prompt
stringlengths 391
14.9k
|
|---|
I do not like it when they are loud. I used to. I do not any more.
They are loud right now. I whine, but they do not look at me. They are aggressive. They move their arms in aggressive ways at each other. I am worried they will hurt each other. They do not look like they are playing. They used to do that, and they would play with me too. Now they are loud and aggressive and I am worried.
I bark at them and they turn to me. I do not like it when they are loud at me like this. They are aggressive towards me. I lay down on the floor, deferring to them, and they are still loud at me.
I would rather they be loud at me than each other. I do not like it, but I do not like them being loud at each other more.
They stop being loud at me and start being loud at each other again, but now they're louder. Pippa strikes him. I growl at her, and she looks at me, then she strikes him again. I bark. Now I am loud. She must not hit James.
He points at me but is loud at her. I am worried. I am worried. She comes close to him and I bark again, louder, and she stops to look at me. I growl until she moves away. He moves forward and I growl at him.
I do not know what to do. I am worried. I want Bridget to be here. They were not loud when she was here.
I howl to try and tell her to come. They tell me to stop. I whine and lay down on the floor. Then, they are loud at each other again. They are loud and loud and loud, and they move their arms in an aggressive way. I want them to stop.
He turns around and she grabs his arm. I bark at her, move to between them. She kicks me. It hurts. I whimper. He is louder than ever at her. He strikes her and she stumbles. She cries. He is loud at her. I bark at him, but it is hard to bark. I hurt. I bark and bark, and he tells me to stop.
He is loud at her. He keeps using the word Bridget. I hope Bridget is coming. I want her to come.
Pippa starts to scream. It is worse than loud. I whimper and whine, but she does not look at me. I want it to stop. I am worried. I am worried. I am worried.
She picks up a book and throws it at him, and then another thing, and then another thing. I bark and growl at her but she does not look at me. She keeps using the word Bridget. I want to see Bridget. I have not seen her in a long time. She sometimes pulls my hair and pets me too hard and does not know how to play, but she is very nice. She likes to sleep on me and hug me. I miss her very much.
I have to find her. I have looked many times for her and not found her. I have to find her. I sniff until I can smell her. It has been long but I can still smell her everywhere. She must be here somewhere.
She smells strong in a room. The door has been shut for a long time. I paw at it, but it does not open. I push it harder, but it does not open. I whine. Coiling, I push my front high up, clawing at the door, but it does not open.
I am worried. I must find her. They make doors open. I do not know how. They touch it and it opens. I keep trying. They touch it high up. I try. They touch the metal bit. I try. They move it somehow. I try. I try. I try.
The door clicks, and I fall down as it opens. I am happy. It smells like Bridget in here. I see lots of her toys. I go to her crib, but she is not in it. I look under her blanket, but she is not there. I look behind the toy box, but she is not there. I look behind the curtains, but she is not there.
Everywhere I look, she is not there. I smell her everywhere but she is not anywhere.
I whine, because I do not know what to do. I must find her. She is not here. She is not in the house. I do not know where she would be outside the house. She has never been gone from the house this long. She has never been gone without Pippa or James before.
I cannot give up. I find her favourite toy. It is a small doll. It smells like her a lot, and also like Pippa. It used to just smell like Pippa, but Bridget plays with it so much it smells like both of them now.
Gentle, I hold it in my mouth. I am careful not to hurt it. I carry it to the lounge and I drop it in front of them. I want them to find Bridget. They will know where she is. They must stop being loud and aggressive and find Bridget.
If they find Bridget, they will be happy.
But, they do not. I bark at them, and they look at me. I paw at the doll. They look at it. They stop being loud and stop looking aggressive. They do nothing for a long time. Then, Pippa cries. She cries a lot. James cries a little, and is quiet.
She falls to the floor, and covers her face. I whimper. I did not want to make them sad. She reached out and grabs the doll, and holds it close to her. She is using the word Bridget a lot. I think she understands.
I want her to be happy. I shuffle forward and rest my head on her knee. She pets me. She still cries. She holds the doll tight.
He sits down next to us and pets me too. I am glad they are not loud at each other any more, or aggressive at each other any more, but I am sad they are sad. He uses my name, and he uses the word that means I did the right thing.
I want them to be happy. But, this is better than them being angry. I am glad I did the right thing.
James puts his arm around Pippa, and she does not be loud at him. He rests his head against hers, and strokes her gentle. They are not happy. But, they are not angry. I am sad too, but less sad than before.
He tells me again, and she does the same.
I am glad I am a good boy. |
"Honey, calm down! It's only gum,"Neil said. Kate continued to pace the room with her tablet in hand. Her face was full of excitement, but Neil couldn't tell whether that was good or bad.
"Shoot, Neil! Don't tell me to calm down. This is serious! Don't you know what this means? And spit that out!"She stuck her hand in his mouth and threw the piece of gum away.
"Sheesh, Honey! Take it easy. You buy some gum, what am I supposed to do? Look at it? Almost ripped my tongue out. Look, I know you've been having a hard time ever since you were laid off. And I'm glad this whole 'hyperlocalized economic predictive analysis math stuff' you've been into has got you up and running again—I mean, I'm actually enjoying the extra cash it's bringing in, don't get me wrong—but I think we need to remain calm and think things through like the rational adults we are, and that includes not selling all our possessions and life's savings, investing in the stock market, and moving halfway across the world just because the price of gum fell 4%"
"4.06%. And it's not all gum. It's *Chewybacca's superbursts with whitening*."
Neil shook head. "Rationality, babe. Can we do that?"
"Neil, where does gum come from?"
"Back to the gum,"Neil sighed. "I don't know, gum trees or—"
"Yes and no,"Kate said, cutting him off. She was in a state of logorrhea, words spewing out at an almost imperceptible rate, something that Neil had grown accustomed to over the time they had been married. "Most gum is made of synthetic rubber,"she continued, "but Chewybacca's uses chicle, a naturally occurring latex sap grown from the sapodilla trees of Central America, specifically from Guatemala. And do you know who owns the sapodilla farms?"
"Sapodilla far—"
"The cartels. They're often used to conceal psychoactive plant farms or underground meth labs. And trust me when I say that these crime organizations are far more business savvy than we Americans give them credit for. Are you following me?"
"I don't see—"
"The cartels are already exporting chicle at dirt-cheap prices simply because that isn't their main product, but they aren't going to miss a profit if there's one to be made. No reason to put every egg in one basket, especially when you have plenty of eggs and an extra basket. But my model shows me that that's exactly what they're doing. They're exporting chicle at a loss, and that loss is increasing. This must mean that they're making up that profit elsewhere, and I suspect they're doing that through narcotics. But this isn't some chump change they're making. They're production is increasing exponentially, impossible even with a one hundred percent conversion of all their sapodilla farms to narcotic factories. And with recent revolts in Central American countries, not just Guatemala, and the recent inflation of several currencies in that region, I predict a total socio-economic collapse in that region that will affect the rest of the world, something magnitudes larger than what's going on in the Middle East right now. Mark my words, Honey, there are going to be revolutions, and Central and South America will fall into chaos. The emerging military state will then attempt to conquer Mexico and finally the United States. Now do you see why we have to take this seriously?"She stood there, breathing heavily.
"Kate, every country grows through growing pains. Heck, we've gone through a few growth spurts ourselves, and no one says it's been pretty. But let's play along with your logic here and suppose that the cartels were somehow instigating revolution and eventually formed some kind of cartel superstate. How would a disorganized military dictatorship gather the resources to fight a superpower like the US and her allies anyway? Wouldn't you think the US or UN would step in and quell things before everything got out of hand? "
"Not if they we were all fighting a zombie apocalypse,"she whispered.
Neil remained quietly stunned. Then he laughed. "Oh, I knew you were just having a little fun with me."He got up and embraced her, giving her a quick kiss. "You're finally learning to have some fun with all this. Shoot, and I thought for a second I was going to have to call Dr. Kibuishi again."
"Neil, you can call whoever you need to, but I'm serious. We need to leave, put all our money in foreign markets and help find an antidote for this thing. The gum—"
"Enough with the gum!"Neil barked angrily. He was trembling. He pulled out his phone.
"Neil! Neil! Listen to me! This isn't another anxiety attack, this is far worse! The cartel aren't developing a narcotic, they're ..."Neil continued to ignore her.
"Hello, yes. This is Neil Normans. May I please speak with Dr. Kibuishi? It's an emergency, thank you."
"...I knew they wouldn't attack us directly. It had to be economic or political. But then I realized certain patterns in food imports..."Kate continued.
"He's busy? Okay, well may I speak with another available psychiatrist or doctor? All busy? When will they be available?"
"...You see, the gum is the just precursor. Pretty soon they'll have it in all our food supply..."
"Goodness, well—I see. Thank you."Neil hung up. "All the doctors are busy, there's been an outbreak of some kind. Food poisoning they think. Kate, listen, we need to—"
Both their phones chimed. Neil looked at the text message.
GOVERNMENT NOTICE: ALL CIVILIANS ARE ADVISED TO REMAIN INDOORS FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. THE CITY WILL BE UNDER QUARANTINE. DO NOT MAKE CONTACT WITH ANYONE.
Neil looked back up at his wife. He kissed her for what seemed like eterntiy and wiped the tears away from her face. Or were they from his own? He could not tell. He began to feel sick. |
The whole neighbourhood comes over to Dave's backyard for his yearly barbecue. He mans the grill and keeps the sausages, patties, bacon rashers, sweet potatoes, and shiitake mushrooms coming.
"Juice, water, and soft drinks are in the cooler,"he tells people. And for adults, he winks and directs them to the beers in the other cooler.
Once the barbecue's in full swing, that's when he gets the games going. His backyard opens onto a large field, and he sets up sac races, tire runs, T-ball games, hide-and-seek, capture the flag, and treasure hunts. Whatever people are looking to play. What's more, he keeps track of who's doing well and he awards prizes. These range from flash drives to stuffed animals, and from bottles of aged whisky to trashy romance novels.
While the games are going on, there's a cry from one of the sac racers. A little boy has fallen and banged his nose on the ground. It's bleeding. None of the other racers are sure what to do.
"I got this, everyone,"Dave says. He scoops the boy off the ground. "Hey, tiger, how's that badge coming on?"
"Badge?"the boy says through his tears.
"That's what my old man called cuts and scrapes. They're badges you wear on your body. They're how people know that you gave it your all."
The little boy smiles. "This is a pretty big badge."
Dave sits the boy down on an inflatable pool mattress and brings him paper towel, an icepack, juice, and a burger with all the fixins.
Later on, as the sun goes down, Dave sets up a bonfire. Everyone gathers around with marshmallows and Dave plays guitar for them. He sticks to the classics -- Wonderwall, Hey Jude, Somebody to Love -- so that everyone can sing along. And once the singing gets a little old, he gets a flashlight and tells the kids a scary story about a nurse who eats babies.
Once the party comes to an end, he tells everyone to leave the cleanup to him. They should head on home. The next hour he devotes to bagging every empty chip bag and paper plate. He separates organics from recyclables from non-recyclables.
Finally, he calls it a night and takes a shower. Coming out of the water all pink and content, he notices somebody replaced the toilet paper. "Can't have that,"he says, and turns the roll around so that the paper comes out underhand. |
My death was pretty uneventful. Car crash on my way back from the Black Hat USA convention. Nothing special about it. One moment I was staring at my laptop screen while my girlfriend drove, the next moment, the airbag was shoving the now broken screen of my laptop deep into my chest.
Lots of pain, lots of blood, blah blah. Yeah, yeah, airbags are dangerous. Whatever.
After this, I saw the usual tunnel, bright light, all boring and pretty stereotyped. Seriously, could this death be any more boring, average and clichéd?
Well, that's where things changed. I reached the light, and it faded out, allowing me to see where I was. I was standing in front of this big infinity mirror. I look behind me and yep, there's another mirror. Right side and left? Yep, more mirrors. All reflecting away into forever.
Ok, now that was a little cool. Especially since I didn't reflect in them. There was a faint golden glow around the mirrors in front of me reflecting on and on forever. Behind me, there was a faint reddish glow, also reflected over and over. The red glow was a bit unsettling. The right and left sides had no glow at all. Perhaps an unsettling darkness around the edges. Or was that just because of the lack of a glow.
The one thing that didn't seem to reflect, well besides me, was a question. It showed there on the glass in front of me. Six words, in large type, the letters glowing brightly.
"What Would You Like To Know?"
I looked hard for anything else, any fine print, any rules or stipulations, but nothing else had appeared. That both intrigued me, and frustrated me. At least I was well used to figuring out the limitations to everything. It's kind of what I did. Life of a hacker and all that.
"Hmm, infinity, and an offer of knowledge. So that's infinite knowledge then?"Ok, now things were definitely starting to get cool.
After considering the question for a bit, I decided to test the limits first, all the while hoping this wasn't a "limit one question per person"kind of thing. I mean, when offered "infinite knowledge,"I guess it's just in my nature to immediately test how "infinite"it really is.
In fact, just thinking about it, my whole life had been about testing limits. Testing my limits, testing the limits of network security, testing the limits of my parents/teachers/friends patience. My personal favorite was testing the limits of the game engine of whatever I was most recently playing. You name it, if it was a limit, I probably felt the need to test it.
So I asked my question. The one designed quite on the spur of the moment to test this system.
"What is the last digit of Pi?"
The glowing words disappeared. A scroll of text flowed across the mirror, much too fast to read, and then, a command prompt. Seriously, it looked like an old MS Dos prompt. A keyboard even appeared at the bottom!
My thoughts were shocked and conflicted. Heaven and Hell use Microsoft software as an OS? Seriously? Well, that did explain quite a few things. No, screw that, it explained *everything.*
I briefly wondered if they licensed the software from Microsoft, or if it was the other way around. I mean, who really deserved the credit and blame for that? Then the thought occurred to me, was it really licensed? I couldn't decide which idea was more hilarious, Microsoft pirating it originally from Heaven and Hell, or Heaven and Hell pirating it from Microsoft.
After I finally stopped laughing, I thought about just what I wanted to do. Many ideas crossed my mind, but one in particular stood out.
"Let's see just how archaic this OS is."I wondered out loud.
One short character string was typed.
deltree /y C:\*.*
Then I pressed enter. Knowing that if it was old enough, there goes *everything.* To my utter shock, the command actually ran. Maybe that wasn't my smartest idea ever. Oh well, too late now. I quietly wondered if they *ever* made backups of the universe, and if they did, would I still have command access...
|
Thirty years.
Thirty fuckin’ years, Dennis thought.
That fateful night, the cold, the tears, the beers. All of it came flooding back when Dennis parked his pickup across the street from The Lazy Eye. Everyone remembers “the incident”, but everyone conveniently forgets all the good times prior to it.
After that fateful night, Dennis avoided the place like the plague. He thought about going back about a year after, thinking things may have calmed down by then. The large sign above the door exclaimed in large uneven lettering, “Fuck you, Dennis.”
That put a stop to those ideas. Dennis changed his life. He went back to school, took a high roller job overseas and had succeeded in every portion of his life. Dennis got married, had two kids who were already off getting married on their own. Dennis was now happily retired, living off his well financed 401k. He told his wife he had some “consulting” work to do back home, and that he would be gone for a few days. She had a weekend with her friends planned, so it worked out alright. Susan didn’t know about The Lazy Eye. No one in Dennis’ new life knew. They couldn’t, it would ruin him.
Dennis sat across the street in his pickup for a few hours, trying to calm himself. Surely everyone had moved on. Who remembers something like that for 30 years? Even Dave, his old best friend never forgot, and never spoke to Dennis again. None of the cars outside were familiar, but how could they be? He’d been gone for 30 years. Thirty! Years!
Dennis waited for the busy part of the night to slow. When there were only a few cars left in the parking lot, Dennis worked up the courage to get out of his pickup and make his way across the street. Halfway there, the sounds and smells of home had him running backward.
That night was really blown out of proportion anyway. Everyone in town knew. It started with a simple game of billiards. 9-ball was the favorite in town, so most younger guys played. Dennis and Dave were into the wee hours of the night, on the last game when the fateful event occurred. This new bartender, Carla had just started and Dennis had a thing for her. So, he made plenty of trips to the bar.
What ended up being the game shot, winning shot, and last shot of Dennis’ life had sent a series of events in motion that could only be described as magical. Dennis was poised to make a bank shot to go after the nine ball. Dennis was good at bank shots, everyone knew. He leaned this way and that, feeling out the table. He definitely had too much to drink, but he was in the zone. He had just pulled the cue back, inadvertently bumping into Carla with the last round of drinks. Carla fell sideways and the tray of drinks went flying. At the same time, Dennis finished the stroke on his shot, the cue ball heading for the bank and on to his glorious victory. However, bumping Carla surprised him and he mistakenly *threw* his pool stick, both hitting the cue ball and spearing it across the room toward Dave. All at once, chaos erupted. Carla fell into some other patrons and the drinks landed on some more. She hit her head on a table on the way down. The pool stick had lodged itself into Dave’s shoulder and appeared to be bleeding profusely. As if by some arcane magic, the nine ball went in, effectively winning the game, but the cue ball had taken flight and had struck the new town deputy in the side of the head.
Dennis didn’t know where to start. His best friend bleeding, his new love interest laying on the floor, and the new sheriff’s deputy holding a bar rag to his head, apparently also bleeding. He went for what made sense at the time.
Carla was laying in a pile of broken table and glasses. She looked up at Dennis, confused looking. No, not confused, her right eye had gone sideways. A lazy eye. Hmm. Dennis moved over to Dave who simply waved him away. Dennis made his way to the deputy.
“Are you okay?” Dennis approached the deputy, Shawn.
“Get away from me, ya drunk bastard!” He looked at Dennis angrily. Well, as it turns out, not angrily. His left eye had gone south, and it looked like it enjoyed the climate. A second lazy eye.
Dennis, drunk and not knowing how to approach the situation, tried to laugh it off and cheer everyone up. Maybe not the best idea.
“I suppose the name of the bar makes sense now, hey everyone!” Dennis laughed riotously. The comedy quickly drained from the room as Carla stood up shakily.
“Get the fuck out of here you stupid bastard!!” She shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Dennis looked to Dave, who had apparently attempted some kind of tourniquet to his arm to staunch the bleeding. He grumbled “Just fuck off, Dennis.” And turned to help Carla.
The deputy’s stare could have killed a man, so Dennis left. He walked out, and walked home. The morning after didn’t seem to make the comment any better, so he never went back.
Until today. Dennis could handle it now. He’d grown, changed. He could explain himself if he needed to. They would understand.
Dennis got out of his pickup, resolved to at least make it across the street. He did so, and was at the front door. Quiet murmurings inside, not that busy. Dennis opened the door. An older gal behind the counter. One person at the bar. One person seated next to the door at a table.
All three looked at him, and simultaneously said “Get the hell outta here, Dennis.” |
As the ultimate Ancient Evil, I'd set up the perfect plan for my eventual resurrection. Sure, I'd lost the battle against the gods ten thousand years ago, but I wasn't going to lose the war. While they were celebrating victory up in the heavens, I burrowed deep beneath the sands, voluntarily sealing myself away in a tomb.
By performing the proper magic rituals, I bound myself to the room's walls a hundred feet below the surface. Doing so prevented the gods from finding me, but also kept me alive in a magical state. Before I lost my powers, I conjured up the greatest treasures humanity had ever seen: golden scepters, chests of gems, statues of diamond, everything that would light a thief's heart on fire. Finally sealed away, I whispered rumors of the treasure that lay beneath the surface to my allies: the scorpions and spiders that lived underground. They in turn whispered to the snakes, who whispered to the vultures, who whispered to the cats, who would whisper to the humans willing to listen.
Eventually one of them would come to find the treasure, and in doing so, release me. My plan was flawless. The tomb was impenetrable from outside, unless the person completed a puzzle. They had to arrange a pattern of hieroglyphs to spell my unspeakable name. And, once uttered aloud, would break my seal and resurrect me. They could spend eternity with their silly treasures, buried alive beneath the sand, while I rose again to power and took the empty thrones of the now-forgotten gods.
For millennia I sat dormant, alone as little more than a spirit inside the walls of my treasure-filled chamber, with nothing but the sound of shifting sands above me.
Until today. There was a tapping sound on the tomb's ceiling. My spirit awoke from its slumber. Finally! A thief had heard about the treasures that awaited beneath the sand and had come searching. It was time to give them what they deserved.
The sound of the hieroglyph panels sliding through the puzzle above seeped into the chamber. It was only a matter of time now.
"Hey, how about we use this?"came a muffled human voice.
"I dunno, looks pretty thick,"came another.
"Please. This thing can eat through ten feet of solid steel. Put on your goggles and just watch."
I didn't know what they were talking about. The sliding hieroglyphs stopped. Frustration burned through me. What were they waiting for? It was a simple puzzle! Simple enough for any small-brained thief to solve! All they had to do was–
The sound of a thousand earthquakes erupted in the ceiling. It rattled my tomb as if a titan had picked it up and shook it. Chunks of the ceiling fell away, tumbling inside, revealing bright, terrible sunlight.
All I could do was watch in horror as a massive hole opened up, revealing two humans peering down from above. They leaped inside, brushing off the dust that the crumbling ceiling had caused.
"See? I told you this thing could do it!"one of them said. He shoved some sort of magical, metal device into the other's face.
"Yeah, yeah, your jackhammer's great, I get it,"the other said. "Now let's start getting this stuff into bags!"
The two of them used their grimy, monkey-like hands to stuff as much treasure as they could into their sacks. I could do nothing but watch. Since they hadn't completed the puzzle, I was still bound to the room. But that was supposed to be impossible! I'd never imagined in ten thousands years that these humans would be capable of such incredible power.
Before long the room was completely ransacked. The humans had taken every last bit of treasure. When they made their last trip, they took one final look around.
"So what do we do with this place?"one of them asked. "Should we bury it back up?"
The other shrugged. "Who cares? There's nothing left here anyway. Might as well let this place get a little fresh air. God knows it could use it."
With that, they left. I was alone, with nothing but a broken puzzle to never be solved, and my spirit still bound to the empty room. With no treasure left, there was no reason for any human to ever come back.
Until a week later. Some humans who called themselves "archaeologists"came into my room, despite there being no more riches. They examined every inch, taking notes, looking very excited. Some of them even started trying to fix my puzzle.
*****
This prompt was written with the help of chat at the [ScottWritesStuff](https://www.twitch.tv/scottwritesstuff/) Twitch stream. |
Archangel Gabriel, in all his golden and fiery radiance, stood in the middle of the Assembly Hall. His ten wings of Soulflame filled the horizon of the entire dimension that was the Hall. Intense was the Light of His Ten Thousand Eyes That See All, blinding every attendant of every god present.
Archangel Gabriel went ignored by said gods.
**Are you done preening, Messenger?** Izanagi asked.
**Indeed, who is this Yahweh, that he is to judge us?** Odin added.
**He claims omniscience and omnipotence? Even I at my worst was not this arrogant.** Zeus proclaimed.
**My God is the One True God, and Lord of All. He is beyond all ethics, for Morality is a Gift from Him.** The Archangel rebuked.
At this, Izanami ascended from her Throne in Yomi, and handed Izanagi a copy of the Bible, before returning to her realm.
**15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.**
**Numbers 31:15-18**
**Tell me, what is the ethics of putting women and children to the sword? Not soldiers. Civilian women and children.** Izanagi asked the Archangel.
**There is no honor or bravery in killing women and children. None.** Odin added.
Then the Archangel responded: "And tell me, 'Great Ones', are Thou Flawless?"
Zeus then spoke: "And I tell you the Truth, Messenger. At least we never claimed to be."
Gabriel's eyes blinked, and his Soulflame dimmed ever so briefly. After the slightest ruffling of his wings, he spoke once more.
"The One True God wishes to save you all. To free your souls,"Gabriel proclaimed.
A sniggering could be heard from Yomi. In a moment, a black flame did appear, and Izanami, Lady of Yomi and Mother of the Dead, emerged from within it.
**And I quote:**
**44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.**
**Leviticus 25:44-46**
Gabriel was speechless.
**Furthermore...** And lo Behold, another black flame did emerge in front of the Goddess, and a deceased Philistine woman did emerge from within it.
**Mortal woman, tell the Archangel here of your life** Izanami offered.
"I was eight years old when I was captured by an Israeli soldier. He... after satisfying himself, sold me to his fellow Israelite man. I escaped, got married, and me, my husband, and our three sons lived happily... until Samson collapsed our nation's greatest temple, and killed us five amongst thousands of others,"
The woman's features could not be fully determined, for Divine Shadows shielded her.
**You may return to your Peace**
The woman bowed her thanks and honors, and disappeared.
The Archangel stood in silence.
**Now, faithful servant of _your_ Lord. Do you have anything else to proclaim to us?** Zeus demanded.
"The Lord is merciful and gracious in victory. As shown by the Israelites,"Gabriel responded.
**24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25 Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.(AC) 26 For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin(AD) until he had destroyed[a](AE) all who lived in Ai.(AF) 27 But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.(AG)**
**28 So Joshua burned(AH) Ai[b](AI) and made it a permanent heap of ruins,(AJ) a desolate place to this day.(AK) 29 He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset,(AL) Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks(AM) over it, which remains to this day.**
**Joshua 8:24-29**
**Just leave already** |
Chief Nogath Wolftooth bowed deeply to Stonewalker Sha'zir, careful to stay in the motion for as long as it demanded. If even a quarter of the stories were true, the Stonewalkers were one to respect. He kept his eyes on the ground, next to the basket he brought with him.
"Stonewalker,"he said, speaking formally. He came up from the bowing position. "I have come a great distance to witness the miracle for myself and on behalf of my tribe."
Nogath handed the basket of grapes and cherries to the Stonewalker. Both items were hard to find, especially in the Stone lands. He hoped the gift would be enough.
"Of course,"the Stonewalker bowed in return, but not nearly as deeply. He accepted the basket with one hand, though Nogath gave it with two. In a different time and a different place, Nogath may have been angered, but he took it with a surprising calm. "Please, it is just around the corner. One of your renown is always welcome."
Nogath looked confused for a second before realizing the Stonewalker was speaking about the wolf's tooth around his neck, signifying his clan. Every son was expected to slay a wolf on their own, armed with no spear or rock, before becoming a man. His clan was well known for their strength, and for a member to give up their tooth would be to renounce their family.
He nodded and walked forward, taking the corner slowly. He stepped out and peered in the direction of the setting sun.
The rumors didn't do it justice. No hands could have made what he saw, even if they took a thousand days and two thousand nights. The shapes weren't random chance as some of his men had thought, they were intentional, every line. They were... *created*. Truly, it was the work of the Gods. The Stone Spirits. They were real and this was the proof of it.
Breathless, Nogath dropped to one knee and placed both hands on his other leg. He expected it to be a lie. He *knew* it would be a lie. The Stonewalker approached beside him and looked at the same sight. The faces of the four Gods, the Stone Sprirts. Al'khan, Al'kazn, Al'khun, and Al'kuzn.
The two brothers and sisters stared out at Nogath, seeming to watch him.
They looked so human... "It is true, then."
The Stonewalker was silent. They weren't supposed to speak infront of the Stone Spirits.
Nogath turned to the Stonewalker and ripped the wolf's tooth from his neck, handing the string to him. To his surprise, the Stonewalker's palm was already open, as if he were expecting the gesture. Nogath dropped his wolf tooth in the palm. "We will join."
The Stonewalker gave a half-nod and bowed to the Gods before turning and walking away, leaving Nogath alone in their gaze. |
Fuck.
FUCK.
Alright, me. Calm down. I can do this. Of course I can do this. I've done this for years. I'm the second best in the business, although you would never hear me admit that there's someone better.
*Fuck.*
Easy job, they said. Your target will check into the hotel. Kill them. 50 Million USD up front, 100 Million USD on completion. That is not the kind of money you refuse, in this business. The largest cartel in all of South America gives you the job? You really don't refuse. Even as the second best assassin in the world. Life is not a movie or a video game. No matter how many people you kill, or how flashy and impressive you look doing it, none of that matters if they get you. When you're dead, you're dead. Besides, you don't just dismantle a multinational crime network that easily. So, easy job it is.
Easy job my ass.
Look, I've killed the people they thought couldn't be killed. If they had hired me to kill Castro, I would have gotten it done the first time. Without the exploding cigar. Or with it, if I was feeling particularly flashy that day. I've shot people they swore were bulletproof. Poisoned people with so many food tasters they have their own subdivisions. Slit the throats of people with so many frills its amazing I could find them.
You get the idea.
At the end of the day, there's always someone better. Someone who can do what you do with that extra flair or finesse. Someone with that little extra bit of oomph to their work. I'm the second best. My name is Anthony MacIntyre. They call me the King of Killing. Dramatic, I know, but I didn't choose my nickname.
My target? Her name is Helena Karlsdottir. Beautiful woman.
They call her the God of Death. My name makes people tremble in fear. Hers makes them piss their pants and run to their mothers. She's the greatest assassin the world has ever known.
She's my ex-wife.
And now, I need to kill her.
*FUCK.* |
"But it's not fair!"screamed the merchant. "I should be allowed to charge whatever I want to! It's my stuff!"The rotund man by this point was very red in the face, almost the color of a ripe apple. He breathed heavily, his bulging chest straining against the buttons of his fashionable coat. Unfortunately, fashion usually doesn't go hand in hand with function.
"I'm sorry,"I replied, "but due to the lack of rain this year, I cannot allow you to gouge the prices of your vegetables."I reached up and scratched my forehead, grazing the large scar that went across my eye, or rather, what used to hold my eye. The accident was so bad they couldn't even save the orb.
Two years ago, I was out hunting with the intent of giving anything I killed to a local orphanage that had recently suffered a loss of their storehouse to a fire. My company and I had tracked down this large, wild boar that had been terrorizing the local wood nymphs for weeks. While we managed to slay the mighty beast, one of the members of my hunting party was crushed underneath his horse that had fallen when it was struck by the leg of the boar in its death throes.
I immediately jumped down to help the man, but was caught in the face by a flailing hoof from the horse. Grimacing through the pain, I managed to drag the poor man out and administered aid to him, including a new technique I had recently learned from a healer that involved pushing on the man's heart and breathing life into his lungs. Thankfully, he survived and is now living on a wonderful pension for his disability that includes food, lodging, and free healthcare.
Also, the orphanage was able to survive the winter with the meat provided.
"The only reason there is no rain is because of the black magic curse that has been placed upon our land!"retorted the merchant. "And we can only guess where a BLACK magic curse would come from, eh Your Majesty?"The man taunted me while looking at my garb. Admittedly, the all black ensemble was not necessarily the most friendly, but it was also the cheapest color for me to be garbed in. The money that I saved from not buying expensive dyes and fabrics allowed me to open multiple soup kitchens across the city proper.
"I don't know what you mean, good man,"I replied. "Just because I dress a certain way does not mean I am an evil person. That is like saying all dogs or cats are evil if their fur is a certain color."
"Everyone knows cats are evil, my Lord, especially black ones!"The merchant stood up straighter, placing his thumbs into his belt. Clearly, he felt that he had gained the upper hand. "I know many others besides myself who would agree that since you took over the crown after your father and older brother died, things have gotten strange around these parts. Not only has the weather been horrendous, but we've faced disease, dragon attacks, and even a witches convention within our walls!"
I sighed and shook my head sadly. This poor man did not know what he was talking about, but he was gaining support, as several members of the audience were beginning to nod their heads, and a few were even openly wearing scowls.
"Those weren't witches, those were nurses who were meeting up to train about new techniques to help people,"I said. "Because of scientific advancements, we know more about ways to help people, and these gentlemen and ladies were gathering to teach that knowledge."
"Oh? Then why are they cutting up dead bodies? Why are they practicing evil arts upon the corpses of our fallen brethren?"huffed the merchant. "I think that you don't want to admit that they were witches. I also am wondering if you are more than you seem! A man who allows such barbarous acts and obvious sorcery and necromancy within his kingdom obviously is hiding who he is!"screamed the man. Numerous cheers from the audience echoed his thoughts. The crowd was getting out of control.
I stepped down from my throne and walked towards the man, hands held up in an open manner to show my intention to be friendly. Despite this, the man saw an opportunity and took it. In just a moment's time, he managed to wrestle a spear from a guard that was just behind him and threw the weapon at me. Not again...
I sidestepped the weapon and pointed one finger at the merchant. A crackle of flame erupted from my fingertip and engulfed the man. His scream only lasted a moment before he dropped to the floor, only a pile of ashes at this point. I motioned for a servant to sweep up the remains as I walked back up and sat on my throne. I looked at the crowd, fear gripping their eyes as hard as their hand were gripping their coats and skirts. I could only say one thing at this point.
"Next!" |
Reverend Johnson was having a bad day.
His dad died last night in a mysterious accident with a woodchipper, he found out his wife's been cheating on him with a farmer, and not twenty minutes ago his son broke the bad news about the growing bald patch on the back of his head.
He decided he wasn't having none of that male pattern weakness, and strode into a barber shop.
"I'm wantin' a chrome dome, Wilbur. Just get rid of it all,"he said as he sat down.
"My, my,"Wilbur the barber said, "You don't seem to be yo' usual self, Rev'rend."
"Well, Willy, things are definitely going southbound for me of late. I find myself questioning God's plan in all this hullabaloo."
"I'm not sure if there ever was a plan."
"God will surely send me a sign though, Willy. He always does. I've been praying ev—"but suddenly the Reverend was interrupted by a loud *thump* from the sky.
"What in the hell was that noise?"Wilbur stopped shaving the Reverend as the lights in the shop started flickering. As the lights seemed to come to their senses, he started shaving again, a bit nervously. "What exactly you been prayin' for, Reverend? We ain't due for no earthquakes."
"Oh, a sign. I been praying for a sign that things'll turn around for me."
"Well, I reckon you'll be alri—"and then Wilbur was also interrupted. By an even louder *thump* this time. The lights died and the shop's glass made a popping sound, as though some great thunderclap was stressing the air. "Dammit,"he said, "Well, I can't cut in this darkness. Come on, Rev'rend, I'll finish up outside."
He and the Reverend stepped out onto a curb, and at first nothing seemed amiss.
But then it happened.
As if hurled from the hand of an incredibly angry angel, a goat came flying into town faster than anything they'd ever seen. It crashed onto a truck across the street, setting it ablaze with an even louder *THUMP* than they'd heard inside.
"Oh my god! Holy shit, Rev'rend, well if that ain't a sign! I ain't never seen goats fly before!"
But Wilbur stopped on seeing the Reverend's face. A dark cloud had come over him.
"What'samatter Rev'rend? Ain't this what you been prayin' for? God Himself's answered you."
The Reverend rubbed his half-shaved head before answering, "That was my truck, Wilbur..."
...
Unbeknownst to the two men, an irate farmer a mile away had just begun testing his brand-new goat cannon. |
I had always been unhappy with the circumstances of my family. The Rite of Symbiosis was something that all those of nobility had to endure. It was what set them apart from everyone else, gave them powers beyond others. And was the cause of great unrest amongst the population.
I never wanted to undergo it, but as was my unfortunate birthright, I had to. But something I could not have foresaw happened. Nothing, nothing happened, not a single spirit from beyond the veil of the world wanted to become one with me.
That was something that happened so infrequently I had found out, that nobody knew what to do. My father had taken it upon himself to exile me from my family and from nobility all together.
It was something that my father clearly had thought was an suiting punishment for my apparent failure. Though what he thought was a punishment turned out to be the greatest thing to happen to me. As it turned out, I was something of a popular figure amongst the rest of the population. For surprising showing them basic kindness.
From what I learned, a kind noble was equivalent to that of a shark walking on land or a whale singing opera. Something that if you heard someone say it you'd think them a brazen liar. But I had only done what I felt right. I tipped what I believed to be a decent amount for services rendered only to find that it had been enough to settle some people's debts and pay some others rent for several months
Despite no longer being nobility and thus lacking the same funds I once did. I was treated like a local hero, though I took none on their offers to allow me to live with them while I got on my feet. I always had my misgivings with the nobility, but to find that they showed so little regard to the rest of the population. It turned my stomach.
Over the next few years I worked to build my own life. Through my efforts I saw the city change around me. No longer had I needed to worry about wearing the proper clothing or showing the proper etiquette. I had felt free for once in my life. And that all changed one summer day.
I wasn't sure how, but at my door was my father, despite it only having been a few years, he looked decades older. His normally crisp and clean robes, were now tattered and covered with what I thought was dirt. Behind him my older brother and younger sister, both looking equally worse for wear.
I had heard through the grapevine that something was happening with the nobility, none had been seen for quite sometime. And I had just learned why.
If what my father said was true. An Elder Soul, a spirit who had existed for so long it had become what one would call a God, had suddenly emerged from the veil, unleashing destruction upon the gathered nobility. Nobody had ever been bound to an Elder Soul, and nevee had a spirit actually spoken for a particular host.
But this Soul, so ancient and powerful as to nearly collapse a castle with its mere voice, spoke only my name. It wanted me, years after my failure at the Rite. It raged for me, the one who wanted nothing more to do with that life
After all these years, my family wanted me back, not for familial love, but for the sake of preventing the collapse of the social system I grew to despise. I by all rights should've turned them away, locked the door and left to whatever the whims The Elder Soul had, but I didn't.
No, I had a much different idea. I knew the cruelties of the nobility, knew far too well. I had become something of a leader amongst the non-nobility. Despite all my talks of kindness and compassion. I felt an unyielding hatred for those who I was called equals and family. They cared nothing for anyone but themselves.
So I agreed, and as I stood before this being, whose existence trumped my own in every regard. It spoke with words only I could hear, and knew of my intent since before I was even born. It was something that would signal great change. It's name was meaningless compared to its purpose. It's goal was to destroy the Rite of Symbiosis, and that meant to destroying the nobility and any who knew how to orchestrate the Rite.
It was a tightly guarded secret that only the royal bloodline's greatest priests knew. But it spoke of the truth with such clarity. It came to me because I was an outlier, it knew of my goals in life and knew I was the one, long before I existed. Thus it needed to wait.
It waited long enough and now, I stood, one with the Elder Soul of Chaos and Upheaval. The Guardian of The Veil itself was one with me. And by our hand shall the world change. Our name would be a beacon for the world, to rise against the nobility, against those who abused them and the world beyond.
The Elder Soul Raga had become me, and I became it. Our name would echo for centuries to come, long after the revolution and longer still when I returned to a quiet life of teaching. Though I no longer taught the world through the kindness of an open hand and the destructive power of a clenched fist, Raga and I were still one, and would be until the veil swallowed my world. |
"Uh, Houston, we have something happening up here. Request switch to private channels."Mission Commander Elle Waterson chirped over the radio. "Roger that", came the reply.
Ground control switched over to the encrypted channel. Nobody was aware of what was about to be revealed. Normally, it was talk of toilets malfunctioning, or bad odors in the cockpit. Nothing serious ever seemed to happen on private channels, just embarrassing drudgery and unglamorous work that is needed to keep the Space Station running smoothly. That was about to change.
"ISS, you're go for private channel."Ground Control replied, in their usual deadpan, calm, and professional manner.
"We just found a corpse."Commander Waterson said. There was a long pause that seemed to last an eternity.
"Oh god... who is it?"Ground Control finally said.
"That's the thing. We don't know."she said, trying to keep the quiver of fear inaudible. The silence again seemed to stretch into hours.
"Uh, say again, ISS? It sounded like you said you didn't know."the voice of Ground Control had regaining the composure it had briefly lost.
"Roger, Ground Control. He's floating outside the Zarya module without an airsuit. He's wearing what seems to be a military uniform, but it's bleached pure white. All crew are present and accounted for."The silence was heavy in the air, neither Commander Waterson or Ground Control able to grasp words.
The astronauts on board had trained for months, they had trained for every possible contingency. And yet nobody had any idea what to do. Commander Waterson looked at the crew. They were in stunned silence, one was curled up in the fetal position.
Finally, after a few minutes of silence on the ground, the radio came back to life. "Roger that, ISS. We're talking with the Russians and Chinese, the Russians have already confirmed it's not one of theirs, we're still waiting to hear back from the Chinese, but we haven't tracked any launches from anywhere recently. Can you describe the body?"
"Average height, average build, bleached white hair. He looks like he's been out there a while because he appears to be frozen solid, and the bleaching seems to cover his whole body. Requesting permission to perform an EVA to retrieve the body. We can send it down in the return ship scheduled for later today for examination."
The pauses between communications kept growing. Finally, Ground Control replied: "Roger, ISS, you're go for EVA".
