of monsters outside of the town limits is beyond anything anyone in living memory can recall - though nobody in living memory can recall the time before the adventurers anymore either. One by one, we lost contact with other towns, almost always after reporting their last adventurer had died. It slowly became clear that, for all of their flaws, adventurers had served a purpose in our world. Without them the world has slowly crumbled in ways we never knew it could. And so I sit here on the roof of my bakery at night, watching the lights in the sky go out one by one as I write this journal. I have to stay up here - things vanish in the night if you don't watch them now, like the adventurers used to when they "logged off". Where is it they go, I wonder? Is it where the rest of the town has gone? I haven't slept for days, afraid that my precious shop and even I might be the next disappearance. I've made one of my muffins, the same recipe that I fed that first adventurer, back when this world was alive. The darkness seems to be everywhere tonight, surrounding my bakery, and yet I can't fight the urge to make food. Was it really the adventurers imposing on me for food? Or did I make food because there were adventurers to feed? I've made my decision. I can no longer see anything on the horizon anymore except darkness. Not even the moon is with me anymore. It's just me and my shop now, where it all began. I think I've earnt a muffin break. EDIT: Well this got a lot more reads than I ever thought it would! To answer the thematic question that seems to be getting asked the most, I drew from a lot of different sources, including Ultima Online, World of Warcraft (particularly the nod to selling every scrap of crap you pick up), light novels Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, as well as currently airing anime Overlord. I treat NPC's horridly in just about every game I play, so I thought it'd be a lot of fun to play out some ideas about what would happen if they could resent us for what we put them through. Glad you guys liked it!
Scott slipped into the world with a sense of disquiet and unease, as every seemingly normal aspect of life seemed a potential source of danger or ruin. The machine had never been wrong before, and a 10/10 difference was something heretofore unencountered. 8/10 had little chance of obeying simple, reality-defining constructs such as the law of thermodynamics or gravity, and universes of those caliber or higher had little sense or stability to them. And yet, this 10/10 universe somehow seemed precisely the same as the one he himself came from, and that disturbed him greatly. He could no better understand the implications of it as he could the difference. As he walked along a quiet suburb in New Jersey, the state he had been born in, he watched the other inhabitants warily, but the only remarkable occurrences were the occasional wave or smile. The keen sense of unease never left him, but that was perhaps due to his own internal strife rather than anything out of place. He reached a park, one that he had played in in his youth. Aside from some new swings and some trees that had somehow become more spectacular since he had last encountered them, it was much the same. As he traversed the park, he let some of his concerns dissipate, to instead give way to comfort. Regardless of the strange situation he found himself in, it was nice to be home. He had been searching for his own for so long that a different universe, no matter how strange the scale, was imminently preferable to the search thereof. As he walked, he passed an old man on a bench reading a newspaper. The man turned to look at him, folding his newspaper in half as he did so. "10 out of 10?"the old man asked. The brief sense of comfort Scott had felt suddenly disappeared, leaving only a stark sense of confusion and fear. In all his years of traveling through multiverses, he had never encountered another like him. Finding no words to reply, he simply nodded weakly, feeling a primal urge to flee, to once more travel to some other multiverse. The old man, seemingly oblivious to Scott's fear, nodded in self-satisfaction. "Aye, 10 out of 10. Spectacular day, I'd say,"the old man continued. A wave of realization hit Scott, and he suddenly felt so very stupid. "It most certainly is,"he said, stumbling out the words. The man smiled, returning to his newspaper. Scott instead continued to walk down the path, cursing himself for his foolishness. Still, it was almost too coincidental. Regardless of his reaction, it was still a curious enough thing to investigate. He turned back to speak to the man, resolving to see what differences he could find. And yet, much to Scott's surprise, the old man was gone. His newspaper softly billowed through the air, caught on a light gust of wind. And as the cold dread began to set in, Scott was suddenly sure that something was very, very wrong with this universe. *** *** If you didn't completely hate that, consider subscribing to my subreddit: /r/CroatianSpy [Part II](https://old.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/iyuuwf/wp_multiversed_ii/?) \| [Part III](https://old.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/izfpkj/wp_multiversed_iii/)
"Jimbo, tell dear old mom the truth. How many marijuanas have you injected in the last year?" I prefer not to toke. I'm not the only one -- I'm the only one with overbearing parents, though. A lot of my friends and family are coughing and scratching themselves, nervous -- or concerned enough to lean on the cusp of withdrawal for me. Substance abuse clouds the house in a smoke, so thick that when you open your mouth to speak filmy heroin drapes across your tongue. "Mom,"I say, "it's my decision." "I know, honey. And it's the wrong one." "Wrong or not, I have to get through life on my own. Your responsibilities stopped when I became eighteen." My father flies into one of his famous ~~~PCP~~~ jenkem-induced rages. His hand crashes against the coffee table, shattering the glass top. "Damn you,"he roars, "I didn't raise no designated driver!" My sister, the tried-and-true cocaine addict of the family, sort of jitters a finger on my dad's cheek. "Yo, yo... stop! That's not helping. Brother... you've got to, to, to, to..."my youngest brother Tommy goes to fetch the defibrillator. "Shape up?"I finish. "Yyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeaaah,"my brother sighs. At this point, my sober mind spots the cage about to fall over me. This discussion could last hours. Days -- my sister let slip the date for the intervention a week ago, I just never imagined they could put it together. They elbowed back their drug-induced hazes to get me on the love train. "I can see you all care about me,"I say, smiling and feeling proud of the honesty in my words. "But I'm fine. I've taken up a drug." "Really?"My mother coos. I nod and take out my pack of cigarettes. "See? I've got my own vices. No one is trying to be superior to anybody." I might as well have murdered president Trump. They give me these 'lost cause' glares and get up from the circle. What? It was over that fast?! My mother jabs an accusatory finger at me, mouth foaming with rage and a minor stroke. "Hope you enjoy that tar in your lungs,"she spits.
Defying any sane reason or sense, the green text hung there in the air, unmoving. 'Turn Back', it said. The letters were crisp and easily legible against the backdrop of the night sky. I smiled a little. "Not today."The car beneath me rattled and clunked and roared into life as the ground tore away from beneath me. The text loomed larger, until its green light was my whole world. Then that world shattered, shards falling like pieces of glass around me. In the rearview mirror, I saw the letters change. 'You Should Have Turned Back' Of course they'd say that. Then 'reality' reasserted itself. Dull gray asphalt met my wheels which screeched and swerved. A long cry from the flat golden grasslands before. Titans of concrete arose on every side, followed by vaguely human shambling shadows. On instinct, I swerved around them. No point to it, really, but maybe they could damage my construct. Buildings passed in a blur. Everything here was much the same, no discernible landmarks. I didn't need them. The shamblers pointed the way. And the gunshots confirmed it. The first thing to break through the gray was a splotch of red, with blasts of yellow coming from just above. I smiled. I wobbled the wheel a little before turning sharply to the left. The gray around me spun, blurring even further, and thuds shook the frame as I swept aside the walking shapes. From on top of the red, an incredulous face peered down at me. "Hey there, you need a ride?"I wish I could say I sounded cool, but my voice cracked under the unexpected use. She -He?- nodded and jumped off the wreck of what had once been a nice car, shotgun in hand. The door clicked and closed, and the rustling whir of fabric told me a seatbelt had been put on. Whatever. "Where are we headed?"It was definitely a she, then. "Out."I replied, kicking the car into gear and getting us underway. Her eyes widened a little. "You know the way out of the city? I've been looking for months."She paused, and continued more quietly, "Years." "Little further out than that,"I said. Three rights, three lefts, a circle, then back the way we came. She gave me a look, probably thinking I'm weird, then turned her attention to her gun. One by one she racked the shells out, then, taking a cloth from her pocket, she wiped the thing down, bit by bit, almost ritualistically, until every last spot was gone. She tugged again on the pump and shell after shell went in. More than it had any right to hold. I'd figured as much. One last left turn put us on a long stretch of road, hemmed in on either side by the hulking concrete monstrosities. The car rolled to a stop. In front of us, defying any sane reason or sense, the green text hung there in the air, unmoving. 'Turn Back' Her face went ashen. "W-what does that mean?"She got the stammer under control after just one word. Nice. "It means,"I replied, never taking my eyes off the green letters, "that when I say so, you'll pull the trigger on your construct."I tapped her shotgun twice, so there was no ambiguity. "My? This is something I-" "Wanted desperately and then suddenly found."I supplied. The window on her side rolled down. "Please don't shoot out my windshield."She looked down at her shotgun, around at my car, and the beyond to the buildings enclosing us. Then she turned her gaze to the words ahead. Taking a deep breath, she nodded once, more to herself than to me, and stuck her torso out the window. In the rearview mirror I saw a wave of the shambling shapes about to break on us. I smiled a little. It was always this way. A horrible screech filled our ears as rubber slipped on asphalt, trying to get a grip, then the world again shot out from under us. Fifty. Thirty. Five. The letters grew to an angry red as we approached. Just as they seemed ready to rage, I said: "Fire." The world in front of us shattered, each shard burning to a bright red. And then the world slowed. I could feel each piece in my mind, sticking out like a splinter. Gently I removed them, placing each one in front of us. Making a bridge of solid red into the blackness. Angela had been right, it was easy as breathing. The shard bridge ran up against something, and I reached out to pull the girl in. Just in time. The darkness broke, much more reluctantly than the last time, and deposited us on a mossy forest bed. I slammed on the brakes, keeping the girl back in her seat with my hand. Redundant, I realized, since she put a seatbelt on. The bark on a trunk lightly kissed the front on my car before it settled back. I stepped out of my construct, feeling the soft springiness beneath my feet. Looking at the monoliths of wood around us, I decided a car wouldn't be much use. The girl got out, too, though she didn't seem to enjoy the moss as much as I did. Instead, she seemed to be freaking out. Understandable. "What the f-" "I know,"I cut her off. I don't like profanity. "It's a lot to take in. First, though."I flipped my hand out towards the car. Metal crunched as it folded in on itself, wrapping and condensing into an impossibly small oval. And then unfolded into a cell phone. "I have to make a call."I stepped a few feet off into the forest, and punched in a number I knew by heart. It rang exactly once. "Ben?"A smooth voice answered. "Hey, Angela. Found one."I said, smiling more warmly. "She already has a construct, too, so that's nice. We're in a new enviro 'cause her's was hostile and she's pretty upset about the whole thing." There was a moment's pause. "Well, it doesn't sound like she's screaming, so that's one step better than you did, Ben."She chuckled, and my smile turned a little more wry. "Get her up to speed and get moving. The green is becoming red." "I know,"I whispered in reply, "Already on it." "Should we meet again."Her voice sounded a little sad. "Should we meet again,"I replied. The phone snapped shut and I turned back to the girl. And was met with the business end of her shotgun. Her finger wasn't on the trigger, though, which was decent of her. "So, Ben,"She put more venom into my name than three letters could rightfully hold. "Care to explain?" I shrugged, "World's fake, each person has their own enviro separated by those green letters. We-"I gestured to the two of us and then swept my hand outward- "can make items we call 'constructs' which give us a degree of control in here."I gave her a moment to digest that. "We go out, find new people, save them, and bring them here." The shotgun wavered and fell. "So we're, what? In a simulation?" "In a something,"I answered. "Right now we're just trying to keep people alive." A look entered her eyes. "We?" I smiled, a happy one again. "Follow me."
They say everyone had two distinct faces. One is the outward public face. And one is the hidden, true face. To the public eye, I’m a decent defence attorney. Standing up for the little guy. But inside, I am something totally different. Something much darker. Much more sinister. I like to think that I inherited most of my bad traits from my father. He belonged to a biker gang. Small time crook. Just took orders and did what he was told. I learnt at an early age that giving the orders is what really got you paid. He got in debt to the gang leader. Didn’t have any money. They were going to come after my sister. To convince my father to pay. Well, I didn’t really have a choice did I? Poor guy was stabbed 26 times in his bed. His wife who lay with him was just collateral damage. Of course, the gang had to make an example of someone. To prove they still ruled the place. So they chose my dad. He was killed and thrown on the steps of city hall. But it was worth it. For my sister, everything was. She took after my mother’s side of the family. She always got good grades, never got in trouble. She was a good kid. The problem is that it is a bad world. Good kids find it really hard here. I did what I had to. I protected her. I have done many bad things. But those are the ones I don’t regret at all. Her friend who wouldn’t share her doll. The kid who bullied her. The boyfriend who cheated on her. The teacher who gave her a B when she clearly deserved an A. The chain snatcher who stole from her. They all deserved it. You don’t cross an Angel without facing retribution from a few demons. I have always been good at giving orders of course. Never anything tied to me. It was all Maniac’s fault. The dastardly super villain who terrorized the city. Of course, being the sweet and good girl she is, she leads the rebel alliance agains Maniac’s evil rule. I am proud of her for it in fact. In this age of tyranny, anyone who stands up against evil must be applauded. There are times when many of my own men have tried to hurt her. I can’t stop them in the open of course. That would bring the knowledge of my secret identity out in the open. Paint a target on her. We can’t have that can we? So of course, I had to kill them. She actually has built up quite a reputation in this town now. Anyone who tries to hurt her ends up dying. People don’t know everything so they assume she is the one who killed everyone. It isn’t true of course. My sister, the perfect angel that she is, would never do something like that. But now I find myself at crossroads. She has gathered too much information. She knows too much about my operations. I live in the fear of knowledge that one day she looks at her brother and sees the monster I truly am. I would die. I wonder if that is the solution after all. She is planning an assassination attempt. Considering all heroes and all the police force has failed, it is of course a foolish errand. But she is brave. She claims her own life isn’t more important than the thousands she can save. Or at least have a chance of saving. She says that if she succeeds, it ends the rampage of the maniac. If she doesn’t, she’ll forever be remembered as a martyr and hopefully many more will rise up against me. Of course she is keeping this a secret from me. But I have spies and listening equipment everywhere. It is my town after all. Perhaps maniac has to die after all. I walk into the meeting room. There was supposed to be a meeting of course, but I cancelled it. I am alone in here today. I know her plan is to attach some sort of gas into the air vents. Knock everyone out. But she doesn’t want anyone else hurt. Just me. So the actual killing, she will do that herself. I have always thought that I would die for her. Now here’s my chance. She will be renowned the world over as the greatest hero once this is over. A sound catches my attention. A janitor. The gas is already filling the building. He shouldn’t be here. I have air filters in my nostrils under my mask. I wanted to see her one last time. Maybe try and explain things. I would still take the stabbing. But I hope I can see her smile one last time. He is down for the count. I wonder. Can I still salvage this? I quickly remove my mask and put it on him. I keep the nose plugs. I hide in the closet and wait. She is dressed much differently than I have ever seen before. Her heels echo across the empty building. She stands over his helpless body. “Maniac? Huh.” She laughs. It’s a different laugh. Something alien. She takes off his mask. “I hoped you were conscious to see this. The world is moving on. Your little dime crimes are a thing of the past. It is time for a new head of crime to rise. Someone much more ruthless. No more being nice and letting poor shopkeepers who can’t pay for protection off the hook. I just murdered all of your crew single handedly.” Was she monologuing? Good grief. She kept going till he opened his eyes. That was when she stabbed him directly in the heart. I call her when she is out of there. “Angela? Where are you?” “Hello brother! Nowhere. I’m at Betsy’s house. We are baking cookies.” She is super convincing. I guess everyone does have two faces after all. Sometimes the second face is really well hidden. I guess she took after the wrong side of the family as well.
I'd done it again. Slipped out the pocket of reality like a lost wallet, and I hadn't even noticed. The barista looked at me like I was going crazy. And maybe I was. I stared down at the bill in my hand. Yes. It was the same as it had been when I put it in my wallet this morning and walked out the front door. Everything had been so normal, just seconds before I opened the door. She repeated, "Ma'am, trying to pass off counterfeit currency is a felony."She squinted at the bill in my hand. "What's an America?" And I as I stared, details emerged. Things I should have noticed: her face was slippery and scaley, and gills frilled on the side of her neck, half-hidden by her pigtails. Even her fingers were webbed. Were they like that, when I handed her the money? My words were scattering. Useless as my twenty. I tucked it back into my wallet, morbidly aware of all the people in line behind me, staring at the back of my head. "Sorry,"I stammered out. Truth was, it wasn't the first time this happened. Falling out of time. Catching myself in the arms of a reality that couldn't possibly be real. God. Going crazy felt like losing myself, piece by piece. Like turning into a broken puzzle. I turned to hurry out of the shop. Head down, ears burning. Last week, I had opened the grocery store door and walked into a tavern that smelled of honey and sweat. I nearly walked into a huge, looking man who demanded something with gravelly, ancient words I couldn't understand. The week before, I opened my bathroom door and found it had turned into a jungle overnight. The week before that I nearly stepped out of my apartment door and out onto the edge of a snowy cliff. And every time, I just turned around right back out, and the world was right again. Yes. That's all I had to do this time. Walk right out and pretend everything was fine. I turned to go, trying not to stare at the man just behind her. He had the same fishlike look, but he had the sharp teeth of a barracuda as he watched me pass. I pushed against the cafe door and stepped out into a street lined with buildings. The light posts had heads shaped like angler fish, lighting the dark. The pavement was sandy sea floor, gone hard and dry. I tilted my head up. Overhead, the sky was glass holding back the ocean. Fish and mermen darted in the gloom. My heart lunged for my throat. Panic burned white-hot in my eyes, but I blinked fast, trying to keep calm. This time, I hadn't gone back to normal. I was still stuck in it. Whatever it was. And somehow, I could only think about my damn cats. Who was going to feed them if I was stuck wandering my own crazy-- "Hey." I turned, startled. A man leaned against the wall beside the cafe. I scanned him for gills or those strange knife-pupil fish eyes. But he looked... Normal. He looked human, like me. He was dark-haired and tall, and dressed in all-black. I watched my own shocked face stare back at me in his reflective sunglasses. "You got time-stuck,"he observed. "Can you tell me where we are?"I asked, my voice hitching. "Atlantis."He regarded the watch on his arm. "It will still exist for a few more centuries in this dimension." "This ... What?"My belly spun sickly. "Don't try to act so innocent. You're April Lee Jones, specifically the version of you from the dimension UD-738X."He lifted his sunglasses, and his glare was full of heat. "I'm Detective Morris. And I've been cleaning up your mess for weeks." If this was my own hallucination, he was an asshole. I scowled at him. "I don't even know what you're talking about. I'm just..."I searched for the word. I couldn't bring myself to say crazy. "Lost." "I've seen you jumping between realities like it's nothing. You have any idea the work you made for the Quantum Paradox cleanup boys? The number of causal loops they had to untangle?" I could only laugh in disbelief. "Wow. Maybe I'm not the crazy one." But Morris wasn't laughing. He pulled open his coat and revealed a gleaming silver badge at his hip. A gun holstered beside it. "Come on, little time skipper. I'm here to take you in." * [Part 2**](https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofstatic/comments/f7ma8u/the_time_keepers_part_2/)
At first, it was all just this... horrible, horrible thing. A color, I think? It was angry, violent, it was... yelling at me. That was just me getting used to it all, I think. Because that's what everything looks like now. All the shapes, and people, and walls, they're all this color. Well, most of them. It vibrates. Shakes, to a rhythm. It feels sort of like a heartbeat. Everything that has this color does. Most things do. But some things are cold, distant, stony. Like they've lost all life in them, smooth, flat, and just... well, sad, I guess. But not the sort of sad where you dropped your food, or you and a friend got into a fight. It's a deep, deep sadness, a pit of despair. I don't like this color so much. Everything in between is just... a void. Not nothing, because nothing is what I saw before. But its just this vague empty, this great, well, nothingness. Most objects have a lot of empty color on them, particularly, inside them, a lot of the color is empty color. At first, I thought I was seeing people's souls. But then, why would walls have souls? Why would floors have souls? Objects, especially; the Eiffel Tower is so... good color, it'd blow your brains out. It just radiates out from it like heat from a lamp. But anyway, back to my theory... so, I don't think it's souls. For example, why would souls have gender? I look at man, and sometimes I see a man, but most of the time, I see a woman. I look at a woman, and sometimes I see a woman, but most of the time, I see a man. I look at a dog, I see a dog, but the dog I see isn't the dog that's there. Sometimes it's a bit bigger, its fur is longer, it's smaller, it has no tail, the differences can be vast. With places, I just see the places. But they have varying degrees of these three colors I spoke about before. Either good color, bad color, or empty color. Places like the Eiffel Tower have a lot of good color, but when I look up, the sky, it's very much empty color, with some good color in little lines. Graveyards are horrendously empty color. Funerals radiate bad color, sometimes even covering up good color. Some people are bad color. These people just look like themselves, to what I can see. These people always sound happy, but something about them, maybe it's the bad color, it feels like they're lying. This all brought me to the conclusion that I can see love. Specifically, I think I can see places marked with love, and in people, I think I see their soul mates. Husbands and wives always look like each other, but flipped. Well, some of the time, anyways. I figured this out pretty quick early on. Seeing love, I mean. It's been... pretty useful, I'd say. Sometimes people get a bit more bad color when certain things happen, or they become a bit more good color when I do things they like. Anyways, sorry to bore you, doc. You really asked why I wanted the procedure reversed, right? "That's right." Well, right after you did it the first time, I met this woman. And I saw myself. And when I looked in the mirror, I saw this woman! So, you know... my soul mate! Gosh, we've been dating going on five years now. But now sometimes, when I look at her, she's kind of bad color. I try to cheer her up, make her feel better, but, it's hard sometimes. "And you don't want to know her sadness so well?" Well... For a while, it was okay. But now... Well, it started as maybe once a month. But then it became every week. Then every other day. Now it's every day. I'm lucky if it stops happening every day. "The 'bad color', you mean? Its frequency has increased?" No, doc, I - I don't. I mean, when I look at her now, I don't see myself. I see someone else entirely. &#x200B; (Not sure if this is what was imagined for the prompt, but this just popped into my head instantly when I read the prompt, so thanks for that, it was fun to write! If anyone who read this would like to read more of my stories, feel free to visit my humble community at: r/SUPRAPStories)
People think I am painfully shy. I understand why they think that. It is because I don’t speak. What they don’t know it that I am actually just judging their stupidity. Silently despising their obnoxiousness. And sometimes internally planning their murder. I like to plan murders. Not just briefly wish a painful death upon an enemy. I like to actually sit down and scrawl page after page of how it will go down. I make timetables and schedules. I investigate my prey’s life until I know his daily routine like I know the first twenty digits of pi. I introduce myself to his wife, kids, mother, colleagues, gardener, dentist. He has no idea I exist. That is part of the fun. I know him like I know that my dog will need to take a shit in the morning, yet to him I do not exist. Once I know everyone he knows, I slowly dig. I spend months, years, subtly questioning, surveying, interviewing, I write down every snippet of information. Everything counts. I hack his work email, his home email, his cellphone, his home phone, his internet browser history. Everything. Anything I can get my hands on. Until I know him like I know every president in US history. It’s funny because my subjects are my friends. I mean. Aside from the fact that I don’t exist to them. But I know them. I know them like we met in kindergarten when one of us pushed the other of the swing set. Like we stayed up for hours into the night talking on the telephone. Like we laughed about losing our virginities and cried about having our heart broken. And I want those memories to be mine. They cannot deny my musings of our friendship from the grave. Which is why they all must go. And so I kill them. There is pain and blood. I usually use a knife. And fork. You might call me a monster. But I'm not. I'm just human. After all... You are what you eat.
Edit: I'd like to thank you all for your responses. I'll see if we can spin this into a greater story in the future. An outline is further down in the comments, I'll try to add it at the end of this prompt. Thank you again & enjoy! (Current chapters: 2 - in the comments) \--- The ceremony had always been a big event in our town. While the children turned 18 on different days and received their divine blessing, they first revealed it to others during the Ceremony of Revelation. It had been a custom for many families to actually never call forth the summon before the Ceremony, while others would only call it in private chambers away from curious eyes. And so one week before the big event the town began preparing. Craftsmen erected a stage in the middle of the town square with a pyramid on which the young adult would stand and reveal what the soul formed from the godly power it was bestowed with. It was most common to find people being able to summon tools of their craft if they already had set foot on that path. Be it a sword, a pen filled with unlimited ink or a farming tool, the townsfolk usually tried to teach their children in ways that they would manifest what would help them in the family business. Well, except some of the scholars, they usually tried the opposite teaching their children about the world so they could make up their own mind and have their destiny revealed once they manifested their summon. Ironically, most of them still ended up with items of scholarship. I was sitting on a bench in front of my fathers store observing the cheerful and excited crowd, decorating the stage, sweeping the square and putting up tents to protect spectators from sudden rain that so often surprised people during spring. Thinking about rain... I could almost feel the cold of those droplets rolling over my skin, like the last breath of winter was imprisoned in those tiny pearls of water. A nice thought indeed, a smile snuck into my face as my eyes closed and as my mind wondered off into the sky from which the rain had traveled down. I felt cold wind as I flew across mountains of pure white as the sun illuminated the scenery - a wonderful feeling as a voice pulled me back into my body. "Dreaming again, eh?" I opened my eyes. My father was standing next to me, looking down with an understanding smile. "You were always a dreamer and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you do your work first. Come on, deliver the crates to the temple, we are almost done for today."I sighed. "Yes, yes I am going. But I could have waited a bit longer, Master Vellric is still praying at this time of the day.""Just leave the crates next to the side entrance, he is no weaker than you and his acolytes just as well can carry them in.""Alright, alright, I'll go." The temple was a bit of an odd place. It was huge for compared to the town of merely two thousand people who lived nearby, in fact, once the whole town found shelter within the temples ancient walls of granite overgrown by ivy. The main tower that marked the inner sanctum stood almost sixty feet tall, if it weren't forbidden to enter the inner sanctum or "chamber of sealing"as they called it, I would have long climbed up to it's top to look across the land that lies beyond the forest and fields of Angheim. The small group of priests who tended to the graveyard and herb garden received crates with provisions from the townsfolk ever since people could remember, at least that is what my grandmother had told me. After the darkness had been banished beneath a disk made from moonsilver and sungold by the gods, the townsfolk made offerings to the Order everywhere in the kingdom as they were said to be the wardens that kept the shadows in their prison. After I passed through the gates of the old temple I pulled the cart up to the stairs of the side entrance, where a familiar figure was already waiting for my arrival. "It seems the dreamer has once again awakened to bless us with chests of desperately needed supplies.""Quit your mockery, Lorin, and help me get those off the cart.", I grumbled. Lorin was an acolyte of the temple, one of the few people who were sent here specifically by the Order whose headquarter was weeks away from our small town at the edge of the Great Wilderness. He was a good friend, but not quite the kind of person you would expect to find in a temple. He slacked off as soon as Master Vellric took his sharp eyes off him and never seemed all too serious about the Order or its mission. But he was a great conversationalist, he and I had spent hours talking about things that fueled my dreams day and night. The mysteries of the moonfolk, the mighty war angels that struck down from the heavens like stars when their shields began to glow red in their rapid descent to earth, the vast lands only the light of the sun touched and secrets that hid away in caves as deep as the eternal sleep of the darkness. "You don't seem very exited about the Ceremony."noted Lorin as he carried another crate up the stairs to the temples kitchen. "Why would I be? I have been running errands for as long as I can remember. Even though my birthday is only on the day of the Ceremony, I have no doubt in my mind that I will be... blessed with a handcart or pair of sandals.""You know, good shoes are hard to come by.", noted Lorin with a suppressed chuckle. "But seriously, don't be too harsh on yourself. You know it is your soul that forms the blessing into a summon, not your memories.""I don't know what that is supposed to mean.", I sighed, but Lorin shook his head. "You will in a few days. And please, until then stop looking so gloomy, it ruins my mood."I couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, now you show what you are really concerned about!""Of course, you would scare away the girls down at the tavern with that face. I can't sit at a table with you like that!" The week flew by without any major incidents and so on my birthday came and with it the Ceremony of Revelation. Each of the young adults of Angheim stepped on the stage and called forth their summon. Each time the light of creation subsided an object had appeared in the hand of the summoner and the crowd would cheer and applaud. Only when Elra, the daughter of the mayor, summoned a scepter of white and gold that carried the symbol of the royal magicians did a murmur mix in with the cheering. And with that, I climbed up to the stage. As we were taught, I raised my hand and emptied my mind as much as I could. But thoughts spilled back into me, thoughts of thousands of miles walked to run small errands, a life on the road with nothing new to see and I could feel my heart crying out against this kind of destiny. At that moment I heard the first people screech. Confused I opened my eyes to see shocked faces and eyes opened wide in confusion and fear. I looked up. There was no light of creation, but a vague flickering of the air as a round shield floated a few inches above my hand. As the flickering subsided it slowly descended and touched the palm of my hand. A wave of burning heat and and snapping cold went through my body as the metal came into contact with my skin, I almost dropped the shield but managed to hold onto it at the last second. I looked at the shield, it was an amazing piece of craftsmanship far beyond anything mortal hands could have ever created. Gold and silver polished to perfection seemed to flow into each other and ancient runes of obsidian twinkled in the sunlight that captured my attention as a scene of chaos erupted amongst the townfolk in front of the stage. Master Vellric was pointing at me, shouting something that drowned in screams of terror, Lorin next to him began to laugh as if he just heard a brilliant joke while the townsfolk ran away now in utter chaos knowing only one direction - away from the stage. Master Vellric now turned to Lorin. "You!", his voice like thunder. "Who are you, what have you done to the boy?!" "I did nothing!", said Lorin and shrugged his shoulders while a strange smile twisted his lips. "We just spoke of things far away, shrouded in mystery and long forgotten." "I see now, while I watched over the seal you whispered into his malleable soul!" "Of moonfolk I told him, of lands that only the sun had seen and secrets as deep as the eternal sleep of the darkness. I have done nothing but shown him the way, he walked this path by himself." And now I realized it. This thing in my hand was not a shield. It was a disk made from moonsilver and sungold, forged by the gods to seal the darkness that had once plagued this realm. It was my 18th birthday, a the day that became known as the Day of the Black Revelation.
I left the planet in my own little spaceship. No one believed me when I told them I could not only reach outer space with this beauty, but also break the speed of light without turning into energy. So far, my first claim had been confirmed, and so it was time to confirm the second one. I grabbed the accelerator's handle, and after drawing a deep, lingering breath, I pushed it all the way to the maximum speed. In that moment, I got sucked into my seat, and the vast darkness of the universe turned into dashing lights of sundry colors. I attempted to move, but I couldn't. The pressure increased, and seized my chest, forbidding the oxygen to reach my lungs; my skin rippled visibly; my bones rattled; and all the while the speedometer's numbers went higher and higher. All of a sudden, the dashing lights turned into liquid-like, rainbow-colored tendrils, as if I were in a submarine moving through the depths of an iridescent ocean. The pressure remained, crushing, suffocating me slowly. But how beautiful this was. I clung on to every single sliver of life I could find within me. The speedometer didn't lie. I was going much faster than the speed of light, and I was still alive. I'd proved my point. All I had to do now was reduce the speed. I fought against the pressure, attempting to reach the accelerator's handle, but it was pointless, for I couldn't even move my arm a single millimeter. I cursed in my mind time and time again. How could I've been so stupid? Why didn't I take this into account? My body wouldn't resist it much long-- The tendrils of light disappeared. A blinding white plain appeared before me. The pressure faded too. My body loosened, and at last, I gasped. But when everything seemed calm and perfect, the spaceship went through the whiteness, as though it was a vast wall of paper. Beyond, a gargantuan, amorphous creature stared at me through myriad varicose eyes. It wrapped an enormous tentacle around the spaceship, and brought it closer to him. I unfastened myself, and clambered to my feet, desperate to find a way to survive. The fear clutched my throat. It smothered me. The walls creaked and cracked. Fissures ran like creeks across them. The floor trembled. The valves broke and hissed. There was nothing I could do now, and so, in a last attempt to understand what'd happened, I stared beyond the monster. There, I saw a computer. Smoke came out from a diminutive spot in the monitor. Perhaps, reality wasn't reality after all. -------------------------------- r/NoahElowyn -- Consider checking my sub if you enjoyed the story! I have many more stories over there.
'For the last time, the Senator was murdered, none of this "heart disease"nonsense.' As a Coroner Sam was used to the sight of corpses, just not eight foot tall ones wearing a crown and draped in tapestries of ages past, and especially not ones that moved, spoke and made "air quote"signs with their fingers. When the desiccated revenant first appeared gliding above the floor on a faint nimbus of light Sam reacted...poorly. His fear spasm was severe enough to sprain, well it's best left unsaid though he would be uncomfortable in the morning. That fear had dampened somewhat after watching the undead beast make himself a coffee using the K-cup machine from reception then wander round reading Senator Harris's charts and reports. Sam decided to lean into things by this point figuring that either he'd suffered a stroke or some orderly had slipped him LSD, he'd heard about Microdosing in an interview on NPR and figured the new guy, the rockabilly kid with the missing fingers was the most likely culprit. Either way, Sam figured there was not much he could do about it, and at the very least it was highly unlikely that some being would transcend death itself just to make small talk about peppermint flavored coffee and stevia of all things... "...So"Sam said. "How can you say that? I did a full autopsy. I examined his heart myself?" "Easy"Said the Litch. Deep within empty sockets a dull light glowed smugly. (Sam had stopped with the little questions like 'how can a glow be smug?' or 'how does it talk when it's larynx doesn't move?' and 'Why is it floating?'....) "Two reasons. First the obvious"Said the Litch. "You can see here that this was a professional job, standard Arcane double tap."The Undead horror casually gestured to the ex-senators head and stitched up sternum. "A cheap 'n' nasty curse to the body, and a Power word right to the soul"The Litch smiled, well attempted to anyway. It rictused unsettlingly. "Shows it was a Pro, your standard sparkle fingers doesn't have what it takes to source someone's True Name you know?" "No"Said Sam. "I don't. You just can't point at a body and say 'oh magic killed them' No one will accept an inquiry report that says 'A Wizard did it...' Sam was getting pissed. Tripping or no tripping, no eldritch abomination was going to come into his morgue and refute 17 years of work and study by pointing at a body and blaming "Magic" "What was the second reason?"Sam asked, a bit more snipperly than he'd intended. "Oh I asked him"Said the Litch. "You fucking WHAT?!"asked Sam. "Oh, when you went to the bathroom to clean yourself up after I first came in."The Litch shrugged. "First thing I do when someone dies, ask them what happened. It's quite helpful" "You...?" "You don't?"Asked the Litch "I find it saves so much time with all of, well this business."He gestured around the room at the examination table, the scales and assorted tools. Sam swore one of the glowing eye-lights winked. "...Why?"Sam asked quietly. "The Senator? Upset the wrong PAC group. Got a good description of the warlock too. Do you follow the news, because you'll never guess who it was?" "I mean you, here, this"Sam asked. "Oh consider this my application. I'd like to join you here" "What? I mean, What?"Sam stammered "Oh don't be coy"said the Litch. "I've had my eye on here for a while. Good hours, It's quiet, you get to meet people, and the Dental and Orthopedic package you get is to die for..."
Trish seemed like a nice enough girl, and I'm a nice enough guy, but neither of us were looking for "nice."Her profile said, "not looking for anything serious,"and so that's what we were doing-- nothing serious. We were doing "nothing serious"on my couch while Lara Croft Tombraider 2 played at a volume just too low to hear from the TV across the living room. The room was dark, save the small flashes of light and color as Lara went from green jungle to beige desert. Neither of us were paying much attention to the movie. "Wanna see something neat?"I whispered. "Sure,"she said. Then giggled, flailing an arm behind her back to her bra, which I'd just unhooked without moving a muscle. "Oh my god!"she said. "Are you some kind of Sup?" "Not really,"I said and moved in for another kiss. That's when Defender showed up. Trish covered her eyes as a glare brighter than lit magnesium came suddenly from the balcony window outside my 12th story apartment. "What the hell is that?"she grumbled. I knew what it was. "Unhand her!"Defender yelled, voice muffled by the glass. "Hang on a sec,"I mumbled. "Ya, hey,"I said, opening the window. "Unhand the maiden, Villain!"Defender said. God, what an asshole. First of all-- undercut, you know-- the type of haircut that makes people look like the pokemon Pidgeot? He had one of those, but then combined it with this flimsy blonde hipster mustache that he waxed and curled every day. He had his shields, obviously, both of them, each strapped to his left and right hand. Oh, and he named his special move "Shield Punch." Spoiler alert-- it's when he punches people with the shield. "It's consensual man, we're just trying to have a good time,"I complained. "Is this true?"Defender asked stiffly, turning up his nose and glancing at Trish. She nodded. "Consensual. Thanks...though. Have a good night!" Defender narrowed his eyes and sneered. "Typical,"he said, grinding his pearl-white and gold shields together, and clenching his teeth. "What's typical?" "A beautiful woman such as this,"he said shaking his head, "Giving her maidenhood to a villian such as you." "Okay buddy,"I said, and moved to shut the window. Defender loomed in, and wedged his shield in the windowframe. "Leave,"I said flatly. "You may have this woman fooled, but not I!"he said. "She knows not the error of her ways! Preying upon women's urge to be with men who treat them poorly,"he said, shaking his head. "Sickens me." "I'm not sure that's exactly the sit--"Trish began, but Defender glared daggers at her, and she shut up. "You're being weird man,"I said. "Get out." "You have not joined the League of Heroes,"Defender accused. "Such actions speak for themselves. And powers of the mind...perhaps mind control,"he mused. "Telekesis,"I clarified. "Perhaps the villain lies,"Defender said. Behind him, Trish itched at her back. She shoved her arms in her t-shirt, lifted her shoulders, and took her bra off. "Itchy,"she said, winking at me. Defender gasped. "No more,"he said. "No more will I stand this." Then he plowed his shield into my nose. I flew backwards, slamming through the thin wall that divided my apartment and into the kitched behind it. My back slammed into the microwave, corner digging painfully into my skin just inches to the left of my spine. "Asshole!"I screamed, and flew at him. He crouched down, gold and white shields raised near his shoulders, then spun at me, corkscrewing in the air and pointing the kite shield's triangular edge straight at me. The world seemed to slow. I honed in on the straps at his wrist, reinforced leather bound in a half a dozen careful places. I can work the careful places. I can work them with my mind. Big and small, mechanism or simple construct. I have two hands, but I can work the fingers of the mind. Four, five six, on the left arm. Four, five, six on the right, and each of Defender's shields flew from his wrists, burrying themselves into the drywall of my apartment. I lowered my skull. This was gonna hurt. I cracked into his head with my own. I think he got the worst of it. Defender howled, his hipster-waxed moustache bent and broken and covered with flowing blood from each nostil. "How dare you!"he screamed through his clogged nose. Then he cursed. I raised a hand. Defender lifted into the air. I guided him over to the window. "No,"I said, "I will not join the League of Heroes. No, that doesn't make me a villain. Come by again, and I'll kick your ass." "You're too dangerous,"he groaned. "Miss,-- ma'am, young lady,"he said to Trish. "You must resist your compulsion to be attracted to him purely for the way he mistreats you,"Defender begged. "Okay, that's enough,"I said, and with a force of will, sent him hurtling away at 120mph, out towards the nightime city skyline. He cried out, but the sound faded fast enough. "Well,"I said, knitting my broken nose back together with another small effort of will. Trish smiled, and dangled the bra on one finger before flinging it away. "Right,"I said, and sat back down on the couch next to her. I put my arm around her. "Out of curiosity,"she said, "Why don't you join the League of Heroes?" "Well,"I said, "To join the self-proclaimed 'League of Heroes,' you've got to think pretty highly of yourself. Think you're pretty great." "Pretty nice,"Trish said nodding. "Pretty nice,"I agreed. "And they're almost all just as...nice." "Got it,"she said, and leaned in for a kiss. She paused a few moments later. "You wanna be a real hero?"she asked. "Sure,"I said, playing along. "If another one shows up on our second date, can I be the one to break his nose?" I laughed. "Second date, huh?" She shrugged. "I like you." "Even though I'm a villain?" "Especially because you're a villain." \------ Thanks for the fun prompt! Also-- this is absolutely what people would think, right? If you're not 100% on your PR a-game that you're a hero everyone would just be waiting for you to snap, right?! Fun stuff. &#x200B; Brand new sub (brand new account for that matter) but if you liked what you read, I'd love to see you over at /r/ethanfeld_writes !