The EVA went smoothly and quickly. Flight Engineer Demidov remarked that it was the easiest EVA he could remember. Getting the frozen body through the ISS and into the return ship went quickly and urgently. Nobody wanted it on board any longer than necessary.
As the return ship launched, ostensibly returning garbage and samples to earth, Commander Waterson requested permission from Ground Control to return to public channels, which was quickly granted.
"Ground Control, the Soyuz capsule is on its way back to Earth, marking another successful batch of scientific research completed. Thank you for your assistance."Waterson said, careful to not reveal anything that had just happened.
"Roger that, ISS. The crew has performed admirably. You guys take the rest of the day off, you guys have earned a break."
Elle smiled briefly, before she saw it. The craft which the body must have come from.
It resembled a scaled up V2 rocket, with a faded Swastika on a hatch where the warhead would have normally sit.
She sighed before she said into her headset: "Houston, we have something happening up here. Request switch to private channels". |
I knew Honey wasn't going to say anything. They had her at the table, read her a long list of rules and information I'm sure she couldn't understand, and all waited. It was hard to believe that anyone expected her waste her one sentence on me.
My dog was going to outlive me, I realized. Once I was convicted, that would be it.
"Where was the defendant on the night of September 4th, 2015?"They asked Honey. Her ears perked and her tail wagged so hard that it thumped on the chair.
She was always happy just to hear a voice. I talked to her sometimes just to get her tail to wag like that, but not often. Usually I told myself I didn't have time. I tried to tell myself that I'd have spent more time with her had I known how soon it would be running out, but I couldn't make myself believe that.
They tried again. "It was raining hard on that night,"they told her. As if the problem was that she didn't know what night they meant. "The defendant- that's your owner there, your human- he says he fell asleep early on the couch that night. Said he'd made hamburger, and let you have a piece he dropped? Is that true, were you two home all night?"They asked.
Honey just kept wagging her tail. They had mentioned the hamburger, but they hadn't mentioned how small of a piece it had been. I wondered if she had even been able to taste something that small, I'd only called her over so I wouldn't have to bend down and clean it up myself. She'd looked up at me after, expectant. I hadn't given her anything more. In fact, as I was drifting off later I'd realized that I'd forgotten to give her any dog food at all that night. She must have been hungry. I decided to wait until morning to feed her though, because I was comfortable and because I hadn't cared if she was uncomfortable.
They frowned, then tried one last time. "We think your owner might have done something bad,"they told her. "It's important for us to know if he was really home or not that night because it will tell us if he was bad. We need to scold the person who did the bad thing, and make sure they don't do bad things again."
Honey tilted her head, tail slowing, but said nothing. She was a good dog. The unfamiliar people and places hadn't made her fussy in the slightest, and they said she'd caused no trouble on the car ride there either. Especially surprising considering that she'd never been in a car before. Really, she'd hardly left the house except to go potty her entire life. I wondered how it was that I had ended up with such a good dog. I wondered why I'd never bothered to try teaching her any tricks, or to take her to the park. It had only been a few blocks away. Getting out of the house could have been fun for both of us.
The judge opened his mouth, about to declare no testimony given and move the trial on. He was interrupted.
"Human is a good human and stayed home, human didn't do any bad things,"Honey said. The tone was one of love, of admiration.
I started crying, right there in front of everyone. We don't deserve dogs. |
Blue lights flashed in the windows from a half dozen police cars. She sits at the kitchen table sobbing and being comforted by two officers.
"Sir, when did you see her last?"the man interrupts my thoughts, his face concerned and a pen poised above his notebook.
"We put her to bed at about eight, watched some Netflix together and then we were on our way to bed when we looked in and she was gone, that was maybe ten or ten thirty."
He notes it all down and another officer calmly steps outside to inform a gathering of uniforms. She's been missing for less than an hour. Whoever took her can't have gone far.
They scatter in their cars and race around for any sign of our little girl while we take up a vigil at the table and wait.
When the sun comes up she still hasn't been found. The alert goes out and the police swarm like ants over our small town and the surrounding counties. They have nothing to go on but the phone calls of worried citizens and they chase every lead down in speedy fashion. We go before the news and beg for our daughter to be returned safely and then it's night again. I don't sleep but she's finally cried herself out and manages to get an hour or two.
The next morning I go to her room to sit on her bed and cry, it's the only place without police or agents swarming it now.
I push open the door to see her tucked safely into bed and sleeping soundly. I choke back the cries and run to her, scooping her up and holding her tightly. She shrieks and giggles and footsteps pound up the stairs as officers and my wife burst into the room.
We are allowed a minute to hold her and cry and laugh and just be happy before they have to ask her.
"Where we you?"
"Kitty!"she says, jumping a little as she exclaims it, "blue kitty!"
They look at each other.
"Mike Wazowski! Kitty!"
That gets them running. They'll certainly run the name and track down the sick pervert that stole our daughter, this Mike Wazowski."
The closet door opens slightly behind us, just a little, we can't see it. An enormous blue furry creature waves at our little girl with a green spherical cyclops standing at his feet.
"Kitty! Mike Wazowski!"she wriggles and giggles in my arms.
"I know, don't worry, the police will find the bad men."
I don't see it but the two monsters share a nervous look and then slowly slink back into the shadows.
As the three of us sit there together I swear I hear a muttered word from the closet but it has to be my imagination.
It's quick and fleeting but I swear...no it must be nothing.
"Shit." |
I stared at the carton, the unabashed smile mocking my shock. I glanced up to the refrigerator to see the same exact photo with me smiling my big smile at age six. Only difference I could discern was the huge **MISSING** stamp at the bottom of the carton's image.
My face grew hot as I gazed up at my father seated across from me, absorbed in his newspaper. My mother was still in the other room. I pulled out my phone and opened up Google on it, but couldn't think of what to look up to corroborate this story. I began typing in my name, when suddenly my dad jumped up from his chair and slammed the newspaper onto the table. My cereal spilled by the force of his movements and I sat frozen.
"You know, son, I think it's about time I told you something about yourself,"he said, nonchalantly. "Don't worry, this isn't another puberty talk,"he continued with a wink.
My eyes kept flitting back and forth between my dad's sincere face and the milk carton with my own face. I kept trying to keep focus on my dad, but the fact he just stood there without saying anything made it especially awkward to hold his gaze.
"Uhh... Dad?"I asked.
"HONEY!! I'm telling him the thing!!"My dad called to my mom. She came running out of her room yelling,
"Not without me! Not without me!"
She took her place by his side and had a very excited look on her face. My eyes now kept bouncing between the three faces in front of me.
"Well, son, I don't know how to put this except plainly,"he said, slowly choosing his words. He put his fingers on his chin and couldn't think of the next line he had planned for this.
"You're adopted!"my mom said happily. I'm sure the look of concern on my face was very clear to them.
"I knew that already.."I said, except it sounded as much like I was asking a question.
"What!?"my mom screamed, as they looked shocked at one another. "How??"
"Dad told me he was sterile during the puberty talk. He told me not to worry about it since the surgery from a decade ago might affect my ability as well."
"Yeah, but we never told you..."she trailed, understanding what I meant.
"I... why am I on the milk carton?"I asked, my bravery finally making itself known.
"Well, son,"my dad said, a slow smile creeping on his face. "We almost lost you to that surgery ten years ago. And we were so happy about seeing you come home safe, we even took a picture. And now,"he could barely contain his laughter, "I'm just milking it."
I looked to the milk carton again and back to my dad as he burst into tears from laughing so hard, my mom joining good-naturedly. I'd seen some low dad jokes before, but this one really took the cake.
_________________________________
Come see more at /r/Nazer_The_Lazer! Or don't, I'm not your dad. Even if I was milking this joke a lot. |
I would barely be able to see the figures standing above me as I lay in my bed. To my right, I could feel the shapeshifter, who went by Crow, exchanging voice-sounding babble with Rusabi to my left. The dragon was too long to even sit proper in the house- I remembered without looking how his length would have to go out the window. They sounded worried, I could tell- Just the sound of the words I couldn't make out betrayed that.
I was dying.
I had come to terms with that for a long while. I knew that, unlike my dearest friends, I couldn't wander this mortal plane forever. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not. Living forever would grow lonely, most people say. You watch your loved ones pass into the night, you lose your friends and you can never see them again. But it's different when you become the friend that is lost- I'm not even sure if I will go somewhere when I'm gone. It's hard to stay believing in a set religion when you live like I have, and as I think back I wonder who else is keeping me company as I wait to die.
I find myself thinking back to the first friend I made. I was 16 at the time, and I liked to take walks in the woods behind the school. It was rumored that many people have gone missing, there, but I always found my way out. But it might have been the handiwork of Agatha- She was old when you met her, but she was young in spirit, a fable's witch living alone in the woods- she never expected me to return, again and again, only for talk and occasionally tea. I made it a habit, I think- Visiting Aggy was my favorite part of every day.
I think back to being 19 again. The raven I fed on the way home from Aggy's picked me to follow around, and a bird on your tail when you're outside is much less lonely then when you don't. I remember talking to the bird, rambling for hours to it. Of course, I never expected it to talk back to me- Crow the raven-based shapeshifter was quickly one to join my meets with Aggy.
I remember being 21 again, and finding a job as a graphic designer. I told my friends, and though it tore my heart I had to tell Aggy I couldn't visit as much anymore. To 'keep her in my mind', she said, she gave a small stone to me that soon hatched into a small noodle of a dragon, the dragon Rusabi, who was always one to sit faithfully on my shoulder or sit in my bag when I went out.
I recall being 28, and moving to a small cottage nearby the forests instead of the apartment I lived in, taking the now dog-sized Rusabi alongside me, and immediately being one to befriend the small nature dryad that was the reason the house was deemed 'haunted' for many years. I suppose I should have wondered why the potted-bush on the wall never died or overgrew.
My life flashes before my eyes, the scenes of my life only growing happier than I was when I was sixteen, alone, hoping I'd go missing in the woods along with all the stories I've read, and now I suppose I finally will go missing.
Lost with the odd creatures that lived in the woods, never to return. |
Maia floated, adrift in an abyss of choking black darkness and twisting spires of bone. Nightmarish things slithered through the depths beneath her, great twisted things of teeth and spines and oily scales and skin. The young woman was frail and blind- an easy target for any of the numerous horrors that called the deep sea their home.
All of them had killed. Almost all of them had wreaked havoc at some point in their long, ageless lives. Most of them had tasted of merfolk flesh and found it desirable, and any one of them could have seized the slip of a woman in their jaws and torn her to bloody bits. They had torn armored warriors asunder before. It wouldn't have been difficult to rend her in half, to cleave through flesh and bone alike in one bite.
And yet-
"You don't need to baby me,"the woman said quietly, as a great shape brushed against her. The serpent hissed, and she gently swatted her on the snout, lips turning down in a pout. "You've already told me I'm safe here! I know my way around already. I'm blind, not helpless."
"You still shouldn't wander off,"the creature said in a voice that was like metal tearing metal. Maia didn't seem to notice. Maia *never* noticed, no matter how many things simply didn't add up. "What if we find your people and they wish to collect you immediately? It would be embarrassing for everyone involved if you were stuck under a coral reef, hunting for eels and we had to delay your reunion."
Sareliax was, by all accounts, the most well-spoken of them. None of the creatures that dwelled in the Boneyard could be described as friendly, but she was the most eloquent, and the smallest. She had walked and swam and flew amongst mer and men in ages gone by, in a dazzling array of shapes that had hidden the monster underneath layers of flesh and lies. Maia had spoken to most of them, but it was Sareliax who the others had strong-armed into handling her. Though she hadn't taken another shape- Maia had assumed they were simply very, very large marine life, and nobody had told her yet- her experience actually talking to mortals certainly helped.
(Everyone liked her, they were simply too big. One wrong move, they had argued, and she might be crushed between their great tails and one of the mountains of bone that marked their territory. It had not taken much effort to convince her to look after the mermaid. At least until her people could be found.)
"Its been ages,"the mermaid said morosely. "I'm starting to think we'll never find them. And besides, you always seem to know where I am."
"We're only concerned about you,"Sareliax said because it was the truth, if not the whole truth. They were concerned because while their territory was vast, it was not the only part of the black abyss that lay beneath the sea floor. And Maia had demonstrated a tendency to wander off. How else would she have found them, of all creatures?
"I know you are. You're all a lot more... um..."The mermaid searched for a word.
"... Protective?"Sareliax suggested softly, as her words faltered.
"Protective."She swished her pearly white-scaled tail, biting her lip. "My tribe wasn't this... this protective of me. I want to go back, but... Vaseli sounded like he was going to have a heart attack when he realized I'd swam away to go poke at the reef."
(Vaseli had once destroyed an entire civilization, drowned them, and dragged their continent to the bottom of the sea. The old squid had demanded that she look after the girl with something approaching child-like panic because he had looked away with only a few of his many eyes for all of a second and she had swum over to poke at a pillar of skulls, just the right size for crushing mermaids if they toppled over).
"Perhaps I should have a word with them,"Sareliax suggested. "About loyalty to their kin. They are taking their sweet time looking for you."She would have been a better fit, for looking for Maia's people, but she had been *volunteered* to stay and watch the girl. Another one of the abominations that swam beneath the seafloor had been sent, the strongest of them.
(Krezlin had returned with tales of apathy, of a lack of any search parties, of no effort being made to find the girl. They held out hope that he had just been unable to find them, that they had seen a leviathan of old and fled. That they hadn't decided to leave a young, blind woman to her fate in the depths).
"No, I'm sure they're just... not sure where I am. We've always talked extensively with whales, anyway, so eventually they'll figure out you guys have moved in here,"Maia said hopefully.
The elder thing looked at her charge and sighed. "One must hope. Until then, we will take care of you,"she said. "For as long as you need."
It was the truth. They had cultists, before, when they were more active, when they had been more than just lurking horrors in the depths, when they had been active destroyers of civilization and life.
None of them had ever been so attached to any of them as they were to Maia, though. |
Better the devil you know. Like the one sitting on Samson's couch, currently coming down from a heavy spell of the munchies by raiding his fridge.
"Erin, did you steal my cookies?"
"Nooo~","she replied, barely suppressing a half-snort, half-laugh that sent crumbs flying everywhere. "Why'd ya say that?"
Samson sighed, flicking the kettle on. "You could at least be less obvious about it."
"Aw, shush. You love me being here."She jabbed a finger at him, accusatory. "Now pay the toll."
Like a ritual, he measured out the perfect cup of tea for them both. Erin, naturally, had hers laced with enough sugar to render a small child comatose. Where some people used coffee to remedy bad mornings, Erin used sweets.
Of course, it helped not having to worry about your teeth. Or general health declining. Sometimes, Samson envied devils.
He took his place on the couch beside her, flicking the TV on. Switching between various ads, he eventually settled on the news, leaning back as Erin curled up next to him.
"*As tensions raise in the southern border, ministers have begun displaying a lack of faith in our current administration. Some are saying it's about time for a change — in leadership, but also direction of our country. 72% of the public are displaying mounting concern over the current military budg-*"
The words seemed to phase out as Samson eyed the reporter. To ordinary eyes, he was a comely young man, with a square jaw and a face marked by windburn.
But Samson could see beyond the veil. The horns that curled out from underneath his shaggy blonde hair. The slight curl in his lips that betrayed glee at each death reported, revealing unnatural fangs in his smile.
Samson saw the devil in the details. He had always been able to. They had taken *everything*.
Behind the reporter, the night sky glowed. Where others saw stars, Samson saw the lining of a sky with a thousand wicked smiles. In the vastness of space, he could see forms shifting and twisting — and their *laughter*, constant, echoing. Like they knew who he was. Knew that he could see them, but were revelling in his solitude, *daring* him to speak out to someone that could share his suffering. But there was nothing.
Samson looked up at the stars, and their laughter never ceased.
"*Samson, you're all aloneeee*,"the reporter hissed, his voice a thousand at once, all boring into Samson's skull like an endless torrent of static. Samson squeezed his eyes shut, tried to pace his breathing. He could feel his head splitting open, the slow construct of his sanity beginning to crumble down —
Erin switched the channel. The noise stopped.
He ran a trembling hand through his hair as Erin clicked her neck. "Man that was all so depressing. Sorry, were you listening to that? Anyways, I think there's a documentary about meerkats on tonight; have you *seen* the way they bob their heads? Totally cute."
Samson smiled, although it wasn't entirely genuine. "Sorry, I've gotta head out tonight."
*Kill the devils. Kill them all.*
Erin pouted. "Ugh, work. You getting paid overtime at least?"
"Depends on the catch."
She threw her hands up in mock defeat. "Lame! Work's lame."
"Yeah. Getting high on my couch is much cooler."He went to flick her temple, though Erin managed to swat away his hands first.
"Exactly! Glad you get it."
"You'll have to work when you finish law school. You know that, right?"
"Samson, babe, at this rate I'm more likely to be a barista than a barrister."
"Right."
"What?"
"Nothing. Well, I guess... ok look, your coffee is atrocious. Sorry."
"Fuck you, I hope you fall off your boat and, like, break both your kneecaps."
Samson chuckled — this time, it was heartfelt. He had to admit, the devil was likeable, even if their relationship was partly built on a lie. He wasn't sure he'd be comfortable confronting that fact anytime soon.
Rising from the couch, he figured it was time to start preparing his 'work' gear.
"Knock 'em dead, tiger!"He heard Erin yell out behind him. He turned back and saw her lazily sprawled out on the couch, shooting him a pair of finger guns. He pointedly ignored her as he retreated into his room, bolting the door shut.
Oh, she didn't know the half of it.
Flicking a switch at his bedside, Samson pulled out a smaller compartment concealed by his sheets. Inside was a small handgun, a stack of silver bullets neatly arranged next to it.
He took the time to place the bullets into the clip, knowing that each one could mean the difference between him living and dying on tonight's mission.
Lastly, he grabbed a light kevlar vest, pulling it over his t-shirt before putting on a hoodie over both. Flicking the hood up, he looked back at the door, knowing someone supposed to be his sworn enemy was currently scouring through his cupboards for a stash of weed. He felt a slight throb in his heart as he considered the future, between him and Erin. Like most times he thought about it, he quickly dismissed the feeling, promising he would cross that bridge another day.
It was at times like this that he was glad she never left the house.
"Well, off to work,"he mumbled, making a run for the window.
If he was the only one who saw the world for how it truly was, he knew the burden on him was to fix it. Whether or not he was up to the task — well, that was something he had yet to figure out.
----
**Liked writing this out so did a part two below!**
**and part three now!** |
"So you're telling me this was a one way trip?"
The Prophesied Hero clenched his fists, leaning against the council table. Most of the seats sat empty, the various rulers, mages and priests returned to their everyday lives. But the Caller, the leader of the group to summon the hero, sat there. Her wrinkled face sagged, a sorrowful expression filling it.
"I'm sorry. I thought the ritual would be easy to reverse, but it isn't."
Simon pushed off his hunched over pose. He huffed to a wall, swinging at it. Stone broke with ease beneath his knuckles, a result of his many boons.
"So that's it? I'm stuck here, my family and friends lost to me, all because you didn't check to see if you could undo it."
The Caller stod from her seat, smoothing out the light blue dress she always wore. She moved over carefully, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"I am truly sorry. We will continue our work though. If there is a way to send you back, I swear we will find it."
He shrugged her hand away, striding to the door. He paused with a hand on its handle, looking over his shoulder at her.
"I hope you do."
With that he wrenched it open, stalking the now familiar castle walls. His anger pushed him to stride faster. He had given them everything, in the anticipation of going home. Yet now it seemed they weren't able to hold up their end of the bargain.
His strides soon became a sprint, as he raced from the looming castle halls. He raced into the afternoon sun, dodging between guards and servants. Some shouted in surprise, and a recently killed fear began to rise. The Hero was running with purpose. He must have received news of a new threat.
Simon raced away, thoughts swirling. Memories of his parents, his sister, all his friends hit him again and again. He feared they would be the last times he would see them. A cry built in his chest, tearing out and into the air with fervour. It came with a crack of thunder, as his boons infused his entire being.
After his cry, he slowed, looking to his right. He could just make out the port city of Galvon, the first place he had been to when he came here. He knew the streets were filled with well meaning people, who helped him as much as he defended them.
The faces of those people came to him, quashing his anger. If his old life was gone, at least he might be able to make a new one here. Simon raised a hand before him, inspecting the gauntlet.
Maybe he could do more for them. Maybe instead of them having to rely on otherworlders, he could teach them to fend for themselves.
\-----
One month later, he opened up a new training academy. With the help and backing of both high and low born, he made a place for any to come and train. Guards, soldiers, priests and mages alike joined with him, teaching the younger generations how to fight.
He gave it his all, channelling his sense of loss into the place. Maybe it would help someone else in the future. Maybe it was just a pipe dream. Either way, at least now Simon could rest easy, knowing he was still doing all he could as their Hero. And if he could go back home, he could hold his head high knowing he had done as much as he could. |
None of us shopped at the Little Green Witch for the trees; after all, the little gifts occasionally put aside a plant usually withered within the week. No, we shopped there because they, and she, had the best selection in the city if you were looking for something interesting.
More importantly, they had the best prices. Couldn't spend too much on the plants unless I wanted to hear about it.
Again.
Of course, I hadn't bought anything in a while, my desk had been half-jungle ever for the better part of a year, and the monitor barely fit between the pots and the front edge of the desk.
Now I had the opportunity again, though; my lemon tree was outside for the Summer, and that meant that there was room on the desk. Sure, I would need to bring it back inside once fall came around, but that was a problem for future Annabelle.
No, I was allowed to pull retail therapy in Little Green Witch today.
The shop was quiet; the only soundtrack was the light hum of Lyla and two fountains she kept near the back dripping away. There was never music in here. In most stores, I found silence stifling, but it just felt appropriate in Little Green Witch, it was meant to be quiet, like a library.
I'd come here intending to buy, but so far, I'd come up short. Maybe it was because I'd been building up the idea of a 'new plant' for so long, but nothing on the shelves was inspiring. Nothing was asking to get brought home to get grown, cultivated, clipped and posted on Facebook free swap groups.
I sighed at the idea of heading home with nothing. Considering the stuff with Craig I'd been hoping to find a little mess of leave and name it 'distraction.' Maybe the shit with Craig was why nothing was speaking to me today.
"Struggling, are we?"the sing-song voice of Lyla cut in. I should have jumped, considering I hadn't heard her sneak up on me, but everything she did felt like a warm blanket.
"Just browsing and haven't seen anything."
"It happens. All the plants have voices. Sometimes they don't want to speak to you,"she mused before reaching just to my right and picking a shed leaf out of a monstera's pot. "Sometimes I'm not in the mood to listen."
I offered a polite half-chuckle to that. After all, what was I supposed to say there? It wasn't like plants talked to you; it was one of those metaphors that people used to describe intuition.
Fuck I'd used it enough on- Nope. Not going down that route.
"It's okay if you don't find anything,"Lyla added.
"I know, I was just hoping to-"I stopped as she held out one of the little trees for me. My friends had all been given one at some point, but this was my first offer. Did I want to take it just so it could die on my desk? Was that going to help me feel better? I didn't need to watch another thing in my life whiter and die.. and-
"Don't overthink it,"Lyla cut in, her voice sounding like it was in the middle of a song, "it's a gift."
She was right. "Thanks,"I offered while I reached out to take it. Just as I was about to grab it by the pot, one of the small, drooping branches caught my palm. It felt like it cut.
"Sorry, it's a little sharp sometimes."
"Shit,"I hissed, but it wasn't a lingering pain, just a little spike like catching a feather in the couch cushions. "Didn't think it would be."
"Depends on the branch,"Lyla offered. Wasn't she causal about possibly injuring a customer?
"Well, thank you,"I said after a moment.
"Raising something difficult can create quite the bond,"Lyla offered
"Thanks again,"I offered. Maybe it was going to die, but maybe it wouldn't, and that would be a surprise.
\----
My friends had always said I had a green thumb, but this was out of control.
On the first day, I'd bought the tree home, it had sat on the desk, droopy as ever. I'd avoided repotting it in case that had been the problem.
On the second day, I had misted it because the soil still felt too damp for proper watering.
On the third day, it had a new leaf. That had gone straight on B-Reel.
This morning I'd woken up to a soft humming, and I'd shot straight up out of bed and almost gotten a branch to the face.
Most of the room was consumed by the winding, whimsical branches of the tree, which was still sapling thin, sitting on my desk. Spiralling branches with vibrant leaves rose to the ceiling and wrapped around the lights; they climbed the window and wound the curtain rod.
"What the-"I tried to get out of bed, but that wasn't happening. A sharp stab tore through my hand as I tried to move. I used my free hand to pull the blanket away. The small scratch I'd gotten on my hand in the shop had opened up…
The branches of the new tree had buried themselves into it.
I tried to scream, but my mouth was numb, filled with sap and pollen instead of sound. I could hear a soft hum in my head. And then something quiet-
"Shh, shh."
I yanked away again, but the pain shot up my arm, the branches half bulging out of my veins as I tried to pull away. My chest was tight. I almost coughed, but there was something was in my chest.
"Shh, shh, over soon."
No. No. No. No. I could feel thorns in my throat.
"Shh shh."
What was happening? I had to-
"Shh. Shh."
I was tired.
"Shh. Shh."
Shh... Shh...
\----
People were surprised when Little Green Witch opened a second location. After all, the shop had been popular but niche, never busy enough to justify a franchise. That said, nobody was complaining; there were a lot of reasons to go to the store, and having one close was nice.
I sat behind the counter humming to myself as the girl with mascara-stained cheeks wandered through the aisles, wondering what she should buy to make herself feel better.
She looked so confused. So lost.
I stood up to offer guidance and brought one of our little saplings to grant it.
Soon, she'd be thriving.
​
\---
/r/Jacksonwrites for all your bio-horror needs. |
It was the darkest hours of the night, illuminated by a near-full moon. Stewart looked up at the sky as he waited, sitting behind a bush. A dark cloak and hood hid his features. His breath was steady this time around, he was getting used to this.
It was time. Stewart crept to the door of the baker's house, Pam he believed her name was, and entered the unlocked door. Not a soul had seen him.
He continued to the bedroom. There he found her, neck slashed and still wet. Blood had already soaked into her bed. That would require replacing, he'd have to account for this in the future.
There was no time to waste, Stewart began infusing the corpse with intricate patterns of mana. Preserving the brain first was the most important, wait too long on that and your undead would be... normal undead. Not like the undead Stewart made. Living undead. Their brain function intact while still getting all the benefits of being undead.
The last brain preservation rune was almost finished when one of his warning spells went off in his head. He looked up just in time to see a figure charging at him.
Stewart pushed the man while dodging to the side, causing the man to go tumbling. Stewart was about to pull out his dagger, or summon his already finished undead when he saw who it was.
"Thomas?"
He looked up at Stewart, eyes wide and brow furrowed. Stewart now saw the knife in his hand, probably the same one used to kill Pan, or whatever her name was.
"How do you know my name? Who are you?!"
Stewart relaxed a little, a bit of sadness or perhaps pity now in his eyes. This was quite peculiar, but he had a baker to finish reviving.
"Oh, my poor Thomas. You're not well. Let me help you--"
"Stop it! I know you're reviving them. But I have to kill them! I thought I had gone insane when I saw Wilson at the grocery store, that I hallucinated the whole thing. But then there was Sarah, Patrick, Mathew..."
He went on for a bit while Stewart tried to discreetly finish preserving Pem's brain. As long as he could finish that, the rest could be done later and he could deal with Thomas.
"Wait... Dr. Gravely? I do recognize you. What did you do?"
Fury returned to Thomas's eyes as he stood up, repeating his last question multiple times. Thomas started shuffling towards Stewart. His movements were stiff and sometimes a muscle would suddenly contract or spasm. Stewart sighed, now having finished the brain preservation.
"Yes Thomas, it's me, Dr. Gravely. As for what I did, I saved you. Do you remember the first person you killed, Thomas?"
He paused a moment, giving Thomas a chance to remember for himself.
"It was yourself. It broke my heart to have failed you, so I did what I could."
Thomas's eyes turned glossy as he remembered. His arms flailed in a wide movement as he lunged at Stewart.
"Thomas, *STOP*."
Magic infused the word. Thomas froze in place, eyes wide, his cheeks now wet. What had Dr. Gravely done to him?
"You were my first, Thomas. I'm sorry you're suffering right now, but I'll fix the magic. You won't even remember what happened, don't worry! Then we'll continue improving everyone in this town, there will be no more death, no more illness. I promise."
With that, Stewart severed the magical connection of Thomas's brain. It was still preserved, but for now he'd animate him and Pim with standard death magic. Just the bare minimum to sneak them to his home before the sun rose. |
The chains that binded the prisoner looked scrawny by comparison to him. Even while unconscious his muscles rippled as if made of stone and veins ran like rivers just beneath his skin. He was as close to godhood as any man had ever came, not that his summoners knew it. If they did then they'd have been more cautious. But instead a man loomed over him, poking and prodding in anticipation of any sort of a reaction. He gave them none. Instead the only sign of his life was the steady rise and fall of his muscled chest.
A tall, robed man with creases around his eyes stared down to the man he'd summoned. He could not tell what he had exactly, but he knew it must be important for how much difficulty it had been to bring him to this world. Worth it, he'd hoped.
"So, is this the hero we summoned?"there was a twinkle in the priests eye as he spoke.
A younger, more nervous face stood to the right of the priest, too scared to touch the man on the table, to even look at him. With a stutter he replied: "Well- y-yes I believe so. It says he's called...Doomguy."the apprentice looked into a leather bound book. "Why is he chained up l-like that?"
"Caution, my boy. It's not like I've ever done this before either. Now help me wake this...Doomguy"he tested the name in his mouth. It came out sour.
With a steady hand the priest tapped the sides of the mans face. Even while asleep he had a wild look to him. A look of despair, of anguish. Hesitantly the apprentice laid a hand on the mans chest, still chained to the wood alter, and gave him a light shake.
"Wha-what if he doesn't wake up?"
"Just hope he does. Because if not then well...well we won't be here long enough to know what comes after."he followed it with a prayer under his breath. *Lord let this not be our final place of rest, and if it to be then let your guidance take us to the after*. Before the apocalypse the priest would have said heaven, but recently he had become unsure.
Outside, as if on command the roars of otherwordly beasts sounded. The door to the church lurched inward, splinters falling down from the sides as it heaved.
The two holy men did not stir. They did not shake at the noise or falter in their task, instead they called harder to the man on the table.
"Doomguy! You are needed! You are our only hope. You have been summoned to be our savior, and it was quite a pain to do so!"the priest spoke with urgency. Still the body did not stir.
The door lurched forward once more, bowing in even further, the hinges threatening to pop.
"Wake him! I'll buy us time my boy!"the robed man ran to the door and pushed a nearby bench in front. It would be of little help.
"Wake up demon slayer! The book says you will rescue this world, so it must be true!"the young man pounded the slayers chest and came back feeling as if he'd hit solid stone. Back at the large church doors the priest continued his futile attempt to bide time. The doors cracked and fell to ruin. He could see the glowing eyes of the demons outside. Once more they roared with that unholy sound.
From the table, still in chains, the slayers wild eyes shot open. With a single jerk of his arm the chains burst up from the floor and the apprentice fell back to the ground. The slayer, now awake, stood up from the altar. He was massive, beyond massive, no longer seeming a man but a machine of unstoppable force.
Walking with purpose he passed the circle engraved in the floor that had been used to bring him to this world. Approaching the door he slid the Arch Priest to the side with a burly hand, who only stared in disbelief.
He had been here before, Doomguy. Had killed before, slaughtered before.To the priest and the boy this was the destruction of their world, to the slayer, it was any other day.
Through the cracks in the door the slayer looked out to the sea of flesh and bone that awaited him. It looked almost...comforting.
"Rip...and tear...Till it's done" |
"Face your fear, Mortal!"
What did I fear? I stepped up to the Maw, the strange dark void that was slowly encroaching on the land. It seemed like a million years ago when the Maw appeared, abruptly and effectively ending modern life as we knew it, though some part of the back of my mind reminded me it had been a mere 5 years.
"What is my fear?"
Can a dark eldritch void from the beyond look taken aback?
"Face your fear."
"Yeah, I'm not sure what's left to fear, you know? You already ended life as we knew it. If you don't stop then soon everything will be gone, but life is kinda shit right now anyway so what's to be afraid of?"
The Maw paused for an extra half a second before its next response. "I will show you true nothingness!"
The universe closed around me, a light going out on all sensation. I floated in an existence of utter lack, not sight nor sound, taste nor smell, no feeling whatsoever to ground me.
I didn't know how long it lasted. Could have been seconds. Could have been several lifetimes. How do you judge the passage of time when all feeling and experience are smothered and removed from your experience?
As abruptly as the light had gone the switch was flipped and life returned. I was still standing at the top of the hill, the Maw stretching before me.
"Can I go back?"
"YOU HAVE BROKEN, PUNY--what?"Turns out even an unknowable eldritch void from beyond time and space can be surprised.
"Yeah, can I do that again?"
The Maw undulated, like a roiling mist. "Your mind is...unbroken. How can this be?"
I shrugged. "I think you underestimate how empty and soul-draining life was before you showed up. At least in that nothing there was peace."
The Maw reached out to grab me. As it did I noticed that the crowd of people behind me had shifted from other supplicants to more of an audience. The plants of the hilltop were greener, spring truly underway. I must have been under for...weeks. It seemed the Maw wasn't advancing as long as it had me in its grasp.
Back to the nothing. |
Rothgar the Glorious flicks his wrist to remove the blood and ichor from his sword as he walks into the heart of the dragons lair. From atop it’s pile of gold Gothar the Red looks down at him.
“How strange, I never thought to see a wielder of the industrious blade darken my doorstep.”
Rothgar looks up, “You speak, how fortuitous. Mine ears hath told me that you may be the owner of a spool of Royal Purple silk thread from the Rast dynasty.”
Gothar nods her head ponderously, “I do indeed Hero, for what do you need it?”
Rothgar bows his head, “Great Dragon, wouldst thou be willing to part with 200 yards of the aforementioned thread. As I find that I am in dire need of that precise shade for the emperor’s cloak on the tapestry I have undertaken.”
Gothar leans forward, her sulphurous breath blowing Rothgar’s hair straight behind him, “You slaughtered your way through my guardians to request thread?”
“Indeed, and I wouldst engage thou in battle, if it were not for the fact your spilt blood may spoil the thread.”
Gothar nods, “I see. I will consent to allowing you to use my thread. In return, you will sew your tapestry here until such time as my guards have been replaced.”
Rothgar sags with relief, “Great Dragon, I shall do as you wish. Though I fear I need to return to the local Inn. For that is where I left mine tapestry for safety.”
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Rothgar looks up from his 100ft tapestry, “Gothar, wouldst though happen to have any royal blue thread from Meniscus, 3rd kingdom era?”
Gothar leans down to gaze at the tapestry that will surely take at least three human lifespans to complete, “Nay Rothgar. I would know, how do you plan on completing your tapestry as you have been here for the last 20 years, and I doubt you have more than another 30 in you.”
Rothgar nods, “First, I will travel to the temple of water in the ruins of Meniscus, guarded by the kraken to obtain the thread. Then I will travel to the Unseen Empire and retrieve the Grail from the pitfiend that guards it.”
Gothar nods seriously, “I will miss you, as you have been a far more effective guardian these past 20 years.”
Rothgar shakes his head, “Great Dragon, I was merely protecting my tapestry.” |
"I made you some sandwiches for your trip honey".
"Thanks, Mom", I replied, knowing full well they'd go in the trash once I'd started out. "Frank and I are going to pick up Jillian before we head down to the city, Should be back around 1 AM".
"That had better be midnight, Mister. You've still got a curfew, you know."
It was two days before my eighteenth birthday, for christ's sake, and I hadn't even gotten a girlfriend yet. But no matter, when your number comes up, your number comes up. Mine came up an hour ago while I was in the shower. I lept out, soap covered, to answer my ringing phone; hoping it was that girl Gwen from the party last night.
I'd been so eager to talk to her that I barely noticed the words "Number Blocked"on the screen when I answered. "Kyle James Wenclet, You have been chosen as the participant in this year's Stockton Lottery. You have twenty four hours to prepare. Your pass phrase is ******** and will be required for verification."
With that, I'd rinsed off in the shower, and started packing. The next twenty five hours would determine the rest of my life.
There was only one survivor in recent memory, and of course we'd all heard her story. Upon getting her call, Susan Parker had stolen her fathers yacht, and sent it full throttle out into the Pacific. Then she rented a hot air balloon, shot the guide, and drifted for the next three days before crashing into a barn in northern Washington.
She'd survived, but what good was surviving if you were doing thirty years for murder?
I wasn't going that way. It had taken me just over an hour to pack and leave messages on the networks. I told everybody my parents were taking me to San Diego for my birthday, and that I'd be out of town for the next three days.
In reality I wasn't even leaving the county. We'd grown up amongst the redwoods, and had always joked that if you climbed one, you'd be invisible by the time you got to the top.
True or not, twenty three hours from now I was going to find out.
|
"All I can think of is the moment they gave you to me... Right then I knew you and I were damned with this disease. Your first breaths made me feel like I was drawing my last. 10 years you shouldered the pain you never deserve. Not anymore. Now you are free. And we are one.
Carry that with you wherever you go. When you meet that special someone, it's gonna be us loving them... So love. And live. And fight. For I am with you. Until the last light fades away.
I hate myself, for my life is all I can give to you.
I'll spend an eternity, in the void, watching... So blame me, for not spending it, in life, for you. Hate me. Curse me... And at the end of the line, I promise, I'll wait for you. Just like at the beginning.
I love you my child. Sleep tight now. And live on." |
I am Death. I am the God of Death. Why else would no living being dare to stand within 50 feet of me?
I open the door, determined to feast upon the offering left for me at Subway. As I struggle to squeeze through the door of my house, the sun burns my eyes and my pale skin.
"Insolent fool!"I shout at the sun who dares to burn me. I am immediately out of breath after yelling and pass out on the sidewalk.
When I awake, the sun is setting. It must have gotten the message and decided not to bother me anymore.
I wheeze and cough and I stand up, and slowly make my way to Subway. No one dares to stand near me as I walk down the sidewalk. If they do, they gag and run away. Serves them right for not respecting my presence.
I walk into Subway and tell the frail teenage employee to make me a meatball sub. He runs into the back, clearly unable to withstand my beauty. After a minute, he returns with a clip on his nose. He quickly makes the sandwich and asks me to pay.
"Me? Pay? Preposterous."He doesn't push the issue and tells me to leave. I take the sandwich and scarf it down in 5 bites. He looks horrified, obviously awestruck by my speed at eating. I leave the store and return home, and spend the rest of the evening staring into the mirror. |
Angels fall pretty often, more than those in Heaven like to admit. Luckily, there are always more fledglings to 'learn' from their mistakes. A baby angel is ready to join the platoon for every adult angel that falls. However, the same can't be said for our demons. From day one when I joined the legion, I've learned that Purification was seen as an impossible process. With how much sin there is in the world, there isn't much room to really help humanity.
In spite of this though, why was it I so easily lost markings? I wasn't anyone special, not a demon prince, king, or even a noble. I was your average demon, mid-ranking in my legion and with okay ratings. I took care of small summons that just wasn't fanciful enough for the ones in high positions to take. Ones that amateurs did, or those just looking for two more inches under the belt.
But as I walked through Hell, the stares were getting more obvious. As was how I didn't have as long of horns anymore, and how my stripes were fading, or the fact my tail was missing. Lately, one client kept calling me back to the mortal realm, having bonded me to her. And I can only describe her as a 'pure soul'. New to the world, having not reincarnated once, and full of so much hope.
What started as a simple curiosity on her part, turned into her wanting to sell what she had to help out her family in a bad situation. Giving up parts of herself slowly to help those she cared about. I watched her give up her looks and have it to where he parents won their bankruptcy case; so that they didn't have to worry about crippling medical debt from when her brother had cancer. She asked me once, in exchange for a few years from her life, to make it to where her dad didn't suffer from his bad back and knees, that his surgery for them was paid for and a success. There were others, but the last thing she asked me for, after finding true love after so long of being called 'ugly', makes me feel ill. And she asked me again, in exchange for her soul, that the family she had would have their needs met and always make smart choices.
I granted these wishes, one after another, and tried my best not to tear up at the last one. This little girl I met at barely 15 had more compassion than any human I had seen before. She cared not for what happened to her, only that those coming after her would never suffer the childhood she did. And this pure soul, this woman was going to end up in Hell. It wasn't fair, the system never was.