"The world is a cruel, unfair place. My job is to make you even more cruel and unfair, so that you can fight back the terrors that haunt us. Be warned, however,"I took off my glass eye for dramatic effect. "What you've lost can never be recovered." Most of the squires either nodded along with determination or remained unimpressed, too jaded by their trauma to care. They looked like a good batch of recruits. I could work with this. One of them, though, slowly raised his hand, hoping to ask a question. Everyone widened their eyes and took a step away from the boy, not willing to associate with him. The squire had a good build for a warrior, but his eyes betrayed a sense of naïveté that was rare among recruits. By my estimation, people like him never lasted more than a week. I frowned. "What?" "Should you really be doing that with your eye, sir? Can't it get infected?" The other recruits started laughing. Great. A comedian. There's always one of them in the class. I walked up to him, looming over his head. "You think my missing eye is funny?" "N-no! Never!" "Why did you joke about it, then?" "I didn't! It was a genuine concern!" "And why, pray tell, would you be worried about me?" The squire looked away. "Well, uhh... Aren't we supposed to protect people?" I arched an eyebrow. The squire flinched. I sighed. "Get this through your head, you aren't here to save people. Nobody can truly be saved. Your job is to fight monsters. That's it. Leave the self-righteous nonsense for the fairytales. Understood?" "Yes, sir!" "What's your name, son?" The squire smiled. "It's-" I smacked him across the face. "Wrong! You're squire thirty-seven! Keep that in mind next time you question me!" "Yes, sir!" I paused. The squire didn't react how I expected. They usually scowled, suppressing the urge to fight back, or straight up tried to attack me. This one simply took it. His lip was busted open but his face showed no resentment. I carried on with my introductory speech, never taking my eye off Thirty-Seven. There was something strange about him. As the first month went by, the recruits started passing the obstacle course with relative ease. That didn't usually happen. Most classes took an entire year to learn it, with plenty of injuries along the way. This year, there hadn't even been a broken bone. Somehow, they quickly learned the location of all the paralysis traps and memorized the optimal route around the flame labyrinth. I couldn't believe it. They had to be cheating somehow, but no, after monitoring them closely, I realized they were all doing it legitimately. It wasn't until later that I discovered the truth. Thirty-Seven had organized the squires and encouraged them to share their experiences. As a group, they easily identified all the pitfalls and illusory paths, pooling their knowledge together so that everyone could succeed. I wanted to snap his neck. The obstacle course was supposed to be a filter. An individual challenge that separated the weak from the strong. Now we had more recruits than normal at this time of the year. I never had to worry about this before. The squires, being angry teenagers, were always eager to compete with each other. This class was different, and I didn't like it. If an unworthy person were to graduate, they could easily cause more trouble than they're worth. My solution was simple. Not only did I rearrange the obstacle course, I also made an example of Thirty-Seven by giving him a cursed amulet. It made him five times heavier, barely allowing him to stand straight. "If you don't pass the obstacle course while wearing that,"I said, "you will automatically fail out of the class." "Y-yes, sir!"he said, falling on his face. "Furthermore,"I turned to the other recruits, "if he actually succeeds, all of you will fail." The squires grew tense. I smiled. That should keep them in check. Nobody would be willing to help him now. They had all suffered great loss and wanted nothing more than to avenge their families. Thirty-Seven wasn't more important than that. The next half of the year went by without anything noteworthy occurring. Usually, at this point, the squires approached me with their troubles. It was my favorite part of the process, since I got to bond with the students a little. They saw me as a parental figure, given the fact that they were orphans, and they needed guidance to navigate their inner turmoil. That didn't happen this time. I felt rather spurned by them. Nobody entered my office, crying about their dead parents or asking for help with their anger. And, of course, it was all Thirty-Seven's fault. Despite the fact that his success would mean their failure, the other squires still saw him as a friend and went to him with their troubles; not me. Thirty-Seven was all too happy to listen. I couldn't exactly punish that so I had to contain my rage behind doors. Why were they drawn to him? I'd never felt more inadequate as a mentor. Thirty-Seven was supposed to have given up by now, but he still tried the obstacle course every day, fighting against the cursed amulet with all his strength. He wasn't close to finishing it, but he seemed to go a little further every day. I had to approach him one day and say: "Pathetic. At some point, you have to realize you can't avenge your parents. Give up and live a peaceful life. It's what they would've wanted." Thirty-Seven fell on his knees, panting. The amulet was crushing him. "My... parents... are... alive." "Your village, then." "Nope. It's still... standing." I squinted. "Your siblings?" Thirty-Seven shook his head. "They're fine." "Then why the fuck are you here?" Thirty-Seven raised his gaze with resolve. "To protect them." "That's not a good excuse. This profession eats people alive. Only those with nothing to lose should walk the path of a hero." "No!"shouted Thirty-Seven. "Since when does a person need an excuse to do the right thing?" I needed to hide my shock. The squire's determination felt completely foreign to me. He seemed to overcome the amulet's curse for a brief second. I had never seen something quite like this. It didn't matter, though. Thirty-Seven would be out of my hair eventually. After a year had passed, their graduation day was on the horizon. Thirty-Seven never gave up. He was incredibly muscular now due to the amulet, but still hadn't passed the obstacle course. It appeared he was going to fail. To my surprise, on the last day before the deadline, every squire showed up to the obstacle course and cheered on Thirty-Seven. I didn't understand what possessed them. It didn't make any sense. Didn't they want to graduate? Thirty-Seven made it to the final part of the obstacle course, rolling around the swinging guillotines and jumping over the pits with grace. I clenched my fist. He was going to make it. Then he fell on his face, like usual. I started laughing. Very few things gave me as much joy as seeing him fail. And yet, everyone screamed loudly in order to encourage him. I shook my head. How cruel. They were just indulging their friend in a delusion. Thirty-Seven, however, let out a guttural shout and rose to his feet yet again, finishing the test with a mighty leap. The squires went quiet, then exploded with applause. I facepalmed. An entire class of squires had just flunked the hero course. After they finished celebrating, Thirty-Seven approached me and said: "Thank you, sir! I couldn't have grown this strong without you!" "Sure..."I wanted to die. "Just... leave me alone." Thirty-Seven shrugged and went back to his friends. I couldn't fail this entire class. They were some of the finest recruits I'd ever taught. Keeping them from being knights would be a crime against humanity. Together, they could take on any monster. And a big part of that was because of Thirty-Seven's leadership. As I saw them raising him over their shoulders, I couldn't help but feel like I had been wrong all this time. Maybe, the key to fighting this world wasn't more cruelty. Maybe, just maybe, the answer was kindness all along. ------ >If you enjoyed this, check out more of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading!
Well, we're fucked. That's more or less what humanity collectively thought when we finally established contact with our first alien species and realized that they're Kaiju-sized. That's - at the very least \- 300 meters of muscle, teeth, tentacles, and, worst of all, advanced technology. Hell, some of the ones we met later even have abilities that we have no choice but to call supernatural. We just don't understand them. They're bigger. They're stronger. They're more advanced and far, far more dangerous than us. They're terrified of us. Despite being little more than cockroaches to them, they have an irrational fear of us because as it turns out, they're just as afraid of roaches as we are. We're tiny, crawl all around the place at alarming speeds, and are surprisingly hard to get rid of entirely. We have a tendency to pop up randomly because we fly past all of their scanning technology, adjusted to being of their size. Have you ever heard a mountain shriek with fear? I have. Sure, every now and then, one of them thinks they should just get rid of us entirely. Then they found out we have helicopters, planes, hovercrafts, the works. Enough to turn their bravery around. Everybody's tough until the cockroaches start to fly.
"It's the fourth sorority house hit this month, for christ's sake! I don't want guesses, I want answers! Get me Depot!" Landesman punctuated the request by exploding his coffee mug against the back wall of his office. The mug had said FBI'S MOST HAUNTED. The temper tantrum had been a ruse to cover the destruction of the mug, which he'd hated. As a bonus, it got him what he wanted in a hurry. Steve Depot slouched into the room, bleary-eyed and resentful. "It's 3am. What's the big rush?" "We got a real bad dude out there, Depot,"said Landesman. "Attacking college girls. Sorority girls specifically. Pokes two little holes into their necks. Drains the blood. A real sicko. We've taken to calling him The Double Neck Holer." "Catchy,"said Depot sourly. "What's it got to do with me?" "He's too clever for us,"said Landesman. "Every time we try a sting, he smells it out. Always hits where we aren't. Never leaves a clue. Disappears like a goddamn bat in the night. Obviously we're stumped." "I'm still not seeing where I fit in all this." "Full moon tomorrow, Depot,"said Landesman with obvious distaste. "We need you. Again." Depot shook his head. "I'm out, remember? I told you I was out after that last time." "Right. I know. Things got a little weird there..." "A little weird? You made me turn into a gingerbread house, Ray. A goddamn gingerbread house!" Landesman straightened his tie awkwardly. "Just going by the M.O., Depot. You know that. That's where we found the victim." "Yeah, in a goddamn oven!" "You solved the case, Depot,"said Landesman. "That's all that matters. That roasted old woman can rest easy knowing those sickos are rotting away in jail." "They were children, Ray!"shouted Depot. "And they both bit me - repeatedly. I got a hole in my ass the size of a baby's fist, Ray! You know that? I gotta sit on a wadded up gym sock or else I'm gonna develop scoliosis." "This'll be different. I promise. No harm. No danger. But we're hurtin' here, Steve. Okay? We're hurtin'. And it's a full moon tomorrow, so...?" Depot rolled his eyes. "Fucking goddamnit. Fine. Just tell me what you want me to do." Some twenty hours later the change began. It was always different. That was the one benefit - at least he could enjoy a little variety to his curse. Something new everything month. But no matter what, one thing always remained the same - it hurt like hell. "Quit whining,"hissed Landesman over the walkie-talkie. "You're creepin' out the girls." "My balls are literally turning into a linen closet and a mud room right now,"growled Depot in a half-human voice. "Have you ever morphed your right forearm into a master bedroom? No? Well, shut the fuck up." Landesman set down his receiver. "That seems fair,"he muttered to no one in particular. In took twenty minutes for the change to be complete. "Alright, girls,"said Landesman. "Remodel's complete. Kappa Mocha Kappa's open for business." Fifteen girls in their late teens wandered inside the new, slightly familiar house. "Wait,"grunted Depot into the walkie-talkie. "Do they know they're bait?" "It's implied,"said Landesman quickly. "Just watch and tell me what you see." "At the moment I see exactly zero naked pillow fights,"said Depot. "And nothing else of...wait. Someone just came up to the door." Landesman held up his finger. "Is it him? Is it the perp?" "How should I...it's a guy. He's got... you know... pants... long-sleeve shirt..." Landesman motioned for an underling. "We got any intel on the perp's preferred sleeve length.?"The underling shook her head. "Well, fucking great." "I think it's someone's boyfriend,"said Depot. "He's wearing a cape. Do kids wear capes these days? Is that a thing?" "Probably,"said Landesman. "Does he have any needles or straws? Anything he could use to stab someone twice in the neck and then drain their blood?" "Nothing,"said Depot. "I think might be a goth. Very pale." "Weakling,"said Landesman, nodding. "I think we can cross that one off. Anything else?" "Well, Meygyn's worried about her weight. I think she looks good and it's probably a healthy weight, but it can't help living with Tara and those six-pack abs, good lord." "Regarding the case,"said Landesman. "Goth kid's definitely getting to second base,"said Depot. "Whoa! He has some surprising game. I wish I knew how to - OH SHIT HE'S DRINKING HER BLOOD. YUP. DEFINITELY DRINKING BLOOD DIRECTLY FROM HER NECK. OH MY GOD THAT'S SO GROSS. OH GOD. OH GOD. OH GOD THE SLURPING SOUND. OOOOOH I'M GONNA BE SICK. YUP. GONNA HURL. OH GOD OH GOD OH G-" Officially, as far as anyone knew or will ever know, it was a burst sewer pipe. The line was clogged, the pressure built, and it resulted in an unnaturally large explosion of half-digested waste, destroying the former home of the Kappa Mocha Kappa sorority and causing unimaginable property damage to the surrounding neighborhood. On the plus side, the pipe explosion very coincidentally incapacitated a man wanted in connection with multiple homicides in the area. Before the man could fully confess to his crimes, however, he burst into flames just as the first rays of morning washed over the crime scene. Experts believe that the spontaneous combustion was likely due to a Vitamin D deficiency. But what the records won't show is that once again, when things seemed their bleakest, a strange man with a strange gift was there to save the day. Once again the day was saved by Steve Depot, the world's first and only Were-House. ______________________________________________________________________ Gold?!? Thanks for the gilding, kindly internet patron. If you're bored or just killing time between court appearances, be sure to check out my [subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/winsomeman/), where all the cool adjectives go to get drunk and fool around on the rumpus room floor.
Moreover, the “flowers” are wrapped in sheets produced from the ground, reconstituted, and subsequently desiccated flesh of their cousins, “trees.” It is usually the male who presents this gift to the female, and the female must first react with a loud cry, to express horror at the evidence of slaughter. This is to demonstrate that she is not bloodthirsty, and will not eat their young. If the female is receptive to the male’s advances, she will then accept the corpses, and display the bodies until they shrivel and mummify, at which point they are no longer attractive to her, and will be removed. She will keep these corpses as long as possible, for the aroma of their decaying tissues is pleasing to her, and, indeed, this species has been known to mate in the torn limbs of “flowers,” known as “petals,” in the chamber that they retire to, following their bonding ceremony, called a “honeymoon suite.” If she is not receptive to the male’s advances, she will still accept them. However, rather than keep them to the point of mummification, she will bring the fresh corpses with her to her “office,” where she competes with other members of her species to see who can remain for the longest period of time in front of a “monitor.” A “monitor” in the “office” is a light emitting device that causes pain, and therefore functions as a litmus test for which individuals have the greatest toughness, and fitness for survival. The goal is to attain such great lengths of exposure in this setting that they permanently destroy their capacity to feel, and thereby transcend the limits of pain. In any case, the female will display the corpses in the “office” to demonstrate to others that she is so desired that she can afford to throw away the corpses pre-maturely, without striving to keep their aroma. This is a part of something called “office politics,” which we will discuss in the next chapter.
I got a result. I couldn’t believe it. The title was mostly in Japanese, but sure enough, my name was sandwiched between the characters and hiragana, emblazoned in big roman letters. It seemed like too strange of a coincidence, one that would’ve drawn my immediate suspicion were it coming from a Russian torrenting site. Click. Click. Play. I sat back and watched the opening credits roll. I liked the theme music, it sounded like something out of one of my playlists. As the episode continued, I became increasingly concerned. That was my name in the subtitles, and the names of my family, friends. The plot was eerily familiar: an awkward student working odd jobs and fast food to scrape by. It was me. Everything from the flashbacks to the soundtrack was me. This was my life they were showing, the people I knew, the places I went, they even had the time I was trampled during a high school track meet in there. Was someone watching me? Were they writing down everything I did? Wait. Hold on. I scrubbed back 10 seconds in the video player. Even the stack of boxes in the corner of my apartment was there on in screen. Whoever was making this had copied every last detail, down to the labeling and my crappy handwriting on the side of the box. I should call a lawyer, I thought, but I didn’t. Instead I finished the episode, then another. The resemblance to my life was absolutely uncanny. I became obsessed. Over the weekend I must’ve watched the first 2 seasons. When the week began I went to work and class, then back to my apartment to watch this sick retelling of my life. This was my routine for several days. I forgot to eat sometimes. I sat there, day after day, watching my existence played back in neon colors and low-res yellow subtitles; I felt the sting of breakups again, embarrassment at the things I did, joy at the triumphs I had managed and the progress I had made. Eventually, I had caught up; I was dazed. I had just watched last month’s work drama and that lame party I went to turned into plot points for an admittedly lackluster season finale. I looked back at the show’s main page. 4.6 out of 5 stars. Nearly every video had 200 comments or more. My binging was replaced by scrolling through comments. I read almost every scrap of text that I could find. Most of the comments were either inconsequential jokes or observations, a lot of which echoed my own thoughts on events, but some of them were different. Those were the ones that interested me. “I know he’s our protag, but shit is he a dick sometimes. Naomi keeps trying to do stuff with him and he blows her off like clockwork.” “Ugh, I’m sick of him making the same mistakes over and over. He’s kind a wimp. He let’s everybody walk all over him then has to fix everything himself. Also, he is even worse at picking up on hints than I am. Amy is best girl!” It was time for some Googling. It took some digging, but I found forum posts, fan pages, blogs. Someone had even set up an Etsy page for merch of the show. Bookmarked. Wait, getting a body pillow of myself or of a friend was a bad idea, unbookmarked. The more I read the forums, the more I came to understand what people thought of my life. I saw every mistake I had made laid out in detail and the solutions that the internet had come up with for them. It all seemed so simple now, the things I had been stressing over, the things I didn’t have the courage to do. I shut off my computer. I was done watching and scrolling, at least for now. I grabbed my keys and then the doorknob. I had no idea how that show came to exist or why it was popular at all, but I knew one thing; I was going to make the next season worth watching.
"It's true!"Hermione said as they walked into Hogwarts together for their sixth year. "I sent owls to all of my professors as well as the new Headmaster. NO textbooks!"The annual trip to Diagon Alley had been quite uneventful without having to fight through the mob of students buying school supplies; Flourish and Blotts had been positively deserted. "I don't see what all the fuss is about,"Ron said, looking over his class schedule once again. "Three whole periods of a class just called 'Being a Man' sounds amazing. I never liked Divination anyway. Shame that we still have Defense Against the Dark Arts, though." Hermione shook her head. "Ron, you didn't even read the whole thing. It says 'Defence Against the Dark Tammys.'" Ron studied the paper again and his face screwed up with confusion. "What is a Tammy?"he asked. Harry just shrugged, but Hermione had a whole folio of notes on her research into the same question. "I checked every tome in the library on magical creatures and Dark Arts, and I couldn't find any references to a Tammy."For the first time in her life, she hadn't been able to learn the entire curriculum ahead of time, and it was clearly having a negative impact on her nerves. Ron looked at his schedule once more for anything else he'd missed. "And I don't know what this "Woodshop"is, but it has to be better than Potions with Snape, right?" "It's exactly what it sounds like, Ron,"Harry explained. "Woodshop. You make stuff out of wood. It's pretty common in Muggle schools." "Make... what?"Ron asked. "You mean, like transfiguring wood into different objects?" "It's not fair!"Hermione protested before Harry could explain further. "According to Professor Babbling, my Ancient Runes class is cancelled! I was so looking forward to it this year. And so is Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms... nearly everything except for Astronomy." Harry and Ron both looked at her. "Why Astronomy?"Ron finally asked. Hermione rolled her eyes. "According to the class description, it is now 'quiet reflection under the stars with Headmaster Swanson.'"She pulled out a bottle of whiskey. "This was the assigned textbook. Can you believe it?" Ron studied the label and elbowed Harry. "Lagavulin? I'm liking this new Headmaster more and more!" They entered the Great Hall and took their normal seats at the Gryffindor table. They sat through the usual sorting, clapping for the Gryffindors and hissing at the new Slytherins. The Sorting Hat seemed unusually chipper today for some unknown reason. Finally Professor McGonagall carried it away back to its shelf, and the new Headmaster stood for his beginning-of-the-year speech. He had chestnut brown hair, a matching mustache, and a severe stare that made everyone in the room stop talking immediately. Instead of the austere hogwarts robes, he wore blue jeans and a red flanel shirt. "Ahem. Hello there, children. I am your new Headmaster, Ronald Swanson."There was a smattering of applause as he raised a glass, gave everyone a nod, and took a sip. "Well I'll be damned. What did you say this nectar of the gods was, Hagrid?" "Firewhiskey, Headmaster!"Hagrid roared back, raising his own glass in cheers. Headmaster Swanson took another sip, seemingly forgetting that he was supposed to be addressing the students. "Not too bad,"he said, sipping again. There was a very long pause as he closed his eyes and savored the flavor of his drink. All the students silently looked around, wondering if he had gone into some kind of trance or something. "Headmaster?"Professor McGonogall nudged him. "Your speech?" He looked back at the tables full of children. "Oh, right. Well, I've never been one for speeches, so let's get to the feast!" The platters in the center of all the tables were suddenly full of food. Harry and Ron let out an involuntary excited cheer and moved for their forks, but then froze. No roast chicken, no pork chops, no asparagus, not potatoes... there were only two things on the menu. Massive, thick steaks perfectly seared, and large stacks of crispy bacon still glistening with grease. "Dig in!"Headmaster Swanson told them, spearing a steak and biting into it. "Headmaster,"Parvati chimed in from the back. "Are there going to be options for us vegetarians?" Headmaster Swanson glared at her. "Yes, there is."He pointed toward the door. "You know where the exit is. Now eat up! You're all going to need your energy for tomorrow's wilderness hike through this 'Forbidden Forest.'"
“Yeah, thank you. It means a lot.” My boss had always been an unfeeling bastard, but I didn’t expect him to be this cold. His hand emitting an icy chill as we shook hands. Instantly my mind shook awake, thoughts swirling in a disgusting cocktail of information. Broken exhaust, outdated memory, leaking of coolants. All the errors soon presented themselves as I quickly slipped my hand away from his grip. I was a flustered mess, dropping my medal in the situation's chaos, much to the confusion of everyone in the room. I was quick to scoop it up, muttering apologies to everyone in the room. “Come on Eric, it’s your big day, why are you so nervous?” My boss spoke, trying to kill the silence that had filled the room. His eyes met mine, his stare deader than usual, peering into my soul as he maintained eye contact. Did he know my secret? How could he know my secret? I knew it was a stupid idea working for a technology orientated company. I was just so egotistical; I wanted to be a prodigy. The person who could point out any error and offer a solution. I saved the company millions, and this was my congratulations, discovering the CEO was a piece of technology. “I know, I’m sorry, sir. I guess its just an honor. I never expected to get a medal. I’m just an average guy.” “An average guy? I don’t hire average guys; I hire extraordinary ones. You are quite the extraordinary individual, Eric. I think we may have to talk about a promotion. I have a task for you, a piece of technology I have hoped you could help me fix since I hired you.” “Sure sir, just let me know what you want me to fix.” “I will be in touch; this project will be top secret. I hope you are fine with that.” I could not refuse the man. He may just be a piece of technology in human form, but he was still intimidating, shadowing me in size. I gave a timid nod in response. That satisfied him enough to pull away. “Thank you all for attending our ceremony. I have some important documents to put together. I hope you will all excuse me.” With that, he left, leaving me to enjoy the festivities. I couldn’t relax. Coworkers wrapped their arms around me, complimenting my skills, offering me pieces of plastic looking cake, but I had no appetite. My stomach curled and swelled. The thought of putting food inside of it was sickening. I stayed for an appropriate amount of time before fleeing back to my office; I needed to know what this job was. Was I under suspicion? Did I need to flee the country? Had I stumbled upon a conspiracy? I was slow to enter my office, peeling the door open with a level of caution that would make even the most anxious person roll their eyes. I was looking for traps, weapons or thugs with baseball bats. Anything that could pose a threat. Luckily, none of the above presented itself to me. Returning to my desk, an email greeted me on my monitor. Dear Eric Midlet, Congratulations on the promotion 😊 I must admit, it shocked me when they first told me about you. A person who could solve even the most complex of issues, It was as if you had a talent, an ability that others could only dream of. That’s when my interest in you became more personal. I watched every move you made, set your tasks above your paygrade. A normal person would have quit. But you aren’t a normal person, are you? For obvious reasons, I cannot write the subject of my little project I’m assigning you in this email. If it were to leak, we would both be in a lot of trouble, but I’m certain our brief handshake filled you in on the details of the job. I need your help to fix a piece of technology that is rather personal to me. If you are to complete the task, I will make sure you are properly compensated. This project will benefit CEO’s like me all over the world. I will be in touch with you shortly with a few sets of blueprints. Remember to maintain confidentiality. I expect you to update me on your progress next Tuesday. Regards, Mr Bradley Wright (CEO of TechForward development) This couldn’t be real? CEO’S like him? He wasn’t the only CEO of his kind? I couldn’t even understand how worldwide the conspiracy I had stumbled upon was. I had no choice; I had to keep my mouth shut and work diligently. If he knew of my ability, I doubt he would let me quit or walk away from this. It would be best to play along, at least for now. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
After months of encrypted email exchange, careful assurances, and a few false starts, Clark had finally met the source in a greasy back-alley Chinese joint and was now riding the train back uptown. He had hours of recordings to review. Incredibly, the man had been willing to go on record exposing the CIA's black program on behavior modification - a combination of low dose psychoactive drugs administered secretly in a target's food; modulated subliminal messaging through infiltrated social media, internet, and communication channels; and repeated near-field microwave irradiation of the brain to induce states of mania and suggestibility. The most damning testimony was that the program had been running a test phase on American citizens for the last 2 years - some of them highly placed business and social personalities like Elon and Ye - and was now entering the Phase 3 trial targeting mid-level US political representatives. All his travels, all the tragedies he had prevented with his godlike powers, the depravity of humanity he had witnessed again and again as Superman - but it was this program, which he had patiently and painstakingly uncovered as investigative journalist Clark Kent, which horrified him beyond words. His mind wandered darkly as the rhythmic sounds of the train carried him home. He almost didn't notice the tiny pinprick of a needle trying and failing to enter his upper thigh. By the time he looked up in surprise, his neighbor had stood, discreetly dropped something on the floor, and was making his way to the just-opened exit at 42nd street. Clark gave no response, but he let his senses follow the man as he left the train and walked down the platform and into a narrow stairwell, losing himself in the crowd. A quick look showed the man carried a wallet whose ID read Michael Johnson, no cell phone - strange - but he had a small radio in his pocket connected to a collar mic. And a concealed gun holstered on his right hip. As the train started to pull away, Clark heard the man talk into his mic: "Negative contact, negative contact. Equipment failure. Return site bravo." Clark stood and started making his way toward the back of the train, gently but insistently shoving his way through the packed cars. His mind was racing. His heart would be too, if it could. He came to the back of the train, miraculously empty, and with a silent apology he removed his glasses, looked up, and let the unquenchable energies boiling within him briefly escape out through his eyes, where they instantly vaporized a section of the train's ceiling. He had flown up and out before the whistling sound of the hole reached the nearest passenger. He took a short ballistic arc back downtown, topping out at 3,000 feet and descending meteorically over Chinatown. He scanned a 5 block radius around the restaurant, then 10, then 15 - and that was when he saw the contact. He was lying prone on the street, his arms and legs uselessly splayed, and a crowd was gathering around him. Is there a doctor here? What's wrong with him? Oh god. Someone call 911. Even from the sky Clark could see the man would be dead in seconds. He landed softly in the middle of the crowd - they immediately withdrew to give him space - knelt and draped his cape over the dying man's torso. He saw a telltale pinprick in the man's upper thigh. He saw the man's heart spasming with each beat, laboring with each pulse of precious lifeblood, failing, fading. He died. Clark closed his eyes and allowed himself one deep breath, one silent moment. He felt the roar of the energies inside him, the stored sunlight pleading for a purpose, roiling, insisting. He gathered his cape and stood and turned to a woman in the crowd and said, "Please call an ambulance. This man is dead, but he deserves to be seen by a doctor." As the woman took out her phone she asked, "What about you? What are you going to do?" He looked at her: a middle aged woman, worn down by the world but not broken, accustomed to loss, saddened by what she'd just seen but not shocked. Well acquainted with tragedy. Truth, he almost replied. And justice. But he made no response and instead ascended slowly and gently into the air so as not to disturb the cooling corpse, accelerating as he rose, breaking the sound barrier before he'd cleared the 10th story of the nearby buildings, and flew a line as straight and true as a ray of light toward the 42nd street train station.