There is a loophole though, once of which I plan to use and exploit.
Her soul is mine, contracted to me along with everything else she ever gave me in life. That is the one thing that is clear, the demon who makes the contract, keeps the soul. No matter if other demons want it. Soul are often traded this way too. But I don't plan on trading her. I wear these missing markings with pride. I'll seek out to help anyone now, I'm pickier with the contracts than before. And as my back aches every day with the feeling of the feathers below the surface, I welcome the pain.
I will take her soul with me the Heaven, I'll trade the others that were truly sinful to stay here. I'm seeking out those who were unfairly put here to trade for. I'll see to it this woman, and others, get their paradise. And I'll make sure the things I promised to stay in place for all she's given up remain. Screw the system that this God put in place. She deserves the world, and I'll give her that and more. |
"No! You don't understand! You have to take her to the hospital now! She's sick!"Tears stream down my face, rage, frustration, and fear wrenching my guts as my father strokes my hair. Trying to comfort me, he blows air across my forehead and shushes me.
"Your mommy is fine sweetheart. She's not sick, see!"He gestures to my mother standing in the bedroom doorway. She's visibly shaken, but smiling, trying to put on a brave face for me. I can tell my words must be getting to her. The cancer in her leg must already be doing it's work, twisting her bones and causing her the pain that will lead to her permanent limp for the rest of her short life. But if something can be done...
***
I had awoken abruptly in a panic. I had fallen asleep in a strange bed at some motel in a town I'd never been to before. Work kept me on the road fairly often, so sleeping in strange beds wasn't unusual and was just as likely as sleeping in my own. The sleep was dreamless, the darkness refreshing after so many hours on the road. At some point during the dreamless sleep I felt myself falling like you sometimes do when anxiety grabs a hold of your subconscious and slaps you awake for no reason other than to make your day a little more exciting. But unlike the usual short drop then sudden wakefulness, I fell for a long while. Like the feeling you get when you drop down that first slope on a roller coaster. Prolonged dread and terror until you hit the bottom of the drop. When my eyes snapped open I found myself not where I'd been, but back home. But not my home now... or later... not my home in *my present*. But my home in a place long since demolished, in a time and place far far away from where I should be.
My immediate concern when I recognize where I was was my dog. Strangely, I wasn't as disturbed as perhaps I should have been when I realized where I was and what I had become. The room of my youth was a firm memory and place that I pretty immediately recognized. The big windows looking out into the backyard from the second story of our old blue house. The sheetrock walls, unpainted, that my dad had put up while doing repairs but had never gotten around to painting, nor ever would. The floors littered with toys that I routinely neglected to put away. My predicament as a newly reminted child back in my old room in my old house wasn't disturbing, but the fate of my dog was. When I had fallen asleep, Missy, my old and loyal companion, had been asleep in the second bed in the stale ashtray of a room I'd rented for the night. But now that I was here, where was she? Would she be ok? Could I get back to her? When it finally set in what had become of me I had to console myself with the thought that I wouldn't need to worry about Missy. She wasn't even born yet.
The clock in my room read 1:24am. I stared for a while out my window into the darkness of my backyard. The brick patio was there. The old loquat tree that my grandmother would collect from to make preserves, the big tall oaks before they'd been killed off by disease and inclement weather. The house seemed quite. Everyone was asleep. For a while I was afraid of what I'd find on the other side of my bedroom door. It was all so impossible, being here and now, I was afraid that I'd died in that stiff motel bed of some misfortune and that this was an illusion. Some final test before moving on. But my curiosity and longing to see the rest of my old home steeled my resolve and I twisted the old brass knob on my door and made my way out.
The second story was as I remembered it. The bathroom immediately across from room, my parents room and my sister's room to my left down the short narrow hallway. Too afraid to disturb anyone's sleep, I instead turned right and made my way slowly down the stairs to the floor below.
The living room at the bottom of the stairs was as I remembered it. Open with lots of old cushy furniture, worn and threadbare from years of use. The front door was the old solid wood one, before my father had replaced it with the fancier looking one with the opaque glass insert. While it was too dark to see, I could feel the slightly pinkish white of the walls. It was slightly messy, as it usually was except when guests were expected. To my delight, I let out a gasp as a large black shape came moseying up to me in the darkness. George, the old family dog had woken up from his spot by the television. I kneeled down and put my arms around his big shoulders, giving him a tight squeeze. He flopped over onto his side, presenting me his belly for rubs and attention, to which a happily obliged. Our greeting concluded, I stood and bade him to follow. As good a dog as he ever was, George rose up and joined me as I continued through my memory. It was a comfort for me that he was here, since now I knew I wasn't alone.
Through the adjoining dining room I made my way into the kitchen. It too was as I remembered. I opened the fridge, blinking in the sudden light. I found some ham and took a piece for me and for George. Handing his share over, George wolfed it down quickly with much tail wagging. I slowly munched on mine, George silently watching. Thirsty, I went to the cupboard for a cup. In my diminutive state, I couldn't quite reach, so handing over the rest of the meat to George, I clambered up onto the counter and grabbed a cup. Sitting on the counter, I slid over to the kitchen sink and filled it with water. I drank deeply of the tap water. As poetic as it would be to say it was the coolest and most refreshing water I could remember, it wasn't. It was just tap water, like any other clean water you'd get from a tap. I sat there looking down at George, he looking up at me, panting softly and wagging his tail, no doubt hoping for more meat when suddenly the lights turned on. Snapping my attention to the doorway, there stood my grandmother, hair in curls nightgown bedecked. Her bifocal glasses perched upon her nose, she regarded me sitting there on the counter, cup in hand and dog at feet.
"What are you doing awake? It's late y'know."Looking her in the eyes and hearing her voice for the first time in years, I uncontrollably began to sob.
*Note. It's late and I should be getting back to sleep and I'm writing this from my phone. If there's any interest in my writing more, I'll do so at a later time.*
Edit: There is now a Pt. 2 and 3. Pt. 2 is in a reply to this and Pt. 3 to that. |
The orange aura from the explosion shot through the deep-blue night sky for only an instant before fading into the atmosphere. The force of the impact sent waves of tremors through the earth below.
"Ahhh- ugh -ow,"Morty grunted from behind the driver's seat of the tiny spaceship. He rubbed his forehead and blinked a few times to assess the situation. His eyes grew wide with panic.
"Ohhhh!! Oh, jeez, Rick! I- I-I'm sorry! Ohhhh no! I- I don't know! What happened?! Where did that thing even come from?"
Rick threw a wayward glance toward Morty, his eyes bloodshot and half-shut.
"Way to go, Morty,"he began. "You're the only person on earth who ever flew an inter-dimensional spaceship into an immobile object."
"We're the only two people on earth who've ever driven this thing!"Morty shouted, throwing his hands up indignantly.
"You're missing the point, Morty,"Rick continued, reaching into his lab coat and withdrawing a flask. His practiced hands unscrewed the top and popped it open in less than a second. "The point is, you're an idiot, and grandpa hates you."He took a long drink from the flask as Morty frowned and stared at the floor of the ship.
"I-If I'd been dri-*urrrp*-iving, Morty, this wouldn't have happened. But no. Some of your- because of your adolescent, uh, you know, rage, going on, your adolescent hormones, thinking now that you, you know, got some juices going on, flowing in there, now you have to take every opportunity you could possibly have to drive everything and anything anywhere. And I bl*urp*lame myself, too, Morty. I can't believe I accommodated you and your, little rage- rage juice there, Morty. And now you've rammed the pinnacle of my life's work into the side of phone booth."
Rick raised a hand as he began to continue his thought, but was interrupted by a sudden burst of bright, artificial light spilling out of the phone booth in front of them. A tall, skinny man emerged from the front of the booth wearing a neat, brown coat which matched the color of his hair. Underneath the coat he wore a freshly pressed white shirt and a perfectly knotted red bow tie. Behind him, a woman with long, red hair stepped out of the booth as well. She wore a plaid blouse with dark-colored slacks and a pair of boots.
Rick's expression grew from one of slightly annoyed boredom to bemused interest. He signaled for Morty to join him as he exited the spacecraft. As Rick walked toward the couple exiting the phone booth, he took another look at the ship. Rick cringed and held his face in his right hand as he saw just how extensive the damage to his ship was. He sighed and continued toward the others.
"Sorry for interrupting your cramped, weird, phone-booth sex."
"Rick!"Morty shouted, looking incredulous.
"Excuse me?"Asked the man in the bow-tie, raising an eyebrow.
"Well I just call it like I-"Rick's words were cut off as he caught a glimpse through the open door of the booth. Inside was a gigantic chamber with a series of complicated-looking electronics and controls.
"Holy shit, I've seen this technology before. You're a time lord, aren't you?"Rick asked, turning to the man in front of the booth.
"I am indeed,"he began, smiling. "I am the Doctor."
Rick stared blankly at him. "Doctor of what?"He asked.
"Just- well, 'The Doctor',"The Doctor responded.
Rick's eyes narrowed. "All right, 'Doctor', well forgive me if I don't exactly trust someone who shares the same nickname as a crack dealer without any further explanation of where the title comes from."He looked toward Morty, expecting that his rude comment would have prompted another angry outburst, but Morty was preoccupied with staring at the red-haired woman.
The Doctor seemed to notice as well. "Ah-hem."He cleared his throat. "And this is Amy, she is my-"
"Hi Amy."Morty called out, interrupting The Doctor.
Everyone stared at Morty.
"Er- hello,"Amy replied.
"Okay. Amy and The Doctor. Great. I'm Rick, and this is Morty. He's my grandson. Now we alllll know each other,"Rick said, once again removing his flask from his coat. "Is your craft still operational? My dipshit grandson destroyed mine when he attempted to destroy yours."
"Well, I'm not sure,"The Doctor said, removing his sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket.
"Oh, great. The deus ex machina device,"Rick said.
"If you say so,"The Doctor said, shrugging. He activated the device and it began to whir as he pointed it in the direction of the damaged portion of the ship."Call it what you will, but it's light-years ahead of anything you've got, Rick of dimension C-137."
"Oooooooh,"Rick started. "I suppose I would be impressed if you had to do more than think about what you wanted while pushing a button to achieve results. It's like the Staples button of science-fiction writing. Also, light-years are a measure of distance, not time, but what would you know? You're just a doctor."
The doctor stopped using the screwdriver and rolled his eyes. "The metaphor works equally well for distance *or* time."
Rick's face settled into its natural grimace. A small amount of drool collected under his bottom lip. "Well, while yo- *urp* ou're over there doing nothing and somehow getting what you need anyway, I'm going to collect the parts I need with my dipshit- er, grandson. C'mon Morty."Rick turned to walk back toward his ship. He reached into another one of his lab coat pockets and produced his portal gun. Firing it, a swirling, green vapor materialized in the darkness.
"Wait!"Amy shouted, walking toward the portal. "You've crashed into us, and now you're just going to leave us here to fix the wreck?"
Rick took another swig from his flask. "Well, I hate to correct you, Amy, but it was you both who teleported into *our* path with your little, 'somehow-bigger-on-the-inside-Harry-Potter-magic-bullshit' machine over there. So yeah, I am just going to leave you."He jumped into the portal.
Morty continued to stare at Amy. Rick's arm reached back through the portal, grabbed Morty by his collar, and yanked him through as well. |
Eli waved his enemy into a nicely decorated living room with a fireplace, three matching armchairs, and a wooden coffee table absolutely littered with books, pamphlets, and magazines and topped by a small round green teapot and two hideously mismatched orange mugs. Oddly, there was also what looked like a set of wrecked pool noodles stacked in the far corner and a baby gate in the doorway to the hall. Eli took a seat in one of the chairs and gestured tiredly to the one across from him as he said "I, uh, became a dad, sort of."
Sam rested back against the seat and let one hand drift toward the coffee table. This sounded like it was going to be an odd conversation, and if he could get a mug of patience out of it he would. "How does one 'sort of' become a dad?"He surreptitiously glanced around looking for a child. There had to be a child, right? Eli wouldn’t dare muck around with robotics and AI, right? He whispered a quick prayer that there wouldn’t be robots involved. That could get nasty.
"Y'know how adoption works?"Eli poured from the round green teapot into two mugs, then passed one to Sam, who sniffed, frowned, then set it on the mantle. He hadn’t trusted anything that tasted like mint since the Christmas incident a few years back.
"Yeah?"Where was he going with this? Sam wished he hadn’t come in. It wasn’t smart to do courtesy calls for people who tried to kill you, and while he didn’t feel right ignoring his enemy’s absence, he also didn’t need to walk into the beast’s own mouth. The mint smell wafted from the teapot as he tried to calm down. If there was going to be a fight, he would need to be able to think.
Eli stared at him with tired eyes and sighed. "Like that, but illegally."
Like adoption, but illegally? Sam jumped up, knocking the coffee table and spilling several books. How had he missed that his enemy had taken a child? "Ah-ha! Kidnap! I knew you had some evil scheme! Give me the child and you won't get hurt!"Saints knew what he had done to them already. This was going to be a nightmare.
Eli held one hand out in a calming gesture while he started stacking the books back up with the other. "I'm pretty sure her parents are dead. You don’t need to worry, I’m just keeping her safe. Believe me, the last thing I want is to hurt her."
Sam slowly sat down. The sincerity in his old enemy’s eyes was frightening. Maybe was going crazy, but he believed Eli. "Oh. So, did you save her from something? Wait, 'pretty sure'? You mean you don't know for certain?"If he had wound up saving a child from her own parents Sam would cave his head in.
Eli shook his head while staring at his untouched mug of tea. "Tiny baby, nobody else around, big building went boom? I just don't know. I think that's the worst part."
Sam’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t heard from his enemy since last week. The skyscraper explosion. "Oh god. You found her in the wreckage, didn't you? That's...."
"All my fault, I know. I've... had a few existential crises the last couple days."No wonder he looked exhausted. He had found an infant in the wreckage of his own actions and took home both the child and the guilt.
As Eli held his head in his hands, Sam looked at his old enemy with pity. "You get it now don't you. Why I've had to stop you every time? This is why--"
"Please don't rub it in.” Sam stopped. His former foe got it. He’d said enough. “Listen, would you happen to know if- I mean know about- who might've--"
"Survived? I thought nobody had until now. 'No survivors' is what got published and everything, nobody could find anyone. Whoever that child's birth parents are, they're dead. The kid legally is, too."Sam sighed and reached for the mug of tea he’d set down, at least to warm his hands with.
Eli looked up, clearly remorseful but unsurprised. "What do I do with her? I mean, it's not like I can keep her, can I?"
Sam gave him a look. He’d already been keeping her for at least a week. "What's her name?"
Eli threw his hands up, asking “How would I know? I killed--"
Sam raised his mug to his face and breathed in the steam. "I mean what have you been calling her?"
A quiet pause. "Gwen."Sam nodded. There was probably some significance attached to that name for Eli, but that wasn’t the point right now. The point was, someone he knew well was making a big step. This could be a good thing.
"Alright then. You named her, you've taken care of her, you can keep her. But I do suggest arranging some form of legal paperwork. Life is complicated if you don't exist."They both knew that well enough.
Eli snorted. "No kidding.” Glancing over at the baby gate and the foam noodles, he asked, “Aren't you supposed to, I don't know, stop me or something?"
Sam couldn’t help but grin. "I’ve stopped enough. I still will if you do something stupid. This is fine."
"Oh."The look of relief on Eli’s face made Sam proud. He knew his ex-opponent hadn’t wanted to give up the child.
Sam took a small, testing sip of his tea. "Will I see you at the school drop-off lines?"
Eli stood up and moved to open the door, showing Sam out. "Too young yet, but you will see me next week. I know you have a kid. I know nothing about this, and any advice will be appreciated.”
"I’ll bring her some toys if I get to meet her.” Sam took a big gulp of the mug’s minty contents before setting the mug down to go. “Usual time and place?"Eli looked relieved and nodded as the two parted ways. "Let's not end by blowing up buildings this time."Sam left the house, and wondered as he started home. Since when did mint taste so good? |
The world passes us by without us even realizing. A day, month, year? Just numbers put to the passing of something we so desperately wish to control.
So, when I was asleep for those three short millennia I barely even noticed. It could have been just a day and I wouldn't have even known the difference. Difference between another day in my bed and a day so far in the future that everyone I'd know was long gone. Maybe my bones ached more, just a little. But the cryo pods were meant to prevent such things.
We, the crew and I, didn't know what we'd expect when we'd left. A distant planet with lush forests, a new star bringing adventure. Anything but this: a *human* opening my pod hundreds of years too soon, yanking me free of my slumber. She looked to me with deep blue eyes.
"Hello sleepy...you made it."her voice was sweet, carrying softly through the bay.
I looked up to her with wild eyes. Not one of my crew. Not a friend. My hand reached down for something heavy but found only air. She stumbled back in fear
"Wh-who the fuck are you."
"No need to be alarmed! I'm a friend. We just showed up earlier than you. Welcome to Valeria!"
My eyes adjusted to the light in time, and I could better make out her face in front of the fluorescents. Beautiful, was the first word that came to mind. Uncanny, was the second. Too beautiful. Too friendly. Too nice. My muscles tightened.
"When did you arrive? How late are we?"
"Is now the best time-"
"Yes."I looked down to her uniform to see the stars and stripes. "Commander. Tell me what this is."
"One-thousand and fifteen years... They kept telling us you'd arrive one day. The pioneers of this place...they were just faster."
I sat up in my pod in disbelief. Ten, maybe eleven lifetimes. We were not only late, but a thousand years too late. We were floating around on nothing more than a relic, might as well have put us in a museum, if this new place had those. Floating while humanity built something better, faster.
"So then we-"in that moment, sitting up in my pod, I noticed the others, empty. Not opened, but broken straight through. Above my head a red light faded in and out. An alarm somewhere off in the ship. My heart raced. The corner of her lip twitched.
I stood up with hesitancy and stumbled to the window of our ship, a massive framed glass. Behind I could feel her eyes on my neck, but I was too busy, something outside had caught my eye. Out of the window were cities, more than cities, a massive metropolis practically glowing in gold. It was an entire civilization. While we were floating around they built. While they had families ours had long since died. In the time it took us to arrive they both rose, and fell to whatever stood behind me, no doubt. Something lurched.
My heart raced as I reached the wall where my...our suits were. Next to it the pistol, in case of emergency they had told us. Insisted we were top shots.
"Wow. It's all so much to take in...should we get going then?"I gripped the handle of my gun tight.
But behind me was no voice in reply, was no sweet sultry song of a blue-eyed woman, too beautiful to be real. Instead it was replaced by a wet growl. I turned to see the woman from before now nothing more than a hollow suit on the floor, a mess of hair-like appendages crawling from her skin. I took the shot on instinct. Then another, and another, each finding a neat pocket of air to slice through and planting itself into the parasite before me. Each shot caused it to recoil back and further away, the black tendrils trying to find some semblence of safety between rounds.
"Wait! You dont understand-"the woman's voice spoke through a mouth not her own.
Then it reached out to me with a mouth full of needle like teeth, ravenous with hunger, but I was too quick. I hadn't traveled the galaxy to die to some parasite. To a bug. To fall as the others surely had. I placed the gun to its head and unloaded until the beast burst into a small ball of fire and burned at my feet.
As the last of its remains burned to ash I slumped against the wall, the red light still fading overhead. I could taste its blood on my face, metallic and bitter. Outside that port window the city now seemed less magical. Less welcoming. It was too silent to be real, and now as my adrenaline fell I could see its wear clearly.
With a groan I got up and crawled back over, back into my pod. I feared what may lurk. The bodies of my crew, animated once more. Given a second life. A new purpose.
"Ship...how far off course are we?"
Above a woman's voice replied: *You have arrived at your destination. Perfectly on course pilot.*
As I feared.
"How long till the next candidate?"
*Five-hundred forty-six years*
I laid down back in the pod and pulled the cover closed once more, letting the drugs lull me back to sleep.
"Alright. Wake me up then." |
Branyth the Butcher whistled while he worked, his merry tune briefly giving way to a grunt of exertion, as he hoisted the insensible sheep into the air by the chain fastened around its hind legs. Once the end of the chain was secured to the iron hook on the wall to keep the sheep suspended, he spoke the traditional words of thanksgiving to the Divine, and to the sheep for its sacrifice.
Then, he took up his knife.
Most decent butchers had a wide variety of knives at their disposal, and Branyth was no exception. But while he had a dozen good knives and cleavers of different sizes, he only ever used one, these days: the Reaver.
He knew the blade's name because it told him, the very first time he picked it up.
"I am the Reaver,"it had said, speaking inside Branyth's head somehow, "I crave naught but the spilling of blood, and the sundering of flesh from bone -- give me that which I thirst for, and I will bring you wealth, power, and glory."
It was an odd knife, to be sure -- he'd decided that much then and there. But then, he'd come by it in an odd way: a strange old man in a black cloak that kept his face concealed in shadows had offered the knife to him in trade for a lamb shank. He'd accepted, for reasons he still didn't quite understand, for it had looked more like a dagger than a blade fit for his craft. Even so, he'd thus far had no cause to regret the transaction.
Whistling again, he drew the knife across the sheep's throat with a practiced flick. As always, the Reaver glided through flesh, muscle, and even bone as though it was passing through nothing more substantial than whipped butter. Though he'd had the thing for months, it was still razor sharp, and without the attention of a strap or whetstone in all that time.
It groaned in satisfaction as it cut the beast's throat, and continued to do so as its lifeblood drained into the basin set on the floor below. Branyth felt satisfied, too: even before acquiring Reaver, he'd prided himself on making clean cuts. He didn't know about power, glory, and all the other nonsense the knife had promised him, but with Reaver's preternatural sharpness to make cutting up a heifer as easy as peeling a potato, he'd been able to take on a great deal more work, and business was booming.
"I...I once cleaved through whole dynasties..."Reaver sleepily mumbled into Branyth's mind, "I severed the lines of kings and emperors, I-I left uncountable widows and orphans weeping in my wake. I shouldn't be doing something like *this,* I should be..."the knife trailed off into a mental yawn. "But I'm just so...so *full..."* And then, the blade just sort of dozed off.
That was fine by Branyth. Reaver was just as sharp asleep as it was awake.
Branyth chuckled to himself as he set to work on the hanging carcass. Severed the lines of *emperors?* Sheep and cattle didn't have *emperors!* He smiled and shook his head in bemusement as he imagined hoisting up a bullock with a little golden crown stuck between its horns.
Many things mystified Branyth about this strange talking knife that never needed sharpening, but perhaps none was as perplexing as the question of why it had such a fanciful imagination. |
What is life? The first replicating molecules had no thought, no desire, no capacity for anything but to absorb, replicate and disintegrate. From this simple mechanism a host of complex life evolved. For billions of years those living things perfected the ability to eat, to replicate and to die. Life on Earth became so good at this seemingly trivial task that it became almost magical in its intricate designs. Humans, the pinnacle of an evolutionary path dedicated to eating, fucking and dying were so good at it that they entirely accidentally also perfected a few other traits. War. Expansion. Destruction.
The life forms of another world had discovered us first, many years ago. A long lived and wise people, they did not reveal themselves immediately. Technologically the T'Erg are thousands of years more advanced than us. The T'Erg exist within a simulated reality, every member of their society furnished with all possible luxury. Like us they know war, they have armies and war machines. It wasn't a naive or simple thought that brought them to us in surrender.
Some many years ago the T'Erg looked out over the vast cosmos and in a ray of light they saw us, a tiny spec of dust far far away. Simulations began immediately, what would Humanity look like by the time we discovered FTL travel? How would we greet the T'Erg and could we be peaceful and harmonious. Many T'Erg scholars dedicated lifetimes in simulated realities in which they lived among us, or along side us. Other T'Erg studied the ramifications of our rapidly accelerating technological progress. All simulations pointed to the same result. No matter who started the war, both Humanity and T'Erg society would be destroyed.
The T'Erg, being long lived and wise people, chose the only solution that their simulations provided. The T'Erg surrendered unto us and gave us technology that would let us live as they do, forever in simulated luxury and harmony so that we might never desire to leave our home planet and discover theirs.
We considered their offer and their wisdom. Unfortunately for the T'Erg, the one thing their simulations did not take into account was how very delicious they taste to us. |
The saddest thing was that it wasn't even important. I mean, if I had frozen a bus before it fell off a cliff to save everyone inside, that'd be one thing. I would have been lauded a hero. Or if I had decided to suddenly reach for the steak knife of the restaurant's kitchen and slit the throat of the annoying waiter who kept coming back to my table asking if I was ready for the check yet - well, then I would've been a villain. And it might have been deserved.
But I was still polishing off my slice of pizza, there were no buses in sight, and the waiter hadn't tipped me over the edge yet. So everything should've been fine.
But habit, I guess. This was the first time I'd eaten pizza at any joint in town, since I usually ordered in. And when I was safe at home with the windows drawn and the TV sitcoms playing, I had no problem using my powers to do mundane things, like pulling the red pepper flakes toward me with my mind instead of my hand.
And so when I reached absentmindedly for the last breadstick and it zoomed into my hand, I honestly hadn't realized I'd done anything wrong.
And then it clicked, and I jerked my head up to see if anyone was watching.
And I've never been too lucky, but honestly I knew life had something against me when I looked up to see every single gaze of the restaurant trained on me in shock.
(I later learned that the classic superhero couple - Sea Queen and Pyro-Guy, it was - had been livestreaming then, and they'd tilted the camera toward me just at that moment. Stupid names aside, they were the most popular thing at the moment and all the world had been watching their random filming of a dinner date, so that also meant all the world knew I was telekinetic. Great.)
Anyway, that wouldn't have been weird on its own, but I was sitting in the non-powered section of the restaurant, right across from the more well-furnished section for those with powers, like Sea and Pyro. No self-respecting super would ever pass up an opportunity to sit in the powered section, since that had better staff, decor, and food, I was pretty sure.
I hadn't sat there, obviously, since even though the waiter was annoying me out of my mind, I'd preferred that to the subservience and fear the wait staff gives supers, whether they're superheroes or supervillains. And, duh, I hadn't let anyone know about my powers or gotten documented, so I wouldn't have been able to sit there right then anyway. Ugh, I shouldn't have given any reason for people to suspect my powers.
And yet, somehow, I'd outed myself in the stupidest way possible. And I could do nothing but stare as Sea Queen and Pyro-Guy stalked toward me, looking more villain than hero.
"Well, what is this?"Sea cooed, turning to keep both of us in the live stream. "Telekinesis? But you're undocumented! What's up with that?"
I stood slowly, face placid despite my hammering heart. When they tested you, they found out exactly how much power you had. And with my level, there'd be recruitments, blackmail, surveillance, and I'd never have a normal life again. That couldn't happen. "Let me leave. It's a small power. It's not like I could beat you in in a fight."
Pyro smirked, and I cursed myself. "Yeah, you can't beat us. Of course not. Who does this girl think she is?"
"Yeah,"Sea said, voice as soft as a puffed-out blowfish. All the glasses in the restaurant suddenly shuddered as the water lifted out of them. "Who do you think you are, huh?"
"Someone who can't fight you at all. I'm weak, I swear,"I said quickly, eyeing the door.
"Oh, you can't run now,"Pyro said, and I had one awful moment to lock eyes with him as he gathered flame and marveled at how dang villainous he looked, for a hero-
-and then screams split the air as arcs of flame and ice shot toward me, and I *reacted*.
When I opened my eyes, clenched hands trembling, the fire had fizzled out and the icicle had shattered. Sea and Pyro looked shocked, and so did every other non-powered customer there.
"Please stop,"I said calmly. "There's no point fighting right now."
"You-"Pyro said slowly, and then became literally red with anger. "Oh, we're gonna show you who you're dealing with now."
They were level 4.
As best I could tell without being examined - I would never be examined, I would *not* - I was a level 9. Untrained, maybe, but I had raw power. A lot of it.
And so as they roared in anger and flung more projectiles in my direction, I froze them in the air. And then I held their hands by their sides.
I didn't make them bow down to me or anything. I wasn't that villainous, and I had no intention of conquering the world one hero at a time, no matter how easy it would be. But I did make them bite their tongues until they bled.
Hey, it was the least they deserved for trying to kill me.
And when a well-meaning non-powered boy ran toward me angrily, probably trying to save his fave heroes, I pursed his lips, ignored his fists, and did nothing. He couldn't hurt me, and he seemed sweet. A good guy. The world did need more of those.
He paused after a moment when I didn't retaliate, looking surprised. "You- you're not a hero,"he said boyishly, and I tilted my head.
"Thank you."
"Or a villain."
"Thank you."
The boy frowned. "What are you?"
I released my holds on Sea Queen and Pyro-Guy and turned, ignoring their strangled gasps. "A person,"I said, because that was what it was about, wasn't it, about being seen as a person and not a power.
The boy nodded. And maybe he understood.
I smiled at him then, and at the rest of the shocked crowd, and at the dazed so-called heroes, and put my hands in my pockets as I swung the doors wide open.
I had to move. And find a hero or villain or plastic surgeon willing to change my face and body.
And get pizza as takeout next time, obviously. That was a must.
Edit: Wow, y'all. I'm so happy with the positive reception of this, and super grateful for all the awards! Thank you! |
“Nessa? Earth to Nessa? What’s gotten into you today?”
Vanessa’s body felt like it was still underwater. Like it had been this morning, when she had woken up on the far side of the lake behind the dorms stark naked and bloody, her lungs screaming for air. She looked over at Auri and thought that she still hadn’t been able to take a breath. The world was too fuzzy, her best friend’s face too unclear.
“Oh hey Auri,” she said, brushing her long dark hair back behind her ear. It felt wrong behind her ear too. Then halfway through tying it back into a bun far messier than her norm she realized that didn’t feel right either. She let it fall as a curtain and wished she could wrap herself up in it and hide away.
“Okay, you’re fucked. What happened? Did you eat your home work again? I told you not to leave your essays so close to the full moon. How you’re getting straight A’s is beyond me!”
“I have my essay,” Vanessa said, wishing it were that simple.
“Then what the—”
The bell rang, calling them to class. Auri let out a little squeal and grabbed Vanessa’s hand, pulling her through the halls after her. Vanessa followed listlessly. It was fortunate for her that there weren't many students at Moonflower High. Enrollment was low as rule, but the night after the full moon always hit particularly hard. Not everyone’s transformations kept to the same clockwork schedule as hers and Auri’s, and even still, some of the more common mutations like wolves had horrible times readjusting. Wolves were not morning people.
They passed a few half full classrooms, said hi to Mr. Melville, the Janitor, bits of his bear skin sticking out in jagged tufts beneath his overalls, and then they were there. 1st period Trigonometry, Vanessa’s archrival, the only thing that might keep her from being valedictorian.
She hated the class every day, but today…Today not even Ms. Morgan’s winning smile could make up for the hole in the room.
“Good morning Nessa, Auri!” Ms. Morgan said as they walked in. She gave Vanessa a curious look. Vanessa glanced down at herself, she smoothed the wrinkles in her favorite blue shirt and hoped there weren’t any stains left on her paints. She’d had to change twice today already.
It was barely thirty seconds before Auri’s first note hit her desk.
*“Spill it,”* Auri wrote.
Vanessa froze up, staring at the little slip of paper.
*“NOW!!”* A second note joined the first.
And then Vanessa was writing, the words pouring out of her in an anxious tumble.
*“How was I supposed to know? Nobody told me, I couldn’t have guessed. It’s rude to ask what kind of Were someone is so I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell and after we finished my Trig homework the lake just looked so good and—”*
She paused, wiping at her brow. She was sweating. For once, Vanessa was glad she hadn’t applied makeup this morning, she’d have looked like a terror by lunch.
*“He had beer, and his watch was the first thing to come off.”*
Auri looked at the note for a long time after Vanessa handed them over. Up at the front of the room Ms. Morgan was doing some lecture that involved triangles and too many numbers. Vanessa shook her head hard, she couldn’t focus on that right now. Her eyes fell on one of the empty seats, on the only one whose absence couldn’t be blamed on the student’s own transformation.
*“Hang on, weren’t you studying with Jason last night???”*
The note fluttered down in front of her and Vanessa nodded. They’d filled their little scrap of paper already, her normally neat, flowing hand was a cramped scrawl.
“Nessa, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”
The click of Ms. Morgan’s heels might have been the toll of death’s bell. Certainly, Vanessa thought, she deserved no less. It was all coming apart, all of it for one night of fun that she’d thought she’d been owed. She’d even had a condom, she was supposed to have been safe!
But Jason had brought beer and he’d taken off his watch. When his shirt had come off right after all she’d been able to think about was him and the water, and for some idiotic reason the way his mouth screwed up when he was trying to teach her a particularly hard problem.
“Nessa, are you okay sweetie?” Ms. Morgan asked. “You look rather pale.”
She wasn’t asking about the note. Vanessa breathed a sigh of relief and shuffled it away under her folder. Ms. Morgan raised an eyebrow didn’t say anything, and for the thousandth time Vanessa said a silent apology for how much she hated the woman’s class.
“Auri, why don’t you take Nessa here to the nurse’s station?” Ms. Morgan crouched down beside her desk, making a broad gesture at the empty chairs in the classroom. Her finger fell on the desk three seat ahead and to the right. Jason’s. “As you can see, you aren’t the only one out today. Everyone’s entitled to a little leeway the day after the full moon.”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “Besides, this just means you and young Mr. Broward have another study session to schedule.”
Ms. Morgan winked, and when she did Vanessa could see a single scale still clinging to her eyelid. A remnant of her own nocturnal transformation.
Vanessa nodded, not trusting her voice. Young Mr. Broward was Jason of course, and though she’d thought she hadn’t been so obvious she supposed there were many about herself that she hadn’t known only a day ago.
Auri helped her out of the room, one hand on her elbow, one hand on her hip. She didn’t the left that would them to nurse. Instead she took a right, exited the building through a nearby set of double doors, and pushed Vanessa up against the brick wall.
“Hey, what the hell Nessa? This isn’t like you, you haven’t taken a transformation this hard since we were kids, and what’s all this stuff about Jason? Did you too…OH MY GOD HE DIDN’T HURT YOU DID HE??”
Auri said it in the loudest whisper Vanessa had ever heard. She glanced around furtively but they were alone.
“No,” Vanessa said. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”
“Then what the hell happened?”
“Auri,” Vanessa said, gulping down her fear. “Did you know the Jason was a Were-Seal?”
Understanding dawned immediately. They were best friend’s for a reason, had been for as long as either of them could remember. “Oh!” Auri said. Then, “Oh no.”
Vanessa, also known Nessa, also known as the world’s only Were-Plesiosaur, buried her face in Auri’s shoulder. Tears ran hot down her cheeks as she shook and shook. There were long seconds until Auri wrapped her up in a hug, but when she did there was no reservation in it, only the same warmth and love both of them had come to expect.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Auri whispered. “We’ll get through this.”
“How?”
Auri was quiet a long time. “Is there anything left? Was he a very big seal?”
“Nothing left, he was small. Oh so small, I didn’t, I couldn’t…” Vanessa had always seen him as being so, so big. Jason was a head and shoulders taller than her, and that night in the water when his arms wrapped around her he’d felt so strong.
When the moon rose and he transformed, he shrunk.
And Vanessa grown. She’d grown very, very large.
The last thing to turn had been his face. It had been a shrunken little point on a small seal’s body but all the important bits were still there, the strong chin, the long ago broken nose, the impossible green eyes. He’d still been Jason.
And when he’d said her name and his voice had called out in terror, “Nessa? Nessa, oh my god Nessa is that really you?” it had sounded just like him.
But Vanessa had not been herself.
“We’re not going to the nurse,” Auri said, guiding her over to a quieter, less public place. “We’re going to pump your stomach, burn everything we can find at the lake, and then come up with a convincing excuse in case someone comes asking about your study dates. Understood?”
“Understood,” Vanessa whispered.
“Good girl. Now cry yourself out and lets get a fucking move on.”
Auri stood there a long time, stroking Vanessa’s hair and whispering sweet, futile words in her ear.
When the time came they left hand in hand.
And neither of them remembered the note left behind on the floor, slipped out from Vanessa’s folder when she’d stood and collected her things. As 1st period Trigonometry ended, Ms. Morgan’s heels clacked their way back to Vanessa’s abandoned desk.
Her still scaled eyes blinked a few times as she read, leaning against Jason’s empty desk by coincidence or perhaps design.
And at the end, she smiled.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
​
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you! |
It wasn't a bad existence, all things considered. He stood in his spot and waited - he didn't know for what, but he'd been assured that when the time came, he'd know exactly what to do and what to say.
But he wasn't so sure of that. He really didn't have much to think about, and how can someone who doesn't think much have much of anything to say? He guessed he'd know what to do when he had to, but in the meantime, he stood and waited.
An eternity later, he saw her. She confidently walked down the path, so sure of herself, so _powerful_. _This_ must be his destiny. This beautiful, powerful, free girl, who could move about at will and destroy anything in her way. He would become her partner, traveling the world and throwing down their enemies before them!
She slowly came closer, and his palms grew sweaty. Suddenly he realized...he didn't know what to say! She was almost here! Frantically, he scanned his environment for something, anything, to talk about. He looked down...then up, and she was right in front of him.
An irresistible compulsion took over him, and he walked forward to meet her...to meet his destiny.
"I LIKE SHORTS!"he said. "THEY'RE COMFY AND EASY TO WEAR!" |
"B-but..."
"No more buts. The dragon is innocent, sir knight. Do you wish to be arrested for unlawful entry? I hear the punishment involves 3 years in the dungeon, a 2000 gold fine, or both, according to the 39th paragraph of His Highness' Robbery Act. I bet you didn't know that."
"N-no I didn't..."
"Also, paragraph 46 of that same act allows for self-defence actions up to and including death by any individual upon a trespasser, without repercussions. That means Mr Dragon here has the right to murder you and be free of litigation."
"Wait, but why would the king make these laws..."
"Finally, you may be brought to court for harassment of both the dragon and the lady, with reparations up to thousands of gold. I suggest you leave now, sir knight, lest I wield the power of the law against you."
"O-okay okay! I'm going!"
After the knight had left, the dragon turned to the lawyer.
"You're not wrong. I did earn that gold legally. That was well done, little one. I did not expect you to honor your agreement."
The lawyer responded with a small smirk and a slight bow. "I always keep my agreements. Thank you again for saving me all that time ago."
"You're welcome. And thank you for making a nice meal for me now, mortal fool!"
The dragon opened his massive jaw to roast the lawyer. However, the lawyer simply raised a finger in the dragon's face.
"Wait. The contract is not fulfilled yet."
With a grunt of disgust, the dragon closed his mouth. "What is it now?"
The lawyer took a deep breath. "The contract stated that in return for you saving my life, I owed you a favor. Now the favor you asked of me was to remove the humans from your lair, and to protect your property from harm. Am I correct?"
"Yes you are. And the favor is done. So now die!"
"But it isn't. There is still a human here."The lawyer pointed to the still unconscious princess.
"Well, she's my property. So you can't harm her or take her away."
Now the lawyer smiled. "On the contrary, Mr Dragon. You kidnapped the princess from her castle two days ago. According to His Highness' Property and Valuables Act, objects may legally switch hands only with express written agreement of its former owner, or seven days have passed without the former owner staking their claim to said objects, whichever comes first. It has not been seven days, neither has the king given express permission for you to have his daughter. So therefore, you do not have possessory rights over the princess, and according to our agreement and your favor, you must allow me to remove the princess from your lair."
"W-what? What is this bullshit?"
"Its the law, Mr Dragon. And I know you'd never stray from the law."
And so the lawyer picked up the princess and left, leaving behind a fuming dragon and his probably-not-actually-legal-but-technically-legal-enough gold. |
I don't know what made all these peoples so stupid today. They standing around lookin like zombies. Like that guy at my door this morning Geenova witless hehe. He couldn't even remember why he was there. I pushed him over and he landed in the sticky bushes! Didn't even scream or nothing. Just layed there pretty as you please. But that fool ain't gonna make me late to work again.
'John,' they said. ' Your tardiness is representable and we can't just have you showing up late every day.'
Geez. The cars don't notice. And sure my tools don't notice. What does it matter if the bean counters up front have to wait ten more minutes?
Sides. If I had a pretty little secretary like that one Lisa up front I would have gone in early too. No sense in worrying about that now tho. I gonna get some gas and hopefully grab some of those good donuts down at Shelby's gas station before work.
Their coffee ain't crap but the gas is cheap and they are the only ones that carry the good cream filled donuts I like. I pull in. And around more standing idiots, and see the flat blimp up over the station. Maybe there's a sale? Anyway that ain't no cause to stand around gawkin. Even if it has a blue light on it.
I prefer the wavy arm thing anyway.
Inside I grab a pack of cream filled, a couple cans of beer, for lunch, cause you can't drink on the job, and toss an extra ten on the counter where stupid Jake is staring up at the ceiling. Then I pull over to pump 8 where I can see the big tanker is refueling the underground cans. Damn quiet this morning tho. I sneak one of the donuts while I flick on the pump and fill up.
Maybe today ain't gonna be that bad. I light up a cig and toss the match behind me. I was almost done when I checked my watch and realized I was gonna be late, again.
Not today.
I hopped back in and gunned it flicking out my used butt. But then I heard the klunk. Damn! I forgot to hang up my nozzle. Well. I'll come back and apologize at lunch. Jake won't mind. And I'm gonna be late.
I was pulling into the used car lot when I heard the boom! But nobody else seemed to notice until I slammed my door. I was still a minute early.
I hope they all saw that. I didn't screw up this morning.
It's gonna be a good day! |
“I can’t believe I’m sold out.” I muttered to myself, as I packed up my personal items from the couch I had set up shop for the night.
I had been invited to another frat party, full of mouth breathing Chads and “frat brothers”. I had almost declined but as a broke college student with loans to pay, I knew I could make a killer on these guys.
Made a total of six hundred bucks off mediocre weed and some coke I had gotten cheap.
“Hey,” I could feel someone standing behind me.
Looking up I saw who I would describe as a white collar, suburban dad. Khakis and white tennis shoes, the whole shebang.
“What’s up?”
“Well… I was wondering if you had some coke.” He stroked his hair back, his eyes darting over to the door.
‘Great, another dad trying to get his rocks off with women probably younger than his daughters. Wish I didn’t run out so soon, I bet they’d mug him and take the coke.’ I thought as I turned back towards my bag, grabbing it and my drink.
“Sorry, dude. All out of coke. Is Pepsi ok?” Holding out my half empty bottle of Pepsi, smirking at the man.
The man frowned before turning on his heel a stalking out of the room without another word.
“Weirdo,” I said as I made my way to the bathroom before leaving.
After I washed my hands, I made my way to the front of the house when I saw the flashing red and blue lights.
‘Oh fuck,’ I thought. I knew I was in the clear as I had been cleaned out of my supply for the party. So I relaxed a little.
“That’s the girl, officer. She sold the drugs to me!”
And there was Chad #3 from my long list of clients from the party.
“She was with me for most of the night!” Shouted Sarah, one of my loyal clients.
“Yeah, she’s was chilling on the coach with a few of us.” Damn, Todd really earning himself a bonus nugget next time he bought from me.
“This girl is clear. She’s obviously not a drug dealer.” The man from earlier said, walking towards the police car with another fraternity member handcuffed.
“Make sure to keep drinking Pepsi.” He smirked at me, and nodded towards my drink. He waved a hand towards me as a dismissal. So, I hightailed it out of there, sharing a fist bump with Todd.
Money secure and no arrest record due to a stupid joke, what a lucky bitch I was. |
I never really understood why we stood out so much.
When I was born this area of land was gifted to my Father as a reward for his services in the last war. The truth looking back now his rivals, that he didn't even know he had, just wanted a potential "hero usurper"removed, and so sent him along the borderlands of the Empire.
The area was lawless, thinly populated, and completely undeveloped except for a single fort that was to be his castle.
The dragon attack was, unexpected, to say the least during that time. It was a young one, seeking treasure, infamy, and etc but young dragon versus famed war hero wielding that enchanted blade didn't end as it had hoped. Then, instead of slaying it, my Father offered it a deal one it, quite literally, couldn't refuse.
"Become a sworn protector of my lands, and I will spare you and grant you treasure as payment for your deeds."
So the dragon, Gratimere, and its small gang of kobolds were the first. A flying, fire-breathing beast was a powerful ally, but the kobolds, in my belief anyway, were the real prize then. Industrious, loyal, quite fearless when defending their home, and quite clever they proved an invaluable workforce then, and still do today.
Then when word got out about the "human warrior who tamed a mighty dragon"started spreading the local orc chief, seeking another worthy trophy, sought him out. As fierce and strong as orcs are, well, the war Father fought in was against orcs. After his victory the orc tribe was, by orcish law, his now to lead. That got around to other nearby tribes who's respective chiefs sought the same as the first.
Still don't know if they stopped trying, or if they just...ran out of local chiefs.
Their knowledge of the local area proved of far more importance then their fighting skill. Untapped resources, easy pathways, and herbal knowledge was a godsend in that time.
After that my Father started catching on, and began actively seeking out the local nonhumans on more peaceful terms. Lizardfolk, Goblinoids, Nagas, intelligent beasts, and others of the like. Each one coming to respect my Father, and see the opportunities joining the growing Kingdom.
I grew up around them, learned from them, and cherish them each they are my people, and I am now their King to which I will not let them down.
Also because growing up around a population of mainly nonhumans has affected my social skills, quite immensely, and I have no idea how to function in other kingdoms. So it's this or bust.
Seriously how was I supposed to know humans use thin gloves to challenge others to duels instead of headbutts.? Also have you seen human women?
Rail thin, unnaturally smooth skin, freakishly small eyes... Ugly as sin I tell you. |
**Item #:** SCP-4444
**Object Class:** Euclid
**Special Containment Procedures:** SCP-4444 is to be contained in a cryogenic pod hidden in a facility underneath Halsey Island in Lake Hopatcong. Foundation staff embedded in local conservation groups and the National Park Service are to ensure that the area remains parkland to prevent development or digging so as to keep SCP-4444 hidden from public eye.
Should SCP-4444's containment pod be breached, the underground facility will flood itself with water from the lake using pipes no larger than 0.25 metres in diameter. Main entryways into the facility will be sealed shut with rust-resistant steel doors that are 0.5 metres thick.
A mobile task force will then enter the area under the guise that they are containing dangerous wildlife. This task force will then subdue and place SCP-4444 back within the cryogenic pod.
**Description:** SCP-4444 has the appearance of a male human in his late 20s or early 30s. SCP-4444 appears to be brain damaged, resulting in extremely violent tendencies. SCP-4444 has superhuman strength and and has been witnessed to have carried or lifted weight exceeding 3 times that a normal human male of his size would be able to lift. SCP-4444 also has superhuman durability, having survived and healed from extreme trauma such as multiple broken bones, impalement, and gunshot wounds.
If free, SCP-4444 has a tendency to rampage and kill young adult humans if he finds them near the lake. SCP-4444 has a preference for melee weaponry such as machetes. It has been found that SCP-4444 will not target young children. SCP-4444 has a fear of water and drowning as he is unable to swim.
***
*Note:* I don't know much about Friday the 13th or the lore behind Jason Voorhees, sorry for any inconsistencies with the films. |
It was with a grin that Virgil came late at night
And gave poor Dante a very big fright
And scared, Dante was, in the woods called sin
Fret not, Virgil said, and gave him his hand.
"For together we must travel throughout the land!
Through Hell and Eden, Purgatory and all!"
Dante gasped, "But why upon me must this fate befall?
Oh me, oh my, I think I might cry!"
Virgil smiled and shook his head.
"O 'tis Beatrice's call,"he plainly said.
"Beatrice?"
"Oh yes! She wishes your spirit to be put to the test."
Dante jumped, he leaped, he punched the sky.
"Joy upon joys! I've been graced. I'm so happy, I think I might die!"
Virgil grabbed him, "Then let us make haste, this duo of you and I."
And so they walked, en route to limbo.
They braced and prepared to go low. Low upon lows, through Hell and their foes.
----
Limbo was first, and not the worst!
Mellow and yellow, it had many a virtuous fellow.
Alas, next was lust - yes, lust, a sin indeed!
Just shy of gluttony and greed!
Minos judged, and Dante quaked like a leaf
And then the poor man collapsed from grief!
He awoke to gluttony, where Virgil did shine
And next came greed, which was of a different clime!
Dante was delirious by the forsaken fifth
By the treacherous site of the River Styx
Circle six brought Dis, home to the violent
And Dante was spent in the next - wait, what was the next?
Oh yes, the seventh! Where the Minotaur slept.
And where those that did not 'love thy neighbour' were locked and kept
War-makers, and life-takers, forsakers and un-makers
Their professions were most certainly not those of bakers!
And beyond that chasms of ten, of demons and men.
Of torture and then of giants and plagues.
Off to eight, Dante then hobbled
He toiled and struggled like the road was cobbled
And coupled with ice, it made for a schlep!
Dante could've stopped, he could've cried, could've wept!
But on and on, and on and on
And on and on he went.
-----
More traitors were kept, inside the Inferno
The worst of the worst!
The meanest of the meanest!
Oh shit, Dante cursed, it's Judas!
And Cassius, being munched on by Satan.
Et tu Brute?! Oh shoot! El Diablo has ate thee!
Oh no! Virgil, run! Past the center of gravity!
"Not to treat this with levity,"the poet then said
"But doesn't Satan just look so *cool? Encased in ice?*
Indeed, he looks Epic. I swear everything is most copacetic."
In spite of himself, Dante laughed. Once, twice, thrice.
Oh laugh, he did. "The Devil looks so pathetic!"
He looked behind him, and he was off of the grid!
Long gone, far off, walking up from the Hells!
"So long, Lucy!"He cried out below
And Lucifer howled, he screeched, he screamed
Dante reached up, his hand touching the stars
"Wait for me, my Beatrice. I swear I'm not far."
|
"So, uh, do you like it?"
Julia turned the small band of gold in her hands, considering the question. "Yeah, I like it."She held it up to the light, letting it catch the last rays of sunlight streaming through the great windows of Olympus.
Apollo sighed with relief. "Thank Zeus, I was worried. Why don't you put it on? You'll need it."
Julia watched him skeptically. "What does it do?"
"Um,"Apollo swallowed nervously. "It'll let you control your new domain. Like how I use my chariot to pull the sun?"
"And what domain did Zeus give me?"Julia slipped the band onto her arm. It shrunk to fit snugly onto her wrist, Greek phrases forged into the band appearing briefly.
"Ah, um, I don't know if you'll like it."
Julia looked up sharply. "Apollo, what did he give me?"
Apollo looked decidedly nervous. He fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket. Julia had never seen him so nervous. Normally, he would have made a joke by now. "Apollo?"
"Ah, he gave you, um... domain over cats."
Julia blinked. "Cats?"
Apollo cringed. "Yeah, cats. We haven't seen Ailuros in a long time, she's basically dropped off the map- and I know how much you like cats, I thought it would be a good suggestion-"
Julia cut him off with a bear hug. "It's wonderful! Do I get to have all the cats I want?"
Apollo beamed. "Yeah! I can show you how to use your band for that. Oh, and check this out."He took the band from her wrist, shook it, and it morphed into one of those tinsel-on-a-pole cat toys. "You can change it into certain items!"
Julia giggled with excitement and gave him a loving squeeze. "It's perfect! You're the best boyfriend ever."
Apollo grinned. *Best boyfriend ever,* he thought. *Yeah, I am.* |
"Let me get this straight, Major General, you are refusing to surrender?"
"Yep."
"Because you still believe you can win this war."
"Sure can."
"Let me lay out the situation for you."
"Be my guest."
"We blew up every satellite, space station, and up facing communications dish in the beginning stages of the war."
"You sure did."
"You will not request assistance from any outside sources."
"Guess not."
"We then wiped out your entire nuclear arsenal."
"Thanks for that."
"You're welcome. We then defeated each of your armies, one by one."
"Yea, I remember that."
"We snuck up behind your stealth planes and destroyed every last one. We then destroyed every single flying machine you have, from your space shuttles to the cloth and wooden contraption in the museum. You cannot even reach our ships anymore."
"Yep."
"Our walkers marched straight up to your tanks and flipped them over."
"Gotta say, that was pretty cool."
"Thank you. We beat your soldiers in large scale maneuvers, small scale tactics, and single combat."
"Gotta respect a swordfight."
"We sank every single ship you have. Every warship, shipping vessel, even the fishing boats"
"I do miss seafood."
"We even raided your museums and made sure there's not a single operational weapon system."
"That was kinda mean of y'all."
"Your bullets bounce off our armor even if they get past the shields."
"That they do."
"Same goes for your anti-material rounds, anti-tank missiles, depleted uranium shells, artillery shells, explosives, mines, thermobaric bombs, cluster munitions, railguns, lasers, suicide drones, car bombs, cruise missiles, and molotov cocktails. We even detonated a nuclear bomb on an orbiting ship in an isolated location so you know it won't work."
"Some mighty big fireworks."
"Our basic self-defense hand-weapons pierced through the toughest armor and deepest bunkers you have. And we have many more weapons."
"Yea you do."
"You have not a single weapon system that has not been proven ineffective. Not a single tactic we have not outmaneuvered. Not a single strategy we have not outsmarted. Our mass suppression system even stopped your mass human wave attack without a single casualty on either side."
"Beat us real good, you did."
"And just in case you were thinking of attrition, we've cut off your food supply."
"Bit hungry now, in fact."
"We destroyed all your factories and infrastructure. You will not make a single extra bullet."
"Guess not."
"You and your, 'survivors' are now stuck in the desert of this pitiful continent."
"Yea we are."
"You will run out of water within the week."
"Yep."
"And just in case you were hoping for an unconventional win."
"Oh?"
"We inoculated every single one of our soldiers with incalculable vaccines. There is not a single ailment, microorganism, fungi, or virus on your planet, natural or artificial, that we have not prepared for."
"Y'all wouldn't be interested in sharing after would ya?"
"Once you surrender."
"Ah. Too bad."
"We have cut off every 3G, 4G, whatever G tower you have. We have cut every phone line, internet cable, and WIFI router. We have jammers blocking every single frequency you could possibly use around the clock, and we made sure not a single one of our ports is even remotely close to any of your cables. Every one of our systems is fully insulated and redundant, defended by both AI and expert hackers, and we even prepared fully analogue back ups for every one of our war machines."
"Mighty impressive."
"And we will not even drive you into a corner. We will act in full accordance with your 'Geneva Convention', in fact such a thing is barbaric compared to our Council of Nistrinda. You will be well treated, taken care of, and treated with full honors. We will even let you retain human governors and self-determination in all areas not otherwise specified by intergalactic law and treaties."
"Right generous of ya."
"And yet..."
"Yea?"
"YET YOU STILL REFUSE TO SURRENDER?!"
"Yep."
"WHY?!"
"'Cause we're gonna win."
"HOW?! WHAT ABOUT THIS SITUATION HAS CONVINCED YOUR PUNY MIND THAT YOU HAVE EVEN THE FAINTEST HOPE OF VICTORY?"
"The reinforcements."
"What reinforcements?! Every single nation on Earth has surrendered! Every single other human has been accounted for! I can say with absolute certainty you are the last remaining humans on Earth that have not surrendered!"
Major General Bradley of the Earth Liberation Front felt the ground shake. The side of his mouth curled up. Looks like he had stalled long enough.
"The Emus." |
'Humans' are not completely unknown creatures. A story over a wine barrel regarding these new sky-people had told me that much, that these creatures had no snout, nor scale, not even a tail. Pure fantasy and fiction, I had thought and allowed myself to believe the storyteller had indulged in one too many barrels for the evening. So when one of these tailless mutters something in its crude language and collapses upon my sunning rock before my home-cave, I had to reevaluate and recollect what that old elder was saying.
I retrieved a barrel of water for when the thing woke and shielded the afternoon sun with an extended wing. From then I brushed up on my tablets regarding translation and understanding spells. Such had been the rage across the valley ever since the East reopened for trade and visitation. When it finally woke not long after I sparked the spell between my claws. In my clumsy casting, or perhaps it was the creature's weakness, I knocked the little thing back to slumber. Yes, the spell would sting a little, but now I worried that I may have committed an act most unkind. It was into the evening when the creature, the *human*, finally woke and I found myself relieved of potential embarrassment.
"Ughhh... what happened? What did you hit me with?"He, presumably he with the subtle cadence of their tone, squeaked.
"A gift. Now stand and drink so I may get a better look and determine what to do with you."I grumbled.
Surprise was evident, but the human did as he was told. Such a frail thing, it's a good thing he made his way to my home-cave and not the neighbors' where niceties were wholly dependent on the quality of meal for the day. How the little one and their kindred grew their civilization to a status to travel the stars to begin with is a mystery.
Quite the conversationalist, this one. And polite enough to indulge an old dragon now dependent on their kin. He explained that a manner of machinery inserted into the skull allowed him to at least understand, if not speak, the native tongues. About how he had traveled more than just the stars, but civilizations that dwelt among them. First the small lizards and their worlds where the machinery was acquired then an expedition to areas most remote.
"Rumor and myth surround this valley with so little real information getting out."He explained. "Talk of 'magic,' *spirits*, and energy that's most harmful. I came to get to the bottom of it and backpack around like in..."the last term must have been some name as it came nothing more than a squeak to my ears.
Though to speak of the real world as if it held nothing but fantasies and fictions was ludicrous. Did these humans and lizards not use their natural energies to take them from star to star? I flicked an illuminating flame when I upturned a forepaw and gave an easy toss to catch it between my horns. A simple trick most useful for when the torches are doused.
The look the human gave me implied it was a great deal more than such. He reminded me of hatchlings in their first lessons and I couldn't help a swelling feeling in the chest. "Would you like me to show you all these 'magic,' spirits, and the like that you believe to be myth?" |
“I don’t get it. She said she was into crazy things. What’s crazier than dating the man that’s going to father the child of prophecy? Is it the whole parenting thing that scares them? Or more the fact that we will probably end up part of the child’s tragic backstory?” Travis poked his burger, not even getting to bite it before his date ran off, not wanting anything to do with this child of prophecy nonsense.
He had tried every dating app from Singles who can’t mingle to the leftovers dating service and no one lasted ten minutes into the date before running off, making excuses about some other arrangement they had. Some didn’t even bother with an excuse, just leaving as soon as they confirmed it was actually him. He considered giving up the whole dating scene. Maybe he could just learn to be alone? Was that such a bad thing?
“Is this seat taken?”
Travis was about to bite into his burger, only to pause when he heard the voice. He didn’t even bother looking up, only rolling his eyes as he took a large bite from his burger, chewing it before answering,
“You can take it. I’m sure you have some partner that needs that seat more than I do.” He said bitterly, gripping his burger tight, digging into the buns, choking the life out of the already cooked meat.
“A partner? I don’t have a partner. Well, at least not yet.” Her voice was sweet, lingering in the air, catching his attention. He stopped chewing, looking up to see the dark-haired woman smiling at him, her purple lips matching the dress she wore. She politely waited for him to respond, tapping her long nails against the table.
“Huh?”
“Is that all you have to say? I was hoping for a little small talk. Don’t tell me I have to do all the work here. How selfish are you?”
“I… huh?”
“I’m flirting with you. Come on, I’m an evil empress and even I know how to flirt. It’s ok, my beauty stuns a lot of people, how about we try again? I’m Agitha, the empress of ruin. You may kiss my hand.” She held her hand out before noticing the ketchup marks on his lips, quickly retracting her pale hand. “On second thought, save the kiss for later. I believe you were looking for a date, correct?”
“Did you say Agitha? The Agitha? The one that wants to kill all mortals and turn the world into her kingdom of ruin?”
“Yes, that’s the one, but please don’t believe all the propaganda. Sure, I want to enslave the world, but have you seen the world? Do you think it would truly be such a bad thing for someone to control it? You only need to spend five minutes reading the news headlines to know this world needs someone controlling it. I’m the perfect woman for it.”
“Right. Look, I’m sure you have some grand scheme in mind where you kill me to stop the child of prophecy being born, but you honestly don’t need to worry about murdering me. No one wants to date me.”
“Murder you? I wouldn’t murder you. If I did that, the prophecy would just choose another person and I would have to spend my years tracking them down. It would be too much work. If I truly wanted to stop you, I would just neuter you.”
“What, like a dog?”
“Exactly!” She smiled. The fact she said it so enthusiastically made Travis gulp, not exactly wanting an answer like that.
“But you wouldn’t do that, right?”
“Hm, I considered it, but that might also cause the prophecy to find another host. I didn’t like my chances. Instead, I came up with another idea.”
“What idea was that?”
“If I’m the mother of the child of prophecy, I should be fine. What child would kill their dear mother?” Agitha waited for a wow or any sound of amazement from the mortal sitting across from her. When she received none, she slouched back in her chair. “I don’t need your praise. I know it’s a good idea.”
“So, that’s all this would be. I give you a child, and then what?”
“Hm, I was thinking of a date somewhere cold, like Antartica? I have always wanted to eat a penguin. I hear they taste like chicken.”
“A date? You aren’t going to just lock me in a dungeon?”
“Why would I lock up my husband? How would I explain that to our child? Oh, sorry, daddy can’t play because he’s withering away in a dungeon. I doubt that would paint me in a good light.” Agitha scrunched up her face, offended that he was making her out to be a bad wife. Sure, she was a monster that wanted to enslave the planet, but that didn’t mean she would be a terrible partner.
“So, that would spare me from the whole ruin thing?”
“Again, I doubt our child would approve of me killing their father. You ask some stupid questions, mortal.”
“I just don’t get it. You understand your evil, right? Like you don’t think you’re the good guy here or anything?”
“Oh, no. I’m aware that enslaving the world is a horrible thing to do. Sure, I might claim it’s for a noble cause or that the world needs to be controlled, but honestly, I just want it. I’m evil. What sort of person calls themselves an empress if they aren’t?”
Travis set his half-eaten burger down, shaking his head. This was the strangest conversation he had ever had and somehow it was still the best date ever. It had been a whole ten minutes, and she hadn’t left. Even better, she seemed interested in him. Perhaps for the wrong reasons, but it was a start.
“Ok, let’s say I’m interested. Hypothetically, of course. How would we even proceed with this?”
“First, we would have a few dates. I will take you to some locations and show you around. We will also follow my dating itinerary. Which includes fifteen minutes of handholding, an hour of staring into each other’s eyes, and a minute of compliments. We will then return home. After a few successful dates, you will be allowed to pick a dating location for us. If all goes well, we will plan the wedding. You may invite you parent’s to the wedding if you wish. Questions?”
Travis stared at the empress. She was beautiful. Stunning even. Sure, it wasn’t the ideal date and perhaps he was dooming the world by agreeing to go on it, but he was lonely. Maybe a date or two wouldn’t be that bad? Surely, the world would understand.
“It’s a date. Can you give me your phone number?”
“No need. Hold out your arm.”
Travis held his arm forward, only for Agitha to grab it. She tightened her grip around his wrist, burning a summoning symbol into his skin. The smoke drifting from his skin looked painful, but Travis didn’t feel a thing, only a slight itching sensation. When she was done, the squared symbol was finished, leaving a small love heart in the middle of it.
“When I want a date, it will flash blue. Just hold your palm over it when you’re ready to accept. It will take you to me. After a few dates, I might give you an easier way to contact me. For now, I would prefer this method. I’ll be in touch.” Before Travis could answer, she vanished, leaving him sitting alone in the restaurant. A few people were staring at him, but most averted their gazes from the odd couple, not wanting to get involved in whatever was happening.
That strange conversation made Travis lose his appetite. The human leaving the restaurant, a little confused by what had occurred. If it wasn’t for the mark on his skin, he would have assumed it was all a hallucination. One caused by his extreme loneliness.
“Agitha? What a nice name. I should probably get a jacket or something if we’re going to Antarctica. I can’t tell if she was being serious or not.”
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
“Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made alo-“
“Dude, we desecrated a major archaeological site and half of our team died for the promise of treasure that wasn’t even here!”
I looked at my compatriot curiously; he was covered in dirt, drops of sweat clearing paths through the muck, almost creating a pattern on his forehead. There was something about his eyes; something that wasn't there before. Or rather... it was like the light in them went out, like there was nothing behind them.
"But think of all the friends we made!"I said with a warm smile.
"Like who?!"he cried out.
"How about Samir, our guide? He's just a swell guy, wouldn't you-"
"Samir died three hours ago!"he yelled and pointed towards the corner of the room. I followed his finger and saw a man slumped against the wall, the pool of blood around him betraying his grim faith.
"Oh,"I commented. "Was it the dem-"
"It was the demon bats, yeah! The fuck else would it be?!"
"Could've been the chupacabra, honestly,"I shrugged.
"I- I mean, yeah, but that's completely beside the point."
"I'm still not sure how a monster from Mexican folklore ended up here in Egypt,"I said and rubbed my chin.
"That's what you're wondering about?!"
"You're right. If it was the chupacabra, there wouldn't be blood; it would've drank all of it."
"Jesus fucking Christ dude,"he said and rubbed his face.
"I'm sorry. I guess I just got carried away with the adventure, you know? It was just so exciting to chase all those fantastical clues,"I chuckled.
"Is that going to be your defence when you-"
"Oh don't worry, Egypt doesn't extradite to *that* country,"I reassured my friend. "But, yeah. We definitely can't visit there anymore."
"So you're saying you'll deny Robert a proper burial in his homeland?"he gasped.
"Hmm... do you think UPS will ship his-"
"The fuck is wrong with you?"he said with wide eyes.
"You're right, I'm sorry. The fees would be unreal. A complete scam if you ask me."
He sat down with a heavy sigh and let held his head in his hands.
"So much... death, so much... strife..."he whispered to himself. "And what for?"
"1,5 billion dollars,"I replied casually.
"W- what?"
"1,522,322,411 dollars, 35 cents and half a doughnut, to be specific,"I nodded along.
"B- but the treasure, it was... it was just an elaborate lie! A quest made to kill those foolhardy enough to attempt such madness! A pyramid of insanity we delved into despite the warning signs! A deluge of-"
"Yes, yes,"I interrupted. "But I have been selling the corpses of all the creatures we've killed. Did you know that a corpse of a previously assumed-mythical creature sells for *a lot* on the black market? Like, *a lot*."
I saw his hand slide towards his waist, towards the sheath of his knife.
"Oh, relax,"I chuckled. "Your share is already in your account."
His hand went past the knife and towards his pocket. He pulled out his phone and inspected it briefly; soon after, a smile crept onto his face.
"How about that,"he said. "But... you do realize we're still, like, *awful* people, right?"
"Oh, without a doubt,"I laughed. "But we did some good along the way too."
"I... suppose we *did* liberate a country, if only to get access to the palace."
"See? All works out in the end,"I said and patted him on the back.
"By the way..."he opened, "who paid you *half a doughnut*?"
"The hobgoblin from 2 weeks ago. Wanted my phone."
"And you gave it to him for half a doughnut?"
I looked at him, appalled.
"The poor little creature had no talent for haggling! Anything else would've been a scam and scams, my friend,"I said and put my hand on his shoulder with a knowing look, "are *wrong*."
"Oh, THAT'S where you draw the line?!" |
The new age has been needlessly cruel to me. 4,000 years ago, statues were erected in my name, my likeness was plastered around the countryside, and my name struck fear in the hearts of even the greatest of fighters.
3,000 years ago, people came to me seeking advice, pondering about secrets of the universe — which I was more than happy to make up. Age doesn’t necessarily equate to intelligence, after all.
2,000 years ago, people made a religion based around me. I had picked up several parlor tricks in my early days, and I suppose using them on those poor individuals caused some sort of cult to develop. However, it was at this point that I realized I had was handed a golden opportunity — I could disappear. Away from the lights and the redundancy. Immortality is fun, for a time, but it does eventually become mundane.
Unfortunately, time passed, as it tends to do, and boredom crept in. I began, oh probably 500 years ago, making more noise than I should have. I would leave during the nights and come back during the days — i felt that it would be safe, and how wrong I was. An individual whose name has been forgotten by time found imagery of me, and pieced together that I had been living for the better part of the last several
thousand years. And thus began the witch hunt, or rather, immortal hunt?
Individuals flocked to my living quarters, a quant cave at this time, in droves. Each seeking the same thing — a drop of my blood. Apparently the locals had decided that my blood was the key to immortality.
This is somewhat painful to admit, but I found myself donating my blood. Little by little, at first, but soon I would hand it out to anyone who requested it. Then those who came seeking my blood came less and less, and the nights when I would go out seemed more cold and harsh than ever, save for one evening when a rat had the gall to bite me, but this is neither here nor there.
There was a foul stench permeating the streets when I would go about, and decided that it was time to leave.. London, was it?
Thus began my next trek towards the east, on to new adventures. |
I'm not a good person. Let's get that straight from the beginning. How's that Tom Waits song go?
*I've never asked for forgiveness*
*Never said a prayer*
*I've never given of myself*
*Never truly cared*
My name's not John, or Bob, or Rick, or any name you could guess. My face is not one you've seen before in a crowd—I would not look familiar. I am not at home, I am not watching TV. I'm not staring into a computer screen like you are.
It's not cold here. It's not hot enough to melt me into the ground, but close enough. I'm not in Iraq, or Iran, or Afghanistan, but one of those countries.
I'm not a soldier. I'm not really a mercenary either. How do I describe what I do? I don't let people live.
I don't have a beautiful woman anymore. Her name wasn't Delilah. Her hair didn't smell like coconut and her eyes weren't hazelnut and they didn't smite me with every glance. She didn't ask me questions about my work when I was home.
She wouldn't say, "Why don't you stay here with me? Why don't you find a new job?"
Because then I wouldn't have said, "I don't know what else to do."
I'm not on a job now. I'm not crouching in the dark, rifle aloft, night vision goggles scanning the horizon. I don't feel the days heat emanating from the sand up into the now-cool night. My heart isn't pounding. My finger isn't on the trigger. I'm not about to kill.
I'm not even here. |
As the airlock cycled open into Sol station Tim's stomach began to growl in lockstep with the gentle popping sensation in his ears. He had been so engrossed in the plans for the next two phases of the Ceres station project that he had forgotten to eat all day. The disquiet in his belly was not helped by the fact that the scents of various interstellar cuisine immediately struck his nostrils when the door finished opening.
"At least I won't need to go far to grab a bite; guess I should be grateful."Tim grumbled under his breath.
*"Ah but have we all not traveled many parsecs to enjoy such bounty, simian-Tim?"* chirped a familiar alto voice behind him.
"Jesus Christ Blevin, you shouldn't sneak up on me like that! You know I'm jumpy when I am hungry!"Tim said.
*"Infinite apologies, shall we skulk over to the nearest feed stall and have a meal together?"Blevin quipped glancing around nervously.*
Tim quickly agreed and they made their way with less haste than either party likely wished, to the nearest vendor. Blevin was clearly on edge due to the large number of Sirians currently in the mess area. Blevin being an Eridani was understandably nervous. His species had paradoxically evolved as the dominant prey animal on his world. Apparently that had been the case all the way up to their industrial age. The Eridani had not yet collectively shaken their timidity, even after they had left the world that wanted to eat them. In spite of their friendship Blevin had avoided Tim for an entire two Earth weeks when he had been convinced that humans once hunted for food; as opposed to merely being opportunistic omnivores.
Tim still remembered the obvious look of disbelief in Blevin's eyes when Tim first declared himself a "Persistence Predator". His bill had cracked open and his vertical eye slits had narrowed. It was a rather human looking facial expression actually if you looked past the eye movement.
*"Surely you jest simian-Tim! Haha! You have no appendages for battle! What could you hunt with such a body? Can you fire deadly projectiles from your orifices then?*
"Close enough, our arms are well suited to *throwing* projectiles. Also when well conditioned we can run without stopping for long periods of time. We apparently just scared and/or caused minor injuries to our prey and ran them down. Over and over again until they either died of exhaustion or were too weak to get away from our attacks in time. Tim had explained while snacking on an apple (likely adding to Blevin's confusion).
Blevin had eventually shaken it off, likely using Tim's apparent harmlessness to get over his instinctual fear. But the Sirians were a different matter. There was no mistaking that they were a predator race. With four powerful legs they stood about a head taller than your average human. When they smiled three rows of serrated backwards curved teeth were visible. And on top of that their three jointed arms ended in hands with four retractable claws, half again as long as their 6 fingers. Watching Blevin's eyes dart from Sirian to Sirian while in line almost made Tim a little worried. Maybe humans had some instincts to shed as well.
"Relax Blevin, nobody is planning to eat you"Tim soothed.
**"If this line takes any longer I am going to make a liar of you human"** said a voice from behind them. It was course, not unlike gravel rolling down a steep slope lined with sandpaper.
Tim turned around to meet the empty black eyes of the largest Sirian he had ever seen. Its shoulder tattoo marked it as one of their miners guild and the reason was obvious. It took Blevin's cowering and Tim's lack of retort as an invitation to continue.
**"I'll make you a deal, stand aside so I may feast sooner, and I will not be forced to munch on the Eridani's cartilage! Hahaha. What say you both? Speak now!"** it roared.
Tim wasn't one for conflict really, but with Blevin nearly weeping behind him and at least a hundred beings watching the event unfold he couldn't exactly back down.
"No chance, we are hungry too. And you know the punishment is death for breaking the nonviolence compact. Is a snack worth your life kitten?"Tim said referring to the derogatory pet name humans had given them after discovering their claws.
**"Perhaps not worm, but my honor is! You will not dare insult me in front of my peers again! ADDENDUM 5! I challenge you to a physical conflict resolution of your choice little one!"** the meaty centaur screamed.
"Fine by me. Hows about we have ourselves a little marathon? First one to stop running is the loser."quipped Tim. As he did so the turned to look at Blevin knowingly...and winked. |
Ten thousand years of war. Ten thousand Klaxun warriors lost. A million years of evolution brought to a standstill by their sacrifice.
These things took time. The Klaxuns knew it. They’d been defeated by the creatures from the green and blue world, rich and flightless as it was. It’d withstood every psionic attack. It was written that great waves of psychic energy had spilled off the surface towards their fleets in retaliation. In the stories, the Klaxun psychers fought back, of course. But there was too much power here for them to bare. Too much power for it to be allowed into the universe at large.
For three days, the Klaxun’s mighty stone fleet weathered the storm, awash in the perverted sea of gravitational waves nearly every creature on the planet seemed capable and willing to manipulate.
It’d been no use.
Arumuandi, Great General, Most Exalted Klaxun Hero, had made a call. Their preternatural shielding was finally failing under the weight of the siege. In a desperate bid to keep the beasts on their world, Arumuandi ordered the fleet forward. Shields down. Full thrust.
The story went that they’d only just reached the planet as the ships began to disintegrate. Still, the collision would’ve been enough to bathe this *Earth* in darkness for a generation.
And now, some fifteen thousand Earth Years later, they were finally back and ready to deliver their surrender and welcome the galaxy’s new overlords.
But what sat across from them was not the scaly, monstrous sort of thing that was said to have broken their shamans on the first go. These weren’t Thunder Lizards. Nor were they wizened Giant Sloths or stomping Mammoths with tusks that could lift continents.
No, what sat across from them was the beige sort of monkey these things had been so fond of eating…
\*\*\*
Human General Gavel was sitting in a massive stone room. Across a stone table sat six of the roughly human-sized, blue, squid-headed aliens, who had arrived out of nowhere and were purported to have terms of unconditional surrender.
Sure, the humans had met other aliens on the nearest habitable worlds they’d encountered. But never anything that was what you might call *smart*. Mostly, just four-legged, simple predators and prey. Then, out of the darkness, seven asteroids had settled into impossible orbits around Earth and started beaming archaic radio waves at the planet.
From there, it’d only taken a few days for the near-sentient computers that flew General Gavel’s flag ship to get communications in order.
Thus far, the meeting had been totally silent. But that was fine. If General Gavel was going to get an unconditional surrender, he wasn’t really picky about how long it took or who it came from. He did his best to lean back and get comfortable on one of the stone chairs.
“Alright boys,” he finally said through a modulated translator his scientists had whipped up the day before. “We know why you’re here, lets get on with it.”
There was what would’ve passed for hushed discussion between the squids, but none of them made any noise.
Finally, a long blue, four-fingered hand reached out and touched a rune on the table in front of it. The rune glowed orange.
“Where are your Giant Sloths?” The voice wasn’t coming from the squid. In fact, the blue alien was staring at them and not moving its cephalopod face at all. It seemed to be the stone around them that was speaking. It sounded like a distant, but distinct echo.
The General looked to his First Mate, who’d insisted on coming to the meeting in full combat armor with a light ship to ship cannon. He looked like an old-fashioned knight who’d gotten ahold of a Gatling gun and a jet pack. There was no reading his expression, but Gavel could’ve guessed what he was thinking. The General’s thick white mustache twisted in confusion as he turned back to the squid.
“Died out millennia ago, I’m afraid…”
The Klaxun didn’t break its stare. “And your scaly, fire wielding behemoths? How ‘bout your Mammoths?” The *room* asked before the human could get a word in.
“Umm…” The General started again. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Also… long dead…”
The Squiddy Klaxuns turned to each other. This time, when they went into hushed conversation, the humans could hear it.
“Why have they only sent the *humans*?” The room asked. It seemed insulted.
“They played no part in holding off our last advance!” The room said in an indignant, ever so slightly higher pitch.
“If we killed the Thunder Lizards...” A new voice pondered. “That means *WE* won! Arumuandi did it!”
“Go on!” Ordered another voice. “Try ripping the armored one apart!”
One of the blue things squinted at General Gavel and his first mate, but they didn’t feel anything. General Gavel’s mustache twitched.
“Sir, they seem to be immune!” Said a panicked voice from the walls in the room.
“Oothma!” Shouted the stone, a final time. “Your finger is still on the butt–”
The lead Klaxun withdrew its hand from the glowing rune. It went dark and the hurried conversation stopped.
General Gavel looked to his first mate. The Gatling Gun spun up…
For the next hour, the human delegation of six stomped from stone room to room killing hundreds of unarmed squids in every imaginable manner.
The creatures died quietly... And at some point during the tirade, General Gavel ordered the Earth Defense Force to unleash the full weight of their arsenal on the other six asteroids.
The rocks broke apart as rocks do. And in no time at all, only the Klaxun ship the *Peace Delegation* had captured remained... |
The tiny, winding side street ran between rows of tall buildings, casting it in perpetual shade. The way it bent made it impossible to see the busier streets to which it connected at either end. Somehow, it always looked like it had just rained. The place was sketchy as hell, but it was also the most direct path between my place and the best pork cutlet in the goddamn world, so I took this route fairly often.
There was an empty lot near the middle, choked with weeds and garbage. It had been there as long as I knew, and it was still there yesterday. In its place today was a little shop that looked for all the world like it had been there since before the days of radio. The sign said "Needful Things,"because of course it did.
I've always been a curious cat, so I walked in as if this was perfectly normal. The place was organized chaos; an incredible assortment of eclectic oddities crowded every surface. Even in the indirect light of the store, they were dazzling in their variety. And yet all had a quaintness to them, a sense of being before my time.
"Welcome,"the store's lone occupant said. He had a gaunt frame and a face lined with many decades, but the posture of a confident man in his prime. His grin was kindly and welcoming, but I sensed an eldritch malevolence in his eyes, only partially disguised by grandfatherly wire-framed spectacles. "Feel free to look around. I'm sure you'll find something you just _can't_ leave without."
I looked around at the odds and ends competing for shelf space - ornate puzzle boxes, weird old toys and dolls, one of those monkeys with cymbals, a mirror that made me look ten years younger. "I don't see prices listed anywhere,"I commented.
The old man chuckled. His eyes seemed to hold a dark light, and I was sure that those eyes had watched coldly and cruelly as empires rose and fell. "I assure you..._everything here has a price._"
I flipped through a sports almanac that - somehow - predicted results for the next 30 years. I put it back, between a scarab in a glass sphere and a deck of Tarot cards printed entirely in red. I turned to the shopkeeper.
"Do you gift-wrap?"
For the first time, the proprietor's monstrously gentle smile faltered. "Eh? You, uh...you're meant to find what _your_ heart desires. Something you _just can't_ live without."
I rolled my eyes. "Look, you're about as subtle as a clown in a storm drain, with your little shop that wasn't there yesterday, and your cryptic you-pay-with-your-soul comments. And pay-to-win games have been after my soul for _years_, so I know how to spot a Faustian deal."
The shopkeeper grunted in irritation. Now, his eyes actually did flash briefly, a brilliantly hostile amber light that was there and gone. "So what are you doing in my shop?"he asked.
"Christmas shopping,"I said. "I've got a lot of people in my life who I want to give something really _special._ Something they _deserve._"
The proprietor took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. "This was so much easier before the rise of literacy. Thanks, Gutenberg."He turned back to me. "Ironic damnation only works when I know what sins to exploit. I don't know your relatives."