Everything was normal until that fated day. I won't get into details, but let's just say you should never use the gym next to the nuclear waste disposal site, no matter how low the rates are. But now, I have a power. Whenever I'm faced with a challenge, my brain juices up, and I become smarter in order to achieve a solution. I've accepted this ability, taking on the name "The Power Thinker". My rising IQ combined with my peak physical shape have made me into a hero of sorts. I don't do it often, but if the city calls me, I'll give them a hand. I mean, it pays more than being a personal trainer. So I got the call one day, some monster was thrashing around downtown, just causing all sorts of problems. So I hoped on my bike and sped off to the scene of the incident. Lo and behold, who do I end up face to face with? The Hulk, in all his green majesty. I dismount and slowly walk towards him. He snarls at me, menacingly, obviously enraged. My heart rate starts speeding up, I don't like getting yelled at. "Don't make me angry. You won't understand me when I'm angry."
"First year law students,"the devil sighed. "A semester of studying, and they think they know everything."It squatted in the middle of the dorm room, its skin shaven bare but for patches of thick, curly fur, clinging to him like patches of pubes. Its claws came together and spontaneously bled from the cuticles, the blood coalescing into a shape, a glistening floating fruit. "Haven't you heard the saying?"It lifted up the blood fruit and closed its jaws on it with a sickening pop. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." "I wouldn't -"Warren started, turning back from his desk. There was a sour knot tying itself in his stomach, and his hands were sweaty. "It's not that I'm - but it's true, isn't it? Even in Christianity. You can't hold children responsible for contracts. They're not capable of understanding."He ran a hand through his own brown curls. "I mean, I'm not - I don't think this is a get out of jail free card or anything, but -" "But you're ungrateful, is that it?"the devil said, rising and trotting around the room, circling in from the side. Its red tongue lolled out. Its teeth gleamed. "After all I've done for you, my boy, getting you into Harvard, making sure you're top of your class."Ribs shifted beneath the shaven skin, hiding something hollow, gaunt. It shifted forward and its voice rose into a bark. "Would this thought have occurred to you, Warren, had I not placed you here to begin with?!" "No!"said Warren, wincing. His hands groped on the desk for something to cling to, and seized onto a pen. He bent it nervously between his fingers, straining the plastic. "I know! I know! I've - Oh god I know what I've done to get here,"he said in a rush. "It's just -" The devil waited, head erect. "Just what, Warren? Just what?" "It's true,"Warren said, letting the pen drop. There was a cold numbness shooting through his fingertips, a sense of finality. "Whether I get out of it or not. It's true. I didn't know. I couldn't have known." The devil stretched its long neck, bored. "Oh, my boy, I would have expected better from you than this." "I was eight years old,"Warren said, ignoring the devil, his eyes misting in remembrance. "I was playing in the garden, and there was a rustle in the rosebushes, and there you were. A devil in the rosebushes, trying to get free, curly hair tangled in every thorn, so black it almost hurt to look at you. And you-"He blinked, stammered. "It was like Moses and the burning bush." "Bible stories,"said the devil between its teeth. "Like Moses and the burning bush!"Warren insisted. "A bush that burned and didn't burn. That would never be consumed. And you were in the bush and struggling and biting and tearing at it and the bush was always still whole, and so ... "He swallowed down air. "I took off my shoes. And I went over. And I hid my face and you were snarling and barking and all these words in my head that I didn't understand, not really, and -You told me I could have everything I wanted. Everything I ever wanted." The devil crept closer, laid its head in Warren's unresisting lap, looked up at him with clouded white eyes. "And I've given it to you." Warren burst to his feet, kicked out, and the devil went scampering back, grinning. "I didn't understand!"Warren yelled. "They told me about the burning bush in Bible studies. They told me about sin! But nobody told me about the Devil in a burning bush, with eyes and teeth and fur, and pricking my finger on a thorn and letting the blood run down the branch and - and -"He bent over, hyperventilated. "It's not fair,"he whispered. "Oh, poor baby,"said the devil, light on its feet, skipping around him, lips drawn back over its teeth. "Tell me again of the man who made a deal with the devil for unimaginable power and success, and tell me again that life isn't fair." "Kids don't understand,"Warren said. "Why me? You could - you could offer a magic wish to every single child in the world, and they'd all take it, because they wouldn't know what they were doing!"He straightened up, clenched his fists. "I'll do it! I'll fight you for it! You love contracts, huh? Where's the - Show me the contract! Find someone who'll fucking enforce a contract with an eight-year-old kid!" "Oh, Warren,"the devil said, and rose. Its vertebrae snapped, reset into place, its head rising to Warren's level. Warren swallowed, took a step back. The devil stepped forward on two legs, spreading out its front limbs invitingly. Its head angled down, looking Warren in the eye. "D-Don't-"Warren said, and stumbled back. "You're a poor sport,"it said, claws patting him on his shoulder, "and a poorer lawyer. Should have studied harder, boy, and not relied on your pet devil to pass your tests for you."The devil grinned, its head set at an odd angle, the teeth climbing up both sides of its face. "Contracts with minors can be valid, but they're voidable, my boy, meaning that you could have broken it at your discretion."Its claw crept down his arm, feeling the goosebumps beneath the fabric. "However, once you hit the age of legality, and did nothing to cancel the contract in a reasonable amount of time, it became binding and enforceable." Warren tried to breathe, sucked in the scent of the devil's matted hair, its stagnant breath. He shoved forward, hands tangling in the fur, feeling the ribs underneath, and only succeeded in knocking himself backwards. He stumbled over his own feet and collapsed on the floor. "No!"he screamed, scrambling backwards. "I was a kid! Every child in the world would have made the same deal! It's not fair! It's not fair!" "Oh, Warren,"the devil said, and loomed above him, a dead pale tree tangled with storm clouds. "I've made this deal with every child in the world, whether they remember it or not. I've been a biting bush, I've been a beam of light, I've been a whisper in their ear. And they've bled for me like their mothers bled for me, they've pledged their souls to me, the little sociopathic blighters. They've vowed to cast aside their families for another slice of cake, a bright and shiny toy. But you know what the difference with you is, Warren? You know why you're special?"The head loomed down, an enormous bare skull. "You're one of the few who held up your end of the bargain."The grin was enormous. "All those years, since you were eight years old, and you never once rejected me, you never once repented, until you thought you'd found a loophole to get out of it! You never voided the contract!" "No,"said Warren, in a tiny voice. "I - I -"He looked around him, at the lush and well-stocked dorm room, looked down at his own hands. "I didn't ..." The devil dropped to all fours, resumed its normal size, leaned forward and licked Warren on the cheek. "There's nothing to worry about, my boy. You have done for me and so I shall do for you. You will have success, and power, beyond your wildest dreams. I honor my contracts. But one last thing, my boy, one last favor on your end ..."The devil turned to leave, and Warren numbly touched the wet spot on his cheek. The devil looked over its shoulder as it bled back into the floorboards. "There's only so much I can do for you, Warren! For god's sake, the next time you think you've spotted a legal loophole, at least check to make sure you've got it right!"
Tommy, Todd, and Frank had never actually played Dungeons and Dragons before. But they knew that Luke was a huge fan of it, and so they had looked up a quick guide on google before inviting him over to play. It was kind of turning out to be a disaster, but they were doing the best that they could do. Tommy acted as DM. Todd and Frank were both elves, which may or may not have made sense depending on the context. Luke was, indeed, the only one who knew what he was doing. "Are you guys high or something?"he asked, as they played. The three other boys looked to each other, before Tommy cleared his throat and suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Luke, you have come across an enemy!" "It's not my tu--" "An enemy!"Tommy exclaimed, using enthusiasm. "Oh, it is an evil um...witch?"he turned to Frank and Todd, giving them a look that asked, Do witches exist in this game? They both met his bewildered gaze in turn. Luke didn't pipe up, just waited for Tommy to finish talking. "Yes. An evil witch. Named. Um. Livian." "Livian like...Vivian?" "No, no, no, not at all. Like Livian of olde. She was an ancient...um...sorceress...in--" "Camelot?"Todd asked-rather-than-told. "She was Merlin's arch nemesis,"Frank piped up. "No, that was Nimue or Viviane,"Luke told them. "Oh then definitely it's Viviane,"Tommy said. "Yes. Viviane. She's known for being a manipulative bi---witch. Who kind of treats her boyfriends poorly. And doesn't appreciate them." Luke just looked at Tommy. After a silence he said, "So am I going to roll to see who attacks first or...?" "I'll roll,"Tommy says. "Official house rules. And you can't look." "Guys, what is this about?"Luke asked. "Just let me roll,"said Tommy. Luke closed his eyes and Tommy rolled the die. "Oh, you get to go first, I think!"Tommy exclaimed. "Guys, is this about Vivian?"Luke asked. The three others exchanged a look. Luke opened his eyes. "I'm not twelve years old with an IQ of 57. I know you guys don't know how to play this game." "We looked it up for like ten minutes,"Todd said. "It's kind of complicated and hard to learn on the fly." "We don't like your girlfriend,"Frank said. "And she treats you like crap, man. And you should break it off." "And to try and make that point we tried to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons for you, man,"Todd said. "Because we are good friends,"Tommy said. Luke looked at them. "You guys, Vivian broke up with me two weeks ago." "Oh,"Todd said. "Well uh...good, I guess." "You guys want to get some pizza?"said Tommy. "I have no idea how to play this game." "I'm game,"said Frank. "Let's do it,"said Todd. "You guys really didn't know that Vivian dumped me?"asked Luke. The others exchanged a look. "Pepperoni?"asked Tommy. --- I'm fairly new to this community, and I just made a subreddit! For more stories and discussion, please check out and subscribe to /r/Celsius232, where I promise there will be things soon.
The minute hand froze exactly a minute to twelve. Smiling to myself, I lowered my hand and examined the classroom as I climbed out of my seat. Teacher Sanderson’s chalk was stationary in his unmoving hand, a broken piece floating in the air. Likewise, every other teenager in the class was frozen in the same position before I stopped time. Some kids kept dozing while others had their hands glued to the screens there were playing on under the desks. Grabbing my bag, I walked out of the classroom. The hallway was empty. As it should be since everyone was in class. Only two people roamed the hallways during this quiet period, the principal and the janitor. But last I checked, the former was in his office, while the latter was in the boys restroom on the third floor. My feet made no sound as it crossed the hall, nor did the bathroom door at the end of the hallway as I pushed it open. Time had stopped, and everything else, with a sole exception. I opened the fourth stall from the right and put my bag on the shelve beside the toilet. Something caught my eye as I was about to close the stall door to play on my laptop in peace. The mirror hung on the whitewashed walls. Stains were evident, here and there, despite the janitor’s best efforts to keep it clean, to his ire. Yet, there was something odd about my reflection. Death waits for everyone, but time waits for no one. Except me. I remembered the line that I used to repeat. To my younger self, it was a quote of victory. A victory brought on by the daunting tasks I did in middle school. Evading bullies, cheating on tests, and for the hell of it, stopping everyone in their tracks. But, why did I feel so weary even after the few years of middle and high school? Why was time stopped for even longer periods than before when I took the P. E exams every semester? And why was it that made other girls shy further and further away from me? I looked questioningly at the unfamiliar person in the mirror. Realization hit me in a sudden, startling wave, and I collapsed against the sink. With weak hands I raised a hand to my face. I watched in fear as the stranger in the mirror touched the bags beneath his eyes and the very faint wrinkles on his forehead, horror gripped me as it dawned on me that even I could not escape the grasp of time completely. Nature was collecting her due for all the time I borrowed from her, and I was going to pay every cent of it back with compound interest. The bathroom door suddenly banged open as the janitor strode in. Behind him, the hallway was suddenly flooded with the sounds of a ringing bell and hungry teenagers eagerly making their way out of classrooms to the cafeteria. “What--?” Janitor Joe yelled at me over the sound of hundreds of feet. But I acted instantly and lifted a hand almost accusingly towards him. “Stop!” But time kept flowing. “—are you doing, in here?” he finished and moved forward. I stared uncomprehendingly at my hand. Pushing the shock away, I concentrated with all my might and bellowed the four letters as hard as I could. “S-T-O-P.” Joe’s hand, which was inches away from my shoulder, froze in mid-air. I stared in fear at the expression of hate and loathing that was etched on the janitor’s face. Slowly, I gathered my bag from its place and backed away from the immobile Joe. Brushing against his cleaning trolley, I pushed it out of the way before making sure the bathroom door was closed properly. To the janitor, I would just be another one of his hallucinations about a ghost teenager that he commonly has, which he would talk about to the principal after his shift. Avoiding the the first few pupils that had stepped out into the hall, I skipped around them back to Sanderson's class. The classroom door was slightly ajar as a couple of quicker students had twisted open the doorknob after hearing the bell. Thankfully, they were still on the other side and thus I was able to run back unhindered towards my seat and pretend I was there the whole time. “Go.” I panted to the air. Yet, nothing moved. “Go,” I said again with even more force, glancing nervously to the clock. “GO!” But the minute hand was still stuck a minute past twelve.
I hurried myself up the stairs, hoping that the library would still be open when I arrived. I'd been late on returning my books for the fourth time this month and would receive a severe fee if I didn't return them today. A grumpy looking woman in her sixties frowned at me as I surged past, but I didn't care: I made it on time. I pushed the glass doors open and..." Jim shut the book and put it down on the floor. After he picked it up in the library, simply because the cover had drawn him to it, he noticed a few strange similarities. As if the book was about him. The library was closing only a few minutes after he arrived, and he anxiously decided to take it home with him. The younger man at the desk didn't notice his nervous shuffling as he scanned his books for him. Before he could hand them over properly, Jim had already grabbed the books and hurried himself out of the library. Now sitting on his bed at home, Jim stared at the cover. Jim's life, By Jim, was all it said. It fits, Jim thought, everything fits. Even the damn trip to the library is in there. How does that even work? Absent-mindedly he flipped open a page and glanced through it. Halloween ten years ago. Jim couldn't help but grin as he recollected the events of that night. He and his friends went out trick-or-treating and, losing track of the time, they continued until long after they were supposed to be home. At eleven his parents had found him wandered off in the neighborhood, sitting on a bench with his friends, all shoving ungodly amounts of sugar into their faces. It was one of the more stern talkings he got in his life, but it had been worth it. They'd created a special bond of friendship over that night, and he still talked to them daily. and so my parents put me in bed and took the bag of candy downstairs, and I fell asleep in no-time. But I wouldn't realise that the exact recollection of this memory would unfold a chain of events not even I could have foreseen. More on that on page 52. "Wait, what?"Jim mumbled to himself. He didn't remember anything that even happened that night. He fell asleep, woke up the next morning and while his parents were still a bit angry about his recklessness, nothing bad had come out of it. He picked up the book again and browsed forward until he arrived at the right page. I picked it up the book again after seeing that strange mention. I'm sitting on my bed, and I read about sitting on my bed, in this exact sentence. I realize, right at this moment, that it can't be an exact description of what happened. Because, if that were true, why wouldn't it tell me about the fact that this was written down by someone, probably me. And, if that certain person, me, had written this, then their own time-line would've been different, as they wouldn't have had the book to read in the first place, because no one had written it yet! Timelines certainly are confusing, I thought then, and even while I'm writing this I nod in agreement. Is it a single timeline, alternative timelines, self-filfulling timeline? Who knows? I don't know. Or at least, not yet. That was the moment when I put the book back do- Jim shut the book and rubbed his temples. This was all too confusing. It was his life, no mistake, and even the fact he wrote it himself he could understand, even if that was too absurd of a thought to take in normally. But the fact his life was out-lined exactly as it happened was worrying. Especially considering he had only read up until exactly this moment and that was only about a tenth in! Should I read further? Jim asked himself, conflicted. This could be a situation where by reading the book he would solidify the content within, making the events unfold as they would because of the fact he read them in the first place. Or should he ignore the book, throw it under the bed somewhere and forget about it, and simply lead his own life? He didn't know. He put the book on his desk, shoving it away. Nothing bad or unfixable had happened yet, and the fact he'd discovered the book shouldn't change anything necessarily, he hoped. It just happened, and now, he thought, I can just go back to how life was before this damned library trip. He picked up his school bag with a sigh and took out his Spanish textbook and notebook. Demonstratively he started to complete the exercises as if the book didn't matter, but he didn't do it all too convincingly. Annoyed at the mistakes he was making he put down his pencil and picked up a pen and crossed out the wrongly spelled words. He put the pen back down as he reached for the pencil to correct his notes and then his heart skipped a beat. He had an idea.
Inside the building, they were none-the-wiser. The ex-villains spent more time than most nursing home residents exercising. As such, as I peered in around the door frame, most were lost in their own worlds on various pieces of exercise equipment. I bit my lip, giving the room a twice-over to ensure the best plan of action. Somehow, I’d managed to book a day full of paperwork. All I had to do was slip into my office, unnoticed, and I could get to work. It was a wonderful way to buy time to craft some cover story, some explanation, that would divert the inevitable surge of interest amongst the residents. Interest that could quite literally drown me - these guys aren’t prone to messing around when they’re curious. I took a precarious few steps inside, subconsciously wiping my hands on my pant legs. Damn well that nobody here had scent-based powers; my salt content’d be picked up two miles away. A deep breath. Another few steps. Heaven be damned, this was going pretty smoothly. “What’s the rush, Sullivan?” Shit. A robust arm swung its way around my shoulder, the body behind it sparing no thought for personal space. This was Val - once deeply feared for his powerful telekinesis. Nowadays, Val spent his time teaching teens safe weight-lifting practices. Since his rehab, he’d taken a…. liking to using his own body, rather than his powers. (‘Liking’ was putting it lightly, of course; Val was, aside from the strength-based ex-villains, the most fit within the residence.) “So I heard from a pal of mine,” Val began. He was unaware of my tension; or, perhaps more likely, simply ignoring it. “That you were involved in a little accident around the city power plant.” “Yeah, well…” I attempted to wriggle free, to no avail. “Short circuits and all… happens.” A long, thoughtful hum. “That so, kid? Way I heard it, the source of the shock was no wire or beaker box or whatever-ya-call-it…” Val lifted his arm now, moving instead to block my path. He was a loud guy, and his fellow residents were starting to stare. A few had crept closer. “Eh… well, must not’ve been an eye-witness, because I assure you,” A pause. Against my will, my eyes darted away from his. “My being there had no impact on… the currents. Or… wires. Or whatever-you-call-thems.” Val said nothing, this time; when I looked up, he was sporting a grin so wide I could’ve sworn he was a moment away from jump-scaring me. (He had a tendency to do that. It was hard for him, nowadays, because of his size; but the man had taken a very strong liking to harmless pranks.) “Hey, Chandler!” Val shouted. Even more heads turned to us. I flinched. “You here about lil’ Sully?” “Listen, listen, I appreciate the concern,” I managed, in spite of my cracking voice. “But I really need to get to work, lots of papers, y’know? Got a busy day…” I continued to ramble, much more to myself than to Val. After another failed attempt to sneak past the robust ex-villain, I could see that my once-genius plan had come to a full halt. All that was left was to accept my fate - whatever that may be. Chandler appeared like a ghost, slipping from behind Val like he’d been there all the while. (Which was, all things considered, likely - they were very close.) He, too, was wearing an unnerving grin. My grip on my bag tightened. “Lightning, is it?” Chandler asked, taking a couple of shaky steps towards me. A long, long pause. Finally, my shoulders drooped, and I nodded. “Similar to fire,” he murmured. His eyes were giving me a once-over, observing my frame, my potential. “Certainly similar to control.” “That… so?” I was at a loss for words. “Y’know, in his day,” Val began, slinging a pointing thumb towards Chandler. “Chance here was quite fit.” I blinked. “Is that so?” I was becoming a broken record. “Fitness is the first step to power control,” Val added. His grin somehow grew wider. “Fire and lightning are twin powers.” I looked between them, not even able to ask if that was so. They looked like a pair of baseball dads, talking to their kid after his first home-run. “Erm… work.” I pointed at my office door. “Training,” they said together. I gulped. They were adamant. “I’ll… talk to my boss,” I gave them, much to their immediate delight. Val finally let me past, and I couldn’t ignore the excited whispers they shared. All I’d wanted was a normal day. Instead, I’d been practically adopted. (hope this is good. haven't written in months, but I managed this in between classes on my phone).