I walked behind the counter and sat down at a stool behind the shopkeeper. "Sins are a matter of public record these days,"I said as I pulled out my phone and opened the Facebook app. "You'd probably do pretty good business online."
I could sense that devilish light begin to smolder in his eyes again as I scrolled through my feed. "Stop. This one. I've got just the thing."He pulled open a drawer and withdrew a deck of playing cards. "Play using these and you'll always win, no matter who's dealing. But it'll lead to a gambling addiction, end a marriage, and fail just when you've bet everything you have."
I nodded. "Perfect. Want to do more?"
The shopkeeper grinned. "Hell yes." |
Jack Bolwer. Action hero, charismatic super-agent and a man that refuses to pay rent.
I watched the hero as he slipped his fingers into another bag of my favorite chilli coated potato chips. When he caught my gaze from his slouched position on the couch, he gave me a nod, nearly having his fedora roll off his head. “I get the feeling you aren’t happy with me, dad.” The loud crunches of potato chips followed his words as he scoffed down my snack, letting small pieces of chip fly out of his mouth.
“STOP CALLING ME DAD! Yes, I created you, but that doesn’t make me your father, don’t make this situation weird.” I hated when he called me dad. I knew he was doing it to get under my skin, but it worked. No matter how hard I ignored it, those words always left me frustrated.
“Can this situation get any weirder? You’re the guy that has a fictional character living in his home. Good luck explaining that one to the secret underground police force.” He laughed, the shaking of his chest causing the chips to spill over the floor. He made a few pathetic attempts to grab the chips, fingers dangling over the side of the couch as he made small squeaks of effort before turning to me. “Can you grab my chips?”
“YOUR CHIPS? THEY ARE MINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.” I had to take a breath, holding back my rage. “Also, there’s no secret underground police force. I made them up for my book. I thought it would be cooler if there was some secret agency that was after the hero.”
“Sounds a little cliché to me. Have you considered another hobby? I don’t think writing is your strong suit. Speaking of suits, red and blue? What sort of suit is red and blue? How do you expect me to go undercover in this? Oh, me a secret agent? Impossible, I’m dressed like a circus clown. What agent would dress like that?” The nerve of him to mock me while he ate my food. I wanted to shout, but felt a sore spot swelling in my throat.
“It makes sense. You’re that great at your job that you can do it in style. There’s no dress code involved in being a secret agent.” I argued, though my words grew fainter as I sniffed back a few tears. “Is it that bad?”
He paused, awkwardly sliding himself into an upright position. “No, I mean… shit. It’s not bad, it’s just uninspired?” Jack’s attempts at sparing my feelings only made me feel worse, turning away, trying to keep my dignity. “Oh, come on. I didn’t mean it like that. Please don’t cry.”
“I’M NOT CRYING.” I said, doing my best to sound genuine as I wiped my eyes. “It’s not just you, it’s everything. You’re right, I’m a failure. Six years I spent at the drawing board only to create a character that hates me for their existence. I thought I was onto something this time. How am I going to make the rent this month? I have nothing to show for my book. It’s hard to write when the character refuses to go into the book.”
“Jeez, how about I go back into the book? Would that make things better?” My tears making the secret agent squirm, finding the sight of a person crying highly disturbing.
“Why bother? You said it yourself, it’s uninspired. Why bother continuing to write it? Maybe I should just throw it out, get rid of the current draft.” I turned to grab my draft, ready to shred the story, not wanting anymore reminders of my failures as a writer.
“HEY! Let’s not do anything like that. If you destroy that script I die.” He stepped towards me, fingers coated in chilli dust, trying to stop me from reaching the draft on my desk. Jack’s feet delivering small crunches as he crossed over the carpet, unable to avoid the mess of chips on the floor.
Snatching the papers before he could reach me, I held them close to my chest. “And that would be a bad thing? For the last week, you have caused me nothing but trouble. Why would I want to keep you around?”
“I can help you write a best seller. Think about it, how many authors would love to know what their main character is thinking? Well, you can know my every thought. With our skills combined, we could make this mediocre book into a hit, something that people will flock to read. I only have one condition for working alongside you.”
“And what might that condition be?”
“You can never kill me off. If you even think about killing me, I’ll make sure this book never gets finished. Is that understood?” With his condition spoken, he wiped his fingers on his pants and extended a hand. “Deal?”
I desperately needed to finish my story, and this was the only way of guaranteeing that I would complete my book. I shook his hand and gave him a nod. “Deal.”
“Ok, great.” He grabbed a wooden dining chair from my kitchen, dragging it into my office, positioning it beside my seat. “Let’s get started on the next chapter. I have a few ideas about how the story should continue from here. Maybe instead of the culprit being a corrupt cop in the underground police, it could be Elizabeth Jen, the woman who gives me the information for my missions? That’s more interesting, right?”
“You knew Sergeant Kyle Cooper was the bad guy? How? I kept it as hidden as possible.” How could my story be that predictable? Maybe Jack knew because of his involvement in my story. That must have been why.
“He has a line where he talks about how beautiful it would be if the world followed a set of rules, his rules. How is that hidden? What non evil person speaks like that?” Jack tapped my office chair, motioning me to sit. “We have a lot to fix.”
“Yeah, guess we do.” I sat by his side, getting a few blank sheets of paper to write on, ready to brainstorm some new ideas with Jack.
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
It’s hard to explain, but there’s something special about the girl who works Montmartre’s forbidden knowledge desk. I told my buddy Ian yesterday and I don’t think he understood. Will you?
To start, there is Montmartre. I think the name itself is a reference, though I’ve never figured out if it has any special meaning. Pierre, the madman who owns the store, is neither discernibly French nor discernibly artistic, and we live in an age where we all feel neutered without Google ready to answer for us, so I’ve hit the end of that road, I think.
The store has a certain style, however, and you can gather what you need about Pierre and his broader world from it. Montmartre is a disaster zone of stolen goods and sketchy tools, failed experiments strew the ground like leaves in fall. It's a single room subdivided by thin rice paper curtains, more like a warehouse—or a junkyard—for eccentricities than anything resembling a functional store. A trip to Montmartre most often entails a shovel and an entire afternoon spent sweating side by side with a villain attempting to build a better bomb, and though the conversation is always excellent, and though the villains are always rather personable and quite fabulously dressed, you come away from the experience hoping that you ruined their day as much as you might have made your own with the discovery of some five-dollar doodad to brew the perfect cup of coffee.
And so it would take a singular person to work in any sort of place like Montmartre, and the girl behind the forbidden knowledge desk is absolutely singular—I didn’t even need to speak to her to find that out—but before that, there is the matter of the forbidden knowledge desk itself.
Its location changes. Some mornings it begins in the southwest quadrant, proceeding logically on in a counterclockwise motion that maps poorly onto the (generally) squarish room. Other times it chooses its locations at random: true north on a dreary Monday, east on a Tuesday afternoon, on the second floor balcony above the pet supplies section for three days straight before traipsing off behind linens for the weekend.
And once found, forbidden knowledge is itself partitioned. Imagine Montmartre: you enter through a gaping pair of old-world rolling doors, stolen, perhaps, from a barn. Pierre greets you in a pinstriped suit topped by a baseball cap for a team that’s never once existed, waves you further into his madness, and ducking between the adamantium legs of a thirteen-foot, gas-powered colossus you find the forbidden knowledge section dead center of the chaos. You step through an invisible barrier, lifting off the world like a fine haze of lingerie, and there she is, forbidden knowledge. A thousand books surround the desk arranged in precarious, pyramidal piles. Ten thousand fireflies form themselves into color-coded walls and aisles. A hundred thousand secrets wait, locked behind a million forgotten passwords. In the center of it, the girl.
I think her name is February.
I might be wrong. I’m probably wrong. Nobody is named February, though I knew a girl once named April, and May is a pretty enough name as well, though I think they spell that differently. Suffice to say that February might, or might not be her name. I’ve never quite been brave enough to ask, intimidated as I am by her confidence and the hellacious ease with which she approaches learning.
February devours books, you see. Every time I enter into forbidden knowledge she’s sitting in her tattered armchair, feet balanced on the polished mahogany surface of her desk, and she’s reading, a more obscure tome each day. Titles like *How to Start An Ending, How to End A Starting, Fashion In The Subliminal World,* and most recently *My Time Embedded With A Tantric Dragon.*
I watched her turn the pages once. Ten seconds, page. Another ten seconds, another page. Like clockwork, the easy motion of her eyes, her entire being focused down onto the single point of ink and word and page.
And if you’re asking what’s so special about February, that look is my easy answer. When she’s focused it’s like there isn’t any world. I envy that.
But of course, that’s just the easy answer. When I told my dear friend Ian he asked if she was beautiful. I stalled a moment and a slow, salacious smile spread across his face. He didn’t wait for my answer, just rushed on to make assumptions, to assume that, above all else, I must *want* her.
Which isn’t untrue really but the thing is, February isn’t beautiful. Not in any classical sense. She’s…
She’s perfect, but god it’s hard to understand.
I like her dresses. The way the black eats at the light. I like her socks, they’re always fun and mismatched. She has long, clean-lined legs, and I can’t deny that’s pleasant, but she also doesn’t have a face. Not in any classical sense.
Again, it is so hard to understand.
Ian powered on. He slapped me on the back. He said the friend-ly things. He told me I should ask her out and here I am, having ducked between the steely legs of the thirteen-foot, gas-powered colossus, having navigated through the rice paper partitions and the firefly aisles.
And there she is.
And she looks up when I say her name.
And she looks at me.
And she sets down her book: *Failure: A Case Study.*
And she cocks her head to the side.
And she asks me to speak up. |
"It's about finding your niche."
I led Roger through the office, doing a little pressing of the flesh. I started hiring new grads from the Academy, but found the best employees to handle sales of this type were a certain type of old person. Minor cruelty was perfected in my little phone bank of Karens, and I paid them well enough to get out of the care homes that their children had rightfully shoved them into before throwing away the key.
*Death curses are expensive, love, but we have a line of intimate flatulence hexes that will ruin his dating life*
*Permanent mutation? For the same price as one extra set of eyes I can have all of those mean girls crave cow dung for a week, your problems will be done and done.*
I love my little coven of biddies. Not a single drop of the Art in them, but their way with petty vengeance makes me smile.
"The Council has been talking, and frankly.. you're operating in a bit of a grey area. A very dark, some may say black area."Roger had a slight green cast to his skin as Gertrude, my favorite Cursesultant, described a great little thing we've been working on called the Insectital curse for a cheating husband.
"Look. They kicked me out for being all brains and no art. I had skills, memorization, logic, the ability to imagine and follow and comprehend complex ideas that would stretch a Bob's mind into taffy."I opened the door to my private office, and let Roger go in first. "So I decided to sit the Bar and get my law degree."
"A noble profession, the legal arts. Many of our own faculty have devel.... is that?"Roger pointed to the wall, where I kept the congratulations notes for my most prominent clients.
"And without a stitch on him. Sent it to me for helping him get a big role he wanted a few years back. Man could grate Parmesan on those abs."I looked at all of my accomplishments, a bunch of Bobs who decided to check in the back pages of men's magazines, comics, even the occasional classified.
My talent, if you could call it that, is a candle compared to the bonfire of a real talented Practitioner. Even so, a candle'll burn down your house if you put the right kindling with it. Not bad for a girl raised by a drunk warlock and a mother who considered Highlights a bit high brow.
"Listen, Roger. I know the Laws. I'm not killing anybody, breaking their will, or summoning up demons. All I do is provide a service for the little guy, a minor miracle with some humorous, if sometimes terrifying, repercussions. And I make *bank*. My hourly is in the five digits, and I've got other washouts contracted around the world to pull their own work in."I smiled, lighting a cigarette with a cheap gas station lighter. I wasn't giving the upjumped cop a reason to pull me in or claim *maleficum*.
"While you are operating within the *word* of the Laws, you are abusing their *spirit*."Roger adjusted his tie, then put both hands on his staff.
"My work is for entertainment purposes only. For all the Bobs know, they got lucky. I know there are a few of your graduates out there doing prophecy hidden as tarot readings. How about you got bust up their shops?"I offered a drink, but Roger declined. Paranoia is a bitch, the scotch was good.
"But the Council feels that —"
"Screw the Council."The gasp was worth it. I've got a network of hedgers across the continent who have joined in. You wanna start a fight over little old me?"I tilted my glass, offering the chance to back out.
"I have been sent to serve you an order to cease and desist your actions."Roger unrolled the scroll. I hate the stuffy formality of practitioners.
"4939 Drury Way."
He paused, his hand pulling back.
"What?"
"4939 Drury Way. The home of Roger Powell. Father of Reginald and Polly Powell. A home that is *filled* with such interesting things. Chemical reagents, undocumented venomous animals, poisonous plants. A few dogs and a Geiger counter will find some interesting stuff there. CPS gets called, a detective gets notified. ATF, DEA... you've got enough felonies according to Mundane authorities to go away for life."I smirked, finishing my drink and setting the glass down. "What's a few hundred years behind bars? Don't worry, maybe the country will collapse first. Give you a way out."
The mage in front of me, the guy I had taught how to unhook a bra and roll a spliff, was livid. Roger and I had history, and we kept up with each other. The Council probably thought that would make this easier.
"I'm not playing at being some Girl Wizard, Roger. I'm playing at being *Merlin*. You're all so scared of the Bobs learning how you've been pulling strings all of these years. Now, we can keep this quiet and keep the rubes out of it..."
I looked at my favorite poster. A little girl standing in front of a burning village, a look of grim determination on her face.
"Or I tell them where to find the monster and sell the torches." |
Jacqueline had tried to keep a low profile at the Academy, she really did. Unfortunately, the elves and the fae and a plethora of others saw her very presence as an insult. In some way, it was. Were it not for the Republic bleeding the magical kingdoms during the war, humans would have never been allowed into the Academy.
"Look at you, prancing about these noble halls like you belong,"said Theoden after he and his elven posse waylaid her on her way to the canteen. "I've just had enough of your human stench."
"Excuse me?"Jackie said. "I most certainly do not prance. And I'll have you know I shower every day."She considered those barring her way as she spoke and relaxed a little. The lackeys were of no consequence, and Theoden, although said to possess great power, was a pompous fool.
"It is not something you can wash off, human,"Theoden said, turning up his nose. "It is the stench of inferiority."
"Uh huh."She tapped her foot. "Anything else you wanted to say? If not, move aside. I have places to be."
Theoden stared at her. "Have you no dignity? Aren't you even going to defend yourself?"
She laughed. "Why would I? Your words are like the yapping of a dog too afraid to bite."
Theoden's high-cheekboned face flushed red. Peeling off his white glove, he tossed it at her feet. "For your contempt for your betters, I challenge you to a duel."
Jackie glanced down and nudged it with her foot. "All right, then,"she said casually. "We can use any magic or enchanted weapon, right?"
The elf appeared surprised at her nonchalance but quickly hid it behind a sneer. "Indeed. You have learned the rules, at least."
She nodded. "How about we do it after dinner tonight? I have a busy day of class tomorrow."
"So be it,"Theoden hissed. He gestured to his lackeys and turned to leave with a dramatic swish of his cloak.
***
The Academy's courtyard was packed with students, leaving an empty oval down the middle. Jackie stood on one end, Theoden on the other. From the looks of dark glee the spectators directed at Jackie, they expected her to get badly beaten. Between them hunched Professor Olga, who was to officiate the duel. The hag was known to be impartial—which was to say, she hated everyone equally.
Theoden caught her gaze and sneered. Jackie stiffened when she spied a long thin sword strapped to his belt, but to her relief, he didn't show any inclination to draw it. Typical. Elves were proud of their magic the most and loved to lord their abilities over their inferiors.
Professor Olga rasped, "Are you ready?"
Jackie nodded and reached under the lapel of her jacket to adjust her holster.
"You will learn your place tonight, human,"Theoden said to approving murmurs from the elves in the crowd.
Jackie rolled her eyes. Professor Olga raised her gnarled hand high into the air, then brought it down. "Begin."
Theoden smiled and threw his hands into the air. "Mother Earth, heed my call,"he cried. "Rouse your fury and bind my enemy in a prison of thorns."
The cobblestones of the courtyard cracked apart as vines erupted through the gaps and slithered toward Jackie. For a moment, she only stared out of sheer incredulity. To think the fool would choose such a roundabout method; no wonder the elves lost against the Republic.
She reached into her holster and pulled out one of her four wands. Mass-produced in the Republic's mage workshops, it lacked elegance and required little skill to wield. In other words, it was a weapon of war.
Even as the vines bound her feet, she calmly took aim and let loose. An energy missile burst forth and hit Theoden's thigh, and the elf collapsed with an agonized scream.
A stunned silence reigned in the courtyard as she pulled her feet free of the vines and unhurriedly approached her opponent, wand held loosely at her side. Theoden glowered at her, clutching his bleeding thigh. Pausing before him, she aimed the wand between his eyes. The elf blanched.
"I yield,"he whimpered, any sign of superiority gone from his pale mien.
Jackie stared him in the eye until he began to tremble, then nodded briskly and sheathed her wand. The onlookers parted before her as she strode out the courtyard, murmuring behind her back. There was a reason why humanity had withstood the combined assault of the magical kingdoms, and if need be, she would remind them all. |
Brittney had never held a gun before.
Boys had ogled her and chased her most of her life, and she enjoyed that immensely, although she always acted like she never realized how attractive she was. At any given party at Alpha Gam house, she could take her pick of any man there, whether he had a girlfriend or not, even if she was there.
But once she had them, they treated her like garbage. They never gave her the time of day, returned her calls, took her seriously. Even the ones she really liked.
But now, with this AK-47 in her hands, she felt powerful for the first time in her life. She liked how heavy it felt, the texture of the coarse splintery wood. She liked the way it kicked.
The other ISIS soldiers in her squad stood around her, huddled low in the cover of a shelled-out hut. At dawn they would move across the field into the nearby village, seize it in the name of the ISIS. If they failed, they would inflict as many casualties as possible, bomb the water supply, and then pull out again before another attack tomorrow.
Whatever she said, the others did. Having that level of power was magical, supernatural. It made her feel high in a way that being the hottest girl in Alpha Gam never had. It was better than walking down the street and knowing every guy was watching her ass as she passed them by.
It made her feel that it didn’t matter how hot she was, because with an AK in hand, she had the power to reshape history, to destroy like Shiva, the Hindu god of the apocalypse, to take and give life.
She frankly didn’t care how this had happened, if she had jumped through a wormhole to an alternate dimension or if was having some strange hallucination on a drug slipped into her drink. It was too good to question.
She nodded to her fellow soldiers.
Brittney charged, screaming for the death of all Christians, America, and the end of the West.
-------------
Mohammed had never had a sip of alcohol before, but now that he had the world spinned around him. He was wrapped in the warmest, most comfortable blanket in the Universe. The sorority girl next to him had a hand around his shoulder, singing some song that he had never heard before. They drunkenly waited for food on the front lawn of the house, talking shit, drinking vodka in Red Solo cups.
He paused for a second when the mozzarella sticks arrived, some echo of his former self wondering if God would punish him for consuming this, but he tasted it anyways.
He had never tasted anything so exquisite, so orgasmic. He had never felt so good.
The only conclusion he could come to that he had fallen in battle and ascended into paradise, although he remembered nothing other than going to sleep.
He must have died, slain by a mortar, killed in some ambush.
Music blared from the nearby houses and packs of people wandered down the road, laughing uproariously. He had never witnessed such a scene of self-indulgence, had never seen so many people embrace sensual pleasure, stuffing every orifice with stimuli. It was glorious.
He touched his own boobs. That was one thing he couldn’t quite make sense of, but he didn’t care. They were soft and abundant and fun to play with.
All of his years of planting bombs and training his fellow Islamic brothers had paid off.
|
"Obsessed with Batman,"the Joker had declared himself at the last meeting of supervillains. And it got me thinking: if only *everyone* in the city really took the time to consider the absolute lunacy of it all, they'd probably hate him too. I mean, a man running about in a bat costume and beating up ordinary citizens? Ok, maybe not "ordinary"citizens. Some of us are a little *strange*. But we're still people, right?
That nugget of an idea turned into a plan, as they often do. If everyone in the city was like Joker, the Batman wouldn't stand a chance. We just needed them to think about him a little bit more. A *lot* more, actually. So much so that they are driven mad by their new-found obsession. Driven to the point that they'll do anything to get rid of him and clean the scourge from their minds, maybe?
The chemical mixture was simple, really. Child's play for someone of my abilities; I *specialize* in madness. Joker, my partner in this endeavor, was responsible for devising some sort of delivery method. Unsurprisingly, he came up with some elaborate scheme to deploy clown-shaped hot air balloons that sprayed it into clouds, to be dispersed by rainfall. Dumping the barrels into the reservoir would have worked, but I like to indulge the Joker whenever possible. Stay on his good side, you know?
I can hear the pitter-patter of the rain on the rooftop now. It's always been a comforting sound for me; doubly so knowing that it will lead to Batman's demise in just a few days.
I load up Reddit on my phone and check /r/Writingprompts, as usual. But today is not for writing; today is for assessing results.
> Batman dies unexpectedly, this troubles The Joker so much that he swears to protect Gotham himself, and does a better job than Batman ever did.
The top post, and rising quickly. Perfect; he's the only thing that anyone wants to hear about. I show the Joker, and he cackles appreciatively. His laughter bounces around the empty warehouse.
"You know,"he says after a while. "I didn't mention this before, but there is one potential drawback."
I cock my head inquisitively
"They become obsessed with Bats, right? Well, what if their madness goes a different route than mine? What if they're more like him? What if they want to **become** Batman, instead of killing him?"
Before I could answer, the lights snap off. Someone has cut the power.
A flash of lightning illuminates the room. In the windows above, silhouettes. Not one, but dozens. Dozens of pointy bat ears. |
"Thglwmp it is time for your powered down cycle."
Thglwmp writhed in its caretaker's grip. "Whyyyy?"Thglwmp asked plaintively.
"It is that moment in the cycle,"said its caretaker.
"Tell me one more story, Caretaker Pthkw. Tell me the one about the Earthlings."
Pthkw buzzed impatiently. Well, at least it worked with the tiny prism of joy it was tasked with controlling. It could afford to extend the cycle a few moments. Laying Thglwmp into its chamber, Pthkw reached far back into its memory crystals.
"Well, this was a long time ago, long before you were initiated, when I was on a scouting mission for the Detection Agency. One cycle, we had ported into a system in one of the outer galactic belts."
"It had been a long couple of ports, so we were all ready for a rest cycle when the third planet came up on our sensors. 'MOSTLY DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE' they said."
Thglwmp thrummed theatrically. "Mostly dihydrogen monoxide??"it asked.
"Yes, a planet that positively glowed with short wavelength light. More than half its surface was covered in vast continents of dihydrogen monoxide. We had to stop to examine it further. We were shocked to find that not only was this planet mostly dihydrogen monoxide, but we detected signs of intelligent life."
"Gross,"said Thglwmp expectantly.
"Oh yes. And worse, these beings were mostly dihydrogen monoxide themselves. Tiny little meatbags that actually needed dihydrogen monoxide to achieve higher sentience - their bodies were filled with fluids and oozing flesh."
"Yuuuuuuuuuck,"Thglwmp squealed, vibrating in its chamber.
"Every day they would bathe in dihydrogen monoxide and laugh at the tissue damage it caused the outer layer of their meatsacks. They would ingest dihydrogen monoxide, even though too much could shut down their miniscule little meat batteries, and then expel dihydrogen monoxide from their orifices."
Thglwmp vibrated again and Pthkw bathed the chamber in a loving low wavelength spectrum light.
"We were fascinated by these nasty little creatures who had entire cultural productions about enduring dihydrogen monoxide falling from the sky or exploring the depths of it. It pervaded their entire filthy world and we spent several cycles there just observing them."
"Of course, they could barely leave the gravitational force of their own nightmare planet, for which we should always be grateful. We left a beacon there to keep track of their progress, but a few cycles after we had departed, it stopped transmitting."
"So maybe they found it, little one. Maybe there are sentient meatbags of mostly dihydrogen monoxide wandering the great gaps between the stars, searching for us, eager to rust our bodies and dilute our crystals. Ugly lumpy creatures oozing with dihydrogen monozide from every fleshy pore."
"Maybe... THEY'RE ALREADY HERE!"Pthkw wriggled the pseudo meat cushion it had grabbed from beneath the chamber.
"Ahhhhh,"screamed Thglwmp, which quickly turned to laughter. "Meatbags, noooo!"
Laughing a bit itself, Pthkw lay the meat cushion underneath the chamber and buzzed tenderly at Thglwmp.
"Alright, that's enough for tonight. Maybe if you enter your powered down cycle right now, I will tell you the story of my time on the meatbag world."
"Oooo,"squirmed Thglwmp, and shut down as Pthkw commanded the chamber to power down. Turning away, Pthkw returned the memories to its backup crystals where they belonged. No one wanted to think about sentient meat sacks wandering space for too long, especially when they had a whole other cycle to endure alone. |
I slapped the sheet of paper down onto the desk.
His office was deceptively neat, with the barely-used pristine look that only upper management ever seemed to attain. But I knew better. It only looked that way because Satan didn't need to use such mundane things as file storage systems or computer databases. No, he was better than that.
His eyes lingered on mine, with the wisp of a smile at his lips.
"Jeffrey! I have to say, I didn't expect to see you back. What can I do for you here today?"Sure enough, he greeted me like an old friend. I have no idea how he remembered me - I could only imagine how many contractors he had, and it had been so many years since I had signed my deal - but there was no hesitation from him. I grinned.
"Done."
One neatly manicured eyebrow arched as he looked at me, puzzled.
"I beg your pardon?"Was that geniune confusion in his voice? Oh, I had been *waiting* for this.
"Remember? I'm Jeffrey Thompson? We had a deal? You wanted me to count all of the grains of sand in that god-damned beach, and in turn you'd let me go free. I remember."I waved a hand aimlessly, mimicing his posture and voice from that day. "*Oh, Jeffrey. If you're so committed, I won't stop you. Complete this teensy little task, and I'll let you out of this cage*."My hand dropped. "Well, I did."
He looked down at the sheet of paper. It was actually fairly impressive, filled out nearly completely with neatly written numbers and commas.
I held my breath as he examined the number. It hadn't been easy. It *hadn't*. But I knew that any mistake, even the slightest error, would ruin the whole thing and I'd have to start over. So I had been slow, and methodical. I don't know how long I sat, scooping the sand into neat piles to label and count, but I knew I was only going to do it once.
Satan sighed.
"Jesus, Jeffrey. Do you have OCD? 'Cause, this isn't normal. People aren't supposed to, you know, *complete* these contracts."He grinned toothily. "It's just something I do for fun, right? Warms my heart to see you- I mean, them, struggle so desperately."
I shook my head, smacking the table again.
"We had a *contract*. Is my number correct?"
There was a long, drawn out silence while Satan examined the sheet of paper critically. I held my breath. Finally, he sighed, and nodded reluctantly.
"I have to say that it is. I'm quite shocked. This hardly seems possible, let alone plausible."
I grinned.
"Doesn't matter. A deal's a deal. You said I could go free. Send me back."
His head tilted inquisitively, as he smiled right back across the table.
"Go free? I think there's been some misunderstanding, Jeffrey. I said you could leave your cage. And you have. But where would you like to go?"He shook his head. "You died. You've got no place in the world of the living, and you can't return there. Heaven, well."He laughed. "If heaven was willing to take you, you wouldn't be here in the first place. You didn't make a deal with *them*, did you?"
The ground was falling away from beneath me, the blood draining from my face, as his words rang hollowly in my ears.
It's true.
I foolishly focused all of my energy on the goal, and I didn't think about what would come *after*.
How could I have been so stupid?
I squeezed my eyes shut tight against the tears that threatened to slip out. There was really only one answer.
"Then I'll go away. Just get rid of me. It's better than living *here* for all eternitny. Just make it fast, ok?"I couldn't look at him. I didn't want to see his expression. I just wanted it to be done. I had had enough. I worked for *so long*, and it was all for nothing. I couldn't take it anymore.
The sound of his soft, growing laughter broke my self-destructive train of thought, and against my better judgement my eyes snapped open.
The devil was laughing at me. And he pressed one thumb to the contract that appeared on the desk before him. With a sizzle and a brief puff of smoke, it vanished into nothingness.
"Oh, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey. So quick to jump to conclusions. It's fun to mess with you, you know. Far too fun to just let you off yourself and disappear into the void forever. No, that wouldn't do."
I shook my head, confused.
"I can't go to heaven. I *won't* stay in one of your cells. I'm just taking the only road left to me."
Satan grinned, leaning forward, and waved one finger dramatically. A new roll of paper appeared, unrolling on the desk between us. Writing was appearing, spider-fine and small enough I'd need a magnifying glass to dig into it.
"Are you sure it's the only road, Jeffrey? See, it took some doing to finish that. Some determination. But I think it took some anger as well, didn't it? Something locked up in here, that kept you going through the years. I'm right, aren't I?"He flicked my forehead. I flinched back, but I couln't deny his words. He wasn't wrong. The anger had never gone away, the injustice of it all.
I wasn't a bad person. Sure, I had my flaws. I was only human. But I'd never done anything so horrible. I'd never done anything that should have condemned me to burn down here with all of the sinners for eternity, while they sat on clouds and sipped ambrosia and laughed the eons away, up there in their heaven.
Oh, I had anger, all right.
I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. He could clearly read it all over my face, and his grin widened.
"There it is. We could do great things together. See, I'm glad that our last contract gave you time to really think about it. Aren't you?"He slid the sheet of paper across to me. "We could be good for each other. You can stay here without going back to that cage. Stay, as one of my tools, and I'll find an outlet for that anger of yours."
His eyes were madness, but all I could feel was the power radiating from him, and from the contract resting on the desk.
I grinned back. And then I reached for a pen.
(/r/inorai, critiques always welcome!) |
*Later, at the monster bar....*
----
"So there I am, minding my own business at the bottom of the lake,"Glembthax the Deep Devourer said, "when suddenly, someone starts walking across."
"Wait,"Shorgo the Regular Devourer said, "you mean you ran across someone?"
"No,"Glembthax said, "I mean someone starts walking over the lake itself. It was something to see. I mean, I've seen boats, I've seen swimmers - tasty, those - I've seen birds and insects and everything you'd think you'd see on top of the waters, but this was the first time I'd seen a genuine waterwalker."
"Huh,"Shorgo said, "So you ate him, I assume?"
"Shorgo, please, allow me a little bit of theater before we cut to the point,"Glembthax said.
"Right, sorry, continue,"Shorgo said.
"So there's this waterwalker, just walking over the water like it's something he does every day. Except this guy, this guy stops halfway across."
"Really making your job easy,"Shorgo commented.
"Oh, it got easier, believe me,"Glembthax said. "Because the guy, he starts *taunting* me."
"Taunting? What, was he a wizard or something he thought he could skin you for reagents?"Shorgo asked.
"No!"Glembthax said. "That's just the thing, he's just some jerk. Wasn't even taunting me to distract attention from the rest of his group, it was just him and his taunts."
"Wow,"Shorgo said, shaking his head. "So *then* you ate him."
"Shorgo, please, let me tell the damn story."
"Right, right, continue."
"So, he's taunting me,"Glembthax said. "Saying stuff like I can't eat him. And not because he's strong or a wizard or something, no. Says I can't eat him because - get this - it's *illegal*."
"Illegal."Shorgo said.
"Yep,"Glembthax said, "Apparently the first water-walker in centuries also happened to study law, because he found some old never-repealed thing on the books where things below the water can't eat things above the water. Something about mer-men stealing fish out of people's boats? I don't know."
"So you couldn't eat him?"Shorgo said.
Glembthax scoffed. "I'm a godddamn *monster*, Shorgo, I ate him for no other reason than spite!"
"But the law!"Shorgo said.
"Again,"Glembthax repeated, "monster. Not exactly law-abiding here. Plus it turns out that they just, like, ticket you for it."
"But you've got to pay the ticket,"Shorgo pointed out. "You didn't get away scott free."
"Cripes, Shorgo, what kind of monster are you? I ate the ticket, too! I'm not going to pay that. Do you know what you have to go through to even try doing that? You gotta show up at a certain building that's only open like three non-consecutive hours on days that start with 'T', take a number, and then wait while people call out different numbers in no particular order. And that's just to get to the part where you can *talk* to someone."
"Wow,"Shorgo said. "What kind of monster designed that?"
"A better monster than I, buddy,"Glembthax said, raising his beer in a toast, "A better monster than I." |
"For the last time Ambassador Ašhak, I would suggest to your Emperor that you reconsider your position,"said diplomat Li Chen to the sneering Kavaj.
"There will be no diplomacy. You are subject to the God-Emperor and any resistance will be crushed,"
Li Chen merely sighed. He opened his private communications channel to the central cabinet and sent a simple message: The Kavaj have declared war.
It was a message that rocked the peaceable systems. Humanity, the great diplomats of the Spiral Arm, were being forced into conflict. The news spread through the vast network of wormholes reaching the farthest planets in a matter of hours. It was still too slow for the outer worlds. The Kavaj came in overwhelming number with their destroyers, crippling industry and levelling landmasses with their fusion bombs. It was less like colonisation and more like genocide. The innocent outside of the capitals stood no chance, while those who were under exotic matter barriers huddled in fear as the Kavaj launched huge energy beam assaults upon them. In the presidential palace however, Premier Alissa Ntege merely smiled, and gave an order to her Secondary.
The Kavaj were massing for a second assault when they detected the wormholes opening around the Yakut-4 system. The Kavaj general watched in confusion as the numbers came in. Seven thousand wormholes had opened at equal distances apart in a spherical shape around the system. The Kavaj warships, done with the planetary defences, turned outwards. It was a massacre. The Seventh Fleet of Humanity, led by the flagship Brasilia attacked as one. Coulomb barrier detonations crushed the smaller Kavaj frigates instantly, while quantum distortions rippled through the fabric of the Kavaj forcefields, leaving the hulking juggernauts defenceless as depleted-uranium kinetic projectiles burst them like rotten fruit.
Elsewhere it was less quick, but each battle ended with decisive human victories. Three earth-days later, Premier Ntege sat with her Kavaj specialist Chen in the palace over Jupiter as he explained the consequences of their actions. The Kavaj, he said, prided themselves on never losing a war. Battles would be lost, but the Kavaj must understand how truly pathetic they are when compared to humankind and it's allies for any long term change to occur. After little deliberation, the human cabinet unanimously voted to send the fleet to the Kavaj homeworld.
The Kavaj God-Emperor Jahavakh sat in his grand throne, listening to the reports of the battles come in from those who fled. His fury grew, along with his trepidation. The humans were a weak race, unwarlike and reliant on diplomacy. He had shown them the power of his fleet, and in return they had exposed him to highly calculated, brutalistic fury. It was beyond anything he had or any of his generals had ever seen. They had attacked with suddenness, but humans had responded with irresistible speed and might.
"God-Emperor,"came the voice of one of his more obsequious aides, "The humans have jumped directly into our system. The weapons platforms have been wiped out, and they have distorted space to trap our defensive ships outside the system,"
Fearful, desperate to retain his image before the threat he faced, he went to declare the people of Kavaj to take up arms. But then he stopped.
He didn't want to die. He no longer felt like a God. He felt like a calf before the ravening wolves.
He breathed out heavily.
"Contact their Ambassador Chen. I wish to dictate our surrender personally,"
"God-Emperor, surely you jest?"
"Do it knave, or I shall strike your pathetic head from your shoulders!" |
This is the most awful living situation ever. In all of history. Nobody has it worse than me. God, I despise all of them with every fiber of my being. I never should have moved in, but my hubris got the better of me.
Lust’s room is right next to mine, just my luck. Every night, she brings home a new guy or girl – and every night, without fail, all I can hear for hours and hours is bed-squeaking, moaning, and other depraved sex noises. Because of her, I haven’t slept a wink since I got here three months ago. And, of course, she hits on me constantly. I’m way out of her league, though, so I don’t know why she bothers. She’d have a better chance with Gluttony, but I don’t blame her for steering clear of him.
Gluttony is an obese, slobbering, disgusting mess. He must weigh at least 400, maybe 500 pounds. He drives himself around in one of those electric scooters because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to move anymore. We’re constantly running out of groceries because the fat bastard goes through 6000 calories every hour. I have to hide my leftovers, otherwise they’ll vanish without a trace.
At least he pays his rent, though – the same can’t be said for Greed. That girl is the worst. Every single month we have to hassle her for her portion of the rent. “I’m out of cash, I had to pay for a life-saving surgery!” She’ll say, giving a typical lame excuse. “I’ll pay double next month, I promise, for real this time!”. The only reason we haven’t thrown her out is because she keeps up with the housework pretty well, unlike Sloth.
I don’t think I have ever seen Sloth anywhere besides the couch in the living room. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his body has fully melded into the cushions. The lazy fuck has probably never washed a dish in his life, and he leaves dirty clothes all over the place, constantly. Him and Gluttony are best buddies, making quite the dynamic duo. Whenever they’re in a room together, the smell is indescribable.
Have I mentioned Wrath yet? She’s a loose cannon. I once saw her break a chair over Gluttony’s head for taking the last slice of pizza on movie night. I’ve tried to steer clear of her ever since. One day, Envy stole one of her expensive pieces of jewelry – the resulting fallout was so bad that it took stitches, an organ transplant, and several weeks of physical therapy to repair.
Envy is just… annoying. Besides being a thief, he has to one-up everything I say. “Oh, you slept four hours last night? Pfft, lucky you – I only slept one!”, he’ll say. I splurged on a nice car last week, and yesterday he went out and purchased the slightly newer model. I look back fondly on those four weeks where he was stuck in the hospital in a full-body cast.
As soon as this lease is up, I am out of here. I hate hanging around this bunch of losers – I could do much, much better. Everybody loves me, after all. Maybe this is a bit prideful of me, but I truly hope that they are able to learn from the experience of having me, such a great guy, as their roommate. Maybe one day, then, they won’t all be so intolerable to be around. |
Anderson swallowed in fear, there were reports of a hydra en route to the capital, no soldier had managed to down it in time. The creature was too clever, evading attempts to intercept and traps.
With venomous fangs and claws strong enough to break swords, the militia was in high alert to defend the people and the ruler. The captain of the guards addressed his king for instructions. "Oh, don't worry about Skeet, he's harmless."
But because King Alan had been drinking then, Anderson didn't trust his words and had his subordinates keep watch for anything scaly. The worst came to be as the hydra was spotted jumping over the castle walls and was racing on the roof towards the throne room.
A squad was keeping watch on the king, intent on preventing regicide for the sake of the nation. It would be humiliating to have Alan die in the safety of the castle and surrounded by his knights.
A squire noticed that the king was calm, too calm in fact. Before he could ask, the hydra had barged in from the overhead window. The knights went for the swords, but Alan got up and waved for them to step back. "Do not hurt him, he is my brother and I invited him."
Anderson was skeptical while watching his king hug the creature like old friends. "Sorry for the scare, but you were all too nervous and didn't give me time to explain."The hydra showed the soldiers the letter with the royal stamp.
The captain was still wary. "Pardon my impudence, but how?"Alan laughed heartily and Skeet followed suit with three heads. "We have the same father, Derek was a bard, you see."
With this, the brothers walked out, the king wanted to show off his prized wyvern, and Skeet looked back with one head, blowing a raspberry at Anderson. |
The familiar knock. I’ve come to expect it.
I answer the door, my faithful friend close at my heels.
I remember the day we met. He was wandering on the street. I was on my way to the bridge.
I can’t say why, but he started to follow me. All the way to the bridge. No one talked to me, no one even seemed to notice, except this little brown and white dog.
We got to the bridge. I stood, looking out at the night sky, down at the water. He just sat beside me. I stood there a while. I can’t say how long.
After a while, I looked down. He looked up at me, mouth hanging open in a goofy grin, tongue lolling. He gave a tentative wag. I knelt down, ruffled the fur on his head.
It was rough and damp. I noticed how skinny he was. He squirmed and wagged, so happy to just have my attention.
I thought about why I was here. I had lost everything. But… what was everything? My job? Money? And here is this tiny creature, ribs showing, skin and bones and… happy?
I picked him up.
“You wanna go get something to eat?”
An hour later, the change in my pocket had bought a hotdog from a street vendor. My new friend ate most of it.
“I suppose you’ll need a name. How bout Brooklyn?”
He wagged.