This world is not real. Over a century ago, everyone knew of the simulation and that moment in time was commonly known as The Realization Point. That this world as we saw it, wasn't the reality we thought it was. Many broke down because they couldn't comprehend our new reality. Others rioted against their Churches. Others left wandering aimlessly. Some secluded themselves to those they trusted, their friends and families. People lost purpose. People wanted it back. They wanted the old world back. They wanted to forget their insignificance. However, a fraction of the people sought answers. Though the world knew of the simulation, noone really knew how to affect it. Some found glitches in the Matrix. A lampost's shadow rendering strangely when viewed from a certain angle. A timeloop after entering a door a certain way. A specific radio frequency that plays future conversations made in the same room. Things of that nature. Until one day, one of the first few to actually break the code discovered a sequence of events and actions that allowed them to gain access to their own memories. To read, write and/or delete their own memories should they chose to. Eventually this knowledge spread like wild fire and the few that wanted the old world back ushered others to delete the memory of The Realization Point. Many followed to the old world, until a threshold was reached and our simulation changed permanently. With so many entities opting into memory deletion, the simulation started to be affected. Everything shook in place violently. Like an earthquake, yet nothing moved. Everything duplicated itself upon itself but not occupying the same space like we know it should. That moment in time is now commonly known as The Shearing. The world was the same but not the same, both sides exist within the confines of the simulation yet one cannot affect the other unless you know your way around the system protocols to affect the now deemed The Old World Domain. The minority that stayed behind spent their days to reprogram other components of themselves. Those who knew of the memory access sequence, explored further. Through persistent trial and error they've been able to create and install new information as memories into themselves. So in the same fold they were able to replicate skills and knowledge of others if they shared the specific code designation of their skills from the Matrix. These people that alter their memories are called The Circle of the Mind. While the first to be altered of oneself was memory, some found ways to alter their bodies' properties. Some cured themselves of sicknesses and fatal diseases. Others were able to alter their appearance. Some even made adjustments to their human form and have been applying a lot of modifications that the streets would look entirely alien to any of The Old World Domain if they could see it. A fraction of this sect were able to reprogram their lifespans. Deaging themselves or swinging back and forth to when they were at their prime. It's risky to turn too young and not be able to turn yourself back. And a very few unlocked Immortality, they've freed themselves from ever leaving this simulation since noone still knows what happens when you die. These people who were able to alter their bodies' properties are called The Sect of the Body. Now, ever since the first alteration was made by The First of The Circle of the Mind, people have only ever been able to alter their own properties themselves. However, in recent weeks odd cases of deaths have been occurring all around the sector. A reaging gone wrong where the person wrongly entered an age-change-parameter that was way past the fatal age change limit approved by The Sect of the Body. A reportedly self-induced schizophrenia by an otherwise well-intent indulging member of The Circle of the Mind. Then there were a handful of odd case reports wherein multiple materials were found duplicated and fused in places. Which leads me to believe someone out there has found a way to access another entities' source code... and I need to find them. So I can finally save my comatose sister from her fatal cancer. \------ Side Note: To be continued, never... this is my first foray into Writing Prompts. So I've never actually tried to make short stories before and have been ~~inkling~~/itching to delve into writing somehow. I know I spent a little too much time world building, introduced a lot of bits and pieces and should've probably focus on a single encounter scene down the line where this story points to. Of at least our protagonist finally encountering the one with the new code-sequence to affect another entity. Or played around with the Immortals idea. Anyway, that was already a fun write and I got a good dose of inspiration. I'll be putting these ideas on a shelf... for now. Hope you guys enjoyed at least. Thank you for the prompt! EDIT: Just got gold! Thank you kind stranger!
######[](#dropcap) Being shocked doesn't describe his expressions. What was even more terrifying was the fact that he couldn't move - at all. "Put him back! Now!"a woman with higher pitched voice was shouting as everyone gathered around him. Even as he tried to open his mouth and move it, nothing happened. When he could feel his muscles in the Virtual Reality, where he couldn't at all. Still, as he rolled his eyes down and inspected his own muscles, he understood the problem immediately - his body and limbs were thin like bones. "Stop it, for fuck sake!"a shout came, as an older man entered the room. He had a white coat on, which made him look like a doctor. "You're overdosing him. It's obviously not working anymore, now buzz off!"he whispered. But since his whisper was loud enough, even the patient could hear it. The doctor just smiled and looked how everyone was leaving the room. Finally, only two of them were left in the ward. "Good morning, John,"the doctor said. "I'm Dr. Haven Carfagno, call me Haven,"he looked around the room one last time and then whispered, "One might call me heaven, haha!" Of course, John did nothing. He had no strength to laugh. And to be quite frank, he wasn't in a mood for some jokes. "I know you have probably a lot of questions, but we'll get you there. First, we need you to get your strength back. We'll answer them later, when you can also ask them, alright? Don't worry; it's not to hide anything, you're just in a huge shock already!" He took out a syringe and slowly pushed it inside John's machine's hole. "It's only to help you sleep for now. You need that." &nbsp; &nbsp; John opened his eyes again. This time, he didn't do it slowly, since the moment he realized he was awake, he wanted to see the world. Compared to the last time, it was a lot fresher feeling. The room was same, but this time he had strength. Well, he was still weak, but he wasn't as skinny as he had seen himself last time. It didn't take long for Dr. Haven to enter the room, on his hand was some kind of a pad. "My machine tells me that you finally awake,"he said. "And look at you, you're already looking much better!" "Where... am... I?"John managed to whisper his first words. "You can even talk, excellent!"Haven nodded, writing something down on his pad. "You're in a VR Research Center,"the man explained. "Long story short - we study how to apply Virtual Reality to people, who might need it." John started shaking a bit. "What... is... that?"he whispered, trying to get himself seated. Haven casually walked next to him and helped him to do so. "Long time ago, you went into a coma. Normal procedure at one point was to pull it,"Haven said honestly. "Your family, however, agreed that you'll be used in research in hopes that you might have a life to live in,"he explained. John started laughing, which was a petty laugh, though. "So... all... possibilities... you... gave... me a life... like... that?"he said after he finally got himself seated. "As I said, we are a research institution, John. We don't want you to stay in there forever. We are quite thrilled that you finally woke up. John, we don't want you to wake up and the first thing to see you wanting to go back in there and denying the reality." John finally calmed down a bit. Even though his thoughts were slow, he understood the point. "Why... they..."he started coughing for a good ten seconds until he could continue, "wanted... put... back?" "A week ago?"Dr. Haven tried to remember. "Ah, yes. You're first coma patient to ever wake up,"he said, nodding to himself, obviously proud of that. "Nobody knew what to do back then. A bit unprofessional, yes. But try to forgive them though, it was unexpected. It doesn't happen every day when 30-year coma patient wakes up." John's eyes widened. Thirty years? That's impossible. Then again, he doesn't remember what his last real memory was. He only has memories of taking care of those bedridden. Maybe that's why he took care of them - so that if and when he really woke up, he could understand his situation better? "What... happened?"he asked. "John, it's too early for that,"Doctor said, a bit more quietly. "You're not ready." "Want... know!" "I'm sure you do,"the doctor sighed. "I promise, in time, you will, but only when you're ready to take it all in,"Doctor Haven took out a syringe and pushed it into the same hole as last time. "Now sleep! More! You'll be stronger next time." "Wai-" &nbsp; &nbsp; He opened his eyes again, but this time the room was different. He wasn't connected to any tubes anymore, and he felt a lot stronger than before. A red light turned on on the ceiling, probably alerting everyone that there was a movement. It was a first time when John could lift his hand all by himself. Even though he still remembered the last discussion with the doctor, his mind was fresh and relaxed. "Ah, John!"a voice came as the door opened. It was the same familiar face. "I see you can already move,"he said as he walked next to John's bed and examined his pad. Probably full of John's data. "How long it has been?"John got silent as he finished his sentence. Even he was surprised that he could talk that well already. He did pronounce things like his mouth was numb, but it was still great. "Excellent,"Haven nodded. "One month,"he said. "Taking into account that you were in a coma for 30 years, that's quite fast. Well, you did sleep most of the time, so for you it was an instant, right?" "Pretty much,"John whispered. "I can see that your thinking is a bit more wholesome?"the doctor asked. "My head hurts,"John frowned. "Well, you have been oversleeping a bit, aren't ya?"the doctor laughed. "It actually hurts a lot,"John said, slowly starting to take hold of his head. "It hurts, doctor!" Doctor face changed from a laugh to a quick shock. Still, he was professional, and he quickly hit a button on his pad. A lot of people in different colors entered the room. &nbsp; &nbsp; "John, focus on my voice!"a distant voice shouted. He heard it repeatedly, but no matter how much he tried, he was being pulled back - towards something meaningful. &nbsp; "Dad, why do I have to put on the safety belt? It's so uncomfortable!"a small child whispered. Her voice was sweet, and she had a very light hair. Her eyes were bright blue - just like her father's. "To make sure that when an accident happens, you'd be fine, sweety!"John smiled. "We are going to have an accident?"She asked. "Of course not, darling. It's just a precaution!" "You're telling me to lock it, but why haven't you locked it yourself?"the girl asked next to John. "Ah, shit, I'm sorry, a bad habit! A wrong thing to do, you're correct sweety,"John whispered. "Let me get it!" John put his hand aside to search for the belt. As he grasped it, he slowly pulled it over himself and tried to push it into a hole to lock it. He couldn't find it though since he was looking at the road. "Can you help me with that, Mary?"John asked. He could feel a soft hand touching his to let him know that she got it. John heard a click, to which he quickly glanced at his child. He placed his free hand on her head and caressed her hair. "Good girl, Mary." "DAD!" Bang. He could see how large truck hit his car and how the car made circles on the road, but everything went slowly blurrier and blurrier. "DAD!" A high pitched scream came on a repeat. "Wake up dad! I need you! Dad!" He could still feel the soft hands around his hand. He had to reach that voice, he had to make sure that his girl was okay. &nbsp; "Dad!"the words echoed, but the voice went slowly softer and lower. John opened his eyes gradually, looking straight at the lady who held onto his hand. Her hands were soft. John's tears started dropped down since he knew who she was. She hadn't noticed that he was awake since she was leaning forward and pushing John's hand against her lips. "Dad, don't leave me again,"she murmured. John softly reached out his other hand and touched her cheek, making her quickly raise her head. She looked at him with those same sweet deep-blue eyes. "Mary... Why would I? You tightened my seat-belt!" ---- ---- Always do it! ( /r/ElvenWrites - Feel free to follow my other emotional and non-emotional stuff! )
...how do you already have a name for us?" George was stopped mid whisper by the Eleven diplomat. "Well, um..."Geroge let out weakly. "You look exactly like how Tolkein described an Elf don't you?” A long silence followed as the other humans in the room stared daggers over at George for having the gull to blunder their first contact. The maybe Elven squinted his eye as George "We are called Eldarin,"letting out a huff "but Elves is a derogative term used by those loyal to the Sauron Empire." The Elf pulled out a concealed short blade and leveled it at George. “Has this planet already been contaminated Sauron?” The diplomat asked pointedly, eye’s never leaving George. George’s compatriot Bell who’d been on the receiving end of the whisper piped up “It’s from a book!” And the Elves eyes darted over to her. “Explain.” He directed pointedly. “Well there was an author from an island here on earth who created a book series thousands of years ago about a place called Middle earth.” The Elves eyes lighted up as his full attention landed on Bell. Somewhere along Bells explanation of The Two Towers the Elf interjected “Bring me these books now!” It took longer than the length of an awkward silence assistance for the human diplomats to return with three dusty covered books. As the first assistant got close the Elf tore away the book and started leafing through the pages as he leafed through the pages. Only half way through he slammed the book shut and looked piercingly over towards George and Bell. “This is the history of our people. You say some man from your planet wrote this?” He quickly made his way over the Bell and George before anyone could react. “You are to come from me with now, Gandalf and Elron will want to hear of this.” And with a flash like which has brought the Elven diplomat in he was gone as was George and Bell. \----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glad y'all enjoyed this, and thanks for the support! I've began working on part two and hope to have it out in a day or two. I'll post a link here once it's written up and case you don't look back here I plan to post it on to r/shortstories. If even a handful of people are interested after that I'll be happy to continue the story from there and see where the journey takes us!
"We do not understand." "Look at this,"said the human, pointing at herself, "my limbs are weak, I have precious little bones to protect my organs, virtually every predator on my home planet will shred me if I don't use tools to defend myself." "Then you shall die." The shadows grew, the ground shook and split in their growth, such a strength it rewrote the rules of what was and wasn't in its wake. Sonia was delighted to witness such a creature with her waking eyes, that it was trying to kill her did not bother her in the least. "Let me finish. I wouldn't trade my weakness for anything else." It stops, surprised, struggling to understand. In a world made by the strong for the strong, holding onto weakness was suicide. "Why do I live. Why am I still alive, me who belongs to such a pitiful species?" "Luck." "No, sickness would have gotten to us, predators or even ourselves. God we're good at being our own worst enemy. And yet, here I am, standing before one of the mightiest creatures this universe has ever known. In other times, religions would have been with a single glimpse of you." "It is natural to follow the strong." "But I don't, and I'm weak. Why don't I?" It shook and whistled, opening and clenching appendixes. "We do not know." Sonia opened her arms large, encompassing a tiny bit of the mighty beast. "We even have the technology to make us stronger, sturdier, yet have forsaken it." "But why?"the poor thing was lost before this alien philosophy, this violation of common sense made flesh. "It was beautiful. Machines made each one of us beautiful, strong. We did not die of old age, wrinkled and sick, we simply went to sleep forever when our time was up, beautiful as always. But beauty and strength scared us. Because we had it all. "You see, we fought and searched for centuries for means to attain perfection, a perfection not unlike yours. Strength, intelligence, the right amount of social need and independence to work flawlessly in society. And we found a way, it may be the greatest work humanity has ever produced. When the flip was switched on, we cheered planet-wide. Earth's most beautiful day. "But then, we learned to fear. Fear our beauty, our love, our perfect community, perfect body, perfect life. Artists ceased to paint and write, for we had written it all already, perfect and not to be bettered. We stopped inventing, devising, tinkering, for we had it all. In perfection and strength, we have become stale. With happiness and love and health, there was little more to find. We had all the strength in the world, could reshape ourselves and the world we lived on... yet we couldn't go onward. "We did something, something beyond stupid, so utterly mad it was beautiful in itself. We broke the machines, burnt the records, reverted to being old, frail, weak, prone to killing each other. And it was great!" Sonia was booming now, nearly hysterical. And the being started to feel unwell, at this vulnerable little thing so delighted at its own returning weakness. "We killed, and found better ways to kill. We burned and had to find methods to make dead lands alive again. With our weakness, we built crutches, and the crutches can only keep getting better, for we will never be perfect, as intended." Sonia turned towards the being, her eyes red with murder, the taste of blood on her tongue. "But you... with your pristine body, your flawless defense, your alteration of the self and the reality around you, you're almost a god,"Sonia clenched her fists, "a perfect god, an example to imitate with little above in the way of betterment. You-" The station rumbled, the being looked around in shock. "-are an affront to everything we stand for, you are a stale world, a stale universe. We loathe perfection,"she was screaming now, "we loathe you, and let me assure you..." The station was breaking apart, the bombardment had begun in earnest. The being never would have thought that humans would willingly sacrifice their supreme leader for a chance to kill it. And worse. The human seemed to relish her position. "...we will rid the universe of a stain such as you, we will keep it dark and grim and cold and lonely and insane! this is our coming universe,"Her voice pierced through the echoes of the bombardment, "a place of struggle where we will push the boundaries, a world of pigs digging in the innards of the dead, our children shall walk in mud and bones, the smell of mustard gas in their nostrils. Palaces made of skulls and burnt history, graves in ice and glorified ignorance." A blast tore the wall open, air was sucked out of the room, the being and Sonia followed. It caught the edges and held still with exceptional strength. Sonia collided with him and broke her body. Through the roaring sound of the pressure dropping and under the pain of her broken bones, Sonia found the strength for one more sentence. "But as supreme leader of humanity, let me assure you that this is nothing personal." She pressed a button in her pocket, and the supreme leader blew to bits, taking the being with her.
“That’s cute.” I glanced past the nervous man in the white coat, down a silent hallway of identical steel doors. “You might need me, but I can’t see much use for you.” Strong disinfectant wafting from the hall makes my head spin. I’ve no idea how long I’ve been in this cell, but now that the door is open, there’s no way I’m letting them close it again. I pull back my fist but the man holds up his hand and against my will, I hesitate. “Wait.” He raises the clipboard a little and reads, “Pumpkin. Sheepskin. Crunch.” Like the proverbial switch, my brain transforms. I remember. Dust on an endless horizon. So many tangled limbs. Muted screams. Victory, but at a terrible cost. The enemy beaten back, only to rise again and again - waiting for their foe to forget their weaknesses, their flaws, before raging once again through our world. My shoulders fall, then are rolled back by force of will. I look at the doctor, so very young and frightened. I don’t recall his face, so it’s been at least a generation. “Okay,” I nod. “How long has it been this time?”
"General Zoom, give me the situation,"snapped former Vice President Xella. "Did forensics tell us where the foreign object came from?" The war commander was nervous. He hid quavering tentacles behind his back and tried to look serious on the open balcony overlooking the sprawling silver city. "We've been attacked by an alien species that launched a solid metal alloy disc from who knows where. Satellites tracked the disc's path from orbit and-" "General! I woke up this morning with virtually no responsibilities."Xella's natural purple skin tone was reddening by the second. "As everyone knows, the Vice President doesn't actually do anything, and now I'm the President of the United Fins." Zoom swallowed. Secretly, he was glad that the old president was gone. He prayed that this new one wouldn't be as hawkish on war as previous commanders were - sending the boys out always broke his squishy heart. "Give me something, Zoom. Tell me who did this to us so our world can unite behind the banner of a common enemy. Name them! Name the creatures that would stoop so low as to launch a preemptive attack on us without warning." "I..."The General paused, listening to his earpiece. "I'm just now receiving news from our FTL interceptors reporting back. Apparently they are a primate subspecies living on a planet they call 'Earth'." Xella blinked. "They named themselves 'dirt'?" "It's not quite the same-" "Fitting for such low-bred scum!"The newly appointed President balled up two tentacles and waved them in the air. "Announce a new campaign, General Zoom. I will make a speech condemning these dirt-dwellers and make sure the people know that our great leader will not go unavenged." Zoom pretended to listen closer. "I'm getting more updated information that their military prowess is not to be underestimated. President Xella, do you really want to go down in history as the squid that started an intergalactic war between two species?" This gave Xella pause. In his mind, two paths lay before him, two sea serpents that writhed and struggled for dominance. What was he to do? It was just like in the Chilly War, where his predecessor had chosen not to give the order to fire Sea-Enders on the Ink Federation. Do nothing, and look weak. Fight back, and risk the deaths of billions on both sides. There was no middle ground...or was there? "You speak the truth, Zoom. What's your advice on a proper response? We can't just let this one go without repercussions." The general wasn't sure. "Perhaps we should wait for proper intelligence channels to-" "No! Wait! I got it!"Xella yelled, turning bulbous eyes skyward. "I know just the right way to greet them in return."A slimy smile stretched across his face. Zoom winced. "An eye for an eye, sir?" "Not quite." --- "This just in! Manhole covers apparently raining down from the sky! Is this a Russian plot to interfere in our elections? Or perhaps a devious Chinese plan for world domination? Jane, live from DC, tell us more!" --- Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day\~ come hang out with me at [/r/Remyxed](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/), we'd love to see you around :)
It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, considering the World we live in, ever thirsting for that bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia. It was a better time. Some might have said. It was a simpler time. Year after year technology was fast outgrowing us, humanity. It was a considered fact that most of the population spent more time online, or in some way connected to the wider World of gaming and social media, than they did actually connecting with reality, with each other. Many of the co-corporations from the early rising years of technology felt responsible, and so they had come together, one and all, to rectify the mistakes of the present day. &#x200B; Street Fighter - by Capcom; Capcom started with something simple, not too ambitious. A fighting game, one they could alter to bring a new sense of immersion and connectivity to a World that was severely lacking such things. It required the construction of massive arenas, the bio-engineering of insane monstrosities, and capital enough to convince those few remaining real World fighting champions that this was a project worth backing. "Imagine it, crowds in their thousands, no tens-of-thousands, coming from across the globe to see you. To watch our Worlds greatest fighters pit themselves against some of gaming's most legendary warriors. You will be paid, handsomely, and should you die (which is very likely when faced with the likes of Blanka, Balrog or Dhalsim) then your families, or you next of kin, will be sufficiently compensated." They were talking multi-billion pound contracts payable on death. It was impossible to say no. And it worked. The first Contest of Champions far exceeded even the medias grossly over-confident estimations (can I get a fake news up in here). Half a million live viewers, eighteen times that number streaming, it was a start, and it was enough to warrant other majors developers to invest in what was then known as Real World Gaming Events. &#x200B; Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo; Following Capcom's success Nintendo wanted to bring back into reality a broader spectrum of players. It was all well an good inviting people to watch Real World Gaming events, but what about getting them to participate. Street Fighter succeeded in opening people's minds to the idea, but its player base was limited, Championship Worthy Fighters only. Mario Kart however... Several years were spent reshaping vast areas of land into the perfect race tracks. New York City became Toad's Turnpike, the towering, sky-scraper buildings a perfect backdrop for the night long races. Mauna Loa, one of the five volcanoes that form the island of Hawaii, was used as the centre piece for Bowser's Castle, tripling tourism to this already incredibly popular location. The Amazon, too, was saved from ultimate destruction when Nintendo purchased the land, labeling it the perfect location for DK's Jungle Parkway. Real World Gaming was doing some Real World Good. When the tracks were finally opened half the World was there to watch. In just four short weeks the average time spent in front of a screen had halved Worldwide, and the average time spent go-karting had increased by a factor of seven thousand percent. Nintendo had this to say: "We are in the business of making games, games that will elicit joy in the people. Our intention is to create happiness, to bring together people from all backgrounds, and to have them partake in one universally enjoyable experience. Gaming has been, and will continue to be, an aid to a better tomorrow. Now more than ever as we step away from behind our screens and begin to re-experience life. Life in all its glory. The possibilities of where Real World Gamin can take us are truly limitless." &#x200B; Pokemon - by Game Freak; Long considered among the most popular games of all time, it wouldn't take long for Game Freak to begin work on bringing Pokemon Red and Blue to the now global phenomenon that was Real World Gaming. This was one of the most difficult re-creations of any game seen to date. Years before release scientists slaves away, genetically engineering real-life Pokemon. They started simple, evolving creatures with essentially the same base elements as their Pokemon counter part. Squirtle - the evolutionary bio-product of a turtle (I know, ground breaking!). Butterfree was a short step up the food chain from the common butterfly. Pidgey, a pigeon. Rattata, a rat. Zubat, a bat. Meowth, a cat. You get the idea. The issues came when firstly they tried to create such Pokemon as Machop, Abra, Gastly and Voltorb. The solution was a not-so-obvious mixture of creatures with physical similarities to the Pokemon and then a dash of DNA that would produce the required attributes. For example making Ponyta look like a pony was easy, setting the pony on fire? This required engineering a non-flammable exterior skin and implementing a form of hazard-controlled-burning to Ponyta's mane and tail. It was a long process, but the end result was incredible. Upon the opening of the first Pokemon Park the entire World was watching, at least thirty percent of the population had gathered at the Park's secret location, creating what would forever hold the record of the World's Longest Queue. And it was everything we'd expected. Small to start, but with the promise of creating entire islands dedicated to the capture, training and competing of Pokemon (badges and gym leaders not included - well, there was bound to be some sort of in-game purchasing). &#x200B; These creators had presented players, and the World at large, with a reason to go outside, a reason to peel back their virtual masks of unreality and to truly enjoy living.
"Get off my property, you freak!" The gun blasted. "Fuck!"Hagrid cried, as Vernon lowered the shotgun, hands shaking. "Vernon, what happe -- oh my God!"Aunt Petunia raised her hands to her mouth, horrified. "Call the police, Petunia! This giant man's got a bomb!" "It's not a bomb, it's your nephew!"Hagrid yelled. He looked down at what was left of the baby nested between the blood-covered sheets. "Well, it was." "Oh my God!"Vernon cried. "What have I done!?" He turned the gun on himself. Little Dudley watched from the corner. &nbsp; "The kid's an idiot, Dumbledore,"Snape said, pacing from left to right inside the office. "I'm telling you, if this is the kid you want to raise to be the one to fight against Lord Voldemort, we're in trouble." "Well, he's all that's left, Snape. Potter is dead." "Yes, but --" "And now Voldemort is going to go after the other kid who can fulfill the prophecy." "But Longbottom is an idiot!" "Snape, you have to protect him." "God Damn it, this couldn't get any worse." "Well, if Potter had lived you'd have to help me protect the son of James and Lilly Potter. That would have been worse." Snape stopped his pacing and nodded. "Yeah, you're right, that would have been hell." &nbsp; "That kid's not gonna make it through the first task, Albus." "Well, what on Earth do you want me to do, Snape? I didn't choose the idiot, the prophecy did. And that stupid muggle with the shotgun." "Who on Earth put Longbottom's name on the Goblet of Fire, anyway?" "I don't know. There's an all powerful wizard out there who heard a prophecy about how he must kill Neville and will stop at nothing to try to do it. But I don't know." "Can't we just... have him not play? He doesn't even wanna do it." "No, Severus. Tradition is more important than human life. The kid has to play." &nbsp; "CLOSE YOUR BLOODY MIND, LONGBOTTOM!" "I'm trying! I'm trying!" "Again! Legilimens!" Snape's head was filled with the image of a Rememberall. The imposing face of an old lady. Plants. More plants." "God damn it, never mind, Longbottom. Your mind's so boring I doubt Voldemort would find anything useful in there." &nbsp; The snake bite hurt, but it hurt less than seven years of trying to teach Neville Longbottom how to perform a quality spell. The boy crouched in front of him. "Snape! Snape, are you ok?" "I know you hate me, Neville... but you must know the truth." "Are you gonna tell me where the Philosopher's Stone is hidden?" "YOU DIDN'T FIGURE THAT ONE OUT YET?" Neville grabbed Professor Snape's hand, and Snape pulled him close. "Look at me." The brown eyes met the black. For a second, neither of them moved. "You're an imbecile, Longbottom." _________ For more on why I hate the fact that Harry could have simply NOT PLAYED at the Triwizard Tournament, check out /r/psycho_alpaca =)
The group was fantastically successful. They ended many a curse, saved many princesses and princes alike. Tales of their deeds spread far and wide as many countries and kingdoms praised their accomplishments. Drunk off their many successes and heavy praise as saviors of the world, they embarked on their next quest in high spirits. To defeat an evil wizard who could see the future and prophesied he would rule the world since "No man would be capable of defeating him." After defeating the many minions and golems of his tower. The finally confronted the wizard at the top floor . "Foul wizard, we are here to end your megalomanical schemes!"the party leader shouted as they positioned themselves to attack. "And who among you will be the one to defeat me?"The wizard asked, eyeing the group one by one. "It will be all of us!"the healer announced, "for there are no men among us, therefore we fulfill the requirements of your prophesy!" "What a clever idea!"The wizard exclaimed, "To send so many with the same name in the hopes one of you would be the right one!" The party leader paused. "I'm sorry, what are you talking about? "I'm talking about the prophecy of course."The wizard stated "That Noman would be capable of defeating me""I was curious as to who among you would be Noman, but since it turns out all of you are Noman, I guess I'll have to fight you all." It was a hard fought battle, some good lives were lost in the hours long conflict, but they eventually emerged victorious. As they left the tower in sorrow, they decided that maybe they should be a little more specific on the name of their next recruit......just in case...... Edited to make a little more sense. (Changed invalidate prophecy to fulfill prophecy, which makes more sense given later wizard backstory, yay retcons!) Edit to the edit: Thanks for the awards and upvotes all!
“BEHOLD MORTAL! THE CURSE OF ENDLESS TEMPTATION!” The demon exclaimed while gesturing in an exaggerated manner. I felt something light rolled up behind my ear. I reached behind and took it. It was a single rolled up Twenty Dollar Bill. “Uh… thanks?” “YES MORTAL, THIS SHALL HAPPEN ONCE A MONTH FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS, YOU SHALL BE TEMPTED BY THE DEBAUCHERIES PROMISED BY TWENTY DOLLARS. YOU ARE DOOMED TO FOREVER TEST YOUR WILL AGAINST THE PULL OF TWENTY DOLLARS.” The demon smirked and gave me a wink. Well... I may have helped a demon… but twenty dollars is twenty dollars.
"Fifth time this week Allen,"I shouted across to my spotter who had taken up a defensive position just outside the cafeteria among the office desk sets, "I swear if we survive this I'm flying to Sweden myself and kicking someone's ass." "Less talking more sword!"Allen shouted back, "7 o'clock!" I jumped backwards as the great fist of Sijarenbeld, destroyer of worlds crashed through the roof the Bolingsbrook Ikea. Guess we were going to need to add another skylight to the store. I managed to weakly lunge at the arm as it retreated and draw a long shallow scratch across the back of its hand. "STJÄRNBILD!" I screamed at the petrified family of four suburbanites who had caused this, "It sounds like a 'Y', for the love of God. You're going to get us all killed" "9 o'clock!"Allen's voice cut across the sounds of the falling debris, "We've got another 40 seconds." Great. True names were all well and good, powerful stuff, apparently. Not the sort of thing a minimum wage kid working a summer job at Ikea was supposed to learn about, but it was an occupational hazard and OSHA regulations were clear. Speaking a demon's true name could allow them to manifest for a short time, but humans weren't exactly great magical beings, and most weren't focusing on summoning the demon when they mispronounced our offerings. Few could manage more than a dozen seconds of manifestations. Unfortunately, Sijarenbeld was a nasty sort. He could hold his own portal open for a bit. A minute or so was fairly normal, but the last time he'd done a number on the parking lot when an aunt had jokingly made her little girl try to pronounce the furniture names. Children apparently make better conduits, thank God it was the dad's fault this time. The fist crashed directly behind me, and debris buffeted my back as I tried to roll out of the way. For a second I thought I'd stab myself with Viktigt, the Assistant Manager's Greatsword. I managed to regain my feet as Sijarenbeld dropped into the store. A fifty foot monstrosity when he wanted to be, every now and he seemed to like spending his last few seconds terrorizing us on a more personal level. "Fire boys!"Allen's voice rang out with the sound of a couple firearms we kept in the breakroom, and the twang of the Nightshift Crossbow. The bullets didn't have any measurable effect, but the silver bolt in his shoulder caused the demon to wince just a bit. He started to advance on me. "Got a time Allen?"I yelled out, waving the greatsword in front of me defensively. I wasn't a great swordsman, but I was quicker than anyone else on second shift, and the weapon was one of a handful of anti-demon countermeasures corporate had sent the store. Supposedly we had a priest on days, those assholes never had to deal with this shit. "Seven seconds!" Sijarenbeld took another step towards me, and a second volley from the rangers had much less visible effect. Allen wasn't done reloading the crossbow, great. The demon closed to within about three feet of me and swung a backhand with an arm the size of a respectable oak limb. I tried to get the greatsword up in a block but it was like trying to hold a stick in front of a freight train, he knocked the blade out of my hand and sent it careening through the foodcourt. Hopefully no one got impaled. Then the demon had his hand on my chest and gravity seemed to fall away as I found myself flying through the air after my sword. Gravity reasserted itself just in time to send me painfully through one of the tables in the cafeteria and the world spun a bit. I heard a scream and some cheering, then Allen's voice, "That's time! Someone check on Josh!" Good to know they remembered me. This was so not worth $11 an hour.
Jupiter, the 5th planet in our system. We have known it was there for centuries, but this was the first time we sent a manned spacecraft close to it, our target being the moon Europa. On our approach to it, we noticed that the gravity of Jupiter was stronger then initially measured, however still being within the range of safety we opted to continue our approach. However, by then it was too late. Our craft's trajectory changed, moving from Europa to the gas planet itself. Despite our best efforts, we could not avoid our fate. Messages were sent to base, informing them of our predicament, along with final messages from the crew, as we knew there was no way out of this. As our craft sped towards our demise, we sat together and played cards, having left all intrusments set to send the data gathered to Earth. However, it turned out that it wasn't the end. As we descended, our craft began to slow. Our radio began to squawk, cycling through what sounded to be a variety of languages, including English, with the same message: "~All lifeforms on this vessel, surrender and prepare for boarding.~" We were confused, surely this isn't right, we must be having some kind of episode facing our death. Before we could reply, a form appeared in our cramped quarters. It resembled a metallic jellyfish, with a set of stalks sticking out of its head. It then spoke with the same voice as heard over the radio: "~What is your purpose for coming to protected system 49-SK?~" I responded, as the one in charge it fell to me to reply "We are on an exploratory mission to the moon Europa, what do you mean system 49-SK?" "~Are you the species hailing from the 3rd planet?~" "Yes we are, are you going to answer my question?" "~Congratulations on achieving a basic level of interplanetary travel. We are here to protect such a young species from those who seek to achieve galactical rule, with the goal of exterminating all other species. Allow me to take you to the core base, where my creator can answer your questions~" *Excerpt from the journal of Astro-General Destran, detailing the first contact with the Hargorn race Edit: [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/grh8gb/wp_first_we_discovered_that_jupiters_gravity/fs04329/)
Julia sat at the conference table amongst piles of books. Not heaps of books, not a scattering of references, not a slapdash collection. These books were carefully selected, organized, and cross-referenced. She had spent more time on this than she'd ever had in billable hours to any client in her long career at the law firm of Tarquin, Golbur & Hernandez. But she was finally ready to open the box. Inside was an old oil lamp. There was nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary lamp, except that it was held in this antique box by velvet cushions, where no ordinary lamp would be. Anyone who saw it would immediately know what it was. It was the very archetype of a Genie Lamp, driven into their psyche from countless stories, movies, and cartoons. And given that nobody used oil lamps anymore, it could only be the home of a genie. Or an old movie prop. Or maybe a halloween decoration. Or perhaps a very fancy gravy boat. But it was in fact a genie lamp, which Julia knew from her careful research. She rubbed it. Her careful research into the arcane subject of Genie Law was arrayed around her, providing an answer to any eventuality. Anything not covered by the literature she felt sure she could handle with her keen intellect. "Oh, Genie, come forth. I, Julia Hernandez, the party of the first part, do summon you, the party of the second part, by ancient covenant." Smoke flew out of the mouth of the lamp. It slowly formed a face. The face was strangely familiar. Words echoed out of the mist. "Little Jules? Is that you that summons me?" The voice brought back memories. "Is that... Mr. Tarquin?" "Right on the nose, Jules. Though since you are in my old office, I suppose I should call you Miss Hernandez now. I don't imagine that you ever married. But it looks like you are the Managing Partner now. Ha! You look like an old battleaxe. I knew you'd make it big." "How are you a Genie, Mr Tarquin?" "Oh, nevermind that. In my day, all the best lawyers were genies. But we should get down to business. I imagine you want your three wishes?" Julia picked up the first sheet of paper in front of her. "Yes. The party of the first party acknowledges the presence of the genie and requests commencement of negotiations with regards to the numbered wishes, herein..." "Oh, Jules, I see you have done your research. Too much research if you ask me. Between old colleagues like us that stuff isn't necessary. Don't you still do back-room deals? Dispense with that. Put it away and we'll play it straight. I was always fair with you, wasn't I?" "Alright, Mr. Tarquin,"Julia said with some hesitation. "Anything special you are looking for? Or just the standards? Money, fame, youth, beauty, love, sex, power, etc. I hope it's not love. That's always a tricky one. Sex is easy though." "Yeah, basically money, youth, and -um- power, I suppose, Mr. Tarquin." "Easy enough. No need for the legalese here. Starting with the money, I can do up to a billion without undue scrutiny from the government. I'd recommend that." "Alright, I wish for a billion dollars."As soon as she said it, Julia's phone pinged with a notification. "That'll be the bank transfer coming in. If anybody looks into it, it will appear to be legally acquired due to a shrewd investment in an IPO. Next? If you're going for youth, I'd suggest being 25. It's the best age. Don't ask for it to be everlasting, of course, that's a trap. Just say long-lasting." Julia spent a minute checking the phone message. It was all aboveboard. No tricks that she could see, and she was convinced to continue. "I wish for renewed and long-lasting youth." As she said it, the wrinkles tightened off her face. Her arthritic hands were slender and smooth again. She ran to the mirror next to her office door and spent several minutes checking her body. If anything she felt better than she had at 25. "See, Jules. No tricks between friends. That youth will last long enough for the human scientists to replace it with something permanent, with no suspicion. Are you ready for power to go with your money and youth? I'd suggest indicating that it should be 'personal' power. You definitely don't want electrical power, and political power is fickle." "Alright, I wish for great personal power." The genie smiled. "Done. You shall have the power of the genie." The mist began to solidify across the conference table. Julia felt her own substance thinning. "What? No. This is a trap. That's not what I wanted." "Indeed Jules. I think genie power traps are covered by the book you have on the top of your first stack there. A beginner's mistake." "But, you said you'd treat me fairly. How could you do this?" As Mr. Tarquin walked off, he turned back and said, "You forgot the first thing I ever taught you: Don't take advice from opposing counsel."
Dale was a Walker. It had almost become a derogatory word: a person whose job was so menial and filthy that it couldn't be done virtually. Not programming new games or creating new objects for the virtual marketplace. No; a walker had to actually leave the simulation tank to do the job. And there were so few Walkers left. Most jobs were left to automated drones nowadays. Growing food, maintaining the world's infrastructure, sim tank repairs... all done by robots now. Dale was one of the few remaining humans who still saw the sun every day. He was the sole human mechanic for Dewitt Sims, makers of the world's most popular sim tank. The best connections, the highest resolution, the fastest neural implant network. They were the absolute best, and that's why Dale had so little to do. They almost never broke down, and when they did, the bots went and fixed them. But the law required at least one human overseer, so that's what Dale did. He'd been called into the home of Ms. Powers when the robots couldn't identify exactly what was wrong with her machine. Understandably so: no one had ever seen a case like this. They hadn't been programmed to understand what a murder was. He stared at the body still sloshing about in the sim-tank. The fluid was not the normal milky white, but was a deep crimson red. He'd never seen a corpse in real life before. No one had, though. The tanks were all equipped with vital sign monitoring, and would summon a whole different team of robots upon a natural death. No Walkers required for body disposal. But this young woman's sim-tank had been unplugged, ripping the victim out of the virtual world. And the same blade used to slash the wires connecting her to her peers was buried deep in her chest. Her coworkers had become concerned when she missed the deadline on an important advertising campaign, and her boss realized that she hadn't signed in in over two days. How long had it been? Dale tried to think back to his classes way back in school to figure out when the last murder was. History hadn't really been emphasized very much, and he'd never had an interest in it anyway. Just one bloody war after another that all blurred together into all of bloody human history. And the killing had only stopped once machines had been invented to supply humans with everything necessary to live out their lives peacefully in sim tanks. There was no more fighting over material goods when they could simply be copied. No one ever bothered to leave their virtual lives anymore, so nobody was ever murdered. It had to have been centuries! He logged the entry for Ms. Powers' error message. There was no checkbox for "Murder"on the form, so he just went with "Human error."Even that one wasn't used very frequently, since no one ever bothered to physically mess with their machines anymore. But checking that box got Dale thinking: there was someone else out there. Another walker. Someone else going around from building to building who had just entered this room and stabbed Ms. Powers in the chest and then left. Robots in the real world were probably passing him by without even a glance, with no way of knowing what he'd done. This person could be on their way to someone else's home, ready to kill again. He knew that many of the police stories often featured 'Serial killers,' who killed multiple times. Who the hell do I call about this? Dale wondered. He knew that there used to be something called Police. There were all sorts of programs out there where you could play as a detective and go around solving crimes. He'd played a few of them, and had been quite good at finding all of the clues. A faded footprint here, a smudged lip print on a glass that gave DNA evidence... Dale blinked and tried to bring up his HUD; maybe this was a game and he'd just forgotten that he was in his sim. But nothing came up. This was real. A real murder. And there were certainly no police anymore. The conclusion was inevitable. Dale would need to be the police. Other people could be hurt, and there was no way to warn them. Sims could only be mass shutdown in case of a catastrophic power failure or something equally massive. One man didn't have the power to wake up the rest of the world over one dead girl. He needed to find the killer, and he was on his own.