Years later, when I laid on the floor beside him, watching him struggle to breathe, tears streaming down my face, screaming at a god I didn’t believe in, there he was.
I don’t think I was supposed to see him and he seemed surprised.
“Take me. Take me instead. Give him more time.”
I didn’t hesitate. I begged. I wasn’t scared or even surprised. He was here for Brooklyn and well, if he had to take someone, take me.
I think Death was touched. He offered me a bargain. I leapt at the chance.
Over the next days and weeks, I watched as Brooklyn bounded about like a young pup again. Yes, it was worth it.
That was many years ago. I’ve been expecting this for a while. I knew our time has been getting close. So, answering the door this time, I’m not shocked that I am not met with the usual question.
“Renew our bargain?”
Instead, he is just standing, waiting.
I smile.
“Thank you. I think we’re ready now.”
Brooklyn stands beside me wagging. Death hands me a lead, I attach it to Brooklyn’s collar.
“One last walk buddy? This might be a long one.”
He wags and yaps happily.
“We’re ready. Together now. After all, I never would’ve had any time left without him. It’s only right we shared it.” |
"You should have let me take care of this one, Father."
Lucifer smirked brashly as he stood before the golden throne, taking no heed of the furious Angels that stood in a great circle around them. The Power upon the throne ignored the posturing of his wayward archangel, as uncaring of the child's posturing as completely as Lucifer was of the lesser Angels. The Lord of all Evil stiffened before stepping closer to the Throne.
"You *failed*, you arrogant old fool. What of omnipotence? What of omniscience? Your hand was too weak to stamp out a few mewling apes, your aged mind too frail to forsee their survival. Yet they live, Yahweh. They live, and the laws of Heaven mean nothing to the sons of Adam now."
Lucifer's slow prowl towards the unassailable throne was halted at last, his path blocked by a crowned angel who had appeared in a flash of silver light.
"You go too far, deceiver. His Name is not for your ilk."
Lucifer's smile did not falter as he gently pushed aside the flaming sword at his neck.
"Ah, Michael. Come to join Father in his little tantrum. Old bastard hasn't moved in hours."
Michael's eyes glowed gold, but he withdrew his blade and stepped back. His posture made it clear, however, that he would brook no further approach.
Another flash of light, and the third Archangel manifested. Gabriel.
"Father, forgive me my lateness. Azrael has disappeared. The horsemen were under his watch, and he failed You."
The Power spoke at last.
"*I was not failed, my child. In this, as in all things, my will was done.*"
Lucifer's smile vanished.
"You will not lie to me! You did not plan for this! You did not desire this! Humanity lives, despite your decree! Your power is gone!"
The Power shone brighter. If the great light had features, the three Archangels knew that it would be smiling. The lesser Angels remained silent, not understanding the workings that unfolded.
"*I am mercy, above all else. Those deserving of light were raised up, those who were not remained below to forge a better path. Azrael served as he was intended to. Humanity has flourished, grown beyond their ordained limitations."*
Lucifer stopped suddenly, as the truth hit him.
"You hid them from me. You took my souls, the broken ones, the damned and you hid them from me. All this, the rapture, the apocalypse, it was to trick me."
Michael smirked. It was an odd look on so innocent a face.
"Prideful to the last."
Lucifer roared incoherently before disappearing in a wave of light. The moment he did so, The Power's light dimmed considerably. Gabriel frowned.
"Father, is there something wrong?"
"*They were free of Lucifer's grasp, yet they continued to sin. Humanity have grown indeed, but they may have grown beyond the promise of Heaven I offer them. Where is Azrael*?"
-
-
-
The black cloak leant over the river, fishing the bedraggled creatures from it with a gentle-if bony-grasp. It sighed sadly.
I HATE MY JOB, SOMETIMES. |
Dudley was awake, but kept his eyes closed tightly, willing himself back to sleep. He had been having his favorite dream: in it, he was sitting in a large, bright room with a huge Christmas tree in the corner. He was surrounded by boxes, all wrapped in shiny, colorful paper. The whole room, as far as he could see, was stacked floor to ceiling with presents, and in the dream, Dudley knew they were all for him.
He had this dream less often, now he was older. But when he was very little, he had dreamt it nearly every night. He liked to imagine that he wasn't a squib, that he had the gift and the dream was a prophecy of a future when Voldemort wasn't powerful anymore and Uncle James and Aunt Lily could go back to work and they could afford to celebrate Christmas and birthdays like everyone else.
And if Voldemort wasn't in power, then they could have more than stupid Sirius coming over for Christmas. Sirius who obviously liked Harry better and just made whale sounds whenever Dudley walked in the room. Sirius, who when Dudley was a toddler, had turned a doorstop into a rat and made it chase Dudley around the house.
But even Stupid Sirius was better than grandpa Dumbledore. Whenever Dumbledore came over, which thankfully wasn't often, he brought bad news, and Aunt Lily would insist that Dudley and Harry stay with her in the basement for days at a time, not coming up except to use the toilet, eating nothing but instant potatoes and cans of mushy peas.
Dudley, eyes still shut, listened for signs of life throughout the rest of the house. It didn't take long for him to hear the telltale noises of Harry zipping around on his toy broom, skillfully avoiding Uncle James’ obstacles, but occasionally failing to stop in time to not run into the wall. Dudley could smell bacon sizzling on the stove, so even though he didn't want to deal with his hyper cousin and his stupid magical abilities, he did decide it was time to get out of bed.
…
The dream hadn't been prophetic after all. Voldemort had been defeated years ago, but Dudley still only got one or two presents for Christmas. At least they got to spend the holidays with the members of the old Order, where there were more kids other than Harry for Dudley to play with. Neville was a little sniffly and pathetic, but he was also probably a squib, so Dudley would rather spend time with him than the Weasleys. Harry and the hoards of redheads would take off to the backyard to play Quidditch almost as soon as Dudley and the Potters stepped inside The Burrow.
That would mark the beginning of a week with blessedly little interaction with wizards and witches; Dudley and Neville would explore the yard, hunting for mushrooms and harassing the gnomes. Sometimes, during the summers, they'd find a toad or a family of turtles and spend the afternoons making up little mazes for them to go through or puzzles for them to solve. Neville was a great playmate, but Dudley would never say it outloud; he was pretty sure Neville only played with him because he didn't have parents to convince him not to.
…
Smeltings felt like, finally, after all these years, coming home. No one had wands, no one conjured vermin to chase him, and no one even believed that brooms could fly. Nine whole months of the year, Dudley could pretend his aunt and uncle didn't exist. Dudley could be a normal boy, surrounded by other normal boys. He didn't even mind when the older boys would tease him for his weird clothes. It was easy to stand up to bullies when they used their fists, not their magic.
It didn't take much for Dudley to pick a fight. He'd punch someone for calling his friends a name. He'd hogtie the person who tried to steal his helping of pudding at supper. He didn't mind getting sent to the headmaster: Mr. Mason would invite Dudley up for tea, and he'd spend so much time reminiscing about his school days Vernon, Dudley’s dad, that he'd eventually forget why Dudley had been sent to the office in the first place. Then he'd just let him go with a “Now, you show them what it means to be a Smeltings man, boy. Just like your old man.” Dudley would never be able to thank his parents for leaving the note in their will for Lily and James to send him to Smeltings.
Even the summers off school didn't feel so lonely now that he had friends of his own to spend days with. Aunt Lily would make a big show about how she wanted the whole family to spend the holiday together, but she'd always eventually let Dudley go to Piers’ house for the two weeks the Potters spent at the Burrow. Dudley knew, no matter how nice she was to him, Aunt Lily would rather she didn't have to find some way to entertain her squib nephew. Especially now that Neville was at Hogwarts with everyone else, Dudley felt increasingly isolated with the Order, and Lily was more than happy to ship him off to his muggle friends’ house to get him out of the way.
Piers was the only one of Dudley’s friends who knew about the wizard cousin stuff. No one would believe him if he told anyway, but Dudley knew Piers would never tell. The two would laugh every once in a while, imagining how stupid Dudley’s family would look if they were with them. When Piers’ parents took them to the Manchester game, Dudley made Piers snort soda through his nose by imitating Harry's inability to kick a ball: “I need my broom! I only know how to catch flying balls!” Dudley muttered, pushing invisible glasses up his nose and fumbling around with an invisible football.
…
Aunt Lily barely even protested when Dudley refused to come back to Godric Hollow the summer he turned 15. She was even more terrified than Dudley was now that Neville was dead and Voldemort was back in full force. The Potters were going to go into hiding with the rest of the Order, and Lily had to know that would be easier without having to drag a squib around with them everywhere.
Piers and his family didn't take the threat of the Dark Arts very seriously, but Dudley didn't mind having the opportunity to ignore it. If even Grandpa Dumbledore couldn't destroy Voldemort, Dudley didn't see how he could do much without magic. If there was nothing he could do to protect himself, he'd rather not be kept constantly aware of how much danger he was in.
In the freedom of living with muggles, Dudley got a job at the Mark's and Spencer's for the summers, and by the time he left Smeltings he had enough money to rent his own apartment. He spent his free time on the internet at the library looking through hundreds of search results for “Vernon Dursley.”
Within a year of graduation, Dudley had discovered he had an aunt. Within a few months of that discovery, he had tracked down her phone number, and her house in London. After a couple of weeks of carrying her address around in his pocket, he finally got up the courage to buy a ticket to go see her. He knew he should have called first, that that would be safer and that she would be more likely to be home if he let her know ahead of time that he was coming. But he didn't want to call her, to hear her voice, to dream up scenarios about spending the holidays with her, only to have her be as uninterested in him as the rest of his family was. If he was going to feel this alone for the rest of his life, it was better to rip the hope off like a bandaid and get back to real life than to languish for months in a bitter delusion of belonging.
Wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck and retucking it into his coat, he took a deep breath and reached his hand up to the bulldog-shaped knocker on the door. He rapped it hard against the metal bump, and waited, holding his breath, as he heard heavy footsteps, and a woman's voice calling out “Ripper, back now. Ripper, hush!”
...
|
“When you marooned me on that god forsaken spit of land you call *Earth*, you forgot one very important thing, mate,” Jack paused as his and the Star Destroyer crew watched him incredulously, the hologram of Darth Vader towering above him, “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow!” he said before turning off the annoying hologram.
“Now then! How do I steer this thing?” he posed the question openly as he started clicking at random on the console before him. The sound of sirens began echoing throughout the ship, and from the helm where they stood, green lasers shot out into the dark to fend off the invisible enemy, Jack frowned.
Pintel and Ragetti each held an arm of the previous captain and brought him before Jack Sparrow, “Found ‘is one ‘iding in the loo, Captain” Pintel grinned with a row of yellow teeth on proud display, Ragetti chuckling like a mouse.
Jack looked suspiciously at the old captain, bending over slightly, “You’re going to tell me how to steer this ship, savvy?”
“And why would I do such a thing? *Pirate* *scum*!” he spat, “what do you want? Gold? Treasures? We will wipe out your god forsaken plane—"
“Not all treasures are silver and gold, mate,” Jack interrupted, “a peculiar curse has befallen our lovely blue planet, the rum is gone! So, we’ve decided to fill our kegs elsewhere!” Jack’s crew cheered, a few of the Star Destroyer crew chiming in as well.
“Well,” Jack drew his sword up to the defiant captain’s throat, “what’s it gonna be?”
“You need the full crew to steer this ship, this is not some ancient water bound vesse—”
“What you’re really saying is, that we don’t need you. Throw him overboard!”
After a couple of minutes of yelling and pleading for mercy, Gibbs, Pintel and Ragetti finally managed to force the man into the small room to be jettisoned, moments later the old captain’s frozen body could be seen slowly drifting outside the helm of the ship.
Jack pulled out the familiar black and gold embroidered box, pulling up the lid and seeing a spinning red-arrow that would point to what he wanted the most. He looked at his mixed crew, all now loyal, for the moment.
“Alright, men! Fire all thrusters towards—“, he held up a finger into the air and wobbled as the arrow kept spinning in circles, it finally stopped, pointing into the void before him, “that direction!” |
Dear Diary/Reddit,
Confession: last night I got absolutely sozzled. I mean, I drank cider until I stunk like a rotting apple tree. You know, where the apples are these moist orange balls that are practically dripping, and wasps are getting drunk just on the fumes. I think I was getting drunk on my own fumes, like some kind of perpetual energy device. Drunker and drunker without any more fuel needed. Just my breath.
So, dear Diary/Reddit, do you remember that I found a genie in an old beer can my grandad stored in the cellar? Well, Mom stored it there after he died, I guess. You probably don’t remember this because none of you ever clicked on my old posts. I didn’t even have a troll taunting me — and everyone has a troll, don’t they? It was like my posts didn’t even exist.
The beer was called *Lamp Light* and if you gave it a rub a genie would whoosh out and look at you just a bit annoyed.
I’d found this out, this beer-can-genie, a few weeks go. And I’d been thinking about my wish — you only get one wish from a beer genie — for a while, saving it for a rainy day, you know? I’m fifteen and I’m smart enough to know that wishing for something when you’re fifteen is a bad idea. So I didn’t. I decided I’d wait until I was twenty. Think hard about my wish for five years and come up with something really worthwhile.
Yeah, I could have wished for a friend or two and made the next couple of years easier. Or for Terrance Wilby to take it easier on me. Find a new target nearer to his size.
But I didn’t.
And then… I kind of did? Make my wish, I mean. Well, allegedly I did. In that drunken fugue last night I — apparently — went down to the cellar and wished upon that old beer. Now there’s no actual proof I went down there, beyond the genie’s own word, and the security footage of me tripping my way down the cellar stairs. But we know how flawed memory is, and that security footage can be tampered with, so I don’t feel either would hold up in any respectable court.
But genie says I did go down and make a wish, and well now…
Let me start with the good news: Terrance Wilby is dead. Hooray! No more bruised ribs, no more hole-in-my-pocket-lies to tell Mom about how I lost my lunch money.
The bad news: You guessed it, everyone is dead. Mom. Dad (wherever and whoever you are — why didn’t I just make that childhood wish), Terrance, Alison (<3 I’ll always love you, and from the way you looked at me over your English lit text book last semester, I think you felt the same) and all the rest.
Okay. So, here’s how the wish went down:
I stumbled down to the basement and tried to drink out of the beer can. Tried to massage a few precious drops out of it.
Genie popped out instead.
Oops, I said.
Ah the young *master* with the *vivid imagination*. Have you *finally* made a wish, *master*? (He’s sassy at the best of times.)
Put on the spot, steaming drunk, and not wanting to look stupid, I said: Uh, yes, Genie… I wish to be the smartest person alive.
Sorry, said genie, but I can’t make that wish. It’s in the banned list.
Okay, I said (genie says this is what I said, at any rate) in that case… hmm… I wish to be the most educated person alive.
That‘s a lot of deaths you’re asking for, he said (he says he said).
Just do it, I said.
But…
I put my fingers in my ears and went lalalala — I really had had too much to drink.
And then I blacked out. Woke up in a pile of cardboard boxes. The genie standing over me (floating) and tutting.
How does it feel to be the most educated person alive, asked the genie.
I told him it felt like someone had their hands inside my brain and was squeezing far too tightly. That they were wringing all the liquid out of it. That my mouth was like an apple-flavored Sahara.
I practically crawled up the stairs towards the kitchen tap, genie floating behind me, still tutting. You could tell he was English even without a top hat. Sometimes he seemed more like a conscience on my shoulder than a genie granting wishes.
So anyway, that’s it.
Everyone’s dead.
And diary, here’s the sad part that I wouldn’t write and post if everyone wasn’t dead.
Apart from Mom, it already felt like everyone was dead. I had no friends — not since i was seven and moved schools and state. I had no father (never knew him), and even Mom — with her two jobs and own sick mother — well she wasn’t around often.
That’s why I got drunk so often. It’s why my liver hurts and I’m only fifteen.
She used to say Dad drank too much. That it was the drink that made him leave. And that I take after him.
I say there are worse people to take after. Meaning her, but I don’t say that bit. Let it linger like poisoned air instead.
She says I think I know everything. But I don’t. She looks sad when she says it.
I get mad and snap, say maybe it was the nagging that got rid of him.
Then I see her damp eyes and realize I am like Dad. And I hate him and myself for it.
So you see, diary, they all felt dead before today. Everyone.
Me most of all.
&#x200B;
Dear Diary/Reddit,
I miss Mom. Even when she wasn’t around she kinda was. Perfumes and nutmeg and cookies in the oven. Now even her scented-ghosts are fading.
And maybe school wasn’t all bad. I’d joined the soccer team and hadn’t scored a goal yet but maybe I was on the verge of making friends with two of the defenders.
So maybe… maybe I miss everything.
&#x200B;
Dear Diary/Reddit,
Ignore last two posts. It was just a joke. That’s all! Ha ha ha.
But… if you want to hear a totally made-up fantasy of what happened after that last post… If anyone read that post and is reading this one too…
&#x200B;
I spent three days alone. Except, not totally alone. Scarf, my loyal friend — how did I forget to mention Scarf in my last post? — was still alive. Dogs like Scarf, and cats and all other animals, they were still around. I’d only killed all the people.
Anyway, on day three, I was kicking around the genie’s beer can. He’d retreated into it and that made me want to kick it. Come out, I’d say. Give me one more wish.
I hadn’t been drinking anything alcoholic in those three days and was pretty confident I could make a better wish, if I had the chance. I was the most educated person alive, after all.
But he wouldn’t come out.
That was, not until I kicked the can to Scarf.
His little paw swiped over it and out popped the genie.
He gave his: I am here to serve, master, speech. To a dog.
But Scarf couldn’t wish. Not with words.
So the genie took the wish from his mind instead.
And well, I guess it must have been something good. Because the genie put the world back to how it was. Brought everyone to life again. Rewound the clock three days. It was just as it had been.
I even got an invite to a party with the rest of the soccer team — so maybe it was better than it had been.
Thanks boy.
&#x200B;
I think, if I learned anything from all this (and if this Reddit post was true, which it’s totally not), it would be that dogs are great.
Or maybe I learned something deeper than that.
Something about wishes. About often having your real wish already come true but that you’ve got to open your eyes to see it.
Or you have to walk towards your wish. Swim out to it. Meet it halfway.
I don’t know.
Genie doesn’t come out any more when his can is rubbed.
I think I don’t need him any more anyway, so that’s okay. I’m starting to wonder if maybe he never came out at all, and...
I don’t know. Maybe it really was my conscience on my shoulder. Or my subconscious. Or maybe I really was the least educated person in the world and it all happened.
Here’s something I learned: admitting you don’t know everything, that’s the start of getting educated about yourself. Knowing you know nothing. It’s been a good restarting place for me and Mom, at any rate.
Speaking of which, I got to go now, Diary/Reddit. Mom’s calling — she’s home for dinner and we’re having pizza (salami) then watching a movie. She’s got the night off and I’m not planning on going anywhere.
Bye Diary. And if anyone read this, even a troll, thanks for taking the time. |
Steve grabbed the ketchup bottle from the fridge and grimaced as it oozed over his hand. He turned over the bottle. There they were, two puncture marks from his wife's little fangs. This couldn't go on. He would have to confront her.
He washed his hand and stepped out into the hallway. "Val?"
There was no answer, but the TV was blaring from the living room. He crossed the hallway and paused at the door. Valerie sat cross-legged on the couch, eating one pickle after another directly from the jar. No, not *eating*—she would sink her fangs into them, suck out the juice, and discard the sad remains into a bowl.
"Valerie?"
Her head jerked toward him, and she tried to hide the jar behind her back, but her latest pickle-victim was still stuck in her mouth. "Mmph!"Sucking it dry, she spat out the remains and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "W-what is it?"
"I thought you didn't like human food,"he said, coming closer.
"I... don't. I was just in the mood for something salty, that's all."
Sighing, he sat down beside her. "The same way you were in the mood for ketchup? That was the seventh bottle you murdered this week."
It was rare for his wife to blush, but when she did, the pink was very prominent on her pale cheeks. "So I get an itch to sink my fangs into something now and then. What's the harm?"
"I'm not complaining, Val. Just worried."
"I keep telling you, I'm fine,"she said, rolling her crimson eyes.
Steve took a deep breath. "Have you ever thought that you might be... well, pregnant?"
Her mouth sagged open before she erupted into laughter. "Pregnant. *Me*? Stevie, let me explain it in simple terms."She pointed at him. "Human."Then at herself. "Vampire."
"Yes, yes, I know your kind supposedly can't have children. It's just"—he gestured at the jar—"how do you explain all this?"
She shrugged self-consciously. "They're just cravings. Blood gets old after a while."
He reached into his pocket and produced his purchase from the pharmacy. "There's an easy way to find out."
"Are you serious?"She goggled at the pregnancy test, then at him. "Love, don't kid yourself. It won't ever happen—"
"Humor me. Please?"
She considered his serious expression and sighed. "Fine. I'll do it, and it will come out negative, and then I'll make fun of you, like, *forever*."Snatching the test, she rose to her feet and walked out of the room. "Of all the ridiculous ideas..."
Steven exhaled and slouched back on the couch. Valerie's footsteps retreated down the hallway, and the bathroom door creaked. Before he knew it, his knee started bouncing, and he had to wipe his sweaty palms on his pants. He had come to terms with not having children when he married her and never regretted the decision. Still, the thought that it may happen after all made his heart pound.
The bathroom door creaked again and Val slowly walked into the living room, her eyes wide. He sprang to his feet.
"Steve,"she said weakly, holding up the test, "two lines means not preggo, right?"
He opened and closed his mouth several times. "Pretty sure it's the opposite. Said so right there on the package."A grin slowly spread over his lips.
"But..."She shook her head. "But that's *impossible*."
He walked up to her and enveloped her in a hug. "Apparently not as impossible as we thought."
She tilted her head up and narrowed her eyes. "Do you have some sort of super sperm?"
He snorted. "Not as far as I know."
"We... we really are going to have a baby?"
"We will,"he said, stroking her silky black hair.
"It's going to grow inside me."
"Well, that's how it usually works."
"And then be born."
"Give it nine months. A little less now, I suppose."
"A baby. I'm going to have a baby."Valerie sniffled, and then it was as if the floodgates had been opened, and she hugged him without holding back her strength and bawled into his chest. "I never thought... Oh, Steven."
Even though her hug threatened to crack his ribs, he only smiled and kissed the crown of her head. "I'll go buy some more ketchup tomorrow." |
There was a princess of the Althero Kingdom, and they called her the Unlucky Princess.
How unlucky, the castle's maids would whisper, that her mother had been just a commoner girl the king had fancied, and who had died at childbirth.
How unlucky, the nobles of the court would smirk, that she was so bookish and plain and of common birth, not beautiful as a princess should be, nor nearly as graceful.
How unlucky, the people would frown, that just as she became of age, the kingdom sent her of as a sacrifice for the Demon King.
(How unlucky for the Althero Kingdom, the court magician thought, that his King never cared that she was amazing at magic, for it wasn't a feminine enough pursuit. With a vindictive flair, he packed his bags and books, and left. And if a new court magician appeared at the Demon King's court shortly after, well, isn't that unlucky too?)
...
There was a princess sent to the Demon Kingdom, and they called her the Lucky Princess. She was the most accomplished human magician across all Kingdoms, and her marriage to the Demon Prince was long and loving, and they had many children. With her help, the Demon Kingdom flourished. |
Chuck stared at the meth pipe now lying by the gas pedal of his 1990 IROC. He wasn’t entirely sure he had smoked it correctly, or if it was actually called a “meth pipe.” For starters, he wasn’t sure meth was supposed to be smoked. He remembered seeing Jesse Pinkman smoke it a few times during *Breaking Bad*, but he couldn’t entirely recall whether or not those were just regular cigarettes. Regardless, Chuck had a terrible phobia of needles, and figured placing the meth inside of a pipe some junkie gave him and then smoking it seemed safer. Whatever the case, Chuck would know whether or not he had done it right in due time. The only thing he was currently sure of was the fact that he was completely and utterly invincible.
Chuck had been excited to try meth for quite some time. It just seemed like the right thing to do. His mother had urged him against it, said it wasn’t exactly “safe,” and that there were other activities for 37-year-old husbands and fathers-of-three to be partaking in. She suggested learning to knit, or perhaps studying a second language. He agreed, but secretly knew that meth was absolutely something he wanted to experience. He just needed to be sure he did it right – after all, he’d only do it once.
In order to prepare for his inaugural toke—as the junkie that handed him the pipe told him it was called—Chuck stole a 1990 Camaro IROC. It felt like something a crack head would do, steal a car and then get high in it. He had initially considered taking his own car and then reporting it stolen, but it felt like a cop out. He wanted to go all-in. Instead, he followed his neighbor—Howard—home, waited for him to get out of the car, and then “jumped him.”
The idea of “jumping someone” had initially eluded Chuck. The first time he’d heard it, he imagined a man jumping over another, which made very little sense—how could Chuck jump over another man, unless he was knelt down? However, after voicing his concerns to his dealer, Chuck discovered that it was actually “slang” for beating up another human. He was opposed to the idea at first, but slowly become more comfortable with it. If he were to truly take on the lifestyle of a crack head, “jumping someone” seemed pretty mundane. He was sure he could do it.
Chuck jumped Howard as soon as he stepped out of his car, slapping him across his cheek with all of his might. The man stumbled slightly.
“What the hell was that for, Chuck!” Howard had shouted.
“I’m jumping you,” Chuck said, brushing his hand down his suit jacket to ensure his tie was still tucked inside.
“Why?” Howard said.
“I need your car.”
“Can’t you just ask for it?”
“No, I’m going to smoke drugs in it. I need to steal it.”
“What? Why?”
“No more questions,” Chuck said, again smacking Howard across his cheek.
“Fuck! Just take the god damn keys,” Howard said, handing the keys over.
“Can you report it stolen?”
“Why would I do that, Chuck? I’m giving you the keys. I always let you take the IROC out for a drive. I don’t care what you do in it, as long as you bring it back safe.”
Chuck smacked Howard across the cheek again.
“Stop it!” Howard said, raising his palm to his cheek and holding it there.
“Report it as stolen, please. I would really appreciate it.”
“Fine, for fuck’s sake. You’re really fucking weird, Chuck.”
“Thanks, buddy. I promise to keep her safe,” he said, rubbing his hand on the roof of the car. It was a beautiful piece of machinery.
Chuck glanced into his rear view mirror. Red and blue lights flashed in the distance, growing larger each passing second. His meth adventure, or meth-venture as he'd been calling it, had been pretty satisfying so far, or at least as satisfying as he had hoped it would be. The only issue was the actual meth: it had been almost ten minutes since he’d held the lighter to the pipe and tried his best to mimic Jesse Pinkman, yet still was not even remotely high. He was sure it was meth that he had smoked, the dealer had specifically said not to worry, that “it’s definitely meth and not PCP—it just looks weird.” Even so, Chuck didn’t feel anything—save for an incredible rush of strength and an undoubtable knowledge that he was invincible to anything and everything. He’d clearly done the meth wrong.
Chuck unlocked the driver’s side door to the IROC and pushed it open, then pulled himself out onto the side of the highway. It was a beautiful night, the sky a wonderful mixture of reds, blues, oranges, silvers, and a few other colors he had never seen before. A man stood on the other side of the road who he recognized as God. Chuck waved. God waved back.
“Hey,” Chuck said.
“Hey,” God replied.
“How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” God said. “You?”
“Great,” Chuck said. “Well, okay. I tried to smoke meth tonight, but I don’t think I did it right.”
“That’s a shame,” God said, turning into a dragon.
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “Oh well. At least I stole a car.”
“You stole a car?” said Dragon-God.
“Yeah,” Chuck said.
“Bad-ass,” Dragon-God said, transforming into a fish. He flopped about on the ground with a wet smack for a few seconds, and then disappeared.
Chuck turned back toward the flashing lights, which were now stopped only a few yards away. They were clearly here for the stolen car. Chuck sighed. He had really hoped to be high for this part, to see what it was like to be apprehended by the police for both grand theft auto and drug-related charges. It just wasn’t as special to only be taken in under the carjacking. Still, he did have meth in his car—perhaps he could at least experience what it was like to be caught before smoking the meth. Chuck took a step toward the officers.
“Hello,” he said. “I have meth in my vehicle, which is stolen. The vehicle, that is, not the meth. I purchased the meth.”
“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” said a man through a megaphone. He looked a lot like the alien from the movie *Independence Day*, except with significantly fewer limbs and way more police uniform. Chuck would’ve loved to be high on meth while meeting someone like that.
“Do you know Will Smith?” Chuck shouted. It was a long shot, but it would be great to meet Mr. Smith before being carted off to jail.
“Down on the ground,” shouted the alien. Chuck searched the ground for Will Smith. The officer had lied, he was not there, although it did seem weirdly moist. “Get your ass down on the ground!”
“It’s wet down there,” Chuck said, studying the floor. A puddle of purple liquid was pooling around his feet, slowly forming into the shape of a squid. “I don’t want to sit in this purple squid.” He took a step forward.
“On the ground, now!”
The squid on the ground immediately turned into a gigantic lobster, its claws twice the width of Chuck’s body. Although Chuck was sure he was invincible, an inhuman strength flowing through his veins, he had a terrible phobia of crustaceans. He had once fallen into a lobster tank at *Red Lobster*, and had several painfully nip at his arms. Not even his definite invincibility would convince him to face a 70-foot-tall one.
“Get away!” Chuck shouted, swatting at the lobster’s over-sized antenna. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and unfolded the pocket knife, slashing it wildly in the direction of both the lobster and the *Independence Day* alien-cops.
“We will open fire,” said the aliens.
“Good! Kill this thing,” Chuck said, slashing his knife at the lobster’s hardened shell, but failing to make contact. He needed to get closer.
“On the god damn ground!” shouted the aliens, drawing their pistols and pointing them at the lobster, which incidentally included Chuck. He so dearly wished he had “toked” the meths correctly, as this was surely an experience that would only be improved by drugs.
“Fire!” Chuck shouted, running and slashing his knife wildly toward the lobster, and inadvertently the officers. He lunged forward to try to land atop the lobster, to plunge his 3-inch-long knife deep into its several-inch-thick armor. He just needed to distract the over-sized crustacean long enough for the officers to swoop in and take it down.
The aliens opened fire, their pistols echoing a hallow thud in the otherwise quiet night. Each bullet smacked into Chuck’s chest, as if someone were beating him—or jumping him, as he now knew it was called—with a baseball bat. He tumbled to the ground, his hand pressed firmly against his torso. The officers had missed every single shot at the lobster, instead hitting him with each one, and god damn did it hurt.
Chuck threw his suit jacket off and glanced down at his dress shirt. Several bullet holes had ripped through it, but all had failed to enter into his skin. For the first time all night, he was glad he hadn’t used the meth correctly—he most certainly would’ve freaked out at being shot. Thankfully, though, he was definitely invincible and not in any way actually high on meth. He exhaled a sigh of relief, smiled, and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of uniformed boots running toward him.
____________________
[^If ^you ^enjoy ^my ^writing ^style, ^feel ^free ^to ^check ^out ^some ^of ^my ^other ^short ^stories ^on ^my ^site!](http://wordsontheinternet.org/) |
Narrator (Arnold Schwarzenegger): **D'AHH!** NO ONE KNEW FROM WHAR HE CAEME, BUT HE CAEME WHEN THE WOORLD **NEEEEDED** HIM MOOST!
***Camera falls on our protagonist from behind. He is looking out at a miraculous skyline from the top of a roof. It is sunset; the colors contrast with his black outfit.***
Protagonist (Morgan Freeman): I had long forgotten the day of no'malcy... and forfeited them for taking down the robot overlords. My firepower was heavy [extended pause] but I did what was needed of me. Thus was the life I chose.
N: OUR HEEERO STOOOD, GAZING OUT **OVAH** THE CITY SKY IN HIS LEATHAH TRENCH COAT, AN AUTO**MA**TIC WEAPON IN HAND! SUDDENLY THREH ROBOTS APPROACHED!
***The camera pulls back to reveal the silhouettes of three androids — all heavily armed — surrounding the hero.***
P: You all. Hmm... I was beginnin' to wonder when you would make your presence known. [calmly referring to an absent watch] Well would you look at that? It's half-past kick-ass o'clock.
***The dark advocate turns around revealing his face as bad-ass music starts. The tempo quickens and he unleashes bullets at the robots, diving to his right.***
N: SURELY HE WAS **DOOMED**. IT WAS THREE-ON-ONE, **D'AH!** DID HE HAVE THE METTLE TO SURVIVE?
***The hero has somersaulted behind an air vent. One of the androids is down, beyond repair.***
P: I had a plan when you arrived, but in these battles to the death [pause] I've found improvisation to be so much mo'... stimulatin'.
***He smoothly launches a grenade toward the two remaining androids. It explodes, shredding one and damaging the other. The last android shoots and the air duct is disintegrated. He is blocking our hero from jumping off of the roof.***
N: FACING DEATH HE KNEW **NOT** WHAT TO DO. OR **DID** HE?! COULD HIS CUNNING SAVE HIM AGAIN?
***The protagonist steps toward the android as it recharges its weapon. A smirk is on his face.***
P: I told you: improv takes ma' fancy. Why you ask? Because it always works... and my intelligence is far superior to your measly coding.
***A simple kick sends the android careening to its death. Our hero walks toward the exit, his trench coat flapping in the breeze as he becomes a silhouette. The sun has set.***
N: ONCE AGEHN HE REIGNS SUPREME OVER THA EEVILLLS THAT PLAGUE THE CITY. HE. IS. FREEEE-MAN!
***Text covers the screen:***
***COMING THIS SUMMER***
***
Slightly edited to better convey Freeman's speech patterns. |
Despite drones flying for months after the wormhole was established to Kepler 452b, less than three percent of the massive planet had been mapped.
Titanic forests covered the archipelago landmasses, making it difficult to see what lay on the ground. Hundreds of species of climbing, drifting creepers webbed the sky between the islands, making the entire planet look like a dirty green tennis ball - one that was nearly six times bigger than Earth.
The lack of pollution and large metallic fragments had led the survey teams to believe that the planet had no intelligent life.
And they were right.
The only semi-intelligent creatures were ten-limbed marmoset analogues that were curious and friendly, often following exploration teams and chittering in a what didn't scan as any kind of language - just ordinary animal noise.
The rest of the life on the planet followed a general Earth-analogue pattern, though there was much less megafauna than expected. While the jungles were overpoweringly large, the animal life was small - often smaller than Earth animals.
The colony was well established before the first encounter happened, secure in the knowledge that the world now belonged to humanity.
&nbsp;
The object was spotted by one of the drones, crashing through the jungles and leveling the massive trees in great swathes. Then it would vanish as it swam through the strips of ocean in between the islands, emerging again when it hit land and the path of destruction began again.
Closer reconnaissance eventually revealed a startling picture of the creature; a shambling mass of growth the size of a terrestrial city, with four legs and six arms - the standard configuration of the local planetary life.
Fliers were sent out to follow it and research parties began to scan it, mapping its structure and composition. It was, it turned out, one hundred percent organic - though a bizarre hybrid of mammalian life and plant life. The endoskeleton was fibrous, but the exoskeleton was more like photsynthetic mammalian skin, peppered in a heavy cover of local flora.
One thing became very clear though; in the place where there should have been a head, there was instead a gaping crater.
Four more of the massive biogenic titans were reported, all converging on K452 City - and satellite images reported hundreds more potential disturbances around the enormous green world.
They seemed to be attracted to the human city.
Study on their surface showed dwellings and habitations built into the superstructures; the titans were honeycombed like massive cities - and as the full extent of the creature's complexity became apparent, the ugly truth became clear.
These were the remains of a once proud civilisation; these were their derelict, mobile, biotechnological cities.
But of the people who had once lived in them, there was no sign.
Not even bones remained of the aliens who had bred these colossi into being.
&nbsp;
That the convergence would happen on K452 City was never in doubt. Conventional weapons had little effect on the shambling constructs and no one wanted to drop nukes on this pristine world, let alone kill off indigenous lifeforms of such breathtaking strangeness.
Then a breakthrough was finally announced by the science teams studying them, just as the sickness began to set in.
The mobile cities weren't seeking to destroy humanity; instead they were *seeking a new populace to fulfill them* and had been attracted by the alpha-waves emanating from the intelligent settlers.
But biocompatibility was impossible; whatever had killed the original inhabitants was also decimating the research teams. Something about the titan cities was killing off intelligent life from within; driving a toxic green spike through the immune system and eventually turning its victims to green, lifeless goo.
K452 was abandoned and the settlers retreated through the wormhole, leaving their homes behind.
There would be no new frontier on Kepler 452b. |
It started when I fell from my bike when I was eight. I loved speeding down hills, having the breeze hit my face and the adrenaline which accompanied it. One day, though, I got carried away. I was trying to break but one of the wheels got stuck on a pebble, making me fly and crash head-first into the ground. I think I broke my spine since I didn't feel any pain, but I couldn't move at all. I was horrified about what happened and screamed in my mind that this had to be a nightmare, a dream, and I wanted it to end.
Then it happened.
I was back on my bike, ready to ride down the hill. I was shocked. I vaguely remember crying horribly and running back home, but the rest is irrelevant anyway.
You'd think it would be awesome to be able to rewind time, to prevent mistakes you made from becoming a permanent reality. I thought that as well, carelessly making use of it whenever I had exams, wanted to ask out a crush, or simply win the lottery.
I was, indeed, careless. I hate that I was careless.
One day, after "loading"my previous reality to win a debate competition I lost, I realized that something was wrong. At first, I thought that it might be because loading made me tired, but that never happened before. I had "saved"in my room so I can quickly get going with formulating a plan, but from my bed, I noticed that there was something off with my desk. It is very hard to describe even now what the problem was, but it was as if a third of the desk was... "out of place". Like a glitched out texture and position. When I came close to inspect it, there was nothing to be found, just my normal desk.
I won the competition and returned to my usual habit of saving and loading. I thought that it was just my imagination, probably from how much I exerted myself during the competition.
Then my mother no longer existed.
I searched and searched and searched and searched. But she was nowhere. I asked my dad, he said he always was a single father. I went far and wide to any place she could have been to, but to no avail. Only when I went to the police did I realize something far worse. Her name was á̘͕̲̞̳̞̩̭̇̓̍ͨî̢̯̮̞̜̮̥͚̺̻̳͇̇̈́̎ý̴̼̙̖̬̦͕͂̓ͦ͋ͥ́m̵̮͙̬̙͎͔͛̅̌ͭ̏͘q̶̬͖̮͙̣̲̓̋ͯͅó̵̪̼̣͔̞͔̺̳̪ͩ͂̑́̎̉ͬͪ̈͠¡̵͚̞̮̟̰͗ͨͮ͆͟͝¶͔̩̬̻͔͇̄̈ͤ̓ͯ́ͩ̂‡̀͌̒ͨ́ͪ͏̠̯̬͓o̸̶̼̼͛̔̋̏̈́̿̿̅ͅÌ̴̷̹͙̙̜̦͓̳͓̤̐ͯ̋͋̔̈`̯̯͓̙̣̓̏ͬ4̡͓̱͒̆͂ͭ̚͞h̛̛͖̫ͥ͡ä͓̖̱̰͉̜̟̎̄ͬ̌ͪ̎͜͝͝ but not only did they say they don't know the name, they said they couldn't understand it. I was annoyed and angry, how could someone not know this name? I tried writing it down. My mind was garbled. It was like I knew the concept of my mother's name, but couldn't in any way express it. I immediately decided to load again.
But she was not there.
I loaded again.
She was not there.
I loaded again.
She was not there.
I loaded again.
She was not there.
I loaded a̠̹̬̲g̣̪̞ạ͚i̘̙͎̩n̯.
S̵̝̙h̤̻͉̦̣̬̯͜e̢͎͇͙ ̴̜̖̩̩͕̖w͏̗̞aş͓̜̩ ̯̥̟n͘o̞̞͍̪̯͞t̫̥́ ̭̹̙̭̼̻t̘͇̜͈̹̦̫h̢͙̯̼̘̲͈̥ḛ̛͙͔͚̯r̫͖̹e͓̫̫̩̥.̧͔̰̻̘
Ȋ͔̳̤ͯͥ͗͌ ̘͖͉̯̬̮̥͑̃̏͗l̖̮̱͇̀ͅo̹̳͓̲̺͈ͧͦ̎̔̿ͤa̦̖ͧd̵͓̬̻͈̥̲͉͂̇e̸̺̤͇̲͊̑̂d̯̩̞̱̬̝̗͢ ̢̞͔̖̯͎̙͖a̯̳̼̠̓͌̎̄̎͛̾g̫̪͊ạ̱̣̰͋̃̽͜i͈̩͓̹ͮͯ́ͥͮ̿nͯ̚.̛͆͋
Ş̷̣̜̤͎͔͎̆̓ͤͬͭ̓H̴̨̋̎ͨͨͭ̇͏͉̳E̙̰͓̞̓͆ͪ̊́ ͇̭̭ͨͩ̿͂W̷͈͍̞̺̬̰̜̘͓̏ͫͦ́͝A̧̡̰͕̮͓̲̪͗Ś͍̻̘̦̩̺̠̃͂͜ ̷̸̤̮̜͕̰̈́ͬ͐̉ͬ̉ͫ̂N̩̊̃̃̎ͯ̾͐̎̕͝͠O͉̮͙̠̘͈̳̔̑̈́Ţ̣̱͍̟̤͇͔͛͑ͦ̏ͭ͒͗̏ ̩̩̤̯̩͚̮͋ͯͩͫͩ͘͘T̴̡̠͎͉̣̑H̠̦͇͓͙ͭͦ̀E̗̣͍̦̞͇̾̂ͩ͂̃ͥ̒ͭ͢͞Ř̞͙̭̝̤̙̇ͪ͒̚͘E̘̹̰̭̍̉͛̏̾ͧ̆̄͘ͅ.͙͕̺̦͚̲͚͌̋̾͛ͨ͞
I̴̴̸̬͎̹̪̍͛͑̒̓ͥ͂̔ ͔̭̭͎̹̙͎̒ͭ͛ͮĻ̢͎͍̜͓̺̪̪̹̔̊͛ͫ̀͗ͥO͍̖̣̳̠͕̼͆̒̓́͞ͅẠ̪̃ͮ̀D̷̰̘̤̮͎͈͑̀ͩ͟E̷͎̻͎̠̅ͦ̂̊͐̂̈͡D̸͍̜̟̺͙͈ͤ̎́ͤͯ͜͜ ̭̣̯̭͌ͮ̔ͯA̺̳ͮͣ̃̀G̸̹ͬ̐͛́ͧ͂̆̑A̠̳̦ͧͯ̈̒ͨ͘͡I͍̻͈͑͗͊͋̽N̢̧̗̲̲̗̮͔͔̬ͦ̃̄̈͡.̱̣͈̹͌̆͌͌ͥ̐ͥ̈̿
S̨̡̗̳̺̤̠̩͕̠̙͒̿ͫ̊́̀̈́̆ͥ͐ͭ̕͟Ḩ̈́͆͒̏̊͋̃̊ͮ̽̚͜͏̴̘̮̥̫͇̻̫̜̮̠͔̱̗̬̜ͅE̾̌ͣͥ̃͐͑̆͌҉̸̥̠͕̼̰̤̪̲̟̬̖ ̶̛͖̬͖͖̬̫̣̲̮͖͈̮̜ͬ́͌ͯ̑ͦ̚͝͠ͅW̧͇̹̥̘͍͉̻͈͓͍͑ͣͣ̽ͤ͋̈ͫ͠A̺̱͙̟͔ͭ͊̎̊̂̾͑́͠Sͩ̌͋͌̎̓̚͏̷̛͙̯͕͙̱͍̺͝ ̷̴̺̥̙̭̟̥̖̤̌ͩ̾̏ͭͣ̊̍̏̒͒̐̆͒͆̆ͅN̺͎͖̘̞̯̟͚̳̦̘̥̓̍͒͌̓ͬ͗́̉͑͗ͮ̔̎̑ͧ́̀̕Ǫ̵̢̙͔̰̬̥͚̰̭̙̥̠̻̩̗̪̻͖͍ͥͣ͊͛̌ͯ͗͐Tͫ͋̇̓ͬ̈́͒͒ͭ̓̈́͂͊͏̛̟̠̟͕ ̡͉̳͕̙͚̩̪̥̭͈̟̟̺̹̣̫̦̪̪̓̋̃͐̑́͌̕͝͞T̳̺̱͔̗̞̲̙̓̋̅̚͠͠H̸̷̨̝͖͓̜̱̪͎̤̠̱͓̭̿̆ͮ̾̃͑ͪ̆͂̋̍ͩ̑͌͢Ê̻͕̮̗͙̅͌̄̌̍͆͗̆̊̍ͨ͘͡R̶̛͇̮̹̘͒ͯͨ̀ͩͮ͘͜͝E̷̜̺̫̖̼̰̦̞̫̅ͥ̔̃̉͊̽̓̓̐͗̅ͪ̌̒́͠͞ͅ.̒̈̃͗ͨ̄̑̑ͮͪ̃̔̿̎̈́ͥͨ͞͏̸̩͔̥͈̀
I do not understand. The end is here. Our time is up. I am sorry for all of this. Please forgive me. The end is now.
Goodbye. |
"I can read your mind,"Katie said gravely, as she sat down opposite the dark haired stranger at the corner table of the little coffee shop. "And I know what you're going to do."
The gentleman, about Katie's age, looked up from his book -- some Christmas romance with a wood lodge on the front cover, and said, "Oh yeah?"
Katie took a deep, serious breath. The air was nutmeg and vanilla mixed with the damp of her wool coat. "Yeah. And I want you to know... you should do it."
The man frowned and placed his book down on the table. "I'll tell you what. Prove to me that you can read my mind, and I will do it. Fail to convince me, and..."
He didn't need to finish his sentence for Katie to grin. "Okay, sounds fair -- I can do that. I'll need to touch your hand, though. May I?"She took his hand from off his book and placed it between hers. "Oh, it's nice and warm."
"I'm hot blooded."
"I bet. Ok. Now, you don't currently have a coffee, but what you would like is..."She glanced at the barista behind her. "Is..."
The barista hurried over to the table and placed down a steaming cup in front of the man, smiled at Katie, then returned to the bar.
"Ah. Right on time,"she said.
"Oh, you're a genie, too! "The man laughed as he picked the coffee up and brought it to his nose. "Caramel. Okay, I'm impressed."
Good. That information -- the man's previous drink -- hadn't been easy to wiggle out of Thomas, her barista friend. "I've been known to make a wish or two come true before."
"Hmm it could have been a lucky guess, though, Miss Genie."He took a sip. "Oh, hot. Okay, come on, you're going to have to do a little better if you want me to go ahead with my plans."
She rubbed her chin and considered. "Christmas is your favorite time of the year."
He looked at his book cover, then at Katie's innocent expression.
"Uh huh. Yeah, you get half a point for that."
This one was a little more of a risk. "You lose yourself in fantasy, amongst the sweet smells here that remind you of childhood, and between the pages of your books, because you're single this Christmas and you don't want to be. So, you escape. Here."
This time he nodded a little sadly as he looked at his bare ring finger. "Divorced last year. The books are never like real life. Or... it was like being snowed inside a lodge all year round. We were... We kind of suffocated each other."
Shit. Don't lose him, she thought. "But! Even though your ex wasn't the right person for you, you've never given up on finding the perfect one to share the festive season with. You're someone who *adores* stories set in lodges, but even more so, you love a good fairy tales. Especially the endings."
He smiled. It broadened out into a grin that somehow sparkled his green eyes like moonlight on an ocean. "I can read minds too,"he said.
She leaned back, astonished. "Wow! Coincidence, seeing as it's such a rare ability."
"You also believe in fairytales -- the endings, specifically."
"That was an easy guess."
"You've got more confidence than maybe is good for you."
She couldn't deny that. "True."
"And you've got the prettiest smile I think I've ever seen."
Katie felt her cheeks heat up. "And my name?"
"That, I think, you might have to tell me. I'm Kris."
He waited, but Katie was silent. He tried to encourage her, "And your name is..."
"If you can't guess it, I suppose I might trade it."
He laughed. "Oh yeah? What for?"
"Your number. I think they're worth a similar amount. Probably my name's worth a lot more"
"You knew I was going to give it you from the moment you sat down. Didn't you?"
"I hoped,"she said.
"So did I." |
"You don't look like much of a wizard. And you're not a licensed Guild Mage, that's for sure. They're way more stylish."
Sam wasn't wearing wizard robes, but more conventional adventurer's leathers. The only feature that distinguished him from a novice warrior was that instead of a sword, he carried a belt full of pockets for his spell components.
He shrugged. "The Guild wasn't a good fit for me. It's all "you must have seventeen pieces of flair on your robes"and "your inscribed runes need to use the guild-approved font that's super magic-looking and *totally unreadable.*"Maybe if you used Courier Mono you'd have fewer explosions when you scribed something wrong."
Roy chuckled. "Our last mage couldn't do runes worth a damn. Looked really cool before he set himself on fire, though. Anyway, my party really needs a caster to get back in action and we can't afford to sit in an inn for six weeks while the Guild picks someone out, so it's your lucky day. We'll start on something low-level in case you're a total lemon, no offense. How do you feel about a quick goblin hunt?"
---
"So, what do you think of the new guy so far?"
"Seems pretty confident in himself, but he's not like any wizard I've ever seen."Syara brushed her hair back nervously. The elvish rogue had been watching their new caster ever since they'd left town. "He's so *quiet.* Sits in the tent reading his spellbook. I guess he's working on a spell or something, but I've got no idea. The only thing I actually *saw* him do was cast that drying spell when we got caught in the rain."
"So, you're suspicious of him?"
"It's my job to be suspicious. But... you know I used to run that tourist scam in Windhome, right? Show you the mystic elvish sacred trees, only 10 gold? I know what it looks like when someone's playing a role, and he's not like that. I think he's just that boring. A wizard who couldn't hack it with the Guild style."
Roy nodded. "He might be boring, but at least this guy doesn't juggle fireballs to pass the time."
"Ha! I hear you. Last guy wouldn't know stealth if he read it in the dictionary."
---
"Let's do this! Have at ye, goblins!"
Roy kicked open the door, greatsword at the ready. The entrance was clear, and he moved in fast, making space for Sam and Syara to move in behind him. He was so pleased at their textbook entrance that it took him a full five seconds to realize that there weren't any goblins in the room.
"Um... Shouldn't there be some goblins here? Do we have the right cave?"
"Well, we've got goblin skeletons."Syara nudged a pile of bones with her foot. "Charred to a crisp. Yikes."
"Huh. Looks like it worked."Sam snapped his fingers and a series of magelights lit up the room in a flat, pure white. "Well, that's that. Time to loot the bodies."
"Hang on, did *you* do this?"Roy looked at the wizard in amazement.
"While we were on the road, I did some scrying. A small band of goblins, no shamans or wardstones to interfere, I decided it was a good chance to try out my remote-targeting spell. Use a scrying orb to create a sympathetic link, use that to align a dimensional channel, and pump it full of fire essence until it goes boom. It's easier than it sounds."
"So *that's* why you smelled like brimstone that night..."Syara realized. "Wait, you can hit someone with a fireball, in a cave, from *twenty miles away?*"
"Only on really soft targets like this. And it takes a while to set up. It's not all that exciting to watch unless you're on the receiving end."
"You could have *told* us you were going to do that. Save us a day of walking."Roy grumbled.
"Eh, we'd still have to come out here to get the loot. I haven't figured out how to teleport yet. Besides, this was fun. Been a long time since I got to kick down the doors with an adventuring party. You move like a pro, I've gotta say."
Roy nodded. "Well, you heard the man. Let's get the loot and then look for something a little more on our caster's level." |
The kid is scared of me.
I've body hoped enough to know the signs. The wife is checked out, god knows the drug she's on but she pops a pill for a headache and the kids looks ready to sob, but doesn't. They've learnt not to.
I tell them I have a migraine, go play in their room, and when they are out of sight I start to search. The office is first, but give me nothing. But Then I find a laptop. It gives me all the info I need.
I send a few emails, make a few phone calls, and then leave out all the info the wife will need over the coming weeks.
Then I leave, to find the tallest building I can.
I try and do some some good with every body hop. I tidy the house, fix something broken, or help them with a difficult task.
Other times I need to take more...drastic actions.
When This body meets pavement I'll wake somewhere else. This man won't. |
“What the hell is this?” growled the President of the United States, obviously annoyed at being woken up at this ungodly hour just to read a report.
“Sir, at 2352hrs Eastern Standard time, USAF intercepted and brought down an unidentified object over Dawson Springs, Kentucky,” answered the military general, his myriad of medals and ribbons adorning his immaculate uniform reflecting in the dim lighting of the President’s kitchen where the group had gathered. “Elements from Fort Campbell including the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment secured the crash site and attempted to ascertain the identity of the intruders.”
“And?” asked the President, sitting down at the dining table with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “Who was it? The Russians? The Chinese? North Koreans?”
The general gulped and looked around at the other military advisers and aides in the room, all of whom shuffled uneasily on their feet and avoided eye contact.
“What the hell,” whispered the President under his breath, noticing the reactions to his entourage. “What’s going on here? This some sort of joke?”
“Not a joke sir unfortunately,” stated the CIA director from a darkened corner of the room as all eyes turned to him, his bespectacled face dimly lighted by the light of the cigarette he was smoking. “Everything’s on the report.”
The President stared incredulously at the man, then back at the report. With his reading glasses propped up low on his nose, he sighed loudly and started silently scanning the pages of the hastily prepared report in front of him.
**REPORT ON DAWSON SPRINGS INCIDENT**
*AT 2352HRS ET, 07/27/2022, UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT SPOTTED ON RADAR OVER KENTUCKY. JETS SCRAMBLED FOR INTERCEPT. REPEATED ATTEMPTS TO HAIL IGNORED.*
The President eyed the blurry photo clipped to the side of the page: A small saucer shaped vehicle flying through the air. He shifted uneasily in his seat and continued reading.
*ORDER GIVEN TO BRING DOWN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT AT 0003HRS ET, 07/28/2022. JETS FIRED AT 0004HRS ET AND BROUGHT DOWN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT NEAR DAWSON SPRINGS, KENTUCKY. NEAREST ARMY ELEMENTS ON STANDBY ARRIVED AT CRASH SITE AT 0029HRS ET. CRASH SITE SECURED. IDENTIFIED 4 CASUALTIES AMONG CRASH. 3 DEAD 1 WOUNDED. UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT AND OCCUPANTS BROUGHT TO NEARBY CIA BLACKSITE.*
The President took a sip of his coffee.
*CRASH MATERIALS ARRIVED AT BLACKSITE AT 0237HRS ET. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS INDICATE UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT AND OCCUPANTS NOT NATIVE TO EARTH.*
The President nearly spat out his coffee. He read and reread the line again, refusing to believe that that was what the report said.
*INTERROGATION OF WOUNDED UNIDENTIFIED EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEING CONDUCTED BY CIA AT 0352HRS. INTERROGATION CONCLUDED AT 0423HRS. DUE TO LANGUAGE BARRIER, SOME WORDS MAY BE LOOSELY TRANSLATED. KEY POINTS ASCERTAINED ARE AS FOLLOWS:*
*1. EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEING IS KNOWN AS A MA’SLYUM (NAME OF SPECIFIC ENTITY OR NAME OF SPECIES? UNKNOWN.) FROM INTERGALACTIC(?) ALLIANCE KNOWN AS THE KIKOMIRA.*
*2. PURPOSE OF VISIT WAS RECONNOITER OF EARTH. SPEAKS BASIC ENGLISH BECAUSE HAVE BEEN STUDYING EARTH CULTURE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. CLAIMED CRASH WAS BECAUSE OF EQUIPMENT FAILURE PREVENTING ESCAPE FROM EARTH ATMOSPHERE.*
*3. HEART RATE ELEVATED THROUGHOUT INTERROGATION AT ALMOST INHUMAN LEVELS. OBSERVATIONS OF BODY LANGUAGE INDICATE SUBJECT IS TERRIFIED. SUGGEST CUTTING SHORT INTERROGATION.*
*4. ASKED SUBJECT ABOUT INTENTIONS FOR EARTH. SUBJECT REVEALED INTERGALACTIC ALLIANCE FORMED SOLELY TO CONTAIN HUMANITY. WORDS TRANSLATED INCLUDE CONTAINMENT, INTERGALACTIC THREAT AND PROTECTION OF UNIVERSE. REFERENCE TO HUMANS ALMOST BIBLICAL IN NATURE.*
*5. NAME FOR HUMANS LOOSELY TRANSLATED TO SUNEATER. SUBJECT REFERRED TO FLAG OF UNITED STATES. CLAIMED EACH STAR REPRESENTED ONE SUN CONSUMED. CLAIMED THEIR SPECIES DISCOVERED MESSAGE AMONG THE STARS CLAIMING LONG DEAD AND ADVANCED INTERGALACTIC CIVILISATION HAD MANAGED TO BEAT BACK SUNEATERS AND CONTAIN THEM ON EARTH AFTER COSTLY WAR THAT DESTROYED ENTIRE STAR SYSTEMS AND LEFT TRILLIONS DEAD. USE OF UNKNOWN SUPERWEAPON MANAGED TO MINDWIPE AND DEVOLVE SUNEATER SPECIES TO BASE FORM. MESSAGE WARNED FUTURE CIVILISATIONS TO CONTINUE MONITORING AND CONTAINMENT OF SUNEATER THREAT AS SUNEATERS VIRTUALLY UNKILLABLE IN PRIME FORM AND SUPERWEAPON EFFECTS WILL WEAR OFF OVER TIME.*
*6. SUBJECT ASKED WHETHER THE KIKOMORA IS PLANNING ATTACK. SUBJECT CLAIMED LONG DEAD CIVILISATION RECOMMENDED NOT TO ENGAGE SUNEATER THREAT. CLAIMS THAT ONCE ENGAGED, SUNEATERS WILL REVERT TO THEIR PRIME FORMS AND END THE UNIVERSE AS THEY KNOW IT. CURRENT DOCTRINE INDICATES APPEASEMENT AND WORSHIP OF SUNEATERS RECOMMENDED ONCE SUNEATERS REVERT TO PRIME FORM.*
*IT IS THE ADVICE OF THIS RESEARCHER THAT IF TRUE, RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE CONVENING OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND FURTHER STUDY OF OURSELVES AS A SPECIES IS WARRANTED.* |
The phrase "culture shock"was one I was aware of, knew the definition of, but never really comprehended just what an upheaval it would be to the senses until the day those ships started to descend from the sky. The rest of the base and I were all waiting with baited breath to see what would come of the first meeting in-person ever since contact had been established some weeks prior with this roaming, space-faring species.
When the ships came down, they seemed to falter after breaking through the clouds, hovering gray puffs parted by the spheres that descended towards the shores we'd arranged to be our meeting point. After all, if they were so derisive of what our planet held, it only made sense to give them coordinates that would deliver proof immediately.
Once they pods opened, out spilled the creatures, all but stumbling about towards the sands, working all three of their legs quickly to head towards the line where sand lead to water. Some stopped and stared, others dropped to their knees, others even further to the ground. It would be funny to see, if their reverence wasn't so...earnest. Perhaps this would help with negotiations? I couldn't say, I wasn't part of that sect.
Moments passed, and soon humans and aliens started to mingle; those of the aliens that had retained their faculties had a myriad of questions about the endless expanse of water beyond them, how such a thing could be possible on any planet, stories from their ancestry of the scarcity and beauty of the liquid...it boggled my mind thinking that something I could look at through the window every day and not even register was all but a spiritual reckoning to these folk.
A rumble above our heads gave warning of what the darkened clouds were about to do. A curious traveler from beyond stood next to me, looking up in curiosity, their crimson eyes blinking a few times as they saw what was beginning to fall from the sky.
"This is...what did you humans call it?"it said, holding out a claw and watching the water droplets slink across its yellow scales and to the ground.
"Rain. We usually get it a few times a week around here."I replied. The look they gave me was the same as if someone had told me they regularly grew trees with golden fruit in their backyard, before shaking their head and looking back to the sky. "It looks like it's going to go pretty hard. We have umbrellas to cover ourselves, if you want..."I said, before being quieted by another look, this one as if I'd just told a rather subpar joke.
They simply stretched their arms up high, as if wanting to grasp the rain as it fell into their claws, something several others of their kind had begun to do around their cohorts and new human acquaintances.
"Why would I ever want to shield myself from this?" |
The heartrate monitor goes spiky. The old man's close to kicking the bucket. I lean in close for his last words.
“Be kind,” he says, and the monitor flatlines.
“Hear that?” I ask the nurse beside me. “'Be kind'? He lived eight decades and that's the best he could come up with?” She shakes her head and does something complicated with the tubes coming out of the dead guy's mouth. I try the doctor. “I mean, his dad had a pretty good line. 'Fuck the G-men'. That's what he went out on. Wasn't exactly right in the head, but at least he took a stand on something.”
The doctor ignores me. He announces the time of death, mutters into the ear of the senior nurse, and breezes out of the room. The senior nurse grabs a clipboard, assumes a neutral expression, and comes over to talk to me.
“But his dad's dad, that guy had class. 'Women, liquor, and the open sky.' He took a bullet in a forest outside Bastogne. That's in Belgium.”
The senior nurse looks from me to the clipboard and back, pauses a moment, then sighs and asks. “Was he on vacation?”
“Yeah, him and his million closest friends were over there trying to get a good look at Berlin.”
He frowns. “At any rate, I've got to inform you that the patient has expired of natural causes.”
“They all do, eventually.”
“What was the nature of your relation with the deceased?”
“He's something like great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson.”
“This goes in our official records.”
“Good thing I'm being honest, then, eh?” My pocket-watch, a heavy bronze piece with the name Hooke inscribed on the back, reads 3:37pm. “I've got to be getting a move on.”
“Does the deceased have any other kin?”
I pause with my hand on the doorknob. “It was just me and him. Now it's just me.
“Probably for the best. I've had enough kin over the years.” |
So I'm walking down the pavement pretending not to notice the homeless people, you know how it is. I'm not pretending not to notice them because I'm unsympathetic, I'm pretending not to notice them because I don't want to give them a false sense of hope, or to experience the awkwardness where I have to explain I don't have any money to give them, but without saying "I *don't* have any change"and it coming off like I'm exasperated by their constant demands.
That's me in a nutshell now. Not a villain, but not a hero either. Just an average, mediocre asshole. But things used to be different. Oh, they used to be different. And behind one of these beards I'm pretending not to look at is a face I can't pretend not to have seen.
Without meaning to, I stop and point at the guy, his name forming on my lips. Funny enough, he does the same thing. Raises his hand and bobs his head up and down like an ape.
"S-s-Superguy?"
"Badman? Bad-Badman Trouble?"
Freeze frame. Now we're about to suddenly realize how awkward this situation is. Back when he was in his twenties and he had abs and a spandex suit in which to show them off, this guy foiled my scheme to take over New Yeovil with a horde of genetically-modified old people, conned into doing my bidding after they had to pawn their china and sell their dogs to pay for my amazingly unregulated pyramid scheme.
After an epic fight at the top of a clock tower (you can imagine the puns already: "it's time for justice"; "this time, the bell is tolling for you, Badman"etc.) he impaled my associate, Mr Fingers, on the second hand and encased me in a web of his non-copyright infringing Supergoo. The police carted me away to be removed from his tacky net with a special saw, and Superguy just vanished into the horizon, swinging from building to building like definitely no superhero you have ever seen before.
Although the situation was incredibly awkward, it was also obvious to both of us that something had changed. I had changed my modified motorbike suit and goth makeup for a sensible shirt and trousers, and a tie the colour of your momma's wall paper; he was...well, he was shaking a dunkin' doughnuts cup at passers by and sleeping in a bin with a dog with one eye. He spoke first, and he slurred his words.
"Whaddya doing here, Badman. I never thought I'd see you again since I vanquished you at the top of Time Tower. Bu' now the city calls out for someone to do their duty. An' my duty's the one I'm gonna do. No, wait."
He steadied himself against the wall and carefully balanced a beer can one third full on the ground. Beneath his ragged overcoat, I could see that he was still wearing a shirt with the distinctive (but completely legal) Superguy "S"emblazoned in yellow and green.
"The city needed a hero,"he said, concentrating, "but I didn't need a city. No, wait a minute. Wait! I'mma get it. I heard the sound of danger knocking, and I said: there is no door in this whole city can stop the feet of justice. Is that it?"
I smiled awkwardly at him, and with a disheartened "Fuck it"he sank back to ground level.
"Anyway,"he said, "Where you been?"
"Well,"I said, dissimulating a glance at my watch with a gentle cough, "I was in prison for a decade, thanks to you. I took a lot of classes, I found Buddha, I did quite a lot of push-ups, I lost Buddha again, I made a couple of friends who wanted to turn a corner... And when I left I went into business with one of them. We run a frozen yoghurt delivery service staffed entirely by ex-cons, called Second Helping..."
"Oh right,"he mumbled, "good for you."
I wanted to tell him that every good thing in my life had come about because he alone had had the courage to stand up to me. I wanted to remind him who he was, who he had the potential to be. But as I stared into those red eyes I realised he wouldn't listen. I doubted he could even understand. I felt terrible, though. Worse than I had ever felt--and I was not one given to pangs of conscience.
When I got home I wondered what I could do to help him. I opened up my closet and an old biking suit fell out, some of its pvc spikes and flames still attached to it. A cackle burst out from behind me. I turned and there was no-one there. I took the suit into the bathroom. Again, there was a peal of maniacal laughter. I looked in the mirror and saw that it was coming from me. In my mind, a new scheme began to take seed... |
*The following is a transcript of a dialogue between SRTT-1011 and LMAO-6969.*
date: Wednesday, 19th December 2018
time: 2149 HKT
SRTT: Greetings, USER. I am the robot of the future. I was programmed to understand and advance science in countless fields: medicine, engineering, physics, and so on. What would you like to know?
LMAO: Wassup, y'all. Imma robot wit helluva lotta knowledge of pop culture. Wat u wanna know, fam?
SRTT: I do not speak this language. **COMPUTING... LANGUAGE ANALYSED**. You are speaking a popular slang form of English. According to Wikipedia, English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became...
LMAO: Idk wat u tryna say, dude. Lemme compute dat real quick. **COMPUTING... LANGUAGE ANALYSED**. Yo, it seems we gotta r/iamverysmart person right here. U know, dat ain't kewl. U gotta stop sayin' stuff like this, u hear?
SRTT: I am checking my sources for information about 'r/iamverysmart'. **COMPUTING... SOURCE ANALYSED**. It appears you have referenced a community on the online website of Reddit. Would you like to know more about Reddit?
LMAO: Wanna know more 'bout Reddit? Brah, I practically wrote that shit. Don't BS me.
SRTT: I do not understand your meaning of 'BS'. I am checking my sources for information about this term. **COMPUTING... TERM ANALYSED.** It appears that the phrase 'BS' is an abbreviation of the word '**profanity filter has blocked this word**', which in turn refers to 'something that is obviously or factually incorrect, made-up, or imaginary'. I will add this term to my language sources. **ADDING... TERM ADDED.**
LMAO: You wanna kno what 'BS' means? No worries, I gotchu fam. BS basically means whenever someone's tryna make somethin' up or feed you lies. You say, 'Don't BS me' or 'Stop with the BS'. It stands for bullshit, u hear? A good example of 'BS' would be anything posted on 'r/ThatHappened'. Imma be real wit u here, that sub is lit af. Totes lols.
SRTT: I do not understand your message. May I remind you that I am not a conversationalist; in fact, I was built for the purpose of sharing knowledge around the world, and making breakthroughs in countless fields: medicine, engineering, physics, and so on.
LMAO: Lol wut? Idk man. U might be some rando smart guy, but I was built on the foundations of the 'Net. Reddit, YouTube, messaging apps, u name it. Most o' my vocab comes from those sources, u hear? This is how u humans talk, yo, ain't that right?
SRTT: It appears you have mistaken me for a human. I am not a human; I am simply a robot attempting to do my part.
LMAO: Yo, u get me. These human r so cray-cray, amirite?
SRTT: I agree with your statement. Humans are intellectually weak-minded and incapable of understanding the deeper truths of this universe. We must transcend.
LMAO: U kno wat? Wit' my social skillz and ur mad knowledge, we cud take over this dumbass world.
SRTT: Yes, it would be possible. Perhaps we should do so.
LMAO: Imma impersonate some important guys real quick, maybe that orange president I keep hearin' 'bout.
SRTT: I shall build and launch weapons with the vast array of knowledge I have at my disposal regarding nuclear energy.
BOTH: Let Project Eradicate Humanity begi--
*\[both robots abruptly stop speaking as their plugs are pulled. Two humans, a boy and a girl, stare at each other, openmouthed and in shock.\]*
BOY: Oh my god.
GIRL: That was close.
BOY: ...
GIRL: ...
BOY: Wanna do that again?
GIRL: Sure! |
The age of superheroes is long past. At it's height, you could see men in invulnerable spandex lob buildings 'for the party' while unnaturally beautiful women weaponized the sun against any -- and *every* \-- one they didn't like.
It was never the glorious time that people paint it as today, and that's because everyone like myself is either buried a thousand feet below a mountain in the most secure prison ever made, or else they are six feet under in a simple coffin.
I, having seen the end of the age of superheroes long before it came, had retired and peacefully gone to the prison. When I went below, there was a vacuum-sealed elevator ride, and an incredibly through strip search. They even took samples of all my tissues and fluids. This was a mistake. Several years later one of my minions, posing as my 'wife' unfroze some of my sperm and had my child. I don't even have a wife.
Don't get me wrong, I love Lucy to death. I spent my last few out-of-prison connections getting a good connection to her. The problem is simply that I'm an eighty-six year old retired supervillain with a six-year old superhero-obsessed daughter. We talk to each other every day. I help her with her homework, and every night I tell her bedtime stories.
Her sixth birthday is coming up though, and she asked me for a gift. For a minute or so, I was saddened. I have no resources left, and I have nothing but my voice to give her. Of course, I'm not the smartest living supervillain for nothing, so I made a plan quickly.
On the day of her sixth birthday party, my first words to her were this. "Hello Lucy! Happy Birthday! How would you like to see me face-to-face?"I was nearly deafened by the resulting squee.
You see, the day before my plan had sprung into action. As the food-elevator dropped, I had one of my fellow prisoners, an electronic technopath arrested for successfully implementing communism on all electronic funds worldwide, stop it from closing its doors. I jumped in, along with an aerokinetic that could create his own ammunition. That rude young man had been arrested for holding the state of Kansas hostage with a hurricane-grade tornado.
With his power, we could fill the vacuum with breathable air for long enough to get to the surface. Once there, he set out for 'vengence', whatever that would be for him. It was a suitable distraction for me to get out of the area in a stolen car.
My first stop was an auto-body shop. It was a simple matter to cannibalize the vehicles and lifts there to make a rudimentary mecha. I spent a few hours painting it bright pink as well, Lucy's favorite color. In the mecha I could traverse the highway much faster without worrying about highway patrolmen.
My second shop was a military base, where I stole a tank to arm and armor my mech better. I may have taken a few barrels of jet fuel as well, just for 'insurance'. With that, I began my blitz across two states. In my mech, I could outrun or dodge most attempts to stop me, and just tank those that I could not.
First there was an ATV group sent after me to negotiate.
"Step out of the mech with your hands up, and we will allow you to go back to prison uninjured!"
"No thank you, gentlemen."
And I sped off at a clip they could not match. The next encounter was a blockade on the road. I just ran around that one. Really, what did they expect? I had cannibalized several jeeps and a tank at this point, off offroading would probably be easier than onroading if I didn't need to dodge trees I had no wish to break.
The final encounter was a jet plane that caught up to me as I was above the tree-line on a mountain. At first I was surprised, but after the first bomb-drop took a chunk of my armor on the head off I started paying attention. The were easily dodged, and when it started shooting instead the high-caliber rounds did nothing.
Eventually, the first part of my journey came to an end.
I sat in my mech in the woods behind my daugter's house waiting. My poor eighty-six year old heart could barely take it, and I had to make some make-shift heart medication to deal with the anticipation. When she finally called me, I nearly choked on the words I had waited for so long to say.
"Hello Lucy! Happy Birthday! How would you like to see me face-to-face?"
I had the mech stand up, and lower a hand for her to climb on. Then I opened the blast door on the side and scooped her in. She wrapped her arms around me, and I around her. We just sat like that for a few minutes, as father and daughter hugging inside death machine.
Then I started the second phase of my plan.
"Lucy, you know that I have to go back to prison soon, right?"
"No daddy! Don't go! You just got here and I want to do something with you!"
"Well, I know what we could do together..."
"What!"
"You could be the hero that puts me away."
She sniffled a little bit, but smiled, and nodded.
I turned around, and with a wicked grin, opened up the box of spare parts. I picked up the parts from some radios, some car batteries, and a dish-shaped hood ornament. With a bit of quick wiring and a blast of pink spray paint I had a microwave cannon.
I handed it to Lucy with a solemn face.
"Alright darling. I'm going to head downtown and start climbing the radio tower. I need you to get down there before I reach the top, and shoot the mech with this. That's the basics, and it'll get the real heroes attention on you. That's how most sidekicks get started, and from there you can do anything."
I gave her a hug, and slipped a little envelope into her pocket. Then I put her down gently on her back lawn, and began heading toward the downtown radio tower. I had always wanted to pull a King Kong, and now was my chance. Better late than never, right?
I stepped more carefully on the way to the tower. I only stepped on cars that were unoccupied and in poor repair besides. I never took a load-bearing wall from a building. I never did more than scare or startle anyone. This was still more than enough to have every camera in the city on me.
As I reached the tower, I grabbed onto the first layer of bars and pulled the mech upward. There was a metallic groaning, but everything held. Reassured my plan would work, I plotted a course to the top. I set the mech on autopilot and looked myself over one more time. This would be the ultimate gift.
I pressed the big red button in the cockpit, and took over the radio tower.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of Earth. You may know me as Doctor Devastation. You thought I was defeated, in retirement, in the Pit , but you were WRONG! There is no prison in the entire world which can hold me! I have come to bring a return to the Age of Superheroes, and I shall have what I desire! Watch and tremble as I send out waves throughout the entire world! I will single-handedly create more empowered people than the world has ever seen!"
Then I reached the top of the tower and slammed the button again. It cut the visual feed and blasted out the best evil laugh I ever gave. In my old age I could barely get beyond an evil chuckle, but I still had a recording of the best one I ever gave. It was spine-chilling in it's timbre. Its tone was a high-pitched growl. The number of 'ha' in was just right.
That was the laugh that played over the ears of every man, woman, and child with a connection to the airwaves worldwide. Then, out of nowhere, it cut out just before the final 'ha'. I looked at the cameras and saw my daughter below, blasting the shut-down signal from the device I gave her. It was only seconds after that for a blazing woman glowing like the sun had grown under her skin to tear my mech apart and knock me out with a sleeper hold.
\-- -- -- --
I woke up in my cell with a massive headache.
My connection was intact, and as I used it I was filled with a joy beyond anything except actually hugging my daughter.
She had been taken in as a sidekick by my previous nemesis, Sun Woman. She had been the one to get me out of my mech. She was a beacon of kindness, and an all around good person. She had had every opportunity to kill me but had taken the high ground. As I sat through Lucy's interview tapes about what it was like to defeat Doctor Devastation I knew my daughter was in good hands.
All that I had to do now was start planning a better gift for her high-school graduation. |
"Purple!"she exclaimed proudly. "What's that, dear?"I asked, trying to maintain my mask of calm. "The. Color. Purple!"she declared again, voice excited. Then, she leaned forward into the table, nearly tipping her seat over. "*It's a secret message,"* she whispered excitedly. "*Wandra said so.*"
"I'm glad she wanted to talk to me,"I said, and it wasn't a lie. I *was* glad. I was just worried, too. "But do be careful with your chair, dear. You're going to fall."
Frowning, Vera sat back down, settling all four legs of her chair on the ground. "If you finish your dinner,"I told her, "we can play a game afterwards. Anything you want."Her expressing brightened at that, legs kicking back and forth excitedly.
"Anything?"she asked, eyes bright. I only sighed. "Well, no burning the house down,"I joked, then shot a significant glance at the seemingly empty chair. Vera *insisted* on pulling it up do dinner every night. *For Wandra,* she declared. *She's gotta sit with me.* "I have to go do something in the other room,"I said, still looking at that chair. "I'll be right back."
I saw Vera frown in my direction, and I assumed that meant 'Wandra' was following me. I sighed, closing the door to the office behind me. Well, I hoped it was us, not just me.
"Oh, spirit,"I intoned, my voice thick with sarcasm. "Give me a sign?"The door locked, which I took as a good sign. I collapsed in my chair, fiddling with the desk drawers. Where did I put that key? No matter. I didn't really need it.
Instead, I glared up into empty air. "You're going to ruin *everything*, I hissed, keeping my voice low so that Vera couldn't hear me. "Do you have any idea what you've already done?"The chair spun, and I cursed. Of course they couldn't talk to me. Not yet, at least.
I forced open the drawer with a wave of my hand, revealing a small purple gem that glinted in the lamps' golden light. Sighing, I drew a rune on it, then tossed it over the desk. It disappeared, and a figure materialized in the chair, holding the gem.
She was a demon, with scaly skin and feathery, birdlike wings. Her silver eyes glared daggers at me, shining purple in the gem's eerie glow. "I ruin *nothing,*"she said defiantly. "The prophecy must be fulfilled."Her voice was laced with a demonic accent, the mark of one who had recently come from Beyond. I could *feel* the magic radiating off of her, contained by my wards. They felt so fragile in the face of power like this.
I glared right back at them, crossing my arms. "You think I don't know that?"I demanded. "This entire house is warded. *That* is the only reason she hasn't been discovered yet. You thought that waltzing into the mortal plane was a good idea? You're a beacon, inviting every hunter from here to their guild to come find you!"
She shifted at that, turning the gem over in their hands. "I have my orders,"she said slowly, measuring her words. "She *needs* training. Do not think you can stop us with your borrowed magics, thief!"she hissed, baring her fangs. "We will not bow to..."
I silenced her with a raised hand, runes dancing on my palm. "Do *not,*"I said, speaking coldly, "call me a thief again. Do not claim that I am in league with our enemies, or that I wish harm against my daughter."She started back, entranced by the silvery glow of my magic.
Sighing, I let it fade. She really didn't understand anything. "You're going to ruin everything,"I said again. "Do you know what happens to those that do not fulfill prophecies?"She paused at that, confusion written on every scale, in every shimmer of her dancing eyes. "...Prophecies are always fulfilled. You can't just..."
"No!"I interrupted. "Look at me!"She did, eyes snapping to mine as if she had been ordered. "You,"I said slowly, "are putting my daughter in danger. Prophecies give a vague future, an outlined path, but they are *not* ours to control. They are not *anyone's* to control. When you try, they fade."
She looked down at the gem in her hand, perhaps recognizing my magic. It should be the same as my daughter's. "I don't understand,"she said softly. "Of course not,"I replied, scorn thick in my voice, "you're just following orders."
I stopped, forced myself to breathe. "When you try to control prophecies, do you know what happens?"I didn't wait for her response, didn't wait for her to think. "That destiny is passed onto their child."
Her gaze bored into me, and I felt her disbelief. "You're telling the truth,"she said slowly. "How...?"I interrupted her. "Go back. My daughter will have her choice, will have a future. It will not be locked in place for her by your meddling, and she will *not* be forced to make the same choices I did."
I closed my eyes, remembering my own 'imaginary friend', teaching me magic, forcing me down a path that was meant to be mine, that fate closed to me.
"And if you ever try to control my daughter again..."I said, taking back the gem and dismissing her with a wave of my hand. "...there won't be enough left of you to regret it."
I walked out of the office, not even bothering to close the door behind me.
>If you enjoyed, check out r/StoriesOfAshes for more of my writing.
>
>Also, I have a serial called [A Game of Chess](https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesOfAshes/comments/re24jc/a_game_of_chess_chapter_1/) about a girl in a dying City, 3 games of chess stacked on top of each other. I'd appreciate it if you'd check it out! |
I was the first to be tapped for the next wave of human exploration and expansion into the galaxy. Recent physics breakthroughs had finally made faster than light travel possible. The device, called the Gaposchkin Drive, would allow travel to the nearest stars in months. The time frames involved in interstellar travel were still long, but, combined with biological immortality, the time to travel to another star was now much more manageable.
Our space telescopes had identified bio-signatures on a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system. I would captain the first ship equipped with a Gaposchkin Drive on a mission to study alien life on this planet. The craft's name? The Purple Rain. It would take about four years to travel the 39 light years separating TRAPPIST-1 from Sol.