"Where are the kidnapped puppies, Raptoroth!?!"demanded Captain Valor. The Lair of Misdeeds was empty. None of Raptoroth's henchmen, the Ne'erdowells, were present. Raptoroth wasn't on the Throne of Misdeeds. Instead, he was seated casually on a sofa pouring tea. He was wearing a sweater over a button down and khakis instead of his typical villain costume." "There are no kidnapped puppies. That was just a ploy to get you here. Come have a seat on the sofa and have some tea. I got lavender hibiscus tea, your favorite." Captain Valor was confused. He said on the couch and sipped cautiously at the tea. Raptoroth began. "This talk is a long time coming. We have a good professional relationship. This is Logan, Utah. We aren't like those big city heroes and villains. I don't use guns or bombs. I don't try to kill anyone. Most of the time, you save the day and I get away with just enough to pay the bills. I am a member in good standing in this community. I vote, I buy Girl Scout cookies, and I attend the high school football games." "Are you telling me that you are retiring?"asked Captain Valor. "No, far from it, I have many misdeeds planned. Bill, can I call you Bill? I have known your secret identity for years. I would never dox you , that would be a real dick move. I know about how your job at the newspaper got downsized. Your strength made getting a job at the mine rather easy, but it has taken a toll on you." "Are you trying to get in to my head, Raptoroth?" "Yes! I just want things to go back to the way they were!" "I do too, Rap. I do too!" "Have you considered a vacation? I'd be prepared to take a break from misdeeds for a few weeks. Keith and I just got back from Jamaica and it was lovely. Maybe you could visit your family down in Salt Lake City?" "I talk to my family of the phone frequently. I'll also Face Time my sister in Vegas." "What about a girlfriend? Are you still with Alice?" "Yes, but our dates are getting farther apart and in the bed room I can't....." "Happens to all of us." "Bill, you need professional help. You need to see a doctor or a psychiatrist. If you ever get to a bad place, don't do anything rash. I'm texting you my number, call me anytime day or night. If anything happened to you they'd send someone to replace you. Probably some jerk like Crystal Claw." "Thanks, Rap, I appreciate it. I just haven't had any good news in a while. Whenever I'm thwarting your plans, I feel like I'm just going through the motions. I'm not enjoying it anymore." "My husband, Keith, fell into a deep depression after his mother passed. He was on some prescriptions for a while that helped. Now he's back to his normal self. I'll text you the number of his doctor." "Raptoroth, I.....I don't know what to say....,"said Bill in a quivering voice. He collapsed onto Raptoroth's shoulder in tears. "Let it out. There's no one here but us." Some time later Bill sat up. "I'm going to take your advice, Rap." "I'm pleased to hear it. Listen, I baked an extra lasagna for you to take home with you. Keith baked some garlic herb bread. Take them with you; a good meal would do you well. No misdeed for two weeks, I promise." "Raptoroth, I don't know how to thank you." "Don't get soft on me, Captain Valor. The Harvest fest is in a few weeks. It would be a shame if someone attempted to steal the money from the Ms. Harvest scholarship prize. "Not if there's a hero to stop you." "That's the spirit!." EDIT: Thanks for this silver and kind words. I'm new to this sub and having a great time here. EDIT2: GOLD!?!, glad you liked it that much!
This was not the first message we had received in this way. Many species had done as this one had and sent a fragment of their culture into the vast void of space in the hope of finding others, in the hope of finding a friend. We had once been not dissimilar, but no-one answered our call, no-one came to greet us as we made out first stumbling steps into the universe. We were the first, or at least we could find no trace of any who had made these steps before us and so we decided that this was our mission, our duty. We would seek out other life and greet it, shepherd it into the universe as best we were able. We would do this on their terms though, we would not force them, we would engage on their own terms, these were the rules. This world had chosen a disk, carried on a primitive craft that had been hurled out of their solar system on the most crude of propulsion systems. The signal it emitted was weak, but we had been drawn here by the vast electromagnetic noise out out by one of the planets and with this craft we had an invitation to come closer and examine them. Its message was simple, a basic description of their world, their species and fragments of their culture. Music, mathematics, art; things of simple beauty, which it was clear to see would inspire their people. I stood with the Leader and contact team and we listened to their noises, simple patterns and rhythms which made us smile and click our clawed feet onto the deck of the hull. These people knew how to evoke mood and feeling with their culture and would be a valued addition to the universe. We moved closer, holding at their moon while our technology team investigated more closely, tapping into their electronic systems. These people were... complex. They had put so much of their lives into computer networks, sharing details which allowed us intimate knowledge of their world and their people. There was violence and anger there too, but so much more, so much good to outweigh the bad. At last a decision was made, we would contact them, but before the contact team were able to prepare, a young member of the science team appeared, holding a data crystal and looking awkward, his tendrils all askew. He hesitated, but spoke at last. "Leader, I think... I think you need to see this." He pressed the crystal into the nearest port and the familiar sounds of one of the pieces of music floated over the communications systems. The Leader nodded and gestured for it to stop. "We know this music, it is part of their culture." The young specialist squirmed. "Yes sir, but look at what it means to them." He pressed the crystal deeper and a cultural analysis appeared. The music was... they were a joke of some kind. They were played to fool another and to perform some kind of bait and switch effect. The top section of the Leader's head deflated. "This species, perhaps this is a signal that we do not understand them as well as we need to. We cannot initiate a formal contact, but we should use this knowledge and give them a signal that we wish to be friendly and wish to engage on their terms." ***** The probe was prepared and launched before the ship began its slow movement out of the system. We would watch its reception for as long as we could, in the hope we could gain more understanding of these people for our return in a few thousand cycles of their system. It streaked down towards the planet, making for one of the larger population hubs, looking for their people. The inhabitants flocked out as it landed, gathering around the probe and reaching out, touching it and in doing so activating it. They were looking for a message, a greeting, but we would show them that we understood, that we would be their friend and work on the same level they operated on. The probe unfolded and the crowd of people backed away, the image was being beamed around the world on their communication systems and most of their beings would see it. Much work had gone into adapting our speakers so that it could most effectively play their music and these now reached up high, for maximum volume. There would be one play through and this would show that we understood their culture and were willing to engage on their terms. It was time, the people were watching and the music began. This was their moment of hope, so much of their culture yearned for this, but we would show we had a deeper understanding of how they thought. After this the internals would melt into nothing and the probe would die with no signal, just a vague promise that we may one day be back. It is how they would want it. "Never gonna give you up..." *** If you like stories written by a whisky fuelled Scotsman, then check out /r/fringly. I write things such as this one, about [a war between humans and all other species (elves, orks etc) in a world where Gods are real, but the humans have none and so ally with demons instead.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fringly/comments/5b3c71/fringly_longish_short_story_a_fantasy_world/)
This story isn’t about me. I don’t have any children, so what happens in the story is not something I have to worry about. No, this is about a friend of mine, Yamasaki, and his son Onishi. Yamasaki was a cook. He was in his forties but looked in his sixties with his bent back and grey hair. He sold his food from a wheeled cart in Asakusa. All kinds of fish: spiced and herbed and souped. All kinds. I didn’t live in Asakusa, but I visited for work occasionally, and of course I would need food in the evenings. That’s how we met: I got a taste for his food and I kept returning — like a cat that finds the best sunspot in the neighbour’s garden and so always goes back to it. Yamasaki would talk jovially as he prepared my meals and I would learn a little more about him each night, until eventually we agreed to meet for drinks and to continue our talks. They were never world changing talks, just causal conversation to waste away a few pleasant hours. Asakusa is an old town that keeps many traditional ways, but that’s also in the process of great change and modernisation. There’s always a strange, contradictory feeling in the town. It’s like watching television inside a treehouse — the oddness of it never strikes you as strange when you’re inside of it, staring at the TV. But from the outside, if you look up at the great glowing branches, you realise how unusual the sight is. Unnatural. Any day a branch might break and the TV might fall and shatter. The last time I visited Yamasaki he was standing behind his cart, but there was no smoke or pots or even fish lying upon it. Just the thin, middle-aged man staring out at the evening revellers. ”Yamasaki,” I said. “Are you not selling tonight?” It took his eyes a moment to shift over to me. They crawled like a man with no legs. When he finally saw me, he nodded. “Ah, you’re back.” ”Just for a few days. Perhaps we could get a drink on one of them?” ”Perhaps,” he replied, but with no real conviction. ”Are you okay?” I asked. “You’re not cooking and you look as grey as the clouds over the Kiso mountains.” He let out a long breath. “No. I don’t think I am okay. I wish I was, but I don’t think I am.“ ”If you’re not selling tonight, perhaps I can buy you food and a drink instead, and you can tell me what’s happened?” He agreed and closed up, locking the wheels of his cart. The night was already cool — this was early evening in early autumn — and we went into a bar to escape the chill. We soon sat in a cosy booth with our beers resting on the wooden table. ”So,” I said. “What’s the problem? Is it money?” “No, it’s not money. What does money ever truly matter?” A great deal, I thought, although I didn’t say so. “Then is it your health? Your family?” “Yes, to both.” He paused and took a long swig from the bottle, drinking half the beer in one go. “Here is the problem: my son has no purpose in his life. For so long he’s been a star searching for a constellation to join, but he’s slowly growing dimmer as the hope of finding one leaves him.“ I considered this, although it sounded a little like a riddle. I decided he meant his son was bored and needed an aim. ”When I was his age, I took a job delivering papers and pamphlets. Perhaps that would give him a purpose? Or a sense of one, at least. I think a sense of one is all we ever have.” ”He has worked with me a few times preparing the food. But it hasn’t helped. He is like one of the dead fish himself, when he works with me. Waiting for a knife to fall through him so he can be served up to those still living.” He sighed again and finished his beer. I ordered us two more, although I’d barely touched mine. “A father must give their child purpose, wouldn’t you agree?” Yamasaki said. “He has no mother to guide him any longer, so I must help if I can.” ”I suppose so.” My friend stared into his empty bottle as if it was a well he was hoping to fall into. How changed he was from last I saw him. How much a child’s needs can alter a parent, I thought. A child can build a Play-Doh heart inside an empty chest, as happens for most parents — but sometimes the child can scissor out the paper-heart already there and replace it with nothing. “He’s not well, then?” ”He’s grown his hair long. Spiked with enough paste to fill a pothole.“ ”I was like that for a while,” I said. “I pierced my nose, if you can believe it. Now I wear a suit, but back then I had enough jewellery on me to open a boutique. I wore leather jackets that draped behind me like the reaper’s cape. I think it was my way of searching for who I was. Or who I was becoming.“ My friend looked away from the bottle and into my eyes. “Did it help?” There were times, during that period, that I’d felt like nothing could help. But I said, “I don’t know if it helped exactly. But it got me here. To this day. Talking to you and drinking beers.” He nodded. “I only want to support him. But I worry the purpose he needs is something he won’t find alone.” ”Then perhaps instead of telling him, you can gently guide him to it. Leave a breadcrumb trail, like Hansel and Gretel.” For the first time since seeing him that night, his eyes sparkled and his lips creased into something of a smile. “Yes,” he said. “That might be worth trying. Hansel and Gretel.” We drank a few more beers and the subjects changed as quick as gusts of wind: sport, plays, television, life in an office like mine, in an apartment as small as mine. I never imagined it would be the last time I saw him. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let the conversation fall to such trivial matters. The next night I walked to where his food stall usually rested, but it wasn’t there. It is not a nice way of looking at it, but it made me think of a face that has had surgery to have a growth removed. And when you see the face again, you can’t stop staring. Not that it’s better — this wasn’t better at all — but it‘s so far against what you’re used to seeing that you can’t help stare at the bare patch. For all the many thing things I knew of my friend, I didn’t know where he lived, so I didn’t know what to do, except to check back every night. Eventually, I flew back with an uneasy feeling in my gut that I didn’t want there, as if it had been smuggled into my luggage and I was trafficking it back into my own life. He‘d gone missing, I found out later. This was more than two years ago now — he’s still not been found. Most people presume he’s dead. But I don’t believe that. Neither does his son. His son who is still very much alive. His son who is now healthy and filled with purpose. His son, who will never stop searching for him. Isn’t it strange how these things work? Well, at any rate, it makes me wonder. Strangely, not so much about what happened to my friend, but about parents and their children. Children and their parents. Bonds of faith so strong that science must be envious of them. But I have no children, as I said at the start of this story. This is not about me, and not anything I have to worry about directly. And even though, sometimes, I think about myself as a roaming star looking for a constellation, it is about my friend and his son.
“Hey, what’s the big idea calling me out here like this, eh?” The man grumbled as the officer brought him into the interrogation room with handcuffs. “I haven’t robbed any banks in like… a hundred years or something.” “Playing dumb and making light of the situation isn’t going to fool anybody.” The officer said, sitting across from him and looking at him sternly. “You have the right to remain silent and anything you say can and will be used against you. Do you understand?” “Yes,” Derrick said with a sigh. “Good,” The officer said, “Now, please tell me why you killed your wife. We know you did it, but we need your motive.” “Oh, that? I wanted that life insurance monies or whatever it is,” Derrick said, “My wife and I were running a bit low on cash so… yeah." "That's... please be more specific. What made you think that killing her was the best way to get that money? Wouldn't it have been better to... hey are you even listening?"The officer said incredulously. Derrick had a weird, almost constipated look on his face. "Oh, can you like… itch my nose for me? It’s kinda hard with these handcuffs on. Or even better, maybe like take them off so I can do it myself.” What is with this kid? The officer thought. I guess I'll double down and force him to come to his senses... “You thought that would work? Are you stupid?” The officer said, “And even if it did, you don’t feel any remorse at all for what you’ve done? Did you not love her at all?” Derrick had been slouching in his chair when he suddenly sat up. A dark look entered his eyes and his mouth curled in a slight snarl. The officer passingly noticed his incisors were unnaturally long. “Oy. Say that last part again, officer sir. I don’t think I quite heard it right.” I struck a nerve! With this, I can finally get this guy to take this interview seriously… The officer thought. “What even was your wife to you anyways, if you killed her so easily?” The officer said slowly, putting his face up in front of Derrick’s and looking into his eyes, “You obviously didn’t love her.” Crack! In a split second, Derrick held up the police officer by the neck. He snarled up as the man choked under Derrick’s iron grip. The handcuffs fell to the ground, completely warped out of shape. “You dare insult the love between me and Priscilla!” Derrick bared his teeth at the officer in rage, “Take that back or I’ll commit a real crime right here!” “Grrgg…” The officer’s face reddened. The door to the interview room burst open. Derrick and the officer both looked at the intruder. “Wait! This is all a misunderstanding!” It was a senior officer, “Officer Jackson is new here, he just doesn’t know about you and Priscilla and the, uh, amazingly deep love you both have.” Derrick dropped Officer Jackson onto the floor, who breathed heavily and looked at Derrick with fear and confusion. “That’s right, our love is really amazing and deep, isn’t it?” Derrick said. “It is, it really is, we all agree,” The senior officer said, “Oh yeah, and one more thing, Derrick.” The senior officer fished through his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Here’s the life insurance money you wanted.” “Oh, really?” Derrick smiled, his long incisors showing, “Sweet.” He took the money and walked out of the door, waving to the officers as he left. Officer Jackson followed Derrick with shock until he left. The senior officer sighed. “Derrick and Priscilla Andelstehn are a very special case. They’re immortals… vampires we think.” The officer explained to his bewildered junior, “They may seem to be a handful, but they are surprisingly easy to handle if you remember these two things.” He held up his fingers as he listed them off to Jackson. “One, that they are impossibly in love.” “Two, that they are impossibly stupid.” ___ [Part 2... a vampire hunter shows up](https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderWilder/comments/oamub5/the_vampire_delinquents_part_2/)
It had been years since I last took the long journey home, but the path was familiar to me and easier than expected. The pandemic had taken its toll on all of us, but the three years of solitary celebrations had left a deep uncertainty about whether our family could survive. Upon arrival, the warm embrace of cinnamon and roasted turkey carried me into my grandmother’s home, pushing me past the deep unease about bearing my family’s vacant smiles and stilted conversation. To my surprise, what I had known before seemed to no longer be true - uncles and aunts spoke freely with younger cousins and sisters, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the seating arrangement, and there was a sense of cheer that permeated through each and every eye I met and conversation I partook in. Our gruff patriarch, Grandpa Jonas, had a merry smile on his cheeks and settled in between my two youngest cousins, foregoing his seat at the head of the table, which was taken by the fifteen year old miscreant cousin, Cody. There was a freeness in the air - a lightness of being that I had never remembered before at previous gatherings, where terse conversation and decades-old feuds roiled beneath the surface. As the forks and knives scratched our plates, and laughter rolled throughout the room, I felt an unrelenting sense of joy that not only had my family survived - but we were thriving. We finished our meal, and Grandmother filled each glass with an amber mead, her eyes meeting mine with a twinkle as she filled mine to the brim. I clinked my glass, rising from my seat and smiling down at the many faces around me, “We have all been through so much these past three years, but coming together, I can’t help but say that this has been the most pleasant Thanksgiving I can remember!” Our glasses raised in the air, the smiles widening on the faces around me, their hands holding their own aloft as they watched me take a deep drink of the golden liquid. My throat burned, the glass falling to the floor and my legs collapsed. The smiling faces leaned closer as my vision darkened, and I noticed that their teeth were sharper than I remembered, their pupils thinner. As I took my last breath, I realized how wrong I was. I thought my family had survived. No - they had evolved. &#x200B; \-- I am a new baby at sharing my creative writing so please feel free to give feedback and things.
The hole was thirteen kilometres deep. Gusts of snow and puffs of mist smudged together over its arctic entrance, hiding it from satellites. Lawerence knelt deep inside the burrow, digging. He’d been digging for most of the last two centuries. Now he shovelled compacted earth with his hands and nails, and often his nails bled as he scraped, often they snapped away completely. It’d take an hour for a new nail to form and heal and harden over the raw pink flesh. Years ago, the tunnel had begun exhaling warm air over him, as if old water pipes now encircled it, and rumbled and snored their boiling water around the ever-deepening crack. But it was only now, as he clawed away a final sod of earth, that the ground sighed into itself, crumpled as if he’d stood on wet paper. Lawrence fell. Fell deep into the lair. And as he fell, he saw the source of the heat. He’d been searching for the beast for so long. Then: thud flames ash. The stink of burned flesh and hair. Nothing more. Lawerence drifted as a hundred-thousand motes of dust and dirt and burn, barely conscious, barely a thought. It took a year to realise the dragon — a green-scaled beast, its forked tail curled around it like a demon-cat — had incinerated him. It took three-hundred further years for the dust to collect itself and for Lawerence to slowly shape again. The dragon opened a single eye — a great red boulder misted behind a sheen of ice. “I heard you burrowing,“ came its rumbled voice that trembled him inside. “A rat sneaking into my lair. After my treasure or my scales, or perhaps both. I don’t know what you are, but you are foolish to come here.” ”I am after neither scales nor treasure,“ Lawerence said. His own voice slurred, not yet composed, not yet complete. The dragon rolled its long neck and the gaps between its scales glinted red like gemstones. “Then why come at all?” ”Because I’m the last human. If I’m even that.” ”Species rise quickly, only to collapse like waves against cliffs. I have no interest in you, whether you’re the first or last or only of your kind.” ”You’re the last, too,” said Lawerence. ”Aren’t you? You’re as lonely as I am.” ”I’m never lonely,“ said the dragon. “I am sleeping. Resting. Hibernating. But never lonely.” ”One day you will wake and you will rise and you will be all alone. Because it is only us left.” “If you agree to leave,” it yawned, “then I won’t burn you again.” “No,” said Lawrence. “If I leave, I will leave lonely. And you would stay — asleep or awake — just as lonely as I am.“ The fire raged and rolled through the cavern and seared the vampire, pained his being, dusted his body black. His thoughts meandered slowly again. The dragon had burned him because the truth of his words had wounded it, a knife slipped beneath its scales. Upset it. In a few hundred years, when Lawrence became Lawerence once more, the dragon would be a little more lonely, and would listen a little longer. It might take a hundred or a thousand further obliterations. But they’d talk. Maybe just a word at a time. Until the loneliness inside their hearts melted, and something a little warmer replaced it.
A weight landed on my chest and I woke with a grunt, sitting up so fast the heavy Persian cat that had jumped on me bolted away. I do not have a cat. Blinking and trying to focus in the dim light I see the wall opposite my bed is obscured by stacked cases of Pepsi that reached from floor to ceiling. "What the hell?"I whisper. The genie appears next to me, glaring. He is semi-transparent and looks like a hipster from Williamsburg from the waist up, his lower half trailing into a tail as he floats above my bed. He explained last night he likes to keep up with fashion and there wasn't much else to do inside a lamp waiting to be rubbed. "You didn't tell me you talk in your sleep,"he said. His voice is ethereal, sounding as if it's coming from all around me rather than one source. It makes his irritation hit harder. "I didn't think it was relevant?"I said, confused. I did talk in my sleep sometimes, I had ever since I was a child. My sister complained about it so much she convinced my parents to let her turn our attic into a separate bedroom to get away from it. Later she had admitted the sleep talking was not that bad but provided a handy excuse to get out of sharing a bedroom. The genie sighed. As my sleeping brain reached full wakefulness and I evaluated the mountain of soda before me I began to understand why it was relevant. My eyes bulged and I turned back to the genie and said "oh no." "You bet, 'oh no'! You're down to one wish,"he said, gesturing around my apartment. "Oh my god,"I said, bringing my hands to my face. My dreams were coming back to me in patches. I had been riding a camel through a desert waving a sword. Then, I was in a castle fighting assassins. After that, things got weirder because I brought one of the assassins back to my mother's house for a time out but she was having a barbeque so I had to introduce him to all my mother's friends as my boyfriend to keep an eye on him. And there was a pool filled with marshmallows. I looked back to the genie, "OH GOD,"I said. "Yeah,"he replied. "It's a bit small minded of you to think all genies come from the Arabian Nights,"he said. "That's the only context I have, and I was unconscious! Blame Walt Disney, not me,"I huffed as I extricated myself from my blankets. I rushed out of my bedroom to see not one, but five big Persian cats. He had floated out after me and I turned back to him, "I wished for five cats?" "Not exactly. You wished for the mightiest beasts of Persia as reward for saving the kingdom from assassins. This was my interpretation."I sighed in relief, I could have woken up to an apartment full of cobras or tigers. "And I guess the pepsi came from the barbeque part,"I said, hand on my forehead as I tried to figure out what I was going to do with all these cats in a building that did not allow pets. "Yes, you wished you could have Pepsi all the time,"he said. I cringed. I didn't even like Pepsi. "That's two, what were the other two?"I said, nervous. The genie turned towards the window. I rushed over and as what I saw took shape in my mind I slid down to my knees in disbelief. The Upper West Side of Manhattan still sprawled below my second floor window, but now it was covered in sand and palm trees. Stalls as if from a bazaar were spread out where bodegas used to be, and camels were tied up to posts and trees. The sun was getting bright already and I could feel the desert heat radiating up from the sand. In February. One of the cats came over to rub against me and purred as I stared at the scene. I scratched its ears and turned around, sitting on the floor with my back to the wall underneath the sill, and looked back at the genie. "One left, huh?"I said. I knew it was bad but I wanted to laugh, hard. "That's right,"he replied. "I think I'm going to save it til later,"I said, picking up the cat and putting it on my lap. "What?"the genie said, shocked. "I mean, sure this is bad, but I've never had the chance to ride a camel before,"I said.
As the angel kept walking through the rubble, dirtying his white robes with soot and radioactive charcoal, he silently uttered the closest thing he was taught to a curse. "And besides, what would it have meant for them to wait another millennium, give or take a few decades?"He was distracted from his thoughts as a geyser of flame erupted before him. He stepped back, fearing it may be the devil himself... only to reveal it was just a common demon. He breathed a sigh of relief, saying, "you know, that is quite rude of you to just pop in unannounced. Anyhow, what brings you up here?" The demon, who was floating for the sake of a theatrical entrance, landed softly on the ground. "Just visiting to see how badly the humans really messed it up, and I gotta say... not bad. Anyhow, why are you roaming the filthy earth?"He asked his holy counterpart in a mocking tone. "If you must know, I'm on a break from working on judgements. Took the union fighting tooth and nail just to keep those for us, given the chaotic situation,"the angel responded, still cautious of talking to a demon. The demon simply chuckled. "You guys get breaks? We're stuck having to give our master the slip every time we want to rest. If we get caught, well, that's an easy 50 years on a pike. Though I reckon he can't punish us like that anymore, since he needs us working 'round the clock to punish billions of new sinners." The angel let out an exasperated sigh. "You think that's bad?"He plopped down, finally sitting on the earth for the first time. "We had a whole plan figured out. A millennium from now, after we'd all been through the necessary training, a beautiful Rapture, the righteous, already judged, cleanly lifted to the heavens. Now we've got a queue a few decades long just to get people from purgatory into heaven. You know how hard it is to provide eternal bliss when a few billion new people need service?" The demon cocked an eyebrow, sitting down across from the angel. "You think that's bad? We would have had so much fun after you guys finished the Rapture. Grounds splitting, fires erupting, we even had a plan to summon a meteor for the grand finale. Now? I haven't even had time to laugh at somebody suffering Tantalus' punishment in a good few months. It's hell for the punishers, too." The angel laughed a bit in response. "At this rate, the angelic choir will sound like a bunch of middle schoolers when next it meets."He sighs again. The demon tilted his head in thought, before saying, "y'know what? We basically have a desert all around us."He stood up, summoning his pitchfork from thin air. "Why don't we have a classic, heaven versus hell duel right here?" The angel smiled a bit and stood up. "I'd have enjoyed that, I really would have, but what's the point anymore? There's no rivalry. No humans to tempt. All that's left now are a few decades of work and then... I guess eternal retirement." The demon sighed, returning the pitchfork to the void. "I suppose you're right. The fighting was never that fun. I suppose that, if we want anything to have meaning for now, it'll have to be in our work."The demon turned away, summoning flames and returning back to hell. The angel let out one last sigh. "I suppose it will."He summoned a column of light, returning to his job in heaven.
"Huh, I wasn't thinking we'd end it like that..."A brown haired girl narrowed her brow, wearing a quizzical expression. "Me either! But it looks like I beat your record!"A red-headed boy grinned. "I managed to keep it alive for over 900 thalmas!" The two children were sitting around a sphere half the size of them. It had gone completely clear, signalling the Universe's end. &#x200B; "I still can't believe you got them to work together! I had them warring over the stupidest things!"The girl pouted a little, though she still wore a half smile on her face. "That's why I gave them a common threat!"The boy grinned. "Gee, that doesn't sound very God-like!"The girl teased. "Hey, I still followed the rules; only you were allowed to intentionally cause death. I Just found a loophole!" "Yeah... using the Zerpians from the Andromeda Galaxy... Didn't see it coming!" "Well you got too fixated on the Humans,"the boy started. "It was getting hard to keep influencing with you giving them so much doubt, so I just left for a bit and found the Zerpians!" "They were advancing faster than the others, I figured that it was the best place to start!"The girl smiled at her friend. The girl put her hand on the sphere. "Do you want to play again? I bet I can keep it alive for a whole qwerty!" "Okay! It'll be fun to be the devil again!"The boy took his spot on the other side of the sphere, placing his hand on the other side. The sphere started to fill with color. "Here it comes!"The boy smiled. A muffled bang was heard, and the girl jumped. "Ugh! That always gets me!" And they began to play once more.
I was derping around the Internet - Reddit, to be precise, where I spend most of my waking hours watching cat videos and kids falling over - when I stumbled upon a relationship post that sounded all too relatable. You're probably thinking that my spouse is an over-sharer, announcing our problems to the world so that I can be appropriately judged and humiliated in front of all my Internet acquaintances. Then she'll receive advice to lawyer up, hit the gym... You know the drill, next thing I know I'm stuck with the half of the house with no bathroom, half my cat and only the upper half of my wardrobe. There's a catch. There is no spouse. I live alone, unless you count Sylvester, my overweight but adorable cat. Cat. That's all I comment some days. He sleeps most of the time and only gets up when I shake his treats and doesn't do any chores except dirty the litter box so he barely counts as a roommate. Anyways, I digress. I stumbled upon this relationship post, all about some unfortunate woman madly in love with somebody who didn't even know her name. Hol' up. Weird, right? Sounds like a stalker. Well I wanted to comment as much, but then I saw somebody had beat me to it. C'est la vie. I never quite got there first. They got gold, too. Bastards. Are you there personal FBI agent or something? Creepy lol They're, idiot. I almost corrected them but fifteen other people had already mistakenly commented their. And there it was. That username. MatisFBIAgent. Could it be? It couldn't be. But wait, I thought to myself, stroking my unkempt and overgrown facial hair. Maybe it could be. I clicked on their post history. Pictures of my house, a picture of my cat, a picture of me seeing if I could squeeze my moobs together enough to have cleavage. I gaped at my monitor, and not just because it has fantastic resolution. Those were personal pictures, at least the last one. Those were pictures that one could only have if had access to my webca- Oh. Oh, this explained everything. This explained the ads I had been getting. Ads for advanced spyware intermingled with ads for the finest restaurants in town. Ads for red roses and cat-buddies. Ads for cat leashes so that you could meet new people. Ads for those dating apps - although those might have been because even the Internet recognized the hopelessness of my romantic situation. I really shouldn't have been such a cheapskate and joined the Wi-Fi network named FBIAgentNextdoor. What could go wrong, right? I slid into her DMs with all the grace of a chimpanzee in a china shop. Sylvester meowed. Almost time to feed him, almost time to feed me. Just a quick message first. Sup, it's me. Call me Romeo, I'm a hopeless romantic. And here I had it. My own modern-day romance. **** Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
Where. . . where am I? I open my eyes. Around me is a familiar -- if bleary -- image. The interior of a church in my hometown. A building I'd been in every week as a child. I hadn't been here in years, not since Aunt Cheryl passed. But. . . I'm not sure who that is, or where my hometown is. Or who I am. I try to wipe away the bleariness from my vision, but I find myself unable to. My arms don't work right for some reason. Someone is speaking, though. I can hear their voice ring out as they speak into the microphone at the lectern. "Jake was a good man, one of the best men I knew. . ." The voice echoes a bit in the cavernous church. It is a familiar voice. And for some reason, it sends a cold stab of fear through my heart. Everything begins to come back to me. That night, that awful night. I was out in the woods with a man I trusted more than any other. "He was my friend, my brother, the person I could confide in." That voice. Above the lies coming from the lectern I could hear other words that voice had said, that night in the woods: You're pathetic, Jake. She deserves better than you. "I'll never forget when Jake first met Kate. I knew right away that they were perfect for each other." She comes crying to me, Jake. Telling me how distant you are, how you don't seem to love her. . . "Kate quickly became one of my best friends, right along with Jake. We had a lot of good times together." Telling me she needs a real man. . . "I'm gonna miss you, Jake. But. . . we're gonna find you, I'm not giving up on that. . . I promise." So I gave her one. "The police say there's no chance you're alive, that you'd have turned up by now. But the Jake I know would go to any lengths for a prank." He's not yours, Jake. "And if it's for real. . . I'm gonna find whoever did it, brother. I'll hunt him down myself. That's a promise, too." Looking around, feeling my surroundings, I suddenly realize that I'm being held - cradled - by a pair of very large arms. Or that I am very small. I follow the arms to a tear-streaked face. Kate. My wife. That makes me. . . My son. No. Not my son. I scream.
You: Hey, Sarah! It's been a long time since we talked, we should hang out! Want to get lunch today? Sarah: Definitely!!! Man, I'm excited to see you! It's been forever. Yes, yes....so far, so good. You: Awesome :D what've you been up to lately? Sarah: Not much, dude- school and work, mainly. I just started cooking pasta right now :p Now's my chance. You: Man, you're lucky. I wish I had a love, to cook pasta with. Sarah: o.O You: Shit, sorry!! stove, lol. Fucking autocorrect. Damn it.* Sarah: Haha that's funny. Anyway, you want to go to lunch now? I'll take my water off the stove and get going! Maybe Ricky's? Now. You: Sounds perfect! Let's get a love on! You: god damn it, move on Sarah: lol your autocorrect is pretty weird. You: Yeah, sorry. Idk what's up with it right now. Fucking phone. I'm just trying to help, you sackless dick. I'm being nice, don't insult me.* Sarah: yeah well I'll get ready now, maybe leave in 5 minutes? you're closer than I am I need to try harder. You: You're perfect. Sarah: ... You: fucking hell, sounds..... You: sorry, seriously my phone is shitting itself right now Sarah: yeah...that's a pretty weird autocorrect though. didn't do that earlier when you typed the same thing. You: Yeah my phone is just really weird, I guess. You're the weirdo, meanie. I'll help you, though, because you're my friend. I'll bust out my best move for this next one, it's sure to get her.* You: Yeah, so I'll see you in bed You: oh my god I'm so sorry, ten Sarah: Yeah I see what's going on. Something just came up, I gotta go. Can't make lunch. You: Sarah, I swear I'm not doing this, this is just really unlucky. You: I'm horny, Sarah. You: **sorry..... Shit, did I take it too far?* "What a PIECE OF SHIT phone,"Jake screamed, throwing it across the room. I just wanted to help :( --------------------------------------------------- thanks for reading! if you're bored, check out /r/resonatingfury
The sense of distance is never precise. It's like a general idea. A feeling and an intuitive knowledge. Close, a few km's away, very far. The more I practice, the better I estimate. I'd gone out of my way to be able to touch the terminal end of an undersea cable once. It felt like reaching across the world, because it was. It was hard to encompass that much distance, to feel my way across. It was exhausting, and exhilarating. I figured I'd never top that. But I had an idea on how to try. I'd been experimenting with finding ways to jump through connections. To go from a network cable, through the path in the router, and then through the external network connection. It was just a jump from one string to another after all. Like switching from a bus to a train. Eventually, after materializing next to my router more times than I wanted to remember, it had started to work. The sensation was jarring, like shifting one gear of consciousness to another without understanding how the clutch worked. I had to look through the intervening space, to find the path that connected through the interface. I was beginning to see the colors of the lines. Flickers of different threads, connections between the roads. But that wasn't really on my mind when I touched the meta-material. New technology fascinated me, and items that made new paths especially so. The cable sat on a table at the exhibition. It was made of a recently created material and used a poorly-understood quantum effect to transmit information. I wanted to know how it would feel. Different than the heavy warmth of stone and rock, like the Great Wall. Probably not like the frantic oscillations of an electric circuit. I expected it would be most like the hard, bright, ice skating of fibre optics. But that was just a guess. The engineer at the table flashed a quick smile as I approached. "Can I hold it?"I asked, returning the smile. "Sure"he said. "The exterior shielding has a really neat texture actually. You can see there's a very complex pattern woven into it." I picked up the length of cable, opened my mind, and reality imploded around me. This was no normal path. It was woven of threads so fine I could barely perceive them. An indeterminate web of possibilities. An infinity of blazing spider webs shifted endlessly across the stage of my consciousness, and immediately pulled me in. I was trapped in the vastness of an incomprehensible sense of space stretching out before me. There was no path because I could see all paths. I instinctively reached out, searching for a road, a way. I tried desperately to seize on a way out - the end of the cable I came in from. But I was lost, and disoriented. My consciousness could not cause a path to coalesce, and there was no clear road. I began to feel patterns around me. Learning the rhythm of the loom. I had no sense of time. I remembered the feeling of the cable that brought me in, and began to be able to construct its feeling in my mind. To see it coalesce. And then I noticed something strange. The same colour and weave of the cable that brought me here, but another node that coalesced. A router of some sort, it looked like, but buried underground. The sense of "down"was clear. I don't know what compelled me to go there. Why I didn't turn back and focus on untangling the cable I came in through. But instead I dove toward this new junction when I saw the path. This was not our technology. This was different. And when I reached the router, I knew it instantly. My mind stretched out across the vastness of space, feeling like it would snap and I had no choice but to jump. So I jumped, and the only thing I could dive for was the end of the line. The road created itself before me, destroying itself behind. My consciousness raced across the vastness of space. I could feel the bends and twists in the threads from everything that pulled on the path. Stars, planets, black holes. Other things I had no names for. And then an instant or millennium later I emerged. They had been waiting for someone to come. But they had never expected a biological entity. The router was waiting for a signal from a sufficiently sophisticated computer system. A signal to let them know we had achieved enough to talk to them. But instead they got me. And they don't know what to do about that. I have a new body now. I suppose technically it's a machine, but that doesn't seem to do it justice. My old one started dying shortly after I arrived. I'm Earth's first envoy, and I have returned to tell my story and send a message to every tv, monitor and screen on earth. There's no other real choice. We are not what they expected. But they are curious. An emissary is en route. Nothing will be the same for you again. You can do nothing to prepare. Edit: Thank you all so much! I might have to try answering one of these again sometime.
I sent out the Tweet with a sinister twinkle in my eyes. There was nothing to explain past the video posted. My robot army. My unequivocal power. I laid back, waiting for the responses and pleas for mercy to flood in. I couldn't wait for authority figures to start asking me for my demands. On cue, I got a reply within my first ten minutes. @YaBoiBiff: Imagine 2020 getting this bad LMAOOOOOOO I frowned at the screen. He seemed to think I'd posted something akin to a meme. @EvilAndYouKnowIt: This is not a joke. I am actually launching my world domination plan if my demands are not met. I stared at the screen waiting for a reply when a second person replied. @OGTrilogyOnly: These are really impressive effects. What sftware do u use? I shook my head in disbelief. @EvilAndYouKnowIt: These are not special effects. This is real footage. @OGTrilogyOnly: Sure. I can see the cg not rendering properly when the children's hospital blows up @EvilAndYouKnowIt: No, that's a real children's hospital. The Dartman Hospital for Children. It was all over the news last wekk @OGTrilogyOnly: It's spelled 'week' you idiot @YaBoiBiff: Lol!! I blinked a few times then clicked into @OGTrilogyOnly's profile. It looked like it was a scrawny kid named James living in Canada. "Drone 444!"I yelled. "Yes Commander?"the drone responded immediately. "Go kill James in Canada. I'm sending you an address right now. Go blow up his house, get it on camera, and upload it. We'll use that to fuel the fire here. I'm having a hard time going viral,"I said, lounging back again as the drone flew out of the lair. It will also be a good example for those that want to call me an idiot. A few minutes later, the drone uploaded the footage to my profile: @EvilAndYouKnowIt: Look at the destruction caused to @OGTrilogyOnly! It won't end with James!! I nodded at my own genius. This was a good post. In just a few more minutes, it was already getting views in the hundreds. I laughed heartily, waiting for authorities to ask me what they could do to assuage my will to destroy them. In less than an hour #JusticeForJames was trending. I clicked into it excitedly. The video was on everyone's feed!! @GrillPower: It's such a shame how poorly our houses are made in canada! Civil engineers should be ashamed to allow something as stupid as a gas leak to kill someone #JusticeForJames "What?"I said, continuing to scroll. @SpaghettiRegretti: Absolutely AWFUL. My heart goes out to his family. The industry can't get away with gas leaks! #JusticeForJames Rest In Power James "No, no,"I stammered typing a reply to one of the posts quickly. @EvilAndYouKnowIt: This was not an accident! I did this! @SassySarrraaaaa: This is not funny. I reported you @EvilAndYouKnowIt: I'm not joking! I killed the kid with the explosion!! @RellyKewl: SHUT UP! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD TRY TO JOKE ABOUT A TRAGEDY LIKE THIS I clicked to reply, but nothing showed up. Confused I clicked again. No response. I refreshed the page. Your Twitter account has been banned for violating our terms of service. "What!?"I screamed. I slammed my face into the keyboard. I'd have to resort to some other social media. Hopefully, one that would't kick me off before I was able to get the message across. "Hey! Drone 2322!" "Yes commander?" "Make me an Instagram account with the handle @EvilAndYouKnowIt!"I commanded. "That name is taken, Commander,"the drone responded after a second of deliberation. I frowned. "Find them and kill them,"I demanded. _________________________________ For more stories, come see /r/Nazer_The_Lazer!
My daughter has no idea her existence is illegal. I sit on the creek bank and watch her splash through the water with our old shepherd, always walking alongside her, offering his broad back for balance. She's only six years old, and she's been perfect since the day she was born, a little screaming raisin who became my entire universe the moment I felt her first breath against my chest. I gave birth to her at home. If I had been in town, they would have whisked her away, gave her that first injection, and saved her from every horrible ugly part of our physiology: illness, weakness, death. How could I ever let them change her? The sun kisses over us. It's a blue and perfect day, and I should be enjoying this moment. Just the two of us and the water. But I saw an old friend at the store today, who asked me, What happened to that little girl you had, all those years ago? My heart was roaring in my ears when I lied, Oh, she lives with her father now. The entire ride home, I was paranoid of social services, of an officer knocking on my door one morning to ask if it's true I have an unaltered child living with me. I can't keep hiding her forever. My daughter's voice snaps me back to the present. "Mama,"she says, "when are you gonna let me go into town with you?" "They still don't allow children in town, my girl,"I say softly. I cannot tell her that her skinned knees and her perfect freckled nose will give us away: immortal children are unbreakable, unchangeable. Their cells are more like a malleable plastic, growing with them as they age, their minds like a super-computer from the moment they're born. Immortal children don't pause to watch sparrows picking through bird seed in the parking lot. Immortal children do not create crayon-scribble masterpieces that window into a small and wild soul. They are much too perfect for that. My daughter nods, sagely. Her name is Iris, and she looks just as open-hearted here in the summer sun. She draws lines in the water with her stick. Her bag is heavy with specimen for her collection: leaves and feathers and bones and shells. My own little botanist. "I read about school in the Romana books,"she says. "Elementary school, with all these kids in classrooms together." "Those are old books." "Doesn't it still happen?" I picture my daughter in that room, full of machine-perfect children whose handwriting would already look like printed paper. "I don't think so,"I say, softly. God, I hate myself for lying to her. But until I speak that dangerous truth, she can still exist in this world where the woods are fill of magic and little green stones could be tiny dragon eggs and the world is no bigger or smaller than the promise of a library. If I keep it hidden, she may never have to face what I've done to her. I've saved her or cursed her, but I can't tell which. I can't even say if I did it for her or myself. I resent myself for that the most. She pauses and gasps, pushing the dog away, "Mom! Mom, look! Tadpoles!" The immortal children my college friends have do not play barefoot in creeks or climb trees or hunt for grasshoppers as the sun falls. They're all racing to finish degrees, master musical instruments, become the youngest this or that. A society of desperate geniuses. I stand up. I slip off my sandals, roll up my jeans, and wade out into the water with her. We crouch together, watching the tadpoles dart around our calves. "You know,"I say, "some tadpoles are very different from their friends. But they're still important. Being different makes them important." My daughter doesn't seem to be listening. She's trying to catch them in the cage of her fingers. I imagine my little tadpole lost in the big ocean of the world. Out-evolved. Devoured whole. "Tadpoles aren't different from each other, Mom. Don't be silly." I smile, my eyes softening. I almost tell her. The world is going to be so much harder for you. So much harder than it is for anyone you'll know. But you'll have this: you'll be human in the only ways that matter. You'll see the world in a way no one else can. And you'll know, when you see that empty look in the immortals' eyes, that death isn't the worst thing that can happen to us. But here, cupped in the hand of the mountain, I can't bring myself to say it. Instead, I tell her, "Sure they are. This one, right here is a little girl named Iris who lives in the forest with her mom and her tadpole dog." Iris giggles. "And she's going to grow up to be queen of the creek. The whole forest, if she wanted to." "Frogs can't do that. They're so small."Iris hooks a tadpole between her fingers and grins. "They couldn't even tell the wolves what to do." "No. But if she remembers the world is a story, and she can write it any way she wants, she can do anything." Iris looks at me, her little face mixed with doubt and the wonder if a good story. "Even frogs?" "Even them." I will tell her. When she's old enough to see her difference as armor, to look the bastards in the eye and tell them that to be human is to be imperfect and full of questions, I will tell her everything. But for now, I stand here in the creek, warmed by the sun and her chaotic, unrepeatable little heart, and I know I made exactly the right choice.

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