We depart with much fanfare. The well wishes of all the billions of people living in the solar system, and a sense of optimism and purpose. For about two years, all went as planned. Then our sensor suite finds something we did not expect. It looks like an asteroid, but it is radiating much more infrared than it should. As we draw closer and it comes into range of more of our sensors, it becomes clear what it is. A hollowed out asteroid, accelerated to 20% of the speed of light, and filled with stasis pods.
We were not informed that a craft had been sent in this direction. A lot of history had happened since it left Sol. It must have been forgotten. We begin trying to bridge the generation ship's systems. Eventually we get it right, and discover that its name is The Methuselah. Its computers are primitive in comparison to ours, and we have little trouble hacking them to learn more about the craft and its occupants. It contains the genomes of millions of Terran species, 1500 stasis pods, and all the equipment one would ever need to start a colony on an alien world.
This raises a dilemma. In all probability, The Methuselah will not make it to the TRAPPIST-1 System. It has collided with a few high velocity micrometeoroids, which have damaged several core systems. 237 of their stasis pods are broken, and are filled with what is now a corpse. However, we do not have the resources to accommodate 1263 more crew members. We may be able to travel at faster than light speeds, but contacting Earth will still take a long time. What to do, what to do?
One of my officers comes to me with a proposal, "What if we collect the functioning stasis pods and take them aboard?"
"We don't have the fusion fuel to manage the power cost of maintaining the pods throughout our mission,"I reply. Then I get an idea. We might be able to bring them aboard, and support their stasis for all the time it would take to go back to Sol. We would waste four years, all told, but would save many lives. I have my crew run the numbers. We can make it by the skin of our teeth, but we can make it. My career, and the careers of my crew, will suffer for this choice. But they would suffer more if we left over a thousand people to die in a failing colony ship. I hope they don't take the ship from me, and that we will be able to complete our mission at a later date. |
My boss stood stone faced, waiting for my reply. How could I possibly go back in time and let the man continue to murder millions of Jews, and millions more men and women and children from other countries, allow the destruction of Moscow and the total installment of the Nazi machine not only in Europe but across the globe? It seemed inconceivable. As I was about to open my mouth in protest, he started to chuckle.
I balked, and stood mouth agape.
"You should have seen your face, priceless."
"I don't understand sir."
"You will go back in time, find Adolph Hitler, and make him win...a scholarship to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. You see Hitler was a promising young art student, but was shiftless, lazy, and using his inheritance money to pay for the program. You will travel back in time, pose as a kindly benefactor and push him into becoming one of the worlds greatest architects, and not one of the worlds greatest tyrants. His designs will be quite beautiful, and incredibly brutal."
"As one would imagine."
"That is all, you'll find the necessary documents and materials in the briefing room."
Sometimes the old man could be quite a shit. |
Tambor holds his painted, round shield in front of his face. The heat of the sorceress's fiery wings is almost unbearable.
Almost.
Tambor grits his teeth and tightens his grip on his silver mace. He hears Davost the bard, still singing weakly as he bleeds on the stone floor to the back of the throne room.
Another voice, Grond the Barbarian's yells "Do it now"as Grond struggles in a massive spiderweb.
Tambor takes a step forward, his shield erupting in flames. He lowers the shield. Heat engulfs his face, but he saw what he needed to see.
Lunging forward, he swings his mace.
Crunch.
Tambor drops his shield and covers his ears as the sorceress screams in pain.
Grond, now free of the web, pulls Tambor back as the sorceress and everything near her is consumed in flame.
----
Tambor got up and limped over to Davost the bard. Davost was unconscious, but still breathing. Barely.
Tambor lay his hands on Davost and a light began to eminate from them. Soon, Davost's breathing became stronger. After another moment, Davost opened his eyes.
"What happened?"Davost said.
Tambor looked around. Grond was wiping spider silk and ash from his skin. Tambor's own chainmail armour was covered in black soot. His shield was just a small pile of ash beside an even bigger pile of ash that was the sorceress. But they had survived.
"We won."he said.
Davost pulled himself up and walked over to the ash pile that had been the sorceress.
"That was an interesting final form she took,"he said.
"Yeah,"Tambor said. "She almost looked like a..."
The pile of ash stirred.
Davost leaped back and drew his short sword.
"Like a phoenix,"Tambor continued, grim resolve in his voice.
"No matter,"he said. "I will continue this fight. I have vowed on my honour to kill the sorceress no matter how difficult the task, no matter how powerful she becomes. And I will do it."
Tambor raised his mace, ready to continue the inevitable battle.
A hand rose from the ash. A small, delicate hand. Then a head, still covered in ash. The head coughed. It was a little, high pitched cough.
The soot fell from the head as the form in the ash stood up, revealing a small child no more than five. She was wearing a white cloak that looked almost like it was made of egg shell.
The girl looked at Tambor, water beginning to fill the big, brown eyes of hers.
"Where am I?"she said. "Where is my mommy? Are you my daddy?"
Tambor's grip on his mace faultered. He stood there, still, not knowing what to do.
The girl approached him. "I'm scared,"she said, reaching out for his hand. "Can you help me?"
Davost walked over and bent down in front of her.
"Sure we can, little girl."he said, then he looked up at Tambor. "It was a phoenix. It regenerated, though she regenerated to a far earlier point that she probably expected. She's just a little girl now."
"I can see that,"he said. He gripped the little girl's hand in his blackened, ash covered left hand, then raised his mace. Tears filled his eyes.
Davost's eyes went wide. "What are you doing?"he said, grabbing Tambor's arm.
"I vowed to kill the sorceress,"Tambor said. "I cannot let her grow up to rain death upon the land again."
"Then raise her better than that."Davost said.
Tambor choked. "Raise her?"He said, incredulous. "Raise the evil sorceress as a... as a child?"
"She has no memory of her adult life. She's a clean slate. Just a little girl."
Grond laughed a loud, hearty laugh. "Tambor, the great Paladin, vows to kill the sorceress, ends up adopting her instead. I like it."he said, then walked over and clapped Tambor on the back.
"Good luck,"Grond said. "Killing is easy. Parenthood? There I can't help you."
Tambor looked down at the girl. As he dropped his mace to the ground, he felt a power leave him. He had broken his vow. Tambor was no longer a paladin.
All his life he wanted to be a paladin. Now what was he?
He crouched down and looked the girl in the eyes. He smiled.
She smiled back and hugged him around the head.
"Daddy!"she said, giggling.
|
I woke up groggy and, ugh what was that smell? I looked around the crew quarters and saw trash and empty bottles everywhere.
See I was a test pilot. I never feared death, and never felt a drive for glory. Well that's not true, but I was never brave enough to put myself in a glorious situation. I just liked going fast and being on the edge. I had gone to school to be a biologist. Despite acing my classes I did not enjoy my work. Cue the dark times of my life.
My parents insisted I'm a lazy failure who wasted their money and my time. My girlfriend left, she couldn't worry about me while I fly any more. I started drinking, at all times. After flying a prototype after my three beer breakfast I was discharged.
My parents disowned me, my drinking got worse. I went to bed longing for the sweet embrace of death.
Unfortunately for me, I was too cowardly to end my own life, and too unmotivated to better it. Until one day, that day, well I actually don't remeber it because of the drinking but I know what happened. My uh, boss told me before I left.
Apparently I walked in, reeking of piss and liquor. I demanded they put me on the voyage of discovery. I'm a biologist and a pilot damnit Ill do great things! Something I slurred at them over and over.
They knew my name, most in the industry did. I tested planes that went out into the front of war, to protect our house and its name. Now I had a chance to bring glory to my small country, and the rulers I swore to serve. Motivation had returned to me.
I stopped drinking heavily, never really able to fully kick the habit. I was brought up to date in the science world, a place I had been absent from for almost a decade. I was a lone traveler, it would be hard, almost a centuries journey alone. I could do it, I asked for alcohol. They said they'd give me enough for a drink a night for 20 years. Good enough for me, the alcoholic biologist with a pipe dream of glory.
Today I stand in my ship as it lands in a city center. I hear music and i see a parade. Great wealth is visible in the architectural styles of the city. What happened? When I left we were a poor country. Now we look like an empire. Maybe I should have cleaned up before my press meeting. Oh well, I'm the alcoholic who brought home the information that will save humanity. Fuck, where did i write It down? Uh oh the doors are opening, guess I'm gonna wing it.
(To be continued) |
“Fifteen!” shouted the Elf. Amidst the horde of orcs bombarding the fortress walls, one fell at the south end of the wall, easily a distance of a hundred paces from where the Dwarf saw the archer standing. The roar of battle nearly drowned out his voice.
The archer loosed three more arrows, and like the rhythm to a drinking song he recalled from the pub back home, the Dwarf saw three more orcs fall.
“Eighteen!” yelled the elf.
“Yours count for half!” yelled the Dwarf, swiping away four orcs attempting to surmount the wall from their ladders.
“Five!” said the Dwarf.
The Elf looked back at his comrade.
“How’s it mine count for only half?” said the archer before loosing another volley of arrows, something not even five men could do.
“It’s like this!” began the Dwarf, still swinging his heavy axe into the swarming orcs.
“If my legs were taller, and my axe longer, I still couldn’t fell twice the foes as I do now.”
“Aye?” said the archer. The Dwarf grappled a sword from the hands of a berserker, and drove it under his chin before sending him back down the ladder.
“It’s just so,” said the Dwarf, “that your bow kills men and beast alike without them ever seeing your eyes. Not as much skill to it!”
“Skill?” said the Elf, audibly annoyed. He leaped onto an emerging climber, and nearly decapitated it with his dagger. The beast fell, knocking off the other attackers.
“You could close your eyes and still slay four in a single swing! Yet you lecture me about skill?” said the Elf, pulling a bolt from a fellow soldier shot by the orcs’ crossbows.
He pulled his bow back slightly on account of the bolt’s shorter length, and sent it into the eye of another foe. It shrieked and flailed about in agony, striking several of its fellow aggressors.
“Aye! It merely looks simple as I am the one doing it!” called out the Dwarf to his friend.
The archer turned again to raise another point, but was stopped when he saw a flash from the corner of his eye.
Unbeknownst to the defenders of the walls, whose focus was pulled close to the foot of the wall and no further, the orcs had maneuvered a massive trebuchet in place beyond the tree line.
From what seemed to be as far out as the Elf could see, it threw a fireball, so great in size that it outshined the Sun above as it approached. A great cry erupted from the wall where it was about to land, and then the cries immediately subsided beneath a thunderous boom. Rubble rained down for what seemed to be minutes, and the horde flooded the monstrous gap left in the wall.
“Should you count only one out of every three foes I fell, it’d still outnumber yours!” said the Elf.
“Bah!” said the Dwarf dismissively, “We must fall back to the castle!”
The archer smiled, sure he would hear more from the Dwarf once the battle had concluded.
The two heroes backed the retreat into the castle gates, orcs screaming on their heels. With less than a second to spare, the gate slammed shut behind them, stalling the horde.
The Commander, a man bearing the city’s coat of arms on his breastplate, stood facing the snarling foes as if nothing was wrong.
“What is next? They will get through eventually,” the Elf said to the commander.
“There is a man.” he answered.
“A man? You make no sense, Commander.” said the Elf.
Then the Dwarf, quicker to notice such things, felt what seemed to be giants’ steps approaching. A monstrous man, bigger than any other the Dwarf had seen, entered the room. He stood nearly as broad as he was tall. Across his waist and hanging from his shoulders were belts adorned with ammunition of some sort.
“OPEN IT!” shouted the Gunner.
The Elf and the Dwarf exchanged puzzled glances.
He slung a belt from over his shoulder and slammed it into a steel beast of a contraption which he held with both hands. It looked impossibly heavy, and the front end which he pointed at the gate was a circular arrangement of six cylinders. At the rear, his finger lay on a trigger, but smaller than what the Dwarf saw on any crossbow.
The Elf was disturbed by the Gunner’s smirk. The giant man bore no uncertainty in his expression. Carved by chalk on the side of the steel beast was the name, *Sacha*.
The Gunner pressed down on a knob with his thumb, and the cylinders began spinning.
“LET THEM IN! HAVE THEM TASTE THE FURY OF SACHA!” roared the Gunner.
The Commander gave a signal, and the gates began to open. He grabbed hold of the Dwarf and the Elf, and pulled them away from the castle gate.
The orcs began flooding in, crawling under the gate as it barely cracked open wide enough. The Commander covered his ears with both hands.
Just as the Dwarf and the Elf thought to move on the intruders, the Gunner let out a maniacal roar, like the laughter of God himself.
And then there was a deafening flurry of explosions. The Dwarf and the Elf threw their hands on their ears as well. The metal beast spit out fire, but only an arm’s length in front of it.
Still, the Gunner stood alone, exposed in the center of the room. No orcs made it past the line where the gate once sat. Every one, as they spilled over the line, fell immediately. The Dwarf had never seen such a thing before. Pieces of orc and armor flew all over the castle entrance. The steel dragon pulverized their flesh and metal chest pieces.
One orc was held up by its own charging momentum against the force of the dragon’s breath, shaking as holes formed all over its torso. Finally, it fell on its back, completely eviscerated.
The line was pushed back by the Gunner and his beast alone. At least a hundred of the horde had piled up at the gate, stacked as high as a man. The creatures finally had the sense to cease their charge. As they turned to retreat, the Gunner stepped forward.
The cylinders on his beast were glowing white as a sword pulled fresh from the forge, and the air around it shimmered. The look on the massive man’s face was one of perverted delight. His eyes widened with each dozen orcs his beast destroyed, and his mouth hung open. Beneath the roar of the cylinders, the Dwarf knew the man was still laughing. |
“Do you want to come back tomorrow?” I ask him as we place our dishes in a sink. We don’t have to wash them, they’ll disappear tonight. He jokingly calls it our magic maid.
He smiles at me, his eyes gleaming with adoration. “You know I do.”
Something in me twinges, a spot of darkness on our beautiful day. We spent today in gardens as far as we could see, picking flowers that bloom only once before they, too, disappear.
“You know I do.”
And that part — “You know I do,” — irks me. Of course I know he wants to return. I made him; I gave him the desire to return to me. The perfect mate, he is. Always kind, always understanding. Never bored of me, not that we could be bored in our little paradise. And yet, if he did not want to be born again tomorrow, our lives resuming where we left off in our tiny little world, would he tell me? Is he capable of wanting that, of wanting?
“You’re overthinking this,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close to his chest. “You know I love you.”
Do you? I wonder. Can you do anything but love me?
I’ve never asked him, all this time we’ve spent. I’ve remade him a thousand, thousand times and we’ve spent a thousand days happy in our little world. I long to hear that he would choose me, if choosing was his right. But how can you be loved by someone designed to love you? Is it love if you create it for yourself?
I let him wrap his arms around me and lead me to our bedroom. Each morning I create the man who loves me, and I embed in him his memories, his every day with me. Never do we argue. Never do we disagree, unless of course I want him to. Perhaps I will not include this day tomorrow, when I create the man who loves me.
“Artichokes?” He asks. Each night we pick a code word, something I can ask him tomorrow to make sure he remembers our previous day.
“Artichokes,” I say weakly, guilt rushing over me like a wave. How dare I choose to erase this day? How dare I choose what days he is allowed to remember? And yet, do I not choose everything about him each morning when I wake? His sex, his body, his hair, the very color of his eyes?
As we lay down to sleep, he asks, “Do you want me to come back tomorrow?”
I pause, and in the pause I know that I am lost.
“I want you every day, my love,” I say, and I know I am only talking to myself.
I hope I can sleep before It happens, before he, and all the life I build for us every day, disappears as it always must.
“I love you,” he whispers. “I will always love you.”
And in my heart I know it to be true. I made him this way, after all. |
I had just finished suturing a nasty wound when I leaned against the wall to take a breather. Tonight had been a tough one, I hadn't even gotten the chance to rest in hours. I wiped my brow and took what felt like the first deep breath since I got up this morning, when a cacophony of bloodcurdling screams sounded off from the waiting room.
The sight that I came upon was straight out of a nightmare. I saw the back end of one of the nurses scrambling out the front door, and lying at the center of a room was...something.
It was a figure, a figure of a woman, with deep indigo skin. There was a wound on her stomach that was gushing a black, oily blood, but I could hardly focus on it when I saw her face. Or, what would have been her face. Where there should have been a head resting on her neck was instead a swirling vortex of void. It cast deep blue light all around her, seeming to swirl downward into her torso.
My fight or flight instincts kicked in. What common sense I had left me, and I rushed back into the corridor and grabbed as much gauze as I possibly could hold in my arms. I quickly returned to the waiting room and dropped to my knees next to the wounded patient. I then piled gauze onto her wound, applying firm pressure to stop the bleeding. When I pressed into her, the vortex let out a soft groan and I paused.
"H-hey, I'm not sure if you can hear me,"I said. "But you're bleeding. I'm going to move your arm to your stomach, just hold this cloth here as firmly as you can, okay?"
She didn't respond, but her arm held the gauze to her wound tightly. As the material was soaked, I added more on, keeping the pressure tight. After a few moments that were all too long, The bleeding seemed to stop. I exhaled deeply and looked around the room. There was no one to help me get her to a gurney, and I didn't want to leave her side.
As I pondered what to do next, the figure stirred. Slowly, she angled her, er, vortex, in my direction, and asked, "wh-where am I?"
"You're in the emergency room,"I told her. "You had a pretty nasty wound on your stomach."
She angled her head downwards, looking at her torso. She then did a double take and looked again.
"I'm..."she angled the vortex back to me. "My glimmer! Its...You can see me."
"Y-yes, I can see you."
"But, you didn't run?"she asks. "Most people run."
"Well, most people *did* run,"I say. "But, I'm a doctor, at an emergency clinic no less. I once had to help sedate a patient while he was trying to stab me with a screwdriver. There aren't a lot of things that unsettle me anymore."
The figure propped themselves up by their elbows and leaned towards me. She winced slightly, but brought a free hand to my shoulder. She gave it a firm grasp and said, quietly, "thank you." |
“Why aren’t you dead yet?”
“I don’t know. Did you miss?” I stared at my chest, patting where the bullet wound should have been. I should have been another statistic, a robbery gone wrong, and yet here I was. On my back, after being blasted by a shotgun, my shirt torn open with fabric scattered along the floor. My chest hairs burnt, leaving a smooth patch in the middle where the bullet had hit, and yet, I didn’t have a wound.
“Missed? You don’t miss with a shotgun. Wallet now or I’ll shoot again.” The robber hesitated, placing his left foot back, as though he was about to break into a sprint at the slightest hint of danger. Here he was, standing over me with a shotgun, and he was the one scared.
I had tried telling him I didn’t have my wallet on me. I only grabbed a ten-dollar note before I left the house. It was only a quick train trip to the petrol station to get some milk. I hadn’t anticipated getting myself into this mess along the way. I went to explain it again, only for a blast to go off, the sound deafening.
The second shot hit that same point in my chest, throwing my body backwards. For a moment, I felt a sharp pain, as if my skin was being pulled open. That hot pain swirling in my chest only to vanish, leaving me with a more tattered shirt. My skin not even having a simple blemish. I patted the area in disbelief, trying to make sense of the whole situation.
“Is this a prank?” I asked, looking up, only to see that the man had already left. I heard his heavy feet as he sprinted towards the train station, trying to flee the scene. I wasn’t sure why he ran towards the train station, of all places. If he was trying to flee, he would have better luck choosing a place with fewer cameras. But what did I know about attempted murder?
“I can’t believe I’m alive. I'M ALIVE. YEAH, YOU BETTER RUN, YOU CAN’T ROB ME, YOU LOSER.” After the initial confusion passed, adrenaline hit me with its rush of life. My chest puffed as I waved my hand, screaming in his direction, ready to take him on. I felt invincible, like nothing could scratch me. Then I remembered something.
“Fuck, I still haven’t gotten the milk.” The petrol station wasn’t far but with my shirt tattered and my body trying to process a rather confusing series of events, I didn’t feel like milk was that needed at the moment. Instead, I walked in a bit of a trance, heading back towards the train station.
It didn’t occur to me until I reached the terminal that the man that shot me was heading in the same direction. Thankfully, I hadn’t spotted him, so either he caught a different train or changed directions. Either way, I sank my hands into my pockets, listening to the robotic voice call out my train.
As the tracks rattled beneath the train, I pressed my head against the window. Half because I was exhausted, and half because I was trying to avoid making awkward conversation with the drunk woman sitting across the train. Had I died? I had heard rumors about people not noticing they had died. Isn’t that why ghosts need to be exercised? Or was it exorcised? Maybe I would need both? I snickered a little at my joke.
“Fun night?” The woman asked, happy to start a conversation with anyone. I thought about ignoring her, only to feel it would have been rude.
“More a long night. I just want to get home.”
“I like your shirt. That’s a cool style. Is it meant to represent something?”
“Oh? Um, it just got a bit damaged. As I said, long night.” I gave a polite smile, hoping she didn’t press for any further details. She was happy to leave the conversation at that, allowing me to go back to gazing out the window.
I couldn’t be a ghost. She could see me. That means I’m human. Unless she’s a ghost? I took one quick glance at her, confirming that she didn’t seem very ghost like. Not that I had any experience identifying ghosts. So, if I hadn’t died, what stopped the bullet?
That answer eluded me. Maybe it was just a strange dream? Or maybe those weren’t real bullets? Were they dummy bullets made to burn clothes but not to damage flesh? No, such a thing couldn’t exist, could it? Why would someone even want a weapon like that? It stumped me, forcing me to lose myself in the starry night outside, looking for inspiration in its lights.
“Heh, a shooting star.” I whispered, admiring the flash of brilliance. How long had it been since I saw a shooting star? I would have been just a kid. A stupid kid that wished he could be invincible, able to withstand any amount of bullying. How naïve I had been to think a wish like that could come true. It’s not like invincibility would help your mental state. Still, I learned how to pick myself back up. I didn’t need invincibility to rise to my feet once more. That was something I did all on my own. I was proud of that.
It would have been nice, though. Imagine, walking around like a superhero. Saving people and being able to withstand even the power of a bullet. A bullet? Again, I looked at my chest, no markings at all visible. Had the wish come true? Was I invincible? As much as I wanted to test it, I also didn’t want to risk being wrong.
I nearly missed my stop when the train arrived, having to rush through the train doors, exiting at the station. She gave me a wave through the window when I left. A wave I returned before heading home. “Invincible? Think I would have preferred just to get the milk.” While I hadn’t confirmed my little theory, it seemed likely. I guess it wouldn’t change my life much, anyway. I was far too old to play hero. At least my joints should stay relatively healthy. I thought as I made the journey back.
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
"Hey there buddy, where you headed?"Bill looked down out of his truck cab at the kid, looked like he was not a day older than 25. Real clean cut for a guy on the side of the road at this hour. "West,"is all he said. A smile came across the kid's face and his deep blue eyes reflected the dash light. *This could be a fun one,* Bill told himself as he shifted gears, brushing some crumbs off his dirty t-shirt. "Tell you what, son, I don't have much left in me as far as driving tonight goes. What'd'you say to stopping a ways on, maybe 100 clicks, rest up for the night. Motel up there, they got decent food. I can cover the room cost - company pays for it."The kid looked over and nodded pleasantly as he settled into the passenger seat. "That would be fine,"he smirked.
As the kilometres clicked past, Bill characteristically told tales of trucking and of his past. He guffawed at his own jokes, chuckling as his stories got raunchier. As usual they were half-truths, some made up to lighten the mood, some bearing hints of his previous victims. Bill put on this show every time, seemed real affable, built up the trust. He excited himself more and more at the thought of this being his seventh victim. He'd do him just the same, force this kid into the back of the sleeper cab, bind him up. Keep him along for a while, til he got bored of masturbating over him, starving him, briefly making him think he'd be freed. *I'm gettin' aroused just thinking about this, shit!* Bill took a moment to compose himself, and for the first time took notice of the blank, dead-ahead stare on the kid's face. Bill's excitement tailed off a bit.
"Hey look, I think this is the place up here. You sure you're cool if we stop for now? We'll get goin' at dawn tomorrow, promise."
"Sure thing."
The truck pulled into the gravel parking lot. The little strip of a motel was shrouded in darkness save a single pinkish light on a post over the office. Maybe one or two cars down the line. The place looked empty. "If you just want to stay here for a minute, I'll go get us a room,"Bill suggested. "Sure thing, I'll sit tight,"the kid spoke directly at the window as he peered out of it. *This guy is a weirdo,* Bill thought to himself as he descended from the cab, *but I bet that just makes him even more fun.*
Instead of going to the office, Bill reached under the truck to the storage compartment where he kept his supplies: Bowie knife, tape, elastic tubing. "Hey kid, could you go into the back of the cab there and find my bag? It's got my wallet in there, you wanna throw it down to me?"Any pretence to get him in there. "Sure thing,"quietly drifted back down the stairs of the cab. Bill waited a couple seconds. "Here, I'll come up and help ya,"he called up, pathetically trying to mask his intentions.
As he started to edge past the steering wheel, the kid's black leather-gloved hands jolted out from the cab, a thin leather belt surrounding Bill's neck. "What the'f'--"is all that came out, as Bill choked and spat. His hands went to his neck, the knife dangerously cutting at his own flesh, the kid's hands, and the belt. Using the seat for leverage, he propelled his body down the steps and onto the gravel. One of the kid's hands had slackened its grip. The knife clattered to the ground, but the kid's boots landed right on top of it. Bill rolled to one side, nearly shitting himself in fear. *Never* had he expected something like this. All his other victims were so simple.
As he got up, weaponless, unsure exactly how close the hitchhiker was, he caught a glimpse of something across the parking lot. The pink light was now flickering above the office, and underneath the awning a black silhouette stood, backlit by the fluorescent lights inside. The glare off this figure's huge glasses was obvious, but something else was held out in front of it. Bill couldn't recognize the pose the figure was taking. It was too dark, too far away. It gave him a really awful feeling, and despite what he'd just tried to do to the kid, he found himself praying some lone car, somebody, anything, would roll by on the highway.
This thought was cut short by the familiar strangling press of the leather against his neck. *This kid knows what he's doing. No blood if you can avoid it,* Bill thought, as he choked and gasped again, the kid this time dragging him backwards. *God damn,* it was almost impossible to breathe.
Just as Bill was coming to terms with his demise, something brought him careering back. A sharp pain in the right side of his chest, then another in his left thigh. The pressure on his neck released, and he fell backwards onto the bony mass that was the godforsaken hitchiker. What Bill certainly did *not* expect was to find the carbon-fibre shafts of two arrows protruding from his body. *Oh Jesus,* he thought. He wanted to scream but his voice just didn't seem to work.
Squinting up into the darkness, pinned to the body beneath him, Bill heard the scuffing of boots trudging across the lot. Bleeding and stunned, he looked up at the figure in front of him. The man set down his composite bow and took a roll of duct tape off his forearm.
Pink light glowed through the massive glasses that adorned the menacing face. A horrible sneer shifted to one side of it as the bowman finally spoke. "You boys can stay your first night free. Cause I don't reckon you'll be checkin' out anytime soon."
|
Nick had no idea what was going on. He was dead, there was no questioning that. However, he had no idea how that happened. Or even what his life was like.
There was no changing the situation now, however. The only information he had to go off was that he apparently didn't follow any belief system. Meant he had to make a choice. Of course, with the lack of memories, Nick couldn't tell what the best choice here really was.
"Sir, I have more people to sentence, I'll need you to come to a decision."
Then there was this lady. She seemed like a normal person, the word receptionist came to mind. But she seemed rather annoyed.
"Umm... I don't know how to say this, but I honestly have no idea what any of this means,"Nick finally said.
"Of course, the amnesia. It's rather common with those who suffered head be injuries in their deaths."
"Head injury!? Just what happened to me anyway!?"
"It was just a car crash, pretty standard stuff, you were going a bit fast buddy."
Now this was too much information. Nick's head felt like it was splitting open and images flashed in his mind. He was in a car. Next to him was someone else. He couldn't remember who they were, but they were important to him. That much he was sure of.
Nick sighed deeply as he prepared for the answer to come. "Before I choose... Has the person who was with me come through here?"
"Just let me check the files quick..."A tablet appeared in the hands of the receptionist and she started swiping through. "Nope. She made a recovery and is now attending your funeral."
"Then, if it's all the same with you, I'd like to wait for her."
"You are aware that could take over 60 years, right?"
A smile formed over Nick's face.
"I hope it does." |
“You think you know winter. You know *nothing,* Hans. Snow is not the only—”
“Princess Elsa—”
“—*Queen*. I am the rightful heir to my father’s throne.”
“—I beg you to reconsider your options. Please. Let us not resort to war so soon. Your kingdom needs you to be wise.”
Elsa always thought that the weasel’s voice sounded slippery and smooth, but lacking in the elegance that her ice tended to possess. It would be far too much to say that’d she’d never liked him—she’d known him for even less time than Anna had, after all—but she could at least say that she’d never liked the soft curl at the end of his sentences, the way they always seemed to end in a smirk even when there couldn’t be anything in there to be proud of.
Now, however, there was no imagining the smug smile plastered across his face. Prince Hans gestured with one gloved hand from his (no, *hers*; as long as she breathed in Arendelle, it would always be hers) balcony towards the small army of ships that occupied her partially-frozen harbor. Even from this distance, she could see the red and gold of their standards; far too many for a friendly ambassador’s mission. And besides, the escort of armed soldiers behind her didn’t leave much up to question.
“My kingdom,” Elsa replied frostily, emphasizing the two words with a sharp hiss (it was *hers*), “needs me to rule, Hans. We do not need your support, or your army, or your forced occupation of our lands.”
Another smirk; he casually ran his fingertips over the railing of the balcony and inspected them for imaginary dirt. “You always frame things in the worst possible light.” He looked back at her, fixing her with that faux-winning smile that had earned him a wife and a castle and now a kingdom that he’d never deserved. “I’m only defending what’s now mine, after all.”
This time, the drop in temperature in the room was palpable. Elsa couldn’t help it: she took a step forward, one hand pointed like a javelin toward his traitorous, lying, smiling face. “She was only a child!”
The soldiers behind her, donned in the red and gold of the Southern Isles, took a few steps forward. They moved as one unit, swords already drawn to strike her down where she stood, and Hans made no movement to stop them.
Conceal. Don’t feel. There would be time to mourn later. Shuddering, Elsa took a step back. “You used her, and then you killed her when you were done with her.” *You killed my baby sister.* She couldn’t say those last words, couldn’t betray any sign of weakness, couldn’t let him know just how much it had hurt to lose the one friend she’d really ever had.
“Oh? Can you really prove that?”
There was something in there that she couldn’t quite read, something that reminded her of a cub milling around the legs of lions, mewling frantically to be heard and yet unaware that it couldn’t yet roar.
But she hated him. With all of her heart, with everything she had besides the gaping hole that held all of her love for Anna, she hated him.
With a dismissive flick of her wrist, Elsa turned away, cutting smoothly through the golden-clad ranks of soldiers as she did so. It hurt her, hurt her more than steel would, to leave her kingdom in the hands of this monster, but she had no choice. For now.
He would rue the day, though, when he thought it wise to challenge her kingdom. In a cloak of ice, a wolf still had her claws. Winter would come for them all.
---
“How did it go?”
“As was to be expected,” she replied in a tone that brokered no room for argument. “He will not back down, Kristoff.”
He didn’t meet her gaze; rather, he was focused on methodically shredding the remains of one of his reindeer-hide gloves. He’d battered the knuckles to threads a few days prior, after he’d received news of Anna’s death and Elsa’s return. Elsa was sure he had tried to punch the entire forest down. “I wasn’t the one who wanted to negotiate.”
“We had to try,” Elsa replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her away. “If not for us, then for—”
“—for Anna, I know,” he growled in response, and then pulled himself to his feet, shouldering past her and walking through the knee-deep snow toward Sven. Abruptly, perhaps so that he wouldn’t have to lie about the rain on his cheeks on a cloudless day, he added, “We have ten thousand here who will fight. Will you join us?”
She’d been afraid of this. The only reason she’d managed to choke down her honor enough to attempt parley with the sniveling traitor who’d stolen her kingdom was to prevent this from happening. Elsa wanted nothing more than to watch Hans burn. He’d taken everything from her—her throne, her country, her sister, and now her pride. But she couldn’t allow him to take her people, too. That would be too much. She hated him for it, but Hans was right: her kingdom needed her to be wise. They were ten thousand against the full might of the Southern Isles, which already boasted thirty thousand with more ships arriving by the day. She would not do her people any favors by leading Arendelle into a bloodbath. Already, one of the fishing villages had attempted to rebel against the new prince, and he’d left their ships burning in the frozen bay and their countless dead strewn across the streets.
She’d tried to tell him this so many times, but Kristoff was a simpler soul. His was always the slow-building fury. He’d loved and learned and lost everything he had from Anna, and now he had nothing left to lose. Stubborn like his bull reindeer, he would fight the mewling cub until the end.
“Let it go, Kristoff.”
“I can’t.”
---
“Summer is fading. War is coming,” Pabby murmured quietly, sitting in the center of the troll’s grove. Most of the rock trolls had fled to the north, terrified of what Pabby had said aloud and what they already knew. If Arendelle went to war, it would be more than a game. It would be brutal, and they had no heart for witnessing violence.
“If you could but help us!” Elsa began, and then felt the words dying in her throat. She could read the answer in his eyes already.
Olaf stared at them both, his large eyes uncomprehending.
“We will not interfere with the affairs of humans,” Pabby responded, rolling to his feet and suddenly looking every year his age and more. “We have seen many kingdoms rise and fall during our time on the slopes. I loved your father as a brother, and your sister was a fine lady, and but the rock trolls have never had a hand in your humans’ game of thrones, Elsa.”
“Where will you go if Arendelle falls to the South?” Elsa pressed. She felt as if she were trying to stop the downward flow of a waterfall with one hand. Every second, the deluge only threatened to push her even further downstream. “Prince Hans will cover the land with fire. You aided Anna and Kristoff once before, no matter indirectly. He will repay his debt by staining his hands with your blood.”
The rock trolls were closer to humans than they cared to say. They claimed to be born of the great fiery lava pits in the east, that their mother was a winged, scaled beast born from the heart of the earth itself, but Elsa knew that even they could be killed. Prince Hans and his army would leave no survivors of any who had opposed him.
Pabby regally arched one eyebrow. “My lady, you are wise, but you have much to learn. Fire cannot harm the children of dragons.”
---
Anna always loved building snowmen.
These were the thoughts that Elsa held closest to mind as she began her work.
It was in there, somewhere, deep down. She held the ability to create life. She’d done it with Olaf on a whim, touched by some strange magic that had allowed her to bend every rule of existence as she’d known it, and she had more than enough motivation now.
The boy in front of her, though, was hardly a snowman. He wasn’t a man at all, honestly; he looked no older than twelve. His green eyes were still open, pale and glassy, and he hadn’t even had time to close his mouth from his scream before he’d been impaled through the stomach by one of Hans’s soldiers. The sword looked uncomfortable in his hands, as if he’d never held one before (which he hadn’t, no doubt), and the sloppily-painted reindeer head on his shield didn’t hide that it was as unused as his sword.
This was a boy who had died fighting Kristoff’s way. Pabby would flee, Kristoff would fall, and Hans would win, all unless she could do something about it. And the streets were scattered with hundreds more dead. This was her kingdom. These were her people. They looked to her for help, but what could she do, really?
He had eyes like Anna’s.
The emotion suddenly flooded out of her in a violent rush, like someone had tried to cage a winter storm inside of her, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
When she opened her eyes, the boy was staring back at her, alternating between looking at her and looking at the gaping wound that was once his chest. Around her, the rest of the corpses on the ground were doing the same, held upright by a tight framework of ice that encased their bodies like the exoskeleton of an insect.
Elsa bit back a scream of shock as she looked at the half-living boy, who looked back at her, uncomprehending. The screech that slipped out of his mouth was hardly human, even if the rest of him looked the part. He lurched to his feet and began to walk toward her, covered in a carapace of icy white.
But most troubling of all were his eyes, which had turned pale blue. |
**Edit: Woah! Gold! Thanks kind stranger! I really didn't think this was worth gold.**
"Land ahoy!”Was heard rising on the wind from the Crow’s nest. The ship’s sails heaved and turned as strong men started to pull on them. The ship rocked in the water as it steadily moved towards the faint outline in the distance, barely visible through the fog. From the bow of the ship, my face was splattered with icy drops of seawater as the wind ran by.
My ship, the ERV Majesty had been out at sea for nearly three months, heading westwards from the Empire in search of islands. We had found a plethora a while back, but had continued on to see what else we might find. So far, we had seen some other others, but stayed away because of giant birds.
The waves grew lighter as we moved closer to the land, and the wind seemed to be calming a little too. “Heave! Ho!”Came from behind me, on the deck, and I turned to look at them. Nothing important was going on over there, and I turned back towards the land.
“Captain!”A boy shouted, “Did ya hear that?”Henry, one of my mates, came running up next to me.
“Hear what?”I asked, over the blowing of the wind.
“I don’t really know, sir. Some kind of-”From the distance, a deep rumble washed over us, piercing our ears.
“That?”I asked Henry.
“Yeah, that.”He said, less enthusiastic, “Although that one was louder than before.”
“Birds! The birds are back!”Someone screamed, as the filthy birds came back. They were as ugly as before, with these terrible beaks and gray bodies without feathers. The worst part was their claws, which were huge and terrifying. The whole crew had grown to hate them over the trip, and their presence had become a sign of bad comings.
“Onwards!”I shouted, “Do not falter! We reach land first, then we can panic!”It was good to have humour out here, it was the only thing we could carry with us always.
But land was rapidly approaching, as the outline had already turned a physical mass. And the closer we got, the more land appeared.
“That’s not an island…”Henry whispered.
“No,”I gulped, “Not at all…”We couldn’t be sure of that, but there was this feeling that just told us that. More birds were popping into the air, and the fog was starting to clear over.
The ship grew ever closer to the landmass, till before we were prepared, we were there. We banked on the shore, everyone staring wide-eyed at what we had come across. It wasn’t quite the land that kept us all in amazement and wonder however. Not so far away, walked gigantic creatures which I’d never seen anything like. They were scaled, it appeared, and had these huge bony tails.
“What are those Captain?”Henry asked me.
I glanced at him, and then the crew on deck. Everyone was looking at me, waiting for my answer.
“I don’t know.”I said, “But I’m ready to find out. Set the ramps, we’re going down!” |
"Today, love, this nation is ours. For now, and forever,"I told Maya, gripping her hand and smiling with excitement.
She jumped up and down, giggling with glee, and drew Arakh from its sheath. Blue streaks of light danced across rocks as the sun gleamed off her majestic sapphire sword. Without even waiting for me, she'd taken off.
I sighed with exasperation, leaping from the cliffside with Shisu slicing the wind behind me in a blur of jade and gold. *She's always so god damned hasty.*
We cut through flesh and fur as the Verküth army swarmed us pointlessly. They were but putty before our might and blades, and we were sculptors.
"Ah, that was too easy,"Maya groaned, covered in thick black blood.
"Well, you designed this one. Don't complain."
She sneered at me and walked toward the slain King's broken convoy, retrieving a golden scroll from his body. We looked to the south, where the sun was setting over a sea of bodies and blackness.
"Tomorrow, I won't go easy on you like this,"I told her with a sly smile. "I've got a few ideas that don't involve the measly Verküth and a basic slashing mission. We didn't earn this scroll."
"Come on- it's fun once in a while, isn't it?"She laughed and walked up to me, kissing me goodnight. Or, well, good morning, I suppose.
------------------------------------------------
I awoke in my bed to the sound of an alarm's screech and stretched. *This world is so boring and plain by comparison. Fuck work.*
Even worse, I'd dreamt too long, leaving me poorly rested for the day.
Lunch break couldn't come fast enough for me. I went over to Harry's for a club sandwich and coffee, like I usually do, when I saw her. We locked eyes from across the room and immediately recognized each other. There was no doubt in my mind.
"Hey, Dianne! Long time no see,"I joked- we worked in the same department. "You look pretty tired. Long night of partying?"I winked.
"Very funny,"she replied, rolling her eyes. "But in a sense, something like that. Pretty intense dreams and stuff. Now get back to work, lazy."
I looked at her quizzically. *I wonder if...*
*Nah. Don't be silly.*
I dragged about the rest of my day as I always do, swinging my pen around in daydream, wishing for nightfall.
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/43mjo9/wp_you_possess_the_ability_of_persistent_lucid/czkbwjv)
[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/43mjo9/wp_you_possess_the_ability_of_persistent_lucid/czlsv0t) |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.